Chapter 56

LLOYD

~“Lloyd,”~ Misty linked me.

~“Is Adam with you?” ~

~“Yes, Chelsea and Dawn too. But our escape routes have all been cut off.”~

~“Where exactly are you?”~

~“I don’t know, but we’re safe for now.”~

I pressed my back against a support beam, hands covered with blood, unsure whether it was mine or someone else’s.

The corridor was dark—no obstacle for us, and certainly not for the mercenaries. The power hadn’t come back, and whoever had taken out the grid was foe and not friend.

Tanner emerged from the hallway, flanked by three wolves I recognized, all bloody but alive. A few more trailed behind them, limping or half-shifted, ears pricked and eyes flicking toward every sound.

Huddling in an alcove behind the stairs by the hidden elevator, we took stock.

“Axel must have taken out the substation,” Tanner panted.

I didn’t quite know what to make of that information and dismissed it. We had to focus on the biggest threat, the mercenaries.

“Misty, Adam, Chelsea, and Dawn are alive. Trapped somewhere. Misty didn’t know where.”

He nodded, jaw clenched. “I know. We need to clear the palace fast.”

“We don’t have the numbers,” I said. “We need to know who’s with us.”

“We’ve got seven here. Maybe more hiding.”

I could link the pack and give an alpha command, but that would also give away our position, and I was wary of doing that. Even if they had been accepted into the pack, there was no guarantee that they were loyal.

One wolf stepped forward, and I remembered his name, Hal. “We passed Rourke and her team. Holding down the eastern entrance. Looked like they were loyal to you. I’ll link my team, but we took heavy losses. We just weren’t expecting the squads you deployed to attack us.”

“All of them?”

“I don’t know,” Hal admitted.

“If Axel got to them, he would have killed whoever didn’t side with him,” Tanner growled.

The words almost made no sense, but the feeling of loss wasn’t new to me, and each time a pack link snapped, it cut me to the bone.

“We target the mercenaries. How many of you know how to use guns? Because if we can fight fire with fire, it would speed things up a little.”

Tanner stuck his foot out and hooked a machine gun. “How hard can it be?”

He aimed at a group of mercenaries, his finger on the trigger, and let rip. The sound was deafening close up, but three mercenaries went down.

“Okay.” Tanner grinned. “It’s not that hard. Hal? I’m putting you in charge. Pick someone to guard your back and shoot the fucking mercs.”

I nodded. “The rest of you, come with us. We’re going to hunt.”

We moved quickly, sticking to shadowed corridors and half-collapsed side halls, and I played bait.

Wolves that attacked were given no mercy. Others joined our group, and within thirty minutes, we’d pulled together a dozen wolves. All loyal. All itching to tear someone’s throat out.

“If any of you can shoot, pick up a machine gun and target the mercenaries,” I instructed. “If you can keep them from shooting us, we stand a chance.”

“Can’t we just shoot the wolves that attack you, Alpha?” one warrior asked.

“Are you a sharpshooter, Raj?” Tanner asked. “Alpha already has a bullet in his thigh.”

I looked down at my leg, surprised. I hadn’t even felt it go in.

~“I can’t heal it if the bullet is still in there, but I stopped the bleeding,”~ Vetus confirmed.

“No, sorry,” Raj muttered, dropping to one knee.

“Get up. No time for bullshit etiquette,” I said. “We work our way out and around the palace. Let’s provide Rourke’s team some backup.”

We moved like ghosts—silent and deadly—out through a shattered window on the west side of the palace. Bodies lay everywhere, and the stench of blood was thick in the air.

Gunfire cracked from the north wing, but we kept low and fast, hugging the walls.

Most of the gunshots were coming from inside the palace, echoing through broken windows, but I knew Misty was alive. Adam was smart and knew the palace well.

We rounded the east wing, keeping to the hedges and rubble-strewn paths, our ears tuned for any sign of movement. A flicker of muzzle flash lit the base of the eastern entrance.

Rourke’s team was still inside, pinned. I could see three mercs behind an overturned bench just outside the threshold, rifles aimed into the darkness of the foyer.

“Shoot them, Raj,” I instructed dispassionately.

He wasted no time and let loose until a clicking sound indicated there were no bullets left.

Calling my shadows, I moved to check if they were dead. They weren’t, but they soon would be.

Tanner was already at the eastern entrance, probably linking Rourke. The team spilled out into the night, bloody, and only six were left. My heart quailed in grief. This was the only female warrior squad, and I’d been so impressed when I accepted them into the pack.

“Alpha,” Rourke said, dropping to her knees in exhaustion, her face streaked with blood and tears. “We cleared the hallway and boarded it up, but…”

Before she could finish, more wolves spilled out, one of them shouting, “Selma!”

Her head jerked up. “I couldn’t link you,” she said hoarsely before her mate swept her up.

“Matthew?” Tanner grabbed him by the arm and whirled him around, Selma still in his arms. “What the fuck happened?”

“Axel intercepted a squad just ahead of us, but we managed to avoid him and immediately returned to the palace. Then the mercs turned on us too. In the chaos, we”—he gestured to the five wolves behind him—“broke away and tracked down Selma. Took us some time to kill the bastards.”

I realized then I’d made a tactical error—not just in deploying the squads, but in failing to officially accept every warrior into my pack. Without that bond, they couldn’t link each other—mates, friends, entire units cut off. Axel. I’d left them vulnerable.

I wasn’t fit to be alpha.

~“There wasn’t time, Lloyd,”~ Vetus said, consolingly.

More wolves rounded the corner, and all of us dropped into fighting stances.

“Alpha, Merton Squad, reporting. Apologies for the delay.”

I did a quick count. Seventeen, all naked, some injured more than others, but no fatal injuries. “Our pursuers are only minutes behind us,” he said urgently. “But the Baker squad is in trouble.”

“Where are they?” Tanner demanded.

“The lawn.”

“Selma, Matthew, and those of you too injured, find cover. The rest of you, let’s go.”

Again, we hugged the walls and circumvented the palace to the west, taking down anyone in our way. Raj had picked up a number of machine guns and shouldered them, taking out mercenaries as we came across them.

~“Misty?”~ I linked.

~“Lloyd, thank God. I didn’t want to link in case I distracted you. We’re safe and in the substation, so when you say the word, Adam says he can flick the switch.” ~

“What and where is the substation?” I asked Tanner.

“All the electricity is distributed from there. It’s in that little house on the far side of the lawn. I’m sure you’ve seen it.” He slapped my shoulder lightly. “Our mates are close and safe,” he added.

I had seen the small house and even inspected it but had no idea what I was looking at.

As we got closer, the growls and yelps became louder, and I stopped dead when I saw the extent of the battle.

You could barely see the lawn…

“Fuck,” Tanner spat.