Page 73 of Their Mate
“Right,” Logan said.
“Let’s go,” I replied, setting my mouth in a firm line.
I slid to the front before anyone could argue, lifted a hand for silence when Logan opened his mouth to protest, and took the first corner without waiting for them to say anything against me taking point. The tunnel breathed at me, stale air one way, fresher to the right.
I chose the right.
We moved for several hours. Somewhere along the way, I picked up a crowbar someone had left behind. When the path split, I veered left without hesitating, seeing that rats had beaten a dry track there. When the ceiling fell to below my shoulder height, I went to my elbows and knees through a squeeze no one liked and popped out into a maintenance gallery with a rusty overhead liftgate barring the way. I looked around, finding a hand wheel that didn’t move when I tried to turn it.
Fuck. It was seized.
I spat on my palm, set the crowbar, and wedged it into the spokes. “Aidan, Declan—on me. Slow pressure. If it screams, we stop.”
They flanked me, braced, and pushed on the count. The wheel groaned like an old man getting out of bed, then grudgingly turned. The gate lifted a hand span, another, and then another until it lifted enough for us to get out. Cold salty air hit my face as we emerged into the tunnel the previous one met in a T.
The sea must be close by.
“Let’s go,” I said, and slid under, pulling them with me.
We hit a junction of corrugated steel and concrete, the floor sloping toward a dark square mouth. A tide flap hung there like a rusted tongue, stuck shut. I knelt and began to run my blade under and around the hinge, scraping off barnacles and corrosion until my wrist ached. It took a while, but finally I worked the last bit loose.
“On three. Don’t let it slam,” I ordered.
We all lifted it together. The flap gave like a stubborn door, then swung wide to a blast of air so icy it stung. Gulls cried somewhere beyond.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said, and dropped to my belly, sliding through first because you don’t send people anywhere you won’t go yourself.
The world tilted as I slid downward. There was wet stone under me, the roar of low water on rocks, and a slice of sky so big it made my chest hurt. When I stopped moving, I hauled myself up and turned, catching hands as they came: Jamie, grinning like a lunatic; Edward, controlled even falling out of hell; Aidan, calm and steady; Declan, alive against all odds, eyes bright. Logan came last, and then we all scrambled up the bank together.
When we reached the top, I saw that the city was all spread out before us. Far off, two red-and-white chimneys knifed the horizon, lighthouse-true in the gloom.
“The other side of Dublin,” Edward said, impressed despite himself.
“Ringsend,” Logan decided, squinting east. “Or near enough.”
Jamie let out a low whistle. “And we got out without waking half the monsters beneath us. Not bad, Watch.”
I rolled my shoulders, rubbing rust and grit from my hands. “You’re welcome.”
Aidan’s mouth tugged up in a smile. Declan’s grin was shameless. Logan met my eyes and just nodded once, giving me the kind of respect that didn’t need words.
“Zara, come in. Zara, it’s me.” Static hissed as Logan toggled to the next preset. “Zara, report.”
“Let me see it,” Edward added, already holding out a hand. Logan passed the unit over without comment.
Edward popped the battery, checked contacts, and then reseated it. He rapped the casing against his palm, twisted the antenna. “Your antenna took a hit. It might have been the blast, maybe the water in the tunnels. We need to find another.”
Logan stared out over the gray water for a beat, jaw tight with worry. He thumbed the push-to-talk one more time like sheer will might make it work. Static answered. He clipped the dead weight back to his vest. “Fine. We can’t raise them.” He looked to me, then past me, already moving to the next problem. “We assume they’re moving, and we do the same.”
We headed inland. Logan tried the dead radio one more time as we moved. It gave him exactly what it had all morning: nothing at all. He didn’t curse. He just lengthened his stride, and we lengthened ours to match.
As we walked, silence reigned over us, and I took the time to analyze what had happened since I had been up on that roof a few days ago and took that fateful shot at Logan that had somehow ended up with me as mate to all five members of his pack.
I told myself to think like the Watch. Remain objective. Report, confirm, eliminate. But my thoughts kept drifting to the men around me, and that was the problem. Distraction got you killed.
Distraction was what got my brother killed.
Aidan kept to my left. He didn’t crowd me. He was simply there as support. My pulse settled around him the way it used to settle around a loaded rifle—calmer, heavier, safer.
