Chapter 72 The Obsidian Wake
Grayson POV
I stumbled back into the warehouse garage with my hand pressed hard against the stinging scar on my chest, and the first thing I noticed was the absolute silence that felt like a physical blow because Aria should have been waiting by the SUV. The side door was hanging off its hinges and the gravel in the lot was churned up by the heavy tread of motorcycle tires, and as I looked down at the ground, I saw the small flour-dusted apron she had been wearing lying in a heap near a puddle of oil. My heart started hammering against my ribs so hard it felt like it was going to break through the bone, and I grabbed Miller by the front of his tactical vest as he came running up behind me with his rifle raised.
"Where is she, Miller? I told you to keep an eye on the perimeter while I cleared the back rooms, so how the hell did they get past you and take her right out from under our noses?" I roared, and my voice was already starting to crack with the pressure of the shift that was clawing at the back of my throat.
"I don't know, Boss, because the jamming signal was so strong it knocked out our short-range comms and we were busy dealing with a group of Iron Fang scouts that were trying to flank the infirmary," Miller stammered, his eyes wide with the kind of fear that only comes when you see an Alpha starting to lose his grip on his humanity. "We found tire tracks leading toward the docks and a witness said they saw a black van heading north, but there were too many bikes for us to give chase without a full squad, so we had to stay back and protect the survivors at the clubhouse."
"I don't care about the survivors right now, and I don't care about the clubhouse, because I told you that she was the priority and you let those bastards walk in and snatch her!" I yelled, and I shoved him back so hard he hit the side of a supply truck with a loud metallic clang that echoed through the empty yard.
Jax came walking out from behind the wreckage of a patrol car and he was holding a broken tablet, and he looked at me with an expression that was half-pity and half-terror because he knew exactly what was about to happen. "Grayson, you need to calm down and breathe because the curse is reacting to your heart rate, and if you shift while your core temperature is this high, you might not be able to come back from it this time."
"Shut up about the curse, Jax, and tell me if you can track her phone or the GPS in the van they used to haul her away," I commanded, and I felt the first jolt of the transformation snapping the small bones in my feet while the black fur began to sprout along my forearms.
"The signal is gone, but I managed to intercept a brief transmission between Jess and Darius that mentioned a warehouse near the old meat-packing district, and they were talking about silver-laced shackles that they got from a Silverfang contact," Jax explained, and he took a step back as my height began to increase and my clothes started to tear at the seams. "They’re baiting you, Grayson, and if you go down there alone in the middle of a shift, you’re walking straight into a slaughterhouse that was built specifically to kill an Alpha of your bloodline."
"Let them try to kill me, because I’m going to tear every single one of them apart until there’s nothing left but scraps of leather and chrome," I growled, and the sound wasn't even human anymore because my jaw was elongating and my teeth were sharpening into jagged points of white bone.
I looked up at the moon that was peeking through the thick clouds of smoke and I let out a roar that started deep in my gut and rolled out across the valley, and the sound was so loud and so filled with raw agony that the birds in the trees nearby fell silent and the riders at the bottom of the hill stopped their engines. It was the call of an Alpha who had lost everything, and as the sound echoed off the glass towers of the city in the distance, I felt the last of my human skin pull tight and then rip away.
The obsidian wolf took over, a massive beast of shadow and muscle that was twice the size of any other wolf in the pack, and the black fur was so dark it seemed to soak up what little light was left in the yard. My claws dug deep into the asphalt and I felt the power of the curse merging with the strength of the wolf, turning the pain in my chest into a fuel that made my vision turn a sharp, predatory red. I didn't look back at Jax or Miller as I leaped over the perimeter fence in a single bound, and every step I took toward the city felt like the ground was shaking under the weight of my rage.
I ran through the woods and onto the main highway, ignoring the cars that swerved to avoid me and the people who were screaming from their windows, because the only thing I could smell was the faint scent of cinnamon and sugar that still clung to the air where Aria had been. My paws hit the pavement with a rhythmic thud that sounded like a drumbeat, and as I neared the industrial district, I could see the flickering lights of the warehouse where Jess was waiting for me.
I knew the silver shackles would hurt her, and the thought of her skin burning because of some ancient grudge made me push my body even faster until my lungs felt like they were on fire. I reached the outskirts of the docks and slowed down just enough to catch the scent of the Iron Fangs, and the smell of their cheap oil and unwashed denim made the hair on my neck stand up in a jagged ridge.
I prowled through the shadows of the shipping containers, my black coat making me invisible to the guards who were pacing the docks with their shotguns, and I waited for the moment when I could smell her fear again. I turned the corner and saw the van parked near a loading bay, but as I moved to intercept it, a heavy steel net dropped from the crane above me and slammed me into the ground.
The net was lined with the same silver-laced wire that they had used on Aria, and as the metal touched my fur, a scream of absolute agony ripped through the night.