Feral Wolf by Caroline Peckham
32 hours until the FIB arrive…
Icupped my hands around my mouth and howled loudly, drawing the attention of all the Wolves in the cell block as I stood on the top level outside my cell.
"I need to do something down on level eight. Who wants to have some fun making sure the Lunar Brotherhood fleabags stay out of my fucking way while I'm at it?" I called.
My entire pack tipped their heads back and howled in excitement, my blood pumping faster at the sound of over a hundred voices raised in support of me. Damn I loved the feeling that gave me, the sense of power and the knowledge of my famiglia having my back.
I kinda wished I could bust them all out of here for their loyalty to me, but then I remembered the terrible crimes most of them had committed and thought better of it. They might have been loyal to me but that came down to power, position and their Wolf instincts. Nobody was dumb enough to want to be a lone Wolf in here, especially when the Lunars were always seeking out any signs of a weak link. Better to be loyal than dead even if you were a scumbag.
I tipped my head back again, cupping my hands around my mouth and howling as the cacophony grew to a din, The Wolves took to their feet and suddenly the entire pack was racing for the exit, ready to do as I'd asked and distract the Lunars for me. In fact, I hoped they found those bastardos and gave them a damn good kicking in thanks for what they'd done to Ethan.
My Wolf mate moved to my side as if he'd felt me thinking about him and I turned towards him on instinct, my lips pressing to his in a hungry kiss which I hoped helped to soothe the sting of losing his pack in here. He looked so good with the sleeves of his jumpsuit rolled up to reveal his inked forearms and his blonde hair was quaffed in a way only he could somehow keep up while we were all in the midst of an ongoing shitstorm.
"I'm fine," Ethan said in a low tone, his gaze moving to the exit where the last of my Wolves were still racing out the doors. "My pack weren't loyal to me the way yours were which means they weren't a true pack. But this bond I feel with you, and what I'm starting to grow with Roary - that's real. It's unbreakable and cast in iron, love. There's nothing that could compare to that and I'm just sorry I took so long to accept it."
"That's okay," I said, biting his ear playfully before pulling back. "You can just spend the next few years trying to make it up to me and I'm sure that one day I'll forgive you for being a cowardly stronzo."
Ethan growled irritably, but I could tell his frustrations were directed at himself more than me.
"We should get moving," I said, looking around for the others and realising Sin was missing.
"I'll go find him," Ethan offered. "He needs to learn to stay with the pack if he's going to be joining us anyway."
I arched a brow at that prediction, wondering if he might be right about it. Sin certainly held an allure to him which drew me in like a moth to a flame. But he was so unpredictable, so wild, it was hard to imagine him sticking around long term once freedom called his name outside of this place. But the thought of him saying goodbye made my gut knot with tension as I even considered it and I felt a whimper of distress building in my throat.
"Don't do this," Cain urged, appearing at my side and leaning in close to me as he took hold of my arm. "I know you think you're unstoppable, damn near immortal and able to overcome anything that strays into your path, but you're not, Rosalie. You're as mortal as the rest of us and I..."
"What?" I questioned, wanting to hear it, needing him to say his piece even if I already knew it wasn't going to do a single thing to change my mind.
"I don't want you to die," he gritted out, looking like the words physically hurt him on the way out.
I smiled softly, reaching up to brush my fingers along his jaw in a gentle touch.
"That's the thing about mortality though, Mason," I breathed, leaning into him so that our words remained for us alone. "It only counts for anything if you don't let it hold you back. I was raised by a man who thrived on my fear, and I suffered worse than most Fae will ever have to in their lifetimes. It could have broken me. Maybe it should have broken me. But I had a choice to make when I was rescued from his knife and given a chance at life all over again. And I chose not to let fear rule me. I chose to tell it no. So yes, I still feel fear and yes, I know that I may well be risking my life in this endeavour. But the thing about life is that it has to be worth living. And mine wasn't while I was out there and I knew Roary was trapped in here because of me. I haven't had a moment of peace in ten long years. Not one. But now, here, I have a chance to make it right. And I won't let fear or anything else stand in the way of that. Not even love."
I turned away from him while he was still digesting my words and I smiled at Roary and Ethan as I spotted them trying to wrangle Sin down from the edge of a walkway where he was doing pull ups over the fatal drop into the Evernight vapour.
I jogged down the stairs quickly, pulling my hair up and knotting it on the back of my head as I steeled myself to get this thing done.
"Are you stronzos ready?" I taunted and they grinned at me in anticipation as Sin finally climbed back up from the danger.
"Fuck yeah I am," Sin said enthusiastically, grabbing me in his arms and whirling me around like I weighed less than nothing.
Pudding, Sonny, Brett and Esme joined us as we headed for the exit and as we stepped into the corridor, Cain shot to my side.
