Page 3 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Mathis

I am too far away from the rest of them—Dax, Torin, Ren.

Peeling off and leaving them to face Andras’s men alone makes me feel like shit. But Noble is here somewhere. Close.

I’ll be quick.

The church is wrecked, unsalvageable. Andras and his ambush demolished it from the inside and tried to take us with it.

A feral smile pries my lips apart. He took my omegas, the women in my pack. He stole from us and tried to kill us.

We’re still here, aren’t we?

Then my attention fractures when the bonds between me and Ren, me and Noble, both go tight at the same time.

There’s still time to die. And it’s up to me to make sure it doesn’t happen.

My claws are half-shifted, fingers trembling as I hurry through the narrow hallway, ignoring ruined wedding decorations and the dust drifting like snow. The bond connecting us all feels like a frayed wire in my chest—sparking, then silent.

Noble’s presence flickers just out of reach, his words muffled and cutting out too many times to understand. There are only sensations. They come at once battering me before falling still.

“Come on, man,” I breathe, half to him, half to myself. “Talk to me.”

It’s the worst game of Hot and Cold I’ve ever played.

Turn in the wrong direction and the trail goes faint, the energy distant and the scent fading away.

Adrenaline courses through my veins.

Relying heavily on my nose, I shuffle through the scents of sweat, smoke, and fur, scouring for Noble’s familiar citrus and mint. It’s faint, just a whisper in the air, but there, telling me he passed through this slender hallway a while ago.

No doubt Andras planned the kidnapping as well. To get us off balance. To keep us worried and to hamstring us by taking away one of our key fighters.

Well, fuck Andras.

I follow Noble’s scent toward a storage room connected to the main sanctuary. The door pulls open with a creak, the hinges warped. It hits me the moment I cross the threshold—blood, metallic and sharp.

The space is dark, half-forgotten, with beams leaning, smoke curling through a shattered window like its exhaling last rites. Extra pews rest against the wall, and there are some folded chairs, hanging robes, and gold effigies stored for church services.

Compared to the commotion happening on the other side of the wall, it’s deathly still.

I cup my hands around my mouth. “Noble!”

No answer. Just the groan of the building. The low, ominous creak of stones.

The bond between us has turned eerily quiet again, and my stomach twists. There's no answer from his end and no matter how hard I try to follow the connection, it dead ends.

My gut curdles.

Please, please be alive.

Even without the bond lit, his scent lingers, a trail of footprints cutting through the dust. I shove aside a toppled shelving unit and inhale deeply. The air is thick with misery.

Moldy boxes overflow with bibles and broken candles. Communion trays hold spiderwebs and months of dust.

Beside the trail of footprints, there’s nothing, and even that cuts off at the center of the room like a trick designed to throw me off.

Nothing that hints to Noble being here.

My fingers tap out an erratic rhythm in the air and my heart threatens to speed up and make me dizzy. Where would they be keeping him?

Then, something creaks in the far corner, and my gaze snaps toward it. My pupils constrict, adjusting further to the dim light.

There—beneath a collapsed stack of hymnals is a smear of blood that cuts across the floor and vanishes under a warped wooden panel straight out of the seventies.

It doesn’t match the age of the room. The grain is cleaner, the edge too precise.

Muscles bunching, I shove the debris aside until I’m in front of the panel and crouch. The seam is deceptive. The edges blend into the surrounding wood but it’s definitely a door, and so cleverly hidden, I almost missed it.

My smile turns wild. “Got you, motherfuckers.”

The tips of my fingers brush against a rusted iron handle recessed into the boards. Wrapping my hand around it, I pull.

The door refuses to budge. The seams hold firm and metal groans slightly. I pull harder until my veins bulge and finally the old wood gives way with a crack and a pop. Cold air spills up from the shadows beyond.

Decay colors the air and the closet reeks of old bodily fluids and organs. Sick shit went on in this place. My mind conjures images of prisoners of the past, tortured and held captive in the suffocating space until they spilled their secrets.

