His lip quivered. “I—uh—it’s Were372.”
I extended the claws in my hand, and he watched in horror. “Wrong. It’s Nash. Go to hell, you sick bastard.” With a slash of my claws, I severed his head.
I turned around and saw that Bay had dispatched the rest of the guards in the area. We listened, but the only sounds were the clanking of chains and cries of help from the prisoners. With the keys, we began to open cells.
I recognized some of the prisoners, others were new. All were in bad shape. As each door opened, Bay seemed to shrink within himself, shuddering and clinging closer to me. He was seeing the horror I’d lived through, the tiny, cold concrete cells with a pot in one corner and no water or food. He’d likely have a deeper understanding now of why I was so fucked up.
I grabbed a lit torch off the wall, and took a minute to figure out where I was in the maze of cells. Getting my bearings, I took off in the direction of my old cell. Hannah was probably terrified at the sounds of the fighting. Within moments, I found what I was looking for, sliding to a halt in front of the bars I’d spent so many years behind. I peered through them, searching for Hannah.
The cell was empty.
I froze, staring into the dark cell, wondering why her slight form hadn’t rushed to greet me, why her eyes didn’t shine back in the torchlight.
I waved the torch back and forth to illuminate all the corners. There was nowhere to hide in this cell. She should be here. I couldn’t bring myself to step into the place where I’d suffered with Hannah. I hadn’t lived there—what had happened all those years hadn’t been a life.
Safe with Bay, away from here, I’d been able to shut things out, but now the memories came rushing back like a kick to the head. The pain, the anger, the demoralization, and the terror. The fear I was losing my mind. The time I did lose my mind. Had I gotten it back yet?
A warmth coated my side and the smell of Bay mixed with the memories, poking holes in some of them and vaporizing the rest. I blinked at him as he took the torch and the keys from me. He unlocked the door and stepped inside the cell.
I watched him as he searched beneath the single blanket in the room, near the bucket where we’d pissed. Every corner was empty.
He turned to me, the torch dripping embers, lighting the side of his face so I could see his twisted mouth, the grimace of anger. “She’s not here.”
I shook my head. Had she died? She’d wished death many times. What they’d done to her…it had changed her. She’d said she often felt like her brain was dissolving, like her heart was growing too big in her chest and that it would burst any minute.
Maybe it had. Maybe that was a good thing.
I still hadn’t stepped foot in the cell, and I didn’t like Bay being in there. I motioned for him to walk out, and he did slowly, his gaze on me the whole time.
Once he was on the outside of the bars with me, I walked inside. The images flashed behind my eyes, but Bay’s scent, his form at the door watching me, kept me grounded. There was nothing to destroy in the room, nothing to expel my rage on.
Hannah and I had slept on the floor with one blanket. I knelt down and picked up a handful of dirt, sifting it through my fingers and rubbing it into my skin. This dirt held memories of blood, sweat, and tears. Echoes of cries and rages of pain.
With a swift flick of my wrist, I whipped the dirt at the wall and stood up. A soft voice came from behind me. “Were372?”
I turned around, because that voice sounded familiar. Were125 stood beside Bay, a Silver Tip pack member behind her. She had been kept in the cell beside us, but socializing had been forbidden.
Her eyes were vacant, staring past me into the cell. I waved a hand in front of her face, but she didn’t react, and my pack member’s firm hand on her shoulder confirmed it. She had been blinded.
“She’s with him,” she said softly.
My body went tight. She, meaning Hannah. And him, meaning… There was only one “him,” and that was Alpha. With a grunted thank you, I raced out of the cell, Bay on my heels. “Nash!” he called, but I couldn’t think rationally anymore. Even now I felt myself shifting, my Were no longer complacent. It wanted revenge.
I reached the main floor and leaped over dead guards. Dare was no longer guarding the stairs to the Alpha’s room so I surged forward and ascended the steps two at a time. More pounding feet sounded behind me. Bay’s voice. But I didn’t stop, snatching a torchlight on the wall and sprinting up more stairs.
