Savage Silence: A Dire Wolves Mission (The Devil's Dires Book 4) (13 page)

T
he wind
on top of the north ridge blew through Thaus’ fur, bringing with it the scent of the bastards below him. For almost an hour, he sat and watched as the large wolves—the ones who weren’t true wolves at all but shifters—picked their way up the rocky slope. Inching closer all the time. On target to reach the cabin as if they knew where it was. The more he watched, the more he saw how direct their path was, the more he knew how much trouble Ariel was in. And the more his fury grew.

Phego, back from a run along the western trail to evaluate the pacing of the intruders, crept through the trees and joined him on the overlook. Thaus shifted human when his Dire brother did, the two crouching behind a sliver of rock, still watching. Still waiting.

“They’re climbing slow but on a straight trajectory,” Phego whispered with his brow furrowed. “Is that the way you originally came up the mountain?”

“No.” Thaus stared hard, wanting every single one of the fuckers below dead. “They know where they’re going.”

“How?”

“Either they have some sort of sense for her, which I doubt as she has no true connection to the Kwauhl pack, or…”

His growl cut him off, the sound too strong to hold back.

“I’m not following,” Phego said. “If there’s no pack connection, then how do they know where to go without tracking you two? It’s not like any of us told them where you’d be.”

“They’re tracking her.”

“But you just said—”

Thaus slammed his fist into the boulder, snarling violently as pieces fell together in his mind. “They know where we are even though they shouldn’t, and they’re not following any residual scent trail.”

Phego’s eyes went wide. “By the gods. They fucking chipped her.”

By the gods was right. Though Thaus hadn’t shared her history with the other Dires, he knew enough of it to have a feeling for what had happened to her. Which meant pieces of history were about to become current events.

“She refuses to be touched,” Thaus said, his brain working through a pattern he didn’t want to make sense of. But he would…he had to. “She’s terrified of being held down. She was kidnapped and held against her will, but she escaped. She ran from them and made it pretty far, but then Glaxious brought up some centuries-old contract out of the blue after she joined the neighboring pack.”

Phego’s snarl joined his own. “Convenient, no?”

“No. Planned.” Thaus shook off as much of his rage as he could, focusing hard on what he could do for Ariel’s safety and not what he knew had to be true. If he thought about that…if he let himself truly consider what must be, he’d knock down the whole mountain in revenge.

But he needed to tell Phego.

“The kidnappers microchipped her like a fucking dog, and Glaxious knows it.”

Phego was silent for a moment, watching the wolves below. “Which means the other Omegas could be chipped as well.”

Thaus’ heart jumped, the damned thing missing a beat as that reality washed over him. He’d been so concerned about Ariel that he hadn’t considered the others. The Dires had joked for years about being chipped, as Deus, their tech genius, had tracked them via their cell phones. But true microchipping, placing a piece of equipment under the skin of a shifter without their knowledge, was universally thought of as disgusting. It removed a person’s ability to run, to hide, to have free will over their location. It was simply something that wasn’t done in any form.

Except by the bastards who’d taken Ariel, apparently.

There would be other Omegas with chips. Thaus didn’t doubt that for a second. “We need to let Blasius know, and we need to kill these fuckers—especially their Alpha—so they don’t go pulling up the next Omega who happens to be close enough to challenge for.”

“We’ll need Deus and Doc Shadow from the Feral Breed to look Ariel over,” Phego said.

Thaus couldn’t even picture that possibility. “She’ll hate that. She won’t want to be touched.”

“You’re her mate—you can stay with her and try to keep her calm. But if she’s chipped, you have to get that thing out. Who knows if there are more packs like Glaxious with connections to the bastards who stole the shewolves? They could come back for her at any time. Removing that chip has to take priority.”

Thaus knew that was true, but he was too locked into the past to really give the future much of his attention. Too stuck in the guilt eating him up inside. “I thought we took care of the Omegas.”

“We did,” Phego said with a growl. “We tracked down every fucking one. How this pack managed to figure out about chips we knew nothing about is beyond me, but we’ll fix it. We will make sure those women are all safe. Starting by burying every one of these motherfuckers in a wall of mud and rock.”

“We’d better. My mate’s life depends on it.”

“
H
ow’d
you get stuck with babysitting duty this time?” Ariel paced the kitchen, staying far away from Thaus’ packmate, Mammon. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she just didn’t know him.

