Page 38 of Rathgar

Rathgar is my heart-mate. But will I live long enough to tell him the truth?

TEAM’S RESCUE

RATHGAR

I should have killed the bastard when I had a chance. But I let myself get soft, and now Janie was in danger because of me. That’s not a mistake I plan to make twice.

With my tracking skills and Soren’s resources, we were able to sniff out his hideout pretty easily. I don’t know how he got out of that locked room I left him in, but it doesn’t matter. I’m done seeing him slip through my fingers. This time, I will not leave until he’s dead.

We’re circling Kovarx’s camp, just the two of us with two other alpha scouts. We can’t afford tipping them off to our presence. We have to be quick, quiet, and deadly.

My specialty.

I hold back a yawn as Soren points at something over the hill we’re stationed on. I haven’t had more than a few minutes of shut eye since Soren first got the news that something was wrong. But that’s all right. I’ve been through much worse conditions in the field. It’s not the first time I’ve had to sacrifice sleep for the sake of my duty, or the sake of my people.

It’s not just ‘your people’ anymore, I remind myself. It still feels so strange. So foreign. But in a good way. A way I never thought I’d be able to claim for myself. Your family.

A soft breeze stirs the grass and blows my sweaty hair out of my face. That’s not all it does, though. I catch a whiff of something all too familiar — the very scent that had me rushing through the ISA facility to find her that fateful day.

It’s Janie. She’s here.

And she’s terrified.

Soren notices me tense up. “I know,” he says softly. “I smell them too. But we can’t be hasty.”

“Easy for you to say,” I grumble. My skin itches all over, my heart pounding in my chest. I need to punch something. I need to scream. And more than anything, I need to hold Janie and Iris in my arms and make sure nothing will ever hurt them again.

“I know,” Soren says again. He looks almost as tense as I do, but he’s better at hiding. A vein pops out on his forehead, ticking in time with his sped-up heart. “I feel it too, believe me. It’s taking everything I have to keep from storming in there like the beasts they think we are.”

I dig my fingers into the grass and try to ground myself. Letting out a long breath, I nod my head. “What’s our next move?”

“See that building?” Soren points again. “That’s our target. They’re in there. I know it.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

He holds up a hand. “Not yet. They’ll be changing the guard soon. Orri and Ivar are scouting the perimeter now. When I get the signal, we’re clear to proceed.”

I grunt out an acknowledgement, but my brain’s still elsewhere. Thinking of Janie and Iris, alone and scared. The fact that they took Janie and Lara was bad enough. But to put a child — no, a toddler — through this?

Unforgivable.

A few more moments pass. I stare at the compound, but can’t see a thing. Finally, Soren nudges me. “Let’s go.” He checks his weapon one more time, holds a finger to his lips, and we’re off down the hill. When this is all over, either Kovarx will be dead…

Or I will be.

By all the gods. I knew that Kovarx and his men were vile, but this…

This is another level.

We get in the door without incident, but there at the long of a long hallway is an utter cage. And there, wailing for her mommy, is Iris.

At that point, nothing Soren says can stop me anymore. There’s a man guarding the cell with his back turned, but he won’t be there for long. He doesn’t even deserve to be called a man.

I rush toward him, drawing my sword as I go, and before he even has a chance to turn around, I slit the bastard’s throat and let him fall, wordlessly, to the floor in a wet splatter. His blood coats my blade and my skin, but my thoughts are on something else.

Lara rouses into consciousness, staring at me with wide eyes. Even Iris stops crying. There’s another woman there, too. One I haven’t seen before. But over the scent of Iris and Janie — where the hell is Janie? — I smell something else. Omega heat.

And it’s coming from the small creature curled up in the fetal position next to them.

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