Bring Him Home

*Will’s POV*

Silence.

I wait for the agony of my mate being shot, but it never comes.

Click.

I heard the sound as clearly as though it was right in front of me, but there was nothing but silence after, not the deafening silence of my mate’s absence nor the shock of our bond shattering with her death.

It’s just quiet.

Panic floods me, and I throw my consciousness down the bond. I reach out for her with everything that I am until I can feel Jane’s racing heart as if it were beating in my own chest. I look through her eyes and see Kade staring furiously at the gun in his hands. My mate grins, though to Kade, it must look more like a snarl as the realization hits them.

It seems my brother is all out of bullets.

I keep running, only vaguely aware of the shots echoing around me as I race through the grounds outside of the mansion. I left Mago with Marcus just beyond the iron gates, and Luke immediately went off to get reinforcements, but right now, they feel impossibly far away. My own body feels foreign somehow, dim and distant compared to the flashes I cling to through the mating bond as I run.

With Jane’s ears, I hear Kade curse as he tosses the weapon aside before shifting into his wolf form. He’s twice as large as her, but I can almost smell Jane’s relief. She would rather die fighting with honor than be shot down point blank.

I can’t let that happen. I won’t.

I call her name through the bond, but I’m not sure if she can hear me. My mind is scattered somewhere between both of our bodies, drifting on that tether between our souls. My consciousness is lost and tangled in the distance between us.

On the other end of the bond, my mate lunges, but Kade is ready for her. Jane manages to bite at his hide before he swipes at her with his claws. Rage cuts through me as his blow tears through my mate’s fur and flesh. The fighting must only last a few minutes for her, but to me, it feels like time slows down as I rush to them, every step toward her somehow bringing me closer to myself.

The world becomes a blur of blood, bite, and run. Kade and Jane are tangled up in each other in a deadly dance, scratching and striking at each other without reprieve as I make my way through the mansion’s gardens toward the nearest opening.

Jane is bruised and bleeding in more places than I can count, her muscles shaking and bones screaming with a soreness that soaks her from head to toe. I feel every bit of it. Her silky white fur is matted and stained scarlet, and everything inside me is screaming to get to her, to find a way to protect her at all costs. I hurl myself over the smashed glass of the nearest shattered window before making my way to the wrecked library.

Before Jane can catch her breath, Kade attacks again, and her thoughts are coming in too dazed and jumbled through the bond. She doesn’t doge in time, and Kade’s canines sink into the scruff on her back. She’s thrown to the ground with such force that she slides across the marble, her back slamming against the steel door. I feel the impact so profoundly that my wolf growls within me, and I shift then and there before bolting down the stairs.

Jane’s breathing is ragged, and the bond is quiet for a moment while her vision goes dark. She tries to shake her head, but a sharp, shooting pain along her spine renders her rigid. She blinks a few times as I reach the other end of the hallway, just as Kade looms above her.

I see myself running toward her through her eyes, and I snap back into my own body, my consciousness reeling back into itself.

‘Angel. What took you so long?’

Her thought is a whisper in my mind, a tender caress through the bond as I see the soft smile in her stormy eyes.

Kade hasn’t noticed me yet. His attention is entirely focused on my mate as he pulls back to make the killing blow. His fangs glisten in the fluorescent light of the bunker, and his crazed black eyes are wide with bloodlust, but Jane barely seems to notice him. She only looks at me.

Something inside me snaps at the sight of my mate on the ground like that, smiling at me softly as Kade rears back to crush her. Seeing Jane like that fills me with a fury and a force, unlike anything I’ve ever known as I charge toward them.

It’s a feeling far stronger than fear and wilder than ordinary anger. Every instinct to protect her, every urge to defend what I love, it all boils down to a single impulse as my brother’s claws plunge into my mate’s chest.

Before I know it, I’m on him. Without a trace of hesitation or I throw all of my weight against him, biting into his neck as I shove him off Jane. I force him off my mate with all my might, and we roll over each other as my momentum slams us against the ground, but I don’t stop.

We tumble away, and I sink my teeth into his neck, snapping down until his head tilts to the side with a sickening crunch. Kade goes limp.

Behind me, Jane gasps and shifts back into her human form. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mate transform, her breathing ragged as she props herself up on her forearms, struggling to stand. I stagger back as Kade falls from my grasp, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.

“Will,” Jane calls my name. Her shaking voice tames the wolf within me, and I shift into my human form, breathing heavily.

I look back at my mate, whose gaze is fixed on something ahead of me. My eyes follow hers, hands shaking as I look at Kade with horror and relief. My brother stares back at me with cold, unblinking eyes.

He’s dead.