Page 21 of Never Submit

Torin straightens and watches the two of us try to beatthe shit out of each other. He looks like he doesn’t care if we have a little fun, but I know him. He’s seething. Tensed, watching us.

Mathis is the killjoy who steps in right as I kick Dax in his fucking balls. He yelps and the hit is the only thing that keeps him from fighting back when Mathis pulls him away.

I snort at that.

“If we’re done acting like children now,” Torin says in the sudden silence, “then I will let you know that the crystal disappeared with Ren, and since Andras has her, he now has it in his possession. He must be planning something big.”

Sweat drips down Dax’s face once he’s done destroying several saplings around us, and finally he returns to Mathis’s side, breathing heavily.

“Are you seriously more concerned for the crystal than for your beta’s mate?” Mathis seems to take the news in stride.

I keep my lips zipped, lungs working like bellows. Blood drips from my mouth, and I spit and send it spraying across the snow-dusted ground.

“I don’t care about the girl. It’s the stone I want,” Torin replies. “The same way you want the stone.”

“It’s better for us to focus on the stone, I agree. It is the only weapon capable of stopping Andras and his tidal wave of destruction,” Mathis grumbles.

It shocks me to hear him agree. Weird for him and Torin to be of the same mind.

Something about this meeting is different.

The quality of our interactions has changed, even when I swipe my hand against my face and it comes away smeared in blood.

What’s one more scar?

“You two might not care about what happens to Ren but I do.” I huff out a breath. “She is the most important thing to me. And I don’t give a fuck what anyone says. I’m searching forher.”

Torin’s face is locked in a no-blink contest with me, like he’s waiting for me to argue with him.

But I only look at the others and wait for them to speak. Only to realize Dax is gone.

Somewhere along the line, he disappeared, sneaking out.

Fucking prick.

Trust him to take off rather than do his job. That guy’s always doing whatever he wants, not obeying rules. Well, screw him.

“As I said before, Andras has set his sights on my pack, and I’m not willing to sit around and wait for him to destroy us completely,” Mathis says simply. It’s a small display of vulnerability and one that alphas don’t normally admit to each other. Which means things are really bad right now.

Torin leans back with a smirk curling his lips. “Should have thought twice before you let that crystal out of your sight, then. We’ll think about it and get back to you.”

He snaps his fingers and gestures behind him. The argument is done, and he’s not willing to wait around and allow Mathis the last word.

Like an obedient fucking asshole, I trail Torin out

He’s quiet on our way down to our black SUV. Several of his deltas fall in behind him, searching the briar-clogged paths and the line of the forest for any perceived threat.

I have to remind myself that so many deltas and bodyguards are necessary. We’d barely made it off the mountain before. As it was, we’d come back with more injuries thanwe would have thought for a simple scuffle. But there was nothing simple about it.

Andras had planned the entire thing, and only the tenuous bond of energy still flickering between me and Ren keeps me from thinking she had anything to do with the ambush. She was the reason the four of us went to the shrine. No one else knew about the trek.

How did Andras find out?

How did he find us?

Torin settles in the backseat while I take the passenger side, clicking the seatbelt home. “I’m sorry.” He’s so quiet I barely hear the words.

“For what?” Now I sound like a bitch, and my lip stings when I move it.

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