“This is Tierney,” I said hoarsely. “I need extraction.”
Static hissed, stretching the seconds thin.
Then a woman’s voice cut through. She was calm, collected, and unmistakably in control.
“How bad?”
“I was bitten,” I said.
Silence followed for a brief moment before she spoke again.
“Stay where you are,” she said. “Do not leave the clinic.”
The connection cut off.
I slid down against the wall, breathing hard, my shoulder burning, my blood humming like electricity under my skin. Every sound felt too loud. Every shadow seemed to move.
I don’t know how long I waited.
Minutes.
An hour.
Maybe longer.
Then there was a knock.
I didn’t bother asking who it was.
When I opened the door, she stood there like a storm had decided to wear human skin.
Dark hair plastered to her coat from the rain. Eyes pale gray and assessing, taking in everything in a single glance. There was a knife strapped to her thigh.
“My name is Tamsin Drake. I’m the leader of the Accord,” she said. “You look like hell, Tierney.”
Relief and something much more primal than that hit me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
“Come on. We don’t have much time,” she said, pushing past me. I quickly closed the door behind her.
And just like that, my old life ended and my new life began.
Because I’d just found my mate.
CHAPTER 6
Elias
The Watch briefing room was buzzing with activity. There was a table in the middle of the room with a worn paper map of England and Ireland. Half the chairs had been dragged into a rough circle, the rest abandoned in crooked rows like the last people in them had stood up and never come back.
They probably hadn’t.
The survivors of the Watch were there… what was left of them anyway. Men and women pulled from the wreckage of the Isle of Man, patched together with hastily applied bandages and waning adrenaline. Some stared at the map like it might explain how everything had gone so wrong. Others refused to look at it at all.
It was up to me to bring everyone left together.
The Elder Lycan had been killed and the rest of the lycans were gone. They’d retreated back to wherever they’d come from. Likely Ireland, but that was just a guess.
The British soldiers who had fought alongside the Watch had left too. They’d pulled out under cover of night, ships slipping away from the Isle’s coast before anyone could stop them. No farewell. No explanation. They’d just left.
