Forever Bound Series 1-4(20)

Jace’s rumbling voice. She swallowed and glanced around the room. Blood-stained footprints led to the left, to an escape tunnel. One that opened in the heart of the swamp.

“Fuck!” Jace’s shoulders brushed hers.

Paul came in behind him and scanned the room. Disgust tightened his face. “Looks like Devon was still experimenting.”

Right below them. Right damn below them. The other Council members had forbidden his work long ago. But the bastard must have liked his blood and pain too much.

Jace’s nostrils flared. “He f*cking slaughtered a wolf.” And that’s what it was—a slaughter. The wolf’s flesh was a pale white, and Morgan knew that Devon had drained Mike’s blood. A fresh kill. While they’d been upstairs, this wolf had been dying.

Jace’s dark eyes locked on her.

She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. “Jace, I-I didn’t know.”Like that would make it better. She should have known. Her nest. Her responsibility. It was all…on me. “Look, I was coming to kill Devon, okay? He’s the one who opened the doorway for the demons. When I drank that demon’s blood, I saw him!”

Jace stared at the footprints, following them with his eyes. His shoulders were tense, and she could nearly feel the fury roiling from him. “The vampires summoned the demons.” Jace’s claws burst out. “The vampires have been capturing wolves…what other little secrets haven’t you told me, mate?”

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.