by Alisa Woods
“Ah, Mia!” Mace said, his grin wide. “So glad you could join our little party.” Then he lowered his voice. “Come closer.”
It was a command. From her alpha. She didn’t need the urging of the wolves on either side of her to stumble toward him. But as she got closer, horror froze her steps: the wolf on the couch was bleeding, and there was blood everywhere. On him. On the hands of the man trying to keep him from bleeding to death. Smeared all over the white leather of the couch.
And on Lucas’s chest. Her heart seized up. The wolf… was it Lev?
Mia couldn’t hold in her sob. Tears brimmed her eyes, and she sought out Lucas’s face. The agony there nearly ripped her in two.
“I said come here.” Mace’s voice was soft but dangerous, and that only made the compulsion stronger. Her feet dragged her forward. Lucas’s gaze followed and darkened as she went. He had to know she’d submitted to Mace. Every wolf in the room had to have figured it out by now.
Mace’s gaze flitted back and forth between her and Lucas. When she arrived at Mace’s side, he slipped an arm possessively around her waist and drew her close. She was afraid he might force her to kiss him, so she turned her face to the side. But that only made her see Lucas’s rage-filled face staring at both of them.
“Oh yes, Lucas Sparks,” Mace said with a sick amount of glee in his voice. “I have your mate, don’t I? Too bad you won’t live to see me claim her.”
Mace raised his gun to point at Lucas’s head.
“No!” Mia screamed. Her hand reflexively grabbed Mace’s arm, but he was far too strong for her to wrestle him away. She managed to summon words instead. “I lied, Mace! I lied.”
That pulled Mace’s attention back to her. He held her close enough that he could kiss her, but instead he just peered intently into her eyes. “You shouldn’t lie to your alpha.”
“Lucas isn’t my mate,” she said in a rush. “I lied about that. I… I…” She flailed for a plausible reason for lying because she couldn’t bring herself to say the truth while in Mace’s arms, under submission to him: that she loved Lucas, that her heart would always belong to him, and that she had only wished he had wanted her for a mate. “I lied because I was afraid. Afraid to become your mate. I’ve never done that before. But I’m… I’m not afraid anymore.” It sounded ridiculous in her ears—she had never been more afraid in her life. Afraid Mace would shoot Lucas. Afraid of Lev dying on Mace’s couch. And not least, afraid of actually, finally having to become Mace’s mate for real.
But her words, her lie, seemed to have an effect on Mace. “You’re not afraid, are you?” He licked his lips and squeezed her waist.
Mia heard Lucas growl, but she couldn’t look away from her alpha when he stared into her eyes like that.
“I expected you to be a challenge, Mia,” Mace said, a small smile coming out. “And you do not disappoint.”
Mia’s heart was breaking and pounding out of her chest at the same time, but she couldn’t look away. “I will do whatever you want. But spare the Sparks wolves. Please. Do it for me. They… helped bring me to you.” She felt like she might throw up, but she prayed Mace would believe her. And the truth was: it wasn’t a lie. She had already submitted to him. She would end up doing what he wished. She might as well save Lucas and Lev and the others in the process. Lucas never wanted her for a mate anyway… but she could repay him for all the times he saved her life by doing this one final thing to save his.
Mace’s gaze was still holding her captive. His hand snaked up from her waist and bunched the hair falling down her back. He was feeling it slip through his fingers.
“Such a noble wolf you are.” His eyes shone with what seemed like genuine admiration. But she knew it was only because she had been so hard to get, such a challenge, that he wanted her at all. He would make her his mate for what she would do for him: status, prestige, the satisfaction of the conquer. Lucas would have loved her for who she was. But that would never happen now. Especially when she had just given herself to Mace in front of him.
Her heart broke into a million tiny pieces.
Mace finally broke his stare to look to one of his betas. “Hold them here, Beck. When I’m done, we’ll wake my father and show him the neatly wrapped Sparks present I have for him.”
He shifted his hold on Mia and returned his attention to her. With her firmly clamped to his side, he walked her toward the stairs. She heard Lucas growl behind them, but she couldn’t even look back, because Mace had captured her gaze again.
