Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham

56 hours until the FIB arrive…

 

Holy fucking ow.

I groaned as I came to, my ears ringing and head pounding with a wound I could feel throbbing against my temple.

My head hurt. No, fuck that, my entire body hurt like a sonofabitch and I hissed a curse between my teeth as I tried to push myself upright and pain daggered through my right shoulder harsh enough to blind me.

There was a weight pinning me down, crushing me beneath it and the heat of it was scalding against my skin.

I gritted my teeth against the whimper which tried to escape me, knowing he'd only make it worse if I showed my pain. I'd had broken bones and dislocated sockets before. I could lock down that feeling of agony, isolate it away from myself and ignore it almost entirely. And that was what I had to do if there was any hope of him healing me again any time soon.

"Sometimes I'm ashamed of my pack mates seeing you at all," my Father snarled, his disgusted tone saying he'd seen me flinch when I'd first registered the pain. "What must they think of me when they see how weak my offspring is? Of course, you and I know you get your weakness from that waste of space mother of yours, but I guess that's what I get for fucking a weakling pack whore like her. In hindsight, her pussy really wasn't worth the bother it’s cost me now, was it?"

"Just tell me what you need me to do, Papa," I said, my voice weak as my head spun from the pain of my wounds and I fought to make sense of anything. My eyes were still clamped firmly shut and I knew I needed to open them. But if I did that, I'd have to see his face. Drink in the cruelty in his eyes. Know all too certainly that there wasn't going to be anyone here to help me today. "Please," my voice cracked and I knew I'd lost the battle against showing my pain as a small whimper escaped me. "I'll do better next time."

"Holy fuck, you're alive," a rough, masculine voice which had no business trespassing in my memories growled as his hands gripped the front of my clothes, the weight on top of me shifting and I couldn't help but flinch in anticipation of the next blow.

"I'll do better," I insisted, recoiling as my muscles tensed and I fought against the fear which was building in my chest. I'd already failed. I knew it. So now I just had to face my punishment.

"Rosalie," Cain barked and I was jolted out of my memories, out of the hell that I'd grown up in and the darkness which lingered in my soul because of the stronzo who had sired me.

My eyes snapped open and I found him there. The man who had sworn he hated me. The one who had left me to suffer in the dark. The one bound to me by moon magic and a curse I couldn't help but bestow.

"Mason?" I breathed and something in his gaze shattered at my use of that name, a wall crumbling down between us before his mouth was on mine and his hands slid around my waist.

I moaned into his kiss, tasting his own hurt there alongside mine, his own demons and monsters from his past. As well as his own desperate need to find a place where he belonged and someone he belonged there with. He was so empty inside. So fragile and alone and I just wanted to crawl inside his skin and take away that feeling. I wanted to fill him with light and banish his shadows just as clearly as he was working to banish mine.

Magic flared across my skin as he worked to heal me and the damage to my shoulder and skull were mended between the press of his lips against mine and the pressure of his tongue pushing into my mouth. I kissed him like I wanted to devour him, my fingers sliding into his short hair and my spine arching against the hard floor beneath me as I fought to claim more contact between his body and mine.

A feral growl pierced the air and suddenly Cain was thrown off of me, my eyes snapping open as I gasped in shock, shoving up onto my elbows as I found him and Ethan rolling across the floor with fists flying and blood spilling.

"You keep your filthy fucking hands off of her!" Ethan roared. "I'm going to rip your head from your shoulders and crush it between my fists."

"Stop it," I demanded, shoving myself to my feet as Cain snarled ferociously and lunged towards Ethan's throat with his teeth bared - but there wasn't a fang in sight. And as he hesitated for a moment, seeming to realise that, Ethan managed to get a solid punch to his jaw which sent him tumbling off of him.

I ran forward, placing myself between the two of them as I snarled in warning, my gaze flitting back and forth between them while I took note of everything that had happened.

"I can't reach my Wolf," I said, glaring at Ethan as he made a move to try and get past me from his position on the floor, though he just cursed as he fell back onto his ass as he tried to stand.

"Me either," he snapped.

"The Order suppressant tank must have rebooted. And I haven’t taken another antidote shot because I was supposed to be having a few days off," Cain said, running his tongue over his teeth as if to double check and I cursed as I looked across the huge room we were in, recognising the distant hum of the fucking ipump running again.

