Her Forbidden Alpha (13 page)

Even though she knew her father well, she still couldn’t believe he’d do this. What if they hadn’t discovered the Humans Firsters? What if they’d blown up the Holding? Hundreds, maybe thousands, of werewolves could have died.

Darius might have been one of them.

The thought made her feel cold all the way to her bones. She knew more than ever that she had to leave. This nightmare would never end if she didn’t go back to her father. But leaving Darius would be hard, so hard. She’d managed to walk away from him once tonight. She didn’t know if she had the strength to do it again.

But all of these people around her could die, and it would be her fault. And what happened tonight just showed how determined her father was to kill them. She had to leave.

While the thoughts spun in her head, Darius and his council argued about what to do next. She heard them peripherally, like background noise, but couldn’t stop staring at the five men who’d nearly killed hundreds. She’d brought them here. She had.

“We’ve got them surrounded,” Cael said. “We should attack.”

“We can’t let them get away with this. We have to let them know that taking action like they did tonight will have swift and terrible consequences.” Killion slammed his hand down on the long table in the center of the room.

After a pause, Darius said, “There has to be something we can do besides outright attack. If we slaughter them, we’ll have full-blown war and we’ll end up with massive casualties on both sides.”

“You’re being too soft,” Killion said.

“I’m being level-headed,” Darius snapped. “Every decision needs to be made calmly, rationally, and only after considering the pros and cons. Just because our enemy fails to make good decisions doesn’t mean we have to.”

She couldn’t take this anymore. “You have to send me back,” Aislinn said. “The General will never stop as long as I’m here.”

Killion paced in her direction. “We’re the ones with the power now. Besides, you can’t go back.”

“I thought you wanted me to go back,” she said.

“That changed.” Killion returned to the table. “Didn’t Darius explain it to you?”

“No.” She looked to Darius but he was staring toward the wall of windows. She wouldn’t get any answers from him right now. She spoke to Killion instead. “Darius is right. Attacking the Humans Firsters will just lead to more bloodshed on both sides. There has to be a better way.”

There had to be. If not, they were all headed for war.

***

Gideon stood in the General’s tent in the woods outside the Holding feeling sick to his stomach. He hadn’t felt right since the General had told him his plans to blow up the castle, and it had only gotten worse when the commandos left their camp to infiltrate the werewolf stronghold. What if they didn’t find Aislinn? What if she got killed while they tried to get her out?

The General picked up a walkie-talkie. “Any sign of them yet?”

The mercenaries were overdue. They should have been back an hour and a half ago with Aislinn.

The walkie-talkie squawked. “No sign.”

“We should blow the charges,” the General said.

Gideon’s stomach tightened. “Sir. Aislinn is still in there. Maybe they’re trying to get her out. Give them a little more time.”

“They should have radioed in if they needed more time. No. They must have gotten their asses caught. We need to blow the charges before the fucking werewolves defuse them all.”

Gideon felt a tickle in his throat and swallowed hard, trying not to throw up. The General was right–the mercenaries had probably been caught. So what could he say to stop the General from blowing up his daughter?

When he’d arrived and found that the General hadn’t changed his plans at all, Gideon had called Siobhan again. She’d explained that her husband said he would get Aislinn out and that she was in no danger. Siobhan had told Gideon she trusted her husband to do what he said. The General had lied to her and now Gideon was out of moves.

The General picked up the detonator. “Aislinn will be better off.”

So he was thinking of Aislinn now, was he? Bullshit. “Aislinn would be better off if you saved her, if you protected her. If you press that button, you’re killing your daughter.”

“The werewolves did that when they took her.” The General’s thumb moved toward the button. “This is on their heads.”

Gideon lunged toward the detonator but watched the General’s finger press it down before he could reach it. When he missed, he stumbled and just barely caught himself on the edge of the table. Almost immediately, an explosion sounded from the direction of the castle–loud, but not big enough to rock the camp.

“See? They defused some of the charges. The explosion should have been much bigger.” The General set the detonator back onto the table.

