Chapter 25 - Aris

The town where I grew up looked no better than a ghost town when the team and I arrived. The unnerving silence did nothing to ease the anxiety churning in my gut as we surrounded the bar, trying to find the most feasible way inside.

But when glancing in the windows, we found the bar to be completely empty. Eva suggested there may be another compound somewhere, but Byron had already found the answer when he managed to use the information he'd gathered earlier to hack completely into Varun's systems.

"There's an underground component," he'd whispered, gesturing to the series of numbers and coding on his computer as though it was supposed to mean something to the rest of us. We stared at him dumbly, and he sighed. "These are electric signals from beneath the bar. Doors, computers, and various components connected to the overall security system. Varun could have run them on a closed loop if he was smart, but they trace back to here. Give me a second to find a way in."

Byron had tapped away on his computer as the team and I scoped the place out, making sure the entire bar was empty, even the bathrooms. The place was disgusting—cocaine and empty liquor bottles scattered around the floor and counters, bras and panties draped over various handrails and banisters. It smelled like piss and accumulated grime. Clearly, nobody had cleaned the place since Varun took over.

Suddenly, a double door appeared near where Varun had been sitting that first night, emerging from the wood paneling and opening to reveal an elevator. We all looked at one another, understanding that if we chose to go down that elevator, there was a chance we would never come back up.

"I'll go first," I'd said, but the entire team pushed into the elevator car with me.

Now, we're prowling through the labyrinth beneath the bar, with Byron guiding us to the largest center room, which he thinks is probably something like a throne room, given how egotistical Varun is. Occasionally, we come across a rogue shifter, but Ado takes them out before they have a chance to alert the rest of the pack.

This place is huge,Eva sends.

Yeah, Byron projects back. Based on the size of the tunnels and the range of these signals, I'd say it likely runs under the entire town.

A secret underground compound that ran the length of the town would explain why Varun needed so much money. The biggest question is how he managed to pull off the construction without anyone realizing it was happening.

I shudder at the thought of what a guy like Varun could do with a compound this big. After we find Varun and take care of him, I'll have Byron scour the place for any secret entrances or exits and have the team do a physical run-through. It could be helpful to have something like this when I'm the alpha—to protect my pack rather than extort them.

We turn the corner and see a door with a code. Byron holds up his hand for a moment, then the scanner next to the door turns green, and it slides open with a whoosh. I enter first, then gesture for the rest of the team to follow after me.

After a moment, we realize we're looking at a series of cells, essentially, with small windows through which you can peer inside.

When I glance through the first door, I see a girl, not much older than high school age, curled up on a cot, her ribs visible, her skin pulled taught over the bones. I suck in a breath and pull back, trying to contain the rage I feel.

Varun's actions are barbaric, narcissistic. He's part of the reason humans assume shifters—and werewolves in particular—to be evil.

There are girls in these cells, I telegraph to the rest of the team. Someone find them some fucking clothes.

After Ado manages to produce a stack of plain scrubs from a nearby lab, Eva goes door to door as Byron unlocks them, explaining that we're helping them get out. She offers them the clothes, and once they're all together, I task Eva with the job of getting them out safely. More than a dozen young girls are standing here, shivering, their arms wrapped around themselves or each other. They shy away from the rest of the team, and I wouldn't expect anything less.

As we continue making our way through the compound, I try to suppress the hot, unbridled rage that's building inside me. It sparked with Percy's death and has been boiling higher and higher. Seeing those girls, I couldn't help but think of Linnea—of any future children. Though I'm not yet a father and don't even know if I'll have a daughter, I bristle with fury. The people in this pack have seen their children abused for long enough.

Varun is done sullying my father's good legacy.

My father may have been a hard-ass and may have asked for too much from me, but he treated the people and shifters in this town fairly. He held the peace. He never took advantage of the fact that he was stronger than others for his own gain.

The rest of the team emerges into the hall again, but we can tell something's wrong. Ado rushes to the end of the hallway, bracing himself against the doors, which have started to close. Byron flings two knives in the other direction, holding the other set of doors for a moment before bringing up his tablet and tapping away again.

"Varun knows we're here." he says, "The alarm is triggered. I'm going to work on delaying it, but rogues are incoming, and they know where we are."

Not even more than a second later, rogues flood in from either side, and Ado has to let go of the doors to try and stop them from getting to Byron, who can't fight while he's on his tablet.

Ado and I work through the horde of rogues, but this time is much more difficult than the last. For one, we're both still exhausted from the last fight, but there's something else. Varun must have kept his most skilled fighters closer to home because these rogues aren't going down without a fight.

