Pack Ruin (The Splintered Bond #3)

26. Rescue

26

Rescue

GRIGOR

I t had been many years since I’d admired another shifter’s courage, other than my own little queen’s. But this young pup was dealing admirably with his fear. A justifiable one, given my past and my reputation. A fear of magic, as he had been taught, and the more universal fear of the unknown.

But as I felt his spirit connect with Luke’s, through the bond I had with that one, I found even more to admire in the way he opened himself up fully—in spite of his fears—to whatever the bond required.

For her. Like me, he would risk all for her safety. Her happiness.

His spirit glowed a bright yellow like distilled sunshine, and flooded into the dark, cavernous place where Luke’s life force had been almost totally extinguished. The small, flickering flame that I’d wrapped my own shadowed energies around leaped for the light of Glen’s power.

Leaped, and held on, drawing too quickly. Glen let out a garbled moan of pain, and I used my shadowy power to throttle the connection between them—between us—down to a steady, smaller stream.

The void that had to be filled was so deep, though, that I was unable to keep the connections stable. Luke’s wolf, the part of him I’d tried hardest to save, roared to life, and demanded that I give more to drag his human side back as well.

If I had been at my full strength, I could have ignored him. But his wolf was unbelievably powerful. How?

I fell onto the bed, my body draped over both of the others, as Luke’s spirit wolf dug its claws into me and dragged me into the dream his human side was having.

Perhaps not a dream. A vision? It felt utterly real.

“Mine,” I whispered, echoing the young boy in the vision that drew me in and clamped jaws as strong as the moon around my spirit.

“Mine.” I threw myself over the tiny, wailing child, her warmth my only comfort as the world exploded in pain.Lines of fire raced across my back, the skin peeling and blistering as I huddled over the girl who had been under the belt only seconds before.

The pack protects, they’d taught me. I wasn’t the pack. Not an Alpha, or an Enforcer, or even old enough to shift. I was a child myself, only ten, but the little girl was no more than two.

“Blackside, stop! That’s the Heir!” voices around me shouted. The entire pack was here, watching. Just as they’d watched the Head Enforcer punish the little girl for tripping and falling over her own tiny feet, and against his legs.

She hadn’t hurt him, but he had taken his belt to punish her. Perhaps to kill her.

No matter how the crowd muttered and shouted, Blackside didn’t stop. He redoubled his efforts, as if he were determined to beat the girl through me, cut me in half with the leather strap if necessary, to get to her.

My blood ran in rivulets down and over her skin, the hot, metallic scent of it mingling with her own cinnamon-laced blood and saltwater tears. Inside my mind, a howling began, as if a beast was running from somewhere far away to save me.

It would be too late. Instead, a tendril of something soft, unready, like the first leaf of spring unfurling, stretched from the tiny one beneath me and wrapped a delicate spiral around me.

Mine, it echoed. Mine.

The scene changed.

“Luke, there you are,” the husky voice muttered. I rolled over to see her, naked, perched on the edge of my bed. Her hair was long, her limbs strong, glowing with health. Her breasts were still small, but the nipples peeked through the curtain of red hair that tumbled around her shoulders. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, mate.”

I smiled back at her. I loved this dream. “I’ve been right here, waiting for you.”

She rolled her eyes and slid over the sheet to me, lining her small form up with mine as best she could, her warm fingers skating over my sensitive skin. I placed my hand on the five-armed scar over her breast.

Her fingers trailed across my chest, teasing the sparse hairs there, then dipping to press against my cock. “I’ve missed you,” she said softly. “Close your eyes, and I’ll show you how much.” Her warm body slid lower on mine, her knees bracketing mine, her hair falling all around my stomach and thighs as she leaned down and took me into her mouth.

Slowly, patiently, she worked her clever tongue up and down, around and even below, teasing every inch of my flesh until I had to hold the sheets in my fist to keep from pulling her back up and on top of me, burying myself in her wet heat. Filling her until she was overcome with pleasure, her body tightening around mine.

“Love me,” she murmured, as she did exactly what I’d dreamed, burying my length inside her. “Love me, Luke.”

Hot tears ran down my face to the sheet below as our eyes met, as I lifted my hips to meet her. “I have never done anything else, little fighter.”

Suddenly, she cried out. Not in pleasure, but pain. “Luke! Where are you? What have I done?” Terror filled her gaze, as she held up her hands. Blood dripped from them, though she wasn’t hurt. “What did I do?”

