Page 68 of Fire Bound

My blood runs cold, and my wolf bares her teeth and steadies herself. She knows what’s happening just like I do.

It’s time.

Over a year of waiting, planning and training,he’shere.

If I didn’t already know it in my bones, the symphony of warning howls cutting across our land would. Forgetting completely about the weirdness of the motorcycle, I sprint toward the car. From this vantage point, I can’t tell where that explosion happened, but I need to go make sure everyone is okay.

The only thing keeping me from fully panicking is I can still feel the link between Jax and I. It’s alive and strong. As long as it remains that way, it means he’s okay.

My hand just brushes the metal of the door handle when I hear the whooshing sound behind me. Before I have a chance to turn around and see what it is, a hand is tangling in the strands of my hair. I cry out as they yank me backward just to shove me forward.

My face slams against the glass of Isabeau’s driver’s side window. I can’t hear the sound of my bones breaking over the sound of the glass shattering, but I can feel them break. Instantly I taste blood and my face screams in pain.

Disoriented from the head trauma, I drop to the ground on my hands and knees. My attacker releases my hair but continues to stand close. I can see the red heels in my peripheral vision as they’re leisurely joined by a pair of men’s dress shoes. Spitting a mouthful of blood into the asphalt before turning my head, I look up at the man.

When I see him, I can’t help but choke on a laugh. “I should have known.” I spit more blood onto his shoes. “Only a pussy like you would attack from behind.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice.” He grins at me. He tries to be sinister like his associates, but he just can’t seem to pull it off. Even the woman with the fairy-like features that stands next to him in a red dress is more intimidating than him. “I tried to get you that night, but you called for help before I could get you out of the car.”

“Another embarrassingly weak move,William. You couldn’t face me yourself, so you resorted to running me off the road with your car? Genevieve really did get all the strong genes, didn’t she?” William also had to resort to traps like leaving Gage’s motorcycle out to get an advantage over me.

With an angry snarl, he shoves his foot into my side and forces me to roll onto my back in a heap. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me that night on the road, Remington. I thought for sure you’d recognize my scent at the very least. I remembered yours.”

Holding my ribs, I grimace as I sneer up at him. “Of course, you did. I’m a very memorable person. You, however, are about as memorable as a piece of chewed bubble gum stuck under a park bench.”

William hauls me off the ground, his fingers digging painfully into my arm as he drags me to my feet. His woman companion stands silently at his side. When my eyes collide with hers, I find they’re glassy and unfocused. “Let’s see if you’ve still got a mouth on you when you meet Sterling,” William growls in my face. Now that I know Sterling is his dad, I find it really odd he refers to his own father by that moniker. I don’t call my dadElias.

Off in the distance, another explosion echoes through the air. William turns his head to stare at the new cloud of smoke rising above the trees. While he’s momentarily distracted, I kick my foot out. My boot collides with his kneecap. The blow makes him holler in pain and loosen his grip on me just enough I’m able to slip away.

I only get ten feet away before William is screaming behind me. “Go after her!”

The same whooshing noise from before comes up behind me and before I have time to do anything about it, the woman in red is standing in front of me. She holds her hand out, palms up. As I collide with her, her palm is pressed to my heart.

When Jax touches me with hellfire, it feels like he’s transferring something to me. I can feel the steady stream of power as it enters my body even though it doesn’t hurt. What she’s doing now doesn’t hurt, but it feels wrong, like she’s stealing the life from me. I can feel my energy and power being pulled out of my body from where her palm presses to me.

Her facial expression stays the same and her eyes remain that glossy, dead looking pair.

Feeling incredibly weak, I stumble forward. I try to keep myself upright, but my knees have become wobbly, and my vision has started to blur. When I fall toward her, I half expect her to reach forward and stop me from falling onto the dark ground, but instead she just stops and watches me fall.

“Mina, that’s enough,” William warns the girl. I have no idea what kind of species she is. “He doesn’t want her dead yet.”

Without a word or pushback, Mina lifts her hand off of me and moves back a foot like a soldier stepping back into line.

Back on the ground, I try to shake off whatever she’d just done to me, but no matter how many times I blink or take slow measured breaths, the exhaustion and threat of passing out looms over me.

Another explosion goes off as William steps in front of me. “What are you doing?” I slur out.

William waves his hand in the direction of the clouds of smoke. “We’re just making sure your people know we’re here,” he answers casually. “And we needed to keep them distracted for a short time while we collected you. I have no idea what Sterling has planned for you, but he said you were important.”

I want to tell him to get fucked, but my body becomes so tired I lose the ability to form words. My only hope is Jax feels my distress through our bond, because my world is quickly turning black

“Close your eyes, Remington,” William orders. “It’ll all be over soon.”

And with that, everything goes dark.

I’m impressed by the level of fighting skill Pruitt’s pack has been able to develop in these past months. They are already the strongest pack in North America, but with the help of these grueling training sessions, they’ve become stronger. Their instincts are sharper, and they’ve learned tips and tricks on how to take down certain species from Isabeau.

She’s fought and killed everything, and it’s a wealth of knowledge for her pack.

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