“Kodiak.” Raiden’s sharp command jerks me out of my dark spiral.
There’s a sickening crunch and a wheezing gasp, warm blood spraying across my bare leg from accidentally killing the man I forgot I was pinning to the ground. With a grunt, I yank my staff out of his punctured trachea and turn to face the only man keeping Stone and me on track, pointing our path of destruction in the right direction.
“Anything?”
Jaw tense, Raiden wipes the back of his arm across his face, flinging some of the blood and gore painting his features onto the ground with the rest of the carnage. “No.”
A hulking bear lumbers over before shifting back. Bathed in blood and nearly ripped to shreds, it’s a miracle Barlowe is even alive, let alone standing. “My men are taking care of the last of them. I can’t tell you enough how grateful I am that you arrived when you did.”
Raiden scoffs, the sound cold and dismissive as he storms away. “We didn’t do it for you, we hoped one of these bastards knew something useful.Youchose to ignore my warning, Barlowe. Remember that when you have to explain to those kids why their parents are dead.”
Wiping the blood off the end of my staff on the dead man’s shirt, I glance around, taking in the utter devastation of the mountain village and how many innocent people died before we got here.
Shaking my head at the failure of a leader, I follow Raiden. “I cleared every inch of land you gave me and nothing. You?”
“Stone and I hit every pack that aligned with that son of a bitch within fifty miles to the north and east. A few leads, but they all turned out to be dead ends.”
“Are we heading south together then?”
“No.” Raiden pulls out a folded map from his back pocket, the only one of us that’s managed to avoid going on a mindless rampage. The rage and brutality are there, but he’s clung to a tactical approach to sweep areas more efficiently.
Gather every man in the pack into one spot, interrogate them in a group, and if no one talks, burn them all in one fell swoop. No games, no second chances, and no mercy.
Taking the map to the side of a charred husk of what used to be a house, he bites the cap of a marker and tugs it free, crossing out the areas we’ve already searched after Stone’s lead the other day brought us to a heavily populated pro-Mason region. With as many failed ambushes as we’ve all dealt with the past couple of days, we have to be getting close.
Amara is here somewhere. She has to be.
“We’re branching off to canvas areas betweenshifter-claimed territory,” Raiden announces, recapping his marker. Tapping the end against the map, he clarifies, “None of these brainwashed idiots have a fucking clue where he lives, and they think the sun shines out of his ass. From Amara’s stories, he’s paranoid that people will attempt to take her from him. So he’d need a place no one knows about, somewhere able to be defended by one man.”
He swallows, hand trembling slightly as he points out several locations. “That means he’ll need to rely heavily on a security system, so if he’s off grid, he’d require a power source more reliable than leeching off of Amara.” Voice breaking a bit on her name, he hastily clears his throat. “If he’s in the middle of nowhere, that means solar panels, hydroelectricity, or wind turbines.”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then he’s using human cities to his advantage,” he states with conviction, sounding more confident the longer he mulls it over. “Shifters won’t risk attacking a heavily populated human area. He wouldn’t have to leave her alone long for supply runs, and would have all the power he needs on hand.”
“Unless Amara surges and fries it. Any reported blackouts recently?”
Scrubbing a hand down his face, he refuses to meet my eye. “I’ll put Carina on it while you and Stone check out the sections I’ve mapped out next.”
My temper flares, and I yank the map away from him. “You know you’re faster at pulling that sort of information, yet you’re pawning it off? What the fuck are you going to be doing that’s more important?”
“Scouring the cities.”
I scoff. “You think you’re just going to stumble across his house? How the fuck are you going to tell it apart from the rest if he’s not sitting on the porch? She could be chained up in the basement and you’d walk right past without realizing.”
Blowing out a heavy breath, he finally meets my gaze, resignation in his smoky irises. “I’m going to ask for help.” Raiden brings up a picture of Malcolm on his phone from the night of the auction, and it takes everything in my power not to obliterate the damn thing. “I’m going to spread his photo across this entire godsdamned country. It’ll bring a hell of a lot of unwanted attention to our kind, but I really don't give a shit if it means some human catches sight of him leaving a grocery store and leads us back to wherever the sick son of a bitch is keeping our girl.”
My stomach twists, and yet again, I don’t know if it’s Amara, or me projecting my own desperation. “Where do you need me?”
Raiden takes the map back and taps out several locations. Shifting mid-stride, I launch into the air without another word. A sense of foreboding trickles down my spine, and I can’t shake the sinking feeling that we’re almost out of time.
ChapterSix
AMARA
“Take what you want from me, I don’t care anymore.” Sitting on the edge of my bed, I stare down at my hands in my lap, willing them to do something. Anything. “Full permission to take the rest of my control away and bust us out of here, evil Amara. Let the body possession officially commence.” I swallow, voice cracking as I add a whispered, “Please?”
Avery trills from her perch in the cage on my bedside table, and it’s another punch to the gut to see her not only caged, but the look of resignation in her dark eyes. All of her usual fire has been snuffed out, and I’m not faring much better.
