Page 118 of Vengeful Mates

The scent of rotting food swamped my senses. Garbage tossed off the bridge by assholes. Graffiti scrawled on every possible inch of concrete. Syringes and spoons from heroin junkies.

Panic shattered my heart. Numbness crept over me. The well of pain from killing my last mate tightened my throat. Death calling to my woman. All because I failed to find Colton and a way to beat him.

“Stop looking at me and find that cunt!” Bitterness burned Slade’s growl. He held back the thunderstorm threatening to emerge from him.

My president thought because I shared death powers with Colton that I knew every fucking thing. I didn’t. The prick had abilities beyond my scope and comprehension.

“Bring it down a level. Let him think,” Castor reminded, removing the bullet from our president’s clavicle and patching him up with sutures. Like the old days after we lost Liz and didn’t have a medic.

Blood loss, shock, and draining his powers left Slade in no condition to hunt for Aaliyah. Same went for all of us, for that matter. That didn’t mean we’d give up trying. We needed quick and decisive action. Doing nothing left our mate for dead.

Mia murmured in her unconscious slumber and curled into a ball, lying on a pile of our suit jackets thrown on the ground. Drowning in his guilt, Alaric protectively brushed her hair, his connection to our daughter the only thread tying him to sanity. Without her to watch and protect, he would lose his battle with his anxiety.

I had to knock her out the moment the weapon-wielding riders turned up. She didn’t need to see more blood and men taken down after what happened to her parents. God forbid Aaliyah didn’t make it back, we might not be able to erase those memories. Cold sweat frosted my skin at the idea.

Castor snipped the suture and placed the scissors in the first aid kit, going for the bandages, unraveling them.

After members of Hellfire MC and another unidentified club confronted us with weapons, we hightailed it out of there. Wounded brothers nearly died on the way over to a highway underpass. Underworld magick slowed their heartbeat and blood flow and killed any loss.

Fuck. I swiped a hand through my hair. We couldn’t afford to be grounded and hidden while Colton possibly sliced up our mate and delivered her remains in one of his sick canopic jars as a twisted present.

Fear traveled like icy cords through our bond. Slade wasn’t the only one fearing Aaliyah’s safety. We all lost one mate. Separation from her hit like a bludgeon to my battered heart. Losing another mate would destroy us, me most of all, since I flopped at locating Raine. Followed a close second by Slade for agreeing to go through with this charity ride against Castor’s warning.

I paused to draw a deep breath, my first since this shit went down. I needed space to think. Sort through evidence and derive conclusions. Hatch out strategies. Bad decisions were made under duress and extreme emotion. Saw it a hundred times as a cop, and again with Slade when his fiery temper took hold. I had to clear out all irrational thoughts, fear and doubt. Focus only on logic. Otherwise, I’d lead us into another emergency.

The answer came to me, loud and clear. Move forward with our plans. Capture Faline, and exchange her for Aaliyah. Exploit Colton’s weakness and kill him.

This was my damn responsibility to fix. I brought the heat to the club by killing the cops, almost got us shut down, Alaric and me jailed, and if I failed, my kid would be without her mother. It was up to me to eliminate the last threat remaining for the club. Faline would give me fucking answers or I would make her.

I moved back to Slade’s bike, where Castor put the finishing touches to the president’s bandage and packed the first aid tools back in his kit.

“I’m leaving to grab Faline,” I announced to Castor and Slade, earning Alaric’s distracted attention. “I need backup. Who volunteers?”

Slade’s murderous gaze met mine, the shield I mastered as a teen impervious to his brutal glare. “Me and genius.” The storm of dark, threatening fury swept the men, easing as it dipped to Mia. “Someone has to patch up the rest of the wounded and stay and watch Mia and clear out our bikes if the cops check down here.”

Meaning Alaric stayed back to protect the kid. Our brother wasn’t in any state to come with us, as much as he wanted to prove himself worthy. Stress was his kryptonite, and we accepted that. We just had to manage it as best we could. Avoid putting him in heated situations until he was ready to tackle them. If ever. The choice was his, though.

“I’ll stay,” he whispered, his voice broken like his heart for losing his mate when it was his duty to protect her.

We predicted something might happen but not with that many witnesses. We were fools and all to blame.

I jerked my head at him. “Blueberries.” Code for him to set a protective barrier over us to exclude the rest of the club from hearing or seeing what came next.

Magick sparked a golden bubble of light over us.

“Where is Faline?” My gaze cut to Castor. “We’ll take her by surprise. Portal in and grab her. No parking our bikes out front and alerting her to our arrival. No fighting security to get to her.”

Castor’s eyes glazed over as he checked his channels. “Her office at her casino. Makingbusinesscalls.”

That left the issue of leaving our bikes in the event the cops were alerted to our hideout. Someone had to get them back to the club.

“The club wives can ride our bikes back to Bathurst.” My suggestion received a consensus of agreement. One last question weighed down our minds. “We’re weak from expenditure of ammo and magick. Have you got much left in the tank?”

Pain creased Slade’s brow. “Enough to end thatcunt.”

Castor remained controlled and unnervingly confident. “I was ready for this since I found out he was behind this.”

Decision resolute, I went to the bag I carried on my bike, removing rope, a spare gun, and a knife.

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