Her Broken Alpha - Isoellen Page 0,78

joined the agonizing music of the neutralizing device. Gunfire battered at his ear drums.

Guns were rare and expensive, and Administration-controlled, from their making to their distribution. Who the fuck had a gun? Who would shoot wildly and hit nothing? Who had an alpha deterrent?

The gun took out three of the wall lanterns, darkening the tunnel. There were people moving, but he couldn't see and couldn’t think. His men were all around him, all affected on some level by the device. Who could stand the pain and rise in defense? He didn't know.

He heard fists on flesh, a strangled cry, and then the coppery scent of blood thickened the air.

He was completely fuckin' helpless. He couldn't do anything to protect himself or his mate. They might die here like this.

The monster inside him seethed. Darre rolled just enough to shelter his mate from the gunfire, but she was moving, trying to escape his arms.

He felt her in their bond, burning bright like a brush fire. But instead of the fear he expected, his mate was enraged.

Her voice rose against the pressure of that catastrophic noise. "Mine. Mine! You can't have him!"

"Get the alpha! Get the fucking alpha!" a shrill, fearful voice shouted in the near-darkness.

Darre used all his strength to move himself back against the wall as gunfire erupted again. But the shooter was either blind or stupid, and all but one bullet missed their mark.

He felt the punch of it in his shoulder, an irritant on top of the boiling pain of the neutralizer.

This time when Naya tried to get out from under his hold, she succeeded. His claws caught in her clothing, but she tore them loose as she stumbled to her feet.

"That little bitch, shooting at my mate,” she growled as she darted away.

He couldn't move, couldn't see what was fucking happening. The awful sounds he heard twisted him up with worry.

He heard a feral scream he recognized as Naya’s. That sound reverberated through his chest, angry and wild. Then there was silence.

The alpha deterrent device had been shut off. A handful of heartbeats passed, and his men began moving around him as his strength returned, slower than the others.

One of Darre's men was fighting with another alpha who had ear guards dangling from his neck. There was a smaller male bleeding on the ground nearby next to Alreck’s body, the latter of whom was either dead or unconscious.

Darre stepped over the bodies to get to Naya, guessing she was one of the two females on the floor locked in a battle for supremacy. A small shape with a curvy ass punched furiously at the larger one in an unending torrent of blows—that was his mate. Lost to her rage, she had become an untamed animal, all dignity and restraint forgotten.

Defending him. Saving them all.

If she hadn't shut off that device...

How had she done it?

"Get the gun, find the emitter, and fuckin' destroy it,” he shouted. Never had he been so glad for the sound of his own voice. “Then someone scout ahead to make sure this is all of them."

He'd come with six men. Four were still standing.

He picked Naya up by the waist, pulling her away from the beta female who had gotten her arms free and had been striking Naya about the head. Darre stopped the fight with a debilitating growl and a foot on the woman's throat.

He recognized her as the shy pregnant woman who’d said she was Corre's unwanted beta daughter, mother of Louis' child. He had let her into his tower. Into his home.

She'd repaid him by using an alpha deterrent against him and trying to slaughter them all.

Now she was crying, gasping for breath under his foot. Looking back, Darre saw that her cohort alpha had been subdued.

"Kill him. I'll get answers from the female."

The order was immediately acted on, the betrayer’s life cut short by a blade in the neck from one of Darre's loyal men.

Nixon appeared at his side and jerked the woman to her feet, making quick work of binding her wrists with his belt.

"How is Alreck? Is he okay?" Naya asked.

"I can't believe you did that," Darre admonished, ignoring the question as he lifted her up in his arms, his face buried against her throat. "Stepping in front of me, risking your life... twice! Twice today!"

"Is he okay?" she repeated, exasperated.

One of Darre's men bent over Alreck. Darre thought his name was Jordan.

"He has a pulse,” Jordan grunted.

"Make sure that beta is dead,” Darre ordered. “Or better