Page 18 of Never Tamed
“I heard them—the Blood Moons,” I say suddenly, voice rough from disuse. Everyone freezes. I sit up straighter, jaw clenched. “When they took me, I was only half out of it, and I heard them talking.”
Torin’s head snaps toward me, full attention locked. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
I point to my leg and then to Ren. “A little fucking busy?”
Unease and nerves crackle between us and the tension strings tighter.
Mathis stills, a frown deepening the furrow between his brows.
“They’ve bribed a lot of the law enforcement in the city. It’s given them extra eyes in case we come back. Andras is already prepared. He’s been cornering our territory before you ever made the connection with Catarina,” I add.
“Bribed or threatened?” Mathis says with careful control.
Torin’s eyes narrow. “Does it matter?”
Guess not.
He curses under his breath in a string of low grumbled words. His hands curl into fists until his knuckles pop and go white.
“Anything else?” Mathis presses. “Come on, Noble. Did they say more?”
My head spins and aches. I clamp down on the inside of my lip and use the pain for clarity. As much as I hate admitting it, I’m with Dax. This place sucks. There’s a reason why we never came out this far. The bay is a stinkhole. It’s pure humanity and not in the orderly way of the city.
But we’re stuck here.
“They’re…underground now. Underneath the city. Literally, not metaphorically. They’ve gone into the tunnels beneath us.” Right under our noses, the entire time.
Guilt swamps me, and I tug Ren closer.
Why couldn’t I have figured it out? For all our tech, for all our cameras, we hadn’t found Andras.
Torin frowns. “The sewers?”
I nod. “It’s why it seemed like they disappeared out of thin air. They’ve built a whole fucking nest beneath the streets.”
“Like the rats they are,” Torin snaps, glancing between us before landing on Mathis. “This attack…This plan with the Briar Pack, it was supposed to wipe us out. They expected my people to be there. We threw off their plans when only Noble and I showed up.”
“With the Grey Valley and Steel Claws alphas out of the way, it’d be easier for Andras to take over our packs.” Mathis growls, his spine curling forward. “Absorb them into his—”
“Or kill them all if they refuse to accept a change in leadership, yeah,” I add. “But we’re still breathing, which means he’s going to try again. But this time, we know where he’s hiding. We have the upperhand.”
Exhaustion settles harder on my shoulders, and I sink back down. My eyes flutter shut.
“Do we?” Mathis asks, his tone grim. “Even working together and even with Dax mauling down half a church full of those bastards, our pack numbers are still low. And Andras will come harder next time.”
The unspoken realization settles between us like poison gas in the air.
The next time he attacks will be the last.
He’ll hit hard and we won’t survive it.
“Then let him,” Torin mutters. He shifts slightly, and I catch sight of something red clutched in his hands. Ren’s jacket? “Weneed a plan. A real one. We hit him first. Above or below ground—I don’t care. We finish this together.”
“You’re starting to sound like Dax.” Mathis curls his lip and turns away.
“He’s been making more and more sense lately,” Torin says.
The bond linking the four of us together snaps with awareness. We’re mostly on the same page. For the first time in what feels like hours, there’s a flicker of heat in my chest. Hope, maybe. Or vengeance. It’s getting harder to tell the difference.