Okay, fine. She didn’t trust him. She wanted to because he was with Thaus, but that wasn’t happening. He was a big, scary, wolf shifter with shoulders the size of a small car. She had a right to be a little wary.

“Babysitting?” Mammon scoffed. “I consider it hanging out with my new pack sister. So, tell me, Ariel, how’d you end up mated to tall, dark, and dangerous out there?”

Ariel huffed a laugh. “He came rolling into a negotiation over who got to own me, and the fates took over.”

Mammon growled low. “No one owns you. We’ll make damn sure of it.”

If she’d been a little younger, she might have blushed. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He glanced down at his phone and smiled. The look worked for him, made him seem so much…smaller? No, not smaller. Less intimidating. A smiling Mammon was a not-so-scary Mammon.

“News from the guys?” Ariel doubted it, but she hoped. She hoped hard. She missed Thaus and worried about him out there. She wanted this attack over so they could start a life together. They hadn’t even taken the time to discuss where they’d go after this.

“Huh?” Mammon glanced up as his phone vibrated in his hand. “Oh no. My mate. She texts me sometimes.”

“Texts or sexts?”

His eyebrow went up in a cocky sort of way. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Not really. What I would like to know is what’s happening out there.”

“Nothing.”

“How do you know?”

Mammon shrugged, still looking at his phone. “Because I know.”

But Ariel wasn’t convinced. “What if the explosives went off early?”

He snorted. “Not possible.”

“You act like you know.”

“I do know.”

“How?”

“Trust me, sweetheart,” Mammon said as he typed on his phone again. “When that thing blows, you’ll know. The whole damn mountain will know. Thaus isn’t going for subtle.”

“I need more data than that.” And that right there was the trouble with being so analytical. Ariel needed information. Processes. That was her job. Dissect data, eliminate possibilities until a diagnosis could be reached, treat as specified. With Thaus out in the woods and not feeding her information about what he saw, she couldn’t decide how bad things were. But she felt him—his worry, his fear, his fury. The man was on edge, and she had no clear understanding of the reason why.

Ugh, so frustrating.

The sound of Mammon’s phone vibrating again grated on her nerves. “How can you just sit there and text?”

“Because I know they’re doing what they need to. My job is to chill until shit kicks off. And my mate wants to talk to me.”

“So we do nothing.”

“Yep,” he said, popping the P like some sort of adolescent. “Until we’re needed.”

“And we’ll know that how?”

“You’ll just know.”

Ariel was about ready to throw a book at his head. “Can you put the damned phone down? I don’t know how I’ll just magically know when—”

The cabin shook with what felt like the power of a huge earthquake. Plates rattled, cabinet doors popped open, and Ariel swayed on her feet. The entirety of the earth seemed to move beneath her. Mammon simply smiled and tucked his phone into his pocket as he rose to his feet.

“Told ya we’d know.”

Ariel could only stare, her heart racing in her chest. That was what they’d been waiting for? That didn’t feel like a small explosion to start a mudslide—that felt as if the world was ending all around them.

But before she could say a word, Mammon’s eyes darted to something behind her, and a roar sounded from his chest. He was across the room in a heartbeat, his hands rough and hard as he grabbed her. As he yanked her right off her feet.

Visions swirled, blocking out the reality she knew had to be there. Pictures of metal tables and chains, wires suspending women from the ceiling, and tools she couldn’t even focus on for fear of throwing up. She was back there. Back in that place that had tried to steal her soul.

She was lost.

The world spun as she tried to scream, but it was no use. Panic set in, lights faded, and the sound of her own heart pounding drowned her.

And then the front door exploded inward.

“
R
eady
?”

Phego nodded, silent and mostly still as he watched over the drop zone. Thaus had set the charges, had planned and plotted and meticulously mapped out each and every one so he could loosen as much of the underlying support as possible with one blast. Every bomb linked to the detonator he held, the life of every wolf below also in his hand.

“Going live.” Thaus closed his eyes and said a silent prayer that the forest would someday forgive him, and then he entered the detonation code.

One second…

Two seconds…

Three—

The explosion ripped through the valley below, a cloud of dust and debris shooting into the air from above them. Phego watched the wall of rock begin to break and slide, but Thaus focused lower. He kept his eyes glued on the team that had been making their way up the slope. The ones who didn’t have time to get out of the way.

