Page 106 of Blood Sacrifice

I sucked in a breath and released it slowly. “Fine.” I touched the communications device at my ear. “Jethro, take your team and the witches back through the tunnels to safety. I’m about to hand myself over, and Dominic is going to be my bodyguard and follow wherever they take me.”

“Are you fucking serious? No!” Jethro almost screamed into my ear.

“Sometimes we have to sacrifice the few to save the many. Get our people out of here. They have another unit ready to attack.” I would never allow my men to be slaughtered. “You better have my ass or Luna will skin you alive.”

I gave Dominic my best glare that I saved to make young wolves pee themselves.

He replied with his creepy-ass grin. “I’ve lived a long time, wolf. I don’t take risks, because I’ve already played out the scenario in my head. Aisha believes herself in love with you. She would not allow you to be harmed, and she also knows you would never forgive her for harming your pack.”

I cracked my neck from side to side, unconsciously touching the pendant that hung around my neck.

“I’ve activated your tracker,” Tarrack said in my ear.

“My what?” I asked in a low, deadly voice.

“Your tracker,” he replied. “You instructed that we should all have one implanted about two years ago…” His voice trailed off as the extent of how we had been manipulated and monitored became apparent.

“Can you turn them off?” I demanded, my eyes meeting Dominic’s.

“Yeah, give me a second,” Tarrack replied, and I visualised his fingers flying over the keyboard as he squinted at the screen.

“Can anyone else turn them back on again?” Dominic asked.

“Not without the password.” Tarrack paused for a moment. “Changing the password.”

Dominic rolled his eyes before turning away. “They had a lot of time to infiltrate your system,” he said. “You either need to give your network the equivalent of a colonoscopy or replace it.”

I froze when someone grabbed me from behind to spin me around, my claws descending to eviscerate them until I saw it was Jethro.

“Don’t do this,” he said in an urgent tone. “There has to be another way.”

I was their leader and had done a shitty job of it considering we were all wearing trackers like expensive poodles being watched by their owners. “They know where we are,” I replied. “They had this planned because we all conveniently forgot we were wearing trackers. I need to make this right.”

I grasped his shoulder, begging him to understand with my eyes.

Jethro looked away. “I lost my real brother so long ago that I barely remember his voice. You’re the closest person I have to family in this world.”

“You’ll be following me every step of the way,” I replied. “I can only do this with all of you behind me.”

Jethro stared at me with an intensity that unnerved me. He was the glue that kept this pack together, a beta who saw beyond the physical. He nodded once, signalling his team toward the opening we had come in through since they had all heard my initial command.

“Give us a few minutes’ head start so we can get above ground and get ready to follow you,” he said. “Tarrack will be our eyes and ears, and the vampire can be your avenging angel to watch over you.”

“May the great gods forgive you for the comparison,” Dominic drawled. “We vampires are more akin to bats than those feathered menaces.”

Jethro pointed his finger at Dominic. “Anything happens to Sal, and I’ll stake you myself.”

“You would need to find my heart first,” Dominic replied. “It was stolen a long time ago and never returned.”

He spoke in riddles that I couldn’t understand half the time, but I knew what he meant since my heart had been ripped out of my chest and only returned four centuries later.

“See you on the other side,” I said to Jethro, who reluctantly turned to walk slowly toward where his team had gathered.

Dominic leapt into the air, spinning to dig his claws into the ceiling in a move that defied all the laws of gravity.

I creaked my neck from side to side, turning to face the remainder of my team. It would be believable to our enemies that we had lost a lot of men in the fights we had encountered so far.

“No more deaths,” I said. “Let them take you alive because they’ll not be keeping any of us.” I had to have faith or my wolf would never allow me to swallow my pride and be taken.

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