Gideon staggered to the corner of the tent and vomited.

***

An explosion rocked the Holding. Everyone in the war room ducked instinctively and Darius lunged for Aislinn, pulling her into a crouch and hovering over her to protect her from anything that might fall on them. He waited several seconds after the explosion ended but nothing in the war room fell and no other bombs went off. Darius stood.

He pulled Aislinn up to stand beside him, his hand on her waist. “Two of you stay with me. Everyone else, go find out where that explosion happened and report back immediately.”

Warriors and guards ran for the double doors at either end of the hall, many of them jumping onto cell phones at the same time. A hodge-podge of conversations floated back to him as they left the room–husbands talking to wives in other parts of the castle, daughters talking to mothers. Cael headed right out of the doors while Killion took a left.

At the same time, Darius dialed the speaker phone into the conference call number they used for emergencies like this. “We must have missed a charge.” He cursed.

“If that was one charge, we’re damn lucky we got the rest of them.” Xavier, one of the guards, had stayed behind.

A beep indicated that someone had joined the conference call. “This is Killion. I’m on the second floor in the residential area. It was hit. Hit bad.”

Darius paced toward the phone. “Details.”

“There’s a big hole in the inside wall. I can see into at least three residences. No idea about casualties.”

“Go inside and find out,” Darius said.

“Will do.”

Darius felt fur sprouting along his arms and legs. Thank Bendis he was wearing long sleeves. He didn’t want his wolves to see how out of control he was.

This was on him, all of it, but he still couldn’t figure out what he could have done differently. He couldn’t have left his mate at the church–he’d never have seen her again. He couldn’t have sent her back. Not if he wanted to stay in command.

Killion came back on the line. His voice sounded ragged, and he cleared his throat before speaking. “The Carroway family is dead. Even the kids.” He took a shuddery breath. “They got a direct hit. I haven’t checked the other two residences, but I’ll do that now. But Darius–if there’s anyone alive in there, they’re going to need medical attention right away.”

A flurry of other voices sounded indistinctly in the background.

“Who else is there?” Darius said.

“Neighbors,” Killion said. “They want to help but I think the damaged part of the building might not be completely safe so I’m going to tell them to stay back for now.”

“Good,” Darius said. “No one else has reported in, so I’m going to send some of those warriors to your location. In the meantime, check the other two residences.”

Xavier took care of sending some other warriors to the residences. Over by the wall, Aislinn knelt in front of the five Humans Firsters. She stayed silent for a full minute, looking at them. After a while, a couple of them started to squirm.

“What?” one man snapped.

“Just wondering which of you is a baby killer.”

Ouch. His little mate didn’t hold her punches.

“They’re all filthy dogs,” the same man said. “Doesn’t matter how old they are.” He spat.

“Too bad for you you were stupid enough to shoot your wad all in one go.” Aislinn’s voice sounded calm and almost pleasant.

What the hell was she up to?

“That would have worked fine,” the man snarled. “It wasn’t stupid.”

Holy shit. She was interrogating them. Because she’d just gotten them to reveal the answer to a question he’d been wondering–was that explosion the first of many or was that everything? From what the guy had said, they’d blown everything at once.

At least he didn’t have to worry about another explosion hitting them.

Aislinn nodded at the man, a slight smile hovering around her lips. “So the plan was to blow up the Holding...and then what?”

“Like we’re going to tell you, bitch,” another of the men said.

Darius stepped toward them, hands fisting.

Without even looking in his direction, Aislinn put up a hand to stop him. “Two down, four to go. If you each had six charges and there are five of you, that makes thirty charges. I’m no demolitions expert, but I doubt that’s enough to bring down a building this size. So what was this–a diversion?”

The first man spat in her direction, missing her by several inches, but didn’t reply.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” She tapped her finger against her lips. “So you wanted to divert our attention from something. What could that be?”

“How are we supposed to know? The General doesn’t tell us everything. We were just supposed to set the charges and return to base.”

“And rescue his daughter,” Aislinn said. “Right? You were supposed to take her back to her father.”