"How the fuck did that happen?" Ethan demanded.

"I rebooted it after I found Nixon dead down here," Cain spat, looking caught between being smug and realising that he had now fucked himself over as thoroughly as the rest of us.

"I don't know why you're glaring at me for that," Ethan said in a deadly tone. "Your little pal Nixon had my mate down here at his mercy when me and Sin showed up. He was beating her up and clearly planned on doing a lot worse before we managed to use our Orders to overwhelm his magic and kill his sorry ass."

"Is that true?" Cain demanded, his gaze snapping to me fearfully and I shrugged a single shoulder.

"It's not the worst thing I've survived, stronzo, so don't start giving me the puppy eyes over it now. We have more important things to worry about - like where the hell are Roary and Sin?" I turned away from him and scoured the half destroyed room surrounding us, hoping to see them somewhere close by but finding nothing.

Ethan's eyes widened as he looked around the space too, only just seeming to realise that we were down two members of our team.

I fought away the urge to panic as I looked around the ruined remains of the machinery that had been ripped apart in the explosion, but unless their bodies had been destroyed without a trace, there wasn't any sign that they'd been killed in the blast. Which meant they were missing.

"They probably came to their senses over this hopeless plan of yours and decided to save their own asses when they recovered," Cain said bitterly as he pushed himself to his feet.

I turned a scowl on him, striding forward with a growl rumbling in the back of my throat as I forced him to meet my gaze. "Roary gave his life to protect me ten years ago. I don't for one single second believe that he would just abandon me down here for the monsters in this place to find. And Sin is no coward either. So stop spouting your prejudiced bullshit and try to come up with something that is actually helpful to us or keep your fucking mouth shut about things you know nothing about."

Cain glared at me but I didn't give a fuck about hurting his feelings, though as I turned to walk away from him, I noticed his hand hovering over his stomach in a protective way.

"Are you hurt?" I demanded, stalking towards him.

"It's fine," he replied, dropping his hand and backing up, but he winced a little as he did so and I moved forward, snatching the hem of his shirt and yanking it up.

I gasped as I found a lump of shrapnel from the explosion jutting out of his side with blood running steadily down his skin beside it. It looked like the lump of metal was keeping him from bleeding too much, but that thing couldn’t stay there forever.

"Why haven't you healed this?" I demanded.

"Because I'm tapped out," he grunted in return, cutting his eyes away from me and yanking his shirt back down.

"What do you mean? You literally just healed me, so-"

"Well I wasn't tapped out until I did that. I came too and you were there, having a nightmare or a flashback or whatever and I’d healed you before I even noticed I was bleeding too," Cain muttered, moving away from me again and I cursed as I let him go, turning to look at Ethan who was still sitting on his ass while glowering Cain's way.

"Why are you still down there on the floor?" I demanded but as Ethan shifted uncomfortably, the bite of pain in my right leg gave me my answer as the mate bond showed me exactly what was wrong with him. "How bad is it?"

"Well I'll have trouble walking on it, but I'll figure it out," he said, dropping his gaze like the injury was pissing him off. But I could tell already that there was no fucking way he’d be putting any weight on that thing until the break was fixed.

I tried to draw in a calming breath and find that emotionless zone I knew I needed if I was going to figure out a way to deal with this, but it was too much. As if my entire well laid plan going to absolute shit wasn't enough for me to be dealing with, I now had no fucking idea where Roary and Sin were, and both Cain and Ethan were injured as well as none of us being able to shift into our Order forms anymore. This literally couldn't have gone any worse than it had, and I was one second away from losing my shit completely and-

"We've been out of it for almost twelve hours," Cain said. "The explosion knocked the sleep gas out too and we've been unconscious this whole time - looks like your insane escape plans just got more urgent."

I threw my head back to the ceiling and screamed.

I screamed and screamed like a banshee, letting all of my rage and frustration and absolute fucking fury over the injustice of this situation out until my throat was ripped raw and I was left panting on my knees.

Ethan managed to hobble himself over to my side, a Wolfish whimper escaping him as he tugged me against him and knotted his hand in the back of my jumpsuit.

