Page 27 of Pack Rage
“Do you think it’s Gri—” Brand’s whispered question was cut off when the lights flared, brightening the hall.
I shook my head, reaching for the door to my room, but something stopped me. A feeling that I shouldn’t go inside. Instead, I grasped Brand’s arm and pulled him down the hall, toward Finnick’s wing. Some of the red eyes of the cameras were lit on the way, but some flickered, and one was out completely.
Good.
When we reached Finnick’s room, the door wasn’t locked, which worried me slightly. The faint scent of other shifters drifted from inside as I cracked it open, and I knew either maids or guards had been here. I held a finger to my lips as Brand staggered to a halt behind me.
“Hang on,” I whispered, pulling a stone out of my pocket. I’d gathered a few from the parking lot of the gas station that had been our only stop between Southern and the Mansion,some with sharp edges. I’d remembered Flor talking about Del’s lessons, about using any weapon you could get. About anything being a weapon, if you thought about it.
This stone was heavy and round, and after I lined up my shot, I threw it along with a prayer to the moon.
Maybe the moon was listening. The camera’s eye shattered, and the red light began blinking. I wasn’t sure if someone would come to investigate, but I hoped the guards might think it was just another malfunction.
“I need water.” Brand’s voice was strained, and fear shot through me when he leaned heavily on my arm as I led him into the room. He had always been bigger than me, taller and more well-muscled. Especially now, after months of being comatose, I should be the weaker one.
Had Elina had enough time with him to do something to him? Or was he staggering for some other reason? I helped him sit on a wide bench that sat along one wall of the bathroom, and grabbed him water, leaving the tap running, then turning on the taps to the showers and tub as well. I locked the door and flipped the fan on, then sat down next to him.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” Brand said after a long, uncomfortable moment, his eyes shut. He and I had never been close. The moment we’d shared at Southern when he’d stapled my gut wound closed was the most we’d spoken alone. But now….
“How is she?” I asked, rubbing my abdomen over the scar. “I can feel that she’s alive. But was she hurt?”
“She was. Glen almost died.”
“But they healed? They got away? Escaped into the woods?—”
“No. They didn’t escape.” The words were slow to come, as if he didn’t want to say them aloud. “They triumphed.”
“How?” My heart began to race.
“The rogues came in, led by Sergeant. Her mother, as well. They had weapons in the woods, and Sergeant to lead them. Oh, and all of the remaining women of your pack, armed with sticks and kitchen knives.”
Dread filled my belly. “How many of them died?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if they all had. I knew how skilled Torran’s men were, and how weak we’d made our women and girls. None of them would have been able to use a real weapon, not with the Alpha command still on them.
“Not as many as you’d think. The Southern shifters who were left rose up when she called them.” His lips twitched. “She called upon them as future Alpha Mate. Your mate. And they obeyed.” His eyes snapped open and landed on the bite mark on my neck.
“They… They won?” My mind spun. I hadn’t let myself dream of that, though some of the phone conversations I’d overheard on the ride to Eastern had led me to believe things hadn’t gone according to Elina’s plan.
I’d seen Glen peppered by bullets. Flor fallen, her back broken. I’d clung to the knowledge that they had lived, the sensation of our bond, with only the dull, numb place where Grigor’s thread had been, now lifeless.
No.Not lifeless. I took a shallow breath and realized there was a faint humming there, and a taste in the back of my mouth, like aluminum. A scent of ozone.
“Grigor’s alive, too.” I pressed a fist to my mouth, a surge of relief rushing through me.
“Not for long, if he’s a danger to my flower.” Brand’s pale eyes fixed on me. “I know you sacrificed for her, even if you let her suffer for far too long. I know your life was as much a hell as hers, Luke. I’ll learn to share her love with you as I have Glen. When I finish beating the shit out of him, I might even let Finn sit in the same room with my mate. But that psychotic killer? There’s nothing redeemable about him.”
His gaze had grown brighter as he spoke, and his face paler. A shudder ran through him, and the veins on his neck stood out for a moment. What was happening?
“What’s wrong?” I grunted as he slumped against me, trying to keep him from falling to the marble floor.
“Something… arm…” he groaned. I looked down. There were three half-moon cuts on his arm, with small traces of blood there. Blood and… I leaned down and sniffed. An aroma, incredibly faint, that I didn’t recognize, but which threw me back into my memories. When I’d fallen unconscious, after Flor left. When the woman—Elina—had come and tried to pry open my mind, tear loose information about my mate.
Her hand had been on his arm when I’d interrupted them in the parlor. Had she poisoned him? Or cursed him somehow? I had no idea how magic worked, but as Brand’s eyes rolled back in his head, I realized I needed to find someone who did, fast.
The scent of ozone grew stronger as the bathroom door handle suddenly jiggled. “Luke?” Finnick’s voice was soft, guarded. I managed to help Brand lie on the floor and opened the door.
Finnick’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face almost as pale as Brand’s, though he seemed steady on his feet. “What happened?” we both whispered at the same time.
“I’m not sure. Your mother cut him with her nails, I think.”
