Bound by Blood (Bound #1)(20)

Oh, this wasn’t going to be good.

“Jace, let me explain, I—”

“Too late.” He grabbed her and put his claws at her throat. “Too late, princess. ”

Morgan knew she was staring at death.

“I want every single one of you bloodsucking *s to get in that cage.” His head jerked toward the left. Toward the heavily barred cell that Devon had used to house vampire prisoners over the years.

Those bars were reinforced. Able to hold demons, wolves, and, yes, even vamps. We won’t be able to get out.

“Move,” he ordered, “or I slice open her throat.”

Her blood chilled at that threat.

Paul raised his chin. “You wouldn’t.”

Jace held her gaze. His stare seemed so cold. So…empty. Would he? “Get in the cell, Paul,” she told him quietly.

Jace’s jaw tensed.

Footsteps shuffled and snarls filled the air as the vamps went into their prison.

“They’re in!” Louis called out.

Jace didn’t let her go. “What are you going to do?” She asked. “I’m the one who knows where the doorway is. You need me to—”

“Devon knows where the doorway is. I bet that bastard is running there right now. How did you put it? High on wolf blood. He’ll think he’s f*cking invincible, and he’ll go back.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

“Either way, I’ve got his scent.” Jace brought his head close to hers and those wicked claws didn’t move from her flesh. “I’m going to track him down and rip him apart.”

Because Devon had killed a wolf.

“He risked you. Tried to kill you.” His claws fell away. “The vamp will burn by dawn.”

Wha—

Jace lifted her up, moved too fast—damn him—and put her in the cell. Then he swung the door shut and locked her inside.

She grabbed the bars. “You can’t leave us like this.”

His brows rose. “Watch me.” He paused, staring down at Mike’s lifeless form. “Take care of him,” he ordered two of his men, and they immediately bent to pick up the body. Then Jace followed the bloody trail of footprints.

“Jace! Dammit, I wasn’t going to betray you.”

He didn’t stop, but she caught his growled, “I know.”

What? “Then why are you doing this? Why?”

One-by-one, the wolves exited the containment area. Jace was the last to leave. His broad shoulders scraped the arching sides of the doorway. “I’ll be back, Morgan.”

Her breath heaved in her chest.

“We’re not ending.” He spared her a glittering stare. “I’m not risking you, and I’m damn sure not taking the chance that the fire will get to you.”

“Jace—”

But he was gone, and Morgan was trapped with an angry cell of vampires. Her knuckles whitened around the bars. Alpha *. He thought he could go out and take all the risks? While she what—stayed there and worried about him?

She wasn’t the kind of girl who stayed behind. Mostly because she wasn’t a girl.

“I knew he wouldn’t hurt you.” Paul’s cocky voice.

She’d known it, too. His claws had trembled and never so much as nicked her flesh.

“We really going to let those wolves get all the glory?” He continued. “Because I’ve been wanting to give Devon a beating since I turned.”

She pulled at the bars. Yes, they’d been reinforced, and normally, she’d never be able to break them.

High on wolf blood.

The bars began to bend.

“Don’t worry,” she told Paul and the others. “Jace isn’t getting away from me.” And he sure wasn’t going into hell without her being there to pull her wolf right back out of the fire.





Chapter Seven


Jace and his pack chased Devon into the center of the Glades. The vamp had escaped by car, but instead of going back into the city, the guy had headed down the long, winding roads that led deeper into the growing darkness.

When the road ended, they found his car. Lights on. Doors open. Jace stared out at the night. The insects had stopped chirping when the wolves approached. They knew when danger stalked.

He inhaled, catching all the scents. Those that belonged, those that didn’t. Blood. Brimstone.

Fuck.

“Your vamp’s gonna be real pissed at you once she gets out of that cage,” Louis warned him.

Tell me something I don’t know. But better her alive and pissed than dead and burned to ash.

He caught the whisper of sound in the air. His head tilted back as he stared at the rising moon. He could see the shapes before the blood moon. So many. Too many.

Outnumbered. The demons were coming.

“Shift!” They’d have to change quickly. “Take their heads—take out as many of them as you can.”

Then he leapt forward. The demons were coming because they were close to the doorway. Fuck that. Jace was slamming that door. Devon had run right back to this hole, and now Jace would kill him and stop the demons.

Endgame.

He shoved through the brush as the howls behind him filled the night.

***

Morgan had seen the doorway, the great gaping hole in the middle of the blackened earth. Devon had opened the door to hell—opened it on vampire land, and she hadn’t even realized it.