Aiden
He hadn’t expected them to come from the ceiling of the office. It was a nice touch, he had to admit, but it was unexpected.
“Willow!” he roared, dashing forward even as she ran toward him, hands over her head to protect herself from the rain of deadly shards.
Reaching her side, he snatched her up into his arms and darted out into the house. Behind them the rest of the pack bellowed and took up pursuit. All around the house more sounds could be heard.
“Damn, they must have brought two teams. That’s some serious firepower.”
He swung around the corner, deposited Willow on her feet, waited a second with his head cocked, and then kicked out. Hard. His foot lashed out past the corner and took the lead shifter in the chest. The motion was so quick he never even saw who it was.
“Time to go!” he yelped, snatching Willow up and heading down the hallway, picking up speed as he went. The others were right behind and catching up. They didn’t have to worry about keeping a woman in their arms safe, so they ran with reckless abandon.
“You guys should try to escape!” he shouted back at them. “Priorities!”
The growls only grew louder.
“I don’t think they agree,” Willow said as she bounced in his arms.
“You know, I think you’re right. You should try.”
“Go run and hide like the flea-bitten cowardly dogs you are!” she cried. There was a brief pause. “It didn’t work. I think they’re getting madder now.”
“Well, that happens when you call them dogs,” he said conversationally, turning a corner and heading for the staircase.
“It was just a joke,” she complained. “Can’t they—Ooph!—Hey, driver. Doesn’t this thing come with shocks or something? What’s with the rough ride?”
He snorted. “You took forever to get in the cab. It’s not my fault we’re behind schedule now.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs in a hurry, mostly because he took it in two bounds, holding Willow tight to his chest to try and minimize the bumping around. He was halfway turned toward the right when Willow hammered on his shoulder.
“GO LEFT!” she screamed.
Aiden didn’t hesitate, he just flung himself to the left. A split second later two wolves went sailing right through the space he would have been. Instead of landing on him and taking him to the ground, they both hit the hardwood floor. Paws searched for traction that wasn’t there. Amid yelps and snaps at each other they went down. Their momentum carried them into the wall that stopped them dead.
Aiden didn’t stick around to see any more. He was already tilting his body forward and accelerating once more. Stephen’s pack wouldn’t stay down, they would keep coming after him.
“They’re going to catch up,” Willow said, looking over his shoulder as he raced for the back door.
She was right.
“End of the line, please exit the vehicle to your left,” he said, and tossed Willow to his left.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” she yelped in midair, before landing on the couch he’d aimed for. “Ooooh, you’re so lucky, mister!”
All around them the house was shaking as the RRT closed in on them. He could hear shouts and noises. It felt like the entire house was being invaded. There were only three teams in the entire city. To cover a population of nearly a hundred thousand shifters among almost five million humans if you included the suburbs, that was not much. Had all three been tasked with hitting the pack house at once?
Aiden just needed to keep the two of them alive until the teams reached them. For once he was annoyed at the fact that Stephen’s house was so incredibly huge. But for now, he had to focus on stopping the rest of the pack.
The two wolves he saw first came at him, having recovered before the others could join them. He didn’t wait for them to reach him. He charged right at them, relying on momentum and inertia. He lowered his shoulder and simply plowed right through the first wolf. The second snapped at his leg, drawing blood, but they went past each other so quickly there was no time to do more than worry at the flesh.
Aiden dealt simply with the snarling wolf he’d shouldered. He fell on it with one knee. Bone cracked and he lifted a hand and drove it straight into the wolf’s neck. It yelped and flailed weakly, stunned by the blow.
“AIDEN!”
He turned at the shriek, realizing his mistake. By letting the second wolf past him, he’d given it free access to Willow.
“I don’t think so,” he growled, searching around for something to throw at the wolf as it stalked toward his mate.
It prepared to pounce, so Aiden sent the only thing within reach. Two hundred pounds of angry wolf went sailing through the air. He smiled as the stalking wolf went down. Hard. He ran forward, kneed it in the head as it tried to rise, and grabbed Willow’s hand, yanking her off the couch.
“What the hell was that?” she asked as they ran for the back door, almost there.
