19. Dominic

19

DOMINIC

I tore through the woods as pups clung to my back. I growled as they tugged at my fur, ripping it out by the handful. I skirted around trees and dodged flames that seemed to come after us as if they had a life of their own. My feet thundered beneath me. The sounds of crying children spurred me on as I leapt over a ditch and kept putting distance between us at the fire. We were growing closer to the cave. Closer to safety. Closer to an emergency hatch Voss, Ronyn, and I built into the mountain we perched at the base of just in case we ever needed a place to store the pack away. The smell of smoke faded away. The stench of death didn’t hang quite as fiercely in the air.

That is, until smoke started swirling around us.

“Dom?” one of the kids asked.

“What’s going on?”

“What’s happening?”

“I want Mommy.”

I tilted my head up toward the sky to figure out what in the fuck was going on, and that’s all it took. The air kicked up, whipping that disgusting scent of rotting flesh toward my nostrils. Then, the blurs began. They wrapped around us, causing the little pups on my back to cry out as I tried to assess the situation.

Fucking hell, why did I think we could have outrun them?

“Dom!” one of the girls shrieked.

I did the only thing that I could, and I scurried into the tallest tree. I dug my talons into the bark and leapt from tree to tree, hearing the children scream for dear life. I knew they’d never shut up. I knew I’d never be able to get away from these vampires. They were too fast, too strong, and they smelled too fucking bad for me to concentrate on anything else. So, I abandoned the pups at the top of the tree, pleading with them to hang on as tightly as possible.

I leapt back down to the ground, slamming myself on top of a vampire, and ripped its fucking head off.

The smell of burning wood made my eyes water. The fire crackling all around us put me on edge. We didn’t have a hell of a lot of time, but I had to keep fighting until someone talked to me. Groupthink was completely shut down. It was as if that entire part of our pack was put on silent until further notice. And as I continued slaughtering vampires that kept jumping through the flames charging toward us, something sank against my back. Something hard. Something forceful. Something that burned so greatly that it fucking took me to the ground.

Before someone hauled off and slammed me against a tree.

“Son of a bitch,” I gasped as I slowly waned back into my human form.

Pain ripped through my back as I stood there with vampires surrounding me. They snarled at me with their fangs and their pale ass skin. Their red eyes glowed with the embers of the fire kicking up all around us. I heard the kids yelling at me from the tree. I heard the screams off in the distance from my pack. A howl pierced the air, and I recognized it as Ronyn’s cry for help.

But the searing pain around my wrists pulled me from my trance.

“Holy fuck!” I cried out.

I smelled burning flesh, and I knew it had to be caused by the handcuffs they slapped around my wrists. I tugged against the tree, trying to unravel myself from its trunk. But the vampires just snarled and licked their teeth as they ogled me.

Someone gave the order not to kill me.

And I knew exactly who.

Aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-OOOOOOOOH!

Aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-OOOOOOOOH!

Aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-OOOOOOOOH!

I drew in another breath to howl once more, but the feeling of smoke in my throat cut my repeated howl off midstream. With my wrists trembling in pain and my body sweating with the building heat, I put my head on a swivel. Gone were the vampires in a flash, leaving me handcuffed to the fucking tree where I put the kids.

“Dom! The fire’s getting closer!”

“Dom, are you okay!?”

“Stay in the tree, kids!” I barked. “Stay put!”

Then she finally showed herself. She came waltzing out of that fire in her crimson red dress and matching heels with her impossibly disgusting translucent skin. Her eyes glowed red as she held out her palm and a fireball appeared within her hand. How the hell was that possible? She was a vampire, not a fucking witch. Something glimmered on her hand. Something big, and red, just like her dress. It seemed to be alive, as if I couldn’t help but to have my gaze drawn to it.

“Like it?” Delilah asked as she held up her left hand and wiggled the ring for me to see. “It was a gift from a very dear person in my life.”

I saw the swirling energy beneath the hardened surface of the red stone, and I swear to hell on high, I heard whispers. Or maybe it was just the fire crackling closer. Or, maybe it was just the blur of the pups above me crying out for dear life while I stood there, handcuffed with silver to a goddamn tree.

Dom! Where the fuck are you!? Voss asked as his voice finally pierced through groupthink.

Bexley’s headed with Merida into the woods. They seem to think he went that way with the pups, Ronyn snarled.

“No,” I said weakly, trying to reach out in groupthink. “No, tell her to…t—to not?—”

Dom, Voss barked, if you can hear me, what’s your location with those pups?

Dominic! Ronyn bellowed.

But above the fire and screaming and searing pain racking my body, I heard a voice.

An angelic, fear-laced voice.

“Doooooooom!” Bexley exclaimed. “Where are yooooou!?”

And the smile that crossed Delilah’s face as she slowly came back into focus made me shiver.

“Right on time,” she states with a confident grin.

I shook my head. I tugged helplessly at my restraints. If Bexley came out here, she was going to die. Delilah wanted her to pursue it. To pursue me. To pursue us. Delilah wanted her out here with me. Which meant the trap wasn’t for us.

It was for Bexley.

This is Lieutenant Reggie, come in, Dom.

Dom, it’s Merida. Where are you? Bexley and I can’t see through the smoke. Are you in that fire?

Dom, it’s Ronyn. Can you give us anything? Another howl? A sound? A smoke signal? Anything?

Really, a fucking smoke signal, Ronyn?

“Dominic! Make a noise for me! Anything!” Bexley exclaimed.

“We’re up here!” one of the kids yelled.

“Miss Alpha!”

“Up here!”

“Hey! Can you hear us!?”

“Shut those kids up,” Delilah snarled.

I growled out with all of the strength I had left. “Make one move toward them and I’ll make sure every single last one of you is slaughtered in cold blood with your heads on a fucking spike in the middle of town so the whole of the human race knows to watch out.”

Delilah’s eye twitched before she grinned wickedly. “You almost had me there, I’ll give you that.”

I felt the silver handcuffs slip deeper into my skin as the smell of burning flesh mingled with the smell of the burning forest. Delilah cackled in the distance. At least, I think she was in the distance. I don’t know, there was so much going on. So much smoke. My eyes burned. I wanted to gnaw my own fucking wrists off with my teeth. The kids were screaming and groupthink was yelling and Bexley was shrieking at the top of her lungs for me.

God, I would’ve given anything to see Bexley one last time.

“You know,” Delilah whispered against the shell of my ear, “if you give her to me, I’ll let you go.”

I reared my head back and stared that bitch down. “Over my dead body, you bitch.”

Her smile was positively devious. “That can be arranged.”

“Dooooooom!” Bexley exclaimed, her voice sounding closer than ever.

Delilah backed away from me. “Right on time, as per usual. Special Agent Anna was always good with that kind of stuff.”

I snarled. “You leave her alone. You leave her out of this!”

She held her arms out, backing toward the flames. “No can do, handsome. She’s way too important to what I’ve got going on.”

Without another word spoken, Delilah disappeared in a quick motion blur.

Bexley jumped through the circle of flames surrounding me and the kids… completely caked from head to toe in mud.