“You little bitch!” Mary screamed as she stumbled out of the cell, struggling to reach back and remove whatever the little bitch had stabbed her with.
She was going to make her pay for this. She was going to teach her a lesson that she never…that she was never…
“Oh, no,” Mary mumbled when she found herself staring into a pair of cold silver eyes.
“I’ll pay you double!” Mary blurted out as she stumbled back away from the man that she’d been warned not to cross, but she didn’t have a choice.
She’d needed his blood to fix this. The Alpha of her Pack had only been eighty years old when she’d taken his blood. It hadn’t been strong enough to change her and she knew that she was going to need stronger blood if she had a chance to fix this. Kale was the strongest of their kind and if she’d been able to take his blood, she would have been fine. More than fine, Mary told herself as she stumbled back away from him as the other mutt that she’d captured sent her a terrifying smile that had her breath catching in her throat.
Shooting her a wink, Jacob stepped back and released a roar as his body shifted, bones snapped as his limbs stretched, his clothes were torn away as his body filled out, muscle began covering every inch of his body as hair started growing everywhere. His face contorted as a long snout began to grow, stretching out his face as his ears shifted and grew until they pointed towards the sky. His teeth lowered and grew into sharp fangs meant to tear bones apart as bright silver eyes locked on her, but it was the Alpha standing in front of her, watching her through human eyes that terrified her the most.
“P-please, we can talk about this. I can triple the bounty!” Mary said, struggling to reach the middle of her back where the searing pain tore up her spine as she held up a hand towards Kale, hoping to buy herself enough time to think of a way out of this.
“No, no, no, please don’t!” one of her men screamed as the large werewolf leaned down and-
“Oh…” Mary managed to mumble as she watched Jacob tear the man’s throat out before shifting his attention to the other man trying to get away all while Kale slowly came towards her, giving her no other choice but to back away from him until her back hit the wall and she found herself standing in front of the tomb that she’d planned on putting the Pyte in.
“You never should have laid a finger on my son,” Ethan said, joining the mutt as Mary stood there and when she saw that mallet coming at her head, she couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if she’d listened to her father and left the Pyte alone.
*-*-*-*
“Two in the back,” Ephraim mouthed to Drew as the large werewolf shifted his focus to the two shifters that were trying to make their way back to the woods as he told himself to stop thinking about Jill.
She was fine.
More importantly, she was safe.
Not going to her and telling her that he loved her and that everything was going to be okay was killing him, but he didn’t have a choice. Every day more shifters, demons, and vampires stalked the compounds, searching for her. Their system was under constant attack as they tried to search for information on Jill, making it impossible for him to call his daughter or to send her a fucking email. He…
He missed her.
He needed to figure out a way to fix this and get that mark removed so that he could change her and give her the protection that she needed, but if he turned her now, she would end up carrying that mark for the rest of her life, and judging by the obsession to get their hands on her, it wouldn’t be a very long life. As soon as she was sent to the island, he was going to follow and he wasn’t leaving until they fixed this.
Forcing his head back to where it bel
onged, Ephraim slowly exhaled as he watched as the large werewolf walked past them and headed towards the back. Ephraim watched as Chris carefully pushed the front door open and stepped inside. They moved through the house, clearing it as they made their way to the closed door where a dog was going crazy from the sounds of it.
Chris walked over to the door and opened it, keeping his eyes locked on the room around them as a large German Shepard tore out of the closet. He raced through the house, jumping over a couch, and headed towards a metal door down the hallway where he frantically tried clawing it open.
“All clear,” Ephraim said while he listened as the last shifter tore out the back door and found a thousand-pound Alpha waiting for him.
“What about downstairs?” Chris asked as he joined the dog by the metal door.
“Time to find out,” Ephraim said as he opened the door seconds before the dog tore down the stairs as the scent of blood hit him hard.
Human, shifter, Pyte, and Sentinel blood, and a lot of it.
“Go grab the bag and see what’s taking them so long,” Ephraim said as he headed downstairs and…
“What the hell?” he said hollowly as he took in the scene before him.
In one cell, a small woman sat in the corner, hugging her legs against her chest while she watched Lukas, who wasn’t looking too good, pump a woman’s chest as a Pyte fed her his blood. For a moment, Ephraim watched the heartbreaking scene in front of him before he forced himself to look away. He decided that he was going to ignore the bodies everywhere and turned his attention to his left where-
A large werewolf covered in blood stood guard as Kale and a vampire that he’d never seen before were putting the finishing touches on a freshly built stone wall from the looks of it as a woman’s screams for help reached his ears. He opened his mouth to ask them what was going on when he saw the look on Kale’s face. He watched as the shifter looked from the stone wall to the Pyte in the cell and-
That was all Ephraim needed.
If he’d been given the chance to lock Nichols in the small cell that he’d kept him trapped in, Ephraim would have taken it in a fucking heartbeat. With a nod of understanding, he shifted his attention back to the small cell as the vampire stumbled past him. He made his way inside the cell where the dog was now standing guard over Lukas as the Sentinel dropped to the floor with a pained grunt.