Page 4 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Dax

F oot pressed to the floorboard, Mathis keeps driving, one tire flopping and the others having to pick up the slack. The force of his speed practically shoves me back in the seat.

Exhaustion is right there, a greedy sonofabitch.

I have to stay awake.

Through the nauseating driving, the glass, and the haunting song still stuck in my head and burrowing deeper, I have to keep my eyes open.

I swallow and my mouth tastes like antifreeze. Worry for that woman in the backseat encompasses everything else. She’s fading fast. I tug in a breath and sense her in the air, the way her soul clings to life while her body fails.

A sharp inhale sounds followed by a low moan like an animal with a leg caught in a trap. I’ve heard the sound before, the keen wail of pain and desperation. Only this time it’s coming from a human throat. Red’s.

She’s going in and out of consciousness.

The others hold their breath, like the act of speaking will somehow change the circumstances for the worse.

Maybe they don’t sense what I sense. Maybe they’re too wrapped up in the mate bond. I don’t have to feel her to understand her.

The girl’s a fighter. And she’ll cling harder to life if we keep her talking.

Mathis sticks to the side roads, heading away from the small church and into the wilderness where we belong. The Briar Pack used to be like the Steel Claws. They thought it’s nothing but safety and rainbows when you’re surrounded by buildings.

Or should I call them the Blood Moons? That’s what they really are.

Sure showed Torin. Didn’t they? Got the jump on him. Showed him that even surrounded by allies, there are enemies.

It’s better to trust no one. Or to sleep with an eye open and anticipate the teeth on your neck.

I tug the glass out of my forehead and shuck it out the window. Fuck. the wound will close but I’ve used up too much energy. I don’t have the resources for a speedy recovery.

None of us do.

Mathis drives, silent, his knuckles clenching around the steering wheel. The minutes tick by as he handles the winding forest road the best way he can.

Trees, sky, solid lines. The world blurs and I clench and unclench my fist in my lap, latched onto the sound of Red’s breathing.

Finally, Mathis pulls the SUV over to the side of the road and cuts the engine. It gleefully dies with a clank and a ghost sigh. I highly fucking doubt we’ll be able to revive the thing.

“What are you doing?” Torin asks carefully.

Mathis lets out a groan deeper than the one from the engine. “We’ve got to ditch it. They’ll be looking for us and it’s too conspicuous as is.”

“So where do you think we should go?” Noble asks like the sarcastic shit he is.

“The woods. We take to the trails. With water nearby, we’ll be able to lose them.”

Mathis might be the only one of us thinking logically right now. The fight took a lot out of me and, naked, losing blood, I wanna crash. Mathis is also the first one out the door and leaves us with no choice but to follow him.

Torin and Noble are sullen as they help Ren.

Noble leans hard against the SUV’s smoking husk and when he works his leg, pain flashes over his features.

Another injury. If we weren’t wolves, we’d be prey, and some hunter would come along to put us out of our misery. Only the strong survive.

How much fucking longer before we’re taken out permanently?

Shaking my head, I follow the others away from the skeleton of the SUV. The engine clicks and clacks.

“My first car.”

A mournful howl forces its way out because I know how much it will piss the others off. Because we need to keep that fire of fury going, otherwise they’ll go the same route I will. They’ll crash and then we’ll get nowhere before Andras sets his goons on us.

The ones I didn’t crush under my tires, anyway.

Noble jostles me on his way past, the black eye blooming across his face all the way to his brow bone. Whatever bone they snapped in his leg has at least become a whole, if fragile, piece again.

He growls at me. “You dick.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment, Nobie.”

I keep to the side of the road with my dick swinging and my bare feet calloused enough not to feel the small pebbles and dirt and roots. The glass is gonna be a problem, though. I’m slow to heal, to push it out, to cover the wound with fresh skin. Fuck.

We fall into a rhythm on the walk, with me leading the pack and Red in Torin’s arms. Noble keeps a lookout at the rear, where he belongs, but even the petty bullshit argument between us feels hollow.

We both lack the backbone for anything substantial right now.

What the hell are we going to do? Andras had his plans out in the open but it left us nowhere. We hadn’t lost anyone at the chapel thanks to Torin’s selfishness in going alone. How long?

How long until Andras and Catarina—what a fucking combination—come for us at the camp?

“You know where you’re going?” Torin calls to me.

“Playing it by ear. Or nose,” I retort.

