by Ava Williams
He felt strangely warm around her. Loved. Appreciated. Even then, just seeing her, he felt warmer and happier.
He stood and met her with a kiss. “Molly.”
Her golden eyes locked with his as she smiled. “Titus.”
Titus pulled her chair out for her before joining her at the table. The attendant said something about coming by in a second to take their order, but he wasn’t listening. He couldn’t think about anything other than Molly across the table and her eyes and how he loved her. The world fell away until it was just her, her black hair framing her face and a sparkle in her eye.
“What?” she finally laughed.
“Just admiring you.” He smiled. He wasn’t sure that he was the domestic type, but if he ever settled down with someone, it would be her.
She smirked and looked away bashfully. He cleared his throat and pulled himself back to reality. He snagged the menu and looked through it, but all he could think about was what the night would hold for them. Now that she was here, his nerves had settled a bit, but still—admitting affection and vulnerability was not exactly something he was comfortable with.
Their dinner started casually and easily. It was comfortable and natural, and the conversation flowed. They didn’t do many fancy dinners like this. Every now and then, he wanted to go out and spoil her, but usually, most of the meals came from any of the nice restaurants at the compound. This was a special night, and he wanted it to make it count.
Titus slowly loosened up. This didn’t seem so scary anymore. After all, he was just going to tell someone that he loved that he loved them. He was fairly certain she felt the same way, and it was easier to be vulnerable with her than with anyone else.
Halfway through the dinner, as they both ate, he decided it was time to lay it all out. Fuck it. The plan was to wait until dessert, but he couldn’t hold it in any longer. He decided to segue into it carefully.
“Did you get the stone working?”
She snorted. “No, no I did not. I had something come up that, uh . . . distracted me?”
“Everything’s okay, I assume?” He winced as he heard himself slip into boss mode. It was second nature.
She gave him a long look like she was studying him for the first time, before she flashed him a slightly nervous smile. “I hope so! I’ll find out soon.”
“Work is going well?”
She kept picking at her food in what was probably the most formulaic, awkward conversation that they had ever had the luxury of experiencing. “Well, kind of. I’m making progress, but I found one with a lingering curse and some curse residue kind of passed to me. I’m fine, but for some reason, I’m now allergic to cayenne pepper. I think it’ll wear off.”
That was enough to shake him out of his stupor. “What? Really?”
She laughed. “Yeah.”
“That’s crazy.”
She looked down. “Yeah.”
“So.” He took a fortifying swallow of wine. “I asked you here today for a reason.”
She looked up at him while she ate, studying him curiously. She’d been acting a bit oddly all night, but for a second, she froze like he was about to tell her off. “I have something to tell you too.”
He cleared his throat. Fuck, why was this so difficult? “I have something to tell you, something that I’ve been thinking about for a while now.”
He felt an energy thrumming through his core. He felt like he wanted to get up and go fight something, but he fought his instincts and made himself keep talking. “I can’t explain our connection at the start, but I’ve enjoyed getting to know you better, and . . .” He trailed off. I love you. “I look forward to continuing.”
He felt a stab of disappointment. At himself. What the hell was that? All that buildup, and he chickened out? A puzzled look came over Molly’s face and she laughed, stabbing her pasta with a fork and bringing it up closer to her mouth. “Um. Me too? Was that why you called me—”
“I love you.”
His gut tightened the second the words slipped out. The conversation stopped dead in its tracks. Molly froze with the pasta hanging off the fork, her mouth open. Her eyes widened and she stared at him with shock. “What?”
He tried to say it again, but it just wouldn’t come out. “You heard me.”
She eyed him in shock as a smile spread on her face. She put the fork down and came over to his side of the table, pulling him into a bear hug. “I love you too, Titus.”
The second the words hit his ears, relief washed through him. Peaceful, sweet relief. It was like he could breathe again. He pulled her into his arms and fought the rising tide of emotion in his chest. He felt so peaceful. No, it was more than that. He was better than that, better than he’d ever been before. He couldn’t help grinning and admiring her, embracing her as he tried to not get emotional. What the fuck was this? Why did she have such influence like this? For fuck’s sake, nothing made him emotional!
She stayed latched against him, but he felt her body trembling beneath his hands.
“Are you okay?” he asked her. He looked down at her in concern.
“Yeah.” She looked up at him with a tearful grin. “That’s going to make what I’m going to tell you a lot easier to say. Titus . . .” She bit her lip and looked down, then looked back up and locked eyes with him. “I’m—”
And then, he saw the flames coming from the compound in the distance.
15
Molly had waited all night to wait for the right moment to tell Titus that she was carrying his child.
She planned it out. Waited for her moment. He clearly had something on his mind all night, and she decided it would be best to let him talk before she told him, especially because she had no idea what he had to say—only that it was important and a big deal to him.
And then it came out—he loved her, and the uncharacteristic display of vulnerability shocked and thrilled her to her marrow. Emotionally, with relief coursing through her body and a newfound courage, she opened her mouth to tell the man she loved that she was pregnant with his child.
