Chapter 107

Charles

The early morning sun was breaking through the trees as Quillan, the driver, sent us flying down a steep incline. The jeep landed hard, jostling everyone onboard, but I barely paid any heed to it.

"I can't believe this shit," Mercy hissed, gripping the edges of the van.

"A fucking police officer?" Quillan hissed through gritted teeth. "With a fucking van?"

"I'll deal with it," I said, bracing myself in the back seat of the jeep. "How far away are we now, Blake?"

She grunted. "We should be able to see them soon."

I stood, bracing myself in the backseat as I held on to the handholds on the rough and peered through the forest. I could see the van's headlights bumping and bumbling through the forest, but with the terrain and the distance, there was no way I could take the shot now.

What the fuck was Grace thinking? I appreciated and loved her compassion, but she could not honestly think that the Mooncrest Police were equipped to deal with terrorists or completely to be trusted. If I hadn't been assured that Eason knew his sister well, I was damn sure assured now because what the hell else could this be called by acting out.

I should have known from her tone that there was something else going on in her head when she said I'll take it and hung up in my face. This had to be the acting out, so what were the defend, divert, deny, and disengage tactics?

My head hurt just thinking about it, but that could be the lack of sleep. When this was all over, I was going to take Grace over my knee and spank the shit out of her for acting like a fucking child.

"How much further until we reach the highway?" I asked as we went over a hard dip.

"Not far enough," Blake said. "If he gets there, all bets are off. It's a straight, short stretch right into Mooncrest."

"What's near there?"

"Residences, it's one of their residential communities."

Shit. I got on the comms.

"ETA to the entrance to Mooncrest from Highway Donovan?"

"Twenty minutes, Your Majesty."

Fuck. They were too far.

"We're going to have to stop him in the forest. Can you go any faster?"

"I'm already flooring it. He had a hell of a headstart!"

I clenched my jaw as we bumped along. The tail lights of the van winked in and out of sight. The ploy had been brilliant like the officer had known that Grace would try to undermine my call on the situation. Maybe they had known. Eason knew her from growing up with her, but the rest of Mooncrest had to have seen the glaring bits of the worst parts of her personality.

Pride before the fucking fall.

Racing along the rough forested terrain, my pulse hammering in my chest.

We were running out of time. I pulled out my javelin, narrowing my senses and waiting for a clear shot at the tires.

The ground turned flatter and soon enough I could see the van more clearly. Just when I thought I might have a shot, we went over another rough patch, Quillan swerved sharply around a large stone outcropping. The tires of the jeep screeched and kicked up dirt and leaves.

I leaned back, slowing my breathing to stead my aim at the rear tires.

"Get ready. I'm taking the shot."

The forest started to smooth and just as we hit the smoothest patch, I launched the javelin, hitting the left rear tire. The van swerved with a screech. The Enforcer driving slowed the jeep down as the van slammed into a nearby tree. The rest of the unit, and I leaped out, heading toward the car quickly. I heard movement inside the vehicle, but no words. There was no intel about what kind of bomb it was, but it wouldn't matter once the stasis barrier was up.

"Activate the--"

I felt the heat before I felt or heard the explosion. The force of the blast engulfed us, lifting and flinging us away as if the ground and the air had switched places. I flew backward spinning through the air like a ragdoll before I landed hard and rolled under the bank of flame that filled my vision.

I lay there for a moment, disoriented and struggling to regain my senses. My ears rang, and the acrid scent of burning fuel filled the air. Pain throbbed in my body, but all I could feel was the bite of claws across my chest and the heat of the fire around me. The ground was practically burning beneath me, cauterizing a wound that had long since healed. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the forest any longer, but lying on the hot stone floor of the palace that night of the attempted coup.

Eighteen again. Frightened and on edge, losing my grip on my control again as my whole world shifted forever.

I heard screaming, a voice I hadn't heard since the night of the coup's attack on the palace. I could smell the burning flesh and silk, the scent of hot stone and spilled blood. I could see my father's hazy gaze. The blood slid out of his mouth as he collapsed against the wall, shuddering from the shift.

"Charles... the passage..."

I hadn't ran the way he suggested. It hadn't been in me to run as I directed the servants towards the secret passage. I couldn't run and leave my father here to defend the way alone.

"Charles, go!"

My mind tumbled through time to that night of chaos, and I felt my power surge in distress and defensiveness through me. My skin melted away to fur. I grew bigger, nearly as tall as the jeep. I could barely see the forest through the fire and memories of burning stone. With each shift of muscle and bone, feral instincts took hold, my senses sharpened. The magic that was in my blood simmered and sparked through me. It was a surge of untamed power, one that I couldn't control or suppress.

Too familiar and haunting--I was losing it.

Fuck, I couldn't afford to lose control. Not now.

Defend.

Kill.

Defend.

