Chapter 227

Amber’s POV

I didn’t want to believe Olivia at first. After all, I had left Alice safely at home with Aunt Kathy. But there was something about the self-satisfaction in Olivia’s voice, when combined with my own nervous intuition, had me believing that Olivia was telling the truth.

Still, I needed confirmation before I put my life on the line.

“Let me hear her voice,” I said. “If you really have Alice, and she’s alive, I want to hear her.”

“Ug, fine,” Olivia said, groaning like this was a major inconvenience to her. As she moved the phone away from her, her voice became somewhat distant. “Say something to your mother, brat.”

“…Mommy?” Alice asked, her voice trembling with fear.

Oh, Gods. Olivia wasn’t lying. She had my little girl.

“Are you okay, Alice? Has she hurt you?”

“No, I’m okay, but Aunt Kathy got hurt…”

My darling, brave little girl was more worried about her aunt than she was about herself.

“Aunt Kathy is tougher than she looks. She’ll be okay.” I hoped I wasn’t lying right now. “Just do what Olivia tells you, okay? Stay safe, no matter what. I’ll come and get you.”

“Okay…” Alice said.

Olivia took the phone away from Alice then, and returned it to her own ear. “You believe me now, yes?”

“Yes,” I said at once.

“Good. I’ll send you the address. Follow it and get here. I’m done with this conversation.”

Olivia hung up.

I didn’t want to leave Julian alone with this fight. He’d even told me he did better when he knew I was watching, that I was here for him.

But with Alice in danger, I was certain that he would understand. I couldn’t stay here.

My phone buzzed then with a text message. Checking it, I saw an address with a single word following it.

Roof.

I couldn’t wait anymore.

“Is everything alright, Healer Amber?” Julian’s beta asked, approaching me.

“Yes,” I said, tucking my phone away. “Unfortunately, I have to go now.”

“Now?” the beta asked. “But what about the fight?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s important. I will tell Julian about it later.”

“Are you sure?” the beta asked.

Could he tell I was upset? Or was he just guessing?

“I’m sure,” I said, and walked away.

I tried to keep my head up and my expression calm. As a Healer, I was good at keeping my emotions in check, but it was much more difficult when it was my own daughter that was in trouble.

I felt as if I would fall apart any minute.

But I had an address. I knew where my daughter was.

This could only be a setup, but I didn’t care. I had to save Alice. Then I would worry about everything else.

Julian’s POV

“Stop, Tony!” I shouted at my cousin. He was throwing punches now that were wild, straining himself, putting more power into them than necessary, than he should be able to have.

His eyes were burning red now, and not just because of his wolf. He was close to raging, his hatred clear, burning in his eyes when he looked at me.

These wild punches left Tony open, and I knocked him down again. He growled from the ground.

I shouted at him, “Stay down this time. I don’t want to hurt you, and you are pushing yourself too hard! If you don’t surrender, you are going to get seriously hurt.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Tony raged. He jumped back up onto his feet and I was forced to punch him again and again, knocking him down, just for him to get back up, driven like a wild animal.

As the fight progressed, Tony stopped responding in any human way, snarling and growling without words as his features gradually became more and more ferocious and wolf-like.

Then, the three minutes must have happened, because the bell rang once more, signaling that it was now time to shift, for the werewolf portion of the fight.

Tony roared, as the fur ripped through his skin. His barely-there muscles bulged, stretching the fur, pulsing unnaturally as he burst out into his werewolf form. He was larger than he should have been, twitching slightly, with his eyes burning red.

There was nothing about this that was natural.

I knew right away, just looking at him, that he had turned feral.

There was no human consciousness left in his eyes. Instead, there was only wildness, only an animal.

I shifted as quickly as I could, turning into my own Alpha wolf hybrid.

My wolf should have been bigger than his, yet whatever he had done to himself made him unnaturally large and angry.

I had no time to feel sympathy for the man he had been once or what he had become now.

Not before he lunged straight for my throat.

I turned, dodging at the last moment.

In addition to strength, this new bulky form of his had also given him speed.

Tony was bloodthirsty and crazed. Immediately, he turned to strike at me again.

After dodging once more, I looked for Amber in the crowd, hoping to gather strength from her presence, her closeness, but wasn’t where she said she would be watching. I stretched my senses out further, hoping to detect her somewhere in the crowd.

She was nowhere nearby.

Had she left? Had something happened?

I didn’t have time to think about this before Tony plowed into my back, knocking me to the ground.

Amber’s POV

The address wasn’t too far, so I ran there rather than try to weave through all the people to find my car or try to rush to the road to track down a cab. There was too much traffic, people everywhere.

I didn’t have time to think about anything, or to try to try to be reasonable at all. I just had to get to this address.

I ran as fast as my legs would take me, checking each address as I rushed by, counting up and up and until I reached the right one.

Gods, this building was tall. Ten stories, at least.

My poor daughter was up there.

That fear and anger drove me, and I rushed into the building. I flew into the elevator and pressed it as high as it would go. The wait inside was impossibly slow.

I needed to be there! I couldn’t wait!

Finally the doors opened. On the top floor, I rushed around, desperately searching for rooftop access. When I finally found it, I burst through the door and to the roof.

There stood Olivia. One of her hands was on Alice’s shoulder. The other was gripping a gun.

Alice’s face was pale, tears streaking down her face.

There was minimal light up here, mostly from the stars and moon and a few dull lights at every end of the roof, likely there to alert planes of the height.

Nearby, a radio was playing commentary of the fight. From what I could tell, the three minute mark had finally passed, and the contenders were now in their wolf forms. Tony had become monstrous, as I feared, and seemed to have the upper hand.

Olivia smirked, and as I walked closer toward her, further out onto the roof, I started to feel like I was about to make a deal with the devil.