The bouncer led us to the back of the club, then used an enchanted key to unlock a red velvet door.
He pushed it open, and it took my eyes a second to comprehend what I was seeing. I’d expected a similar scene with flashing lights and pounding music.
It was pitch black.
Dead silent.
Ascher’s and Jax’s hands rested on my lower back, and I was grateful for the contact.
Something clacked to my right, and I swiveled my head.
A flash of scales.
Glowing eyes.
All light dissipated into pitch darkness. Had I imagined it?
Slurping noises and grunts.
My breaths were too loud, my heartbeat a tangible noise that pounded through me, and my steps echoed.
Skin crawling as darkness swallowed us, I could barely discern the outlines of Cobra and Xerxes in front of us, following the bouncer deeper into the abyss.
Biting down on my lower lip until blood dripped down my face, I levitated five droplets in front of my head.
I was ready to throw them at the Ortega brothers as soon as we found them, before they could draw their guns.
I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
Grunts echoed, and I whipped my head to the left.
Chains rattled.
We walked deeper into the belly of the beast.
My skin pebbled with goose bumps.
Eyes glowed, and I turned my head to the right. They were gone.
Ascher and Jax moved their hands from my lower back and instead gripped my biceps, like they were prepared to throw me out of harm’s way.
My blood droplets vibrated in the air, annoyance coursing through me.
They should hide behind me.
A loud roar.
Hacking noises.
Abruptly, we came to a stop. Metal rattled, and the bouncer pulled out a glowing blue key.
He yanked open another door.
Smoke spilled out, and hazy light illuminated a small section of where we’d been walking.
Holy fuck.
To the left was a massive metal cage, and inside, a horned beast I’d never seen before growled softly.
“Through here,” the bouncer said, his voice mixing with the sultry music that crooned from the room.
He gestured for us to walk into the hazy smoke but didn’t enter himself.
The door slammed shut behind us.
Through the smoke, shapes took form.
Five men with dark hair and wicked scars across their faces lounged on a massive green velvet couch, cigarettes hanging from their lips, dicks out while at least a dozen women lay at their feet, fondling them and sucking.
A naked woman hung from straps on the ceiling, a microphone in her hands, head hanging back, eyes closed, as she sang a sad, sultry song.
Enchanted machine guns in each of the man’s hands pointed directly at us.
This was no private club; it was a trap.
But it was the same men sketched in the don’s letter—the Ortega brothers.
They smirked, cigarettes bobbing as they straightened their forearms and waved the machine guns back and forth.
Red dots traveled across each of us.
“Gotcha,” one of the men drawled, eyes half-closed as three women pleasured him.
They thought they had us.
But I’d already infected them with my blood.
I flung it across the room as soon as we’d entered.
Sweat dripped down my temple as five droplets slowly traveled through layers of muscle and tissue, seeking their sources of power.
But we had a plan.
Instead of slamming my blood through their bones, attacking them with my power, and commanding them to obey, I focused on control.
If the plan was to work, they couldn’t know they were infected.
We needed them acting normal to get the Black Wolves. Then I could take them over.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, holding myself back when bloodlust demanded I take them over, control them, make them drop to their knees, obey me.
But this wasn’t a battle.
This was espionage.
Sweat dripped down my spine as I clenched my hands into fists, my cells screaming at me as I held my blood back.
It was like trying to control a rabid bear on a leash.
My vision blurred as I concentrated.
We said nothing.
The brothers were silent, content to take their pleasure, confident that their guns had us pinned.
“We’d like to give this omega back to the Black Wolves.” Cobra’s face contorted with malice, and he yanked on the chain around Xerxes’s neck. “He’s fucking defective.”
Anger radiated off him, and if I hadn’t known any better, I would have believed him.
They said nothing about his request.
My gut twisted with rage for the women who were lying at their feet, black collars around their necks their only clothes, as they pleasured the men who fondled them like they were objects.
I almost lost control of my blood and screamed at them to let the women go.
Anyone could see what the fuck was happening here.
They were being used.
Sweat dripped down my brow, blurring my vision as I searched desperately for control.
My blood slipped, burrowing deeper into the men, inches from the points of no return, where I’d completely take over their free will, but we needed them unaware.
