Without the knights, so many people—so many women—would be lost. Including the woman I sensed inside the house, a furious cocktail of rage, fear, and desolation. She felt like waves crashing against grey, barren rocks.
"Guardian," I murmured, swallowing my panic. The scents coming out of this place—rotten arousal, violence, sex, and worse fluids I didn't want to think about—clouded my mind until I was close to seeing red.
"Yeah?" Guardian asked, turning to look at me and frowning at whatever he saw on my face. Or whatever stress I was emitting in my scent.
Guardian was a lot like me; not overly vocal in his dominance but steady, always there to back up the other guys. He was a good friend, and right now I needed to tell someone that the woman whose scent we'd been following called to my soul like no other I'd met before.
"Priest?" he prompted when I was quiet.
I curled my hands into fists and released them. I almost lost my nerve.
"The woman in there," I breathed, nodding at the closed front door that muffled the growls and crashes inside. "She's … I can feel her, man. Her fear and rage—I canfeel them."
Guardian's blue-grey eyes widened and he took a small step, grabbing my shoulder. "If you can feel her emotions, then she's—"
"My mate," I blurted. "What the—what do I do? Only god knows what's happened to her inside there and—"
A double knock came from the inside of the door—our signal to go in while the Hunters were distracted.
"The most important thing is to get her out safely," Guardian said, grabbing the door handle and giving me a calm look. "She'll sense you, too, and whether she believes it or not, her instincts will tell her she's safe."
I swallowed. Nodded. "Thanks."
Guardian clapped my shoulder and pushed open the door.
I took a tight breath, and almost choked on the vile scents. Oh god, my mate—my matewas in here suffering. Maybe she was one of the women I could hear screaming on the floors above.
"Up there," our redhead, fierce-eyed president barked, pointing up the stairs. "There's only Hunters down here, and we'll keep them busy."
"Thanks," I breathed, and ignored the strange look Prodigy gave me before he headed back into a shabby living room. He unleashed a growl so powerful that even my knees buckled. It was a rare growl that could take down another alpha, but I knew our president's could. I'd seen it in action.
"I'll go first." Guardian headed up the tight staircase that hugged the right wall of the shitty little hallway, the steps bare and worn in the centre.
How many people had come here to abuse the people above us? Fifty?Hundreds?My stomach twisted, especially as the screaming grew louder.
Was it … was that Luna?
I tasted bile when we reached the landing and a door suddenly slammed open.
Cobra came rushing out of the vile-smelling room, his fists locked around a big, brunette man's throat, the other alpha trying to rip out fistfuls of Cobra's long black hair.
"In there," Cobra bit out, throwing Guardian a look. Our sergeant-at-arms was the one who usually handled the rescuing;his gentle energy and calm put people at ease despite his massive size and tattoos, and it was strangely easy to trust him.
"Omega," Cobra clarified, kneeing the alpha in the dick. Ouch.
I shouldn't have let out a rough breath of relief that the screaming woman wasn't my mate. A woman was hurt enough to be screaming at the top of her lungs; there was no relief to be found here.
"Keep going," Guardian quietly ordered me, pointing at the other doors on this floor. There was another level above us, too.
Fuck, were there victims in every room? My gut soured, the painful scents thickening around me.
I pushed open the next room, relieved to find it empty even if it stank of sex and blood, but the final room was occupied—and every part of me stiffened with a growl.
It wasn't my mate, but an Asian man in his twenties was crowded onto a disgusting, slick-covered bed, his body limp and eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as a slim alpha with a ginger beard rutted into him.
A protective growl tore up my throat and lashed through the room, and I was moving before the alpha stiffened in response.
Was the omega even alive? His black hair was missing in patches, like it had been ripped out, and his body was covered in bruising.God, please save this omega and give him the strength to endure his injuries.