"It'll be okay," he said seriously. "You've got this, Rosalie. I've never met anyone as capable as you in my entire life. We're trusting you to get us out of here because we all know you've got it in the bag. So just tell us what you need us to do, love. Lay it out piece by piece and I know that we'll be up there breathing fresh air before the FIB even get close to this place."

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for several bliss filled seconds as I drank in the comfort of being so close to my mate, then nodded as I pushed myself back up to my feet.

"Alright. Let's just concentrate on dealing with this situation one thing at a time," I said, looking between Ethan and Cain who moved to lean against the wall.

"We need to go and find Roary and Sin which I'm guessing is going to require us getting back into the CCTV room. And seeing as the two of you are all kinds of fucked up and we have no fucking magic, we need to get into medical and get you patched up too."

"If I could bite someone I wouldn't have to worry about that," Cain said in a waspish tone that suggested he was blaming me for all of his problems, even though he'd been the one to jump me and use up every drop of his magic healing me instead of saving some for himself and the big lump of metal he had jammed in his freaking side. Idiota. Though I had to admit that his concern for me was actually one of the few good things that had happened to me today so I couldn't bring myself to be too annoyed over it.

Besides, I just had to focus. Ethan was right. I could do this. I would do this.

I strode away from Ethan, looking around between the lumps of broken machinery until I found a flat piece of metal and some broken cables. I returned to Ethan's side and quickly strapped his leg for him before taking his arm and heaving him to his feet.

Ethan leaned on me heavily, but he gritted his jaw and refused to make a single sound to reflect his pain. I could feel it reflected in my own leg though so I knew it hurt like a sonofabitch.

"Are you coming?" I barked at Cain who seemed in no hurry to follow us as I turned towards the exit.

He looked away from me for a moment, his gaze cutting to the far corner of the room like he was searching for something before he looked me in the eyes again.

"If I go up there without any magic concealing me, I'm probably signing my own death warrant," he said.

"Well if you stay down here to bleed out with that thing stuck in you then you'll probably die anyway," I said, trying to shrug like I didn't care even though I did. But I really didn't have time for his theatrics right now. We needed to get the two of them fixed up and I needed to figure out where the hell Roary and Sin were. My mind was whirling over all the possibilities of where they could be, but I just had to focus on the fact that the three of us had been left alone. We'd been vulnerable while we were out of it down here, so if someone else had come with the intention of causing any of us harm then they wouldn't have left us this way. So I was just hoping that meant they'd woken up before us and had gone for help or something because right now I couldn't let my mind wander down the path of anything bad having happened to them.

I started walking for the door with Ethan's arm wrapped firmly around my shoulders as I helped to support his weight.

Just as we made it to the foot of the stairs, Cain appeared, his expression tight as he moved to Ethan's other side and took some more of his weight.

"I don't need help from a guard," Ethan snarled, trying to jerk away from him and almost knocking us all to the ground.

"And I don't want to spend my time helping out scum like you, but it seems like I'm going to have to if I wanna get this wound fixed up so we're stuck with each other," Cain snapped back.

"Just stop bitching, both of you," I warned. "We've got a lot to do and now we have even less time to do it. So I suggest you both just focus on putting one foot in front of the other and we get ourselves up to Medical.”

The two of them somehow found it within themselves to do as I'd suggested and we all concentrated on getting up the stairs as fast as we could. I still had the knife I'd conjured with my earth magic in my pocket and now it was the only weapon I had at my disposal aside from my fists.

I wasn't too worried about any of the stronzos waiting for us up in the prison, but I would admit that I didn't really like our chances if we came up against Ethan's former pack any time soon.

We crept through the isolation unit, ignoring the yells of the prisoners locked inside those cells. I was guessing they were starting to get pretty hungry, but there wasn't much I could do about that for them right now. In fact, my own stomach was starting to protest the lack of food I'd offered it recently and I would probably have to try and get hold of some food at some point after we got this done and found the others.

I pressed a finger to my lips and released my hold on Ethan as we reached the stairs, leaving Cain to support him while I moved to look up into the space above us. Medical was on the next floor, so at least we didn't have far to go, but I could hear a commotion taking place which didn't bode well for us.

