Cry Wolf (Wolves of Angels Rest #7)(36)

Chapter 13

From his position just outside the perimeter of the buildings, Diesel froze when the alarm blared, echoing between the corrugated steel and concrete blocks.

He’d promised LT that he wouldn’t get a jump on Kane’s team, but the chaos promised by an alarm was too good an opportunity to pass up. They needed to act now, before whatever situation had triggered the klaxon was locked down. Surely Kane would recognize the chance too and seize it.

Unfortunately, since Diesel was supposed to be in wolf form, he hadn’t been issued an ear piece. And he didn’t have a close enough relationship with the alpha male to be part of the hunting link that would let Kane’s pack operate as a unit, even though they hadn’t had tactical training.

Not that he had any choice about what he was going to do, regardless of what the local pack and his own team decided.

Willow was somewhere in there, and he wasn’t leaving her. He wasn’t even going to wait for the rest.

Sunset was upon them. The shifters didn’t have the advantage of full dark yet, but with the cloud cover, the murky cover of night would settle quickly.

Though not as quick as he moved.

Keeping low, he sped toward the largest building. Zane had said he was imprisoned in the main warehouse. Likely the Guard would keep all their test subjects close together.

Diesel spun behind the shelter of Willow’s van as the sound of shouting and racing footsteps approached. He dropped to the ground, and from underneath the van, he counted the khaki-clad legs of a dozen guardsmen running for the warehouse.

Assuming everyone was responding to the alarm, that meant their numbers were evenly matched. Although the Guard had the advantage of being willing to kill, while the shifters had innocent hostages to rescue.

Hopefully the good guys would win.

Although the guardsmen no doubt considered themselves the good guys.

As the soldiers vanished around the side of the warehouse, Diesel rose. Taking half a second to peer into Willow’s van, he noted the keys in the ignition. Just in case.

Then he loped toward the alarm.

Though there were large rolling doors on this side of the building, all were closed and latched from within when he tried them. He’d have to go around where the soldiers had entered. He peered around the corner. Everyone had gone inside, apparently.

He zipped toward the door.

And if not for his speed, he would’ve taken a bullet.

The shot pinged off the metal siding of the building instead. Shit! Apparently not everyone had gone inside.

He juked back, and the next shot ricocheted off the metal in front of him, where he would’ve been if he’d kept moving.

They’d left a sharpshooter somewhere off to his left and up.

But he didn’t have time to deal with that now, and the alarm was still going off so it wasn’t like he was giving away secrets by letting the guardsmen know they were in trouble.

With a fresh burst of speed, he doubled back for the door. The shooter tried to lead him, squeezing off multiple bursts of rounds, but determination to get inside—to find Willow—drove him.

Even the lancing pain of a shot that didn’t miss couldn’t stop him.

He wrenched open the door, piercingly aware that he didn’t have the luxury of casing the joint first. Another bullet went through the door just above his fingertips. Just beside his head.

He dove inside.

He went down hard, rolling shoulder first to provide a smaller, faster target for anyone within.

But no one fired.

The guardsmen must be in pursuit of whatever had caused the alarm, deeper in the building.

Diesel landed upright in a crouch, quickly assessing his surroundings.

Zane had warned them that the warehouse was a maze of interior hallways with offices, surgical suites, torture chambers, and cells. The high ceiling with its crisscross of metal beams bounced sound in an auditory confusion of echoes, and old, terrible smells were layered deep, making their animal senses almost a liability.

This was a house of horrors for shifters.

High above the doorway, the alarm speaker was nearly deafening him. Its whirling red light cast bloody shadows in every direction. But from somewhere within, a deep, urgent roar rumbled below the shriek of the klaxon.

A bear shifter. Calling a warning to someone. And Diesel sincerely doubted the beast was interested in helping the guardsmen.

Maybe he could add to the pack’s allies.

He plunged into the maze.

When the stamp of running feet came toward him, he had to duck into a darkened storage room. Only two guardsmen passed him; they must have split up. They weren’t attacking—they were searching. Something that had gotten away from them.

Willow.

He knew it, sensed it like he always felt his own wolf.

She was somewhere in here with him.

God, he’d do anything to have her safe and sound in his arms.

And he would. As soon as he found her.



***



The wolf snarled soundlessly as she crept through a room of… She couldn’t think of the word. Hard things, the edges too straight to be natural. Nothing was natural here. Where was she? Where were the trees, the brush, the rivers, the sky, the stars? That was where she was meant to be, not this awful place stinking of blood and fear.

She flinched away from the sharp metallic pinging that punctuated the wailing alarm. She knew that sound though she couldn’t think of that word either. It was the sound of killing.