And in those shadows, I see Noble.

Relief floods me.

“Christ. You gave us the scare of our lives, asshole.”

The sound of my voice snaps him out of half consciousness.

Noble’s head lifts weakly, one eye swollen shut. “You took your fucking time.” His voice is a croak and pain spirals through the bond.

“You can thank me later,” I mutter, already climbing into the closet. “You look like shit.”

“I feel worse. Not as bad as my pride though.”

He’s barely conscious, barely breathing, but he’s alive. It’s the only thing that matters.

There’s hardly enough room for both of us in the space and they’ve got him chained with silver.

Crouched beside him, I do a once-over, hiding my grimace. They’ve bruised his ribs and busted his lip good. Blood mats his coppery curls.

His shirt’s torn open, slashes across his chest. Bite marks. I see red.

Andras’s men did this, fucking monsters.

They didn’t even lock the silver, just draped it over him as punishment, the material slowly burning him black.

I tug the edge of the chain and toss it away with a clatter. My fingertips are already smoking.

“Can you walk?” I ask, looping his arm around my neck.

He swallows over a cry when I drag him to his feet.

“With your help,” he grits out. “My one leg is broken.” As I move us, Noble hisses in pain. “What did I miss?”

Too much.

I look at him, the words stalling on my tongue. Do I have time to explain the ambush we ran headfirst into? Or to find out how much Noble already knows? The bond shimmers between us. Ren connects us both.

When our eyes meet, a deep worry swims in his.

He already knows what I have to say.

“What happened?” His voice hardens.

I stall, swallowing compulsively, both of us feeling the connection to her growing weaker by the second. It’s a flicker of a flame in a windstorm and a chill breaks out over my forearms.

We cut toward the door, Noble hobbling with his weight on me.

“She’s badly hurt. Torin has her,” I grind out.

“And Dax?”

The tip of his good foot catches on something and sends his weight skewing to the side. I haul him up, half carrying him away from the hidden space. When we breach the open air of the hallway, a low rumble starts again.

“What the fuck—” I manage to say.

Then it explodes.

BOOM.

The earth itself screams. The entire church shudders, sending dust raining from the ceiling. I blink against it and duck down, half protecting Noble. The lights flicker.

Another shockwave sends the floor joists upward, wood screaming and buckling. I spin toward the sound and tighten my hold on Noble to help him stay on his feet.

The second crash is closer this time. Screams rise in the wake of tires screeching. Then the stench of burned rubber and oil slaps me in the face.

My gut drops.

Something’s fucking wrong. If Andras sent in reinforcements, then we’re as good as dead.

“Come on.”

“Little hard with a broken leg,” Noble grumbles.

We heal faster than humans, but there's no rushing that kind of injury. The bone has to knit back together.

Slowly, we maneuver over fallen columns and rumbled plaster.

When we make it to the sanctuary, we freeze.

An SUV sits half on the altar, half hanging through the wall.

Someone drove it through the building like a battering ram.

The large multicolored stained glass window is nothing but a pile of trash on the floor.

What the fuck?

Bricks and plaster shower from the ceiling, and under the tires and toppled wall are the crushed bodies of men, women, and wolves, all from Andras’s pack.

Something cold lodges in my heart.

The car’s windshield is shattered, the airbag blown, and smoke billows from the engine. In the driver’s seat is Dax.

Blood streaks his forehead. Glass glitters in his beard. Even in his human form, his eyes are wild, feral, and locked on us.

Fucking Dax.

Reckless. Insane. And somehow a genius. With his one stunt, he took out most of Andras’s remaining wolves, and now we have a getaway car.

This is how we’re going to get out of here alive .

Noble’s thoughts are a jumble of fierce pride and utter loathing, at himself and at Dax. I catch flashes of them before my instincts take over. That’s my beta behind the steering wheel with a piece of glass buried in his forehead.