I beckoned for the others to follow and slipped up the stairs ahead of them, straining my ears to listen and hearing a cheer going up from the corridor above us.

I kept going, reaching the eighth floor and peering around the corner, a curse escaping me as I spotted the door to medical hanging open on busted hinges and the sound of cheering came from within it again.

"I'm going to take a hit of rainbow juice through my eye!" a dude yelled excitedly and the cheers followed again.

I glanced back at Cain and Ethan as they caught up to me, motioning for them to stay put out of harm's way before taking off down the corridor towards the open door.

The group inside the room where chanting, "In the eye! In the eye! In the eye!" repeatedly and as I moved to peek inside I spotted a bare chested guy covered in brightly coloured tattoos standing on one of the hospital beds.

Sparkle and a bunch of her Pegasus cronies were all egging him on and laughing as he lifted a vial of rainbow juice up and tipped it over his eye.

"That concoction is for medical appropriation only, you great ninnernanny!" a voice called from the far side of the room and I tipped my head to get a look at Mother Brenda who was laying on a bed there, her hands seemingly stuck to her sides, though I couldn't tell how she was restrained.

Beyond her, my annoying as fuck counsellor Barbara Gambol was trembling on her own bed with her eyes closed while shaking her head and murmuring, "This is baaad," over and over again.

"Merde," I muttered to myself, knowing there was no way Sparkle would be feeling generous about sharing the medical supplies they were currently using to get high on.

I did a quick head count. Nine. Not the worst odds I'd ever faced, but not exactly spectacular odds either.

My gaze flicked to Mother Brenda as she continued to yell at the Pegasus Herd in outrage. "You cantankerous colts! Floundering fillies! Pill popping ponies!"

She looked all kinds of pissed off about the turn of events here and I couldn't help but wonder if she might want an ally. Her arms were most definitely bound which meant she had to still have magic running in her veins. Maybe she'd feel grateful enough to me for helping her out that she might use some of that magic to heal Cain and Ethan. That would be a hell of a lot better than me just patching them up with the potions and supplies I might be able to find stocked in here.

"Give me a hit of that!" Sparkle demanded, shoving her way forward and hunting for more of the rainbow juice which gave me the perfect opportunity to dart into the room while the whole group began pushing and shoving between themselves.

I ducked low and hurried to the left of the room, dropping to my hands and knees and crawling beneath a bed there before scrambling across the floor beyond it towards Mother Brenda.

"You hag of a horse!" she shouted, thrashing against the bed just as an acrid stench caught in the back of my throat.

I crept out from beneath the bed beside the one she was on and froze as I spotted another inmate standing at the foot of her bed, grinning maniacally as he looked down at her.

"Shut your fat mouth or I'll shit that shut too!" he said, bellowing a laugh while Barbara started murmuring about how baaad everything was again.

For a moment I wondered what the hell he'd meant by that, but then I caught sight of what was locking Mother Brenda's hand to the side of her bed and bile rose in my throat.

Griffin shit. A big old heap of fucking Griffin shit was entirely containing her hand and melding it to the bed frame. The stench was foul and I knew that the highly irritable nature of the faeces would be burning her skin like mad too.

"You turd headed turnip!" Mother Brenda bellowed. "You won’t be looking so dandy once I'm free of this dump city. I'll teach you a thing or two about potty training and give you a hard lesson in wiping while I’m at it."

"This is so baaaad," Barbara added sheepishly.

I looked around for something to help me, spotting a heavy metal bed pan and snagging it from a shelf beside the bed before easing my way out from my hiding place.

The Griffin spotted me, his eyes widening and a shriek of warning escaping his lips just as I threw my knife at him with all my strength.

The blade embedded itself deeply in his thigh and his screams turned murderous as the herd of Pegasuses all whirled around and spotted me.

"Get the Oscura bitch!" Sparkle yelled excitedly, pointing at me and starting a stampede as her group of followers all jumped to her command at once.

I turned away from them though, hoping this plan would work out as I hefted the bedpan over my head and slammed it down on the solidified Griffin shit which encased Mother Brenda's right hand.

It took three hits to release her and she jerked upright the moment she could snatch her hand free, casting a blast of magic over my head with a battle cry.

