Page 142 of Scorned

Even though I hadn’t known Jimmy long, he’d helped rescue me, so I wouldn’t kill him, but I had no problem scaring the shit out of him.

A hiss left me as I opened my mouth and bared my fangs. Jimmy’s eyes widened, then his chin stiffened, and I had to give him props because it was the bravest I’d ever seen him.

Before I had a chance to shove him aside—because seriously, he weighed about a buck fifty and I could remove him with my pinky—Ravage slid in between us.

“What’s going on, son?”

“I have to find Strike,” I said, holding up the paper. “I have the address to the VRC location he’s at and we need to get him out of there today.”

“We’ll have to get a team together and come up with a plan.”

Shaking my head, I stepped around him.

“Luka, wait.”

I ignored Ravage, continuing toward my cabin, but I knew damn well he wasn’t going to let me get far.

“I swear to you, boy, this is my only warning. If you take one more step, I’m going to hand you your ass!”

Even though I didn’t have time to fight with my origin, I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around. With fists tightened, I moved in close, going almost nose to nose. “You have no clue what they did to me in there! How they starved me, cut me, fucking tortured me. They stuck fingers in every goddamn hole of my body and needles into my balls to extract semen and they did it all in the name of fucking science!”

A gasp came from behind us and when I looked, Sage had both her hands clasped firmly over her mouth. It was mortifying to realize she’d overheard the one thing I wanted to keep secret.

The dampness on my cheeks made me quickly rub my face against my shoulder, using my shirt as a tissue before I turned back to Ravage. “Like I was saying, we need to get my brother out of there now.”

Ravage gently laid his hand on my shoulder, his eyes softening. “Okay, son. Let’s find Winnie and Drag.”

I bit down my feelings, forcing my gaze back to Sage. She didn’t look at me with pity or like I wasn’t a man anymore due to what happened to me. There was a fire in her eyes, the same kind I had brewing inside of me. A fire that said we would not only save Strike, but we’d take down every VRC and Venom location we’d find.

“We’ll get him out of there as soon as we can,” she said, picking up my hand, gently holding it between hers. “However, it’s important to avoid risking our lives or the lives of our friends by rushing in without a plan. If anyone knows how hard it is to wait out that time, it’s me, but we have to be strategic, Luka. For the sake of everyone.”

Just as I was about to reluctantly agree with her, Peach ran up. “Something is going down at Drifter’s and it’s not good.”

Chapter 40

Drag

When I found my fated mate, my mind became overwhelmed with a flurry of emotions. Though I had convinced myself that I was ready, reality proved me wrong.

Before I brought her home, I wanted everything to be perfect. For the last two nights, I’d done anything I could to make sure the camp looked good for her. I’d installed tiki torches and solar lights to brighten the pathways, cleaned my entire house, threw away a bunch of old junk, and I even fixed the leaky sink in my bathroom.

But that all changed in an instant.

A vinculum is the bond we wolven have with our pack—on this plane and beyond. The vinculum I had with my pack was strong, unbreakable. It let me know who was under my care at any moment. Most of the wolven were born into my pack, some of them mated in.

The golden magical strands looked similar to veins and could only be seen in wolf form . . . but I could feel them at all times.

The invisible tether connecting me to my pack vibrated, then sent pain coursing through me, indicating that someone had suffered an injury. The bond told me it was my father.

When I slung the door to Drifter’s open, my heart took a few seconds to catch up with the chaos my eyes were seeing.

Blood filled my nostrils, my gaze darting around the room, bouncing off each dead body, most of them Venom members.

Laren was the first person I recognized. She had her hands clasped over a wound on her stomach, writhing in pain.

As I ran toward her, I immediately wondered how long it had been since she’d last fed because she hadn’t healed yet.

She lifted a blood-soaked hand and pointed toward the bar. “Ollie!”

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