Jake’s voice was in his ear, shouting that they couldn’t reach anymore of the nukes, that there was only a minute left. “It’s up to you and Brielle to stop this now.”
His inner omega simply reached up and pulled out the earpiece and tossed it aside.
A feint to the side, a jump in the other direction, followed by a long leap, and Caleb found himself landing on top of Harrington. The man collapsed under him, bones crunching and flesh tearing under savage claws.
Harrington lay stretched out on the floor, bleeding, his weapon knocked far across the room. From the corner of his eye, Caleb saw Brielle deal with the last of the security guards.
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” Harrington hissed, lips stained red with blood as Caleb stepped forward to finish him. “You’ve gotten some of the weapons but not enough to matter. And it’s too late for you to stop the rest from going off.”
“But it isn’t too late for you to stop it,” a woman’s soft voice said from the far side of the room.
Caleb spun to see Kiara standing there, Julian hovering protectively close by.
Harrington gasped, and Caleb turned back around to see the man staring at his daughter like he’d seen a ghost. As the seconds passed, the man’s face grew paler and paler. Before, he’d looked satisfied with the outcome of the battle; now, he looked terrified.
“You aren’t supposed to be here,” he said brokenly. “I saw that you’d left, that you’d gotten away with the rest of our people.”
“I may not be as strong as you, but I am still your daughter.” Kiara moved closer to her father, gazing down at him with an unreadable expression. “I hid myself along the pathways, kept you from seeing that I would be here. Because I knew that my presence here was the only thing that could make the difference.”
Harrington swallowed hard, panic filling his eyes. “I never meant for you to get hurt. I did all of this for you. You have to get out of here. Now. Before the nukes go off.”
Kiara shook her head, taking another step closer. Caleb felt the urge to stop her, his omega wanting to finish what it had started with Harrington, even if the nukes were going to do it anyway in just a few seconds. But then Brielle was at his side, her claw-tipped hand on his arm, calming him instantly. And just that fast, the omega retreated, leaving Caleb back in control.
“You know it’s too late for me to get to safety,” Kiara murmured, kneeling down beside her father. “And I wouldn’t leave even if I had the time. You didn’t do this for me. You did it for yourself, and I came to stop you. But I see now that there’s no one who can stop this but you. You were okay with killing yourself and all the innocent people in this city. All the innocent people in the world. But are you okay with killing your own daughter?”
Harrington shook his head slowly, tears welling up in his eyes, slipping down his cheeks. “No, never. But I can’t stop this. I can’t. I’ve seen the future. I can’t.”
“You can. Because by making a choice, you change the future,” Kiara insisted. “And that is what I saw. But you have to be the one to decide.”
Caleb stood there, Brielle at his side, holding her breath. A few feet away, Julian gazed down at Kiara, the expression on his face suggesting he thought he was about to lose the most important thing in the world to him. Caleb completely understood the sentiment. All of them were waiting for the end, for that bright flash of light and then nothing. It couldn’t be more than a few breaths away. His hand blindly reached out for Brielle’s.
Harrington reached for something on his belt and came up with one of those key fobs, making Caleb tense all over again. His gaze never leaving his daughter, Harrington pushed the button.
Nothing happened.
Caleb had no idea how long they all stood there, waiting for something to happen. It never did. Then Kiara was reaching out to take the fob out of her father’s hand and place it gently on the floor beside her before wrapping her arms around him, crying as she hugged him.
Caleb vaguely heard Brielle murmuring into her radio that it was all over, that the nukes had been disabled. He heard the sounds of excited shouts coming from her earpiece, and for a moment, he couldn’t remember what he’d done with his. Then Brielle wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him, and he didn’t care about anything else. He didn’t even care when Julian caught his eye and gave him an approving nod. Like he needed that stupid jackass’s approval anyway.
* * *
“Do you have to be so rough?” Brielle asked as Jake removed bullet fragments from a wound in her shoulder.
The ones Jake had already taken out were seriously impressive. Caleb couldn’t help but be ridiculously proud of her for some reason. Silly, but what the hell, it was a werewolf thing.
“I need to get all the bullets out before the healing abilities you borrowed from Caleb fade,” Jake said, working as urgently as he’d been all along. “Based on what you told me, it’s been almost an hour since you touched him, and none of us know how much longer you’ll retain his werewolf skills.”
Brielle couldn’t argue with that logic. Neither could Caleb. But it was still hard watching his soul mate grimace in pain as another bullet fragment came out and was added to the pile. He’d considered doing it, but truthfully, the thought of hurting her as he took them out was more than he could deal with, so instead, he sat there beside her, holding her hand and letting Jake do what he had to do, hoping this would be over soon.
He saw Brielle trying to distract herself from what Jake was doing by focusing on everything going on around them. He doubted that would work well, since Harrington, Uriel, and a surprising number of surviving Vandals had already been hauled away a while ago, along with the last of the disarmed nukes. About the only thing still being done was a thorough scrub of the tunnel complex for any more explosive charges left buried in the ceiling, and there was the occasional science nerd wandering around admiring Harrington’s laser rig, trying to figure out how it worked.
Harley and Sawyer were also busy sniffing around to see if there were any ghouls to be found, but so far, they hadn’t discovered any. From what Harrington told them, the ghouls had left right after digging the complex. Caleb wasn’t complaining. Dealing with Uriel and his Vandals had been bad enough. He shuddered to think how much worse the outcome of this mission would have been if they’d had to fight a bunch of those freaking monsters.
“How’s everything going?” McKay asked, walking into the large open space from one of the tunnels, immediately coming over to see how Brielle was doing.
Caleb was a little surprised the boss cared enough to come down here to check on her, considering all the other stuff he obviously had going on. But still, Caleb appreciated it.
“She’s not enjoying Jake’s makeshift surgery skills,” Caleb said. “But the last of the bullet frags should be out soon, which is the important part.”