Page 145 of Wrath

“We’ll see you soon,” Ryland agreed with a wink. Then he disappeared in a cloud of shadows.

Quickly, I changed into my fighting leathers and sheaths.

Devlin, Killian, Jax, and I immediately took off in the direction of the dungeons, but just before we left the room, something S had said occurred to me.

So far, I hadn’t given much thought to how I was going to eliminate Aaliyah. I only had a vague idea that I wasn’t even sure would work.

But if it did…

S’s words rattled in my head.

“You need to stop her. You have what you need to do it. Without her power, she’s nothing.”

“Z, what are you doing?” Devlin hissed as I ran to our bags and began to sift through the items, pulling clothing and toiletries out at random.

Where the fuck was it?

“Z?” Jax demanded.

My searching fingers found what I was looking for, and I carefully stored it in one of my sheaths.

God, this had to work. Because if it didn’t, I was out of options. The world would go to hell.

But S was right. I had to rely on my mates and my love for them. I was stronger than I was before.

“I’m coming,” I told my mates, spinning back to face them.

They eyed me suspiciously but didn’t comment.

Together, we raced down the hall.

FIFTY-ONE

Z

“So how do you know that S wasn’t full of shit?” Devlin asked as we skirted a corner, still running at full speed.

“You didn’t see him.” I shook my head, as if that could somehow remove the images popping to the forefront of my mind.

I knew I would have nightmares for days to come. Months, even.

Years.

“How the hell did Aaliyah get in here?” Killian asked.

He began to lag behind—no doubt unused to running with his tail thumping behind him.

We turned the final corner, and the door to the dungeons came into view.

Devlin slowed to a stop, fury painted across every line of his face.

“I think we have our answer,” he growled, closing in on Axel and the shifter representative.

The ex-assassin had the shifter pinned to the wall by his neck. The shifter snarled and growled, his face elongating as his animal fought to break free, but Axel simply grinned and slammed the shifter’s head back against the wall. His eyes rolled, and he went limp.

“What the fuck is going on?” Devlin demanded, stalking forward like an avenging angel.

Power exuded from him in almost palpable waves, saturating the air and causing goose bumps to ripple on my skin.

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