Chapter 35 Grief-Stricken Damsel In Distress

— Kaden —

We were in my office Darren, Stellan and I.

It took me maybe three seconds for my brain to connect all the pieces.

“Stellan. Call all the warriors, have them ready. I want the plane ready in fifteen, and contact established with someone at Ghaelach. Now.”

Stellan nearly jumped at the order, suddenly ripped out of his trance. But he got his baring under him quickly. He was not in this position for nothing.

He rushed out, getting his phone out on the way.

“I’m coming,” said Darren. He had a pack in his arms, and was taking a shirt out and putting it on, then shoes, in rapid order.

“No,” I said.

He looked up sharply with murder in his eyes.

I cut him before he could complain.

“You’re not trained.”

“I’m trained,” he said angrily.

“Not for this. You don’t know how the team operates, you don’t know the tactics, formations, you don’t know who is in what team. I won’t bring an amateur in.”

He opened his mouth to argue some more. I stopped him.

“You’re emotionally invested.”

“And you’re not?” he accused me.

“My emotions are not controlling me,” I said.

He deflated, his emotions clearly in turmoil. “I get it, but I’m not staying behind.”

“Darren—,” I began.

“I can understand. Don’t bring me on the battlefield.” These words seemed to cost him. “But once we get her back, I’ll be with her until we’re back here. Anyone comes after her then, I’ll kill them.”

He didn’t have the eyes of a killer. I know killers. Intimately. He’s not one. At least not yet. He obviously never killed before.

But once we get her, she’s not going to need a killer. She’ll need something better, kinder.

“You come if you do exactly as I ask. Defy me and I send you back, and strip you of your title.”

He nodded, his back rigid, his eyes determined. I saw the defiance in them, but he was railing it in. I suppose if I can trust him as a Gamma, I should be able to trust him with this.

Within the hour we were in the air.

The comfortable seats were off the plane and the long benches that replaced them were filled with men. Some of my bests.

I spent most of the flight organizing with my team leaders, looking at aerial maps of the area. Preparing. The cargo loaded with weapons.

This wasn’t my first rodeo.

My people could get things moving quicker than any I’ve seen.

But never had there been stakes like these.

I put as much ice in my vein as I could. I can’t lead them if I can’t do exactly what I asked Darren to do. Not let my emotions control me.

I was waiting for contact with someone on Ghaelach land, so I didn’t question an unknown number calling me. It should have been on Brandon’s phone though. But I realized this only when I heard Eva’s voice from the receiver.

— Mishka —

This gig was going FUBAR. Make it Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition or Fucked Up By Assholes in the Rear, both would work just fine.

I’m used to SNAFU, but even I have my limits.

We were supposed to sneak in there, quietly, get the merchandise, and get out. This is a freaking packhouse. No one is stupid enough to start a fight right inside a packhouse.

Oh, how wrong was I.

Such stupidity exists, and it never comes alone.

Things were going relatively well, until John received a call. It’s the third time things go south on a job, after a call. Either he’s terrible at planning and leading, or the puppet master is pulling the strings all wrong.

I realized the change of plans only when I heard the first shots. I guess after what happened in Italy, they didn’t want to risk my interference anymore.

I was with Elijah, just the two of us.

Three seconds after he told John on the phone the shield was not where he had expected it to be, the first sounds of a fight were heard.

“Kid. Eli!” I tried to stop him from joining them, my hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t your fight. This is not the plan. Something is off.”

“I can’t back off,” he told me.

“You can. This isn’t your fight.”

“It is. This is my family.”

“They’re gonna get you killed.”

“You don’t understand,” he told me. “I have to. I can’t run away.” He opened the door to step out.

Before the door was completely open, I heard the shot and moved against the wall. I lowered myself on my shin, took a knife in a hand and a handgun in the other.

I saw Elijah fall bonelessly on the ground before I’d gotten my weapons out. There was a hole in his cheekbone.

He wasn’t dead. His feet kept twitching. His hand spasmed a few times before he went into a full-body seizure. The brain was clearly damaged. Given how no one would give him medical attention, if he didn’t die in the next couple of minutes, he’s going to die anyway later, either by being finished off, or just left to rot.

While he seized, around a dozen shots went through the wall above my head at what would have been around chest level. They saw me. I hit a stuffed chair not far from me in an imitation of a falling body. With the fighting in the background and the kid seizing and gurgling on the floor, they’d probably not realized I faked it.

Someone walked in. The moment he was a few inches from the threshold I slam my left fist and the knife it held in the man’s thigh. Then double tapped his face with my right.

There were movements on the other side behind me, so I shove the chair across the room, flying in front of the doorway. In the limited light and chaos. It could easily look like someone running in the opposite direction. Then I waited for the guy I just killed to fall on the ground to use the noise to hide my movements.

I didn’t need to wait as shots went through the doorway and other side of the wall following the chair. And so I faded in the shadows and slipped silently out of the room through the window. By that time Elijah was not moving anymore and was silent. He was gone.

Kids.

Why did it have to be kids again?

If I thought it was the last one to go in this mess, then I was spectacularly wrong.

