by Anya Nowlan
“One of those motherfuckers shot me! Can you believe it!?” he growled, obviously miffed.
Meredith could feel the way Dice let out a relieved breath, obviously thankful that the werewolf had only gotten a wound instead of ending up dead. When they stepped into the hallway, the carnage was amazing. Prowler had managed to singlehandedly take out four guards and come out of it with just a shoulder wound.
It was in roughly the same spot as Dice’s and Meredith had to assume that by the end of this, the whole squad was going to sport a few more holes than they necessarily wanted.
“Come on, let’s go,” Dice said, grabbing Prowler’s gear bag and tossing it over his own shoulder to lighten the load on the man a bit.
They were all dressed in nondescript black, the only color on them being the cold gleam of metal of their guns and the flash of color when their eyes burned with rage. It was certain that no one would want to meet the men of Shifter Squad Nine in a dark alleyway.
They were halfway down the corridor when the men ground to a halt a split-second before the clamor of shots being fired sounded above them. Dice glanced upward, as if he could see through the ceiling, and his lips thinned for a moment.
“Ryker, Rio, you two fine?” he spoke into his headset.
“We’ll manage,” came the soft reply from one of the lions, Meredith being able to hear it because of how close she was standing to Dice.
“Move on,” Dice commanded, the werewolves turning their attention to the task at hand again.
They stalked forward, walking down hallways that seemed to go on forever, with endless twists and turns. Meredith’s stomach knotted inside of her and she had to put some serious effort into not simply breaking into a run. Every step forward took her closer to finding out if her baby boy was still fine.
But the squad moved slower, being on high-alert now. Everywhere around them, there were signs of an abrupt exit being conducted not too long ago. Doors were flung open and Meredith could see cells that had once housed people like her now standing completely empty, as if they’d never been used to hold captive scientists or people who The Arctics felt needed to disappear.
Gear had been removed and some areas looked positively ransacked. Though Meredith had never really gotten the grand tour of the compound, she could tell that something was wrong.
“Did they know we were coming?” she asked, puzzled, keeping her voice low.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We would have been met with more force, then,” Dice murmured, his gaze tracking everything around him while Price moved in front now, Prowler staying close to Meredith and Dice.
He could still hold a gun, though he had tossed his rifle on his back now.
Meredith’s heart seemed to pound in her throat when they got to the corridor that held Dean’s room. When she finally saw the door to it, closed and locked unlike many of the others around it, she forgot how to breathe.
“It’s that one,” she whispered, pointing a shaky finger at the nondescript door. “He has to be there.”
Dice’s step hastened and they covered the last few feet to the door. Prowler knelt down at an intersection of two corridors, keeping guard.
“Stay here,” Dice told Meredith, pointing at her to duck down with Prowler. “We’ll open the door.”
Reluctantly, she did as she was told. Prowler had given his security pass to Dice and on the way, they’d swiped a few others. But all the doors required some retina scanning and handprints and even if they’d cut off a hand of one of the fallen guards, it wouldn’t have been enough.
“What do you think, Prowler? Can you get in or should we brute-force it?” Price asked, cocking a brow as he looked at the locks.
Prowler glanced over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes slightly before grinning that Cheshire smile of his.
“I think Rio’s methods are best here,” he said, shoving a hand into one of his pockets and tossing a small packet of something dark brown at Dice.
He caught it in mid-air, rolling it around in his hand for a moment.
“Nice,” he commented, though there was no ease in his words.
He’s as nervous as I am, Meredith realized. Oh please, let everything be okay with my baby boy. Let him be here, she prayed silently, shaking as she was crouched down on her haunches.
Dice slammed the packet down on the upper hinge of the door. A moment later, both he and Price turned away from the door, covering their ears, and Meredith did the same. The boom that followed was deafening but even through that, Meredith could hear the crying of children.
She was on her feet before her rational mind caught up with her. As she turned around, she was greeted with the sight of Price suddenly slumping backward, clutching his neck while deep, crimson blood gushed out of it. His pale green eyes flashed gold before going green again and he fell, sprawling out on the ground with the blood quickly making a pool around him.
“No!” Prowler screamed, running past Meredith, who felt like she had entered into a nightmare and she might never wake up from it.
This can’t be happening, she thought, the crying of children ringing in her ears while Dice’s squadmate was quickly bleeding out from a horrific neck wound. It can’t end like this.
Twenty-Two
Dice
Dice felt like he was moving through a dream.
He saw Price fall back, clawing at his neck as a bullet went through it, tearing at flesh and blood vessels. At the same time, his ears caught the high-pitched tones of children crying. But more than that, he heard the voice of one child in particular.
His child.
He didn’t need to see the boy to know that he was his. Dean’s voice triggered something within him that couldn’t be explained with words and frankly, Dice didn’t think he would make any headway if he tried. In an instant, all rationality was gone and all that remained was the endless desire to make things right. To protect his son.
