I dart up the ladder and push open the panel.
In moments, Lucien and I are in her room, the trap door shut and covered by the rug. I search the whole house to make sure we’re alone.
Lucien is by Kinley’s side, giving her an update on what’s been going on. He’s always been great at making connections with others, much more than me, so I leave it up to him.
“Have you heard anything?” he asks her.
She shakes her head. “Everyone is scared and most families are staying hidden in their homes. No one wants Mad in charge.” Her words quaver.
Lucien holds her hand and reassures her. “He’s going down,” Lucien assures her, and when she glances over to me, I nod. Suddenly, I feel awkward just standing there.
“We need to go,” Lucien explains. “Keep the doors locked until we return, all right?”
“Of course. But put some clothes on or you’ll stand out in the crowd.”
She’s right. Here we are naked. Most in the settlement hold their human forms and rarely walk around in the nude. Well, except old Rog, the oldest member in the tribe, who sometimes forgets where he is.
“I’ll get us some clothes,” I offer, well aware of where Kinley keeps her stash.
The backroom is small and filled with shelves of folded clothes, a variety she collects for anyone in need. Problem is that most are smaller sizes.
Footsteps close in behind me, and I twist around to find Lucien right behind me.
“You think I was going to trust you to get me something to wear?” He grins, and I sneer back at him.
“You’re worried I would get you tights? Don’t worry. No one expects you to look as good in them as I did.”
He grabs folded blue pants and tosses them at me. I snatch the jeans that appear close to my size.
“What the hell? She had proper clothes in the drawer?” I ask.
Lucien chuckles to himself. “Only you wouldn’t check in there, right, tights boy?”
I don’t care what he calls me. I get dressed, tuck myself in there comfortably, and zip up.
When I lift my head, another piece of clothing hits me in the face. “Goddammit.”
He hasn’t stopped laughing to himself as he pulls on a slate gray knitted top, already dressed in a pair of black jeans.
I drag on the long-sleeved deep-green hoodie.
Somewhere in the supplies, Lucien has found us boots. “Try these.”
Taking them, I waste no time and put on the ankle-high black boots with thick soles. “They’re good.”
“Let’s go do this.”
Out in the main room, Kinley greets us with a smile. Despite the fear behind her eyes, she doesn’t voice her concerns. Like the rest of us, she knows that the only way to eliminate a tyrant is to stand up to him. And while that is fraught with danger, it’s the only way to stop him.
One must fight for what one believes in, my father would always say.
“Stay safe,” Kinley says.
In a hurry, we sneak out of her home. The courtyard in front of her house reveals several guards strolling about. No one from neighboring homes has emerged.
I flick a hand at Lucien to follow me as I dart alongside Kinley’s home and down the side to her vegetable garden. Back here, a passage runs the length of all the homes, and across from us stands the settlement woods.
A quick check, and finding no signs of anyone, we both sprint left.
The fortress rises before us, steadfast stone walls, towers… No longer the place I called home, but a danger.
Voices come abruptly from the woods to my right. I pause, frantically looking for where to hide.
Lucien snatches the sleeve of my top and hauls me back behind several wooden barrels in someone’s backyard. Behind us are fig trees and a small hut-like house made of gray stone. As long as no one looks out the window, we should be fine.
Crouched low, Lucien huddles close. “Did you even look before you ran out so quickly?” he whispers harshly under his breath.
I cut him a glare. “Of course I did.”
Tempers are high, but I shake it off. It’s not him I’m frustrated with, but what Mad has taken from us all.
Peering through the gap between two barrels, I watch two Beta males talk in hushed voices and head down the path this way.
I tense. I exchange glances with Lucien, who’s pointing at them from the back of our hiding spot. He’s seen them. If there’s one benefit of so many pack members living in the compound, it’s that all our scents are so heavily mingled in the air that I pray to the moon and back that they won’t pick up our wolves.
While we have no idea whose side they’re on, we can’t take the risk.
Huddling near Lucien, I watch them with intensity, but in my head, I have it all played out. The moment I sense a whisper of being detected, I will take them both down.
Moments later, they stroll past us, and behind the frantic beating of my heart, all I can make out of their whispers are four words. “He’s doing it now.”
My mind catapults to Mad, and all I can picture is him hurting Meira. He’s got her and is going to cut her up, take her blood, take everything.
Electricity jolts through me at the thought, and a desperate urgency flares over me. I’m on my feet, charging after those bastards to make them talk.
Strong hands snatch the back of my hoodie and wrench me backward.
I stumble, my heel catching on a broken stone in the garden. My stomach lurches as I fall onto my ass hard near the row of spinach. I growl under my breath when Lucien gets in my face.
“The fuck, man?”
I shove him off me. “They know something about Meira.”
“You don’t know that. We can’t reveal ourselves.”
Heat pulses in my temples as I twist my head to find the two Betas are long gone.
“Shit.” I’m on my feet. “We go now!”
Lucien’s lip curls upward. “Keep it the hell together. We stick to the plan. Get Dušan, and then we’ll be stronger to take on Mad.”
Fury knots in my chest, but I swallow back the anger. “Let’s do this then.”
Checking the perimeter and finding it clear, we run straight for the fortress and to the side door, where I broke the lock last time we were here.
We burst into the hallway. Shadows cling to the walls.
There’s not a soul in sight and the deeper we travel through the compound, the more my stomach knots. It’s never this quiet here. Ever!
Lucien sprints down the stairs silently, and I lunge after him, ever vigilant. We go all the way down to the base dungeon, convinced that if Mad put our Alpha anywhere, it’s down there.
We curve around the stone steps, suddenly face to face with a guard.
I stiffen.
Lucien stops.
The man is as startled as us at first, frozen on the spot, his eyes practically bulging out of his sockets. I’ve seen him several times before. Jarrod. A Beta with more muscle than brains.
I clench my fists, but Lucien lunges at him, stealing my fight from me. “You think you can laugh at my cowboy boots?” He growls as they both hit the floor hard.
I roll my eyes and charge right into the dungeon. We have no time to waste.
My sights scan the area for guards, and the cells for Dušan, but I come up short on both fronts.
Instead, my gaze settles on a small bundle at the back of a cell, her heartbreaking cries filling the room.