Fated to the Warrior Wolf (The Hunted Omegas #3)

35. Gael

THIRTY-FIVE

Gael

T he house was clear, and my wolf’s hackles lowered as we trailed the scent out the back and onto the damp grass. Dew was already settling as the night grew chilly. My wolf didn’t care. Our pelt was thick and hardy against the cold. This was our home territory, and we were made to weather it.

While the dew made it slightly harder to catch scents, at least three wolves that weren’t familiar had passed this way, leading toward the back of the property. I trotted along the scent trail, staying alert as I mentally guesstimated where this arrow-straight path would end. Unless they veered sharply, this was heading right back to where the oldest scents had begun, on the other side of our perimeter guards, who’d been poisoned.

Poison fucking everywhere, the cowards.

Wolves were more aggressive than humans, sure. Even vamps were stately old fuckers, most of them too busy driving Ferraris and wearing ten-thousand-dollar custom suits to actually get their hands dirty. No, they had minions for that.

But for wolves to resort to this knife-in-the-back, cloak-and-dagger bullshit? It wasn’t natural. We were direct and forceful. We led by might and right, claw and fang. Poison and subterfuge were cowardice, trying to take down the powerful without risking yourself.

They’d crossed the wrong pack.

I sped up as I neared the forest edge, as the smell grew stronger. I was gaining on them, the scents gaining clarity as we got under the cover of tree limbs. Three wolves—all male, two alphas, one beta. I couldn’t tell pack affiliation from a scent, but I picked up hints of their individual musks, and committed them to memory as I ran faster and faster, cutting into the soft earth with my claws, flinging up clods of dirt as I wove between tree trunks, ears flattened and tail high as I hunted them.

A sound up ahead made me kick it up another notch, and I abandoned the scent trail, cutting a hard right toward a clearing I knew was there. Because that sound? It was chopper blades.

But when I reached the clearing, it wasn’t the three enemies I’d been pursuing, but our large military chopper touching down.

Reed was already marching Varga off the back, Varga’s chin held high and shoulders wide, a sloppy grin on his smug face. I shifted, moving smoothly between forms as I strode as close as I dared to the slowing chopper blades while still naked and vulnerable to debris from the ground flying into sensitive places.

Reed saw me and steered my way, halting Varga a few feet back.

“Did Kane signal already? We haven’t finished clearing the grounds.” I didn’t waste time with small talk, not that Reed expected that from me.

He shook his head. “Sergei did. Said that all interior teams had checked in, the castle was once again secure, and that you were trailing the last lead. ”

I nodded. That was good. “I was, but I thought the chopper might have been them making a hasty escape.”

Reed grimaced. “No. We did see a silver off-road vehicle going down a mountain service road, roughly…” He spun, considering. “That way. Give or take two more miles? The pilot could give you a better estimate. I don’t have much of an eye for aerial distance.”

I snorted. “You do have flaws like the rest of us.”

Reed rolled his eyes at me, but before he could snap back with his own barb, I shifted back into fur and took back off toward the trail I’d been following. If they’d seen a vehicle fleeing, it was probably a dead end. But I’d make sure before I headed back into the castle.

I wasn’t leaving any loose ends, not with the pack’s safety, but most importantly, not with my mate and child’s safety.

Ten minutes later, the trail ended abruptly, the faint scents of rubber and shitty coconut car air fresheners that made my wolf sneeze telling me everything I needed to know. The last of the pack had fled, choosing to save themselves rather than rescue their own.

The more we learned about these dipshits, the less I liked them. But were they Varga’s pack or rogues hired to stir shit up?

Only Varga knew that.

Or did he? I wondered as I jogged back toward the castle. He had a top five, like everybody else. The likelihood of him working completely alone was slim. I’d mention it to Kane, see if we could bring them in for the tribunal. If I recognized their scents, it would be case closed.

I’d fill him in, then get my woman and take her back to my room. After a long night, all I wanted was to wrap her up in my arms and never let her go.

It was the only place I knew she’d be safe, and my wolf was a possessive bastard. All this going on while she was newly pregnant was starting to feel like too much. I was on edge, my protective instincts firing around the clock. The only thing that would settle me was her, safe and tucked away where no one could get to her without going through me.

The images of her bloody abdomen were burned into my brain, the bitter taste of failure and stale enemy blood heavy on my tongue.

I’d failed to protect her once.

I would never fail her again.