Thankfully, he ended up landing on his feet. He took off at a fast sprint, rain splashing his face, soaking through his clothes within seconds. The chill served to only sharpen his focus.
Hale and Karissa were a good three hundred yards ahead of him and moving fast through the other apartment buildings and then across a grassy field. Whoever they were, these supernaturals were very fast.
Carter pushed hard, appreciating the fact that foot speed was one area where an omega could match an alpha—and sometimes beat them. That proved to be the case this time as he finally caught up with the other two. But as he reached Karissa at the edge of the field that separated the apartment complex from the nearby shopping area, she slid to a sudden stop. He was worried about what that meant, but then his inner omega shoved that concern aside, forcing him to keep running. He had to catch the man running ahead of them. As far as his inner wolf was concerned, it was the most important thing in the world.
He was only twenty or so feet behind Hale and the fleeing supernatural when it hit him. While he could now smell his pack mate, he couldn’t pick up much of anything from the guy they were chasing. Even with the limitation of his nose, he should have been able to smell at least something. But all he got was a muddled mess of nothing.
The man they were chasing crossed the parking lot of the small outlet mall, turning down a long narrow alleyway between two stores. Carter expected the guy to have a vehicle parked at the other end somewhere, so he was surprised when the guy simply stopped halfway down the alley and spun around to face them.
It was another one of the escaped convicts from Coffield. Carter recognized him from the fed briefing as the guy who’d been involved in human trafficking for years. That was the moment he also realized this guy smelled almost exactly the same as the one he’d fought in the woods. That shouldn’t have been possible.
As Carter watched, the man’s features began to change, his lower jaw dropping down and widening until his mouth was big enough to swallow a basketball. As creepy as that image was, it paled in comparison when he realized the guy had the teeth to fit the enlarged jawline—big, jagged, and conical-shaped. Like a frigging crocodile. Well, that certainly explained the size of the bite marks on those two homeless people and the guy back in the apartment building.
Not carrying any weapons, Carter knew the only option was to deal with this hand-to-hand. With a growl, he leaped forward, Hale right there with him, trying to alter his direction to come at the man from the side. But Carter quickly figured out why the guy had decided to confront them in this particular alleyway. The space between the two buildings was too narrow to allow both Carter and Hale to get at the man at the same time. Not unless they were standing damn near shoulder to shoulder, which would have them practically bouncing off each other.
He hated to admit it, but this escaped con was smarter than he’d given the guy credit for. He’d lured them to this alley because it put him in the best position to deal with them one-on-one.
Carter charged first, fist swinging, and damn near losing a hand as the creature snapped its jaws at him exactly like that crocodile he’d envisioned earlier. Deciding to stop playing nice, Carter let his claws extend, not caring if it’d be difficult to explain the slash marks. This guy was trying to eat them!
As pack mates, Carter and Hale had fought beside each other for years, so they were able to move around each other with practiced ease. But no matter how fast they darted and how hard they punched and slashed, neither of them could land a decisive blow. The damn guy simply stepped back every time he and Hale got too close, refusing to engage when he didn’t have to. And he never charged forward to attack, even when Carter or Hale left themselves wide open in an attempt to lure him in. Hell, the man was barely fighting back.
The supernatural had backed nearly the entire length of the alley before it finally hit Carter. The guy wasn’t interested in fighting back. Not because he was scared of them, but because he wasn’t here to fight. He was here to draw them away from the apartment complex. Carter got a sinking feeling in his gut as he realized this entire attack had been nothing more than a ploy to separate him from Hadley.
Shit.
“I have to get back to Hadley!” he shouted, taking a step back. “This was all a trick to get her alone!”
Hale cursed, though whether it was at the realization that they’d been tricked or because Carter was leaving him on his own to deal with the guy and all those teeth, Carter wasn’t sure. Regardless, he didn’t have time to care. Hadley was in danger.
His head was spinning so much, Carter barely registered anything around him as he sprinted back to the apartment building as fast as his terror-stricken body would allow. There was a part of him aware that he was on the verge of losing control again. The world was already becoming blurry and indistinct as his inner omega tried to take over. He expected that dark curtain to fall at any moment, shutting him out completely.
The only thing keeping him even the least bit in control was the fear that he was as likely to hurt Hadley in his omega haze as help her. He had to keep it together long enough to deal with the threat, or at least get her to safety.
Carter was shocked when he reached Karissa and Hale’s apartment building, not remembering crossing the open field, much less the collection of other buildings he’d run by on the way out. He took the steps three at a time as he dashed past people hurrying in the opposite direction in a panic. But the moment he reached the landing, his nose told him that Hadley wasn’t there anymore. Her scent was coming from higher up the staircase. The odor of the injured man’s blood filling the second floor had his omega scratching and clawing to take over completely, and it was all Carter could do to get the small rational part of his mind left to wonder why she hadn’t headed for the exit with everyone else. He could only pray she was safely still tending to the victim.
But that hope was dashed the moment he reached the next floor and realized Hadley’s scent was still moving up the staircase. His omega howled, not understanding what was happening as he continued upward to the top floor.
Carter’s gut clenched when he saw the lock bar mechanism on the door that led to the roof shattered to pieces. Then he heard the sound of crashing and growling and stopped thinking completely.
He came out onto the roof, his omega-muddled senses taking several moments to comprehend everything in front of him. There were five people on the roof—two more of the escapees with their oversized mouths full of crocodile teeth, Karissa, Hadley…and Strickland.
Karissa was off to the left side of the roof, fighting to get past one of the supernaturals with her sword. Even with the weapon, she still couldn’t get to Hadley, who was all the way across the roof, using a row of air-conditioner units to keep Strickland and the second supernatural creature at bay. Every time the men tried to reach her by darting around one of the units, Hadley would move to another, always keeping one of the big pieces of metal between her and them. Her game of keep away seemed to be driving the nameless creature into a rage. Strickland, on the other hand, simply gave her a menacing smile as he stalked Hadley. Like he knew he’d catch her sooner or later.
That sight was terrifying enough but seeing the blood on Hadley’s arms—even if it didn’t smell like hers—sent Carter charging forward, his inner omega raging at the thought of her being in danger. Just then, the supernatural with Strickland leaped atop the nearest AC unit with a frustrated sound, clearly tired of playing this game.
Hadley stumbled back as the creature launched himself at her, falling backward onto the gravel-covered rooftop. She tried to scramble away, but the man was too fast. He was beside her in a flash, Strickland quickly closing in from the other side.
Just like that, Carter’s omega took over and he was pushed into the figurative back seat again. But for some reason, this time he retained an awareness of what was happening. Like he was watching from the sidelines as his body partially shifted and charged forward in a blur.
Carter’s omega slammed into the supernatural about to jump on Hadley, shoving him violently away from the most important person in the world to him. The creature tried to latch onto Carter’s arm as the two of them went down, rolling across the roof.
Fighting to avoid those snapping jaws, Carter tried to keep an eye on Strickland at the same time. When the asshole continued moving toward Hadley, his omega roared his outrage, turning to slash at the creature’s chest savagely, forcing him to tumble backward across the roof toward the edge even as Carter cringed at the fact that those slashes were going to be impossible to cover up.
But a second later, his omega was up and running toward Hadley, moving to get between her and Strickland, concerned only about her safety.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Karissa smash the hilt of her sword against the head of the creature she’d been fighting. A few hundred feet away, the supernatural Carter’s omega had knocked down was slowly crawling to his feet, looking expectantly at Strickland, as if awaiting orders.
Carter’s omega growled at Strickland long and low, ready to attack the man and his minion the second they took a single step toward Hadley.
