Cry Wolf (Wolves of Angels Rest #7)(38)

Diesel handed her the security card he took from Junior. “It’s coded. Should open the cages. Willow’s van is parked just beyond the second outbuilding and has the keys inside. You can get these hostages out that way. But watch out for the sniper in the tower—”

“Already taken out.” Gypsy shifted her grip on the shotgun, displaying her bloody knuckles. “He’ll have a great view to watch this place burn.” Her furious gaze sparked hot enough to start the fire right then. “We got this. Go find your mate.”

He didn’t bother contradicting her, even though he couldn’t imagine Willow would ever accept him, not after this.

Gypsy took the lanyard to the first occupied cage and peered through. “You friendly enough?”

The bear shifter inside rose to his full height—taller than any human male—and let out a roar.

“Sounds good,” she said.

Diesel was already running down another corridor, seeking the one who’d held a secret part of him all these years. He’d only just found it again. He couldn’t lose it, couldn’t lose her.



***



The wolf smelled the desert outside just out of reach. She dug at the ground, but it was too hard and broke her claws. She bit at the barrier—sheer and flat, impossible to climb—that stood between her and freedom. Though she got one piercing tooth through, the sharp edges cut her mouth. Blood poured down her throat.

Out, out, out.

The need pulsed in her veins with each gush of blood and saliva as she snarled her madness.

Part of the wolf cried out, trying to calm the beast, to look for the weakness in the barrier called a…

She didn’t know anymore. She just needed out!

Frantic with the desire to escape, she ignored everything else: the metallic screaming that hadn’t stopped, the shouting and random pops that started and then stopped, a roar from another predator that made her redouble her efforts to tear through the wall.

So she didn’t even notice the approaching figure until it made a noise.

She whirled, crouching against the wall.

It was a towering, tottering thing dressed in white, though blood streaked it. It held something pointed toward her.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” the creature said, but the wolf couldn’t make sense of the garbled sounds.

The trapped voice inside the wolf told her to run.

She wanted to run! But which way?

She dodged first one direction, then the other, reluctant to leave the small hole that let in the faintest whiff of night and freedom.

Terrible bursts of noise emerged from the object in the towering white blood-creature’s paws. She flinched back as more little holes opened in the wall behind her. Just a few more and maybe she could throw herself through…

Another upright being appeared and skidded to a halt behind the white one. This one was all black, like the beckoning night.

“Willow!”

A tingle of awareness tried to push up through the haze of fright tearing her more sharply than the broken wall. Danny.

But the wolf snarled it down. No more of these terrible two-legged creatures. Only away mattered, only running.

The white creature spun, pointing its noise-maker at the black one.

The voice deep in the wolf tried to cry a warning, but her throat still ached and no sound emerged.

“It’s over, Kurtz,” said the black one, and the wolf understood the unyielding tone if nothing else.

“The plague of werewolves is over.” That grinding hatred from the white one the wolf also understood. “Killing us won’t stop it.”

“Not going to kill you. Going to steal your prisoners and destroy your life’s work. That’s all.”

“You’ll die first.” The white creature tensed in a way that the wolf knew came before another burst of too-loud noise.

And the trapped voice inside her demanded they attack, now.

The two-legged creatures hadn’t been watching her, so when she lunged from her corner, they both recoiled.

She went for the white one’s throat.

But she was a little too far, and the explosion of noise came anyway. Except this time the hole it made was in her.

Still, her bones and muscles were strong, and her teeth found their aim just a bit off. Instead of a spray of crimson, she bit down on flesh and cartilage. But her momentum pulled the white creature away from the black, and she took it to the ground.

Now she could tear its throat out.

“Willow, wait!”

The wolf heard only the urgency and agreed that the white creature needed to die, like, yesterday.

Except the trapped voice inside her was rising again and distracting her.

She shook her head to force away the interruption, and the white creature gurgled its agony.

A touch at her flank made her stop, tensing. The black creature reached out and took her muzzle in a firm, gentle grip, with no fear of her ripping teeth.

“We have to get out,” Danny said.

The touch more than the words made a path for the trapped voice, and she whined as she released the white creature. Now more red than white.

“I know,” he murmured. “I hear ya.”

She took one hesitant step toward the circle of his arm.

Then a huge hole ripped open in the wall behind her, and the explosion was a thousand times worse than anything before.