Page 86 of Their Mate
“You think I’m one of them.”
“I think you’ve been compromised,” he said. “You’ve been mated. Bred. Claimed. You can argue the semantics all you like, but it changes what you are. Changes what you’re capable of resisting.”
I lifted my chin. “You really believe that?”
“I don’t need to believe it. I’ve seen it.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small injector with amber fluid inside it. “That’s why this stays between us.”
I yanked against the cuffs. “What is that?”
His tone didn’t change. “A serum. Designed to put you into heat. Make you easy for them to find and impossible for them to ignore. Your wolves will come for you now without a doubt. I’ll make sure of it.”
My pulse spiked. “You’re insane.”
“But it’s not just your mates coming for you, is it?” he said, almost conversationally.
I swallowed hard and kept my eyes locked on his. “What?”
His head tilted slightly, studying me like he was reading a file only he had clearance for. “No… it’s not, is it? The Elder Lycan is coming after the whole lot of you too. You escaped him once. He’ll smell this across the water. You’ve seen what he can do. You know how he hunts.”
My pulse thudded in my ears. “He’s not coming for me.” I said, even though I knew it was a lie.
“Oh, he is,” Dane said, his quiet voice filled with self-assurance. “You’re the perfect lure. Your mates will come because they can’t help themselves. The Elder Lycan will come because you got away from him once, and he can’t allow that. And when they all come charging in here to get you back…” his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, “…we’ll wipe them out. All of them.”
“You’d risk the base for that?”
“I won’t be risking the base,” he said. “The British government is already en route. They’re sending special units. Heavy weapons. They’ll be here before your friends make landfall.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “You’re bringing the military here?”
He stepped closer, the injector catching the light. “When your wolves hit the shore, they won’t just be met by the Watch. They’ll be met by an army. And when it’s over, there won’t be anyone left to argue about which side you’re on.”
Before I could curse him out, he pressed the injector to my thigh and depressed the plunger. The cold rush hit my bloodstream like ice water, spreading fast, but there was a steady sense of heat that followed quickly in its wake.
Dane stepped back, pocketing the empty device. “Now,” he said, “we wait.”
He turned and walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. The lock turned, heavy and foreboding. Another door lifted open, revealing the green of the great outdoors through the frame and my breath hitched.
I was alone now, and the slow burn of my oncoming heat ignited in my veins.
CHAPTER 29
Logan
We were up before the sun, no one saying much as we broke camp and moved down to the docks. It didn’t take us long to find another boat full of diesel that looked like it would survive the journey.
She wasn’t pretty, but she was seaworthy. Edward went over her systems with the same care and precision that he gave a loaded rifle. Jamie kept watch. Aidan and Declan cast off in silence, and I took the helm. The engine’s rumble rolled through the deck, and we eased out into the channel, the ruined city shrinking behind us.
The crossing was hours of steel-gray water and cold spray in our faces, the Irish Sea knocking us hard whenever we pushed the throttle too far. Jamie charted us northeast, keeping the coast well off to port side, a constant line of shadow that we never quite lost sight of.
By the time the Isle of Man rose out of the mist, the day was already leaning toward evening. Cliffs sheared up from the sea,black and wet, with white-lipped waves crashing themselves into foam at their base. There was no one there to welcome us, no signs of life. Just rock, wind, and the constant roar of the sea.
“Looks abandoned,” Declan muttered, peering ahead from the bow.
“Not abandoned,” I said. “Quiet. There’s a difference.”
We brought the boat in close enough to take the measure of the shoreline. Old gun emplacements rusted into the headlands. A stone watchtower half-collapsed on the cliff. And there—half-hidden in shadow—an inlet narrow enough you could sail past and never notice it if you weren’t looking carefully.
Aidan’s eyes narrowed. “I bet that’s their front door.”
