Chapter 266 Fennigan, Back Off
Jax stepped out of the Alpha suite, pulling the thick oak door completely shut behind him. He didn't take a single step down the hallway until he heard the heavy, iron thunk of the deadbolt aggressively sliding into place, sealing Ginny and the pups perfectly safely inside the fortified room.
The exact second the lock clicked, the Beta exploded into motion.
He didn't bother with the paved driveway. Jax threw himself out the side entrance of the packhouse and tore straight through the freezing, frosted tree line with blinding, supernatural speed. The icy mountain wind violently whipped at his torn tactical vest, his heavy combat boots tearing massive gouges into the damp earth as he pushed his werewolf stamina to its absolute limit.
He reached the towering, wrought-iron perimeter gates just as a set of heavy halogen headlights violently pierced the pitch-black mountain road.
Flash. Flash. Two sharp, desperate bursts of light cut through the fog.
Jax stepped directly into the center of the road, his massive, heavily muscled frame illuminated in the harsh glare. All around him, the glowing eyes of half a dozen fully shifted elite perimeter guards materialized seamlessly from the brush. Their low, blood-chilling, feral growls vibrated dangerously through the freezing air, entirely ready to rip the uninvited human vehicle to absolute shreds.
Jax raised a single, unyielding hand. He threw the sharp, highly tactical stand-down signal to his men. The aggressive growls were instantly silenced. The massive wolves obediently melted right back into the suffocating shadows, allowing the Weaver's heavily modified, matte-black SUV to slowly roll through the massive iron gates.
Jax didn't get in. He jogged alongside the driver's side window as it rolled down.
"Drive," Jax barked, pointing a bloodied finger straight toward the impenetrable darkness of the eastern thicket. "Take it as deep into the tree line as the suspension will physically handle. Do not stop until the tires spin out."
The Weaver didn't argue. He slammed his foot on the gas. The heavy SUV violently tore off the paved driveway, aggressively bouncing, sliding, and violently jarring over the frozen mud, jagged rocks, and massive exposed roots. They pushed the vehicle to its absolute mechanical limit, the engine screaming until the heavy-treaded tires finally lost their battle, spinning out and sinking deep into an impassable, freezing trench of mountain muck.
"This is it," Jax snapped, ripping the passenger door open before the engine even died. "Out. Now. We are on foot."
The Weaver—a wiry, heavily caffeinated man wrapped in a thick, insulated parka—stumbled out into the freezing, biting wind. He popped the rear hatch, his breath pluming in the icy air as he stared in absolute horror at the pitch-black, razor-sharp wall of ancient briars looming directly ahead of them.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" the Weaver hissed. His voice was trembling violently, his teeth chattering as he struggled to haul two massive, incredibly heavy Pelican cases full of highly sensitive decryption servers out of the trunk. "I'm a digital ghost, Jax! I sit in an ergonomic chair with climate control! Now you want me to haul fifty pounds of custom-built, highly sensitive tech through the freezing mud and razor-wire thorns into the middle of fucking nowhere?!"
Jax didn't even blink. He closed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, his massive, blood-caked hand violently shooting out to grab the thick front collar of the Weaver's parka. He lifted the tech effortlessly onto his toes, pulling him mere inches from his glowing, lethal golden eyes.
"My Alpha is currently kneeling in the dirt over a steel hatch in the middle of fucking nowhere, and he is rapidly losing his goddamn mind," Jax snarled. His voice wasn't a yell; it was a dark, vibrating promise of absolute violence. "If you drop that gear, or if you slow me down by complaining about the mud for even one second, you won't live long enough to see the sunrise. Pick up the cases. Move."
The Weaver swallowed hard, his face completely draining of color. He scrambled to grip the heavy plastic handles of the Pelican cases, and the two men plunged directly into the suffocating, pitch-black nightmare of the Blackwood forest.
Fennigan didn’t even wait for Jax to finish his sentence.
The exact second the Alpha King locked his glowing, liquid-mercury eyes onto the Weaver, he moved with a blinding, terrifying speed that the human brain couldn't even process. Fennigan crossed the cratered clearing in a single, massive bound. He reached out with his blood-slicked, heavily scarred hands and violently grabbed the thick front of the Weaver's expensive winter parka.
With a single, effortless heave, Fennigan violently dragged the terrified hacker completely off his feet, hauling him through the freezing mountain mud and aggressively slamming him down directly in front of the massive, rusted steel bay doors.
"Open it," Fennigan snarled, his voice a vibrating, subsonic, demonic rumble that violently rattled the hacker's teeth.
The Weaver hit the freezing dirt hard, gasping for breath as he scrambled backward until his spine hit the immovable steel of the bunker. He looked up at the towering, feral werewolf standing over him, then frantically turned his wide, terrified eyes to the massive, dead control panel buried in the rock face.
The hacker's hands were physically shaking as he reached out, wiping the crushed earth away from the thick, industrial seams. He pulled a heavy flashlight from his belt, shining the harsh beam over the mechanical hydraulics deeply embedded in the stone.
"I... I can get it," the Weaver stammered, his voice cracking violently as he stared at the sheer, military-grade complexity of the locking mechanism. "The power is cut to the exterior panel, which means the internal hydraulics are locked in a closed analog circuit. I have to drill the casing, splice my rig directly into the primary copper lines, and manually rewrite the hydraulic pressure codes. I can get it open, but... it’s just going to take some time."
"WE DON'T HAVE TIME!"
The agonizing, booming roar violently ripped from Fennigan's chest, echoing through the dead forest with enough force to shake the canopy.
He lunged forward, his massive hands grabbing the Weaver by the shoulders and violently shaking the fragile human. "My mate is down there! You don't have time! You open this goddamn door right now, or I will tear you apart!"
"Fennigan, back off!"
Jax dropped the massive, eighty-pound Pelican case into the mud with a heavy thud and violently shoved himself between the raging Alpha and the terrified tech. The Beta threw both of his massive hands aggressively against Fennigan's chest, using every single ounce of his werewolf strength to physically halt the King's destructive path.
"You need to stop and think, Fenn!" Jax ordered, his golden eyes flashing with a desperate, fiercely loyal authority. He pushed his brother back an inch. "Look at him! If you push him right now, his hands are going to shake. If he rushes and crosses the wrong wire, it could trigger a catastrophic failsafe. It could permanently lock down the internal bulkheads, or worse, purge the oxygen in the bunker. You want to risk that?!"