Chapter 31 - Bigby

"Do you smell that?" Aris asks, his nose in the air. I don't, but it makes sense that his ability to smell other shifters is stronger than mine. Especially if that shifter is an alpha encroaching on home turf.

We're running through the house. Aris sent out an alert to the rest of the pack, warning the weaker shifters to shelter and calling the fighters to action. After Olivia ran out of the house, I went after her, catching her by the arm. She'd shaken my hand away angrily but stayed where she was.

"What are you going to do?" I'd growled, and Olivia turned her chin up at me, giving me a look reminiscent of before, back when I first turned up at their house in California. Like she doesn't think I'm capable of taking care of my mate and child.

"I'm going to go find Rosa and Kaila," she said, "and warn them before it's too late."

"Think about it for a second," I growl, "we don't know how close Amon is, but he more than likely doesn't know about the underground compound. If you take off right now, he will catch your scent, and you will lead him right to the people you want to protect."

Olivia stared back at me, her eyes wide, and I sighed.

"Rosa and Kaila are in the compound," I'd said. "It's the safest place for them right now. We can alert Byron to get them to safety in the residence quarters."

"And then we'll need him," Aris had said, breathless from the porch. "Come on, Bigby. We need to arm ourselves."

As we run to the armory, Aris wrinkles his nose again.

"You really don't smell that?" he asks, his voice low, almost a growl, coated in protectiveness. It can't be a good feeling for him—to have another alpha encroaching on your territory.

"No," I admit. But I don't have to smell Amon to believe he's coming. I've seen Linnea have these visions before and how they're true, every time. It's not been long enough for me to forget how it was one of her visions that saved our asses before.

Aris and I are armed to the teeth from using his personal armory, and sprinting out of the house. Linnea and Olivia are taking the kids through the secret tunnel to the compound as we go.

"I'm projecting the location to the rest of the pack," Aris says gruffly as he jumps into the passenger seat of my Jeep. I throw it in reverse and rocket down the path, heading for town. "Turn right here," Aris says, "I want to intercept him on the outskirts of town."

I yank the wheel and re-route the Jeep, rolling down a different gravel road, dirt, rocks, and dust kicking up behind us. The woods are all around us, the light filtering through the trees, and I think about what I told Rosa, about Rosecreek being the most beautiful place in the world.

Amon is here now. He found her. If Amon could find her in Rosecreek, he could find her anywhere. The knowledge rolls through my body—Rosa and Kaila won't be safe anywhere until Amon is dead.

We turn a corner sharply, and Aris says to stop, so I pull the car over, and we get out, running through the last thin thicket of trees before reaching a clearing.

"Alright!" Aris says, stalking in front of the shifters gathered in the clearing. There are over a hundred, but looking at them, I know it's insufficient. Ado stands at the front, his hands clasped, but Byron is nowhere to be seen. And while we've been doing our best to train any shifter who wanted to learn how to fight, they're nowhere near being able to battle on our level.

Based on everything I've heard about Amon, we're going to need a hundred Bigby, Aris, and Ado's to get through him.

Aris opens his mouth to speak again, but before he can, he whips around, pulling out a weapon just as another man steps out from the tree line.

A shiver runs up my back as I stare at him.

Amon looks like your typical California surfer, which is what makes his demeanor so assaulting. He has shoulder-length, wavy, golden blond hair a shade darker than Rosa and Kaila's, a tall, lithe body, and a very casual pose, like he's always leaning.

"Good morning, Rosecreek pack," Amon calls, raising a hand to us like he's here for pleasantries, and not to fight. I turn, feeling every muscle in my body go taut. This is the man who ruined our life—who forced me away just before Rosa was going to tell me she was pregnant. Who took me away from almost a decade of my daughter's life.

I feel a soft push against my brain, like it usually feels when Aris sends something to me through our pack bond, but it's blank.

