Page 66 of Dark Dragon’s Wolf

Just a little longer. He had to hang on. For the wolves. For Mayah. His mate.

Inside the complex, the guards were gathered in the security monitoring room, staring at the screens.

“What the fuck is going on?” one of them muttered.

The test subjects—the wolf shifters—were all on their feet, moving to the front of their cells, pressing themselves against the Plexiglass. All staring straight out into the hallway.

“Dunno,” someone else answered, his eyes not leaving the screens. “Full moon?”

“Don’t be an ass,” the supervisor said. “They’re not werewolves.”

“Full moons make even humans crazy. And they are too werewolves.”

More and more test subjects were joining the first ones. Family groups were together, small children in the arms of their parents. They weren’t restless, or angry, or… anything.

They were just there. All at the front of their cages. Staring.

And then, very softly, one of them put his chin up and howled.

It was an eerie sound, sending shivers down more than one spine.

Then another person picked it up, and another, and another.

The noise swelled as all the prisoners joined in, a plaintive, mournful song, going up and down the scale, rising in intensity. The wolves were calling.

In her cell, deep in the central core of the complex, Mayah heard the wolves and raised her head.

Johnson heard them too. “What are you doing?” he said sharply. “Are you setting them off?”

“Not me,” she said.

Gradually, as if the howling somehow was clearing her mind, she could hear the wolves’ thoughts. Faintly at first, but then louder. The dragons are coming. The Wolf is coming. We are here. We are ready. We will fight.

Tristan was on his way. And he had gotten through to them.

And if she could hear them, maybe they could hear her. Just as the thought came to her, the wolves stopped howling.

Warn them! She screamed it as loud as she could in her mind. It’s a trap!

There was one more beat of silence, and then she heard them calling out. Trap! Careful!

And then Tristan’s voice, clear as anything.

We don’t care about fucking traps.

Mayah looked up to see Johnson staring at her. “What are you smiling at?” he demanded.

Mayah let her smile grow predatory. “You’ll see.”

Johnson hit the button on his headset, but it was too late.

Chapter 31

The dragons dove out of the sky, taking the complex by surprise.

The ones carrying Flynn and his team landed on the roof of the prison section. The Bad Bloods jumped off the dragons and unfurled ropes and grappling hooks from their packs, rappelling to the ground on either side of the building.

From inside the building, wolfsong burst forth, filled the night.