Right at the Alpha’s heart.
CHAPTER 15
The blade sinks into Renfus’s chest with a sickening crack.
His eyes go wide, still trained on Carmen. When he finally manages to peer down at himself, he groans out a low,Fuck, before his body collapses to the ground, as if nothing more than a sack of meat. It’s enough to distract the three guards who all turn back to their leader, wide-eyed in disbelief, their pursuit of Carmen thwarted by the deadly blow they’ve just allowed through the promise of their protection.
The rest of the room will likely have their heads for it.
And then they’ll kill each other fighting to take over the seat.
“Oh my god!” someone shrieks from the center of the room.
Carmen hastens to free one shoulder from the strap of her bag, slinging it to hang from her front. She unzips the main pocket and reaches in for the first grenade, fingers gripping tight around the glass bottle. She digs into her pants pocket with her other hand, searching for her lighter.
Within the span of a single breath, she’s got the first bomb lit. Flames lick and stretch along the length of the wick much quicker than Carmen anticipated. She hurls the bottle toward the group of guards who have started running toward her, and it hits the one in the center in the face, exploding on impact.
She quickly lights a second one, aiming for the bully seated in the crowd. She’d meant to kill him first, but this will have to do. The bomb explodes, taking a quarter of the crowd down with him. It’s the distraction she needs to turn around and push through the door and sprint back out into the hallway, just as some of the wolves start to scream.
Fire doesn’t have the same lethal effects as silver, but it’s a natural purifier. Its cleansing properties can work just as well against wolves if you know how to wield it right, Warren told her and Lacie once before teaching them how to make homemade bombs.Light ‘em up with enoughumph, and you’ll take ‘em down.
She’s made it almost to the end of the hallway by the time she hears the heavy door click shut behind her. But then it crashes open again as a number of wolves chase after her. From the sounds of their footsteps, they’re still in their human forms.
She knows from experience it takes a solid minute for werewolves to fully transition from human to wolf form—time that those chasing her now likely didn’t want to spend with the risk of her getting away. But they aren’t as fast on human feet as they’d be in wolf form. Carmen might actually have a chance in hell at pulling this off.
She sprints with everything she has, following the path she took in reverse, back to the girl still chained to the ground like an animal. Pulling a bobby pin out of her hair after stuffing her lighter back in her pocket, she readies herself to lean on a trusted old orphan trick: picking the lock to set the girl free. She definitely didn’t get the chance to steal the keys off the male who holds them before sending him to hell.
With less than a minute lead on the pack, every second counts. Barreling around the corner and into the makeshift chamber, she dives onto the floor next to the girl and immediately begins working to unfasten the lock.
“What happened?” the girl asks. Terror fills her face as the sound of running footsteps draws in from down the hall.
Carmen ignores her, concentrating on the pin pinched between her fingertips. She feels it gently glide deeper into the mechanism and twists her wrist. The lock clicks open.
“Oh my god,” the girl cries out, scrambling to her feet. The dress she wears is ripped and tattered, hanging on to her curvy frame by mere threads. Her short hair is a tangled mess.
Carmen barely spares her a glance, already moving for the canisters of the firestarter she left behind. “If you don’t want to burn where you stand, I suggest you run,” she says through clenched teeth. There are only seconds until those wolves reach this room, onlysecondsfor the girl to get out.
She just stares at Carmen, wide-eyed with fear.
“Run, dammit!” Carmen shouts.
But it’s too late. A female with long black hair launches out from the shadows and into the room. She’s still in her human form, hair sweeping through the air behind her as she moves. But her unnatural smile is wicked, her fangs that of a pure monster. She sets her sights on the girl, reaching out to grab her by the neck.
Carmen sends a blade flying, watching as it embeds right into the female’s temple. She squeals, a mask of pain covering her face as dark red blood cascades down her cheek. She falls to the ground with a quiet thud just as two males come flying in behind her. Carmen’s already poised to strike, sending two more blades right for them. The first hits the male on the left in the neck, the second hits the other in the eye.
The girl screams, crouching low to the ground and covering her face with her hands. The dress stretches around her thighs, fabric ripping even more. “Please!” she shouts. “Please get me out of here!”
Carmen’s heart twists. She fists a canister of accelerant in one hand and a new knife from her waistband in the other, moving to stand in front of the girl and waiting for more wolves to come.
But they don’t.
She heaves out a breath. And then another.
What’s left of the pack must have already started fighting each other to claim the Alpha seat—it’s the only thing that makes sense, the only reason there aren’t a dozen werewolves descending on both of them right now. “Stay behind me,” Carmen says quietly as she opens the cap on the canister.
“Okay,” the girl replies, her voice small.
Carmen slowly moves back into the hallway, stepping over the bodies of fallen werewolves. When they both clear the open corridor, Carmen whispers a soft, “Stay here.” She doesn’t wait for the girl to respond. Instead, she inches forward down the hallway, back toward where the pack was congregated. She keeps the blade held high, ready to throw it if anyone comes into view. As she moves, she tilts the canister forward just enough to let the liquid inside begin to pour out.