Sparkle and the other Pegasuses all screamed and whinnied in alarm as her magic slammed into them and they were all sent flying across the room.

I dove over the bed, landing in Mother Brenda's lap while she continued to blast them and smacking the bedpan down against the shit containing her other hand to free that too.

The moment it broke, she was up, knocking me aside as she leapt up onto the bed with an operatic warble and casting a tornado of air magic around the room which picked up Sparkle and her herd and tossed them to and fro.

They all screamed and cried out for help but she just increased the pressure of her magic, knocking their heads against the walls and ceiling as they tumbled over and over like they were in a washing machine.

"Be gone, foul wretches!" Mother Brenda cried, throwing her hands towards the door and storming after them as she sent them all cascading away into the hall. "And never darken my doorway again."

I hurried after her, my eyes widening as I watched her sweep the entire herd and their gross Griffin friend right out into the stairwell while the satisfying sounds of them all begging for mercy filled the air.

"Well shit," I muttered as she finally released her hold on the magic and turned her gaze on me.

"Quite," she agreed. "So, out with it then. To what aim do I owe your assistance?"

"Can't I just have wanted to help you from the goodness of my own heart?" I asked innocently, glancing out into the corridor and finding Ethan and Cain emerging from where they'd been taking cover behind the door.

"In this place? Highly unlikely. But I do appreciate your help, so ask away young pup." Mother Brenda turned her back on me and bustled across the room to help Barbara out of her Griffin shit restraints too.

"Well, now that you mention it, I was kinda hoping you could help out with a bit of healing magic."

Brenda whipped around, gasping as she spotted Cain's bloody shirt and Ethan's fucked up leg.

"Officer Cain! How glad I am to see you soldiering on. Of course, I would be more than happy to assist you with your booboo."

"Oh dear," Barbara murmured as Brenda beckoned the two of them into the room and they passed me by the doorway. "That looks baaad."

I rolled my eyes at her and grabbed the door instead, yanking it closed in spite of its busted hinge and finding both Cain and Ethan laid out on beds when I turned back to face the room.

Mother Brenda was washing her hands vigorously, muttering about ghastly Griffins as she scrubbed the lingering shit from beneath her fingernails before slathering her hands in lotion to help with the reaction she’d had to the irritant in the turd.

When she was satisfied with that, she moved to where Cain was laying on the bed and lifted his shirt to examine his wound.

“Well slap my fanny with a kanoodling kipper, you are in a dandy of a doody, aren’t you?” she asked, prodding the piece of metal and making Cain hiss from the pain of it.

“I just need to feed and I’ll be fine,” Cain grumbled.

“Well wants and wishes are only good for the dishes,” Mother Brenda sighed and I glanced at Ethan, wondering if he had any idea what she was going on about but he looked just as confused as me.

“Can you heal him?” I asked as she continued to bustle about.

"Yes, yes. Come here, girl, and help hold this fellow down," Brenda called, beckoning me to her as she stood over Cain and cracked her knuckles in anticipation.

He gave me a dark look as I moved to stand at his side and I smiled back, taking his hand just before Mother Brenda yanked the chunk of shrapnel straight out of his side with no warning.

"Holy mother of a Harpy's asshole," Cain snapped, damn near breaking my fingers as he squeezed them tight in his fist.

"Ow, bastardo, watch it," I said, squeezing him back just as hard.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Mother Brenda slapped her hand down on his wound and all he managed to do was curse out the stars while she set about healing him.

The moment she was done, he relaxed against the sheets with a soft groan and the vice he held my fingers in slackened.

“Better?” I asked as Mother Brenda shoved a lollypop into his mouth and he grunted something pissy around the sugary treat.

“Much,” he said as Mother Brenda bustled away to toss the lump of shrapnel in the trash.

I reached out to brush my fingers over the newly healed skin, my gaze flicking from it back up to meet his eyes and his grip on my hand shifted a little.

“I’m glad,” I murmured.

Cain wetted his lips as he drew the lollypop from between them, his gaze filling with something that made my heart beat a little faster, but before he could voice it, my stupid councillor shoved her face between us so that she could peer down at the bloody patch of Cain’s skin too.

“Oh yes, that looks much betterrr,” she bleated, using a little bit of water magic to clean the blood away.