“Don’t look so horrified, Mia,” he said softly, a small curl in his lips. “It won’t be so bad being the second mate of the next leader of the Red pack. If fact, I think you’ll very much enjoy it.”
“Promise me you’ll let them go.” Her heart was hammering in her ears with every step closer, but she couldn’t even drag her feet this time. The submission bond wouldn’t let her disobey, and the desire rolling of Mace told her how very much he wanted her.
“Afterward,” he said. “If you do just as I say… I’ll consider it.”
It was a lie. She knew it. He would torment them or worse. At least she was buying them time to maybe escape. She could have tried to convince him further but her brain was muddled by the bond and the terror as they approached the stairs. Mace released her gaze just before they started to ascend, and for one brief moment, she caught Jak’s gaze.
The pain in them tugged at her, begged her to resist. But he should know better than anyone she couldn’t, not now. When they were halfway up the stairs, Mace’s hands started running up her back and working into her hair.
She couldn’t stop either his hands or the shudders that went along with every touch.
Lucas almost wished Mace had shot him instead of making him watch as he commanded Mia upstairs with him. He would claim her while Lucas sat prisoner downstairs, knowing full well what was happening. Lucas was certain the only true reason he was still alive was because Mace thought he would suffer more this way.
And he was right.
His heart was breaking, not only because Mace was claiming the girl he loved, but because of her incredible bravery in attempting to spare all their lives. He knew she was strong, but to selflessly try to save them… when by all rights, they should be saving her...
Mace and Mia hadn’t even reached the stairs when the growl started deep inside him. It was primal and powerful and overwhelming. An echo of it rumbled in the chests of his father, Rent, and the wolves gathered with him. He didn’t have to read their minds to know: all of them, to a one, were unwilling to stand by and watch this happen.
Lucas was ready to die to stop it. A flicked look to his father told him he was as well.
As Mia and Mace disappeared around the corner, ascending the stairs, Lucas quickly evaluated the room. Two armed Red wolves and eight unarmed ones, for a total of ten. On the Sparks side, they had only six, not counting Lev and his pack-mate working to keep him alive. They were outmatched; some of them might die. But not all of them. If a few of them rushed the armed Red wolves, only a couple would likely catch bullets. The rest could fight past the other wolves and stop Mace and Mia.
Just as Lucas gave a small nod to his father, something slammed into the front door, jerking everyone’s attention that way.
Once, twice, and then it flew open.
Llyr’s team.
Eight armed men stormed in the door. Lucas didn’t hesitate—he sprang for the armed beta closest to him, lunging for the man’s gun hand. It went off before Lucas could grab it. Pain ripped through Lucas’s shoulder. The man’s hand jerked back from the recoil, but Lucas caught hold of it. He shoved the gun up in the air while pounding his fist into the beta’s gut over and over.
Lucas heard a second shot, but it wasn’t from their gun. Then a third shot and a grunt. But he couldn’t look. The beta hit back, catching Lucas in the face. He reeled, but kept a grip on the beta’s gun hand, then came raging back with a punch to the Red wolf’s face. He went down and stayed down. Lucas wrenched the gun
from his hand on the way.
The rest of the room was in chaos: a melee of fur and skin.
His father was on the floor, bleeding, clutching his leg. Two of his pack had taken out the second beta with the gun, but apparently not before his father had been shot. The rest were still up and fighting.
His father waved away his concerned look and growled, “Get her.”
Lucas sidestepped a pair of wrestling wolves, and two more Red wolves who were curled up, twitching while Llyr’s stun gun electric wires delivered a voltage punch. Llyr himself was down on the floor with another wolf, but Colin crouch near him, by the door. Colin jammed his stun gun into the neck of a Red pack wolf and sent him shivering to the floor.
“Where is she?” Colin yelled over the mayhem.
