Chapter 185 Close Call

Chapter 185 Close Call
Maureen's POV

It was quite easy to flood the pods with water. The fake soldiers melted into nothing as the water entered their pods. I knew that there must have been a place where the soldiers were made in large numbers. I just didn't expect it to be that close to the council.

After we were sure the room was rid of all the soldiers, Asher advised that we rig the room so that it would blow up and destroy the pods in the process.

'I think we should free Talon's breeders first before we do that. This whole place might blow up,' the doctor said as soon as Lance suggested it.

I asked three soldiers and Dominus to follow the doctor while the rest of us stayed in the room to await them. Asher started working on the electricity connection in the room.

Dominus and the soldiers returned shortly after with Talon's breeders. They were both holding their babies in their hands.

'I knew you would come for us,' one of Talon's breeders said immediately she set her eyes on me. I remembered that she was the one who had smiled into the camera the day they were rescued the first time.

'I am sorry that I delivered you back into what you were just coming out from,' I said regrettably.

'It wasn't your fault. You thought that we were safe with them. You are here now and that is what is more important. Thank you for coming for us, Your Majesty,' she said, smiling tiredly.

'Your kids are my siblings. It is only natural that I look after them,' I said, returning her smile.

'What do you mean by that Your Majesty? The other breeder asked.

'The babies were hooked to machines. These people are really crazy,' Dominus said changing the topic.

'They wanted us to work on the babies to see if their special blood lineage will help improve our experiments on them as those we just destroyed from the pods,' the doctor explained.

'They intend to make them into zombies?' I asked.

'Not really. They wanted to see if the babies could mutate better because of their special bloodline. They wanted to create soldiers that will know when to run away from danger and will not be affected by mother nature,' the doctor answered.

'So they decided to rob these pups of their lives for their selfish gains,' Dominus said shaking his head from side to side.

'I guess this is the point where I ask you guys to step out of the room and go up the ladder. I just have to put this wire on this one and the pods will destroy one after the other. As the doctor had rightly said, we might end up blowing up the entire building in the process since we don't know how this whole place was wired. So I want you all away from here before I do it,' Asher said folding his hands on his chest.

'I am not leaving you here, Asher. We will leave together when you are ready,' I said giving no room for argument.

'Can I change your mind?' Asher asked raising a brow.

'No,' I said stubbornly, then turned to Dominus and said, 'Take everyone out of here. Once you are outside and some distance away from this building, mind link me.'

Dominus nodded without arguing with me. He then left the way for everyone to follow.

'You should have left me here. Lance will have my head if anything happens to you,' Asher said as soon as the others were out of the room.

'And Dawn will scratch my eyes out if anything happens to you. Do you see why I can't leave you now?'

'I am hurt. I thought for a moment there that you were going to say you couldn't afford to lose me, so you stayed,' Asher said, feigning hurt and placing a hand exaggeratedly on his chest.

'Stop fooling around, Asher, it doesn't suit you,' I said, walking away from him to inspect the room.

'We are out. Be careful down there,' Dominus said into the mind link then closed it without waiting for my reply.

'They are out. We can start,' I said and Asher nodded before walking to the wires he had prepared. Once he made sure they were properly twisted together, he lit the switch and we took off.

We had not gotten to the ladder before we started hearing the pods blowing off one after the other. The sound of shattering glasses filled the air.

By the time we got to the ladder, a big explosion shook the whole building, and Asher fell off the ladder with a great thud. I climbed the ladder first so he was behind me.

I shouted his name with dread and started descending but I stopped when I saw him stand up and started ascending again. He motioned for me to go ahead and I quickly did, not wanting to obstruct his way.

When I got into the room from where we descended, I was expecting Asher to come out immediately, but he tarried, so I looked back down to see that he looked disoriented.

I called his name out loud and he looked up at me and then continued ascending. When he was almost outside, I pulled at his hand, and he fell into the room. I pulled him up and ran outside with his hand around my shoulders.

