“Evon,” I said, summoning him on my comms unit. I waved the damn blue wand over my torso and head as I walked because the hallway blurred a bit. “Location.”
“North exit. Liam just arrived as well. We’re here with Dravon.”
I turned left down a corridor to meet them. Dravon was with Evon? That seemed insane, but everything was insane right now. I would question it later.
“I’m two minutes out.”
“Too long,” Liam said. “Meet us outside. Thalia has Bella out on the south plateau.”
“My sister intends to kill our mate,” Evon said.
My anger, usually easily quelled, roared to life. My head pounded, but I set the wand to the side of my skull, left it there, let the blue light do its work as I walked. If Evon was saying this, it was serious. I knew how intense and driven his family was. How he’d tried to be like them, but went his own way. He fought it daily, even up until the judicial hearing. I’d had to punch Dravon in the face for him. I’d do it again. Hell, I’d punch Thalia in the face, or worse, if she so much as gave my mate frostbite.
“That will not happen,” I said. My voice was deep. Angry. So unlike me. I might be the patient one, but I had no patience in this moment, so I moved faster. Faster still. The deep rage, the berserker part of me, exploded from the depths of my soul with a silent roar. No one was going to take my mate from me. I’d tear Thalia’s arms off before I let her get away with this.
“My father is feeding us coordinates,” Evon added.
“I hear you, Rager,” the Commander said, his voice surprisingly helpful. For once. “I see you on the positioning system. At the next corridor, turn left. Yes, good. As my son said, I’ll guide you to them.”
I wasn’t sure if he was guiding me to Evon and Liam or to my mate and Thalia. Either way, I was going in the right direction. I healed myself as I ran toward the exit, I was going the right way. To my future. I just had to save it.
* * *
Bella
Shit, it was col
d. My eyes hurt from the glare, my cheeks stung from the wind, but I was overheated marching along with Thalia at a ridiculous pace. The snow was thigh deep in places and barely covered the hard, rocky terrain in others. But Thalia pushed me on, prodding me with the end of her pistol when I stumbled. Threatening the lives of my mates if I refused to cooperate.
Sweat dripped down my back. I was no world-class athlete, but fury fueled me. And the constant nudge of Thalia’s weapon in my back served as a nearly constant reminder of why I was mad. Why was she doing this? She and Rager were having their fun, playing their games. As much as it hurt me to admit, she’d already won.
“I was in the testing center requesting new mates,” I said. I hoped my voice carried on the wind toward her. I wasn’t going to look over my shoulder. I felt the damn weapon, I didn’t need to see it, too.
My feet were heavy, the walking hard as we crossed through the snow. It had been deep at first, near the main buildings, but the farther away we walked, it thinned out, became crusty as the terrain grew harsher. I wasn’t trudging through snowdrifts any longer, but we were hiking rugged boulders and winding ice chasms. The wind must constantly pummel the land, hardening the frozen moisture to a crust that scrunched beneath our boots where the soft powder was exposed.
“I don’t want Rager,” I added. “I know you love him. You can have him, Thalia.” That earned me a harsh nudge in my back. I winced.
“Liar,” she countered.
“You said you weren’t going to kill me. And you win. You can have him. I went to Warden Vora and requested to be reassigned, to have new mates. Just take me back. I’ll be gone before dinner.”
“You’ll be gone soon. Somewhere Rager will never find you.”
Shit. Was she just going to shoot and leave me out here for the wolves to eat? Did they have wolves here? Or polar bears? Or anything that would find me a tasty treat? “Why not just shoot me and be done with it?” It was a stupid thing, putting ideas in her head, but I wanted to know if I was going to be left out in the barren tundra to die.
“Oh, no. That would be too easy. I’m sending you somewhere. And you’ll never come back.”
I looked around. If she left me alone, I’d work my way back to IQC. I had a good sense of direction and it wasn’t as if I could get lost. There was nothing to hide the rocky terrain, the snow. Yeah, it all looked the same and our footprints were most likely being blown away.
“Leaving me behind a rock isn’t going to work.”
She laughed then. “Leave you behind a rock? Gods, I thought you were really smart. I even liked you. Don’t blow it now.”
I glanced over my shoulder then, squinted. Her cheeks were red, her blonde hair blowing in the wind. And, yup, she had that ion thingy pointed at me. So much for all the helpful girly BFF chatting we’d done. While she’d been helping me pick out clothes, she’d been mentally backstabbing me. She must have been laughing that I knew nothing of her and Rager, but also jealous that he was fucking me, too.
I told her as much.
“Rager’s mine,” she growled. “Just knowing his cock had been in you, that his mouth has been on your pussy. Gods, that his hands touched you everywhere, makes me want to hurt you. He was supposed to be mine.”