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Chapter 27
I crouch behind the crumbling stone wall, icy wind whipping through my hair as gunfire cracks in the distance. The muzzle flashes from Valek and Whiskey’s sniper rifles wink like malevolent stars on the ridge above, each shot dropping another sentry with brutal precision.
Wraith hunches beside me, his massive frame coiled and tense. For once, that feral gaze isn’t glazed with the haze of an impending episode. He’s clear-eyed, focused—a predator sizing up his prey before the kill.
A strange sense of pride mingles with my wariness as I watch him scan the compound, those ice-blue eyes missing nothing. I have to admit Ivy’s presence seems to have grounded him in a way I’ve never witnessed before. For once, he’s making logical decisions.
Not that I’m about to thank those twisted fucks on the Council for anything. Using her as some kind of pacifying talisman, dangling her in harm’s way just to keep the rest of us in line…
My grip tightens on my rifle until my knuckles ache. I knew from the start this was a terrible idea, that an omega had no place in the midst of our bloody work. But seeing her up there with Valek, knowing that psychopath is reveling in the slaughter as she huddles behind him…
It makes my stomach churn with a sick blend of rage and disgust. She doesn’t belong here, caught in the crossfire of this violent shitshow. She should be safe and protected, not treated like a goddamn human shield by those soulless Council pricks.
The crackle of gunfire draws closer, the rattle of assault rifles joining the cacophony.
‘On me,’ I growl to Wraith and Plague before charging through the breach in the outer wall. The courtyard is a vision of chaos—bodies strewn across the trampled snow, their blood seeping into the pristine drifts in grotesque crimson blooms. Gunfire rakes the air around us, shredding masonry and filling the crisp mountain air with cordite smoke.
A guard lunges from behind a barricade, his rifle leveled at Wraith’s broad chest. Without breaking stride, the feral beast swats the weapon aside with one brawny arm, his other hand seizing the man by the throat and hoisting him into the air like a child’s toy.
The guard’s eyes bulge, his boots kicking helplessly as Wraith crushes the life from him with brutal, methodical force. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, he flings the lifeless body aside and continues his relentless advance.
I follow Wraith’s wake of devastation through the compound as Plague’s lithe form dances through the fray with feral grace, those wicked blades of his flashing in the pale light of the guard towers.
It’s like the dam has finally burst, all our darkest impulses given free rein. And now, we have something to fight for. Something to protect.
A shrill cry splits the air, cutting through the roar of battle. My head whips toward the sound, that primal part of me instantly on alert at the prospect of an omega in distress.
But it’s not Ivy’s voice lancing the air, I realize with a start. Just some hired gun stumbling from the inner sanctum, his chest a ragged mess of crimson ruin where Wraith tore into his ribcage with his bare hands. The guard falls forward into the snow as Wraith looms behind him, steam curling from the tubing that snakes from his gas mask.
I force my focus back to the task at hand. The outer defenses have been neutralized, leaving only the manor house itself and whatever forces remain holed up inside.
I burst through the front doors as the sirens wail, taking out a few guards with my rifle before moving further, deeper into the opulent mansion. The air is thick with the acrid stench of gunpowder and blood.
My eyes narrow as I reach the landing, surveying the sprawling hallway lined with ornate doors. Behind one of them cowers our mark—an alpha financier greasing the palms of every corrupt politician and black market kingpin in the region. The perfect identity for Valek to adopt as he slips into their ranks like a viper in a nest.
I shake my head in disgust. What a pathetic excuse for an alpha, hiding away while he sacrifices his own men to the slaughter. No honor, no courage. Just a sniveling coward more interested in self-preservation than protecting those who loyally serve him.
Rounding the corner, I find the financier with his hand on the heavy steel door of a panic room. He looks back at me, eyes widening as he takes in my massive silhouette blotting out the light.
‘Ah, the Council’s attack dog himself,’ he spits. ‘Come to put me down, have you?’
The mocking curl of the financier’s lips makes my blood boil. As if this sniveling coward has any right to judge me.
‘You have no idea who you’re working for,’ he sneers, his hand inching closer to the panic room’s handle.
My brow furrows as a flicker of doubt worms its way in. What exactly does this worm know about the Council’s operations? I open my mouth to demand answers, but he seizes the moment, whipping out a compact sidearm and firing wildly.
I stagger back as the bullets ricochet off my armored vest, grunting from the force of the impacts. By the time I regain my footing, the financier has sealed himself inside the panic room, the heavy steel door clanging shut.
With a snarl of rage, I unleash a volley from my rifle, pockmarking the reinforced portal until smoke curls from the barrel. The air grows hazy, thick with gunpowder and the reek of spent casings as I empty magazine after magazine into that damned door.
Finally, an ominous grinding echoes from the other side as the mechanisms fail, the battered steel parting slightly. I seize the gap, peeling the door open with my bare hands until it shrieks in protest.
The financier cowers in the corner, his pistol trembling in his hand as I advance. ‘W-Wait, I can pay you! Anything you want, just name your price!’
I don’t bother responding, simply closing the distance with two long strides and seizing him by the throat.
‘You’re right,’ I growl, tightening my grasp until his eyes bulge. ‘I don’t know who I’m working for. Not really.’Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.
Not like this son of a bitch is going to tell me the truth anyway. Just the deluded ramblings of a desperate man grasping at straws, trying to cling to some twisted idea of control even as everything crumbles around him.
The Council may be a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats drunk on their own power. But they’re still the closest thing to legitimate authority this fractured world has left.
Aren’t they?
With a vicious squeeze, I crush his windpipe, holding that stare until the last flicker of life fades from his gaze. Then I let the lifeless husk crumple to the floor in a boneless heap.
The sound of savage snarling drifts up from below, grating and feral. I tense, recognizing that guttural timbre all too well.
‘Fuck,’ I mutter, already sprinting for the stairs. If Wraith has slipped into an episode in the midst of this chaos, with Ivy this close…
I skid around the corner to find Wraith looming over the mutilated remains of what was once a human being, methodically smashing the corpse apart with a club. Blood spatters his clothes and mask, the floor around him a viscera-strewn abattoir of rended flesh and shattered bone.
No. Not a club.
A disembodied arm.
‘Wraith!’ I bark, leveling my rifle at his back. ‘Stand down, now!’
He pauses, his entire body stilling with unnatural poise. Slowly, he turns to face me, his icy eyes blank and devoid of all thought or emotion.
‘Easy, brother,’ I murmur, tensing as that lupine stare bores into me. One wrong move and I’ll have to kneecap him. ‘It’s over. We got our target.’
Wraith cocks his head, a low rumble building in his chest. He takes a lumbering step closer to me, the bulging cords of muscle in his arms and shoulders twitching and coiling beneath his scarred skin.
‘Thane! Thane, come in!’ Valek rasps in my ear.
I flinch. Keeping my rifle trained on my brother as he slowly stalks toward me, I tap my earpiece. ‘What is it? Kind of a bad time,’ I mutter.
‘We have a problem,’ Valek growls into my ear. ‘It’s the little rabbit.’