"You're coming with us?" I asked in surprise, sure he'd been planning on heading back to the guards' quarters after his insistence that this was too dangerous to attempt. Maybe that meant I should have been saying goodbye to him, but I hadn't wanted to say anything that final.
"Well I'm hardly going to let you walk straight into your death without me," he growled like that should have been obvious.
I smirked to myself as I put a little extra swagger into my step and my men closed ranks around me. My adrenaline was pumping and I could feel the call of the moon urging me on as my magic tingled in my palms.
This was it. It had to be it. We were getting out of here and we were going to fly to safety on the back of a Storm Dragon.
"A morte e ritorno," I growled ferociously and the others all echoed it without hesitation. Even Ethan joined in, much to my surprise and as I looked at him with a raised brow, he smiled back at me.
"Your family is my family now, love. I guess it’s time I start getting used to that."
My smile widened and I broke into a jog, tipping my head back and howling as we started down the stairs, heading towards the scent of freedom which I could almost taste in the air.
I upped my pace, racing down to the huge metal doors which locked us inside this eternal hell and Roary lifted the concealment spell he'd placed over the lerinon gas canisters we’d left there.
We all started grabbing some of them and I used my earth magic to bind them to the door around the lock and hinges, my pulse thumping harder and harder as I felt every second ticking by like it was a death toll.
My smile was wide as we finally stepped back, all of us backing right away from the door before Sin moved forward and raised his hands.
Ethan and Roary cast a wall of ice in front of us, leaving only a small hole for Sin to cast his fire magic through. I moved to his side, placing my hand against Sin's bare arm as he prepared to cast the blaze.
"What are you doing, kitten?" he asked, glancing down at me as I pressed my magic up to the surface of my skin and felt his dancing just out of reach beyond it.
"I thought we could power share to give you a little more fire power," I suggested, biting my lip as I looked up into his dark eyes.
"You really trust me enough to do that?" Sin asked in surprise.
"Only one way to find out." I pushed my magic up against the barrier of his skin again and his smile turned into something dangerous as he focused on peeling back the protection around his own power and letting it merge with mine.
A groan of pleasure escaped me as his power rushed through my blood like an oncoming storm. I could feel the heat of his fire magic and the rush of his air, all of it tangling with the earth magic in me until it felt like it was creating a beautiful song entirely of its own design.
"Shit," Sin gasped, moving closer to me and placing his hand against my cheek so that there were more points of contact between our bodies, more places for us to connect and more bridges for the magic to use to cross between us. “I really like the way you feel inside me, wild girl. Maybe you should try pegging me one time?”
I breathed a laugh but it was hard to even reply, it was such a rush and the strength of his power had me clinging onto his arm like I might fall if I let go.
He was so powerful, this raw, frantic ball of energy which crackled excitedly and hungered for an outlet. I'd known he had to be strong to have control over two Elements, but I hadn't been prepared for this. How had a boy who'd grown up with nothing been harbouring so much power? Double Elementals were usually only born to the most powerful of Fae and yet here he was, brimming with power with no explanation for how he came to possess it.
"Do you need me to do you a countdown or what?" Ethan asked, breaking the spell that was passing between me and Sin as we lost ourselves in the feeling of our magic combining.
"Keep your hair on, kitten. I got this," Sin said confidently as he turned away from me and looked to Roary. “Uh-oh, looks like you didn’t hold on tight enough to yours, Lion puff.”
“Fuck off,” Roary growled, his golden eyes flashing murderously.
“Stop fighting.” I kept hold of Sin’s arm so that he could continue to channel my power and I held my breath as he lined up his shot with the door at the far end of the corridor.
There was a sharp tug on my magic and I gasped as it poured from me and into Sin, merging into his and bursting alight as he shot a cannonball of fire magic right at the gas cannisters coating the door a second before Roary froze over the hole he’d use to fire it.
The sound of the explosion tore through the air as the wave of heat from the combination of the magic Sin had cast and the burning gas crashed into the ice wall Ethan and Roary had created with enough force to send spiderwebs of cracks forming all over it.
The ground shook so violently that I was almost knocked on my ass and only Cain catching my arm saved me from falling.
My heart pounded to a violent, furious tune and a laugh tore from my lips as the guys allowed the wall of ice to melt away. The dust began to settle and I spied a chunk of twisted, broken metal ahead of us through it just as Sin used a gust of air magic to clear the dust.
I howled in excitement as I spotted the hole where that enormous door used to be, my grin so big I was afraid my face might crack in two.
Sonny, Esme and Brett were all jumping up and down behind me and even Pudding released a boom of a laugh at the sight of the carnage we'd created.
I strode forward with more than a little swagger in my step as the smile on my face grew and grew. This was it. It had to be. Freedom awaited us at the top of this shaft and we were going to get the hell out of here at last.
I climbed through the mangled remains of the main doors, vaulting over chunks of destroyed metal and feeling all kinds of smug as I found the locked doors beyond it destroyed by the blast too.