The rifle was clutched in his hands as he spun into the room, raising the gun to his shoulder and dropping the first Arctics’ agent on the ground. He may have been snarling, but he honestly didn’t know at that point – everything was happening as if he had no control over it whatsoever. It was destiny and the power of his animal that was making the world revolve at that very moment.
With a heated growl, he dropped the rifle and flung himself forward, at a set of two guards. The room was on the larger side, lit brightly enough, and from the corner of his eye Dice could see a bundle of three children huddled up in the corner. He couldn’t risk shooting his gun again when they were so close and a ricocheting bullet could embed itself into one of those innocent kids.
Slick, biting pain rippled through him as he felt a bullet burrow into his chest as he was mid-shift, his body seeming to contort and twist in the air. His muscles bulged and his massive size doubled and then grew even larger as thick coat sprouted over his body and turned him from man to bear. His angered expression warped into the fearsome yaws of a grizzly bear and when he tackled the guards, his jaws were ripping into their flesh before they could get off another shot.
All he could see was red as the men screamed beneath him, Dice making quick work of them with his teeth and claws. He was living up to his nickname – the best way to describe what had happened to the men was that they had been sliced and diced.
Dice turned around swiftly as he felt the last, dying twitch of one of the guards beneath him. A remaining guard was trying to sneak out behind him, his gun raised to his shoulder as he attempted to figure out how to exit without getting shot by Prowler outside, or torn to pieces by Dice. With the bear fully in control, the werewolf guard didn’t stand a chance.
Dice sprinted across the wide room, jumping over a child’s bed, and crushing the guard underneath his massive weight as he plowed into the man. They slumped against a wall together and the guard was nothing but a gargling, wheezing mass of blood and cartilage by the time his feet hit the ground.
Dice’s head snapped up as he he
ard movement again, but his vision cleared when he saw Meredith brushing past him, running to the kids. He paused momentarily, staring dumbstruck as Meredith scooped the kids into her arms and hugged them tight. She was sobbing.
Reluctantly, the bear relinquished control and Dice could let out a breath. The large bear closed his eyes for a moment and then, with the cursing words of Prowler in the background, he shifted again. Dice stood upright, rolling back his shoulder for a moment and wincing in the aftermath. The bullet that one of the men had gotten off had dug into his ribcage and by the feel of it, he was probably dealing with a compressed lung. It hurt like a bitch.
“Price! Stay with me, you motherfucker!” Prowler growled, desperation in his voice.
“Shit,” Dice murmured, his eyes transfixed on the sight of Meredith kissing the head of a baby boy with gray and hazel eyes, while his squadmate was bleeding out in the hallway.
“Ryker, Rio, report!” he said numbly into the headset, striding across the room to Meredith. “Meredith, we need to go. Can you handle the kids?” he asked.
His heart was breaking in two and then quickly rebuilding itself at twice its former size when his gaze met that of Dean, the little boy whose eyes had been so strikingly similar. One of the kids, a little girl, was crying into Meredith’s shoulder, while Dean seemed to be completely calm, if shaken. The third child was a boy, a few years old, with bright blue eyes and pale complexion. One whiff at him confirmed him to be a werewolf pup.
“I can,” she confirmed, taking both Dean and the girl into her arms and standing up. “Bryce, grab hold of my shirt,” she instructed the werewolf boy, who complied wordlessly.
Obviously, they were all in shock.
My child, Dice thought, shaking his head to clear his mind. He’s alive!
Dean was staring at him as if he was seeing a vision, and Dice couldn’t help but smile a little, despite the madness of the situation. The boy’s aura was so strong and Dice could already feel the bear stirring within the little boy. He would be a strong shifter one day. Dice would make sure of it.
“Price!” Prowler called again, starting to sound more than desperate now.
“Come on,” Dice commanded, motioning for Meredith to follow him. “Ryker, Rio?” he called again into the headset, but when he entered the hallway, he didn’t repeat the question another time.
The werelion twins appeared as if they’d stepped out of some rendition of Carrie, all bloody and haunted. Rio was leaning on Ryker, limping heavily and favoring his left leg. The gaping wound in his right made it obvious why that was. There were four people walking behind them, two women holding one another’s hands and two men looking entirely unsure of themselves, if hopeful.
“Sorry, boss, had our hands full,” Ryker said grimly.
Dice nodded, kneeling next to Prowler now.
“How is he?” he asked, but the situation was self-explanatory enough.
The pale tiles of the corridor floor were painted red with dark blood and Price was white as a ghost. Price kept two hands on his neck, trying to stabilize the wound. Any human would have been dead on impact but the werewolf kept fighting for life that seemed impossible to hold onto.
“Fucking dead in a second if we don’t do anything,” Prowler snapped.
Losing a twin was the worst thing that could happen to a shifter. Counts of shifters going insane after their other half was slain were the favorite fodder of gossip magazines. Not because it was so sensational, but because of the mayhem that could follow a shifter on a warpath, having lost one half of their selves with the death of their twin.
Dice wasn’t willing to let that happen to Price and Prowler.
“Ryker, I need your help,” he said, not bothering to look up.
“You, with the dorky fucking glasses. Come here,” Ryker growled to one of the men, who jumped into action as if he was the one that had just been shot.
