He saw my rage. His hand skittered away from my shoulder and his eyes dropped to the ground. “They can’t fight,” he said. “Most of them are struggling to walk. We need to fall back.”
“I’m not leaving her.” My voice was growled and my eyes flared. “We’re not leaving any of them, the girls or the kids.”
Craig didn’t say anything, but he hadn’t moved out of my way, either. I felt my face go red and the muscles in my clenched jaw fluttered. My scent ramped up, my imprint blazed.
“Aidan,” Mark said in a soft, tentative voice from behind me. “Look at them. They’ve got to heal. We can’t help the kids if we’re dead and you need to trust Jade to do her job. She’ll keep those girls safe.”
I didn’t turn. I couldn’t. I knew what I’d see. I knew he was right. But leaving Jade ... My inner-wolf was going crazy, clawing at my chest and pressing against my skin at the thought.
Another hand gripped my shoulder and tugged me around. “Look,” Mark said. “Dammit, Aidan, look!”
And I did. I looked at my pack, bleeding and cut up. Some were limping, some could barely stand. Dominic was hunched over, his back torn up and bleeding. My pack was a mess, and I knew damn well if I forced them to attack now, we’d lose. We’d lose the war and we’d put the girls in even more danger.
My pack needed me, but I couldn’t just walk away. Not from her. Not from any of them.
I swallowed hard and jogged over to Dominic, dropping to my knees beside him. “You good?” I asked, which was probably a stupid question seeing as I’d been pretty certain that he was dead only a few minutes ago.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.” He was still breathing roughly, but he looked better — steadier. More color in his cheeks. More of the typical coolness in his gaze. He looked more like Dominic, and well, less dead.
“Good.” I reached out and clasped his shoulder. “I need you to do something for me.”
Dominic nodded. It didn’t look like an agreement, but more that he knew that now wasn’t the time to disagree.
“Take them back to that hunting camp we passed about five miles out. Get them shifting. Get them healed as fast as you can.”
Dominic looked sick and he wouldn’t look at me. “Don’t,” he said faintly and pulled back from me. “Don’t ask me to leave her.”
“I’m not asking, Dom,” I said. “Go.”
****
There was a dull thump of flesh hitting the ground, and then another.
Beck and Mark were both breathing hard beside me, and low growls rumbled in their chest. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure if those growls were a warning for me to stay hidden or if they were caused by what was happening just past the tree line from where we were crouched, watching in disbelief.
The cougars hadn’t been taking the girls to the cabin. They’d been taking them to the cages.
My lips were curled back in a silent snarl and I pawed at the ground restlessly, watching as one by one, my females landed into the cages with a fleshy thump.
And still, the enforcers wouldn’t let me attack.
Craig’s teeth were pressing against my leg, holding onto the spot where the break had only just healed. The three of them had held back to help me they said, but I knew the truth. They were here to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid, and Craig’s sharp teeth were a constant reminder of that.
There were seventeen men surrounding the cages, watching and laughing, when the man who’d been talking to Jade at her window carried her over. She was relaxed into unconsciousness, her head resting lightly at his neck. He didn’t drop her like the others, instead setting her down gently and brushing the hair from her face tenderly. It looked as if he actually cared about her. His hand lingered at her cheek for a moment that was way too long, and then he pulled a blanket around her.
My silent snarl turned into a loud growl. I’m going to kill them all.
I started forward and Craig’s teeth tightened onto my leg, pinching into my skin. I spun, snapping out at him. My heart was racing. No one touched her like that. No one but me. My inner-wolf wanted blood and right then, all I could see was red.
Footsteps pounded in our direction, and then slowed, as if the men couldn’t figure out where the sound of my growl had come from. And Craig, damn him, he wasn’t backing down. His teeth dug in deeper and he started dragging me backward.
Beck launched at me then, growling and snarling, and Mark was right there with him. I let my scent roll off of me, growling at them to back down, but they didn’t. My damn enforcers just kept coming, pushing and pulling me back, shuddering through the effort to ignore my commands. And it was then that I realized they were doing exactly what they were meant to do. Protecting my pack from me. Stopping me from making a move that could hurt them all.
And as they dragged me away before the cougars could find us, I didn’t know whether I hated them or loved them for doing their damn job.
CHAPTER 23
~ JADE ~
I came awake feeling sick, achy, and cold. Someone was poking thick, blunt needles into my skin, or at least that’s what it felt like, and when I tried to move, the world tilted and spun around me.
I blinked my eyes and groaned. It wasn’t needles poking at me. It was wire. I was in one of those damned barbed wire cages.
I tilted my head slowly to the side and swallowed down the well of panic that bubbled up inside me when I realized that I wasn’t alone. Erika, curled up in the fetal position, was pressing into the corner of the cage I was in. She was head to head with Laura, who was lying crookedly, bending with the other corner, and both were still out of it. And beside us in a second cage, was Kristen, Stacy, Jo, and Whitney all curled together in the center, unconscious.
I swallowed thickly and closed my eyes. How had it come down to this? My team, all six of them, were with me, split up and crammed into cages.
