be able to hold a pack and as an Alpha, he would get fought constantly.
It was a death sentence. Even if I saved him from this, he was a dead man.
He lifted his head slightly and began to howl quietly. It was echoed, though. Somehow, his pack heard and howled.
I grabbed his hand, squeezing it, knowing I needed to sit and stand witness even as my heart grew cold and hard. I couldn’t get emotional now. I had my survival to think about.
He took another breath and died, his song trailing off like the end of a beautiful song.
“Kaliya?”
I turned slowly to Raphael and saw the blood covering him. His eyes were black as night, and the black veins radiating from them extended down his throat, over his chest, abdomen, and arms. He seemed bigger than normal—taller, wider.
“Did you kill him?” I asked softly.
Something terrible passed over his face as he nodded. I knew he hated killing, but I could only be grateful he knew what was at stake.
“Did you see where any of the others went?”
“Most ran out of the cell block—”
A chunk of the building’s ceiling fell, and I realized why they hadn’t stuck around.
“Shit.” I jumped to my feet, ignoring the wave of dizziness and the pain. There was no time for either. Just because the body hurt didn’t mean it couldn’t function, and I only needed it to function. “We need to move. Let’s go. Into the yard before this fucking building comes down. Let’s go.”
I staggered the first couple of steps, but Raphael grabbed my elbow and helped me steady by the time we made it to the stairs that were covered in debris like the walkway. We jogged down the stairs and made our way out of the building into the yard, watching guards and prisoners fight all around us.
It was war and that meant it was pure chaos. By the look of it, the southern cell block also had a breach. The smart criminals were running for the border of the compound. There weren’t enough guards. The werewolves had just lost their Alpha, and I knew Korey was probably reeling as she took over the pack and tried to stop this at the same time.
“What’s the plan?” Raphael asked. I heard a gun cock and looked down to see him with his sidearm out in his free hand. “Do we run, or do we help?”
“We help,” I said, coughing again. I must have breathed in another lungful of dust and smoke. Someone yelled, and I watched as Raphael grabbed a prisoner running for us and tossed him out of my sight.
“How much do we help?” he demanded, looking down at me.
“They’re officially escapees if they left their cell. We kill them.” Straightening, I pulled my sidearm and looked over the yard. I took a shot at someone wearing a prisoner jumpsuit and watched them go down.
“That’s it?” Raphael was still next to me, staring at the mayhem around us. There was so much going on, our appearance outside had gone mostly unnoticed.
“Kaliya!” a woman yelled. I turned to see Korey running for me, followed by several of her men, all decked out for war with both modern and ancient weaponry. “Tarak is—”
“I know,” I said, gesturing back to the northern cell block remains. “His body is in there. I was with him until the end. Tell me where you want me.”
“I don’t want you here,” she answered, looking past me for a second. “There’s already been breaches of the outer barrier. Our communications are down. We’ll be lucky if the Tribunal even got a message saying there was a security breach on their systems. I need you to get to your car and get out of here. Put Phoenix on Code Black, large scale breakout.”
“Can do. How’s inside?”
“Bad, but probably safer than out here. You were in the northern cell block when it happened…how are you still alive?” She seemed confused for a split second. Truthfully, I had the same question. Before I could say anything more, she shoved me aside and raised her gun, firing twice. “Get out of here. Until they leave the compound grounds, they’re ours to deal with. Hopefully, we can manage this, but you’re going to be needed on the outside.”
“See you on the other side,” I said, nodding sharply as I turned to see what she had shot. A southern cell block prisoner lay dead ten feet from us. Whether he had been coming after us or