stood and moved to him with a tremble in my limbs but somehow managed to unfasten the leather strap behind his head. “Her phone,” he said immediately. “Find her phone. It’s in her dress.”
I went back to her, searched the shredded fabric for a pocket, and finally found it near her thigh.
“Use her right index finger to activate it,” Damien instructed.
I wasn’t sure what he meant until the screen lit up, asking for identification. I did as Damien said, then gaped at the screen littered in codes and pictures.
“Bring it to me,” he demanded.
I jumped back to my feet and held it before him to review. He had me select various icons, swiping this way and that, until finally I pulled up one that seemed to interest him. “There. Press the red button.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do it,” he snapped.
My finger shook as I followed his command.
Silence.
I swallowed. “Damien, are you—”
“That fucking cunt!” Ryder roared suddenly, causing me to jump so high I nearly lost the phone. He stalked forward, grabbed the axe, and sliced it through her neck so fast that I would have missed it had I blinked.
Then he began hacking into her chest, cursing at her with each swipe, his fury a palpable wave that had my wolf doing circles inside me in excitement.
What the hell?!
I gaped at him, confused by my inner reaction and subsequently terrified of the beast staring at me when he turned around.
He grabbed me in the next second, his palm a brand against the back of my neck as he pulled me in for a kiss that stole my very breath.
I melted into him on instinct, my tremors turning to full-on quakes of desire-filled violence.
A throat cleared behind me, but Ryder was too busy devouring me to pay it any mind. Then Damien said, “Could you at least untie me before you fuck her? I’m all for watching the show, but I’m in a little pain here.”
Ryder ignored him for another beat before smiling against my mouth. “You are so fucking mine, Willow.”
“I thought we established that outside,” I replied, a little breathless.
He bit my lower lip hard enough to bleed. “Don’t move. We’re not done yet.”
34
Ryder
Damien’s screen flashed with data from Lilith’s phone, the progress bar inching upward slowly as he downloaded everything from her device into our system.
I palmed the back of my neck and stretched the stiff muscles going down into my shoulders. Whatever the fuck Lilith had done to my head still remained in lingering pulses, shooting sporadic spasms down my spine.
Beating her with that axe had felt good, just as Damien had enjoyed chopping off the head of several immortals in the lobby, but the lasting impacts of her visit left me feeling weaker than I wanted to admit.
Lifting my arms over my head, I tried to loosen up my joints to rid myself of her lingering touch.
A telepathic link replicated through the use of technology, I marveled for the thousandth time. She’d somehow found a way to harness lycan hive-mind energy and apply it to her advantage.
I was both sickened and impressed.
No wonder she’d taken down Cam. I also had a new appreciation for why he hadn’t reached out to Izzy. “She must be accessing the mind through the mating connection,” I said, pacing. “That’s the only telepathic link I’m aware of, except in the rare occasions where it’s enabled during blood exchange.”
Sadly, that wasn’t an ability I possessed. Mmm, how I’d love to enter Willow’s thoughts. Especially right now since she was napping downstairs. Leaving her in our suite to shower alone had been excruciating—seeing as all I wanted to do was fuck her up against a damn wall—but I couldn’t leave Damien to clean all this up on his own.
It was my fault he’d been here alone when Lilith had arrived.
Just as it was my fault he’d been turned into a pawn in this dangerous game.
I wouldn’t make that kind of a mistake again.
“Hmm, accessing our psyche via a door reserved for mates would explain the alarm sensation,” Damien replied. “Your mind would fight the intrusion and blast signals of wrongness, which could be interpreted through sound.”
“But how did she paralyze me?”
“Some sort of mental manipulation through the link?” he suggested. “Or it was your body’s natural defense to shut down.” He hit a few strokes to check the progress on our download. Only sixty percent and we’d been at it for almost ninety minutes. The bitch had a lot of data on her phone.
“Going through