Chapter 23 - Senna
My entire body was rigid, everything inside me locking down tight so I would remain planted on the spot. I didn't want to leave, to go hide away in some fucking room while my previous alpha tried to kill my mate. I couldn't just leave him to—
"Senna, come on. We need to get out of harm's way. This room isn't safe."
Kaiden stared down at me, his hand on my shoulder. I should be saying something, moving or screaming or collapsing, but I was just frozen there. My eyes stung as my vision blurred behind a glassy layer of tears, and I couldn't get my lungs to slow down.
"Jet. He…I…"
"Hey," Kaiden stepped directly in front of me, blocking everything else out except for his face as he took me by the shoulders. "He's going to be fine. Okay? I promise. He's strong, an incredible fighter. You have nothing to worry about."
I struggled through a nod, a tear slipping free and trailing down my cheek. But I still wasn't moving.
"Let's get upstairs. We'll lock up inside Jet's room. He's got a double bolt on the door."
Again, all I could do was nod, and then Kaiden was hurrying me through the back of the room to the other exit toward the stairs. I rushed behind him, my legs burning as I used everything I could to match Kaiden's impressive speed. His grip on my hand was iron, however, and I knew he wasn't about to let me get left behind.
We reached the landing, turning down the upper hallway to get to Jet's room. No other wolves had reached this far, and a tiny flicker of hope settled in my chest that the attack would be easily fought off.
Kaiden pulled open the door for me, and I slipped inside, rushing toward the bed where I could comfort myself with Jet's scent.
"Okay.' Kaiden flipped over the extra lock on this door, the one I never noticed, and turned back to me. "Good to go."
"Kaiden, I hate this. How am I supposed to just—"
"I know, Senna." He walked across the room, sitting next to me on the bed. "It's not like I love the idea of him being out there and not being able to fight alongside our alpha. He's like a father to me."
I scoffed, shoving up off the bed to pace. "Then why exactly aren't we down there doing something?"
With a sigh, Kaiden offered a half-hearted chuckle. "Because I was given an order. And I made a vow, Senna."
"Ugh!" I threw up my hands, stopping in the middle of the room. "It's just so…"
I knew there was no point in arguing, but my entire being wanted to be down there helping. Worse was how I knew that even if I were, there was little I could actually offer. No wolf, no combat training, nothing.
Pressure swam behind my eyes as my headache worsened. It abruptly swelled higher, and I hung my head in my hands to breathe through the migraine I'd managed to give myself.
But it didn't back off.
The weight of my eyelids tripled, my brain screaming against my skull as I was forced to shut my eyes. My vision sparked in the darkness, and I fell to my knees.
"Senna!"
I was aware of Kaiden screaming just out of my periphery, but I couldn"t do anything about it. That maddening pressure just grew and grew, darkness swirling behind my lids until it was too much, and I screamed out. My eyes flared open as I arched back, my face angling up toward the ceiling.
And I saw it.
Torrents of blood and gore smattered the entire compound. Wolves, my pack, were scattered about, dead and dying. Terrance stood in the center of the mound of bodies, roaring with laughter and stained crimson from head to toe.
A low growl sounded from just below him, and I immediately recognized the sound.
Jet.
His wolf form was broken and limping, his gorgeous white fur dotted with blood splatter, and still, he was trying to fight. My heart split in two, and I screamed out silently at seeing him like that. He leaped at Terrance, knocking the man backward.
They tumbled off the pile, but Terrance landed on top, standing to put his booted foot on Jet's prone body. He shoved down, the sound of bones crunching beneath the weight of the evil wolf's assault.
"You're weak. Everything will be mine."
In the vision, Terrance looked up, making eye contact with me, and it was as good as being punched in the chest.
"You will be mine."
Terrance stooped low, reaching for Jet's head. He twisted my mate by the neck until a horrible crack echoed through my mind, and Jet went limp.
"No!" My voice tore into reality, and I screamed and screamed until the room came back into focus.
"Senna!" Kaiden was at my side, holding me up by the elbow. "What happened? What did you see?"
I snapped my attention to him, meeting his eyes as tears poured from my own.
"Jet. Terrance is going to kill Jet. I just know it. We have to do something."
"Senna, we can't—"
"Please!" I gripped his shirt, pulling hard until Kaiden was inches from me. "We have to do something. He's going to die unless we leave this room right now."
He hesitated, and the burning well of fury in my gut grew stronger. I connected to something deep in there. Channeling it with everything I had, I stood up and glared down at Kaiden.
"If you won't help me, you best get out of my way, pup." My voice rumbled, a growl forming through the words even when I didn't have one. "I will go to my mate, and I will tear apart anything that keeps me from him."
Realization dawned on Kaiden's face, backed by an awe that I couldn't allow myself to consider. He stood up, nodding once and going to the door to unlock it.
As I walked up, he turned and met my eyes. "I promised to protect you, Senna. And I will do that. But I have also vowed to aid my alpha whenever I can, and I will not let him fight alone."
Warmth surged behind my ribs, equal parts wrath and respect. Holding Kaiden's stare, I allowed whatever it was that was offering me this newfound strength to take over. He pulled open the door, checking both directions before giving the signal to leave.
And then we ran.
