Savage Seduction: A Dire Wolves Mission (The Devil's Dires Book 3) (16 page)

Phego stumbled, staring at him. “What?”

“I sent Thaus for my mate. If anyone can find her and keep her safe, it's him. But Charmeine will never forgive herself if those kids are hurt, and I'll never forgive myself if I don't try to find them right away.”

“There are still Hunters at large.”

Mammon wanted to snarl, but he couldn’t. He had to focus. “Bez is on it. Six down, four to go. But there’s a little blond girl with a stuffed wolf who wanted me to watch her puppet show, and damn it, I’m going to watch it.”

Phego caught up, running by Mammon’s side as they reached the stone house they’d come out of only moments before. As they ran right back into the hell Mammon had woken up in.

“Kids it is, then.”

T
he noises
outside Charmeine's cell grew louder and more violent as the minutes passed. She had no idea what to do, though. She was trapped, locked in some sort of basement with no way out. So she paced, and she rubbed the activity tracker thing Mammon had given her. And she worried about everyone. Finn, who was supposed to be at the rescue, her friends, the families she felt responsible for…her mate.

“Please, Mammon.” She rubbed her wrist again as the band vibrated. The thing had been vibrating at an increased frequency since she stopped tapping it. There was a pattern to it, almost a code-like repetition, though she had no clue what it all meant. Still, the band was obviously not what she’d thought, and if she ever saw Mammon alive again, he was going to have some serious explaining to do. Right after she kissed him until she couldn’t breathe.

The heavy thunk of the door being unlocked stopped her in her tracks. Her time was up. She turned, holding her head high, her wolf ready to take over at any moment. Because deep down, Charmeine knew there was no getting out of here without some sort of fight.

A guard walked in, tall and scarred in ways most wolves weren't. He incited fear, though she couldn't tell if that was instinctual to her wolf or if it was something else. Something bigger coming. The sense of dread in the air that seemed to press in on her, to suffocate her.

The man smiled at her in a way that turned her blood to ice. “Time's up, princess.”

Fear trickled down her spine in an icy rivulet, but she wouldn’t give in to it. Couldn’t. She had people to protect and a mate to find. A man who cared for her, who she felt safe with, who she needed beside her. The very thought of Mammon gave her strength and ramped up her courage. He would fight for her, so she would fight for him.

Mask in place, every bit of pride she’d learned in her long life keeping her back straight, she ran a single finger over the band around her wrist and answered as she knew her mate would.

“Fuck you.”

The guard chuckled, a low, raspy sound that almost made her shiver. “Such a dirty mouth. Too bad you never had the chance to use it properly.” He stepped closer, moving smoothly, staring at her the entire time. Hunting her. “Or maybe you do.”

Charmeine called to her wolf. The beast jumped forward, growling so loudly, the echo bounced back. “I'd rather die.”

He shrugged. “Already happening. You
and
all those animals you had holed up in that slum.”

“No.” Charmeine's whispered reply was unstoppable, something that came right from her heart. The families she'd worked so hard to save, the children she'd cared for…Mammon. All gone if this shifter was correct. Or soon to be.

“Oh, yes,” her captor said. “It's time to exterminate a few families, starting with the Byrnes and the O’Rourkes.”

He reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. An honest to God gun. Something she’d never come face-to-face with before. Charmeine couldn’t move, knowing one shot to the head would end her right there. Scared, but not ready to surrender just yet. She needed to think, to run, to get past him. She needed to figure out a way to escape before he—

A huge wolf rushed into the room with a snarl and leaped on top of her captor. The wolf didn’t look like Mammon—her mate was a lighter color than this beast with more spots along his head—but he was big and spotted in the way of the Dire Wolf. One of Mammon's brothers, she assumed. And Charmeine had never been so happy to be forced to watch violence in all her life.

Okay, so happy was the wrong word.

She kept her eyes on the floor and inched toward the door as the worst of the fight turned bloody. She couldn't watch, didn't want to be sick from the sounds and the gore. She wouldn't try to stop it, though. There was a chance Mammon had sent the larger shifter, but she couldn't witness his decimation of the guard. Not without vomiting in a corner and embarrassing herself. Embarrassing her mate. She would be strong for him even though the scent of blood on the air made her stomach roll and her breath catch. Strong as she worked her way toward an escape so she could find out what had happened to the rest of the people at the shelter.