I directed Pudding and my Wolves to keep an eye out for signs of any of the other prisoners sneaking up on us, hoping that the silencing bubbles we’d cast had been enough to cover the sound of the explosion. The last thing we needed was for all of them to figure out what we were doing and try to come down here and hijack our escape plan.
"If I'd known busting out of here would be this easy, I'd have done it weeks ago," I joked as I moved beyond the rubble from the explosion and came to a halt before the huge elevator which led back up to the surface.
“This isn’t a game,” Cain hissed. “There’s traps in there, things I don’t even know the extent of. I just know it’s fucking bad, and if you don’t turn back now, this could be it.”
“I know.” I swallowed thickly as I looked at the closed doors, wondering what fresh hell might await us in that shaft. But I wasn’t turning back. Not now or ever.
“Please, Rosalie,” Cain said quietly and I gave him a look that told him my decision was made.
I'd done all the research I could before I got myself locked up in here and I knew there were magical trip wires and a bunch of sensors which would set off various traps in that shaft, but I hadn't been able to get much more detail than that on what we would be facing.
But we had an advantage that the Fae designing this place hadn't expected - we had use of our magic and our Orders. We'd bypassed several of the biggest obstacles in our path in one hard hit and now it was time for the real work to begin.
I strode up to the elevator doors with magic crackling in my fingertips and blew out a slow breath as I placed my palms flat against the doors.
I reached out with my magic, searching for anything in the metal that might be set to trap me if I exerted my influence over it, but there wasn't anything that I could detect.
The others moved up close behind me, tension hanging between us as silence fell and I exhaled slowly before pushing my magic into the doors.
Unlike the heavy steel we'd just had to blast our way through, the elevator doors weren't designed as much of a barrier in their own right which meant they weren't too thick or too carefully crafted.
I pushed my influence into the metal, feeling the resistance in the material as I tried to take control over it. Metal was always the hardest substance to command with my earth magic. It was slow and heavy, not growing the way plants and wood did and it was resistant to movement because of that.
But it was still subject to the sway of my magic with enough force included in the directions, and as I gritted my teeth and flexed my hold over my power, I managed to take control of it.
The elevator doors began to vibrate as I threw my magic into the mechanism that controlled them and they suddenly gave way with a loud ping, sliding apart and revealing the empty elevator shaft inside.
I made a move to step inside but Cain snatched my arm, growling as I looked back at him.
"I don't know everything that they've got in here," he said, his gaze roaming over what we could see of the shaft. "But I do know that you shouldn't just step inside that thing without tripping the first trap."
I frowned at him, opening my mouth to demand a better explanation than that, but he shot away before I could.
"I say we ignore the guard," Sin scoffed, stepping forward to move into the shaft but a warning tingle ran down my spine as my moon instincts screamed at me to stop him.
I lurched forward, slamming into him and knocking him aside just as his foot swung into the shaft and an explosion of fire flared behind us as we hit the ground, hot enough to scald my cheeks as I looked around at the raging flames.
"Oh my stars, you saved my life," Sin said in a teasing tone from beneath me. "Why don't we have a quick survivors fuck to celebrate us still being alive?"
I slapped his chest playfully and took Roary's hand so that he could heave me to my feet.
Cain shot back to my side and I turned to find him holding a lump of metal from the door we'd destroyed which he promptly tossed into the elevator shaft.
The fire exploded around it again, burning on and on this time instead of guttering out the way it had a moment ago and I took a step back to shield myself from the heat of it while I watched.
By the time it burned out, the hunk of metal had been reduced to a molten lump on the ground and I had no doubt that any Fae who'd been standing in there would have been little more than a pile of bones. Well shit.
"Any more helpful little hints you wanna give out?" Roary asked, stepping forward and clapping a hand down on Cain's shoulder as he encouraged him to walk towards the open doorway. "Or better yet, why don't you take the lead and we can all follow you? No doubt you'll remember all the things we need to be looking out for with that kind of motivation."
"I have no interest in dying for the sake of your freedom," Cain snapped, shrugging him off.
I slipped around the two of them as they entered into a glare off, moving to stand with my toes on the edge of the open doorway as I looked up into the dark elevator shaft. But as I called my magic to my fingertips and prepared to try and detect whatever else lay in wait for us in there, my gaze caught on something high above us. Something that made my heart race and my palms grow slick as I stared up at it.
"Please tell me you don't see that," I breathed as Ethan moved to stand at my side, his head tipped back to look too.
Sin stepped forward, raising a hand and sending a single spark shooting up into the dark shaft so that it illuminated the space in a red glow as it rose, and my fears were instantly proved true.
The elevator at the top of the shaft was descending towards us. And that could only mean one thing.
The guards were on their way down to try and subdue the inmates and secure the prison.
And we had about one minute to prepare ourselves to stand against them, otherwise everything we were hoping to achieve here was going to come crashing to a sudden and unchangeable end.