Glancing at him, I try to send something back, but it's like the channel is closed. Aris's eyes go wide, and he looks back across the field at Amon, who is still grinning, that infuriating smirk firmly in place on his face.

Aris flicks his eyes to me, and while our mental link might be weak because of what Amon has done, he can still give me his message with his eyes.

Ease up, Bigby, I can practically hear him saying.

If he can feel the rage boiling inside me, I wonder if Amon can sense it, too. I realize, suddenly, that I plan to kill this shifter. Amon may be physically stronger than me, and ruthless to a fault, but the only thing he has driving him is a lust for power. The endless drive for more.

I meet his eyes, and he gives me an easy smirk. As I stare him down, he cocks his head, and I try to look at his gaze, try to determine if there was ever anything there for Rosa, any love or paternal feeling. Or, has Amon always seen Rosa as a tool, a means to an end, rather than being her own person?

"You are on my territory," Aris growls. "State your business."

"Oh, come on, man," Amon laughs, taking a step closer to us. Aris growls, and Amon holds his hands up like he didn't realize that would be a wrong move. "You know why I'm here," Amon continues, "I'm here for my daughter . And, more importantly, my granddaughter."

My blood runs cold. He knows about Kaila.

"Oh," he says, laughing when he sees my face. I quickly rearrange it into a scowl. "You thought I didn't know? You didn't think I could smell it on my whore daughter? Yes, Bigby, of course I knew. The only thing I wasn't expecting was for her to run off before I could get rid of the damn thing."

My eyes widen when I realize what he means, bile rising in my throat.

"Don't be serious!" Amon laughs, pacing back and forth. "Come on, this is the modern century, man!"

I must focus on breathing to keep from charging across this field and taking Amon down. Forcing Rosa to abort her baby would be a cruel, senseless crime. Amon's favorite.

Though I don't want them to, the images of it come easily—Amon wouldn't send his daughter in for a simple procedure. Instead, he would have her brutalized, her baby taken from her in the most carnal of ways. A growl builds low in my throat, my body shaking with anger.

"First, your daughter isn't here," Aris says calmly, and I don't understand how he's able to keep his composure with a man like Amon standing in front of us. "Secondly, even if she was under my care, she's a grown adult. What you're suggesting is abduction. If she wanted to come with you, she would."

"Do you have a daughter, Aris?" Amon asks, lifting his palms toward the clouds. For the first time since we came out onto the field, I feel Aris's cool demeanor spike for a moment. "Why am I asking?" Amon laughs, putting a hand to his forehead, "I know the answer to that! Yes, you have a daughter and a son and this whole pack to look after! Let's not jeopardize any of that with a trivial fight over my family. Give my daughter to me, and we leave now. Rosecreek remains untouched."

"Are you threatening my family, Amon?" Aris asks, the words coming out dangerously low.

"No," Amon says, putting his hands together and turning to us. "I'm threatening every single thing you've ever had a morsel of compassion for in your entire pitiful life, Caddel."

"That's no way to speak to an alpha on his home turf," Aris says, still calm. "And you're going to regret it."

Amon lets out a long sigh, hanging his head dramatically for a moment.

"Very well," he says, after a moment, raising his head from his chest. He lifts a single hand, gesturing, and from behind him, hundreds of shifters step out from the trees, fanning out behind him like a very large personal entourage.

I swallow thickly. There are too many.

When Varun sent his shifters after us, we at least had the benefit of a full, highly trained special ops team. But today, it's just Aris, Ado, and me. Eva is dead, Byron is at the compound with Rosa and Kaila, and Percy is locked in that cage, suffering.

We stand in the clearing, staring down Amon's troops, and I realize the only thing that's going to stop this madness, and save as many of the Rosecreek shifters as possible is if I target Amon directly, cut out the problem at the root.

"I hate to do this the hard way," Amon says, rolling his neck, "but, if you insist."

A moment later, hundreds of shifters are rushing across the field toward one another, some shifting, some staying human, but I keep my eyes on Amon, who stares right back at me.