Lucas jabbed his thumb at the stairs—Colin was closer and would reach her sooner, but Lucas would be damned if he wasn’t right behind him. He fought past another pair of wrestling wolves. Then one of his father’s pack members grabbed hold of the gun from Mace’s beta and pointed it at the crowd, trying to find a clean shot in the fight. Lucas put a hand on his arm to stop him from firing and possibly hitting one of their own. He was young, probably had never been in a pack fight before.
“Guard your alpha,” Lucas commanded him.
He nodded, kept the gun up, but backed to a defensive position next to Lucas’s father. Lucas shoved aside a Red wolf surging for him then swung his own gun in his attacker’s direction. He jerked back, stumbling into a glass table, but Lucas wasn’t interested in him.
He turned and threaded through the fight, heading for the stairs.
Colin had already gone after Mia. Lucas’s wolf clawed at him, jealous and wanting out, but Lucas had a gun—and every intention of using it on Mace. Besides, the human side of him didn’t care who got there first as long as someone stopped Mace. Lucas kept his wolf contained as he took the stairs two at a time.
He found Colin kicking the door, but having no luck. Lucas joined him, and just as the door gave way, he heard another shot go off. This time something punched him hard and sent him sailing back against the hallway wall.
Colin stared wide-eyed at him, but before Lucas could tell him to go get her, the pain hit like a truck landing on his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Colin flattened himself against the wall opposite then peeked through the doorway, pointing his stun gun into the bedroom. Lucas fought for air, trying desperately to breathe past the pain and move.
Then he heard Mia scream.
Every part of him was electrified by that sound. He braced himself against the wall and struggled up from the floor. Colin did another peek check and fired his electric weapon. Cables flew into the room, and he rushed after them. The sound of another shot jolted Lucas as he lumbered forward, one hand holding the wound in his side, the other holding the gun. He made it into the room, weakly raising the gun ahead of him.
Mia was on the bed, up on her knees, t-shirt missing and arms wrapped around herself, but she seemed unharmed. She stared down at Colin beating the crap out of Mace on the floor. Electric wires hung limp around Mace’s body, and his gun had fallen to the carpet.
Colin was turning his face into hamburger.
Lucas wanted Mace dead as much as anyone, but they were both in human form. With DNA everywhere for God’s sake. They couldn’t murder him.
“Colin, stop,” Lucas wheezed, scooping up Mace’s gun. He was pretty well unconscious, but they might yet need it on the way out.
Colin’s chest was heaving, but he shook out his bloodied fists and rose up from Mace’s inert form. Lucas prayed he wasn’t actually dead. He handed the gun to Colin.
Then he turned to Mia. She was pale and shaking with mile-wide eyes, but she scrambled off the bed and stumbled to him. Her arms went around him and squeezed, and he nearly went down with the pain. The room spun for a moment, but he managed to hold her with one arm, keeping the gun well away from her.
“Please tell me he didn’t hurt you.” Lucas wheezed through the words.
“I’m okay.” Her voice was shaky but surprisingly strong.
He couldn’t believe how good those words sounded to him.
“We have to get her out, Lucas.” Colin’s face had lost the fury from before, when he was pounding Mace, but it was replaced with a hunger Lucas understood: he wanted Mia. He had been the first to reach her, yet she’d gone to Lucas.
Only Lucas could barely keep himself standing.
With great reluctance and no small amount of pain, he worked his way out of Mia’s grasp. He gave a pointed look to the gun in Colin’s hand. “You need to take her with you.”
Mia frowned, but Lucas handed her over to Colin. He took her hand. Just in time, too, as a wave of dizziness washed over Lucas. He was losing too much blood. He knew that. He blinked to clear his vision and swallowed the thick feeling in his throat.
Colin glanced at the wound in Lucas’s side. “I’ll send someone up to help you.”
“Just go.” Lucas wheezed again. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Mia seemed unwilling to move, fixating on the bloody hole in Lucas’s side. Colin had to urge her to go with him, pulling on their clasped hands. Lucas would have said something, but he was barely managing to stay upright, and he was afraid the pain might show in his voice.
Finally, Colin bent down to her and said quietly, “Mia, they’ll keep fighting downstairs until they know you’re all right. We need to stop the fight before anyone else is injured.”
