"Zayn, what is it?" I kept a gun pressed into Stanley's upper back and shoved him forward, back toward the entry of the house.
"They aren't here!" Zayn came back, his claws on full display and eyes flashing feral. "Where are they?"
Stanley squealed like a pig as Zayn stabbed him in the stomach. "I… I don't know!"
"Why is she here? What did you do to her?" Zayn twisted his hand and Stanley screamed. "Tell me!"
"Mar… Marcos sold her… her to Ch… Chad." The man coughed and tried pulling out the five claws buried deep in his gut. "P… P… Please."
"Zayn." Kingston put his hand on his shoulder. "Don't-"
With his other hand, Zayn stabbed his claws right through Stanley's chest. Stanley gasped and then tried to speak, but the only sound that left his mouth was the sound of blood coming up his throat and spilling out..
I backed up, letting him fall to the ground. Zayn's claws dripped blood and his chest heaved. He'd gone off the deep end, and judging by the look in his eyes and his posture, one wrong move would send him even deeper.
The sound of engines revving came from down the hall, and our heads snapped in that direction. Kingston bolted toward the door before Zayn had the chance to go in front of him. I ran after them, unsure what we should do about the dead man bleeding out in the entry.
We only missed the two of them by a fewseconds, the smell of exhaust and human blood in the air. One of them was bleeding, but not enough to stop him from taking off on an ATV.
Zayn ran after them, already yanking off his clothes to shift. Kingston and I exchanged glances and did the same. There wasn't a chance in hell any of us were letting them get away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kingston
Killing a man changes a person. But watching your best friend show no mercy was just as bad. Zayn had killed Stanley with such a detached look on his face that I was concerned he was about to kill the other two men and whoever else got in his way.
As far as I knew, he hadn't killed anyone before. But the way he looked when he stabbed his claws through Stanley's chest made me think otherwise. I didn't know what he'd been through when he lived with his family, so it was a possibility.
Even if you think you know someone, do you ever truly know everything about them?
As we ran after Zayn, I hoped we could catch him before he killed the two men. We needed to have someone left alive to give us the answers we needed. We could have gone back to get the guy we tied up in Marcos's basement, but I also didn't want to return to the scene of our first crime. The last thing we needed was to deal with the human police on top of the coalition.
Our speed was a little faster than the ATVs, and we slowly gained on them as they crossed the rough terrain of the forest. We were built for the chase and navigating the wild. As we got farther and farther away from the house, the trees and ground were rougher, slowing the ATVs down.
I could smell Wren, which meant she wasn't masking her scent and was on the run. What I couldn't smell was Zayn's sister anymore. I had at first, but now her scent had vanished. Had she gone in a different direction? Was it possible she'd been taken somewhere else by another guy we weren't aware of?
Wren escaping was impressive. Everything about her was. She was a fighter and could take care ofherself. But why should she have to when she had us?
My head was still spinning from what I'd seen in the back of my SUV. I should have told Sullivan and Zayn what had happened with her healing Sullivan with glowing hands. It was like he was never injured in the first place.
If fox shifters were like wolf shifters, she shouldn't have had that ability. We had speed and better senses, and if we belonged in a pack, we could have communicated through mental links. But never had I heard of any wolf shifter being able to heal someone.
There were a lot of things we needed to discuss with Wren if we got that chance.
Whenwe got that chance.
Why had she decided to stay and try to help me? Was the coalition going to come and take me away to prison? What did that mean for keeping our kind a secret?
Until she had shown up, I'd been doing a good job of keeping Marcos at bay. But with her distracting me, I'd let my guard down. Did I really want to live the rest of my life under Marcos's thumb, not being able to even breathe?
After we got Wren and Zayn's sister to safety, weneeded to find out where Marcos was keeping the videos and who had copies. If we could destroy them, I could be free to live my life. He needed to be stopped, and if that meant I got blood on my hands, then so be it.
The thought of female wolves being trafficked made fury boil in my blood, and I sped up, catching up to Zayn. I wished we had a mental link, but we weren't a pack. There were enough wolves in Crescent Valley to start one, but the whole reason we were there in the first place was to get away from that life.
A life that made us feel like nothing more than animals that couldn't control ourselves. Watching Zayn chase those men with teeth bared and saliva dripping like he was hungry for blood reminded me that wewereanimals. Sometimes all it took was one incident for someone to be lost to their wolf, and I hoped that this wasn't Zayn's moment.
One of the men, who I recognized as Mateo, looked over his shoulder and cursed. He fumbled with something at his front and then turned around, pointing a gun right at me. He never got a chance to fire because, out of nowhere, Sullivan came from his left and jumped on his back, knocking him from the ATV.
