Page 47 of The Reluctant Mate (Shifters of the Three Rivers #5)

Chapter forty-seven

Sofia

D erek dropped Harris’s body, a wet, meaty thud that echoed around the room. Behind Derek, the guard who had been pointing the gun at him lay lifeless in a pool of red.

The scent of fear from the surrounding soldiers flooded my senses. Derek took one step forward, his muzzle dripping with blood.

Whatever shock the soldiers felt broke. Chaos erupted as some dove for cover while others swung their weapons up.

Derek leaped.

A scream cut short as Derek’s fangs sliced into an arm, and blood sprayed against the walls. Tranquilizer darts pfffed in an almost constant sound, but Derek kept moving, a whirlwind of claws and fury. He was an unstoppable force of nature, pure instinct and vengeance. One soldier got a shot off, the bullet hitting Derek’s right leg. He didn’t slow down, didn’t hesitate, just swiped a massive paw across the soldier’s chest, claws ripping through his vest like it was paper.

The soldier crumpled, gurgling, one hand trying to stem the blood pouring from the deep gashes across his chest, the other reaching desperately for his fallen gun. I forced myself to move through the drug-induced haze, ignoring the throbbing pain in my ribs, to kick the weapon beyond his reach. His eyes locked onto mine, filled with hatred.

I stared back, unflinching. These men thought they could cage us, experiment on us, wipe out my entire Pack. They’d looked at me and seen nothing but a scared female to be controlled. A pet, Harris had called me.

Rage that I’d kept leashed unfurled in my chest.

The soldier dragged himself forward, one hand over the other, trying to get to me. It was them or us. I brought my foot up and stomped down hard on his head. He lay still, unconscious or dead; I wasn’t sure.

I spun around, ready for the next soldier, and sucked in a sharp breath. Everyone in the room was on the floor with gaping, bloody wounds to their bodies and heads.

Holy fucking Goddess!

Derek’s eyes, mad with rage, focused on me.

Every hair on my body stood on end as he took a deliberate step toward me, his huge paw leaving a bloody print on the concrete.

“Derek?”

He growled, showing no sign of recognizing me.

“Derek!” I tried again.

He took another step, lowering his head as he stalked closer.

I held still as shock coursed through me.

Bloodlust. Derek was in bloodlust. There was no coming back from that.

No! I wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let this be the end. I held up my arm and slashed at it with my nails. Blood bloomed, my scent filling the air. Derek would never hurt me, no matter how far gone in the bloodlust he was. It wasn’t something I believed. It was something I knew. I watched his nostrils flare. His ears flattened. His lips curled back, revealing fangs slick with blood.

Oh, shit.

I don’t know if he recognized me but he did recognize the scent that was on me. Harris.

A howl ripped from Derek’s throat—primal, ancient, terrifying. The sound vibrated through my bones, making my teeth ache and my skin prickle. It wasn’t just a howl; it was a promise of violence, a declaration of war. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, to hide, to get as far away as possible from the predator before me.

This wasn’t the controlled power of an enforcer or even the dominance of an Alpha. This was something darker, more primitive. The sound echoed off the walls, building and building, until it felt like the whole room would shake apart from the force of his rage. In that moment, I understood why humans once huddled in caves, terrified of what lurked in the darkness. This was the howl that haunted their nightmares, that lived on in their oldest stories—the call of a hunter that would not stop until everything in its path was dead.

My heart slammed against my ribs. The rest of Kane’s men would hear us. The airstrip was crawling with them; there was no way we could fight our way out of here.

But the sound resonated within me, too, awakening something ancient and untamed. Part of me—a part I’d always tried to contain—wanted to throw back my head and join him. To let the world hear our fury, to make them tremble at what they’d awakened in us.

I surged forward, placing my hands on either side of Derek’s broad head.

I think it was only pure surprise at my move that kept him from attacking me.