When I reached the Alpha’s door, I was fully shifted. The door was barred, but I flung myself into it with all my weight. The hinges cracked, the wood splinted, and I crashed inside the Alpha’s room on a roll, quickly jumping to my feet on a snarl.
“I’d suggest you control yourself,” a deep voice penetrated my fury.
At the far end of the room stood a giant, scarred Alpha, his eyes eerie—a light blue that was nearly white surrounded small black pupils. In his arms was a bundle of blankets, and beside him stood Hannah.
She was thin, way thinner than I remembered, her cheeks gaunt, and her hair now shorn close to her scalp. Her eyes were glassy, but a bit of life came into them when she saw me.
“Nash,” she gasped and stepped toward me, but was halted by one growl from the Alpha.
All I wanted to do was gather her in my arms, rip out the Alpha’s throat, but he’d given me one warning, and until I knew what was going on, I had to be smart. I shifted back to human and took the time to catch my breath as I studied the Alpha. He was older than I thought he’d be, but he was massive. Bigger than me, bigger than Dare, a mountain of a shifter in his human form. In his Were form? He would be unbeatable. Maybe that was how he’d built this compound into what he had, how he was able to direct an entire horde of guards to torture and experiment on others and convince a whole pack to allow it to happen.
Bay stood at my back, I could smell him and feel him. The Alpha didn’t seem fazed, his gaze traveling over my shoulder then right back to me with a chilling look. As if I wasn’t a shifter just like him. And to the Alpha, I wasn’t. I was a number.
The bundle of blankets in his arms moved, and I braced. A tiny, fleshy pink hand emerged from the folds, four fingers and a thumb opened and closed.
A baby. He held a baby, the first I’d seen in all my time here. No Were had conceived under these conditions. I darted a look at Hannah, but her eyes were on the small fist, a look of pure adoration on her face…
“Hannah?”
She looked at me slowly, her movements sluggish. They’d probably drugged her.
“Is that your baby?” I turned a furious gaze on the Alpha. “Did you get her pregnant just because you could? You didn’t have enough females in your harem, you had to use Hannah after I left—”
He laughed, a deep, sinister laugh that chilled me down to my marrow. His lip curled. “This child…” He pulled back the blankets to reveal a baby, maybe six months old. The child had big blue eyes and a gummy smile. “Is Hannah’s, but he’s not mine.”
Not mine, not mine, not mine…
Bay made a sound behind me, but my brain wasn’t catching up.
“I knew you two were attached,” the Alpha said. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you impregnated her. And you did, Were372, you did.”
I stared into the child’s eyes, this little boy who was months old, born in this place, born without…me. His father.
My head spun, and my legs threatened to buckle, but I wouldn’t show weakness in front of the Alpha. I was a survivor and a fighter and a father and purpose flowed through me—a destiny I’d chased my whole life.
I started forward again, intent on ripping my son from the Alpha’s arms, but he pinned me with a glare just as he wrapped a clawed hand around Hannah’s throat and squeezed.
She didn’t even react, not even as a claw point punctured her skin, and a drop of blood slipped down her chest.
“See? I knew you’d react this way.” He tsked. “Why do you think I sent you aw
ay? It took years and years to find a Were as strong and virile as you with immunity. You were my prize stallion, and you didn’t even know it. You gave me this.” He gestured toward the baby. “The baby is mine. Mine to raise and study. He has made this all worth it. And if you come one step closer, I’ll slit the throat of your beloved Hannah.”
Hannah. I pictured her how she once was, when we were first paired, when she still smiled, when she laughed, when we’d play games scratched into the dirt of our cell. After all she’d been through, I couldn’t let him kill her.
The baby squirmed and fussed and the Alpha cooed to him softly, a sound that grated my nerves raw. “What’s his name?” I asked.
“We didn’t name him—”
“Titus,” Hannah whispered, her voice merely a rasp. The Alpha bared his teeth at her and squeezed tighter. Her eyes fluttered closed and then opened again. “He’s strong, Nash. I gave him a strong name.”