One reaches out and knocks Byron to the side, causing him to drop the tablet, which slides across the floor. I shift to the right, grabbing that rogue around the throat. I pull him back, get one hand under his chin and the other over his head, twisting until I hear his neck snap. Byron dives for the tablet like it's the most precious thing in the world—which, right now, I suppose it is.

I watch Ado spin on the other end of the hallway, getting a running start before he leaps, and running his feet along the wall like gravity just doesn't affect him, slices his knife clean through the throats of the three remaining shifters.

"Got it," Byron says, pumping his fist from his spot on the floor, where he's stretched out on his stomach. I lean down and grab him by the back of his jacket like a pup, setting him on his feet and dusting him off.

"Good work," I say, and then, "We have to keep moving."

Byron keeps tapping on his tablet as we move, and at the end of the hall, he gives us a signal before two enormous doors—big enough that a truck could fit through—beep once, then slide open. It's almost cinematic, the way the three of us watch Varun come into focus, actually sitting up on a chair in the center of the room like it's a throne.

I want to get my hands around the pompous ass's throat and squeeze.

"Well, Aris—"

Varun starts, but I don't give him a chance to inflate his ego any further with a long-winded villain speech. Instead, I raise my arm and shoot him in the chest, watching with pleasure as a silver bullet rips through his bones and muscles. Byron and Ado both give me surprised looks.

It's customary to fight to the death with claws and teeth, but Varun hasn't followed a single one of our culture's customs, so I don't see why he should be rewarded with his very own monologue. I think of Percy, writhing on the ground. I think of him taking his own life to avoid the fate Varun would have left for him.

I stalk across the room, and for once, Varun's lackeys stay completely still, watching with wide eyes as Varun coughs and sputters out blood. The bullet won't kill him—shifters have long since evolved to be stronger than silver when it's used as a weapon, but I grin at the fact that it's causing him pain and that it will slow him down considerably when I have to fight him after days of exhaustion and already killing dozens of his men with my bare hands.

"You fucking bastard," Varun says, struggling to get to his feet as I approach him. He wipes away the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. "With all that talk of honor from your poor daddy, I always thought you would be a little more chivalrous."

I rear back, catching him across the jaw. He hasn't even managed to stand back to full height yet, and he has the nerve to talk about my father. Not wanting to hear another word from his traitorous mouth, I step forward, intending to kill him once and for all, when several things happen at once.

First, Eva comes sprinting through the doors near Ado and Byron, her breath labored. I can feel her presence and hear her approach, but I don't take my eyes off Varun, who's panting and still clutching his bullet wound. With time, his body would slowly heal the wound, pushing the bullet out and closing his flesh around the path it created when it entered, but I don't intend to give him time.

The second thing that happens is a hidden door to the left of Varun's throne bursts open, and Bigby tumbles through first, followed by Linnea, who gasps when she meets my eyes, her hands flying to her mouth. Bigby sees Varun and me and tries to project something to me, but I'm so outraged at seeing Linnea—my mate, my blond-bond—standing here in the middle of the violence, in such a dangerous position, that I can't think to hear what he's sending.

What are you doing here? I hear it roar inside my own head, and with how Linnea flinches back, it seems our connection has finally snapped into place.

Aris, Bigby projects, Look—

Sir, Byron sends, I finally got a match on the trace, on who sent that information. It's—

But I don't have time to hear any of them over the intense swirl of emotions in my body, which has been beaten, bruised, sleep-deprived, and is now working through a newly developed mental link with Linnea.

Varun takes advantage of the chaos by planting a boot in my stomach and sending me stumbling backward, which causes Linnea to lunge forward, calling my name. In the same movement, slowly, as though in a nightmare, I watch Varun snatch Linnea by her hair and yank her into his chest. Bigby lurches, trying to pull her back to keep her from moving to my rescue, but it's too late.

Linnea cries out, and I whirl for Varun, feeling my body urge to shift, but wanting to kill him with my hands. His hands on her, his body so close to her, is making my wolf-sense run wild.

"Uh-uh," he says, casually tracing a dagger over Linnea's throat. "I wouldn't move a muscle if I were you, Aris. I've got something here that's very important to you. Your—"

I tense, waiting for Varun to say mate, to admit that he knew the truth about Linnea and me all along. The forced blood-bond on his part was intentional, cunning, because knowing we're mated, all he has to do is pull that knife across Linnea's throat and I'm done.

But he holds, probably because he knows Eva, Ado, and Bigby can easily kill him, even with the few remaining rogue shifters under Varun's command, who seem to be watching the scene play out before they decide who to back.

I think I understand the dynamics in the room until Varun grins, finishing his sentence.

"—heir."