Chapter 150

Orange and yellow leaves dot the sidewalk outside of the pack headquarters where I huddle with the kids as we prepare for our next move. Despite the chill in the air, beads of sweat are dripping down the back of my neck.

Thanks to Jack’s magic and a shit ton of luck, we left Sasha, Gabe, and the rest of our captors unconscious and tied up in Kadeem’s cabin. Jack stayed behind to help Riley before setting out to slay his mother. Talk about an Electra complex.

I take a moment to catch my breath when the sounds of a growing commotion come from the Council building. Without warning, Erbao bolts off, charging up the concrete steps, his eyes blazing with determination.

“HEY!” I belt out. Bob could have dozens of henchmen stationed inside. Worse, he could have already seized control of Red Moon.

Erbao ignores me and his siblings rush after him. My heart is a race car, but my legs are still Jello from wolfsbane. All I can do is stumble after them as they burst through the doors of the crowded headquarters.

Hands shaking, I shove open the door behind them, just in time to hear Lottie’s shrill cry.

“Daddy!”

Up ahead, held by two Council guards, Kadeem nearly chokes on surprise.

Every pair of eyes is wide upon the kids as they run towards their father, their sneakers skidding across the tile. They ignore the guards bracing him and crash into Kadeem like breaking waves.

The Elder’s Council stands frozen in shock, and next to them, Mateo’s jaw is dropping.

Then I see Bob. Like Kadeem, he’s still tattered and bruised from their fight. Desperation is washing over his face, but his lips are suspended in a smile and he forces a laugh. “They don’t look kidnapped to me.”

But Erbao’s voice carries above his siblings’ excited chatter. “Dad, we escaped! We came to save you!”

The room explodes in frenzied murmurs. The Elders try to restore order and make sense of what’s happening, but everything falls into relieved disarray.

“I’ll answer any questions you have,” Kadeem says.

“Let him go,” an Elder barks, and the guards release Kadeem and work to free his hands.

Kadeem immediately rubs his wrists and then he wraps his arms around the kids, though he cranes his head, searching through the chaos for me.

The quints are safe in his arms, so I hang back to watch Bob - operating on wolfish instinct. Bob’s posture tenses and he taps the heel of a muddy boot, observing the scene like a predator with narrowed eyes.

"Well, well, well," he drawls, his tone oozing with faux sympathy. "It seems like there’s been some misunderstanding here."

The room falls unnervingly silent as Bob continues to speak.

"Perhaps these children were coerced into this little stunt," he suggests, his gaze flicking towards the quints. "We all know how easily influenced young minds can be."

“The game’s up,” Kadeem says, throwing a pointed glance at the Council Elders.

I hold my breath. Kadeem is right. They’re exchanging nods and signaling their pack warriors.

Bob raises his hand, alerting someone unseen. In the other hand, he draws a concealed gun. With zero hesitation, deadly precision, and zero time for anyone to react, he unleashes a barrage of silver bullets at the unsuspecting warriors.

Their bodies fall with thuds to the ground and fierce growls and snarls fill the air as Bob’s cadre of wolves emerge from shadowy corners.

“Looks like we’re doing this the hard way after all,” Bob taunts over screams. “But there wouldn’t be a new Alpha without some bloodshed.”

Kadeem's transformation is swift, his human form dissolving into a magnificent white wolf, despite the lingering effects of silver in his veins.

He shields the kids while I frantically fight my way towards them, trying to push through a room exploding in pandemonium. Fighting is breaking out between Bob’s wolves and those trying to defend the pack.

Meanwhile, two Elders race to the kids to usher them to safety. Kadeem lunges at Bob who is aiming the gun towards him, fingers squeezing the trigger. As they collide, Bob’s aim falters and the gun is knocked from his grasp.

Elbowed, shoved, and knocked down, I’m caught in between the fighting and fleeing Weres. I try to shift into my wolf, but the wolfsbane’s still blocking my transformation, so I’m on my own. Stomped on, stepped on, fallen over, I cover my head with my arms to protect myself.

A cry goes up. I lift my head to glimpse a new hell through a stampede of feet. Vampires are swarming inside from broad daylight. Stomach sick, I crawl my way to a wooden beam and crouch behind it, peering desperately through carnage for the kids. They’re nowhere in sight, and I say a silent prayer that they got out in time with the Elders’ help, and then scan for Kadeem. He’s taking down a vampire when one of Bob’s wolves attacks from behind, jumping onto his back. He spins around and they lock into battle. Lying in a heap nearby is Bob’s lifeless body, trampled in the battle he began.

Then a jolt hits me. Another figure enters the fray.

