Chapter 229

Amber’s POV

I lowered myself onto a narrow shelf of concrete on the side of the building, from with the flagpoles were sticking horizontally straight out of.

Alice was holding onto that flagpole for dear life, her thin arms and legs wrapped tightly around it.

I wasn’t sure how much longer it could hold her though, the metal was hollow and already bent in a few places. I had to reach her and fast.

Stretching out as far as I could without losing my own grip on the side of the building, I tried to reach out for her.

“You have to take my hand, honey,” I said, trying to stay calm, even as my heart was racing and the panic was gripping me tightly by the throat.

Alice looked at me with tears in her eyes but made no motion to reach for my hand.

“I wish I still had my wolf,” she said miserably. “The wolf would have protected me.”

It broke my heart to hear her say that, knowing how much pain the wolf had caused her for so long. It wasn’t fair for her to wish for that pain now, rather than to potentially face death.

She was too young for this. Too pure. She shouldn’t be this sad or frightened. She should be home with her Aunt Kathy watching cartoons.

“You don’t need your wolf,” I told her. “Right now, you have your mother.”

Alice blinked and while looking at me, her eyes became a little clearer. Something changed in her face then. Maybe she could see the determination in mine and started reflecting it.

Whatever the cause, I was relieved when she finally reached out to me. I caught her hand and with strength borrowed straight from my wolf, I yanked her over to me.

The minute she was in my arms, she wrapped her arms and legs around me like she had the flagpole, holding on for dear life. I held her back, as tightly as I could, while looking up at the top ledge of the building.

Olivia was still standing there, towering over us, clear from her stature and the fury in her eyes that she was not willing to stand to the side to allow us to climb up to safety.

“Why must you always do this?!” she shouted. “Why do you have to keep getting in my way? I need to win, just once. Why won’t you just die?”

I didn’t have a response. If she was beyond reason earlier, then she was well beyond it now.

“You are the only reason Julian didn’t choose me. I could have had him and the title of Luna years ago, but you just had to keep getting in the way. I even had one of my suitors sabotage that damn plane and you still lived through it!”

My eyes went wide. All these years, I had thought the plane crash a horrible accident. To have it confirmed now that Olivia had been responsible all this time… Gods! She had been murderous for years. Why hadn’t we seen it sooner?

“My consistent failure is all your fault,” Olivia shrieked. “But I’m done with that now.”

Reaching down, she snatched the gun from the ground and held it aloft once more.

“I’d been hoping you both would have fallen to your death. A mother-daughter murder-suicide because she couldn’t handle the loss of her Alpha husband, or his shame, if he lived,” she said. “But now, I just don’t care anymore. So what if I lose everything, so long as I get to take you out along the way.”

She leveled the gun right toward me.

“Tell your daughter you love her, Amber. Because that’s the last thing you will ever get to say.”

Julian’s POV

I’d wrestled my way from the ground, only to be caught in a headlock. Tony was squeezing my neck so hard that I knew it was only a matter of time before he either broke my neck or cut off my oxygen enough that I would pass out, leaving myself powerless and exposed to his mercilessness.

Either way, Tony was clearly winning this fight, even as I fought him off tooth and claw.

I had gored him many times with both, yet no amount of pain seemed to slow him down. Perhaps being feral had cut off all of his pain receptors.

I had compared him to a wild beast before, but I could see he was more machine than animal. An animal would recognize pain and would back off. Tony just kept coming, no matter how many times I clawed into his thighs and chest.

My vision was growing dark, no matter how hard I fought against it. I fought wildly, not wanting this to be the end.

Amber wasn’t even here, and she was scared. I had to get to her… I had to…

Then, suddenly, I felt a sharp jolt of terror strike me more keenly than any blow Tony had delivered today.

I recognized it at once, not just the fear my mate would have for her own life, but what she would feel for our child.

Amber was in danger, but Alice was too.

Both of their lives had to be on the line for me to feel something so strongly, so keenly, so terrifyingly oppressive.

I was wasting time here with Tony. With Tony feral or no, I couldn’t allow this fight to continue for even a moment longer.

The only thing stronger than a feral werewolf was a werewolf feeling his mate’s horror through their bond.

Nothing would stop me from getting to her.

Not Tony. Not the distance between us. Not whatever force was threatening my mate and child.

I opened my mouth and a sound escape me, a roar so loud and animalistic. I’d never made a noise like that before.

With great strength, I tore away from Tony’s hold, they grabbed him, lifted him, and dropped his straight down onto the hard surface of the ring on his head.

Tony hadn’t been expecting that. How could he? In his state, he wasn’t planning, only reacting, and up until now, I had been reacting too.

No more.

The minute Tony’s head hit the mat, his entire body slumped, collapsing unconscious down onto the ground.

The officials came closer, to check on Tony, to declare me victor, I didn’t care.

None of that mattered.

The only thing that mattered was my mate and my child.

“Alpha,” the official said, but I ignored him.

In a flash, I shifted to my human form, but only so I could cry out, “Amber!”

If she could hear me, I wanted her to know I was coming for her. I didn’t know where she was, but I would follow our bond to find her. I would always be able to find her.

She was my love and my mate. She and Alice were my entire universe.

I wasn’t going to lose them, not to anything.

I was going to find them and save them.

We were going to have our future together.

As a wolf again, I closed my eyes, tuning out the arena entirely to focus on the pull of our bond.

There, I felt it. She wasn’t as far as I feared, only a few blocks away at most.

“And now to declare our winner!” the announcer said.

Ignoring him entirely, I jumped from the ring and ran to the exit.

I could hear the announcer, confused, from the hallways. “Alpha Julian?”