Chapter 154
Blake
Three in the morning in Fairbanks's industrial district, and the world looked like it had given up. Broken windows, rusted chain-link, warehouses that hadn't seen legitimate business in decades. The kind of neighborhood where you didn't ask questions and nobody offered answers.
The Frozen North Casino was a joke of a cover—plywood over the windows, faded "Permanently Closed" signs, a padlock that had been picked so many times the metal was worn smooth. But the thermal scope told the real story: twenty-three heat signatures inside, most clustered on the main floor.
Twenty-three wolves who might know where my mate was.
The memory hit me again—that empty bathroom, Cole's shattered tray, the way Kara's scent just ended like she'd been erased from existence. My fingers dug into the van's frozen roof hard enough to dent metal.
Control, Asher's voice cut through the mind-link, sharp despite two hundred miles of distance. We need information, not bodies. Not yet.
Yet, I latched onto that word. There will be blood, Asher. So much fucking blood.
I know, and beneath his Alpha authority I felt his barely-leashed rage. But first we find her. Then we paint this state red.
Promise?
Promise.
"Alpha." Devon lowered his scope, hazel eyes reflecting ambient light. Ex-Marine, seen combat in places that made Fairbanks look like Disneyland. Right now his scent was pure professional—alert, controlled, ready. "Thermal confirms Cole's intel. Main floor packed. Second floor has three signatures—two stationary, one mobile."
"Could be our target," I said, voice rougher than intended. My gunpowder and leather scent was already thickening, aggressive enough that my warriors shifted uneasily. I forced it back. Losing control now would get Kara killed. "Dmitri 'Silver Fang' Morozov. Late fifties, heavy build, Russian accent you could cut with a knife."
"And connected to Konstantin's organization," Cole added through the link, mint and ozone feeling cold even as psychic impression. I could sense him in the war room, fingers flying over keyboards. The debt Kara's parents owed didn't vanish. Someone bought it. Someone with resources to track two addicts across state lines and make them disappear.
Someone like Dmitri Morozov, Asher finished, his black ebony darkening to funeral-pyre levels. Who owns the casino where Connor and Celeste racked up their debts. Who has Russian mob ties Boris was too terrified to report. Who's sitting in there right now, probably wondering why his phone hasn't rung with confirmation that Kara's been delivered to whatever hell Konstantin planned.
The image of Kara—small, fierce, terrified Kara who'd finally started trusting us, who'd whispered "I love you" while doubting we deserved it—being handed to the same animals who'd murdered Scarlett Reeves made something inside me break. Clean snap, like bone under pressure. The part of me that had been Blake the artist, Blake the middle brother, Blake who'd turned self-loathing into cruelty—gone. Cauterized by white-hot certainty that I'd burn this city to find her.
"Devon," my voice came out flat, cold, empty of its usual manic edge. "Take Marcus and Elijah. Cover the back. Anyone runs, you stop them. Non-lethally if possible. I don't particularly care about possible."
The warriors exchanged glances. I saw the moment they recognized what I'd become—not their volatile Alpha who threw parties and painted murals, but something new. Something forged in eighteen hours of hell.
"Yes, Alpha," Devon said quietly. The lack of argument told me everything about how I looked right now.
I approached the front door. The padlock was a joke—I ripped it off one-handed, metal screaming. Inside, twenty-three wolves went from relaxed to terrified in a heartbeat.
Good, I thought savagely. Let them taste a fraction of what Kara's feeling.
Blake, Cole's voice softened with worry. Can you hold it together?
I don't know, I admitted. Lying through mind-link was impossible, and I'd promised Kara honesty. If I find out any of these bastards hurt her, if I smell her fear on them...
Then we kill them, Asher said simply. But smart. Information first. Then hell.
I can work with that.
I kicked the door in—didn't bother with the handle, just planted my boot and let supernatural strength do the work. The door exploded inward, wood splintering, hinges shrieking. I stepped through into a scene from a noir film, if noir films smelled like desperation, cheap vodka, and wolves who'd given up.
Battered poker tables, makeshift plywood bar, peeling posters of half-naked women and faded Cyrillic cigarette ads. Bare bulbs dangling from exposed wires. Twenty-three wolves frozen mid-motion—cards, dice, shot glasses clutched in nerveless fingers.
I let my gunpowder and leather flood the room, thick with Alpha dominance. Weaker wolves dropped to their knees on instinct. Someone in back retched as their wolf forced submission their human pride couldn't stomach.
"Everybody on the fucking floor," I said, voice carrying Alpha weight without supernatural compulsion. These weren't pack members raised to obey. These were rogues, outcasts, criminals. "Hands visible. Anyone moves, shifts, even thinks about running, I'll rip your throat out and wear your spine as a necklace."
Vivid enough, cold enough. The holdouts dropped. Within seconds—room full of prone wolves, necks bared, scents a nauseating cocktail of terror and resignation.
Twenty-three confirmed submissions, I reported. No resistance.
As they should be, Asher said grimly. You look like death incarnate, brother.
Good. Maybe one will be scared enough to tell the truth.
All except one.
She came barreling from a back hallway—female wolf, maybe forty in appearance, probably closer to a hundred given the decades of hard living in her scent. Black bodycon top two sizes too small, pleather skirt barely covering her ass, platform heels salvaged from a dumpster.
Her hair sold the image of desperate, fading beauty—platinum blonde from a bottle, teased into an elaborate updo that must've taken an hour. Except two inches of gray-white roots showed, and bald patches near her temples where years of tight styles had killed the follicles.
Her scent: wolf musk, cheap floral perfume failing to mask cigarette smoke and sexual use, decades of nicotine, and underneath—bone-deep fear. Not acute terror, but chronic, gnawing fear that had become baseline.
She skidded to a halt, color draining from her face. Heavy makeup—clumped mascara, shaky eyeliner, blue and purple eyeshadow from a Moscow nightclub circa 1987. Eyes wide with recognition of what I represented: authority, power, the end.
"Please," raspy voice, thick Russian accent turning it to pleez. "Please, Alpha, we do nothing wrong. Just cards, just drinks. No trouble. Please."
I let silence stretch, let fear build until she shook in those ridiculous heels. My wolf wanted to snarl, unleash fury, but something about her—defeated shoulders, scent of old bruises—reminded me of Kara.
Not physically. But the desperation was identical. The calculation weighing survival against dignity. Making herself smaller, trying to disappear while begging mercy.
How many times did Kara stand like that? How many times did she beg me and I just laughed?
"Where's your boss?" I kept my voice flat. "Dmitri Morozov. I know he's here."
Not entirely true—too many bodies, too much desperation to isolate one scent. But she didn't know that. Her eyes darted ceiling-ward, toward those three thermal signatures.