That convinced her. She bit her lip and let Colin lead her from the room.
As soon as she was gone, Lucas sagged to his knees. The room swam around him, the bed tipping up at a crazy angle. He dragged himself over to it and pulled down the sheet. He bunched it up and pressed it to the bloody mess that was his side. It might stem the bleeding for a little while, just long enough until… suddenly his eyelids were too heavy to keep open. Like a witch had snuck into Mace’s bedroom and blown a sleeping spell on him. It commanded him to closed his eyes, and he couldn’t do anything but obey.
To Mia, it looked like the scene out of a war movie. Maybe an x-rated one, with all the naked men. Or perhaps this was how war really was, back in the days when tribes fought each other like packs of wolves: for territory, for conquest, for females.
Once the Red pack wolves saw Mia walking down the steps, they realized their alpha had been subdued, and they had quickly given up. A few of the Sparks wolves threw unnecessary punches in the heat of the end of the fight, and Mia had to restrain herself from asking them not to hit Jak. She wasn’t sure, but she guessed a few bruises from a Sparks wolf was much less punishment than he would receive at the hands of the Red pack, if they had any inkling Jak was the one who almost set her free.
So she didn’t say a word as they beat and bound up Jak along with the rest of them.
Once the Red wolves were contained, the entire Sparks group made a run back for the forest. Lev had to be carried, of course, and so did Lucas’s father. That took four of the Sparks wolves right there. And then Lucas… her heart squeezed as she watched Lucas’s naked body being hauled through the forest with Llyr on one side and another wolf on the other. She wasn’t even sure Lucas was conscious half the time, as his bare feet dragged through the ferns and banged against the rocks. He had passed out by the time someone had gone back up for him. They’d tied a sheet around his waist but it was already soaked in his blood. The white part glowed in the moonlight patches as they dragged him past, but the red looked as dark as ink. She wasn’t sure if it was actually slowing the bleeding, or just covering up the hole Mace’s shot had torn through him.
Mace. With him passed out, it was easier for her to leave the house. And with the house left behind in the Red pack grounds, she was able to think more clearly—and loathe him more fully. He hadn’t gotten far in claiming her, but she could still feel his hands roaming her, undressing her, running his fingers and lips over her skin… she couldn’t repay Lucas and Colin for coming to rescue
her, but the price that Lucas was paying… that they were all paying…
“Are you sure he’s going to be okay?” Mia asked Colin. He was staying by her side, guarding her. She would have preferred he helped carry Lucas or tend to one of the other injured—she was the least hurt among all of them—but once Lucas had handed her over to Colin, he hadn’t let go.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Colin said grimly. “So has Lev. We’ll need to find a healer for them as soon as we’re away.”
“A healer?”
He smiled down at her, like he thought her ignorance was charming. Her face just heated up, and she hoped her hands weren’t sweating along with them.
“A healer is a doctor with a specialization in shifters.” Even if his smile made her feel embarrassed, his voice was gentle enough. He wasn’t making fun of her.
“I didn’t know they were teaching that in medical school these days.”
He grinned. “They don’t. Healers are usually shifters themselves. They have the normal training, plus some special training through their pack. Or another they’ve been apprenticed out to.”
“Apprenticed.” An intern, like her. She peered into the murky depths of the forest and the bloodied shifters who had all risked their lives to come for her. A simple intern. An unmated female. Someone who wasn’t even part of their pack, but somehow got twisted up in their business. “There’s so much I don’t know about shifters. Or packs. Or really any of it.”
She glanced at him, her face heating up again.
He squeezed her hand a little, just a gentle thing. Sweet and encouraging. “I could teach you anything you want to know.” His voice was lower now, just for her, not the entourage around them. She didn’t think it was her imagination that there was more to his words than he was saying.
He’d flat out told her before that he wanted her for a mate. And she didn’t exactly mind holding his hand as they completed their escape—he was one of the few clothed men marching them all out to safety, and it certainly would have been a lot more awkward if she’d been ushered by one of the naked ones.