The Nash of the last ten years would have buckled under the weight of her words. He would have caved, begged, pleaded, prostrated himself, but that was the Nash I’d left behind. This Nash? This Nash wouldn’t leave without Titus.
I’d go out fighting this time. They got rid of me once, they wouldn’t get rid of me again, not without me taking out a whole shitload of these bastards. If only I could get Hannah away…
Bay was inching along the edge of the room, and the Alpha spotted him. The Alpha moved, repositioning himself and Hannah so their backs were against the room’s large glass windows. I’d heard rumors the Alpha had glass in his room, that he could see straight down into the Nowere pit gouged deep into the earth.
“Where do you think you’re going to go?” I asked the Alpha.
“My guard will be here soon. You think your measly dozen Weres are a match for my entire pack? I’m sure you took out the ones you met on your way up here, but there are more.” His eyes landed on me. “Bravo on getting this far, but you don’t know everything.” I couldn’t tell if he was being truthful or bluffing.
“We’re motivated to kill your evil ass.” Bay’s voice was strong, marinated in confidence and morals. “They’re motivated by fear. Who do you think wins in that fight?”
The Alpha narrowed his eyes at Bay, and I hated that he even got to look at Bay, that he had the honor of being in Bay’s presence. “Fear,” the Alpha spat. “Fear always wins.”
Hannah didn’t take her eyes from me. Her lips moved, and while the Alpha was distracted by Bay’s advance, I tracked what she said.
Love Titus. Remember me.
She raised her hands and plunged the Alpha’s claws deep into the artery on the side of her neck.
The Alpha roared as blood gushed over his hand. Red filled my vision, blood and anger clouding all thoughts but to save the boy and kill the enemy.
I shifted, knowing the Alpha’s collateral had been taken from him, and there was no time to waste with more guards on their way. Who knew what the pack would do once they saw their walls had been breached?
The Alpha watched as Hannah slipped out of his grasp, blood gurgling out of the deep slashes at her throat. By the time he looked up, I was on him, ripping the bundle from his arms and tossing the baby to Bay behind me.
The Alpha shifted on a growl and faced off against me, but I was prepared to win. No way was he getting his hands on my son again. Fuck, he was a huge Were, his massive back hunched, his claws twice the size of mine, and his jaws so large, they could clamp down on my waist.
I didn’t dwell on his size. I was the one who’d fought Noweres in the pits just below the Alpha’s window. I was the one who survived for the last year. My seed had taken root in this compound of horrors. I’d defend it.
The Alpha swiped at me, and I narrowly avoided the sharp edge of his deadly claws. The smell of Hannah’s blood fueled my instincts, kept me aware.
Protect. Kill. Protect. Kill.
Revenge.
The Alpha lunged at me again, and I slashed his chest with my claws, keeping him back. He could not pass. Behind me was everything I held dear in this world, the reason destiny had kept me alive. Right here, right now.
This was what all the pain was for.
I placed a clawed foot back, dug it into the concrete, then pushed off with all my strength to charge the Alpha. He didn’t have much time to prepare as I collided with him at top speed and with all my weight. With a pained roar, he clasped his hands around my back, digging his claws in. The pain temporarily blinded me, but I wasn’t stopping now. The force of our collision took us off our feet, and all I had to do was get to that window…
The crash was earth-shattering, the window cracking under our combined weights. Sharp edges dug into my furred flesh, my Were-thick hide doing nothing to prevent the gashes. Then we were through, airborne. With the last bit of strength I had in me, I bent my knees and pushed against his chest, breaking his grip on me, his claws cutting deep grooves in my back. As he plummeted to the pit of Noweres below, I twisted my body, reaching back in a last-ditch effort to grip the ledge, to save myself. When my hand came up empty, at least I knew that the Alpha would never again touch my son.
The air whistled around me as I fell, and for a moment, I went with it, pretending I was floating. I’d tried to save myself, tried to reach the ledge, but I’d missed. How many times could I force myself to survive? I was tired…so tired. I’d done what I had to do.
I’d hit the ground soon, and the fall would probably kill me. With a grunt, I twisted my body in the air, reaching for something, anything to break my fall. My claws scraped along the stone wall, slowing my descent somewhat. Pain arced through my hand, up my arm, and I roared as I left behind streaks of blood from my cracked claws.
