It didn’t originate from Jaxon.
It came from the woods.
The little fucker led us into a trap.
Gunfire erupts around us, one of the bullets hitting him square in the head, killing him instantly.
Okay, so it may not have been an intentional trap.
“Looks like they found those weapons!” Caius shouts as he takes cover behind the four-by-four.
Tieran’s at my side in the next instant, his knife digging into my arm to catch the bullet. “Don’t waste your time on me,” I snap.
“I need your fucking aim,” he counters, cutting me deeper to yank out the metal.
It hurts like a son of a bitch, making me snarl in response.
He growls back, his animal in his eyes. “The comms are dead,” he tells me as he finishes the quick medic job.
Our wolves are surrounding us, taking fire and returning it with the assholes in the woods.
From the growls, it sounds like we’re winning. Not a surprise. We’ve trained under far worse conditions.
“Something’s wrong,” Tieran continues.
An explosion comes from the tree line, drawing my attention to Alpha Ion. He’s grinning like a loon, having just unleashed a handful of grenades. Normally, I would be smiling right along with him.
But my heart is hammering in my chest. Clove.
I can hear her screaming.
I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But she’s all around me, her pain echoing between the trees. It’s like I’m losing my fucking mind.
Except Tieran is snarling with fury, searching for the source.
And Caius is howling.
It takes a beat for me to understand the source—a fucking speaker system.
“Smile for the camera, Aspen,” a flat voice says.
“Yes, say, free me,” a second drawls, causing my jaw to pop in fury. Alpha Kin.
She shrieks instead, the sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard from her and my blood is fucking on fire as a result.
“Make a choice,” another voice says, this one deeper. Bryson. “Your lives or hers.”
“Cease fire!” Tieran shouts at our men.
They immediately obey.
And Bryson chuckles, the sound victorious.
Only for Clove to scream again, the sound an agonized cry that goes right to my heart.
Three things occur to me at once.
We never should have left her alone.
If we were bonded, we would be able to talk to her.
And… I’m going to fucking kill Bryson.
31
CLOVE
Several Minutes Earlier
The silver burns against my neck, but I don’t stop staring up at the man I once called father. There’s something different about him, a sense of indifference that feels wrong.
He’s looking at me like he doesn’t even recognize me.
Like he didn’t spend two decades raising me as his own.
Most males leave the child-rearing to the females, but he often helped with my training as a child, ensuring I was the fastest female of my age. He pushed me, perhaps not kindly, but I am who I am today because of his influence.
Yet his expression registers absolutely nothing as he holds the knife to my throat. It’s like he’s frozen there, demanding I stay without even requesting it.
“Good job, Gafton,” a new voice says, the source of it making my stomach churn.
Alpha Kin.
He steps into view, his intimidating size immediately making me want to shrink into a corner. It’s also the look in his eyes that has me almost cringing. His fractured irises are blazing with fragments of colors that make him look half-mad. Like his wolf is trying to shift, and he’s not allowing it.
Brown.
Green.
Brown.
Red.
I swallow as the array of colors shift, giving a whole new meaning to hazel eyes.
I’m guessing brown is the usual shade as his hair is also a thick dark brown. But he appears a bit unhinged, like he’s on the edge of going feral.
“Well, it seems Bryson has fucked everything up for me,” the Alpha drawls, leaning against the wall and running his gaze over me. “And it all started with you.” He shakes his head and sighs. “Why our father chose your mother, I’ll never know.”
I swallow against the knife at my throat. My former father isn’t otherwise touching me, just frozen before me with that dead look on his face. He’s barely even blinking.
What the hell is going on?
And what did Kin just say about my mother?
Our father?
“It was the beginning of their alliance, which proved fruitful for a while. But Bryson’s lost his touch.” Alpha Kin sounds disgusted by it, his expression darkening. “However, my father cherishes the relationship. So here we are.”