Clarissa swears and stalks over. “You’re a bloody mess,” she hisses, dragging me by the back of my sweater away from the stinking pile of vomit.
I gag, but my stomach’s empty. She throws a rag over the mess, and while her back’s turned, Red Hawk consumes me. Now or never. My alphas are coming, but they might not make it before that bitch en route.
From the very beginning, I’ve been a fighter.
With my thumb on my opposite hand, I tease the knife down inside my sleeve until the tip pokes out by my wrist. The serrated blade scrapes my skin, but I ignore it, sawing the tip through the plastic bonds.
“What the fuck?” Clarissa catches the noise and turns just as the tie around my wrist snaps. I lurch forward, knife fully in hand, to saw my ankle restraints apart.
Clarissa leaps onto me, knocking the knife out of my grip. It skitters across the floor to land in a pool of lamplight, but I already cut halfway through my restraint. I kick furiously and the last of the cable tie snaps apart.
“You bitch!” Clarissa screams.
Pain flares up my neck, but adrenaline keeps me moving. I dive into my other sleeve and pull out my glorious Fabby McStabby 2.0. Her glass handle slides smoothly into my hand.
I can’t say if I aim. All I know is I refuse to let this woman drag me anywhere. The sharp, silver tines descend. Screams break the quiet night air; could even be mine since my neck feels like it’s tearing apart. Hot blood splashes over my hands.
Gasping with effort, I lurch upright, skidding and tripping until I reach the bench. My hands close on the cold metal of the gun. Clarissa shrieks, and a force slams into my back and I spin, knocking the lamp onto the floor. Darkness descends as the flame disappears behind the cupboards, but the screaming woman punches my back and yanks my hair. Agony shoots up my shoulder.
I fall, but my hands lock around the weapon.
I’ve seen this countless times in movies. Alpha Spy lives with one of these in his waistband. Pierce and Josef cleaned their weapons on my kitchen table, and I carried a fake one when I rescued Zack.
I slide my thumb until it catches. The click echoes loudly in my ears until my back hits the floor. Fire blazes to life near my head, reflecting off pieces of shattered glass as the lamp oil seeps across the floor.
The gun goes off, burning in my eardrums and echoing in my head. The shrieking woman falls limply across my chest, weight pinning me as she gasps and grows silent.
For a moment, my rasped breaths are the only noise in the room.
And then the fire explodes into ferocious life, slurping up the shelves and reaching burning fingers toward my hair.
I scream and roll away, shoving Clarissa off me and crawling toward the entrance. As I fling the door open, headlights sweep across the shack. Friend, or foe?
The bond surges with fear and joy, and I go limp, one leg dangling out onto the step. A crazed smile lifts my lips.
My alphas came for me.
Chapter fifty-nine
Rickon
“Red!” I scream as our car screeches to a stop in a shower of gravel.
My omega hangs through a doorway, blood spattered across her white pullover, a pistol dangling from one hand. She welcomes our arrival with a smile.
A billow of flames wreath her back, pouring inky smoke through the top of the doorway. “Get away from the fire!” Callisto shouts, throwing himself out of the car.
Zack flies past him, arriving at Red’s side before I can even get out of the car. He gathers her up in his arms and lifts her clear. Flames race up her back, and Callisto throws his jacket over her head to smother them.
Heart pounding, I run up to them and catch her face in my hands.
Red sighs happily. “You came,” she murmurs wearily.
The meaning loaded behind those words brings me to tears; the waiting alone in the dark for years, through the heats, the madness, the voices in her head.
I kiss her smudged forehead, trembling all over. “Of course we came.”
Suddenly she thrashes out of our grip and turns toward the burning building. “The laptop!” she shouts. “There’s evidence.”