Fight.

"Shit," someone cursed nearby. I turned my head, focusing on the sound of her voice, the quick thrumming of her heart pounding in her chest. She aimed her tranquilizer gun at me. The fire continued to rage behind her.

"What do we do?"

"Your Majesty, are you with us?"

I growled, turning to look at them, trying to focus on them in the present--the shine of their armor, their young faces, the feeling of the earth beneath my paws--anything but the fire that continued to pull me back into that night.

Fight.

I had fought and killed, tearing through attacker after attacker to secure our castle even as they attacked me. When my father had breathed his last breath, I lost sense of anything else but the fight. Lightning and fire cut through the halls. I shifted from lycan to fire-wielding man to something in between through the flashes of darkness and blood.

I could feel the urging of my magic, the call of my mother's line pulsing through me. I pushed hard against the memories, the urge to give in to that power. The sleeplessness of the night was making it harder to harden my mind against the rising tide. If I could just calm down enough to shift back. If I could just get to my javelin again, I could make it through this with my control intact.

But it was too far, so I closed my eyes and blocked out the scents around me, retreating into my mind for a bit of stability.

Beyond the screaming and the roaring fires, beyond the blood, I heard Cecil's laughter. I smelled Richard fresh from a bath. I felt Grace's body pressed up against mine as we lay tangled in bed together.

Slowly, the call for war and the surge of magic receded. The past retreated into the back of my mind, even as I couldn't manage to shift back. My mind cleared.

"Shit. Shit. Shit."

"Your Majesty," she spoke again, firmer. "Are you with us?"

I staggered, swaying, casting my gaze wound until my gaze fell on the wreckage of the van, now a smoldering ruin with flames licking at the mangled metal. There was no sign of survivors. There might not even be a hint of what kind of explosives they'd used in the van. It was a grim scene, but something was keeping me on edge. I lifted my nose, turning my head left and then right. There was something else in the wind.

"Your Majesty, are you with me?"

Then, there was something moving in the nearby underbrush. I could hear the faintest sound of air moving around a body but not footsteps.

I smelled the sharp scent of temporary spells.

Cloaking spell.

"Ambush!" I roared, turning and leaping toward the sound just as a group of bodies started to come down on us.

108. GuiltGrace

The man's words echoed through me. I stumbled and swayed. My mind whirled. They were coming.

If you give them the chance, they will.

I dropped the phone. Had I given them the chance to kill me? My kids... Where was the bomb going? How soon would it be here?

"Hello?" Eason asked, pulling me from my thoughts. "Where? What highway?"

He was on the phone and the sight of it infuriated me.

I grabbed for the phone. "Call your terrorist boyfriend and--"

Eason shoved me, or something shoved me off my feet. I flew back into a wall and groaned. I heard Amira gasp.

"Fuck the arrest call. Get a unit on that highway immediately. Barricades, firing range, stop that van at all costs. Do you have any idea who drove it out?"

I grunt, trying to push off the wall as I felt something pop. Eason was scribbling something down.

"Get their families coralled if they're still in the city. Detain them and pump them for information. Them and all known associates. Stopping the van is first order. Whoever can be spared from the main patrols."

He hung up and glared at me. "Are you fucking happy?"

My jaw trembled. "I just... people were hurt. They needed medical attention--"

"And you thought, let me undermine Charles and send a Mooncrest police van out with the medics--"

"I'm alpha. It was my call."

"Tell that to whoever gets blown up."

I blinked back tears. "It was just a maybe."

"No, you were just having a tantrum. What was it, Grace? He said something you didn't like? Told you have no idea what you're doing and to listen?"

"I don't have to listen to you."

"You don't," Eason said. "And I damn sure don't have to listen to you either, but I do, and all I've heard you do is whine, complain, cry, blame everyone else under the sun, and think that somehow the little bit of contrition you've pretended to show is enough."

"I was just doing what I thought was right."

"No, you were doing what you wanted. Just like always..." He sighed and shook his head, crossing the room to open the cooler again. "Ruined my fucking shirt... You know, when you said you weren't running, did you think just being in the city was enough? Did you think that running physically was all?"

He tore open a popsicle. "All this mental escapism shit is going to get someone hurt--killed at the rate you're going. You want to do what's best: listen to people who have more experience than you, use your fucking head for more than lab work, and be fucking present."

I set my jaw. "You should have written a better speech, I guess."

Eason scoffed. "Unbelievable."

He went back to his laptop. "One day, Grace, karma is going to come for you and there won't be anyone to save you from it. No one to turn to because you've burned every bridge to ashes and can't even apologize."

He scowled shoving the popsicle in his mouth. It was already melting as if the inside of his mouth was a furnace. He tipped his head back trying to drink the melting liquid.

"Amira," Eason said. "If you would, bring Alpha Wolfe her laptop so she can contribute something but more fuck ups to all this?"