Thaus focused on his victims.

But when boulders began slamming into the first wolves on the hill, Thaus’ show ended. He’d done what he needed to, and he had no regrets about that. He also didn’t need to watch all those men die. He had a mate to protect.

The ground was still shaking, mud still falling down the mountain, when Thaus shifted to his wolf form and headed for the cabin. There was nothing left to do but wait for the dust to settle before the second part of the operation could begin. The retrieval. But he wanted to be with Ariel before he started the long and arduous task of picking through the rubble to make sure every wolf, every shifter that had been coming for her, was dead. He would not leave her open for another attack.

Over rocks and fallen trees, he ran with Phego right beside him. His Dire brother was as steady and sure as ever, keeping up without complaint. Phego hadn’t questioned Thaus’ need to be done, hadn’t bothered trying to convince him to hit the hill for pre-stage recon before returning to the little cabin. He probably already knew Thaus would have refused. All Thaus could think about, all he cared about in that moment, was Ariel.

He needed to be by her side.

The two wolves were halfway back to the cabin when a sudden bolt of fear almost took Thaus to his knees. It damn near sent him sprawling, but Thaus fought it back. That fear wasn’t his own; it wasn’t from inside his mind or heart. The fear was pure Ariel.

As he regained his footing, Thaus let loose a roar that shook the treetops and lengthened his stride. There was no warning, no feeling of small fear or more worry than what he’d become accustomed to as her base level of him not beside her. No. This was sudden, sharp, and strong…like one of her panic attacks but cranked up to a level ten. Whatever had happened, he needed to fix it. He needed to get to Ariel.

And he would kill Mammon if his brother wasn’t protecting her.

P
anic attacks were a bitch
. Ariel had dealt with them before—lost moments and blackouts as her thoughts got locked away somewhere inside her mind for safekeeping, the pressure on her chest making her feel as if she couldn’t breathe, the pounding of her heart in her ears to the point that she couldn’t hear anything else. She’d suffered through them hundreds of times at that point, but she’d never had one clear up so fast. One second, she was lost in the fear that Mammon’s touch incited. In the next, she was spinning for the door that had just shattered, ready to fight.

She was not going back to the chains.

Mammon’s growl followed her as she moved slightly behind him. She wasn’t stupid—the man was six foot six of solid muscle. Who wouldn’t let him take the lead?

Three shifters raced inside, all heading straight for Mammon. Ariel kept her eyes on the door, though. She still wasn’t stupid—those three were the distraction. The real danger was on its way.

And it arrived in the form of Alpha Chilton.

“We meet again, Omega.”

She crept along the length of the island, staying out of the way of Mammon’s fight but not moving toward the asshole at the door.

“What? You no longer know how to speak?” Chilton’s arrogant smirk sent a chill down her spine, but she stayed focused and as calm as she could be considering the situation.

“I don’t need to talk to you,” she said, eyeing the door behind him and judging it too hard to get to with him in the way.

“Oh, but you do. You have a choice to make. See, your mate is in a lot of danger.”

That pulled her up short, even as her brain told her it was probably a lie. “What kind of danger?”

“The kind that breaks that mating bond and sends him to the hell he belongs in,” Chilton said, his words coming out with a growl. “You have five seconds to come with me, or my men kill him.”

Ariel huffed a laugh. “Thaus already set off the mudslide. Your team is dead.”

“What…did you think I only brought the one team? Oh, right… None of you knew about the ones on the south slope.” He tapped a finger to his chin. “How hard do you think it was to send a third group on another trek up the eastern trails to surround those two men with the explosives? Your mate, Thaus…and his friend. What was his name again? Oh, right. He took his moniker from the demon Belphegor. You would know him as Phego.”

The cold chill of surrender crept up her spine. She was too keyed up to feel Thaus through their mating bond, too frazzled even to reach for him. All she knew was that she’d dreaded him going out to those cliffs all day, and Chilton had just reminded her why. He likely had her mate penned in, and there was almost nothing she could do about it.

“Call them off,” Ariel said, standing tall as Mammon tossed one of the shifters he was fighting across the room. She couldn’t even think of them, though. Couldn’t do anything to help Mammon at that moment. Her goal was to keep Thaus alive; nothing could deter her from that.