“You promised,” I whispered, blinking away the sting of tears that bit at my eyelids. “You told me you wouldn’t let me fail them.” But Tommy wasn’t here to hear me and all I could do in that moment was hope that he’d gotten away. Maybe he’d found Aidan. Maybe he was safe. Please let him be okay.
Someone had draped a blanket over me, covering me up, and as I scanned over the girls, I noticed they had them, too. It was still daylight. The sun was high in the sky. I couldn’t have been out long. No more than thirty minutes, I guessed. Everything felt foggy. I remembered smiley face guy, and I remembered attacking him. The girls had started to shift. Tommy had been beside me, snarling. And then there was pain. Burning, hot pain.
“You shouldn’t have brought them here,” a deep, smooth voice said, and I blinked my eyes open again. It was smiley face guy, but he wasn’t smiling, and for just a second I thought that I saw something in him. Something other than the poison. He was looking at me with something that looked a lot like ... remorse?
“I shouldn’t have brought who here?” I asked, and sat up, swallowing down the nausea that washed over me from the movement.
“Your mate, his males.” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have brought them.” His voice was very quiet, thoughtful, and almost sad. “We’re going to have to kill them now.”
My heart started racing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I almost shouted it and I gritted my teeth, attempting to control my tone. “The only male I brought was in the truck with me. Where is he? Where’s Tommy?”
He ignored my question and moved closer to the cage. He gave me an amused look and chuckled softly. “Yes, you do. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” His right shoulder was covered in dried blood, and for a beat, I felt a bubble of delight knowing that I’d caused at least a little damage before I’d been taken down. “We’re going to find him,” he said. He smiled then, a friendly, welcoming kind of smile that was more than a little confusing given the fact that he’d locked me up in a cage. “And we’ll kill him when we do.”
“Find who?” I asked, but I thought I already knew th
e answer to that. I closed my eyes even though it was terrifying to do that with him so close. I didn’t want him to see what I was feeling even if he could smell it. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing the way his words were ripping me in half.
Aidan left us here. He. Left. Us.
“Your mate,” he said, after a long moment. “It’s too bad, though. We really could have used you both.” He seemed so rational. Even his scent. It was calm. And it was … my nostrils flared. I could smell cougars all around, but his scent, it was different. It was human.
My dad wasn’t the only real shifter here.
I suddenly felt as though I’d been punched in the gut and all my insides had been torn out. I felt hollow, empty.
And stupid. Really, really stupid.
Of course Dad wouldn’t leave his pack for days, or even weeks at a time without someone else here to keep them loyal. Things started to make sense. The fast changes in the cougars’ location, even when Dad was at home. He never seemed frazzled, always confident that he’d win his sickening games, and I guessed that was because he wasn’t the only one playing them. He had someone else, someone like him who was after the same goal.
I opened my eyes. “You’re like my dad, aren’t you?” It came out as a half whisper, half shout. “You’re not a werecougar. You smell like them, but it’s not as strong. You’re probably wearing clothes they’d worn or maybe it’s a transfer scent from being closed up with them in that small cabin. But you smell …” I shook my head, and pulled in another breath. “You smell more human right now than anything else. You’ve been calling the shots here while my dad was in Dog Mountain playing his games with my pack.”
He didn’t say anything, but his widening smile and soft chuckle was enough of a response for me to know that I was right.
“What’s your name?” I asked, and my voice sounded all wrong. It was higher than normal, scratchy, too. My throat was dry, rough, and I swallowed — hard.
“It’s Jason,” he said, and moved closer until he was right next to the cage. He rested his hands on top, bending his fingers loosely into the squared mesh, carefully avoiding the barbs, and looked straight down at me.
I fought back the urge to whimper, and scuttled back. If Aidan and the team left me here, it was because they knew I could keep the girls safe, and I wasn’t going to let this jerk think anything different, even if I was the one in a cage. “What happened to Tommy?” I demanded, and he raised his brows. “Where’s the guy that came with me, Jason?”
Jason locked his gaze on mine and held it, losing his amused expression. “He’s fine for now and he’ll stay fine if you cooperate.”
I sucked in a breath. I bet it wasn’t hard to miss the wave of misery that came from my scent, because that was exactly how I felt — miserable. “I brought you what you asked for,” I said, and waved a hand toward the girls, but my voice totally lacked the conviction it needed to make the statement even semi-believable.
“It’s not about the girls,” he said. His voice started out soft, but quickly hardened. “And we both know they were never meant to stay here. Your pack wouldn’t have been hiding in the woods if they were.” He paused and stared down at me for an uncomfortable minute. “Jeff told you what he wants. What we want.” He crouched down beside me and his eyes flared with heat. Then he shrugged. “You should have thought of that before you tried to fool us with that stupid deal of yours.”
Right, I thought, and then dread hit me. He wants our packs to join together.
“Where’s my dad?” I asked. “I want to talk to him. Now.”
“He’s out hunting your mate.” Jason sounded calm enough, but the tips of his ears were turning red and the look in his eyes had gone completely insane.
