Gasping, I sat bolt upright in bed and shoved back the blankets, even as I summoned a handful of dragon fire.
What the fuck just woke me?
I’d suffered from nightmares a long-ass time, thanks to my father’s less than loving methods of child raising, but this was different. Completely different. Almost like someone had just entered the room…
“Who’s there?” I growled into the darkness, growing my fireball larger and reaching over to flick the bedside light on with my free hand.
Light bathed the room, but there was no one in sight.
Had I imagined it?
But that feeling was still nagging at me. That uneasy sensation that I wasn’t totally alone, despite my bedroom being devoid of any other people.
“Shit,” I cursed aloud, extinguishing my fire before I could accidentally burn our home down. Just because there was no one physically in the room, didn’t mean I was alone.
Vixen? I called out with my mind, searching for something that didn’t belong inside the familiar depths of my dark and tortured soul.
No response came, but she was there. I could sense her as clear as day, just like when she’d first changed me, before her walls went up.
“Shit,” I cursed again, leaping out of bed and dragging on the closest pair of pants. Ever since Austin had taught her how, she’d maintained those walls around her mind like she was a fucking gardener with OCD. If they were down… something bad must have happened to her. It was the only reason I could think of.
My door flew open even before I reached the handle, and Austin gave me a grim look, confirming my fears.
“I have a location on her,” he told me. “We need to get there. Now.”
“Agreed,” I snapped, pushing past him and banging on my brother’s door. Clearly everyone had felt her at the same time, as Vali popped out fully dressed and looking panicked seconds later. Caleb and Wes burst out of their own bedrooms in various states of dress and wearing the same grim looks of concern.
“She’s at Omega HQ,” Austin informed us. “I think she’s drained her magic; that’s why her walls dropped.”
“Makes sense,” Caleb agreed. “But what could have possibly caused her to use all of her magic? You saw her at Lucy’s funeral; she was practically glowing with it.”
“I guess we are about to find out,” Vali rumbled in an angry voice. I knew my brother, though. He wasn’t angry at us so much as at himself. He was the one running Omega while River was… whatever he was. No doubt he was kicking himself for not being there on site rather than at the house with the rest of us.
“I’ll deliver us into the surrounding forest,” Caleb announced, pricking his thumb with a little diabetic’s lancet he’d started carrying around. “Just in case there is bad shit going down on campus.”
“Wait,” Wes interjected, placing a hand on Caleb’s arm to halt him. “I can check. Give me two seconds.”
His eyes glazed over before waiting for anyone to reply, but we were all willing to let him do his thing. It was never smart to enter a danger zone unequipped with any intel, no matter how desperate we were to reach Vixen and see if she was okay.
“It’s totally clear,” Wes informed us, frowning as he returned from his sojourn into the eyes of a crow on Omega grounds. “Campus looks totally normal. Can you pinpoint exactly where she is, Aus?”
Austin scowled, pursing his lips as he clearly searched his own mental link to Kit’s mind.
“Yeah, residential block. I’m guessing our old apartment there.”
“Then I say portal us straight there. Let’s not waste time.” Wesley’s suggestion was unusual from him—he was generally the voice of caution in our team, but hell if I was going to argue.
“Seconded.” I muttered my agreement, and the other boys all nodded.
Caleb must have agreed also because when he cast the portal right there in the hallway where we stood, it transported the five of us straight into the living room of our old Omega apartment.
That was when all hell broke loose.
“Move!” I roared to my team, instantly spotting the danger as it came barreling through the master bedroom door with burning hellfire eyes and shark-like rows of fangs. The boys all scattered, dodging the hellhound as he launched towards us, smashing through a wooden coffee table as he landed again.
“Contain him,” I barked out, falling back on my role as beta leader of our team. Behind the broken door to the bedroom, my eyes were glued to the unmistakable spill of copper-red hair across the carpet and the all too still form of my Vixen.
The twins threw out all kinds of magic, but from what I could tell, the hellhound version of River just slashed straight through them, turning the whole thing into a twisted game of cat and mouse around the living room.
“It’s still River in there; we can’t aim to kill,” Wesley reminded us all. “He needs to bond with his hellhound in order to regain control.”
“Little easier said than done, don’t you think?” Caleb snapped, casting another spell in the hound’s direction.
“Maybe one of us can get through to him?” Vali suggested, bringing his palm up to conjure a ball of his red-gold dragon fire. His suggestion was aimed at me, clearly, since I was the closest to River in this team. But it was the hesitation that the hound gave Vali’s dragon fire that gave me pause.
“You three get to Vixen,” I ordered, “Vali and I will keep this overgrown puppy busy.”
Both the twins and Wesley had yet to get even close to the bedroom door, so they possibly hadn’t seen her lying there lifeless on the floor. But my heart was screaming for me to go to her, to hold her and make sure she was okay.
Vali’s suggestion was right, though. The hellhound was protecting our girl, just as fiercely as any of us would. The frustrating thing was just that he seemed to think she needed protection from us.
Fucking arrogant prick.
River and I were as close as two guys could be in a non-sexual way. Hell, even in a slightly sexual way when we knew it was a turn-on for whoever we were sleeping with. Not that our past was of any consequence… but fuck, Vixen made no secret of being into it.
If anyone was going to get through to him inside that scary-as-fuck exterior, it was going to be me. So, I needed to trust that my team would take care of our girl.
