005: The Trap

Kade was on the phone when Sage walked into his office that evening and from the look on his face she knew something had changed.

“Where?” he said into the phone. “Fine. Midnight. Bring everyone.” He hung up and reached for his jacket.

“What happened?” Sage asked.

“I got intel on the wolfsbane. It’s moving through Crescent Pack territory.” He checked his gun and slid it into a holster she had not noticed before. “I’m meeting their Alpha tonight.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.” He did not even look at her.

“I’m a doctor. If someone gets hurt…”

“You’re staying here where it’s safe.” He finally met her eyes. “Marcus will be here. You’ll be fine.”

“Marcus hates me.”

“He won’t touch you again.” Kade headed for the door. “I will be back in a few hours.”

She waited until she heard the elevator doors close, then grabbed her medical bag and car keys. If he thought she was going to sit in the penthouse while people might be dying, he didn’t know her at all.

She followed his car from a distance, tracking the taillights through empty streets until they reached the industrial district. Abandoned warehouses stretched in every direction and she parked two blocks away, then crept closer on foot.

Voices carried through the night air. She ducked behind a rusted dumpster and watched Kade and his men face off against another group of wolves. Their Alpha was shorter than Kade but looked just as dangerous.

“I do not know anything about wolfsbane,” the other Alpha said. “My pack doesn’t deal in poison.”

“It came through your territory,” Kade said. “Someone in your pack is involved.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Then you won’t mind if we…”

Glass shattered overhead.

Sage looked up and saw men dropping from the ceiling on ropes, at least twenty of them in black gear with masks covering their faces. They hit the ground and opened fire before anyone could react.

Silver bullets. She saw one hit a wolf and watched him scream and go down.

Something small rolled across the concrete floor. It exploded in a cloud of purple smoke and immediately wolves started choking and collapsing.

Wolfsbane gas.

Kade shifted faster than she could follow, his clothes tearing as he became a massive black wolf. He attacked the nearest hunter and tore his throat out but there were too many of them, too much smoke, too much chaos.

Sage pressed herself against the wall and tried to stay hidden, tried to breathe through the smoke that burned her lungs. Through the haze she saw Marcus near the back of the warehouse just standing there while his packmates fought and died around him.

A hunter ran past Marcus and he didn’t move. Didn’t help. He was letting them through.

He was part of this.

Sage wanted to scream a warning but Kade was surrounded now, three hunters closing in with silver weapons while Marcus watched and did nothing.

“Well, look what we have here.”

She found a hunter standing behind her with a gun pointed at her chest. His eyes were cold behind the mask.

“You smell like wolf,” he said. “But you look human.”

She backed up but hit the wall. Nowhere to go.

“Nothing personal,” he said and his finger moved to the trigger.

Heat exploded through her body.

No. Not now. Not after fifteen years of keeping it buried, fifteen years of pills and meditation and sheer force of will to keep this part of her locked away.

But she couldn’t stop it.

Her bones cracked and reformed. Her skin erupted with fur. Her hands became claws and her jaw lengthened and suddenly she was not standing on two legs anymore.

The hunter’s eyes went wide. “What the…”

She did not let him finish. Her wolf lunged and her jaws closed around his throat and hot blood filled her mouth. He made a choking sound and went limp.

She dropped him and stood there on four legs for the first time in fifteen years, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst.

Then she heard someone behind her and turned.

Kade stood there in human form, naked and covered in blood and staring at her like he’d seen a ghost. His eyes tracked over her fur and locked on the pattern that marked her as different from other wolves.

White fur with black markings that looked like lightning strikes across her body.

His face went pale.

“No,” he whispered.

Sage tried to shift back but it hurt worse than shifting forward. Her body fought her but she forced it anyway, bones breaking and reforming until she was kneeling on the concrete in human form, naked and shaking.

Kade just stared.

“Kade,” she started but her voice came out broken.

“Those markings.” His voice sounded hollow. “I know those markings.”

“I can explain…”

“The rogue who killed my father had those markings.” He took a step toward her and she saw his hands shaking. “Black lightning across white fur. I watched him tear my father apart when I was eight years old.”

Her throat closed. She couldn’t breathe.

“His bloodline was supposed to be extinct,” Kade said. “We hunted them all down. Killed every last one.” His eyes met hers and she saw the betrayal there, the rage. “Or so I thought.”

“My father…” She tried to find words but there weren’t any that would make this better.

“Your father killed mine.” His voice cracked on the last word. “And you have been lying to me this whole time.”

“I didn’t know it was your father, I swear…”

“Get away from me.” His body started to ripple, the shift beginning.

“Kade, please…”

“GET AWAY!”

She grabbed her medical bag with shaking hands and found the spare clothes she always kept. She pulled them on while he just stood there staring at her like she was a monster.

Around them the fight was ending. Dead hunters. Dead wolves. So much blood.

Marcus appeared from the shadows and when he saw them together, saw Kade’s face, he smiled.

Kade turned to his men, the ones still standing. “Take her back to the penthouse. Lock her in.”

“Kade…”

He looked at her one last time. “What the hell are you?”

She had no answer. No way to explain that she was the daughter of the man who had destroyed his life. No way to make him understand that she had been running from her father’s legacy for fifteen years.

His men grabbed her arms and started pulling her toward the exit. She looked back and saw Kade standing alone among the bodies, still staring at the spot where she’d shifted.

The daughter of his father’s murderer.

His mate.

What had she done?