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Chapter thirty-four

Derek

I knew she was here; would know her scent anywhere. I didn’t think, my focus bypassing every rational thought and igniting something primal that obliterated everything but the need to find her.

They came at me all at once—bouncers in black tactical gear, spectators pissed I was ruining their show, fighters dripping sweat and blood or riled up with adrenaline waiting for their bouts. The first punch came from a mountain of a man with arms thicker than my thighs—all brute strength, zero finesse. His knuckles glanced off my jaw, sparks of pain fracturing my vision.

Like that, is it?

Fine.

Years of black ops missions, ambushes in Goddess-forsaken hellholes, and back-alley brawls had taught me one immutable truth: hesitation gets you killed. I didn’t hesitate. I roared , the sound tearing from my chest as I surged upward, throwing them back. I didn’t let them think, didn’t let them regroup. I blocked a wrist mid-swing, twisted with surgical precision until cartilage separated and bone splintered beneath my grip. His scream—high and animal—pierced through the crowd as I yanked him forward into my rising elbow. His nose broke with a wet, pulpy crunch. Blood erupted, not dripping but spraying in a crimson arc across the floor. He dropped like a stone, still conscious enough to clutch his ruined face but no longer a threat.

The next attacker launched himself at me—a shaved-headed bruiser with prison yard tattoos crawling up his neck and fists wrapped in blood-stained gauze. The way he moved told me he was experienced, but the tremor in his hands, the unnatural dilation of his pupils, meant he was amped on something. I slipped under his jab, pivoted on the ball of my foot, and drove my fist deep into his face. Teeth scattered across the floor like bloody dice. A bouncer lunged from my peripheral, the electric crackle of a taser with him. Too slow. I dropped my shoulder, twisted past the electrodes, and drove my elbow up under his jaw with bone-shattering force. There was a sharp crack, and the taser dropped from his hand as his eyes rolled back and his body hit the ground.

The crowd’s frenzy intensified, their circle tightening like wolves enraged that their Packmates had been taken down. But I’d been killing men bigger, stronger, and better trained than these for years. My training snapped into place, each movement economy in violence, no wasted motion, no hesitation, no mercy. A throat strike here, bones crushed there. A shoulder dislocated, ligaments tearing like wet paper. Bodies dropping around me in an expanding radius of groans and stillness.

But through the copper tang of blood, the stink of fear-sweat and adrenaline, the cologne and spilled liquor—one scent cut through it all. Sofia. Her scent coiled through me like smoke after fire, intoxicating with every breath. Vanilla and amber and something purely, unmistakably her —something I would recognize in a room of thousands, across battlefields, through fire itself.

Nothing was going to keep me from her. Not these men, not Stone, not hell itself.

I spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. “That all you got?”

The next wave charged—leaner, faster fighters whose fluid movements would have betrayed what they were even if I hadn’t already caught their wild, earthy scent. Shifters.

The first one came at me bent almost double, using the momentum of his run to slam his shoulder into my stomach with enough force to lift me off my feet. Air exploded from my lungs as he drove me backward. I brought my elbow down on the back of his neck. Once. Twice. Three times before he dropped me, stumbling to the floor. As he went down, I smashed my knee into his face, and he was out.

The second Shifter came at me fast, a broken bottle in his hand. He swiped at me. I arched back, feeling the glass whisper past my chest, close enough that my shirt parted where the edge caught it. Too close. I lashed out with a sidekick that caught him dead center in his sternum. The impact sent him flying backward into the crowd, colliding with another fighter who had been circling for an opening.

Another fighter leaped into the gap, coming at me with a barrage of kicks and punches that forced me to give ground. A fist slipped through my guard, connecting with my ribs with enough force to crack bone. Pain lanced through my side, white-hot and distracting.

Focus, idiot. She’s close. She’s here.

I slapped away his follow-up swing and countered, driving my knuckles into his exposed throat. Cartilage gave way. He reeled back, eyes bulging, hands clawing at his crushed windpipe as he collapsed, gasping and retching.

“Enough!”

People must have recognized the voice because more than half the remaining fighters froze instantly, their heads snapping around to locate the source. I turned to see Lucian Stone standing at the edge of the ring, arms crossed over his chest, his stance deceptively casual. I don’t know if it was my heightened senses, but the air around him nearly crackled with a kind of primal power that made my wolf’s hackles stand on end.

No human gave off a presence like this. This was something else.

“Where is she?” I growled.

He didn’t answer my question, just raised one eyebrow, his expression unreadable. “You’re far from home, Derek.”

“Stop playing your fucking games. Tell me where she is, or I’m gonna rip you apart one piece at a time.”

“You just tore through half my security.” He gestured faintly toward the groaning bodies littering the edges of the ring. “And put on quite the show while doing it. Are you here to audition? You want in the ring, is that it?”

I was done playing. I stalked toward him, each step deliberate, promising violence. I would break him bit by bit until he told me where Sofia was.

A flicker of something—maybe amusement, maybe calculation—shadowed Lucian’s face. He lifted one hand in a gesture that either meant stop or surrender.

“I assure you, she’s safe.”

“Not good enough. You got thirty seconds to get her here, or I’ll reduce this place to rubble. And I’ll enjoy the fuck out of doing it,” I warned.

Lucian’s lips curled into something too sharp to be a smile. “And then what?”

My wolf bristled, sensing something wrong before my human mind could process it. The air around Lucian was changing—becoming thicker, charged with energy as if the atmosphere itself bent to accommodate his presence.

“Tell me, Derek, what makes you think she wants you?”

My wolf snarled, clawing at my control. “She’s my mate.”

“Ah yes, your mate.” He tsked softly, the sound incongruously gentle. “Kidnapping her and tying her to a bed? Really, Derek?”

Shame and fury warred in my chest. “That’s between me and her.”

“Do you know where I found her?” Lucian pushed. “Fighting for her life. Where were you, her mate , when she was being hunted?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, ignoring the way his words hit home. “That’s also between me and her.”

He took a step closer, and the air around him shimmered with heat. “She is under my protection now. She doesn’t want to see you.”

My fists clutched, blood dripping onto the floor in soft, rhythmic splashes. “Let her tell me that herself.”

“Or what?” His voice was heavy with challenge. “You’ll fight your way through more of my men? Try to fight me?” He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “You’re good, Derek, but you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

As if to emphasize his point, the temperature around us spiked so dramatically that sweat instantly beaded across my forehead.

What. The. Fuck?

“What I’m dealing with is someone standing between me and my mate. That’s all I need to know.”

“You really want to do this?” Something ancient and predatory flashed behind his eyes.

I rolled my shoulders, ignoring the protest of bruised muscles. “I’m not leaving without her.”

“Your choice.” Lucian sighed, almost regretfully. “Just remember—you asked for this.”

“Stop!”

Sofia’s voice rang out from behind Lucian, and I whipped around, my heart slamming in my chest at the sound as my eyes desperately sought her out.