He catches my eye and leans up through the hole in the windshield.

“Get the fuck in!” he shouts, waving us over frantically.

Noble stumbles, breathing hard. “I guess that’s our ride.”

“Apparently.”

I all but drag him down the aisle. The SUV’s front left tire is tilted at an unnatural angle, suspension hissing. The crucifix above the altar swings ominously with its chains screeching as the beam groans.

Dax pounds the horn, then winces, clutching his ribs. “MOVE YOUR ASSES!”

A streak of gold passes us in a blur and Torin barrels forward like a bullet with Ren cradled against his chest. One arm falls limp to his side, blood soaking her shirt, her neck… fuck .

My chest lurches and my heart stalls. “Ren—”

The sight of Torin with our mate, his expression raw and blazing, sets fire to every instinct I have. Noble grips my arm tighter as we reach the SUV.

Torin rips open the door, sets her down with a gentleness that doesn’t match the panic in his eyes. She doesn’t stir. Her head slumps against the seat, and when he looks at me, his jaw clenches like it might crack.

With a grunt of pain, Noble flings himself into the second row across from her.

Torin slides onto the bench on her other side and I reach over him to brush the hair from her forehead. “Is she breathing?”

Torin doesn’t answer, but I hear the answer through the mate bond. Barely.

Jaw tense, tendons bulging, I round to the driver’s side and yank open the door.

“Out,” I bark at Dax. I tear the airbag out with a swift tug.

When my beta isn’t fast enough, I growl. “MOVE!” I shove Dax aside.

I half throw him into the passenger seat and get behind the wheel. Dax lets me, blood pulsing around the broken glass embedded in his forehead.

She’s safe . I glance at Ren in the back painted, in blood like she bathed in it. Alive, safe, tucked underneath Torin’s arm like he has any goddamn right to touch her after the shit he pulled.

“After we kill Andras, you’re getting driving lessons,” Torin snaps at Dax.

I slam the door and gun it in reverse. Tires shriek. Rubble flies. We fly backward through what’s left of the wall, broken benches scraping the undercarriage. The massive cross above us gives one final groan before crashing down in front of us, right where the SUV just was.

The whole church convulses as the crucifix lands, shattered wood and marble exploding behind us.

“Get us the hell out of here Mathis,” Noble barks.

“With pleasure.” I throw the truck into reverse and the lacy patterns of broken glass crack apart and fall everywhere.

The front bumper is absolutely mangled, one of the tires flat from the romp through the wall.

As the car bumps and spins in the parking lot before peeling out onto the road, I twist to look at Ren. Her body far too still, blood soaking through his shirt like ink.

“She’s lost too much blood,” I choke out, the words catching on the knot in my throat. “She needs help. She needs—”

“She’s going to be okay.” Torin’s voice is raw. “She has to be.”

He says it again, quieter this time. Like a prayer. Like if he stops saying it, she’ll slip away.

Dax doesn’t say anything. He’s slumped in the passenger seat, barely upright, blood dripping in slow trails down the side of his face. His temple’s cut open, and his breathing is rough and ragged, like every inhale is a fight.

Noble lies across the back seat, trembling from the pain of whatever hell they put him through down there in the hole.

I maneuver the damaged vehicle out from the church wall and over the grass, past the lines I dug in the dirt.

Dax shoots the finger to whoever is left alive and watching us from inside.

“Never again,” I mutter.

“What?” Dax turns to him, sniffing.

“No, you driving.”

Now, no one speaks.

The SUV rattles as we speed down the road, wheels groaning with every turn. The silence stretches between us, thick and unbearable, broken only by the hum of tires on pavement and the occasional, choking breath from the backseat.

We’re out. We made it out alive.

We should feel relief. Should feel something like victory. But all I feel is the ache in my chest and the taste of fear in the back of my throat.

Because when I look at Ren’s face—pale, slack, streaked with blood, unconscious—I don’t see a win.

I see a clock ticking down.