Chapter
One
TALIA
Nothing and no one could save me from these sensations—the soul-rending feeling of being alone, the heart-shattering reality that the man I’d scent matched to, the one I was now irrevocably bonded to, was the worst kind of person.
I was alone.
Broken.
Defeated.
And terrified because the reality was...
The worst was yet to come.
Chapter
Two
WEST
My blood boiled, discomfort seizing my muscles in a vise grip. Rage ripped apart my mind, filling me with a deep desire for violence and sex. I clenched my fists on the steering wheel and breathed out a growl, trying to calm down.
None of those emotions belonged to me.
I was being rational, dropping these cursed bullets off somewhere they would be safe.
I’d stolen a car to get me back to Villem but would have to ditch it blocks away from my destination. The roundabout path I forced myself to take was necessary—if I was anything less than a hundred percent sure I wasn’t followed, we would all be fucked.
But I didn’t know what the hell was going on with my packmates other than how they felt.
Conrad was nothing but a black hole of predatory desires. They pulsed through the bond, impossible to shut out, eager to force me into the same feral state he was in.
First, those desires were centred on sex, and I had to stop myself from swerving the car back toward the hospital. Talia was with him, and I wouldn’t let him do something we’d all regret.
He quickly turned bloodthirsty.
That was when Mercer’s emotions punched through the din.
Fury, fear.
That fear dissipated, though, as I ditched the car in an alleyway and began on foot through empty streets. Talia wasn’t there anymore—he wasn’t scared for her.
That had to mean she was safe, right?
I cursed under my breath.
The crate of ammo was swinging in a branded fabric bag from the hair salon, probably getting jostled way too much. The manufacturing plant I was aiming for was only a few corners away.
With the overwhelming distraction of my pack’s distress, I couldn’t be confident there was no one following me. I had to take a minute.
Leaning my back against a wet brick wall, I took a few deep breaths. I tried to slow down each one a bit more than the last. Even them out, so I wasn’t panting like a dog.
I’d once thought focusing on breathing was a ridiculous tactic. It didn’t seem like it could do fuck all to help calm a person down. They had to focus on removing the source of stress—I’d assumed that was the only way.
Then I’d learned not all stressors could be removed.