There was only one option.
I flipped on the numb.
The world went cold.
Black and white.
Hold your power back. Concentrate.
I obeyed.
It had been like holding a rabid animal on a chain that was bucking further out of my grip, but now my arm was steel, my fingers paralyzed on the numb’s invisible leash.
It didn’t give.
Pay attention. This is a trap. One wrong move and you’re all dead.
I didn’t wonder what the numb meant or how we were at risk when I had control of the brothers, just held still and waited because I could taste the danger on my tongue.
A brother grunted as he found his pleasure and gestured lazily with his machine gun across the room.
The room had a false wall, and it slowly lifted up.
It revealed eight people.
Four girls and four men holding guns to their heads.
Even numb, I felt something close to fear.
Stay still. Don’t move.
Four ridiculously muscular men had darkness in their eyes and pressed the barrels to the heads of four teenage girls, who were sitting unconstrained in chairs.
Jinx, Lucinda, Jala, and Jess sat wide-eyed with fear.
Molly’s warning about the dangers of the beast realm echoed through my head: “Mind games and cunning are commonplace.”
The don had set us up.
Was this even the third trial?
Was it all a trap?
How were the girls being held in the backroom of a BDSM club? Nothing made sense.
Concentrate.
“We heard you were looking for us. How about a trade? Xerxes for these girls,” one of the wolves said, his voice a rough growl, green eyes glowing bright as he stared at my omega.
Guns cocked.
I took a step forward.
STAY STILL! the numb screamed at me, and I stopped.
Infect the men. Turn their guns.
I slammed my power into them with so much force that I was left with the unexplainable knowledge that they were now brain-dead.
My fear for the girls drove me. I didn’t have to speak.
Five Ortega brothers sat up straight and turned toward the girls. Arms in front of them, they aimed their machine guns at the Black Wolves.
Pull off the safety valves.
Clicks echoed.
The wolf who’d spoken before, who had his gun pressed to Jinx’s head, tipped his head back and laughed. “Yes, we’d heard rumors about your abilities. But it’s truly more impressive in person.”
His face hardened.
“They pull the triggers and we pull ours. We’ve ruled the shadows of this city for five hundred years. Want to test our reflexes?”
The barrel of his gun stabbed harder into Jinx’s temple.
“It was all too easy to follow you. The butler and boy didn’t even put up a fight. Don’t worry, it was a quick death for both of them. Little anyone can do against a hail of bullets.”
Aran was dead.
They. Killed. Aran.
My knees wobbled.
CONCENTRATE.
Jinx looked unconcerned as she slowly stroked her ferret.
Jax shook with rage. Cobra, Ascher, and Xerxes stood still as statues, calculating and assessing.
“You want a trade,” Xerxes said slowly. “Then let’s trade. I’ll go with you willingly.”
The wolf chuckled. “Of course you’ll go with us willingly. Only problem is you’ll shoot us as soon as we release the girls. Can’t have that.”
I inched closer.
DON’T MOVE.
The wolf tapped his lips like he was thinking. “Yes, I do believe we’ll have to kill one of the girls to ensure that you understand the circumstances.” He smiled, and all four men shoved the barrels harder against the girl’s temples. “But which one?”
Look at Lucinda. Focus on her.
Lucinda dragged her fingernails across her forearm, gouging herself with her fingernails repeatedly.
To anyone else, it would have looked like a sixteen-year-old harming herself from anxiety.
She’s your sister.
Memories of her reassuring me she could handle herself, that she was stronger than I realized, flashed before me.
I understood.
Suddenly, the unspoken words that had hung around us when she’d told me I didn’t need to worry about her seemed so loud.
So obvious.
Her fingernails dragged violently until her entire arm was a cut-up mess of flesh. Blood oozed across her arm from hundreds of cuts.
Steady. Get ready to shoot.
No one paid Lucinda any attention, just a young girl hurting herself in a stressful situation.
Her blood didn’t float in the air like mine did.
Like a snake, it gathered into a small stream and trickled up her arm.
Distract them.
“We’ll never let you out of this room alive,” I snarled.