Before she could reach the exit, though, the fight ended. No more growling or snarling. The only sounds in the room were the heavy breaths of two beings. Her, and…

Holy shit.

When she peeked to see who had won the fight, she began to shake in fear. The wolf, now a man, stood naked and panting, a huge, hulking form with cropped hair and light eyes. There was something so dark about him, so plainly rage-filled and almost evil. An air of malevolence that soured everything around him. He may have been Mammon's brother, but he scared her. A lot.

“Come.” His barked order pounded into her chest, and her wolf responded. Wanting to follow him. Sensing something more than her human side did.

Yet she resisted. “I don't know you.”

“Come with me, or die.”

Her wolf whined, and the man cocked his head. As if he knew. As if he could hear her inner wolf, which was impossible.

Charmeine stiffened her shoulders and lifted her chin, trying so hard not to quake in fear. “Where's Mammon?”

The man's lips turned up at one corner, a cocky sort of smile forming. “The fates chose well—a stubborn mate for my most stubborn brother.”

“I prefer to think of myself as tenacious, and right now, I’m holding on to the fact that I don’t know anything about you.”

He chuckled, the sound dark and grating. “I am a Dire Wolf like your mate, young one. You can trust me. I will take you to Mammon.”

“I trust no one.”

He tilted his head, an animal appraising her through human eyes. A disturbing thought for sure. But Charmeine stood her ground as he stalked closer. As he reached for her. As he grabbed her arm and lifted. As he tugged on the band around her wrist.

“Your mate gave you this so we could track you. That's why it vibrates. It's Dire Deus checking in and sending coded messages so Mammon knows what to expect.”

Charmeine stared at the black band, her heart breaking. “He knew the Hunters were coming? That the rescue center would be attacked?”

“No.” The man’s single word made her jerk, made her look up in surprise to meet his uncomfortable stare. God, what was inside this man that made him seem so…wrong?

“No?” she asked, all breathy and weak.

“Mammon didn’t know, and neither did the rest of us. He worried about his mate, though, so he gave her the one thing he knew we'd come after. Himself. We never leave a brother behind, and no Dire fights alone if they don’t have to. So he gave you this to protect you because he cares.” He crowded her, leaning over her smaller body in a way that was pure threat, his voice more growl than not. “And when we found him here—because even without this piece of plastic, I know where my brothers are—Mammon asked for help from me to get you out. Don't make me go back and tell him I had to leave you behind.”

Charmeine swallowed hard, the cold from his touch creeping up her arm. “You wouldn't.”

He smiled…sort of. His face turning up in an expression that sent chills all the way to her toes. “You're right. I'd just throw you over my shoulder and force you to come with me. Or I could shift wolf and Alpha order you. Either way, you and I are leaving this room together. You choose the how.”

“I…” Charmeine didn't know what to say. She wanted to go with him, to find Mammon. To leave this place. But she was scared. Almost her entire life, she'd been scared. She had no idea how to move past it.

Before she could find her words, the man turned, heading for the door. “Sometimes you have to act on faith. Just like how we acted on faith by coming here when Mammon didn't tap that band.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find Mammon. He was after the man who betrayed you, and he may need my help.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes hard. “You coming?”

Charmeine stood in place for a long moment, listening to the man's footsteps grow farther away. She wanted to go, needed to find her mate and any survivors from the rescue, but she felt frozen. Locked in her own fears and doubts.
Mammon, Mammon, Mammon,
she chanted in her mind. She closed her eyes, picturing him beckoning her. Waiting for her.

She pictured him searching for her.

She was at the door before she truly grasped what she was doing, running down the hall in pursuit of the darker Dire Wolf before she could stop herself. She needed to move forward, and this was the first step. Putting faith in someone to lead her out of this hell. Even if that person scared her.

“Good call, princess,” the man grumbled as she caught up to him.

“I'm not a princess.”

“Could have fooled me.”

