Chapter 28

Adryan

Icrouched behind the thick line of trees on the Vermont property, an aggressive surge thrumming through me, so staying still was almost fucking impossible.

Banner was to my right, Odhran and Cian to my left. Lennox and Tavish, and Kane and Sebastian were behind us, as well as an army of Lycans and vampires. Kane was seething, the wound to his head crusted with blood that he hadn’t bothered cleaning off. I knew Kane wanted a piece of James, but that motherfucker was mine to end.

I could feel the energy pulsating all around us… from us. Although I’d had soldiers stationed here since we found out about this piece of land, we hadn’t made a move. We just watched, knowing all the superficial logistics of the farmland, more positive with each passing day that this was all a front.

All a farce with the human who owned it, the generational lineage tied to it that was all bullshit. Nothing but pretty paperwork.

We’d dug up information on the owners from decades past. At one point, back at the turn of the century, this had been a prosperous soy and corn farm that distributed to several states around the country.

But as the crops began to die and nothing was able to grow—which was of course suspect as fuck—the farming business collapsed until all we had was what was right in front of us. Acres upon acres of unusable soil, a dilapidated barn… and nothing else.

I could feel that erratic energy moving through me, and it was taking every ounce of my self-control not to just storm in there and shred that fucking barn apart, tear up the land, dig fucking trenches until we got to the truth. But Banner was right. We had to be smart. I had to think logically.

I couldn’t let my very animalistic side control me right now or shit would get sloppy, and the risk of Kayla getting hurt in the crossfire was too great. I’d never practiced self-control before and had always indulged my bloodlust, letting myself enjoy the violence and destruction that life had to offer when I just let go.

But this was my mate we were talking about. I wouldn’t risk anything when it came to her.

“How the fuck are we gonna do this?” I knew what I wanted to do, and that was scale the place, turn over every rock, push over every slab of wood, and see what these fuckers were really hiding. Then we could make an informed decision on how to dismantle it piece by piece.

Hell, I’d been the one to set up a solid plan, but that was before. Before some dead asshole had taken the most precious thing to me.

But when I was met with silence, I looked at Banner. His expression told me more than enough on what he and his boys wanted to do.

“You know we’re behind you no matter what,” Kane interjected, and I slid my gaze to him and Sebastian. The latter gave a nod in agreement.

Banner scoffed but otherwise kept his mouth closed.

Although we’d come up with a pretty solid plan back at my place, which consisted of canvassing the area and really diving deep in that barn, we all agreed there was no doubt an underground network right beneath our feet.

This whole mission was probably the only thing the Lycans and vampires were in agreement with.

“Shit.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and looked forward again. Banner made a noncommittal sound, and Odhran grunted in agreement. I shook my head and growled.

“She’s in there. I know she is,” Odhran said with a feral tone to his voice.

I stared at the barn, feeling that connection, that living hum moving through me. Kayla was here. Somewhere. I felt her blood vibrate in my veins and sensed mine rushing through hers.

Yeah, my female was in there too.

“Fuck this.” I was up and moving toward the barn, not giving a shit if bullets started flying or if my soldiers and the Lycans followed me. I was fast with my otherworldly speed and got to the entrance in a matter of seconds, stopping to take in the scene, to inhale for any newer, lingering scents.

My soldiers were behind me moments later, the Lycans soon following. Banner was bitching, per usual when he didn’t agree with my tactics.

“Good tae know it was yer idea tae have some kind of plan when we got here, and then that just went tae shit because ye canna control yerself,” Banner grumbled.

I ignored him, pushing the large door aside and stepping inside. There was debris everywhere, old farm equipment that was rusted and aged, decaying bales of hay, bags that smelled like they were filled with rotting corn.

There were several holes in the roof, moonlight spearing through. I kept trying to sift through all the scents and could smell the lingering aromas of humans, but the stench was so faint it was hard for me to decipher how old it was.

“Let’s turn this place over and see what we can find.” I scanned every inch of the place without moving at first. We’d done plenty of research on the barn but hadn’t physically gone through it.

At first glance, nothing was out of the ordinary, just an old, broken-down structure.

And maybe to humans, it all seemed in place, but it was suspect as hell. I knew for a fucking fact that there was a hidden entrance someplace in this piece of shit.

“This place needs tornthe fuck up. Turn everything over,” I said to no one in particular. A second later my soldiers were moving in and doing what I ordered. Banner barked out his orders in Gaelic to the Guard, and for the next five minutes, both species looked at every available inch of the structure.

We looked for trap doors, destroyed the bales of hay, and broke through walls. But I wasn’t going to give up. I never would. Not when it concerned Kayla.

As I stared into Banner’s eyes and let a grin spread across my face, I rolled my head around my neck, cracked my knuckles, and prepared for things to get bloody.

The barn started shaking, the beams and rafters rocking back and forth, the wood physically vibrating from the ground up.

We all backed up, and I focused on the part of the flooring that was shaking the most. A second later there was a hiss, the sound of gears working, and then as if an airlock had been unlatched, the wood slid back, revealing a brightly lit underground bunker.

It was only a millisecond after the floor opened that I smelled the humans, and then they were bursting through all openings of the barn, weapons raised, shouts ringing out. Banner and I shared one anticipatory glance before all hell broke loose.

