Page 73 of Wolf Unleashed
Alyssa struggled to get away from the needle, but she couldn’t escape. A mercenary was holding her down.
The liquid disappeared into Alyssa’s vein. “This is the last shot to get rid of your wolf, dear.” Her mom kissed her on the forehead. “All done.”
“No! You can’t!” Alyssa cried as her mother’s words sank in.
She stroked Alyssa’s hair out of her eyes. “My little Lyssie, you wouldn’t say that if you lived in a pack. I’m doing what’s best for you. So, they won’t take you.”
“This isn’t right,” Alyssa said as her heart raced and she felt lightheaded. Inside, her wolf seemed harder to reach. Quieter. She was losing her!
“Jonathan, I want to get her out of this horrid cabin. I think you’ll have to carry my daughter. We need to get her back to the compound.”
The mercenary lifted and slung Alyssa over his shoulder. The room spun. She was going to be sick.
A growl ripped through the cabin. The smell of gunpowder filled the air as the mercenary carrying her fired a volley of bullets. A wolf yelped, and Alyssa felt the pain travel across Tiernan’s bond. She fought to escape the mercenary’s hold, but his arm had clamped around her legs like a vise.
Fresh air struck her seconds later as he carried her outside. Even upside down, there was no mistaking the white wolf battling a mercenary. Another sting of pain sailed across the bond, this time Maddox’s.
Slung over his shoulder and racing the mercenary’s ass, Alyssa grabbed onto his tactical belt for stability while she reached for his knife sheath with her right. She unclipped the sheath, grabbed the knife, and plunged it into the man’s back.
“Bitch!” He threw her to the ground, whirred around, but never had the chance to attack as a silver wolf slammed into him and pinned him to the ground.
Then there was complete silence.
Her entire body hurt, not just from striking the ground, but inside, like acid was coursing through her veins. Even though she lay in several inches of snow, she felt as if she was burning up.
Her mother tried to pull her up. “We have to go, Alyssa! Now!”
“Get away from her!” Tiernan shouted at her mother as he scooped Alyssa into his arms.
“She’s my daughter. I won’t let you destroy her!”
Alyssa reached out to touch Tiernan’s cheek. He had several cuts and bruises, and blood running down shoulder from a bullet wound. The skin was closing before her eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked, never once taking her eyes from him. She didn’t care about her mother. Not when Tiernan was hurt. He and her other two loves were her entire world.
“The bullet went through. My wolf is healing me,” he said as he cradled her against his chest. “Rafe and Maddox are fine too.”
“So cold, Tiernan,” she said, her teeth beginning to chatter.
He kissed her forehead. “You’re ill, babe. Just hang on, okay?”
Her mother tried to pull Alyssa from Tiernan’s arms. “Come with me, Alyssa, where you’ll be safe. You don’t want to be with them. All they know is how to kill. It’s in their nature. I grew up with filthy animals like this. This is what I’m trying to save you from. Them and my birth pack. The Bordelon control their females. It doesn’t matter that you’re half shifter or born outside the pack. They will see you as their property, just as they did me. But if you have no wolf, if there is no trace of shifter in you, they won’t take you. You’ll be of no use to them. They won’t try to breed you.”
“We will protect her,” Rafe said as he stroked Alyssa’s hair. “Your guards are all dead, Adeline. Or will be as soon as Maddox catches that last coward who escaped.”
“You going to kill me next?” Adeline said, brown eyes filled with hate for Rafe.
“Only if you try to stop us. We’re taking Alyssa away from here, away from you, where she’ll be safe.”
Adeline laughed. “You may be of alpha blood, but without a pack behind you, you have no chance of protecting her. You couldn’t even protect her from me and my men.”
Icy cold tendrils slithered through Alyssa’s body, searching for her wolf. The voices around her echoed in her head even as she lost control of her muscles. Her head flopped against Tiernan’s chest, and her eyes closed. She could no longer feel her wolf or either bond. She tried to focus on Rafe’s voice, but he sounded distant, like he was across a raging river.
“How could you do this to your own daughter?” Tiernan asked. “You’re a shifter.”
“Was,” Adeline said. “I had a similar treatment ten years ago, after I was forced to leave my only child. If we could give it to you and other shifters now, we would, but it takes a long time to calibrate each dose to a shifter’s DNA. Fortunately, my husband had samples of Alyssa’s DNA and never gave up working on it all these years, even though we couldn’t find her. Then we found her. We received a tip from a shifter in your pack, Alpha.”
“My pack?” Rafe said, not hiding the shock in his voice. “No shifter would betray my alpha.”
