Page 119 of Soul of the Chaos

The sight hurt more than I was willing to admit so when my phone buzzed in my pocket I fished it straight out. My gratitude for any distraction I could get, soon leaked away as I read the message.

NAILS: Forgive me, Prez. Jessie was mine but she went back to her family. I was weak. Couldn’t stop my wolf from checking on her. Now they have her. If you survive this, protect her for me.

Nails was a promising prospect I had sponsored into the Soul Reapers. I’d been meaning to patch him in. He was a good wolf, trustworthy, which was why I’d set him to manning the gate this morning. Sweat trickled down my back as I skimmed past the second text—a residential address—and devoured the final message.

NAILS: Venom is coming for her, Grimm. Save our little alpha. She’s the best of us.

Ice wrapped itself around my soul.

The prospect’s remorse flared brief and bright, anguish consuming his soul, before he was snatched away. The silent bubble of dread I’d been trapped in popped with the explosion. The force of it stole him from my grasp even as I reached through the bond to yank his essence toward me.

“No,” I growled.

Shouts and screams of panic broke out as an angry plume of smoke erupted out of the ever-present fog like an angry fist of the Gods. The explosion had come from the direction of the main gate, briefly obscuring the light of the Blood Moon.

Gunfire—thick and heavy—raged from all sides of the compound. Our patrols were under attack.

There was no doubt in my mind that Nails and the prospect working at his side were gone. Other flashes of pain soon followed as death tore wolf after wolf from my grasp. Fear—bone-deep fear—itched across my skin but it was swiftly displaced by one defiant thought.

But not her.

My beast’s fierce determination to protect his people and above all else—our mate—locked into place, shutting out the mind-numbing grief. My attention narrowed as I reached for my weapon.

“Sasha!” Winter screamed, wrenching my gaze up to lock onto my mate’s slender frame where she stood across the yard. My feet were already pounding the gravel as I ate up the distance. Mongrel took one look at my face and his easy posture changed to rage in an instant.

From out of the crimson gloom, figures strolled toward them wearing Bone Crushers’ cuts. Venom’s sneer skipped right over Sasha’s frozen body, locking me in place with a smirk fueled by pure poison.

His gun was trained unerringly on the only person that mattered.

Mongrel’s vicious roar mingled with my own throaty scream. “NO!”

My weapon was already swinging through the air in a slow-moving arc, thumb flicking off the safety as it went, but the merciless release of Venom’s weapon split the night. CRACK.

The shifter’s smile grew only more demented as his bullet flew swift and true. Tearing through Sasha’s gut and erupting out the other side to lodge in a building behind us.

All in the blink of an eye.

My mate staggered from the force of taking a hit at close range. Our enemy scattered in unison while I started unloading my rage. Silver was already moving, catching our little alpha before her body could hit the unforgiving ground.

Mongrel’s beast tore straight out of his body as he leapt at the closest target. The Bone Crusher didn’t even see my friend coming. The asshole shot out the front windshield of the van, his bullet narrowly missing a killshot to the driver. Survival instincts kicking in, Viola had ducked only moments before the glass exploded.

“Take cover!” I screamed. “Go, go, go.”

Viola kicked the van into gear as Silver, yelling his own instructions, dragged our mate into the back of the cage. The Bone Crusher flinched as my bullet punctured his left lung. Unfortunately, he had just enough time to throw a smoke bomb through the shattered glass of the van’s windshield as it reversed at full speed toward the clubhouse. His arm hadn’t even finished the swinging motion before I was forced to cease firing as Mongrel’s wolf took that fucker’s head in his jaws and tore it clean off his body.

I swung back, looking for Venom and the rest of his men, but my enemies had disappeared into the crimson mist. In their place, another two smoke bombs had been thrown into the yard, further obscuring our vision and masking their scent trail.

Holstering my weapon, I took a deep breath and jogged toward the first canister. I dunked it in a water trough we kept by the door and weighed it down with a rock. Hemlock had already grabbed the second to do the same.

“Mongrel. Carbon. To me,” I barked. “Everyone else, take cover. We’re going hunting.”

With a snarl and much snapping of jaws, the two wolves obeyed though only one of them was bound to follow my orders. The feral look in Mongrel’s eyes told me I’d best not forget it.

Reloading my weapon, I braced against the vehicle I was crouched behind and listened to the throaty roar of at least two dozen bikes charging down the gravel driveway toward us.

Raising my voice to be heard as everyone hurried into position, “We all got people in the main house. Not a single one of these fuckers gets through. Feel me?”

Those who had shifted and those who had kept their human skins snarled in readiness as the Bone Crushers leading the charge barreled through. It felt good to take fucker after fucker down but the tide kept coming. All too soon, it was down to close range weapons.

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