Mira was right behind her, both of them sprinting down the hallway with the babies in their arms. Heading for the back of the house. Heading for an escape route I hadn’t known about.
I didn’t think about it. Didn’t weigh the options or consider the consequences. My daughter was in the arms of a madwoman, being carried away from me, and nothing else mattered.
I ran after them.
Behind me, I heard Lucio shout something. Heard Hunt yell my name. But I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Blake was crying, her wails echoing through the hallway, and every sob was a knife in my heart.
The hallway was narrow, too narrow for me to shift fully, but I was faster than Mary even in human form. I was gaining on her. A few more seconds and I’d be close enough to grab her, to rip my daughter from her arms, to end this once and for all.
I was maybe ten feet behind her when I heard the shot.
The sound was deafening in the enclosed space, echoing off the walls, making my ears ring. For a split second, I didn’t understand what had happened. Didn’t feel anything.
Then the pain hit.
It exploded through my shoulder, white-hot and blinding, spreading through my entire body like liquid fire. I stumbled, my legs suddenly refusing to work right, and crashed into the wall.
I looked down and saw blood. My blood, spreading across my shirt, pulsing from a wound in my shoulder. The bullet had hit me from behind. Lucio. That fucking coward had shot me in the back.
Mary and Mira disappeared around a corner, taking Blake and Thomas with them.
I tried to push off the wall. Tried to keep chasing. But my body wasn’t cooperating anymore. The pain was too much, everything going fuzzy around the edges.
I slid down the wall, leaving a smear of red on the paint, and collapsed onto the floor.
The last thing I heard before everything went dark was Blake crying.
Then there was nothing.
33
— • —
Lina
“What the hell was that?!”
The gunshot was still ringing in my ears as I shoved past Noah and Cole, bursting through the front door of the cabin. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear anything else. The men cursed behind me, trying to catch up, but I was already moving.
The pain in my arm from the rogue attack was getting worse, throbbing with every step. And now my shoulder was starting to hurt too, a sharp, burning pain that didn’t make any sense because nothing had touched my shoulder.
Unless...
Unless it wasn’t my pain I was feeling.
We burst into a living room and I saw him.
Lucio was standing near the hallway, a gun in his hand, the barrel still smoking. He was pointing it at something, someone, and when I followed the line of his aim, my breathing stopped.
Hunt was there, kneeling on the floor, his hands pressed against a figure lying in a pool of blood. A figure I would recognize anywhere. In any form. In any light.
Knox.
My mate was on the ground, bleeding like his father had been bleeding just hours ago. His shirt was soaked with red, his face pale, his eyes closed. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t moving and there was so much blood and oh god, please, no, please don’t let him be-
“Knox!”
I screamed his name as I ran to him, dropping to my knees beside Hunt, my hands reaching for my mate without any idea what to do. Blood was everywhere. On the floor. On Hunt’s hands. Spreading in a dark pool beneath Knox’s body.
