Chapter 105: THE WOLF WASN’T WHAT MADE ME AN ALPHA

Chapter 106

Ren

Two more men came rushing up the dark corridor together, their heavy combat boots pounding hard against the creaking wooden floorboards as they ran to see what was causing the noise.

"He’s loose!" one of them yelled, reaching down to pull a silver-loaded pistol from his leather belt.

I didn’t wait for him to raise the weapon or aim it at my chest. I threw my weight downward, sliding across the slick, wet floorboards on my back and slamming the heels of my heavy boots directly into his knees.

His legs buckled beneath him with a sickening, wet crack. As he collapsed forward, I kicked hard into his ribs, launching his falling body backward into the second man.

They both went down in a chaotic heap, tumbling backward down the narrow wooden staircase with a series of loud, heavy thuds.

I dragged myself back up to my feet, my chest heaving for air and hot sweat stinging my eyes.

Another sharp movement pulled violently at the shattered bones in both of my wrists, and sent blinding waves of pure fire screaming up my arms and straight into my skull.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek again until I tasted another set of fresh blood flooded. I couldn’t afford to faint. I couldn’t afford to give up now.

I went down the dark staircase two steps at a time, keeping my center of gravity low and relying entirely on the strength of my legs.

The first rogue at the bottom of the steps was desperately scrambling across the dusty floorboards, reaching out his arm to grab the gun he had dropped during the fall.

Before his fingers could touch the cold steel, I brought my heavy boot down onto the side of his neck with full force.

His head slammed sideways against the bottom wooden step, and his whole body went limp instantly.

The second man scrambled backward against the peeling wallpaper of the wall, breathing in short, terrified gasps.

His eyes were wide with total horror as he looked up at me. He wasn’t looking at a trapped, helpless prisoner anymore.

He was looking at a bloodied, pale Alpha with two ruined, useless hands hanging at his sides, moving toward him with the quiet, deadly promise of a man who refused to die.

I kicked his dropped gun far out of reach, sending it sliding into the dark corner of the hallway.

Step by step, I backed him up against the wall, pinning his chest firmly with my left knee while driving my right heel up against the soft flesh of his throat.

"Is anyone else left in this building?" I snarled down at him, my voice raw, deep, and scraping out of my chest.

"No!" the rogue stammered, his body shaking violently with fear as my knee pressed harder against his windpipe.

"It was just us four upstairs! Everyone else went with our boss! They left ten minutes ago!"

I didn’t need to hear another word from him. I drove my knee upward into his jaw, knocking him out cold before his head hit the floorboards with a dull thud.

Just as I turned toward the front exit of the building, the heavy doors at the end of the hallway were smashed off their hinges with a deafening crash.

Darren burst through the splintered entrance, followed closely by six of our heavily armed pack men.

Their rifles were raised to their shoulders, their eyes sweeping the dark, damp building for any signs of an ambush.

"Ren!" Darren shouted, his eyes widening in complete shock as he took in the brutal scene before him.

He saw four large rogues lying motionless on the ground, blood pooling around their heads on the floorboards, and both of my mangled, swollen wrists hanging completely useless at my sides.

"What happened to you?" He gasped, rushing forward across the room to reach me.

"Your pack link went completely dead out of nowhere! We realized the fire on the south border was just a trick to draw us away, so we turned the trucks around and drove straight here!"

"They injected me with a heavy wolf-suppressant," I rasped, my voice thick, dry, and strained from the pain. "My wolf is asleep. My link is dead."

Darren reached out his hands to support my shoulders, but I took a fast step back, keeping my eyes locked onto his with cold, absolute authority.

"There’s no time to worry about my hands! Lumi’s father took off earlier in his car. He’s on his way to the house right now, and Callum is already inside the estate with Lumi and Neve!" Darren’s face drained of all color in an instant.

"Callum is already inside the house?"

"Yes!" I roared, the raw anger surging back through my chest and drowning out the agonizing throbbing in my arms.