“Come with me now, and I’ll make sure he lives”—Chilton’s smile grew—“to make it back to the cabin.”

“Not good enough.”

He shrugged. “That’s the best I can offer.”

Ariel glanced toward Mammon. The man was practically pinned down by the other shifters, fighting his damnedest to get out of the pile. And still, even with two shifters trying hard to take him down, his eyes kept darting her way. Watching. Worrying.

She had become a serious distraction. She needed to buy the Dires some time.

“Your best sucks.” Ariel took a deep breath and held her head high as she readied herself to fight back.

Chilton only smiled. “I’m so glad you said that.”

With a whistle from the Alpha, four more men ran in the door. Mammon snarled and clawed at the floor, but he was too trapped to help. And Ariel…well, she wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way. The four men grabbed her and yanked her toward the door, holding her arms to her sides and lifting her right off her feet. She was trapped. Helpless. Completely at their mercy.

And seriously pissed off.

But when she was thrown to the dirt in the front yard, that rage quickly melted into fear. Four more men stood along the tree line. Waiting for her, it seemed. Nine to one…she had no chance with those odds. And if Thaus made it back, if he reached them right then, she doubted even he could win in that fight.

“You’ve been busy,” she said, gritting her teeth as one of the shifters tied her hands behind her back. She choked back a sob and fought a wave of panicked dizziness when his hands grabbed her wrists, when his skin touched hers. She couldn’t lose herself. Not right then. She had to stay focused and calm so she could figure out an escape plan. She was on her own in this one.

“I like to keep as many balls in the air as I can. Pack Alpha for Glaxious was only one.” Chilton nodded to someone behind her.

“Move it,” a harsh voice said as someone yanked her to her feet and pushed her forward. Ariel stumbled, almost falling. She couldn’t fight back, and she couldn’t shift. If she tried, she’d rip her shoulders to pieces, and that would take time to heal. Time she didn’t have. So she went along with her kidnappers, and she held on to her sanity with every bit of strength she had left. She also pushed at her mating bond, but she was too keyed up, too close to panic, to know if there was anything coming back. Still, she tried. Because Thaus would come for her. He’d save her if she couldn’t save herself. He’d never give up looking. She just needed to survive long enough for him to find her, which was something she had experience doing. The staying alive. The rescuing by someone else would be a first.

Two men half walked, half dragged her through the woods while Chilton and the rest of the wolves trailed them. The rocks bit into her bare feet and the branches from the trees whipped her in the face, but she didn’t react. She refused to show a single sign of weakness. She was also too busy scoping out the land and looking for any advantage she could find.

But as they reached a precipice of stone that dropped at the sharpest angle she’d ever seen, Ariel was pretty sure her time was up. The sea below looked rough and deadly, the rock wall hard and impassable. And the trail leading in the direction they seemed to be headed? Too narrow to traverse. At least to her. Besides, even if she could survive the fall, she couldn’t swim. She’d drown for sure.

“Keep moving. Unless you want to find out how cold that water is down there,” one of the captors said. His leer chilled her spine but not as much as that potential fall.

“It’s hard to balance.” Ariel turned, offering her hands. They had to cut her free before they…

“Look how dumb,” the man said. “She thinks we’re going to make this easy on her.”

Okay. So…balancing on a precipice without her arms or hands. Tricky. But at least they’d stopped touching her. She’d been in worse spots before. She just needed to calm down, breathe slowly, and not fall.

Oh, and not look down even for a second.

With her stomach in knots but her eyes locked on the point where the trail and the rock wall met, Ariel took her first step. And then her second. Not looking down. Not lifting her feet up more than she absolutely had to. She would survive this kidnapping. She had to.

It took the group far less time than she’d assumed to make it across the thin trail and around to the next plateau. Ariel could have sworn she held her breath the entire time, especially if the headache and churning stomach were any indication. No wonder the Dires had no idea the group had come up this way. That anyone would choose that particular path seemed ludicrous.

“Just a bit longer,” Chilton said as he headed south along the cliff face. “Don’t get scared now.”

He pushed Ariel in front of him and kept them moving. This time, toward the drop-off. Ariel couldn’t keep the fear back at the sight of the foamy water below. But as that burn of panic grew, so did something else. A comforting sensation of safety. A soft, pulsing connection to another person. Growing bigger, warmer, and closer with every second.

Thaus was coming.