Dominus saw us coming and ran towards us, relieving me of Asher's weight. The explosion was rocking the house behind us. I could hear bricks falling out of place one after the other.

'What happened?' Dominus asked shouting loud as the explosion continued ringing out loud.

'He fell,' I answered simply as there was no time for explanation.

We got to the car and Dominus made Asher lean against the car as he started fingering his head to see if he was injured.

'You have no wound on your head. Why are you acting dazed?' Dominus asked looking at Asher closely. I was beside them looking at Asher too with concern.

Asher couldn't answer the question as the final explosion collapsed the entire building. I was sure at that moment that the noise could be heard from miles away. We all dodged for cover just in case the explosion threw debris our way.

'Mind link Dawn or call her to stop. She is making my head hurt,' Asher said when the noise of the explosion had died down. He was sitting on the floor beside the car holding his head in his hands.

'What do you mean?' I asked dropping my knees beside him. Dominus did the same

'I don't know either but it seems she is trying to get into my mind. And whatever she is doing is making my head hurt,' Asher explained.

'Tell her to stop. Tell her she is hurting you,' I said to Asher.

'I can't communicate with her. It seems she has gone haywire. She is not listening,' Asher shouted clutching his head harder.

'Lucia, where are you?' I screamed into the mind link. I didn't even think of asking Dominus to mind-link her.

'I am in the room with Dawn. She is going crazy saying something was wrong with Asher, and she needs to get into his mind to find out what was going on,' Lucia answered, sounding frantic.

'You need to make her stop. Tell her whatever she is trying to do is killing her mate. She needs to stop,' I screamed into the link then closed it.

Two of the golden wolf soldiers had to hold Asher down to stop him from injuring himself as he kept thrashing around. I could see blood trickling out of his nose.

About four minutes later, which seemed like an eternity, Asher started calming down. First, he stopped thrashing around, then he dropped his hands from holding his head and lay tiredly on the floor.

Dominus and one soldier helped him sit up. I jumped into the car and brought out tissue paper from the car safe so that he could clean his nose. What the hell just happened?

'I think we should go,' Asher said weakly.

'Do you know what just happened?' I asked Asher.

'I have no idea. But if Dawn intended to kill me, that would have been a good avenue,' Asher said closing his eyes and resting his head on the car door. He looked drained of any strength.

'I guess we should go so that we can find out what happened,' Dominus said, and I quickly made the sitting arrangement since we had others with us, and we headed back to the council.

Asher slept all the way. Since I met him, I had never seen him that drained. What had Dawn done that caused that type of reaction in him?

We got to the council and I told Dominus to take Asher to the citadel. I had to get the breeders and the doctors settled in.

Lance was waiting by the time I was through at the guest house where I wanted the breeders and the doctors to stay. He hugged me and kissed my head smiling happily.

'I missed you,' he whispered in my ears and I smiled in response. Our relationship was still a big wonder for me. While we were growing up, I never would have thought that Lance would one day stop being my brother and become my mate.

I stepped back from Lance's hug, turned around, and was surprised to see who I saw. I had expected him to drop the prisoners and then go back to High Moon. I had not expected him to still be around.

'Dad. You are here,' I asked.

'Yes, and your mum too. But she is at the citadel. She said something about Dawn having a meltdown, so she and Grandma Gina went to attend to her. How was your trip?'

'It was more of a raid than a trip and it was a close call for Asher today. I was scared for a minute there that we might lose him. I have never been so scared,' I said.

'What happened?' Dad asked.

'Whatever meltdown Dawn was having was affecting him to the extent that blood was coming out of his nose, and he was thrashing around like he was going mad. It took Dominus and two other soldiers to hold him down,' I explained.

'I think we had better get to the citadel and find out what exactly went down between those two,' Lance said maneuvering me towards the citadel.

The golden wolf soldiers I had come with soon fell into step with us as we walked briskly toward the citadel.

It had been a close call for Asher and I wanted to know why he had to go through all that!