Page 63 of Fight or Fly

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t like that phrasing.”

“We found out the complicated way who his mate is,” Jax said. “It’s Kostya fucking Nikolayev, Alex. He’s agoddamned alpha, hiding right at the top of the Committee.”

And...wow. No coddling happening here, was there?

There was a longish pause. “I’m still drugged,” Alex said uncertainly.

“Yeah, you are,” Jax agreed. “But you heard that right, all the same.” He hesitated. “And there’s something else.”

“Jax,no,” I burst out. This wasnotthe right time, hard on the heels of dropping the Nikolayev bomb on her. She looked awful—gray-faced and dazed.

It had been the wrong thing to say. Her hazy gaze sharpened—a hound hot on the scent trail.

“What is it?” she demanded. “Tell me.”

Jax took a slow breath. “It’s Irina, Alex. She’s here. She’s alive.”

TWENTY-THREE

Leo

ALEX SHOOK HER headslowly back and forth. “No. No, she’s dead. I felt her die.” Blank incomprehension morphed into flat denial behind her unfocused green gaze.

“You felt the bond break,” Kam said softly. “They took her mating gland, Alex—just like they tried to take mine. That was why the bond snapped.”

“I—” She cut herself off. Shook her head again, though there was no conviction behind the gesture this time. “But, we didn’t... she wasn’t...” Again, she trailed off. A painful silence stretched for the span of several heartbeats, before she asked in a wavering voice, “The pups?”

Jax sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,alef. They’re gone.”

I wanted to cry the tears Alex couldn’t, like I’d done for her back in Romania. They burned at the backs of my eyes, but I didn’t let them spill. This time, I didn’t think they’d help.

“I have to see her,” Alex whispered. “If she’s here, I need to see for myself.”

“She led the retrieval mission to get you, Flynn, and Beckett back,” Jax said. “But she’s been avoiding you so far. During the mission, it was because that kind of distraction could easily have turned deadly. Now, I’m not sure why she still hasn’t come. She could still be in debriefings. It’s the middle of the night, though... and none of us know where her quarters are located. Or even if we’re still supposed to be prisoners, for that matter.”

Alex’s breathing had grown uneven as she struggled with whatever emotions she was experiencing in reaction to the blunt revelation.

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