The sound of a solid object hitting the ground popped my eyes open, then the growls of Noweres, and the tearing of flesh. The Alpha.
That’d be me soon. With the last bit of instinct I had left in me, I curled into a ball. My shoulder slammed into the ground first, a sickening crack forcing the breath from my body. The pain was so immense, so overpowering, that it was the only reason I knew I was alive.
I crumpled into the dirt, the impact rocketing through my whole body. Silence. Pain. Broken. Agony.
Maybe I was dead?
Then the world came rushing back with a sharp inhale of oxygen in my lungs, my body still somehow doing what it was supposed to do. My lungs still filled, my heart still beat. I blinked my eyes open at the carnage in front of me. The Alpha had survived the fall too, but he wasn’t surviving this. His screams rent the air as the Noweres he kept in this pit for his sick experiments tore him limb from limb.
I didn’t move as his cries fell to whimpers and then eventually ceased. His own Noweres killed him. I’d just helped the process.
I didn’t know how long I lay there, breathing through the pain, tears wetting the dirty dark stone. How much would I be tested? When would this end? A few Noweres stumbled by me, covered in the Alpha’s blood, their undead eyes ignoring me. I lay in a Nowere pit reeking of blood and death, in a place where I’d cursed my immunity so many times. Wishing I would have been turned to end it all.
I had to get up. Bay was up there somewhere with Titus. They needed me. I needed them. This wasn’t over. I was meant to live, and I sure as hell wasn’t meant to die here in this pit from starvation and pain.
The joke was on the Alpha now. Because who was still alive? Oh that’s right, Were372. Fucking Nash, baby.
My heart began to beat faster, and strength coursed through me, a hot desire not just to survive but live streaked through my veins with a searing heat. Already my body was beginning to heal, the bones knitting together, an itching underneath my skin.
Live. Live and fight and live.
Now all I had to do was get the fuck out, but there was no way out but…up. I rolled onto my back and squinted at the walls. There were handholds and footholds, but the climb with this broken body would be near impossible.
I sat up and whimpered, not proud of the
sounds I was making. My one shoulder was out of its socket and hanging limply at my side. God the pain, like fucking wildfire. If I’d had a knife, I might’ve cut off my arm.
I remained in my Were form, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel out of control. I could think clearly, even with the pain that pulsed with every heartbeat. I gripped my shoulder, my claws digging into the flesh. I counted in my head. One. Two. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut. Two and a half. Three.
With a scream that bounced off the stone walls, I shoved my shoulder back into its joint. The pain tipped me over onto my side, a white-hot flash of agony where I swore I hallucinated and saw Bay in the pit with me.
I panted, blinking my eyes through the dirt, blood, sweat, and tears. When I was able to sit, I peered up. And up. And up. I had to get back. I was alive, and that meant I wasn’t down. I stood up on shaky legs and flexed my arms. Skirting the edge of the pit as the Noweres ignored me, I ran my hands over the rock, looking for imperfections that I could grab onto. When I found a section that seemed to work, I cracked my neck and took a deep breath.
It was time to climb. I reached up, grabbed a handhold of rock above me, and began to move.
Part III
BAY
Chapter Nineteen
With a screaming Titus in my arms, I scrambled to the broken window and peered through the opening, searching for a sign of Nash. About hundred feet below was a pit full of active Noweres, the stench of them drifting upward. They were surrounding something. Nash would avoid them, but the fall? He wouldn’t survive that. The pit’s sides were craggy, but I saw no form clinging to rocks.
“Nash!” I screamed my lungs out and my voice circled down and down to the Nowere pit like water into a drain.
I scanned the walls, searching for Nash as my eyes blurred with tears. I could only hope he was on some small ledge somewhere fighting to get back up. Fuck. I’d just gotten him back, and I’d finally seen the Nash I always knew he could be, the alpha he’d been destined to be, and now…
Chasing Destiny (Silver Tip Pack Book 2) Page 17