Amira slipped out of the door as Eason glared at me.

"Sit in a fucking chair." I didn't move for a second, but soon after, Amira came back with her laptop and mine.

"Thank you," Eason said, panting heavily.

She darted back out after setting my laptop on the table. I sat at it. I stared at the screen not knowing what to do or say.

"Log in, open the citizen records, and search these names," Eason said giving me the page. "We need addresses for places of work and home, them and all of their children."

I blinked and didn't move.

"Or don't," Eason said. "And start planning what to put on Charles' fucking headstone, your choice."

My heart lurched. My hand trembled and I opened the laptop, typing out the names as I could. My mind was blurry and foggy. My stomach churned.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because your could-be fucking husband is chasing the van right now, well within a bomb's detonation radius," Eason said, picking up his phone.

I turned from the computer and pulled out my phone, frantically dialing Charles' number. There was no way he was doing something like that. Didn't he have units of Enforcers to do that? My heart racing as each tone rang out. No answer. My worry deepened. The guilt was mounting alongside the refusal to believe it.

"You're lying to me," I gasped. "Charles--"

The phone on the table rang, and Eason hit the speaker button as he continued to type on his laptop. His fingers moved almost too fast to see.

"Charles?" I asked hopefully.

"Frank, actually," his gruff voice said. "We got word about the van. We've got a barricade set up, but there was an explosion inside the forest around where the exit point for the van should have been."

My stomach lurched. Panic surged through me. Charles had been right about Blood Moon using the police van to try to get a bomb to Mooncrest, and now, maybe he was...

He was...

"Well, go investigate!" I said. "There are people--"

"If you'd let me finish," Frank said. "There's a barrier around the area. Looks like an Enforcer stasis barrier. We have sights on it, but the fire's going down at a quick rate, so there shouldn't be a forest fire problem."

Did he really think I gave a damn about a forest fire right now? I felt sick. I needed to know more to understand the situation. My mind was spinning with fear. I tried to call Charles again, but there was no answer again."Thanks for the update," Eason said. "Have you heard from the other highway outposts?"

"That's actually why I called. It wasn't just Pear Valley they attacked. Overnight, it looks like the Enforcers set up a perimeter of outposts. Was there only the one police van being sent out?"

Eason's eyes widened, and he looked at me as my stomach dropped.

"I..."

"Grace, just answer," Eason said. "Was there only one?"

I shook my head. I had arranged one for each call for medics. Eason cursed. "No, there are more."

"Shit," Frank said.

"Get a hold of any Enforcer you can," Eason said. "Their communication system is better than phones. Tell them to keep the police escorts there with them."

"What about the wounded?" I asked. "I... I'm not sure if there were enough medics."

"I'll get the Enforcers on alert. Call Michael about getting more medics out there."

He hung up. Eason stared at me. "Call the volunteer clinics."

I blinked and grabbed the phone on the table to start making the calls to find medics. Eason passed the list to Amira, who typed almost as fast as he did as Eason took his phone into the hallway to make a different set of calls.

I pressed the heel of my palms to my eyes as I got to the volunteer coordinator.

"Yes. We need as many people with medical training as possible to report to Mooncrest Hospital. Someone will be there to pick them up and take them to where they need to go."

I hung up, feeling drained and worried, eyeing my phone to try and make another call to Charles. The phone rang again, keeping me from it.

I answered only to get a different member of the militia on the line.

"Frank called. We have a few people with vans that could carry at least thirty people out while heading out for patrol. Where should we pick up the medics?"

"I don't want anyone from Mooncrest leaving the city in a vehicle," I said firmly.

"Okay... but how are we getting the medics to these outposts? Last I heard, they were a bit tangled up."

"I..." I set my jaw. "You can call them and get them to meet you halfway, somewhere on your patrol route, can't you?"

"We'll try."

He hung up, and I had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't work out the way I hoped.

Why hadn't Charles just given me a better deal?

Eason's laptop let out a warning siren, and he rushed back.

"What does that mean?"

Eason didn't answer as the screen behind him turned on, and he cast his screen to it.

It was Alpha Shadow speaking live again.

He was laughing.

"As if your little apology was enough, your little curfew enough... Did you think the water plants and the warehouses were anything more than a warm-up? How does it feel to have werewolf blood on your hand, Alpha Wolfe? Does it thrill your mixed breed heart?"

I clenched my fists, even as my stomach churned.

"Well, I hope you're ready for the fun that's about to begin. I'll be looking forward to your replacement."

Just as his message concluded, the air shook with an ominous wail.

Eason cursed. "Son of bitch!"

Amira went pale as Eason got to his feet. "Don't just sit there. Get up!"

"What is that?" I asked, clenching my jaw.

"What do you think?" Eason scowled at me. "It's the bomb threat sirens."