I couldn’t find any words. I just sat there shivering, staring into those crazy eyes. They were cold and calculating, searching my face like an invasive probe and after a second, I found myself looking down.
“You can stop this,” he said softly. “Order your males to join us. Make your females behave. If you work with me, I’ll see what I can do about these cages.”
I raised my head very slowly. “What?”
“Help me and I’ll let them out. This doesn’t have to be ...” he paused and licked his lips, his hard eyes heating further. “Uncomfortable.”
“Those bastards aren’t going to find him, Jade,” Erika said, and I jumped, twisting around to see her still curled in the fetal position. “Don’t make a deal with this asshole.” She glared at me. Her eyes were rimmed with red, but they were dry, and really angry. “Don’t you dare give up on us or on Aidan.”
She stopped talking and her eyes refocused on Jason, who stood up and was striding toward her. He watched her for a second, and she seemed to be holding her breath until he glanced back at me, and it whooshed out of her.
“Think about it, Jade,” he said. “I’d be a good ally to have.” And then he walked away.
By the time he vanished around the corner, my brain was working in overdrive. We had to get out of here before they found Aidan and the rest of the pack. There was no two ways about that. I looked at the cage, the chains, the barbs, the locks …
An idea, not much of one, but it was something nonetheless, started to form. I looked back to Erika. “Wake up the girls,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of here and help the others.” I might have sounded calm and neutral, but right then, I was anything but. And I was pretty sure Erika knew that, because she didn’t waste a second in doing what I asked.
CHAPTER 24
~ AIDAN ~
Dominic stepped back from the door and closed it. He’d been hovering since I’d arrived. “They’re close,” he said. “A few more shifts and we should be ready to move.”
“How about you?” I asked, scanning his back. “Your back’s still raw. You should be out there shifting with them.”
“I should be with Jade.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said that since I’d gotten here and I hated hearing it. His tone held so much loathing, and his hatred was just boiling over. It wasn’t making the call I’d made to send the pack away any easier to deal with.
I took in a deliberate breath, and then let it out, trying to keep my inner-wolf locked up tight. “You think it was easy leaving her there?” I asked. “You think I wanted to walk away? What was I supposed to do, Dom? Force you all to go in there, when most of you could barely walk? How well do you think that would have played out?”
I felt sick leaving the girls. Utterly sick. Leaving them with those monsters was almost worse than seeing Dominic motionless on the ground. Almost. The only thing that made it not as bad was that I knew, I knew, that Jeff wouldn’t let them get hurt until he had what he wanted — my pack. And I wasn’t going to give him that.
Beck, Mark, and Craig had dragged me, biting and clawing, pretty much the whole five miles to where my pack was holed up, trying to heal. They’d fought me hard, every step of the way. Pushing through my scent, struggling against my commands. If I wasn’t so pissed about it, I’d probably be amazed at how strong they were as a team. When one started to cave under my command, the others had picked up the slack, sensing each other’s short falls, and filling in the weaknesses. Yeah, okay, even if I was pissed off about it, it was still pretty amazing. They really were great together as a team.
But even if they were right, and we’d needed to regroup to be of any use to the girls, it felt ... sick leaving them and the kids there. Sick and wrong and cruel.
Right now, I had the pack outside shifting over and over. Deep cuts and bad breaks could take hours to heal, but shifting, well, it sped up the healing process, forcing the ripped up skin and broken bones to reshape and mold and mend with each shift, until they snapped back to how they were supposed to be.
My leg and all the new bites the enforcers had given me as they forced me back were as good as new after three shifts, but Dominic wouldn’t do it. He was too damn focused on hating me to look after himself.
; Dominic’s hands curled into fists and his face flushed an ugly red. “She’s in a cage! They’re all in a cage! You saw them put her in there and you walked away.”
A sudden surge of illness swept over me as the vision of Jade being carried and placed in that cage filled my head. She’d been out cold and I’d watched as that guy that had stood at her truck window brush her hair back from her face with a tender sweep of his hand, and then he’d laid a blanket over her body.
It had taken everything in Beck, Mark, and Craig to stop me from charging in and trying to kill them all to get to her. There’d been seventeen cougars by the cages, watching my females being locked up. Seventeen. I hadn’t spotted Tommy, but I had to assume that they’d have others watching him. There were thirty of us including Jade, Tommy, and me. I didn’t know where Tommy was exactly and seven of my wolves were now in cages. If I was playing the numbers game, which I definitely was not doing anymore, I’d have to say our packs were close in numbers now. We’d killed another thirteen of them during their tree jumping stunt, but there were still at least those seventeen left.
And then I saw Dominic lying on the forest floor, not moving, and I remembered thinking he was dead, and I felt as if I were going to throw-up.
“Yeah, Dom,” I said, swallowing hard. “They’re in cages, and that means that the cougars want to keep them alive. They’re probably safer there right now than they would be with us.” I scrubbed at my face, and when I looked back at him, Dominic started to speak, but I held up my hand to stop him. “I already thought I’d lost you once today. Couldn’t go through that again, man. I just couldn’t. They would have killed you if I’d let you go in after her. But they won’t kill her. They need her to command our pack.”