Page 45 of Feral

Guards swarmed from the outer rim of the compound, bathed in floodlights, many more than had been inside.Soldiers.

The ferals attacked them as viciously as they had the guards, but the automatic weapons tore into the alphas’ unprotected flesh and sent many to the ground in a spray of blood.

Thinking fast, 351 fell back against the building and pulled Lillian into the shadows. As fast as he could move her while remaining low to the ground, they half-crawled toward the tall fence looming against the night sky.

Miraculously, they made it through the spray of bullets without being hit. 351 didn’t waste time leaping up the fence, digging his toes into the mesh to push himself up to the barbed wire topping it. Finding the strength he needed in the pulsing fear from the bond anchored behind his ribs, he tore the barbed wire apart with his hands, gritting his teeth against the pain as the metal ripped into his flesh.

Again and again he tore at it, until there was enough of a clear path that they could make it through. Only then did he jump down, grabbing for his mate.

“Your hands!” she gasped, horrified at the bloody mess.

“No time,” he ground out, though he could see tendons sticking out of the wounds. But they couldn’t linger. Every second that passed was a chance for one of the soldiers to spot them. And if that happened…

He had to more or less push her up the fence, grinding his teeth against the pain in his hands. But together, they managed to get her over the fence, and relief that jolted through him when she landed on the other side went a long way to numb the agony.

She was out.

She was free.

But as she stared back at him, her face contorted from a relieved, though anxious smile to a mask of terror.

“Zach! Look out!”

He didn’t turn around in time. Pain blazed through his back, throwing him up against the fence with a loud rattle.

A bullet. He’d been shot before—there was no mistaking that pain. Grunting with effort, he turned to face his attacker.

A soldier with an automatic rifle aimed—not at him, but at Lillian.

“Get on the ground!” the soldier snarled. “Get down, or I’ll shoot!”

351 turned his head to look one last time at the female he’d known was his mate from the first time he saw her. The woman who he would give his life for. Perhaps she truly had fallen pregnant during one of the times he’d taken her in that blasted compound.

Maybe there’d still be a part of him left in this world after tonight. It was a comforting thought.

“Run, Lillian,” he whispered.

And then, drawing on the strength of the bond pulsing frantically in his chest, he threw himself at the soldier, snarling like the beast he’d been since she first met him.

The second shot hit him in the stomach, the pain blackening the edges of his vision. But it came too late. He landed on the soldier with his full weight, taking him to the ground with a battle roar.

The guard gurgled as 351 snapped his teeth shut around his throat andtore,metallic blood filling his mouth before his opponent could dislodge him. The guard stilled with a final, wet rattle.

351’s vision tunneled, closing in, a faint rushing in his ears growing to a thunderous crash. The last thing he saw was his own blood pooling around him as he surrendered to death.

CHAPTER 20

JEROME WILLIS

Not many people knocked on Jerome’s door on the best of days. And when a storm struck, no one was dumb enough to venture out into the wilderness where his cabin was located. Yet through the howling winds and branches beating against the windows of his cabin, a faint but unmistakable rap of knuckles drew his attention.

Jerome grabbed his shotgun, never more than an arm’s length away, and pumped it once before crossing the floor. With a warning growl, he yanked the door open and aimed the weapon at the dumb fuck who’d decided to disturb him.

A small woman stood directly in front of the open door. Her long hair plastered to her face, and the dirty white coat covering her frail body was so soaked through he could make out her breasts and the smear of blood underneath.

Jerome kept the shotgun trained on her chest, quickly scanning the area behind her. There was no sign of people lurking in the perimeter, and his ears picked up nothing but howling wind and her too-fast breathing.

“J-Jerome Willis? You’re Jerome Willis?” she asked.

---