She locked eyes with him, and everything fell away. His hands still rested on her hips from the hug. “Titus . . . I’m—”
And then Titus, dear, sweet Titus, the man she loved, the father of her child, looked over her shoulder and tensed up.
“What the fuck is that?” he growled.
He dropped his arms and took a few steps toward the windows, leaving her standing there like an idiot with the word pregnant almost out. She faltered for a second, still in shock. After all that buildup, after everything, he . . . got distracted?
She turned around to watch and suddenly, she knew exactly what distracted him: the compound on the other side of town, nestled in the forest, was ablaze. It was too far to see much from where they were, but it was obvious that something was on fire.
Her heart caught in her throat as he whirled away with a curse. “Fuck! Molly, come with me.”
He barked it like an order, but truth be told, she would have followed him anyway. She hustled after him as he jogged to the door, brushing past the startled attendant standing at the front door.
“Wait, sir, is everything okay?”
He ignored her, tossing some cash in her general direction and storming towards the door. “Bring my car around!”
By the time that they got outside, his car was waiting. The valet got out with a massive grin and stared at Titus like he was expecting to get the biggest tip on the planet from a billionaire, but Titus jumped in and jammed it into drive—giving Molly just enough time to sit down before they rocketed forward. She slammed against the comfortable seat as a bolt of adrenaline pumped through her body. Hastily, hands shaking, she fumbled with the seat belt.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she finally jammed it into place.
“I don’t know,” he growled at her before he punched a button on the dash. “Call Seth,” he barked at the car.
It rang for a few seconds as they zoomed through the stre
ets at twice the speed limit and twice Molly’s limit. She felt like she was sinking into the seat, knuckles white as she curled her fists into the leather upholstery. She trusted Titus’s driving, right? They zipped around a car and her courage continued to drop. Of course, Titus was also immortal. This wasn’t her comfort zone, not at all. Even though she knew Titus was a good driver, she couldn’t help but tighten up every time they narrowly missed crashing.
Seth picked up on the other side as Molly weighed the pros and cons of violently dying in a car crash. “You see the fire? I’m on it!”
The engine roared as Titus swerved into an open lane on the freeway and floored it, which is about when Molly realized that while they’d been going fast before, it was absolutely nothing compared to what the vehicle was capable of. The car responded beautifully, which was too bad, because it left Molly’s guts somewhere about fifty feet back. This was it. This was how she died. At least she didn’t stand a chance of getting injured. She couldn’t see the speedometer fully, but she could see that the marker for 100 miles an hour was less than whatever they were doing. No, at this speed, if they crashed, there was no surviving and walking away with a broken leg. They’d be a splatter, like a bug against a windshield.
Titus expertly maneuvered through traffic with nerves of steel, zipping down an exit towards the compound. “What happened?” he barked into the Bluetooth audio. “Did you call the fire department yet?”
“They’re on their way,” Seth replied. Shouts and a struggle sounded on his end of the phone. “Someone got in, we don’t know how. It looks like Brothers’ work. They broke into R and D, then lit it up. They got away with something—one of our residents saw them escaping and called it in, but they’re long gone.”
“Fuck!” Titus swerved around a bend in the road. At least now, they could see the forest. “Anyone hurt?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Seth responded. “A few rattled wolves, but nothing bad. It was after-hours. It was empty.”
“How’d they get in?” Titus hauled ass up to the compound. In the headlights, a guard hastily ran to open the gates before he drove straight through them.
“They avoided the guards,” Seth replied. “This . . . this was an inside job.”
Titus slammed on the brakes as the compound came into view, jammed the car into park and jumped out—rushing towards the fire that raged in the distance.
Molly chose to do other things.
Namely, Molly chose to stay in the car and melt into a nervous Molly puddle.
She stared blankly at the compound in front of her. It felt like she’d lost her brain a couple turns back and it hadn’t quite caught up yet. Slowly, she fumbled for the door handle and opened it, climbing out on shaky legs. She made it two steps before she doubled over and puked. In the movies, they showed the hero getting out triumphantly, but they never showed it when the sidekick puked their guts out while the main character went off to do stuff. Maybe it was the pregnancy, or maybe she just had an aversion to almost dying in high-speed car rides, but she felt like she was close to passing out.
She straightened and took a deep breath through her nose. She’d made it. That, or she’d died in a fiery car crash and death looked a suspicious amount like normal life.
A building on the far side of the compound, partially obscured by the other structures, was ablaze. Bright orange flames soared up to the sky, and billowing black smoke blotted out the moon and stars. Shouts echoed nearby, and sirens wailed as emergency services raced to the scene.
She still felt like she had melted into a nervous puddle, but she collected herself and sloshed her way to the fire to help. The sirens became unbearably loud as she ran around the side of the building to find the Research and Development building ablaze. The structure itself was huge, a modern marvel with beautiful windows and the sort of look that one might expect from an Aerospace museum. Or, at least, at one point it looked like that. Now, it looked like the fire was kicking its ass now, though—the roof had caved in, the structural supports on the side were giving way, and the glass had either melted or broken and covered the ground around them. Slowly and surely, the building collapsed, bit by bit. With the black night sky surrounding the bright flames, it looked surprisingly beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
Wolves scattered away from it, though a few were spraying it with fire extinguishers and water hoses. It didn’t make much of a dent. The heat was so powerful that even fifty feet away, she felt like she was getting too close, like she might walk away without eyebrows if she wasn’t careful. For a moment, she stood in shock and awe at the fire before her, at the sheer power that it held.