Rio leaned on the man and Ryker rushed over, hovering unsurely around Prowler.
“You sure there’s nothing we can do?”
“Of course I’m bloody fucking sure,” Prowler howled, his eyes flashing the deepest gold Dice had ever seen.
Dice barely noticed the two women running past him, crying with joy as they took the girl and the werewolf boy from Meredith’s care.
“Lizzy!” the shorter woman exclaimed, hugging and kissing the girl while the other woman picked the little boy into her arms.
“Where’s Maria?” Meredith asked, seeming to receive quick shakes of the head in response.
“Meredith, is there an operating room here somewhere?” Dice asked, tugging bandages out of his bag and shoving them under Price’s hands so he could put more pressure on the wounds.
“I-I’m not sure… We can take him to my lab! If my research is there… Come on, we don’t have time!” she said suddenly, practically breaking into a run past them.
Dice frowned, but sharing a look with Ryker and Prowler, they nodded and hoisted Price up between them. Rio was holding his rifle and he was the only one left of the squad with hands available to do any shooting. Not that it would do them much good if they did happen on any guards, considering the mass of civilians they had with them.
Meredith led the group up two levels to where the laboratories were. They moved as fast as they could and when they reached the right door, Dice was relieved to find it blown open. They moved Price inside and set him down on some countertops. Their path to the lab could be tracked by the trail of blood he’d left behind.
Meredith was rummaging through the shelves and cupboards in her lab while Rio stood guard outside with Ryker, keeping an eye on the two men as well. The two women – Amina and Sya, as Dice had understood from the few words they exchanged, had put the kids to sit in a corner and were now assisting Meredith in finding her whatever she needed to find while Prowler and Dice worked at trying to get what little blood Price still had to stay in him.
“What are you doing?” Dice asked finally, when it seemed like far too much time had passed.
In actuality, it had probably only been a few dozen seconds.
“I’m almost ready,” Meredith said, looking up for a moment before peeling away from the work she and the other two women had been piling over.
She held a small vial in her hands with gray-looking crystallized powder, her hand shaking as she carried it over.
“Show me the wound,” she said, her voice stern and calm now.
Dice pulled his hands away and Prowler did as well, with obvious reluctance. Prowler was as white in the face as Price was now, it seemed.
With a heavy hand, Meredith sprinkled the dust on both the entrance and the exit wounds. As if by magic, the seeping blood seemed to coagulate and stop, sealing the wound immediately.
“What is that stuff?” Dice asked, surprised.
“It’s my research,” she said, with the slightest hint of pride to her voice. “It’ll help him, but he needs blood fast if he’s going to survive.”
“We need to get out of here,” Prowler said, his voice subdued now, but the urgency still evident in his starkly golden eyes.
The original plan had been to swipe one of the helicopters from The Arctics, which Rowen had said were being kept in a hangar in the back of the compound. Now with their pilot taken out, that obviously was no longer an option.
Dice’s mind worked furiously as he slicked a hand through his hair, suppressing a growl as pain shot through him from his several wounds. Before he could say anything though, a very familiar voice drawled in his ear.
“Did anyone call for backup?”
Dice spun around on the spot, finding Thor leaning against the doorframe with a lazy grin on his lips. His expression wavered only the slightest bit when he took in the sight of the blood and the civilians and the seemingly lifeless body of Price on the countertop.
“The fuck are y-“ Prowler began, but Thor didn’t let him finish.
“Come on, our ride is waiting upstairs,” Thor said.
Dice’s eyes narrowed, searching Thor’s expression, unreadable as always. The damn sniper just winked and motioned his head toward the exit.
“Unless you wanna stay here, of course.”
“Let’s go,” Dice said, forcing himself calm. “Ryker, come help us with Price.”
He had a bad feeling about this, but anything was better than losing a squadmate and possibly everything else he cared about, stuck in the bowels of a damn Arctics’ compound.
One look at his mate and the baby boy in her arms again confirmed that. He could deal with Thor, The Firm, The Arctics and whatever else life had to throw at him, as long as he could keep the two of them safe.
Twenty-Three
Meredith
Meredith stirred slowly in her sleep.
Every part of her body seemed to be experiencing mild aches and pains, but the comforting blanket of sleep left her little time to care for that. She yawned softly but then her eyes shot open immediately as she felt Dean roll on his side next to her.
Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she looked at the little boy in her arms and an immediate smile crossed her lips as she realized where she was.
Safe.
“Morning,” Dice said gently, the makings of a smile in his voice. “You two have been out cold for a while.”
Meredith forced herself up on her elbow, carefully so as to not awake the sleeping child next to her. She was in a cot in a The Firm bunker somewhere far (but not far enough) from the desert. Frankly, after she’d gotten into one of the helicopters waiting for her, the hostages and Shifter Squad Nine, she’d lost most of her interest toward where she was being taken.
Anywhere that wasn’t controlled by The Arctics and where she had her baby and her man with her was good enough.
“How long did I sleep?” she asked.