“River, you ugly bastard,” I snapped, trying to draw his attention as Wesley edged closer to the bedroom. “Over here, you deformed donkey.”
The hound swung his huge, snarling head toward me, but quickly jumped between Wesley and the doorframe. Caleb just barely yanked our tech genius out of the way of what looked like a nasty bite aimed at his throat.
“Holy fucking crow,” Wes breathed, skirting around the couch as the hound growled and snarled.
“We need to get him away from the door just long enough to get you three in there,” I informed the boys. “I have a plan once you are.”
“Understood, Drake,” Austin barked back, all traces of teasing at my call sign gone from his voice. In a move that would be considered suicide from anyone who wasn’t on Alpha Team, he then dove headfirst at the snarling hellhound.
At the last second, he tucked and rolled, ducking the massive, gnashing jaws and disappearing beneath the hound’s massive legs.
“Fucking hell, bro,” Caleb snapped when his twin popped up behind the hound, dagger in hand. When the fuck he’d had time to grab weapons, I had no idea. Even I had forgotten to arm myself in the shock of feeling Kit inside my mind once more.
Austin slashed his blade across the hound’s hindquarters, and the blade broke off with a loud snapping sound that made us all cringe.
What the fuck was evil-River even made of? Fucking diamond?
“Well, that was unexpected,” Austin admitted, diving to the side and rolling into the master bedroom as the River-hound turned to attack. There were large scorch marks on the carpet below him where his drool had been dripping, which told me all I wanted to know about what would happen if he managed to bite one of us. Acid burns were not a good look on anyone.
“He’s wary of our fire,” Vali told me, confirming what I’d already noticed.
“I know; I was thinking if those three can get in there to Vixen, we can block the doorway with sort of a contained fire barrier.” I glanced over the hound to give Austin a nod of encouragement. One down, two to go.
As much as I needed them in there to ensure Kit was okay, I also needed them out of here. River really had turned into a psychotic dickhead, and I’d feel a hell of a lot better knowing the rest of the team was safe from him. Or as safe as possible under the circumstances.
“Keep insulting him, little brother,” Vali suggested with only a hint of sarcasm. “I think it was pissing him off. You know how stuck-up River can be; I bet this version of him isn’t so different.”
He probably wasn’t wrong. Insulting River to his face with childish name-calling would have gone down like a lead balloon, so maybe it would get us somewhere with the hound. Even if that somewhere was just to piss him off enough to move away from the doorway.
“River, I have to say I didn’t expect you to end up quite so damn ugly. You look like a shark and a poodle fucked and you’re their mutant spawn.” Okay, so I wasn’t the best at thinking on my feet when it came to creative insults, especially with the nagging worry of Kit’s health. Austin gave me a quick thumbs up from where he crouched over her still form, though, so she must still be okay…ish.
“Bit more, brother,” Vali encouraged. Between his fingers he formed tiny pea sized balls of dragon fire, which he flicked at the hound. It was enough to enrage him, but not scare him into staying away from us.
Vali and I split up, each taking an opposite side of the room. While he flicked the irritating little blobs of fire, I searched my brain for what would push River’s buttons. I was his best friend; surely if anyone knew how to fire him up, it would be me.
“You were always so desperate to be in control, weren’t you, Alpha?” I sneered his call sign, implying he was anything but right now. “Where’s that infamous control now, huh? Seems to me like you’ve given up. You’re nothing more than a rabid street dog that’s danced with a porcupine.” It was the closest thing I could think of to describe his needle-sharp fur.
The hound growled low in his chest, then turned his head to snap at Vali and took two steps into the room toward us.
Meanwhile, Caleb and Wes had kept dead still, plastered to the wall so as not to draw attention to how close they were. Maybe the laws of nature—and normal dog behaviors—didn’t apply to a fucking hellhound, but it appeared to be working. The River-beast seemed to forget about them as Vali and I proved a bigger threat.
Seeing we were making progress, I too rolled little peas of my blue ice-fire and lobbed them at the hound, avoiding his face. If we really did manage to get through to the real River, I was sure he wouldn’t appreciate burn scars on that handsome face of his.
“Yeah, you know we’re talking to you, acid breath,” I taunted him. “Got a problem with it? Come over here and fight about it.”
“Uh, we’re still aiming for not killing him, right?” Vali queried, and I gave him a sharp nod. “Okay, just checking. I get the feeling tonight is going to hurt.”
“Probably,” I agreed, then turned my attention back on the beast who had lurked inside my friend’s mind all his life. “Where did you even come from, you ugly fuck? Your kind was supposed to be extinct well before the plague hit Earth.” Or so Wesley’s magical bible said. “Bet you’re really pleased with yourself to be out in the world now. Causing destruction, killing people… but you and I both know it can’t last forever. River—the real River—is stronger than you, and he will shove you back into that little cage soon enough.”
At my words, the River-beast let out a menacing howl and leapt forward another step. It was all we needed, though.
The second Wes and Caleb crossed the threshold to the bedroom, both Vali and I threw our dragon fire at the doorframe to create a barrier. With that in place, I turned my attention back to the enraged beast snarling and howling at the fire cutting him off from Kit, while my brother sealed all the other doors and windows. The last thing we needed was to take this fight outside the apartment and involve innocent Omega recruits.
“Just us now, sir,” I taunted him, and his huge head snapped around to snarl at me. “Let’s see just how badly you want to keep control of that form, shall we?”