Cain jerked his hand out of my grip and I stepped back, feeling like he’d just dumped a bucket of cold water over my head as his gaze shuttered again and he scowled at me.

I turned my back on Officer Stronzo and moved across the room to join Ethan as Mother Brenda rolled his jumpsuit up to the knee and set about fixing his leg too.

My own leg tingled as I felt his pain being healed away and I smiled down at him as some of the tension in his powerful body slipped away.

Ethan reached for me with a low growl and I leaned down and kissed him, his fingers knotting in my hair as he took ownership of my mouth.

“Mine,” he growled against my lips as I drew back a little.

“Yours,” I agreed, meeting his blue eyes and losing myself in the feeling of our mate bond as it hummed between us. I knew he was still pissed over Cain kissing me and the look in his eyes said the instincts of his inner Wolf were still driving him to do something about it. We were possessive creatures and it wasn’t in our instincts to let others touch what belonged to us, but I couldn’t help what I felt towards the other men who surrounded me, and the chance for Ethan to claim me as his one and only had passed him by while he was still denying what we were to one another. If there had ever been a chance of that at all. Because when I thought about Roary, I knew my love for him had never dwindled even when I’d been trying not to feel it. And Sin and Cain…well I guessed it was complicated. But whatever way you looked at it, Ethan and I were mates which meant his claim on me was true. I was his. It was just the case that I wasn’t only his.

“There, as good as a coconut on holibobs,” Mother Brenda announced, slapping Ethan’s leg a few times as she finished up and taking one of the worries off of my shoulders as I let myself focus on our next problem. Where the hell were Sin and Roary?

“Have I not been good enough for a lollypop, Brenda?” Ethan asked in that flirtatious way of his.

“Oh slap my gooseberry and call it a wet willy, you’re always so good Ethan. You’re my favourite patient.” She chuckled at him as he smirked, grabbing a lollypop from the drawer and he opened wide for it. I rolled my eyes as he sucked on it and gave me a filthy look that was really not appropriate right now. Cain ripped the end of his own lollypop off the stick and crushed it loudly between his teeth as he glared at Ethan who crunched through his own in response. It was like they were trying to out-crunch each other, it was ridiculous.

"You should hole up here," Mother Brenda offered as Ethan pushed himself upright and I passed him another lollypop from her collection, pushing it between his lips and smirking as he took it like a good boy. One side glance at Cain said he didn’t like that, and Ethan flexed his muscles like a prime asshole. "We can hunker down until the cavalry arrive. It won't be long now."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I said quickly, turning my attention from the heated look in Ethan’s eye back to her. "We have people out there who need our help."

"Yeah, we really need to get going," Ethan agreed, taking my hand and tugging me towards the door as he got up. "But thanks for fixing me up, love." He tossed a flirtatious wink at Mother Brenda and I had to fight a growl as she blushed and giggled girlishly. I guessed we were both a bit possessive when it came to our mate bond.

"Well you keep that tooshy safe out there," she called.

We stepped out into the hall and I paused as I realised that Cain hadn't followed, glancing back into the room and frowning at him as I wondered if this was it. I couldn't exactly do much to force him to stay with us now and it made a whole lot more sense for him to stay here with other members of staff than it did for him to risk coming with us. But if he didn't come then we weren't going to be able to get back into the CCTV surveillance room and that would make finding the others a whole lot harder.

"Are you coming?" I asked him, a touch of vulnerability colouring my voice as I waited on his answer. I didn't want him to stay here for more reasons than just needing his help, but I also couldn't do anything to force him while Mother Brenda and Barbara still had magic to use against me.

Cain hesitated for a moment, his gaze moving between me and Ethan who looked more inclined to leave him behind than beg him to come and I swallowed thickly.

"I'm coming," he agreed and the relief I felt at those words surprised me. Hadn't I hated him not so long ago? Hadn't I gladly cursed him with the power of the moon? I didn't really know what to make of my attachment to Mason Cain, but I also didn't have the time to analyse it too closely right now.

So as he tossed his lollypop stick in the trash and followed us out into the corridor, I buried my smile and set my focus on our destination. We needed to find Roary and Sin. And then we seriously needed to focus on getting the fuck out of here - however the hell we were going to manage that now.