“If we could find her.”

Aislinn froze.

Damnit. Darius hadn’t wanted her to find that out. “And then what?” he said loudly. “Even if you managed to blow up much of the castle, that wouldn’t incapacitate the town around us.”

The Humans Firster smiled but said nothing.

It didn’t take a genius to understand their plan. They’d create chaos with the explosions then attack while the wolves’ defenses were in disarray. Not a bad plan. Too bad for them his little mate had foiled it. How would her father feel when he found out his plan had been stopped by his expendable daughter?

“And if you couldn’t find the General’s daughter?” Aislinn said.

Any hope Darius had had of diverting her attention had clearly failed.

“What do you think?” the idiot in front of her said.

“You’d blow up the building anyway,” she said.

He smiled again.

Aislinn stood. “Do you know who I am?”

“Clearly you’re the Alpha’s bitch,” a man at the end of the row said.

“Yes,” Aislinn said. “But who else am I?”

Darius took a few steps closer to stand behind her. “You were supposed to retrieve the General’s daughter. Don’t you idiots even know what she looks like?”

All five pairs of eyes zeroed in on Aislinn. “What the hell is the General’s daughter doing siding with the mangy dogs?” one man said.

Aislinn straightened her shoulders. “Finally doing the right thing.” She stepped around Darius, walked to the table and sat down in one of the chairs.

Now that she couldn’t see him, Darius gave in to his wolf, allowing him to come to the fore. He didn’t have to see himself to know that his eyes turned yellow, his fangs slipping down, his nose elongating just a little. He smiled, showing the five Humans Firsters his sharpened teeth. “As prisoners of war, you won’t be leaving here for a very long time.” He gazed at each of them in turn. “Think about that the next time you feel tempted to insult my mate.”

Before he could give in to the urge to rip them to shreds, he went to stand behind Aislinn, putting his hand on her shoulder.

A voice came over the speakerphone. Xavier again. “I checked the other two residences. Two dead, six alive but injured. We need medics up here stat.”

Xavier had already told the medics to get ready but Darius hadn’t wanted to send them unless he knew there wouldn’t be additional explosions. Now Darius flicked his wrist toward Xavier, who immediately jumped on his own phone and sent the medics toward the bomb site.

“Killion,” Darius said. “What about structural integrity? How’s the building?”

“It took out part of the floor and I see chips out of the ceiling. We’ll need an engineer to know for sure, but I’d suggest we stay away from this area as soon as we get the injured out of here.”

“Do it. We’re sending medics to you. You and the other warriors get any injured wolves out of the area. Leave any humans or other creatures to the medics because they might need to use backboards. Then get everyone else out of there and cordon off as big an area as you think is necessary.” The wolves’ superior healing abilities could heal even a broken back.

“Got it.” The phone went quiet.

For the next hour, Darius oversaw beefing up their defenses. The prisoners were moved to cells in the dungeon after all of the injured and dead had been removed from the damaged areas. Through it all, Darius felt intensely aware of where Aislinn was. Like a homing beacon, he just knew–could feel where she stood in the room, even which direction she faced.

Over and over, he felt tempted to order a strike against the Humans Firsters in the woods. The wolves could wipe them out within a few hours. But what would that do? The Humans Firsters in the woods were just a subset. The ones who were still back at the compounds spread across the U.S. would come after the wolves with everything they had. And in the process, he’d slaughter his mate’s father. Her father might be an asshole and a half but she still loved him. And Darius didn’t know if she’d forgive him for killing him.

And considering all of that, what options were left? Only one. One that he couldn’t even consider. One that might not even work.

By the time dawn broke, he’d done all he could in the war room. He left Killion in charge, sending Cael to get a few hours sleep. Then Darius and Aislinn left.

“I’ll take you back to your room and then I have some more things I need to do,” Darius said.

Aislinn gripped his arm. “I want to go with you.”

“No, it’s better if you don’t.”

Her hands tightened on him. “Please. I’m not afraid, exactly, but I want to stay with you.”