I see her, I feel her - the recognition is instant. Alarm bells are ringing through my head, but so is overwhelming desire. I find myself rising from my position behind the beam.

Death is all around me. There is blood on the floors and splattering on walls. There are screams. But all I want is her, and as I walk through the nightmare, I see only her.

My blonde-haired sire strides confidently through the horror, spotless of grime in a sleeveless dress and heels, observing her army of souped-up vamps. She’s ungodly pale with glistening fangs, but beautiful. She seems to sense me and when she finds me, she smiles radiantly.

As I edge closer to her shadowy nook, one of the doors swings open nearby. Jack rushes in, sunlight streaming in behind him, illuminating the rune-covered stake in his hand.

“Where’s the vampire bitch,” he growls. Then he follows my gaze to her.

Stop him.

And I don’t know if it’s Diana's command or my own desire.

“No!” I scream.

I fling myself on him as he drives the stake at her. I become a wild thing, scratching and biting like a feral animal. While we struggle, Diana watches on with twisted amusement.

I grip Jack’s hair, ripping it, and tearing at every inch of him I can reach. All the while, my fragmented mind is tortured. The part of me that is blood-bonded to Jack and the part of my psyche that is me, are helpless to stop the part of me that is now Diana’s.

Jack snags one of my arms and wrenches it until it snaps like a twig. The pain sears through my body like a blazing inferno, rendering me voiceless, unable to scream.

“I’m sorry,” Jack cries, remorse palpable in his eyes. In one swift motion he shoves me away and springs up defensively, his stake raised high.

“Give that to me,” Diana demands.

“Not a chance.”

But Jack’s hand is slipping downward. His face contorts with effort - muscles straining as he grips the stake and makes a fatal run at her.

She is too cunning, too quick for him. With a terrible force, she delivers a sickening blow to his chest. She snatches the stake, and as he crumbles, she grabs him and plunges it into his heart, ending his life in an instant. The blood bond between Jack and I shatters like glass, and my loyalty shifts almost solely to Diana, my own will even more distant.

Diana stands over Jack’s dead body. “You gave me no choice.”

Her heels clack against the tile as she walks toward me. “They won’t last,” she says coldly, nodding at the remaining vampires. “The same power Jack gave them will be their downfall in a matter of hours. They’ll burn up with it, be scorched by it, and Jack won’t be here to light a new army. And as for Bob Hadid,” she says, sneering towards his corpse, “He won’t get his Alpha wish after all.” She looks at me with a chilling smile. “Do you know what that means?”

I shake my head weakly as I cradle my broken, aching arm.

She glances at Kadeem, his chest heaving as he stands in a pile of dismembered vampires.

“It means you are my bargaining chip for freedom and safety, dear child.” She reaches out her icy hand towards me. “Come.”

A guttural growl echoes through the room, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as Kadeem turns his rage on Diana.

Diana seizes me and I both shudder and melt at her touch. But Kadeem doesn’t waste any time, launching himself at her. I crash to the ground, while the force of his attack throws Diana closer to the doors, precariously near a ring of sunlight.

As they fight, I can feel her control over my mind. She wants my help in killing Kadeem and I feel myself starting to give in, but then I see something that snaps me back to reality - her hands wrap around his neck, threatening to break him, squeezing tighter and tighter.

I see the life going out of his eyes. He’s going to die.

And he’ll die while I watch it happen, frozen and immobile. He’ll die, while part of me longs for it - because she longs for it.

I can barely move under her will. My body feels as though it’s encased in cement as I grunt in pain, my broken arm dragging while I force myself to belly crawl along the ground toward Jack’s body. I reach with my good arm, but my hand is stiff, my muscles seizing up, cramping, as I struggle to pull the stake from Jack’s chest.

Boom.

The doors burst open. Wolves flood in.

The sunlight hits Diana like a spotlight and she recoils in pain. In that moment of brief distraction, her iron grip on my mind is gone and I bolt up, suddenly lighter than air, and stake her with every ounce of strength I still carry. She craters into a fountain of thick, sticky blood.

I rush to Kadeem’s side. He’s gasping, hardly mentally present, but he feels me and nuzzles me. Around us, wolves are overtaking the vampires. Among the new arrivals, I recognize Kadeem’s gammas, but many of them I don’t recognize at all.

“Heard you needed some help, Brother.”

Layla is standing over us with a smirk. “You owe me,” she sniffs, before transforming into her wolf to join the fight.

I lay my head against Kadeem. He shifts into his human form, his arm wrapping around me. “Damn it,” he sighs, watching Layla bite into a vampire head. “I’ll never live this one down.”