Chapter 27 - Keira

“Their comms have been cut,” Liv repeats in my ear, her tinny voice tight with panic. “Whoever got into our systems, I just can’t get them out—they’re everywhere—and the team can’t hear me. You need to get to them, now.”

I urge Ado with my hand: faster, faster. He steps hard on the gas, hands tight around the wheel, and the momentum flings me back against my chair.

“Liv,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “They’re going to be fine. And we’re fine and on our way to them now. But you need to get to someplace safe. You’re there alone. You need to find somewhere to hunker down.”

Olivia sniffs, then assents. “Okay. Linnea texted to say she’s going to pick me up. I’ll lay low until she gets here.”

“Good.” I take a deep breath. “You and the baby are the most important things. Olivia, I hope you know you’re one of the best friends I’ve had in a long time.”

Olivia laughs wetly. “Don’t you dare,” she warns. “Don’t you even dare.”

I can’t say anything else, my throat too tight to muster words. We end the call.

“They’ve cut off the team from base; they’re deep in our systems,” I tell Ado. “They’re on their own.”

Ado swears. It’s a straight shot to the mountain now, but as the speed climbs, I know he will definitely get a ticket for speeding.

Instinctively, I take his free hand in mine and grip hard. He squeezes me back even tighter.

We anchor each other, then speed into the storm.

***

Border Ridge mansion is aglow with flashing lights. Clearly, the security protocol has been tripped. It’s like Christmas Day up there.

Ado and I leap from the van and sprint to the open gates of the estate, weapons at the ready, rain lashing our faces. Far ahead and above us, the mansion's dark upper windows look like soulless eyes, the flashing lights in the lower floors yellow as rotten teeth glinting as they snarl.

The silence over the mountainside is shattered only by the distant echo of gunshots—three in quick succession. Then silence.

For a stunned moment, we stand frozen in the downpour. Every muscle in my body strains as I listen hard. The storm’s rage feels almost unnatural, a cover for the violence within this place. There is death here. I can feel it. The death of innocence—the death of freedom. Potentially, today, the death of me.

“They’re inside,” Ado says, voice tight with worry. Rainwater drips out of his hair and down his straight nose.

Something seems to take over my body all of a sudden.

I grab him and hold his face hard in my hands. “Don’t die,” I say with all my strength. “It’s your job not to die. Remember?”

Ado’s face crumples with a kind of hopeless sadness that shouldn’t exist there. He kisses me hard, arms so tight around my middle that I feel held together.

Another shot rings out in the dark. The kiss sours, and I pull away.

Without another word, we move, sprinting toward the side of the mansion.

We find a broken window near the ground floor, jagged shards of glass scattered across the drenched earth. Ado takes the lead, hoisting himself through the shattered frame, and I follow close behind, careful not to cut myself on the sharp edges.

Inside, the air is thick with the smell of gunpowder and blood. The hallway is dimly lit. Flickering lights cast eerie shadows against the walls. I swallow so hard it hurts, scanning the space around us.

Bullet holes riddle the walls, and there are splatters of blood—fresh—staining the once-pristine floors.

A distant shout pierces the silence.

"Percy," Ado breathes.

We exchange a glance, then race toward the sound.

I keep pace with Ado—we stay low to the ground and run like hell through the hallway, a richly decorated antechamber featuring an overturned Ottoman in a pile of broken glass, and a gallery thick with settling sawdust from the blown-apart ceiling, riddled with bullet holes.

We come upon a grand staircase and sprint up the stairs two at a time.

At the top, we see Percy. He’s alone, back against the wall. Facing off against three armed guards. Breathing hard but still defiant. His eyes are calm as he assesses the threat, but I see them flicker toward us once, for a single heartbeat.

Before the guards can overwhelm him, Ado and I rush forward, joining the fray without hesitation.

The men are enormous, and they’re not just hired thugs this time. They’re shifters, and they’re physically overwhelming. One guard lunges at me, his rifle raised.

I have to use my speed and agility to my advantage. I sidestep his attack, slamming my elbow into his ribs and grabbing the barrel of his gun, wrenching it from his grip. I swing it around as a blunt weapon to knock him off balance before finishing him with a hard, clumsy kick to the chest that sends him sprawling.

Beside me, Ado is a blur of movement, his strength overwhelming the second guard in seconds. With a swift, brutal efficiency, he disarms and disables him, leaving him crumpled on the floor. Percy takes care of the last guard, landing a mighty blow with the butt of his gun that sends the man crashing into a wall and finishing him off with a shot to the shoulder. The hallway is ours again.

“Thanks,” Percy pants, wiping blood from his brow. “You really saved my ass there.”

“No problem,” I tell him, just as breathless. “Comms were cut—”

“We figured, don’t worry. The others aren’t far. We split up when we deduced that nothing we said was getting out.” Percy squints at us. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Mercs tracked us to the safe house.” Ado cocks his shotgun. “Come on, we need to move.”

Percy seems to shake himself, then nods. “The ringleaders have barricaded themselves in the auction hall's main chamber.”

