Chapter 194
Cole
A sound from one of the cells drew our attention—a weak, feminine whimper that spoke of suffering beyond endurance. Without discussion, all three of us moved toward it.
The cell door wasn't locked. Inside, two young women huddled in the corner. One was clearly in bad shape—her leg bent at an unnatural angle, her breathing shallow and pained. The other seemed less injured but was trembling violently with shock or fear or both.
I shifted to human form, not caring about my nakedness. "You need medical attention," I said gently, moving slowly so as not to frighten them further. "We're here to help. Have you seen—"
"Your mate," the less injured one interrupted, her eyes wide. "The pregnant one with the golden curls. She was here. Diana took her to the bedroom chambers."
Blake shifted beside me, his urgency making the transformation almost violent. "When? How long ago?"
The woman flinched at his aggressive tone, and I shot him a warning look through our bond before turning back to her. "Please. Anything you can tell us."
"Maybe an hour," she said. "She—" The woman's voice dropped to an awed whisper. "She fought back. Knocked out one of the guards and stole the serpents."
All three of us froze.
"The serpents?" Asher's voice was deadly quiet as he too shifted to human form. "The moon serpents? Gold, silver, and white?"
The injured woman nodded weakly. "She took all three. Diana was screaming about it through the whole compound. Your mate—she saved them. Saved the souls trapped inside."
Pride and terror warred in my chest. Kara hadn't just been trying to escape—she'd been trying to rescue her parents. Even pregnant, even collared and hunted, she'd put their lives above her own safety.
We have to move, Asher sent through the bond. Now. If Diana knows Kara took the serpents—
A violent tremor shook the entire structure, sending dust and small stones cascading from the ceiling. Through the bond, I felt a surge of dark magic so powerful it made my wolf whimper and try to retreat into my mind.
The blood magic is destabilizing, I realized. Kara must have disrupted Diana's ritual setup. The wards are collapsing.
Good, Blake snarled. Let this whole cursed place come down. As long as we get Kara out first.
"Can you walk?" I asked the less injured woman. She nodded uncertainly. "Then help your friend. Stay here until we come back. We will come back."
"The stairs," the woman said quickly. "Go out, turn left, follow the corridor to the end. There's a spiral staircase that goes down to the fourth level. Diana's chambers are through the only door at the bottom."
We ran.
The building shook again as we raced down the corridor, and I could feel the blood magic wards beginning to tear themselves apart. Whatever Kara had done, it had fundamentally damaged Diana's carefully constructed prison.
The spiral staircase was narrow and treacherous, clearly designed to be defensible. We descended in single file, Asher leading, me in the middle, Blake bringing up the rear. His urgency pressed against my back through the bond like a physical force.
The staircase ended at a single door. Heavy oak, bound with iron, covered in symbols that still glowed with residual power despite the destabilizing wards. And from beyond it, I could smell her.
White musk and first snow. Fear and determination. Blood and the faint, precious scent of new life growing inside her.
Kara.
Blake didn't wait for Asher's command. He shifted to his half-form and kicked the door with enough force to splinter the ancient wood. It crashed inward, and we surged through into Diana's private chambers.
The room beyond was obscenely luxurious—silk hangings, plush carpets, furniture that probably cost more than our entire pack house. But we had eyes only for the two figures at the far end.
Kara stood supporting a tall, gaunt woman who could only be the real Scarlett Reeves. Her prison uniform was torn and filthy, her face bruised, her lip split and bleeding. But her eyes—those beautiful brown eyes I'd been seeing in my dreams for weeks—were fierce and defiant as they met ours.
And wrapped around her left arm, moving in slow, sinuous patterns, were three serpents. One gold, one silver, one pure white.
"Alphas!" The word burst from Kara's lips—not a cry for help but a shout of recognition and relief.
We shifted and ran to her, our wolves unable to maintain human form in the face of finally, finally having our mate within reach. I reached her first, my wolf whining as I pressed against her legs, careful of her pregnant belly, desperate to confirm she was real and whole and alive.
Blake and Asher flanked us, their larger wolves creating a protective barrier as they scent-marked Kara frantically, licking at the dried blood on her face, checking her for injuries with desperate thoroughness.
"You came," Kara gasped, and I felt wetness on my fur that could have been tears or laughter or both. "You actually came for me."
Blake shifted just long enough to cup her face in his hands, his expression raw with emotion. "Always. We will always come for you." His eyes dropped to the serpents on her arm, then to the bruises on her face, and his voice dropped to a lethal growl. "Who hurt you? Who touched you?"
"Later," Asher commanded, shifting to his half-form to better assess the situation. His hands moved over Kara with clinical precision, checking for serious injuries even as his scent wrapped around her in layers of protection and possession. "Right now, we need to—"
A scream of pure rage echoed through the chamber, cutting him off. It came from deeper in the complex, from somewhere below us, and it carried a power that made the very air vibrate.
Diana. She'd discovered what Kara had done.
"We need to go," Kara said urgently, her arms tightening protectively around the serpents. "Now. Diana's down in the ritual chamber. She'll be coming, and she's—" Her voice cracked. "She's so much stronger than you think."
"Can you run?" I asked, shifting to human form and immediately stripping off what remained of my shredded clothes to wrap around her shoulders.
"I can do whatever I have to do to get us all out of here," Kara said firmly. But I could see the tremor in her hands, smell the exhaustion and fear beneath her determination.
Asher made a quick decision. "Blake, you carry Kara. Cole, you take Scarlett. I'll take point and clear our path. We go back the way we came—through the dining room and out the loading dock."
Another tremor shook the building, stronger this time. Chunks of ceiling began to rain down around us.