His arrogance made him less scary at least. “I still don't trust you.”

“That's fine. I don't trust you much, either.”

“Then why are you rescuing me?”

“Because you're his mate, which makes you family.” The man’s eyes glowed, an inhuman light shining into the dark space. “I will never leave a member of my family behind.”

He shoved open a door that led out of the building. Her heart soared at the picture across the grass—Phego and another large man she didn't recognize but knew had to be a Dire Wolf shifter were lining up families from the rescue on the rolling lawn. Finn ran from group to group, counting, checking in with them. Verifying everyone had made it out of the rescue just as she would have done had she not been held up inside. She could have cried. But still, she searched the crowd, not ready to relax. Needing to find…

No Mammon. No Tucker or Ethan. Incomplete families standing together looking at the building behind her with tears in their eyes. And that’s when it hit her…

None of the refugee children was outside with the others. Not a single one.

And her heart shattered in her chest. “Oh, no.”

The Dire Wolf at her side looked down at her in confusion, but before she could explain, he jerked into a hunting crouch. With one swipe, he shoved her behind him, snarling viciously at the approaching shifter. Charmeine reached out to touch the Dire’s arm, to stay his ire as Finn hurried over.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, grateful for his protection even though it was unnecessary.

He didn’t relax, though. “You sure you know him?”

She nodded, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “He might as well be my brother.”

Finn hurried to her side, giving the Dire a wide berth. “Jesus, I'm so glad to see you. Are you okay?”

Charmeine melted into his hug, needing someone else to hold her up for just a moment. “I’m fine. But the rest…”

Even though she couldn’t finish her sentence, Finn seemed to understand what she wanted to say. What she needed to know.

“So far, only two losses at the rescue,” he said. “We think there are still people inside here, though. There’s a search underway.”

Charmeine buried her fears under details, pulling threads together to make a picture she could trace. “What about the Apex Hunters?”

“Definite six of ten Hunters confirmed dead,” Finn said.

“Seven,” the Dire at her side said, not looking at either of them but instead staring at another basement door across the hill. “I took one down personally.”

“Ten.” Another man ran up, naked and almost completely covered in blood with light eyes and a look about him that spoke of horrible things. “Mammon sent me to find the rest, and I took out three in that labyrinth of a basement.”

But Charmeine couldn’t think of numbers or stone passages, she was too caught up on a specific word the man had spoken. “Mammon?”

The Dire who’d rescued her caught her eye, nodding toward the door he’d been watching. “There. Patience.”

Charmeine stared at the door across the way, waiting for what felt like hours. But all that frustration, all that fear, disappeared the second the door opened. Her entire world righted itself as Mammon strode out of the basement of the house. Wearing cargo pants that looked as if they were meant for a much shorter man, he carried a child on each hip. Emerson on the left in her little pink shorts and her blond pigtails, and a little boy of barely a year on the right. Three children followed behind him as if he was the pied piper. As if he was their savior. And perhaps he was.

Every child of the rescue had survived.

Charmeine couldn't control herself a moment longer. She took off at a run, racing across the grass toward her mate. He spotted her before she reached him and set the children down so he could sweep her off her feet and into his arms.

Home. Safe. Love.

“Thank the fates.” He pulled her tight, cradling her head and nuzzling into her neck. “Thaus found you.”

“Is that his name? I didn't ask.”

Mammon tensed, pulling away, staring at her with a peculiar look on his face. “You went with him without asking who he was?”

Charmeine shrugged, her lips turning up. “He said he was your family, which kind of makes him mine. I took a leap of faith.”

Mammon grinned. “A huge leap.”

She laughed and melted into him, pressing her lips to his in a kiss of thanks and relief. He’d made it, they’d almost all made it. And though they would mourn the refugees lost to another Apex Hunters’ attack, the end of their long, fearful journey was close to the end. The Dires had killed all ten Hunters. The threat was over.

Or so she hoped.

Mammon groaned as he ended the kiss, licking his lips and staring into her eyes. “Dire Wolf families are forever, you know.”

Charmeine grinned and pulled him closer, needing those lips again. Ready and willing to take another leap so long as he was by her side. “Sounds good to me.”