Page 62 of Racing the Storm

I almost laughed. “We thought it was a boat.”

“There’s an airstrip beside the dock,” he told me, his tone impatient. “Canada has already locked down the borders in anticipation of the conflict. I was told that one of your missing Alphas has already made it back to Corland.”

I felt Danyal sag in relief. “Zane,” he murmured.

I nodded and pulled him close. “Do you have a plan, then? Back to Mexico?”

“I’d gladly put you in Nadya’s hands, but she’s already gone,” he told me.

Of course she was. She had to, especially if they… “Yasin?”

Arturo gave me a hard look, then nodded once. “He’s alive. He’s not…” He trailed off, then let out a sigh. “There were two feral wolves we brought back with us. The other one with Yasin had been used as training. He was injured though—not healing. He’s in a secure facility to make sure he recovers, and if his mind…” Arturo stopped, and I understood. If his mind could be saved, they’d get information from him.

If not…well, that wasn’t up to Wolves like me, though I knew Kor would do everything in his power to make sure they lived as happily as they could. And free.

“So what is the plan?” Danyal asked.

“A safehouse,” Arturo said. “There’s a landing strip about twenty miles outside of Colorado Springs. Entirely human. I have permission under an alias to land. There’s a house about fifty miles north of that. Your Alpha said to head there, and he’ll send a team to retrieve you in seventy-two hours.”

More hiding, though this time it was an actual house—I hoped. And the flight would give me a chance to tap into my wolf and bring him forward to heal me. The chemicals were already leaving my body, and I knew it wouldn’t take long.

Turning my head, I reached out and cupped Danyal’s cheek. “One more run?”

He nodded, looking fierce and determined and also like the best thing I had ever laid my eyes on. “One more run.”

Chapter

Twenty

DANYAL

Ididn’t breathe easy until we were in the air; Mikael managed a shift to heal and then fell into a deep sleep so the rest of him could recover. When he had, I poked my head into the cockpit and Arturo invited me to sit.

I still wasn’t a great flier, but after everything we’d been through, it seemed so small. I settled into the seat, then looked over at him and saw the tension around his eyes and mouth. It was still a marvel that he was a Wolf under that human guise, though I knew that wasn’t quite it.

He wasn’t posing as a human—his breed had just evolved differently.

“Are you all right?” he asked after a beat.

I offered a weak smile and shrugged. “That was the first time I’ve ever killed anyone.”

He sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. “It doesn’t get easier, if that’s what you were hoping.”

I glanced out at the clouds below us, like a white sea of cotton. “I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t want it to. I’m not exactly eager to go through that again.”

“That might be a foolish hope,” he told me.

I knew that—of course, I knew that—but I wasn’t going to give up on the idea of peace just yet. “Did you manage to get Kasher in?”

Arturo didn’t move for long seconds, then eventually he nodded. “They took him into custody and will be delivering him to a secure location. Your Alpha will help deal with him.”

It made sense. After all, Misha and Kor had suffered just like all the others. “Do you think Yasin will recover enough to see his mate again?”

“I don’t think she’ll allow them to be separated even if he doesn’t,” Arturo said, “but from what my friends tell me, he’s speaking a little bit.”

Danyal shuddered with relief, and he remembered seeing the light in Yasin’s eyes when he’d helped him. He wasn’t lost. Danyal wouldn’t ever, ever believe he was lost. “They did that to my brother. He’s the Alpha you were talking about—who was rescued. I don’t know the details. Kasher grabbed me before I had any idea how bad it was, but I could feel it. I could feel Zane slipping.”

I wasn’t quite ready to talk about how it felt when the bond had come close to breaking, but I had a feeling Arturo understood better than anyone.

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