I heard Kane laughing deeply, saw Sebastian’s lips twitch ever-so-slightly, a bloody battle the only thing that could make the emotionless bastard show any kind of reaction in life.

Kane glanced at me, and his smile grew, his fangs already long and ready to tear skin and muscle from bone. I knew what that silent look meant. If he couldn’t take his anger and revenge out on James, he’d do it with these pieces of shit.

I took out the first human that came for me, ripped his arm out of the socket, used the end of his gun, and rammed it into his skull hard enough one of his eyes popped out. His head whipped backward, his entire body flinging to the ground, his skull slamming against the wood hard enough I knew he was dead.

I tossed the gun aside. My weapons of choice were my hands and fangs. Real old-school grit.

The violence was never-ending, with some of the Lycans shifting into their wolves and vampires using their strength and speed to overpower the humans. But the latter had guns, weapons that were weakening the Otherworld creatures, taking them out.

Someone came at me from behind, slamming his body against mine, propelling me forward. I growled low and turned around, reaching out and slamming my fist so hard and deep into his chest until I gripped his heart. I stared into his eyes as I ripped his still-beating organ out. I held it up, blood dripping down my forearm as I smiled. His eyes widened a second before he crumbled to the ground.

I squeezed the heart until it crushed beneath my fingers and then tossed it aside. I could see Banner fighting off two males, my brother-in-law not fully shifted, but I could tell his body was bigger, his eyes glowing blue. He easily killed the two men in a matter of minutes and then went after the next one.

Lennox and Tavish were in their own battle, as were all the other vampires and shifters.

The entire place was a fucking shitshow.

I faced the barn entrance and saw a hoard of human motherfuckers charging forward. I lowered my head, kept my gaze trained on them, and let them come to me.

The first one, I snapped his neck without tearing my focus from the others coming closer. The second one, I used my speed to break his arms and legs before he could touch me. The third, I moved behind him, wrenched his head to the side, and dug my fangs into his skin, ripping out the side of his neck.

Blood covered me, and I reveled in it all.

I held my arms out. “You know who I am?” I roared out my laughter. “Come on, motherfuckers. Come on and take me down if you think your balls are big enough.”

The rest was a blur from my aggression and violence as I picked them off like annoying gnats. I felt bullets slamming into me, felt whatever they’d laced them with trying to drain me, but I was so juiced up on my own power that I felt myself growing stronger because of them.

I killed the next with my teeth, copious amounts of blood covering the lower half of my face, dripping down my neck, and coating my shirt.

Lennox was about to take out one of the humans when I watched one of the assholes creep out from the shadows, his arm raised, a GLOCK pointed at his head. I was on him a second later, breaking his wrist and then snapping his spine in half. I turned to pull the other guy off Lennox right as I watched the human raise his arm and slam his fist—that was wrapped in a modified pair of spiked brass knuckles—across Lennox’s face.

Lennox growled, and his eyes flashed, his wolf pushing forward, his body growing bigger as he was seconds from shifting. I made a low, rough sound and ripped the human fucker off my nephew, throwing him against the side of the barn so hard I heard his back break. And just as I turned to face Lennox and check on him, the sound of several gunshots going off right beside us filled my head.

Everything around me slowed to a standstill as I stared at my nephew. His eyes were wide, unblinking, the blue glow fading. The side of his face was torn the fuck up, the brass knuckles that had been used on his face laced with something that wasn’t allowing his skin to heal as quickly as it should have.

There was the sound of bones breaking, flesh tearing from bone, but I was focused on my nephew.

“Uncle Adryan,” he gurgled out, blood pooling at the corners of his mouth before spilling down. He looked down at his abdomen.

And that’s when I saw the bullet wounds in his abdomen, blood slowly dripping out the holes and soaking his shirt. Banner roared, and I was vaguely aware of the rest of the vampires and Guard finishing off the humans.

I focused on Lennox and laid him down, pressing my hands to his stomach, staunching the blood flow.

“No, no, no, nononono,” Banner growled, and I moved away just as he checked Lennox over. Lennox’s mouth was moving as he stared at his father wide-eyed, then looked at Tavish. Banner picked up Lennox instantly, his son just as big as he was, but the Scottish Lycan King held him easily. “Tavish, Cian, we leave now.” He looked at me.

I stood and hollered out for Kane to call the pilot and have the plane ready, then to go with Banner and take him to the Otherworld doctor we kept on staff. I looked down at Lennox. “He’ll be okay.” I didn’t know if I was trying to reassure him or me.

“Ye stay here. Ye finish this and end them.” Banner’s voice was deadly calm.

I may’ve been a heartless bastard, but when it came to the select few individuals I kept under my protection, I’d destroy anything that hurt them.

I nodded slowly and took a step closer. “We will finish them in the most painful way.”

Banner stared at me for one more second, and I sensed a darkness in him I’d never seen or felt before. He nodded once, and then he was gone, a handful of the Guard following him. Kane and a few of my men went with them.

There was only a second of stillness before the rest of the Otherworld males looked at me for direction. I felt my own darkness cover me like a thick, decaying cloak.

I stared at the bunker that was revealed, knowing that killing these humans off had been too easy, knowing they’d opened that door to entice us in. No doubt this was a trap, but there was no other option.

“Let’s fucking paint the floors red.”