Page 59 of Fastlander Fighter

“You stripped a mate-bond!” Silver yelled.

“You all wanted to be under me, you wanted me to be Alpha, and then you piss and moan when I make a decision that could save a human kid and his mom—”

“You should talk to Lucia before you brag on what a hero you are,” Silver said, shoving him in the shoulder as she walked past him toward Owen’s truck. “Your order didn’t change a thing.”

Something was happening. Silver was trying to do something. Something good? Something to do with Captain. She was sticking up for him. She’d said nice things about him, and now she was posting up against Gunner. He hated Gunner too, but he couldn’t put a finger on why. Maybe he just hated everything now.

Owen strode past him toward Gunner.

Gunner looked furious as he tracked Silver’s escape. “Silver, I order—”

“No!” Owen yelled at the top of his lungs. “Silver, run!”

The boar exploded out of him, and he went straight for the Alpha.

Huh.

Corey was running for Owen’s truck now too, and Gunner was yelling something between the chaos.

He needed to…he needed to do something. He needed to give Silver the space she was fighting for.

It had something to do with him. It had something to do with why he’d been growing more and more numb. Why he’d been having the dreams of the faceless woman. It had to do with the woman whose address and number he knew by heart, but couldn’t recall a single facial feature to save his life.

Silver was trying to help him, and Owen was buying her time.

Captain strode for Gunner, who threw the boar off him by his tusks. He turned for Silver and parted his lips, and the fury of Captain’s bear swallowed him whole. The world faded away except for Gunner.

“Stop, Captain!” Gunner ordered as he saw him approaching, but Captain wasn’t home anymore.

The animal ripped out of him, and the moment slowed.

Captain’s claws were reaching for Gunner, the truck was peeling out of the trailer park, spraying gravel across them, Owen’s boar was charging the Alpha from behind, and a line of bright-red fire was coming for them.

Wreck was here.

Good.

Captain would kill all of them.

Chapter Nineteen

The commotion outside was what drew Sloane out of her apartment.

People were gathered in twos and threes, huddled together talking, checking their phones and pointing, all looking in the same direction.

Confused, Sloane pulled the oversized open-zipper hoodie Captain had given her tighter around her body. It was not yet deep enough into the evening to be sunset, so she could see what the others did as soon as she rounded the corner of the building.

Fire.

“They’re saying it’s in Damon’s Mountains,” her neighbor, Meg, enlightened her as she came to stand beside her.

An awful snaking feeling filled Sloane’s gut.

She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and checked the local news station site, but nothing was updated yet.

“I should…I should go,” she said uneasily to Meg.

“Go where? To Damon’s Mountains? You should not do that. If the mountains are burning, let the shifters handle it. What if it’s dragon’s fire?”

---