Page 28 of The Predator's Wolf Mate

Fucking traitors.

“You said you wanted to have a discussion. Negotiate?” Hammer walked forward and stood shoulder to shoulder with me as did the others.

“I do. Hammer. The voice of reason.” Goliath clapped while I searched all around me for my family. A sign of them. Anything.

“What the fuck do you want?” I yelled. Hammer was a great leader and calm as hell. That fared great for us, so far, but this was different. The fucker needed to cough up his terms before I choked them out of him.

“It’s simply, really. Your team”—he spat the word—“has been walking into situations they weren’t welcome in. Meddling in things they have no business meddling in. We tasked you with certain things, funded you in the process, and now you’ve become vigilantes for some invisible cause. How long did you think we would let that stand?”

“We were righting wrongs,” Hammer came back so quickly, he almost interrupted. “We were hired to help break up omega rings, not perpetuate them.”

Goliath’s face grew red, and he began to shake. “You were hired to do what we fucking told you to do when we fucking told you to do it and how we told you to do it. Nothing more, wolf. Not one fucking thing more.”

Mav huffed out some smoke through his nose. A little reminder of who was in charge. It wasn’t the one who was yelling the most.

“The fact is that you get your family back under one condition and one condition only, Aziz.” Goliath turned his attention on me.

“I haven’t even seen my family yet. I don’t know if they are alive. We’re going to need some proof of life before I agree to anything.”

Goliath cocked his head to the side. “Bring them out.”

I held my breath while minutes that felt like hours went by. Two of the hyenas came back with Jack in tow. He was holding Bryant and, even though it had only been two days, his belly looked bigger. His gaze floated to me and he winked.

Winked as though he was okay when every signal pointed to not okay.

“There you are. They are well and fed.”

Hammer snorted. “Like all the other omegas under your care, right, Goliath.”

“What goes on with my operations is none of your fucking business, Hammer. You were hired for a job. One job. I message. You answer. I say jump, you ask how fucking high. That’s it.”

“So we become errand boys again, ignore everything around us, and you give me my family back.”

“Simple, right?” Goliath smiled and reached to touch my omega but I snarled at him. He was a coward. One of the hyenas pulled a gun from his waistband and put it to the back of Jack’s head. “Let’s be careful now, Aziz. We don’t want any…accidents.”

“We’ll fucking slaughter you if any harm comes to Jack or his young,” Hammer growled out.

“You don’t have a choice here, Hammer. Agree to the terms, or we kill the omega and his little brat. Then, every hour you still don’t agree, we’ll kill off another omega. One. Dead. Omega. Every. Fucking. Hour. You hear me?”

They had us by our balls, and we knew it.

“Aziz, just agree, please. We will live. That’s what’s important. Not just me but the others,” Jack pleaded with me. Attacking them would give the hyena a chance to take out my mate. Unacceptable.

“Fine,” Hammer said. “We will stay out of anything we aren’t commanded to do. Now hand over the omega and the pup.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jack

When they came to get Bryant and I, it was weird. And sure, all prisoner-type activities were weird and evil and terrifying, but this one was exceptionally so. The first thing they did was to take off my blindfold and brush my hair out of my face—with an actual brush. Then they told me to straighten my clothes and to change Bryant. For whatever reason, they wanted us to be presentable and not look like the disheveled mess that we were.

As soon as they opened the door, I understood why.

My mate was here, and so were Hammer and Mav. Me looking unharmed mattered to them in this situation, and I held onto that fact, in case I needed it.

They were all here, and I wasn’t sure if I should be thrilled or terrified for them and us.

They led me down a small corridor and opened the door, my mate’s scent slamming into me in full force. I met his eyes and everything inside me had me wanting to rush to him, but I stayed firm. There were shifters with guns watching my every move. These weren’t normal shifters in that way. They didn’t fight with claws and teeth; they used steel. Nothing about them was honorable.

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