Does it matter? Does any of it matter as long as we get the fuck awayfrom the church? The pressing need to hide engulfs my senses until even the forest is a blur.

Torin scoffs. “You’re leading us right to the river. You planning on making an escape out to the bay?”

“The bay leads to the ocean.” Mathis’s voice is leaden. “Not a bad idea. We can steal a boat, set sail—”

We both know they’ll never go through with it. They’re not going to leave what’s left of our combined packs. Why should they? The alphas have worked too hard to throw it all away.

Besides, they aren't built for retreat. They’re built for battle.

Andras came into our territory. He started this shit years ago. Why should we have to run with our tails tucked between our fucking legs? Like we’re the animals and he’s the hunter with a gun?

Screw that.

We keep walking, and the sun overhead makes a molasses-slow arc across the sky. The trees blur and the punishing blue winter sky mocks us.

If the Goddess is out there, she sure as shit didn’t help us today.

She didn’t help Red.

Eventually the scent of water and detritus and oil assaults the inside of my nose and the trees thin. Grey Mountain is a distant smudge behind us as the river widens into a port attached to its mouth.

The bay beyond does head to the ocean, but all that open expanse has never sat easily with me.

Gulls snap at the surface of the water and come up with nothing but garbage for their efforts. The stench of decaying fish and trash only gets stronger as we head down to the shore and find a gravel path winding its way forward.

This place.

I grimace, shaking off the sudden headache. I brush my fingers across my scalp and scrub at the wound only now starting to knit together, itching like a motherfucker.

Mathis strides past me like he knows exactly where he’s going, what he’s doing, but I know him. I’ve known him longer than any of these other dicks and he’s worried. Red is still out of it.

She’s too close to the edge. I’ve been on the right and the wrong side of death before, enough to feel it when the reaper creeps close.

I will personally pull Catarina into pieces if Red dies.

Torin, I expect, is all bent out of shape. He got his ass kicked and his wedding ruined. A mate bond on top of it all.

I growl and a flock of gulls take off. Why does he deserve a mate bond?

Why him and not me?

Glancing back at Red only sends my heart into an awkward, off beat.

I catch Noble’s eyes and glare at him out of spite because it feels normal.

They’re probably all bullshitting with each other mentally and leaving me out of the conversation.

Why wouldn’t they?

I’m the lost one, the animal, the crazy psychopath who doesn't do feelings, only pain.

The trail opens up to cracked concrete and gravel. The port ahead isn’t large by any means and not used as much as the newer dock built a few miles down the river. Fuckers had to destroy several hundred acres of wetland so they could have all of the latest and greatest technologies.

Torin probably salivated over it.

This port is practically out of commission but still accepts a couple of tankers a day, loading and unloading whatever the consumers want.

I glare at the rusty containers and the towering cranes. The cargo ships are half-rusted too. How the hell do they keep floating?

“This is what you had in mind?” Torin asks Mathis. “Really?”

My alpha turns to Torin with a raised brow. “It gives us a place to rest, doesn’t it? A roof over our head. No one is going to look for us here.”

“Unless they followed our paths and our scents,” Noble offers, like it makes a damn difference.

“There are too many other scents here for ours to be picked out. I don’t think Andras has cornered this place yet. It’s not as bustling as it used to be.” Mathis glances at the anemic row of trucks parked in a lot down the river.

This time of evening, there are only a few halogen bulbs blinking to life near the main body of the shipyard. A single tankard is pulled up and already unloaded, some kind of wonky tower of shipping containers parallel to it.

“This place gives me the fucking creeps,” I growl.

It’s unnatural. Too open and reeking of metal.

“Let’s grab one of the containers for the night. I need to find some clothes.” Torin glances down at Red’s face.

“No one wants to see your tiny cock, anyway,” Mathis snaps. He runs a hand through his hair. “Pick one and break the lock, Dax.”

I use my nose to sniff out one of the empty containers. The handle cracks in my hand and I pull it open, wincing at the sensation of the metal. My wolf whines, wanting to be free, wanting to go back into the woods.

The container is the size of a tiny house. God knows what kind of stains decorate the floor.

I glance at the treeline and the shadows there. The sun sets behind us, casting golden rays over the water.

One night. I can handle one night.

“Does this pass your inspection, Nobie?” I ask him.

He steps up beside me, listing hard to one side, off balance on his bad leg. “It’s going to be fine.”