“Enough, Derek,” I whispered fiercely, my forehead pressing against his. “They’ll hear you. We need to be smart. We need to live. We need to find a way out of here.” My voice dropped lower, a dangerous edge to it. “And then we’re going to make every last one of them pay for what they’ve done.”

His ears flicked toward my voice, but he showed no other sign that he recognized me as he snarled. For a moment, I thought he would attack me, but then a loud metallic bang sounded behind me. I looked over my shoulder as the door was kicked open.

Gunfire erupted.

Not tranquilizers this time.

Derek was already moving, launching himself in front of me at the wave of soldiers spilling into the room. His front paws hit the first soldier, tearing at his jugular as he rode him down. The soldier was dead before he touched the floor, and Derek exploded into motion, jumping from one soldier to the next. They went down one after the other as Derek tore through them, his form a blur of muscle and fury.

I sprinted toward the fallen soldiers, my feet sliding in the blood. I grabbed a tranquilizer gun as a soldier stumbled backward, trying to escape Derek’s wrath.

I took aim and fired.

A dart hit his neck, and he collapsed.

Derek leaped over the fallen man without a glance, his focus already on his next target as he sped out the door.

My eyes locked on a combat knife strapped to one of the fallen soldiers’ thighs. Without hesitating, my fingers closed around the familiar weight, and something inside me steadied. This—this I knew.

There was no sign of Derek in the corridor, just more bodies littering the way. I checked their pulses as I went past, but Derek hadn’t left any alive.

The bloodlust had to be fueling him.

An alarm blared through the hangar, followed by shouts and screams ahead of me. They knew we were loose.

I rounded the corner to see Derek on the other side of the space by the hangar doors, his massive form silhouetted against the dying sun.

More bodies sprawled across the room, some bent over desks and chairs, others on the ground gurgling their last breaths. The air had the acrid stink of adrenaline, gunpowder, and fresh blood.

I picked my way around the bodies, scanning for signs of life. The few who were still alive had weak, irregular heartbeats; I knew there was no saving them.

There was so much carnage, so much damage. How had Derek managed to do this in such a short amount of time? I struggled to take it all in. Rapid gunfire came from outside, and I sprinted to the hangar doors.

Outside, on the airstrip, soldiers were scrambling, trying to form defensive lines. The scent of fear was thick, curling under my skin. They knew what was coming for them, and even if I could stop him, I wouldn’t. These soldiers were ready to murder every single member of my Pack. They had signed up to Kane’s ideology willingly, happy to carry out genocide. My only thoughts were for Derek. For how much damage the bloodlust was doing. I had to pull him back from this.

To my left, a soldier broke away from the chaos, spotting me as I moved through the doors. He raised his weapon, but I was already sprinting, closing the distance between us in an instant. The Caldera sequence flowed through my muscles—duck, pivot, strike. The knife became an extension of my arm as I slashed upward, catching him beneath his body armor. He staggered back. I followed through with the second movement, blade dancing across his wrist. His gun clattered to the floor as I completed the sequence with a precise strike to his shoulder. He screamed as I stabbed him twice more, then collapsed at my feet.

I turned as bullets sprayed across the tarmac. Derek charged the defensive line; blood matted his dark fur where rounds had already found their mark, but he moved like he couldn’t feel them. A soldier screamed as Derek’s giant jaws closed around his throat, the sound cutting off in a wet gurgle. Without pausing, Derek whirled toward his next target, a spray of crimson arcing through the air.

A bullet punched through Derek’s left haunch. My heart leaped into my throat as he stumbled, fresh blood running down his leg.

“No!” I screamed, sprinting toward him. Rage surged through me, hot and electric. They would not take him from me.

But if anything, his injury only seemed to fuel his fury. He spun toward the shooter, moving faster than any wolf his size should be able to, and tore the man’s arm off at the shoulder.

More bullets zinged past him, some finding their mark, adding new wounds to his already bleeding body. But he seemed beyond pain now, beyond any normal limits. The bloodlust had taken him somewhere primal, where injury meant nothing compared to the drive to kill.