Oddly enough, he noted that it hadn’t been burst in yet. Behind them there were shouts as the RRT teams found the various members of the pack and rounded them up. Two snarls told Aiden they weren’t in the clear just yet.
“A detour,” he replied, not caring that the comment didn’t make a lot of sense. “Get behind me.”
Willow barely had time to comply before he spread his arms wide and threw himself through the glass, taking out as much of it as possible so that Willow didn’t get cut.
“GET ON THE GROUND!”
He turned to see a RRT member come at him.
“Hey, it’s me, Aiden. I called this in, I—”
The other werewolf hit him hard and dropped him to the ground. Aiden hadn’t been expecting it and was caught completely off guard.
“I SAID GET ON THE GROUND, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.”
“Are you fucking serious?” he snarled. “I’m Aiden. I fucking called this in. You were supposed to leave me unharmed!”
Beside him Willow was also forced to the ground. Seeing her facedown on the concrete patio immediately outside the door made his blood boil and he began to struggle. He kicked out at the nearest werewolf, pushing him back. With a low growl he snapped the bonds they’d been trying to get around his wrists and got to his feet.
“I’m. On. Your. Side,” he snapped as two more closed in on him.
“That’s not what we were told,” one of them said warily.
“Who the fuck told you? I spoke to Mack personally. He said he’d get word to you guys.”
Aiden’s stomach was already sinking before a familiar figure walked into his vision from the side of the house.
“You,” he snarled. “You’re the ass who didn’t tell them that I was one of the good guys.”
Rayne, Mack’s second-in-command, smiled happily. “But Aiden, you aren’t one of the good guys.”
“Bullshit. You know exactly what Mack told you. That he sent me here undercover to find out what Stephen was up to. Well, now we know! He was a blood smuggler. I found his lab. I reported it to Mack.”
Willow gasped from on the ground next to him. “He was selling your blood?”
“Not mine,” Aiden said angrily, never taking his eyes off of Rayne, who was dressed in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Easily removable clothing. There was more going on here than he thought. Was he going to use this to kill Aiden, to claim he was killed during the assault on the house?
“Whose then?”
“He had thirty shifters he kept drugged in the other half of the building at work. I found it out today when I accidentally threw Patrice through the wall.”
“You threw...but…I don’t understand,” she said, finally getting to her feet as well.
“I’ll tell you later. First I need to deal with this douchebag who thinks he can kill me now and write it off as a casualty of the assault.”
Willow stepped up next to him, the anger practically pouring off of her. Aiden could just imagine the glare she was directing at Rayne. “Who the hell does he think he is?”
“My former pack’s Beta. He thinks he’s hot shit just because I never beat his ass the way he deserves.”
“You don’t have the balls,” Rayne shot back. “You don’t have it in you. You’re not Alpha material.”
Aiden fell silent, the last point hitting home. Rayne was right. He wasn’t an Alpha. He was—
“Yes he is.” Willow’s hand landed on his shoulder. “He’s far more of an Alpha than you’ll ever be.”
Rayne’s eyes grew huge as Willow, a member of Stephen’s pack and a woman no less, called him out and insulted him in front of the few members of the RRT who stood nearby.
“That’s enough. We’re done talking,” he snarled. “Now I’m going to deal with you once and for all, and then I’m going to handle your bitch.”
“Wow, that’s a cheesy line if I ever heard one,” Aiden fired back, trying to keep calm despite the insult to Willow. He needed to keep his head about him if he was going to win this fight. “Been practicing that one in the mirror? Hoping you’d get the chance? ‘Cause really, you should have tried harder if you wanted to sound badass. I could give you a few pointers if you—LOOK OUT!”
He pushed Willow to the side as Rayne came at him, shifting as he moved. Aiden took the first blow so that he could ensure that she was safe. In hindsight that might not have been the smartest move, but he could berate himself for being full of himself later. First he had to show Rayne just how badly he’d underestimated Aiden.
His body shivered, and as he pushed Rayne clear he fell to the ground in his wolf form. It was time to rise up and show the world what he was made of.
To show Willow what he was made of. That he could be the man for her.