"They planned this whole thing from the start just to pull us away from the estate! They used Priya, the speech on the bench, and the border fire as bait to make sure I was miles away!"

I turned to the six sentinels standing behind Darren, my voice dropping into a heavy Alpha command that cut through the sound of the pouring rain outside.

"Darren, you’re driving me back right now!" I ordered, stepping past the groaning rogues on the floor and heading straight for the ruined front entrance.

I paused at the threshold, turning my head to glare at the remaining guards.

"The rest of you stay right here. Lock down this entire block. Search every single room in this warehouse and make sure not a single one of these rogues walks out of this building alive.

Clean them out completely. I want no one left breathing, except one for questioning. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Alpha!" the men shouted in unison, instantly fanning out to secure the exits and clear the rooms.

I didn’t wait another second to watch them carry out the order. I limped out into the heavy rain, holding my ruined wrists tightly against my ribs to keep them from swaying, and stared straight into the dark, storm-filled night ahead.

I slid into the passenger seat of Darren’s truck as he jumped behind the wheel, shoved the key into the ignition, and slammed his boot down on the gas pedal.

The heavy tires screeched against the wet street, launching the vehicle forward through the dark alley and onto the main road.

"How bad are your arms?" Darren asked through gritted teeth, his eyes glued to the dark, rain-streaked highway as he pushed the speedometer past eighty miles an hour.

"It doesn’t matter. What matters is getting there as soon as possible." I gritted out, leaning my head back against the leather seat and forcing my eyes shut against the blinding headache pounding behind my temples.

I forced myself to focus on one thing and one thing only: Lumi’s face.

I pictured her stubborn eyes. I pictured the way she forced herself to stand up every single morning, dragging her weak leg across the bedroom floor, taking those slow, painful steps toward the window, refusing to let the stroke take her strength away.

I pictured my sister Neve standing right beside her bed, holding her hand, protecting her from the dark.

A heavy, cold knot formed in the bottom of my stomach as the truck roared through the rain.

My mind raced through every horrible possibility. What if Callum had already forced his way into the bedroom?

What if the few guards Damian left behind were already dead on the floor? What if Neve was fighting for her life right now, trying to hold the line with nothing but her bare hands?

I didn’t care about the broken bones grinding together in my wrists. I didn’t care about the cold chemical poison sitting in my veins, keeping my wolf locked away in the dark.

I didn’t care if I had to fight Callum, Lumi’s father, and a dozen rogues using nothing but my boots and my teeth.

Hold on, Lumi, I prayed silently into the dark, my heart hammering like a trapped beast against my ribs as the truck sped closer and closer to home. Hold on, Neve. Please, just hold on. I’m coming.

The dark trees lining the highway began to blur past the truck windows as Darren pushed the engine to its absolute limit.

The rain was coming down in heavy, blinding sheets now, drumming against the windshield like a thousand tiny hammer blows.

Every bump in the road sent a jolt of pure agony straight up my spine and into my wrists, but I kept my mouth shut tight, refusing to let out a single groan.

"We’re ten minutes away, Ren," Darren said, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.

His face was grim, his eyes darting between the road and the side mirrors.

"I’ve got the rest of our border patrols racing toward the front gates right now. If Callum has men surrounding the perimeter, we’re going to hit them fast and hard."

"No warnings," I growled, opening my eyes and staring out into the storm.

"No speeches. No negotiations. Anyone standing on my land that doesn’t belong there dies tonight." Darren nodded once, his jaw set firm.

"Understood."

I looked down at my hands resting uselessly against my lap. My fingers were swollen and dark, completely numb from the damage to the bone and nerves.

I couldn’t make a fist. I couldn’t grip a blade. But as I looked at the dark gates of the pack estate appearing through the thick rain in the distance, I felt a cold, terrible calm wash over me.

Callum thought he had stripped away everything that made me dangerous. He thought cutting off my wolf, and luring me into a dark warehouse was enough to make him win.

He was about to learn that the wolf wasn’t what made me an Alpha.