Forsythe, Court, and Piers crouch over them, scanning the crowd, looking for more danger, while I stand tall, gun inmy hand, guards flanking me. My prime meets my eye, asking wordlessly if I want to go. If I want to chase the arsehole who would dare to do this down.
I do. God, I fucking do.
I want to rip and tear and pummel.
He gives a tight nod. “We’ve got her,” he reassures me. “Go do what you need to do.”
With that permission, my head snaps up and I’m moving. I should say something to Ren, should reassure her that I’ll be back soon and that feeling only grows when I hear her call out my name.
But I can’t stop.
I need to find the motherfucker who tried to assassinate my mate. Even if she wasn’t the target, she came far too close to a bullet for my liking. Far too close to no longer being in this world.
As I bound down the stairs and push my way through the crowd, I make a promise to myself that when I get back to her, when I return to her side, I’m going to hold her close and never let her go. My bond mark is going on her neck, and hers on mine.
We’ve already decided this.
Damn the queen and her expectations. Florence is ours. She’s fucking ours and it’s time for us to claim her.
“Sir,” one of our guards meets me as I burst through the doors.
“Where?” I snarl, my alpha dominance bursting through in my aggression.
He motions to the left and I take off at a run. Without hesitation he’s behind me, his words quick and precise. “Moss followed on foot. Fellows took the car to try to head him off.”
I don’t waste breath on a response, just keep running, blood thundering and heart pumping with the need to getrevenge. My rage fuels me, my need to hunt this motherfucker down and rip him apart, rip apart any threat to my mate.
“Copy,” Mathers says. “They have him cornered.”
A grin spreads over my mouth at the news. “Where?”
Hours later, I stumble into the building where my mate has been staying. Not her home, I know. I can’t call it that.
My blood is still high. Even after a few hours spent on extracting information from the man who tried to kill her. By all rights I should be exhausted. It's the early hours and my muscles are trembling from overuse.
But I didn’t get the answer I needed. Didn’t get the name of the person who hired a hitman to go after Florence. He stubbornly stated over and over that he acted alone. That no one hired him. That he just didn’t like the way our pack was handling the Isadora situation.
I didn’t buy it. And neither did any of the men in the room with me.
Either the queen or Isadora did this.
After what happened this morning, I wouldn’t be surprised if they worked together to come up with this half-cocked plan. Even less surprised to find out it’s been a contingency for the queen ever since we brought Florence here.
We can’t exactly bond our mate when she has a bullet in her head.
A displeased growl rumbles out of me as I move into the hallway outside Florence’s flat. The two guards outside the door tense at the sound of the elevator but relax when they catch sight of me.
Good.
I don’t want anyone getting lazy while watching over my mate, especially after the bullshit that just happened.
They move aside as I approach the door, not batting an eye when I freeze with my hand on the knob. My hand, covered in blood that isn’t mine. I glance down at my shirt, which had been a pristine white when I’d left Florence at the ballet, but now is splattered in red.
Bollocks.
I should have gone to a hotel first, cleaned up and gotten new clothes.
She doesn’t need to see this.