A grenade bounced across the tarmac. I dove flat, hands over my head, as the explosion rocked the ground.

Derek!

I jumped up, ears ringing, to see Derek emerge from the smoke like a demon, his fur singed, blood dripping from a dozen wounds. He snarled, then crashed into another soldier, his claws raking across the woman’s chest. She didn’t even have time to react before Derek tore her apart.

A soldier took aim at Derek’s exposed flank, his finger tightening on the trigger. Time slowed. I was too far for hand-to-hand, too far to tackle him. Without thinking, I spun my knife so I was holding it by its blade and then released it. The knife tumbled end over end, a perfect arc through the air. It struck the soldier’s throat. His shot went wild as he fell to the ground. Derek’s head whipped around at the sound, his eyes meeting mine for just a moment. Recognition flickered there, then was gone as he turned back to his rampage.

The remaining soldiers, seeing there was no stopping Derek, began to panic, scattering like prey. Some fired wildly, their bullets ricocheting off metal crates and abandoned vehicles. Others tried to run, but there was no outrunning my mate.

A bullet grazed my left arm. I whirled, spying the shooter: an Hispanic man, late twenties, straight black hair and ears that were slightly too big for his head. I charged. He had time to get off one more shot just as I twisted right, the bullet whizzing past my shoulder. Then I was on him, knocking the gun out of his hands and driving my knee into his chest. He fell back. I rode him down, slamming his head into the ground, then fired two darts from his own gun into his leg.

Derek’s snarl ripped through the air, loud and feral.

I jumped up just in time to see him launch himself at the last cluster of soldiers, who were using the trucks with the cages on them for cover.

The werewolves inside the cages were thrashing wildly, their eyes locked onto the bloodbath before them.

I ran, weaving between bodies and debris. My breathing was ragged, my hands shaking from the adrenaline, but I couldn’t stop now.

I saw the moment the soldiers realized the people in the cages might be their only chance against Derek.

One of them—a short man with a bloodied face and desperation in his eyes—lunged toward the nearest cage. The other soldiers urged him on, his trembling hands fumbling with the keypad on the side of the cage.

“No!” I yelled, urging my legs to move faster.

Derek charged alongside me, muscles rippling, blood dripping from his fangs.

The keypad beeped, and the lock hissed open.

Shit!

The cage door swung outward, and a man flew out. Medium-height, broad-shoulders, with arms covered in bruises and cuts. His dark eyes were wild, darting between the soldier and Derek, unsure of who to attack first.

The soldier took a step back. “Kill! Kill that!” he shouted, pointing to Derek.

The man didn’t listen, so far gone on ripple. With a guttural roar, he lunged at the nearest target. The soldier tried to raise his rifle, but the Shifter swiped at it, and the gun clattered to the ground. Then he was on him, ramming the soldier into the cage, his fists pummeling against him. Blood splattered across the metal bars, the soldier’s screams cutting off as the Shifter crushed his throat with a savage punch. The others, frozen in shock until now, turned and ran. The man howled, the noise wrong for his human throat, then he sped after his fleeing comrades.

Derek leaped, landing on the Shifter and ripping into his neck before they hit the ground. Then he jumped again; a blur of motion, a shadow flowing from one soldier to the next. Three bodies fell in rapid succession, torn open with savage efficiency. The last soldier managed five steps before Derek clamped down on his head with a sickening crunch.

The soldier fell as Derek skidded to a halt, his ears flattening. He turned his head and growled low in his throat. His eyes snapped to mine, wild and dangerous. Blood matted his fur and dripped down his side; I couldn’t tell what was from his wounds and what was from the soldiers he’d killed. I felt his wolf pulse through our bond, a tidal wave of fury and bloodlust. He didn’t recognize me. He was too deep in the hunt, too lost in the primal need to eliminate everything around him.

I froze, my heart feeling like it was shattering into pieces inside of me—there was no getting Derek back. He was lost, completely and utterly lost to me.