The wolves focused their attention on me, mouths curling into smirks and gazes glaring. “You know nothing about how this city works,” said the man with his gun pointed at Jess’s head.
He had a black eye, and Jess’s face was covered in bruises. She’d put up a fight.
Get ready. She can’t hold him long.
Lucinda’s thin trail of blood crawled across the barrel of the gun and disappeared into the man’s hand.
She whispered something under her breath.
Everything happened at once.
Lucinda’s eyes glowed bright red, and the Black Wolf she’d infected swung his arm to the left and fired.
He blinked with awareness as his bullet traveled through the brains of his two packmates, who held Jala and Jess at gunpoint.
FIRE AT THE OTHER TWO.
I took the opening.
Pop. Pop. Two Ortega brothers fired their guns, controlled by my blood.
A smoking blue hole appeared in a forehead.
Three wolves crumpled to the ground.
The wolf Lucinda had taken over, had just killed his two packmates.
And I’d killed him.
Jess grabbed Jala and Lucinda and shoved them behind her as they scurried away from the dead bodies.
One wolf still stood.
The leader.
The bullet that I’d made one of the brothers shoot at him was embedded in a glowing wall of blue that shimmered in a circle around him and Jinx.
Enchanted shield device.
Extremely expensive and rare.
Behind it, he held the barrel to Jinx’s head as he stepped backward; the shield traveling with him.
She’s his only bargaining chip. He won’t kill her.
Fire.
The Ortega brothers opened fire, hundreds of bullets plowing into the blue shield. None penetrated.
You won’t be able to get through the shield.
“Xerxes will follow me outside this door,” the wolf said as he backed up to a door against the wall. “Anyone else follows, and I kill her immediately. My shield will hold, and you won’t be able to get to me. I have nothing left to lose.”
He kept the barrel pressed into Jinx’s head.
Don’t let him leave the room. You’ll never get her back.
“Stop!” Jax alpha-barked, and the wolf stilled for a moment.
However, he was strong, because he quickly shook it off, turning the handle of the door.
Xerxes took a step forward to follow.
DON’T LET HIM LEAVE THE ROOM WITH HER.
Bullets sprayed against the shield uselessly.
The woman hanging from the ceiling kept singing.
Jax roared and shifted into a bear. He tore at the shield, but nothing happened.
Ascher shifted into a ram and barreled headfirst, but it didn’t break.
Cobra’s shadow snakes slammed against the shimmering blue enchantment, unable to penetrate just like the bullets.
The wolf smirked as he twisted the doorknob. “You can’t penetrate the shield. She’s stuck in here with me. There’s no getting in.”
Jinx smirked up at the much larger man. “No,” she said calmly.
The look in her dark eyes was terrifying.
Jinx smiled and said, “There’s no getting out.”
Jinx’s jaw unhinged, and she screamed like she had the first day we’d met the don, “Freeze!”
Everyone froze.
Behind the shield, the wolf’s gun barrel hovered where Jinx had stood moments ago.
“Do it now,” Jinx said with a smile to the ferret as she crouched down and placed it gently on the ground.
The ferret shifted.
Into a man.
Suddenly, a massive naked warrior with shimmering skin stood taller than the wolf shifter.
Jinx’s command wore off, and the leader swung the gun at the new intruder while he himself started to shift into his wolf form.
But the naked warrior took up the space inside the shield with his impressive muscles.
Even partially shifted, the wolf didn’t stand a chance.
The warrior broke the wolf’s arm, slammed his fist into his throat, and kicked out his knees.
Then, with a sharp twist of his biceps, he broke the wolf’s neck before picking up the gun and shooting him repeatedly through the head and chest.
It all happened in half a second.
Finally, the warrior stomped on a silver device that hung off the wolf’s belt.
The glowing blue shield disappeared.
The warrior heaved with rage, dark eyes glowing, black hair disheveled, blood splattered across his naked body. His knot and the sweet scent of licorice identified him.
He was another omega in disguise.
“Loyalty” was tattooed across his right thigh.
The ferret was a man.
I’d been right: the don had planted a spy.
Jinx gave the warrior a high five.
Across the room, Lucinda stared up at me with big eyes, tears streaming down her face.
The threat is eliminated.
I clicked off the numb.