I watched Westley put bullets in the head of two boys less than fifteen minutes later. They were even younger than Elijah. I had just wanted to get the kid out of this stupid mess, finish the last job before skedaddling outta here and never have anything to do with them again. As things were going, I was getting more and more hibigibies about this place, and this crew, and everything that came with this.

We never went straight after an Alpha before.

I mean, it’s not that it can’t be done. With enough wolfsbane and Myrkalves crafted manacles, nearly any wolf could be subdued. But taking on an Alpha—even more so, an influential and respected one—has far more reaching implications that merely restraining or killing him.

It’s the type of things that can start a war.

But never this thought had ever been as true as when a dying man’s words about a young girl changed all the stakes of this mission.

The Hellhound’s sister.

These idiots had no idea what they have started.

I never personally met the Hellhound, but I got it from good sources. You don’t attack his allies lightly. But taking his sister. Trying to shoot his sister.

Man.

We’re fucked.

Maybe you’ve heard some stories about Genghis Khan, like how a Sultan insulted him by humiliating three of his peaceful emissaries, and in response he obliterated his empire in less than two years, had every castle, town, and farms burnt down and diverted a river over the sultan’s birthplace to erase him from maps and history. Or how, when his favourite son-in-law was killed, his daughter demanded vengeance so he killed the killers whole nation, every men, women, children, babies, cats and dogs, then put their skull in gigantic pyramids. 1,7 million skulls for one man’s life.

There are not many recent examples of such extreme vengeance in modern history.

But tonight, I felt like I was at the doorstep, about to cross into history and possibly trigger such an event.

Naturally, there were not 1,7 million of us, but it doesn’t mean we can’t be exterminated all the same. It’s just that we won’t leave as strong an impression into history.

And here I was standing with the side of the losers—that didn’t respect me, didn’t pay me properly, and were worth neither the effort, nor my life.

So when I stood in that room, with this pretty girl who just gave me probably the biggest opportunity of my life, and averted my future possible obliteration, I didn’t restrain myself from grinning like a Cheshire cat at my good fortune.

“Raise your shirt,” I told her.

“What?” she sputtered.

“Up to here,” I said levelling my hand just above her breast.

“And here I thought you were trying to get out of trouble,” she grumbled as I took out my best hidden gun, a Seecamp LSW 32.

“Your clothes are too tight. It’s nice to look at, but terrible to hide a gun. Your boobs are perfect though.”

“Euh, what?”

“Here.” I pointed between her breast, and just a little lower—the lowest part of her sternum. “I’m gonna hide this there,” I said showing her the small pocket pistol.

She blinked a little confused.

“If something happens you need to be able to defend yourself,” I explained.

“I have claws,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Of course, but those are close quarter weapons. This is long-range. You don’t want to get up close and personal if you can avoid it.”

“I trained,” she explained.

“Sure. You killed anyone before?” I asked, she hesitated. Of course she never did. “How about three at once,” she frowned.

“You fight long range, so that if it gets close range, you have as little enemies left to fight as possible, and ideally, they’re already injured,” I explained. “This is when your training comes in. Shirt up.”

She complied a little begrudgingly.

I slid the leather tongue around her bra in between her cups, snapping the small holster in the middle just below her breast, fixed on the centre of her bra, where her shirt will bulge a little and hide the weapon.

“This,” I said, showing her the handgun. “Has six rounds.” I took the magazine out showing her how to do it. “Ever used a gun?”

“No,” she admitted.

“If they’re close, aim for the head. Wolves are tough to kill, otherwise, aim for the chest. It’s a bigger target, harder to miss. Even if you don’t kill them, you’ll slow them down. It’ll give you time to shift, and will make them easier to kill.”

She nodded.

“I have two spare magazines.” I gave them to her. She put them in her pockets. “Small bullets so limited damage, but hollow points so less chance of the bullet going through, and it should compensate some for the smaller caliber. Don’t go shooting through walls and furniture. It won’t be reliable enough. You need big caliber to use this tactic efficiently. The safety is here.” I showed her. Then I holstered the gun. And showed her how to unholster it efficiently.

“Reaching for it is not gonna be subtle,” she told me, practicing her draw.

“You’re a woman, just say you’re gonna bang them so they let you leave or something. Let them believe you’re undressing, then shoot them before they even realize you have a gun.”

She looked at me sceptically, but didn’t argue any further.

“I thought you told my brother you’d protect me?”

“I did, I will, and I’m good. But no one is invincible. The best way to protect someone is to make sure they can protect themselves.”

“So you’re not protecting me?”

“So I’m making sure that if I can’t, you can,” I said, more seriously now that I’ve ever been with her so far. She needed to understand. No security is ever assured on a battlefield.

She nodded.

I took one of my knives—the smallest—from my ankle and put it on hers.

She nodded again and drew it a few times to get the hang of this. I didn’t even have to ask. Good girl.

“You ready for this?” I asked her.

She nodded affirmatively.

“Now make sure you look miserable as if I tried to fondle your boobies and extort all the money I could from your brother,” I told her with a twinkle.

She smiled.

I scowled at her some.

She readjusted her expression to a very passable grief-stricken damsel in distress, and we walked out.