She vanished, my body cold in an instant. I felt her pain, through some new connection. Felt others there, with me, in her place.

In the place inside my soul, where only she belonged. They had taken her.

Had they touched her? Her pain echoed along the ropes that connected to me, inside me. My wolf roared to be let loose, and even though I knew Callaway would kill me for it, I couldn’t let her be taken…

Where is she? Where is my mate?!

I pulled myself away from the memory mere seconds before the others woke, and was deeply grateful. It gave me time to slap my hand over Luke’s mouth just as he drew a deep, shuddering breath, ready to roar out the questions his wolf had uttered in the dream.

His eyes blazed with blue fire, like the sky itself was boiling inside him. “Stay quiet,” I warned him. “We’re still in the Pack House. Her enemies are all around.” I lowered my hand, noting Glen sitting up on Luke’s other side, and prepared to quiet him as well, if necessary.

Luke’s whisper was as close to a wolf’s growl as I’d ever heard a human sound. I pulled on a thread of my power to wrap silence around us, ignoring Glen’s disgruntled complaint as it took energy from him as well. Luke repeated his silent question, his voice raspy with disuse. “Where is my mate?” His wolf was challenging mine, meeting my gaze. And to my surprise, holding it.

“She is close. She came to rescue you.”

“We both did,” Glen added.

Luke’s head swung around, and the tension in his body, along with the threat of imminent attack that had been present, dropped away. “Glen?” He sniffed, taking in his friend’s changed scent. “You… You’re her mate?”

“We all are,” Glen whispered, almost cheerfully. “At least, I am, and Brand. Finn and she are… complicated, but claimed. You and Joaquin here are the only two who can’t technically call her your mate yet—oh, okay, let’s not get carried away.” Luke and I had both turned to him, snarling, at the same instant.

“His name isn’t Joaquin,” Luke hissed, as I stood next to the bed, slightly dizzy from the magic I had performed with the new bindings. “It’s Grigor Dimitrivich. And if you think I’ll let you within a hundred feet of my mate, you are sorely mistaken.”

I stopped for a moment, wondering how Flor would feel about one more bouquet. A large one, made of Luke’s entrails. I forced myself to remember the dream, or vision. He had saved my little queen, and I had—foolishly, perhaps—tied him to me. I suppose I had to let him live.

“I will not pretend that I am worthy of her. But you allowed her to suffer for years. You allowed the ones who hurt her, who terrorized her, to live. I do not need your permission to continue to court the one whose soul is bound to all of us. And if you try to keep me from her, may the moon have mercy on you. Because I will not.”

“Good talk,” Glen interrupted. “Luke, we don’t have time to measure dicks or dominance. Flor’s somewhere alone in the compound. She’s trying to get the women and girls out.” We both glared at him.

“What?” I muttered just as Luke demanded, “You left her alone? ”

Glen let out an exasperated breath and headed for the window. “We ran into a guard. She still had her ear tag, so he thought?—”

“Why? Why would she keep it? Didn’t she earn her rank at Northern?” Luke rose slowly to his feet. “Shit, how long was I out?” His legs were shaky, and I slung an arm around his waist to keep him from falling.

Glen opened his mouth to answer just as a cry went up somewhere in the Pack House. “There’s an intruder! An Enforcer has been killed!”

“Oh, fuck,” he sighed.

We moved quickly, Glen in front. I helped Luke stay on his feet while Glen opened the window once more. “I know a place we can hide, not far—” Luke began in a whisper.

“The storm drain,” I finished, plucking the image out of his thoughts. “Where our mate hid before her fight.”

He curled his lip. “Yes.”

Glen helped him out the window, and I followed, using the magic I had to keep our passage quiet, and encourage the Enforcers who might see us to look in another direction. It was a simple piece of magic, in normal circumstances. But I had never attempted it with three, and with my power so drained.

I kept the spell unspooling around us as we staggered from one shadow to the next. Enforcers ran mere yards away, and even if some in their wolf forms sniffed at the air, they ran to the fence. To the forest.

I found myself smiling, though blood trickled from my nose as I depleted my strength once again to cover us as Glen worked at the bolts on one side of the circular metal drain cover.

I could smell her. My little queen wasn’t in the forest. She was here, with us, now.

And her heart was breaking.