Just a few more feet down the hallway, and the area erupted into chaos. Wolves from the Collins pack leaped for us, knocking me back into the wall.
The hard surface smashed into my spine, but I ignored it. Jet needed me. Instincts I'd never known kicked in, and I reached up toward the wolf's snapping jaws, hunting for its eyes. I lined up, jabbing my finger into the soft flesh and then kneed upward as hard as I could.
The attacker was thrown off balance, and I rammed forward, forcing him back in a hard shove until he hit the banister and tumbled over.
I may have recognized him, but the cold numbness of survival had taken over.
"Senna! Come on!"
Kaiden hadn't shifted yet, and he gestured toward the far end of the hall for the stairs down. He'd managed to knock out the two wolves attacking him, but his arms were covered in thin slashes from their claws.
I rushed after him, but my heart pinched as we hurried down the stairs. Injured wolves were scattered on the floor. I couldn't tell friends from foes, and something inside me knew that the window of time to get to Jet was shrinking rapidly.
I also didn't know where he was.
"Where would he have gone?!" I called out to Kaiden. "Where would Jet have lured Terrance if he could?"
Kaiden whipped his head back and forth, looking across the house for threats and considering my question.
"He wouldn't want him downstairs. If he got that far…can you scent him?"
There was so much blood already, the frenzy of the house letting in too many smells and sounds for me to concentrate. I couldn't remember what Jet had said about the protocol during an attack. I was fucking useless.
"I don't…dammit!"
Kaiden rushed to my side, taking my hand. "Senna, you're his mate. If anyone can find him, it's you."
My ears hummed for the rush of my blood, and my stomach was in knots—gore and grotesque smells made it flip. I met Kaiden's eyes briefly before I sucked in a deep breath and closed my lids. I had to find him.
Find him.
Letting the world drop away, I sucked in a lungful of air through my nose. The prominent copper and iron smell struck hard, but I tried to push past it.
Wolves. So many other wolves had run through the house, taking the aroma of the forest inside with them. The forest.
Shaking my head, I forced myself to focus on pine—that alluring, leather-backed pine that signaled my Jet—desperately clinging onto the shred of composure I had left.
He smelled like the trees. He smelled like his library, the musky vanilla of ancient tomes.
A zing. Just a tiny zap of electricity that yanked me back toward the kitchen and outside into the lawn beyond it. No, not outside. That's…
"Dammit." I shook my head. "There."
I took off running, and Kaiden followed right on my heels. He was just outside. Jet was right fucking there, exactly where I told him not to go, and I had to get to him. Because the smell of mud and gasoline was getting stronger, and that could only mean one thing.
Terrance was there.
Please. Please. Let me get to him.
Kaiden shoved another Collins wolf out of the way as we tried to scramble through the kitchen. The younger wolf went flying into the wall, smashing the shelves, and I flung myself past him, heading for the back door.
I reached forward, gripping the cool, round knob and yanked hard. As the door flew open, I was shoved forward, barely catching myself with my hands. Pain lanced through my calf, and I looked back to see a familiar female wolf clamped down around my leg. Gabrielle.
Kicking down hard with my other foot, I smashed the heel of my shoe into her face. The bitch let go of my leg, blood coating her teeth, and growled at me. She'd always been a greedy, self-centered shit, and I was done letting the other omega push me around.
I looked around me, spotting an antique door stop—the thick metal weight slightly rusted with age—within reach on the dark tiled floor. Hefting the thing up as I stood, I screamed down at Gabrielle. She growled low once more, readying herself to lunge at me again.
As she hunkered down, I took a deep breath, waiting until she was mid-air to swing the iron weight in a wide arch. It soared into the side of her face, blood splattering as she was knocked to the side.
She whimpered as she hit the ground, nearly dead. I couldn't leave her like that. It was worse to let her go slowly.
Standing over her, I lined up the weight with the back of her skull, readying my strike.
"You could have stood up to him. You could have…"
Just a low growl, weak and failing.
"Goodbye, Gabrielle."
Letting the weight smash down onto her uppermost spine, I watched the immediate change as her spinal cord snapped. She was gone. Shouting yanked my attention to the backyard.
"Jet. Fuck."
I spun around, my leg roaring in protest, and hurried back through the door. Kaiden appeared right behind me as I stumbled. He threaded an arm under me, taking some of the weight.
As we rushed through the door and out into the white expanse of snow, I caught movement by the tree line, a familiar scent of the wind.
Jet.
Kaiden helped me sprint forward, and I stopped caring about the pain that cut through my leg with each step.
"I told him not to come out here. Dammit!"
"Senna, I'm sure that he had a reason. He…" But Kaiden's words dropped away as we both saw him.
Lying in the snow, Terrance standing over him, Jet's massive wolf form nearly blended in except for all the red covering him. All the…blood.
Terrance reared back, and my heart stopped. As he screamed into the echoey expanse of the clearing, I reached out for my mate. For what good, who knew, but every cell within me called out for him, begging to pull Jet to me somehow.
"No!"
The Collins alpha turned in my direction with an evil sneer, gripping Jet's neck, ready to snap. Ghostly images from my vision overlapped with reality, and I knew this was it. Terrance was going to murder Jet right in front of me.
And then everything stopped.