Page 70 of Frenzy
“Don’t be a fucking pussy, it’s fine,” I lied. “And no offense, man, because I love pussy.” I looked around but couldn’t work out where we were. The scents weren’t any I recognized, the terrain neither Montana or Mexico. “Loren, where are we?”
He was beginning to let out wet gargles instead of breaths, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do. His eyes were closed, so I shook him.
“Loren, stay awake, where are we? I gotta get you help and then I have to rip Washington’s head off for being an inept asshole. Stay with me, buddy.”
“Home.”
Uh, no we weren’t. We weren’t anywhere near Maxton, or the compound in Mexico which had been our home for a decade.
“Meant to… shoot you.”
I stopped, pressing down on his chest to step the bleeding. “I told you he was a shit damn shot. Why’d you do it, brother? Why’d you jump in front?” I knew I’d answered my own question though—we were brothers. I would have done the same thing for him in a heartbeat. Hell, Ihaddone the same thing for him once.
“Go… Prince.” I knew what he meant. If someone was trying to kill me, then Courtland would be next. Or Radic. Surely not Bonnie or Pryce, unless they wanted to extort Courtland. My blood went ice-cold as the words I’d heard a few weeks ago came back to body slam me into reality. It was a motherfucking coup. Washington was a pawn in a fucking hostile takeover. This was bad. So, so bad.
“Fuck, okay, come on asshole. Let’s get you up and then we can get back to Courtland and kick some ass.”
Loren shook his head, coughing as blood bubbled over his lips. “Dying.”
“Fuck off, let’s go. We’ll get Doc to patch you up in no time. Open up a shiny portal or some shit.”
“Can’t… Dying. Only one.”
He lifted his hand and waved it, and a portal opened. Fuck. I tried to grab him up but he slapped my hands away. “Go!” he yelled. “Can’t hold. Go!” His voice was a roar now, somehow amplified by magic as it echoed off the trees around us.
I scrambled back, looking between my dying friend and the portal back to Maxton and my possibly dying Pack.
“GO!” he screamed, but this time it was like a compulsion, my legs walking haltingly toward the portal and throwing me through it.
“LOREN!”
It was like one of those dreams where you’re falling and you know the bottom means death; your body starts to freak out even though you’re safely tucked up in bed. However, I wasn’t safely tucked up in bed and perhaps my body was right on this one. Maybe we were about to die.
When the portal opened and deposited me in the woods outside of Maxton, my heart was beating so fast I thought I was having a heart attack.
Loren.
I wanted to scream and yell, but I didn’t dare. “Goddess, if you can hear me, take him into your loving arms until I can return for him,” I whispered the prayer to the trees, trying to push down the image of Loren’s skin turning gray, his gasping lips, his teeth coated in blood.
I shifted to wolf and ran back to Maxton as fast as I could. Had to get to the Pack house, had to find Courtland. Had to protect my Pack, the people who held my heart. I stayed in the shadows because I didn’t know who I could trust right now.
I circled around town so I could come up to the house from the woods at the rear, freezing as I smelled blood. So much fucking blood. No. This couldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen to us after we’d finally found what we needed, what we desperately wanted. Now that I’d finally found my Pack.
I prowled out of the woods, but I couldn’t sense anyone else around me. Didn’t mean much because the Manix had a camouflage that made them stealthy as fuck. But I’d grown up around Courtland, so I knew a few tricks of my own. I stopped close to a pool of blood, and my wolf whined when it recognized Pryce’s scent.
I tried to console myself that it wasn’t a big pool of blood, so he could be okay. I transformed back, grabbing a gun from where I had it stashed behind a pot plant. Stepping into the house, I stilled, but I couldn’t detect any scents that shouldn’t be here, except a really strong scent of the cheap ass perfume Rosa used. Patchouli or something. How she could be a shifter and wear it was a miracle to me.
It was fucking with my nose, so I whispered. “Rosa? Bonnie?” I kept creeping through the house but there was no movement. I walked up the stairs slowly, keeping one eye on the front door and one eye on the landing in case of an ambush. When I reached the top, I still heard nothing, so I called out again. “Pryce? Bonnie?”
The smell of perfume up here was insane, and I couldn’t smell anything but patchouli.
“Rosa?” I yelled a little louder.
The manhole above my head opened, and I swung my gun up. But there was a gun looking down at me, as well as the face of Rosa. She was in the fucking roof cavity.
“Dominic?”
I huffed out a relieved breath. “Are you okay? Are all the kids up there with you? Pryce and Bonnie?”