The thought of going back there makes me want to run screaming. But I know, looking at Ado, that I will never run from anything ever again so long as I have him.

The three of us move through the hallways of Border Ridge Mansion like shadows, adrenaline coursing through us as we weave through the destruction. Every room we pass tells a story of the brutal fight that’s taken place: upturned furniture, shattered glass, and the unmistakable scent of blood lingering in the air.

Watching Percy clutch at a wound at his ribs he refuses to admit is there, I wonder how much of this blood belongs to the team.

“Where are the others?” I whisper, pressing my back against a wall as we approach another corner.

“Aris said to meet at the east wing, right off the entrance,” Percy answers quietly. “Probably regrouping.”

I nod, scanning the hallway ahead. “This way. There’s a shortcut through the library that’ll take us to them. Watch out for pressure plates in the floor. Since the house is locked down now, the traps we discovered will probably be active.”

Ado gives me a look of approval, and we move cautiously but swiftly toward the library. The mansion is a labyrinth of corridors and hidden passages; thankfully, I know most of them. After what I went through here, I made sure to memorize every corner and trap they used to keep their prisoners in line.

Now, it’s our turn to use that knowledge against them.

Finally, we find Aris, Bigby, Rafael, and Byron locked in combat with a small group of guards near a grand staircase, not far from the huge front doors. They’re holding their own, but the odds are tight.

“We’re here!” Percy shouts as we charge forward, joining the fray.

Rafael grins at us as he dodges a guard’s strike. “Took you long enough!”

“Had to make an entrance,” Ado quips, delivering a powerful kick to a guard’s chest that sends him flying back into the wall.

Bigby and Aris are side by side, a wall of muscle and precision. Byron is fighting from a corner with a calm focus, his moves deliberate and deadly, gun raised in a steady hand.

With the seven of us reunited, the tide shifts in our favor.

“Keira!” Aris calls out as he ducks under a swinging baton. “We need to get to the main chamber. What’s the fastest route?”

I survey the room quickly, then point to a set of double doors on the opposite side. “That way. We’ll bypass the main staircase and avoid the traps they set up on the ground floor. There’s a hidden stairwell behind those doors that leads straight to the auction theater.”

“Let’s move!” Aris orders, and we break through the last of the guards, making a beeline for the doors.

We burst through the hidden stairwell, making our way up the narrow passage. Our footsteps echo off the stone walls, a constant reminder of the urgency driving us forward. Every second counts. Every breath is a battle between hope and fear.

When we reach the top, the doors to the auction theater stand before us. Beyond them lies the heart of everything we’ve fought against. The ringleaders are in there, waiting. The men who sold me like I was an object.

Aris gives the signal, and we burst through the doors.

I’m sure I will remember what happens next for the rest of my life.

Armed guards rush at us from all sides. On the auction stage, I spot suited men crouched over their automatic rifles, screaming orders into the fray.

This place, where shifters like me were once sold to the highest bidder, now becomes a war zone.

Ado and I move in sync. I feel the pull of it, the bond amplifying our instincts. I duck under a swinging fist, landing a punch to the side of a guard’s head. He stumbles back, and Ado finishes him with a powerful strike to the jaw.

Byron takes on two combatants at once, his movements precise and lethal. Percy is a whirlwind of ferocity, transforming in an instant, his claws flashing as he wrestles on the ground with two other wolves. A set of teeth snap millimeters from his jugular.

Aris and Bigby fight side by side, their combined strength an unstoppable force. Rafael moves like a shadow, darting in and out of the fray, his shots finding their marks with deadly accuracy.

Ado pushes me hard in the back. I stagger forward out of the way of a wildly swinging blow from a shifter with a roguish smell.

“Go!” he shouts. “Keira, stay low!”

Something hard lands against the back of my skull.

I’m so tired of deja vu, I think.

I stumble to the steps ahead of me, head spinning, and claw my way to my feet. I find myself halfway up to the stage where I was once auctioned off like property.

Hard white lights burn down over me. Something thunderous grows between my ears, digging itself into the front of my brain.

I think it might be rage.

A shape moves to my right, swiping at me from the ground below. A guard coming at me with a knife. I lurch out of the way, a small scream escaping my lips, and then nail him in the stomach with a hard kick. He goes flying right onto Rafael’s knife.

On the stage, only a few feet from me, through the haze of my fury and fear, I see him—the slick-haired man who took bids for me.

He stares into my eyes, and I can’t tell you half of what’s happening in this room right now, but I know precisely the moment he recognizes me.

I raise my gun and fire three shots.

The men on the stage scatter. One drops to the ground hard—another launches to the side and tries to flee through a nearby door.

But Ado is faster. He catches the criminal by the collar, throwing him to the floor.

I have eyes only for the head auctioneer. I watch him stare down at the hole in the middle of his shirt, in the middle of his chest, spreading with red like a blooming flower.

He looks up at me as he falls, and I know the fear in his eyes is a sight that will haunt me and comfort me alike until I die.

Then, the room is silent except for the heavy breathing of the victorious pack.