I don’t want to leave her right now. I can feel how afraid she is, and I just want to wrap my arms around her and protect her. But I have to think about the pack and my family as well. On top of that, if this is related to Addison, I need to get to the bottom of it. It’s the only way I can actually protect her.
Nora grabs a couple of things and leads Addison out of the house to walk the short distance to Tara’s. As soon as they’re gone, Declan gives us the plan, telling us where the vans were spotted and how we’ll infiltrate them with the larger group we’re meeting.
We race out of the house, shifting without undressing and ripping our clothes to tatters. It doesn’t take long before we meet a group of other pack members, already shifted, ready to head off and find the vans.
Declan leads the charge with me, Cole, and Kyran not far behind.
We run until we hear the wheels of the armored vans crackling against the gravel road.
Kyran runs out in front of one. The driver tries to veer out of the way as quickly as he can when an oversized, angry bear blocks the path of the road, but he ends up crashing his van into a ditch. The other skids to a stop right behind it.
We hear footsteps on the ground and the clinking of metal from guns. Before they have a chance to raise one weapon and point at Kyran, the rest of us descend upon them.
Everything moves quickly, and the adrenaline in my veins empowers me as I lunge forward and knock over the driver. He falls to the ground, staring up at me with wild terror in his eyes. All I can wonder is if Addison looked at them like this when they held her to a table and electrocuted her.
My teeth sink into his neck with ease, tearing through the straps of the bulletproof vest he wore as if we would be using guns against them. His blood is tangy and metallic on my tongue, and I see how it stains the tip of my nose.
I leave him on the road, blood leaking from his neck and shining in the moonlight. When I turn around, another man has a gun aimed at me. He fires, but I manage to roll out of the way in time to avoid it. Chaos unfolds around us. All I hear is growling, yelping, and gunshots from firing recklessly. The smell of blood is heavy in the air, and the iron of gunpowder quickly follows it.
I reach out and swipe at the legs of the man who shot at me. He falls to the ground, dropping his gun, and scrambles to try to stand. I bite his ankles, making him scream loud enough that birds fly from the tree top above us.
I don’t waste a moment savoring this even though a part of me would like to. I climb on top of him and bite his neck just like the first one. I leave him limp on the ground before turning around and seeing that most of the fight is over.
Declan’s wolf, a sharp and magnificent white that appears almost luminescent against the moonlight, is dripping in blood. I’m concerned for a moment before he stands tall and proud over one defeated person, and I realize none of it is his.
I scan the battlefield and see that almost all of the men from the vans are dead, with the exception of the one Declan is standing above. We shift back into human form, trying to figure out what’s going on. In everything that happened, we lost two of our pack members.
Cole stays back by the vans with a few others to search through everything. Any evidence of what they’re doing, orders, etc., is useful for us. Some others carry our dead back to their homes so they can be properly mourned, while Declan, Kyran, and I carry our new captive back to the house. “Let me go, and Iswear I’ll tell them you guys weren’t here,” the man pleads with us as we drag him through the dirt.
In almost no time at all, we’re back home, and he’s locked in the basement, covered in dirt and mud from being dragged here. The three of us put on clothes and prepare for the interrogation. We know what we’re going in there to find. There’s no doubt in our mind that he works for Axiom, and we need whatever information we can get. Kyra and I both follow Declan down the stairs. The man watches us with wide eyes as he waits for us to speak.
“Unlike you and your companions at Axiom, we actually know kindness,” Declan begins, his face an unmoving stone as he speaks. “I’m going to offer you a deal you won’t want to refuse. Tell us everything you know about Axiom and the project you’re working on, and we’ll let you go. If you lie to us, and we’ll know if you do, I’ll kill you right now.”
The man nods his head fervently and sits up straighter. “Look, it’s just a job. Ask me anything. I-I have a family.”
“Why are you targeting shifters?” I ask, my arms folded in front of me.
“Because you guys are special. You have abilities and traits that could save humanity. You can heal faster, you can shape shift, and you’re stronger than the average person. By understanding you and trying to bestow these abilities upon the masses, we could be immortal.”
“Is that what they told you in your training video?” Kyran scoffs.
The man doesn’t say anything.
“What happened to all the people at the facility?” Declan asks. His voice is low and icy. “All the people who disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” He wrinkles his brow and tries to read more deeply, then realization dawns on him. “The girl is here then.”
“Answer my question,” Declan demands.
My blood boils at the mention of Addison. Seeing him, someone who very well could have had his hands on her, makes me irate.
“Some of them couldn’t handle the serum. It was too much.” He doesn’t have to give any more details for us to know what he means.
They’ve killed them.
The research that is allegedly for the good of humankind is killing shifters. It could have killed Addison if she hadn’t gotten out when she did.
“Did you hurt her?” I ask before I can think any better of it. “Did you put your hands on my mate and hurt her?”
