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Chapter Thirty
Coppery tang dripped from Ava’s fangs as padded feet hit the floor. Every heckle raised, the predator was snarling for retribution. She spun, loathing the slippery tile flooring, and prepared to attack again.
Her first assault had struck his upraised arm, a defense mechanism the Raeth had employed in a last-ditch effort to avoid a torn-out throat. He’d barely done so in time, his eyes widening as Ava’s lethal jaws snapped inches away from his face.
The wolf left no room for a counterattack; she’d launched herself at him again, and this time, her teeth tore into the soft flesh of his throat.
A powerful punch landed in her soft underbelly, but the damage had already been done. Ava collapsed in a heap, and she instantly surged to her feet. The Raeth fared far worse. Bleeding profusely, he held a hand up across the jagged wound as he staggered under the swift blood loss.
Ava watched as the male slapped a hand over his shredded throat and white ghosted over his anger-filled irises.
A punch of power slammed into her, aiming for her mind, but it ricocheted off without purchase. The Raeth’s features contorted in puzzlement.
He’d failed. At whatever he’d just tried to do to her, he’d failed.
How she knew this was beyond her, but Ava was determined not to let him have another try. She pivoted and launched herself toward the outer door, pulse pounding with every stride.
The subtle whistle that followed her was both familiar and terrifying. Pitching to one side, Ava watched as a knife hurtled by her head and slammed with a thunk into the door ahead of her, hard enough to blow it open and allow her escape. Another wave of slimy magic failed to grip her. He was attacking with all he had.
She burst onto snow-covered terrain, aiming directly for the section of fence she’d cut earlier. Instead of the empty outer perimeter she’d seen before, the area was teeming with security personnel, all waiting for her. Two guards were already aiming at her. In a flash of adrenaline-fueled speed, she sidestepped their approach, and then dodged the array of bullets they peppered at her retreating form. They pinged against the frozen ground, kicking up tufts of frozen ice as they whizzed by her.
Fortunately, none of them made contact with her flesh, and she pushed out from between the wire cut sections of fence without difficulty. Outside the boundary, her long strides put distance between her and the facility.
Somehow, they’d known she’d be here—or had been tipped off when the false text from Hannah had been sent. It didn’t matter now, not when they’d already played their hand.
The Raeth wasn’t following her—which was a good sign. Apparently having your throat nearly torn out was enough to keep him down, at least for a little while.
Ava didn’t stop running until she was more than a hundred yards out. She shifted to her human form and grabbed the detonator from her bag. Moving quickly, she activated the charges.
The resulting fireball was the sweetest victory.
By now, the feds would’ve already received the details of Hannah Preston’s crimes. Despite how it’d been gathered, the evidence would be a smoking gun. The facility’s subsequent demolition would appear to be an attempt to conceal what they manufactured, only adding further merit to the story. With blood in the water, Uncle Sam wouldn’t stop with one facility and one Citizens member: they’d investigate anyone and anything associated with them.
The Raeth she’d left bleeding on the floor was—with any hope—fatally wounded or already dead. One could only dream.
A feral grin stretched over her features, and for a moment, she reveled in the joy of her win. Finally, the immortal nations could mark up a win on their side.
A buzzing over her left shoulder had her whipping around, but it was too late. Netting shot from the drone above her, and the instant it hit her skin, the silver lacing began to burn. Forcing her to the ground, it hooked into the frozen earth as her flesh sizzled and she struggled against her restraints.
Everything in her rebelled. In seconds, she was back to being a young girl, suffocating under a pile of blankets: helpless, trapped, and alone.
Chapter Thirty-One
“What have I forgotten?”
The solemn question hung in the air, and when no one volunteered an answer, Remmus grit his teeth. No one wanted to broach the topic of whatever happened in his missing memory gap, and there could be only two reasons. It’d been damning, or it’d been vital. Perhaps both.
Taking a breath to tell them to spit it out, he jerked as a fear so potent it burned slammed into his gut. It crawled through him like wildfire, setting every nerve ending in his body alight. He sought out the alien sensation, only realizing then that it had funneled through … an unfinalized mating bond.
His mind finally volunteered memories, charred and compromised.
“Ava!”
The fear burrowing through their bond began to choke him. With no thought of his own safety, Remmus bundled his fluctuating psychic energy about him and teleported directly to his mate’s signature.
A winter landscape greeted him, hemmed in by pine trees. He’d teleported shin-deep into the snow, swaying as his body adjusted to the sudden change and depletion of his dangerously low resources. A sob caught his attention.
His mate was burning beneath a layer of silver netting that’d been staked into the ground.