Seth rushed past her with a fleet of other wolves, bringing more fire extinguishers. Right at the base of the building, close enough that he was in danger of stuff falling on him, Titus stood. His powerful stature was outlined by the flames, giving him an incredible appearance as he barked orders and organized the efforts to put it out.
As she jumped to help with the efforts, she saw a figure stumbling out of the burning building, tripping through the flamesm and scrambling to safety. Titus and Seth, along with a few of the other wolves, helped the guy escape. Based on his coveralls, he was a janitor, even with all the soot covering his clothes. He doubled over, coughing and gagging before looking back at the building in a panic.
“Jack! Jack’s still in there!” he said, gasping for breath.
Titus looked towards the burning, massive building. “Fuck! Where was he last?”
The guy pointed up to the second floor as he clutched his throat and wheezed. Titus let out another curse. He looked back toward the road—looking for emergency vehicles, Molly assumed—and when he saw none, he grabbed one of the hoses and doused himself with the cold water.
Suddenly, Molly realized what he was doing, but before she could process it, her mate turned and ran without hesitation into the burning building.
16
Titus had expected it to be hot.
But holy fuck, he had no idea until he pushed his way through the broken front doors and entered the inferno.
Even doused with water, in a second, he felt dry again as the water heated and steamed. The heat hit him like a punch to the face, hot enough to knock him back and make him gag.
His clothes still hung heavy around him, but he felt like every second that he was inside was a moment closer to death. The interior of the building, which had once featured a nice lobby with escalators and stairs, now looked like a fast way to die horribly. There was also an elevator, but there was no way in hell he’d get into it right now. As if on cue, he heard the cables snap and a few moments later, the crash as the elevator plunged to the bottom floor.
Now, it looked like he’d stepped straight into hell. Everything was either on fire, burnt, or about to ignite. The receptionist’s desk had been totally consumed, leaving behind nothing but charred wood and scorched metal. Rafters had started to collapse from the other floors, and smoking sheetrock and slowly burning studs dangled everywhere. The steel structural supports were still holding so far, but the rest of it was starting to come down—and the flames everywhere made it hard to even see anything.
Second floor.
Fuck.
He pulled his wet shirt up to cover his nose and mouth, blinked hard a few times to try to get some moisture his scalded eyes desperately needed, and charged deeper into the death trap. He made it partway up the stairs before some of them gave way under him. He grabbed at the railing to catch himself, hissing with pain as his skin sizzled against the hot metal. He looked down and saw the burns fade immediately into fresh, pale skin. His werewolf healing would keep him alive eventually. But there was a limit, and he could still die in here.
“Hey!” Fuck, what was the guy’s name? “Jack! Shout! Make some fucking noise!”
He narrowly dodged a rafter that fell with enough weight to cleave straight through the floor and plunged to ground level. He looked back at the front door. He was still pretty close—may
be thirty or forty feet away. If he wanted, he could leave and make it out, no question.
It wasn’t even a question.
He was the alpha of every single member of this pack, and that meant that he couldn’t leave anyone behind. Seth was equipped to replace him if need be, but he knew in a second that he could never live with himself if he escaped now while knowing he might have saved someone. He turned back towards the crumbling building and hurried between the scorching flames deeper into the second floor, farther away from safety and the escape. “Jack!”
He tried to smell, but even his wolf nose couldn’t pick up anything other than thick, poisonous smoke. It was like being blind, between the overwhelming smells that numbed his brain cells and disoriented him to the waves of smoke that burned his eyes. He kept stumbling deeper, coughing and waving smoke out of his eyes. “Say something!” he shouted, jumping off a piece of floor that fell through when he put his weight on it.
A weak plea for help made it to his ears, not loud enough that he could make out what the guy said, but loud enough that he knew he was alive.
“Keep speaking!” He coughed, stumbling towards where the sound had come from. “Louder!”
The person kept calling out and Titus kept following, primarily trying to make anything out and failing magnificently. Everything was so damn hot, and every step he took was more awful than the last. The air scorched his lungs when he breathed it in, and there was so much smoke that he could barely see any flames. He tripped over a half-melted office chair. His pant leg caught on fire, but he quickly patted it out before it could spread, and kept moving. The guy’s cries for help kept growing louder and louder, until—
There!
Suddenly, he saw Jack.
And instantly, he realized that this was going to be hard.
The third floor had caved in on him, pinning his leg under some fallen rafters near what used to be the weapons lab. His leg was obviously broken, mangled under the scorched metal beams, the bone exposed to the smoky air. He lay, trapped and desperately trying to slip out from the mountain of rubble that had crushed his leg. He coughed violently, the adrenaline no doubt masking the pain of what would be an unpleasant recovery, even for a wolf with his healing abilities.
