"How many?" he asked.
"Two if they haven't dragged in another pack."
"We'll come with you."
"Nope, this is my fight."
"But we're crew-"
"Not yet," he barked out. "Parting with the pack is on me. It always was. I have to do this alone, or I'll never feel okay joining the Blackwings."
"I don't understand," Winter murmured.
"Axton is my alpha." Dustin swallowed bile as he shoved his legs into the jeans. "He's my brother, Winter. He's my responsibility. There's no honor in bringing a crew of titans into pack business. I have to carve my own self out of Valdoro."
Winter made a pitying sound. "Dustin, you're submissive."
"Not tonight." He used the T-shirt to wipe the blood off himself as he jogged to his car. "If … " Fuck, what was he supposed to say to make this okay? "If I don't come back, make Emma understand, okay Winter? Tell her it was for her-all of it."
Winter stepped back like she'd been hit in the stomach, and tears rimmed her glowing eyes. He couldn't do this if Winter made him soft right now, so he slid behind the wheel, jammed the key into the ignition and, skidding on the asphalt, peeled out of the parking lot. He turned up the radio and forced himself not to look back in the rearview mirror at what could've been. At the friends he could've had.
He had to keep his head on straight, and right now, he needed to heal as fast as wolfishly possible and put on one helluva show to get close to Axton. Fuck, he wanted to go back to Emma. To the Blackwings.
Gripping the wheel harder, Dustin slammed his car into the next gear and hit the gas on a straightaway.
A snarl rattled up his throat. He was about to try his damndest to survive tonight because he wanted that make-believe future Emma had talked about more than he'd wanted anything in his life.
Axton was right.
He was the grenade, and the Wreckers had just pulled his fucking pin.
Chapter Sixteen
Emma woke with a start when something heavy shoved her. For a moment, she didn't know where she was. For a moment, she was still back in the coven house where it should've been daylight hours. But staring at her in the dark were two glowing gold eyes.
She gasped and reached for him, brought her knee up to peg him in the throat, but the sheets kept her trapped.
Two hands held her shoulders pinned to the bed, but then her eyes adjusted slightly to the dark. "Beast?" She could barely hear her own voice.
Shoving the behemoth off her, she reached for her hearing aids in the charger. The light flickered on, nearly blinding her. "Geez," she howled in pain, closing her eyes tightly against the fluorescent light above.
"We have to go." Beast had improved at forming his words carefully for her to read his lips. Why did he look panicked?
Emma scanned the room for Dustin, but he wasn't here. Just Winter, who was on the phone talking too fast for Emma to read her lips, and Logan, leaned against the doorframe with his glowing, nearly-white eyes glued to his mate. Beast pulled her from the bed as she struggled to secure her hearing aids. The air smelled like feeding nights in the coven. The scent of thick iron wafted through the open doorway. What the hell was happening?
She parted her lips to ask, but Beast pulled one of Dustin's T-shirts over her head, shoved a pair of rain boots onto her feet, and dragged her out the door.
"Kane has ordered us off this," Winter said in a frantic voice. "He said Dustin has the right to handle it alone."
"Then fucking stay here," Beast growled out.
Emma nearly tripped over a body. A dead body that was lying face down, bleeding all over the concrete from his neck. Close by were two dead wolves. "Oh, my gosh," she uttered, nausea curdling in her gut. "Who killed them?"
"Dustin killed those two. Me the other. Emma, we don't have time for this." Beast turned and threw her over his shoulder like a caveman and strode across the parking lot to a blue Ford Raptor.
"Whose truck is this?" she asked as he shoved her into it.
Beast didn't answer until he'd bolted around the other side and climbed in. "It's mine."
"What? Why haven't you been driving then. We've been riding around in Logan's wrecked truck for weeks. Those were bodies back there. Blood. Where are we going?" she asked over the roar of the engine. Her hands were going numb. Maybe she was in shock. "Where is Dustin?"
"Dammit, Beast!" Winter said, banging on the window. He rolled it down as he backed out of the parking spot.
"Are you coming or not?" he gritted out.
"We can't! I heard the order. I can't leave this damn parking lot if I tried. Neither can Logan. Beast, I don't think you should do this. If Dustin's hurt, you won't be able to stop yourself from ending him."
"I'll stop myself."
"You won't!"
"I will! He's supposed to be crew, Winter. I was wrong. Kane's wrong. I'm not officially registered so I give zero fucks about an order from an alpha who isn't my alpha yet. We'll bring him back."
"Alive!" Winter screamed as he peeled out. "Promise me!"
But Beast only gripped the steering wheel and snarled. His phone lit up in the console. He immediately chucked it out the window, but not before Emma caught a glimpse of the name flashing across the caller ID. Kane.
"What's going on?" Emma asked.
"Buckle your seatbelt," Beast demanded. His face was terrifying right now.
Emma clicked it quietly into place and clasped her hands in her lap. She wore the oversized T-shirt Beast had dressed her in, but no pants, and it was cold. Gooseflesh covered her entire body.
Beast cast her a quick glance and turned the heat on full-blast. "I forgot you are human," he muttered.
"Beast, where is Dustin?" She was really trying not to have a full-blown panic attack, but Beast was going sixty on a winding and wet road.
"Dustin isn't what you think he is."
"A werewolf?"
"Exactly that, but he isn't crew. He isn't eligible."
"Why not?"
"Because he's still a member of the Valdoro pack. And I don't know exactly how this is going to play out, but my gut tells me you need to be here for whatever goes down." Beast nearly went up on two wheels as he jerked the wheel and skidded across the pavement onto a muddy back road.
"Where are we going?"
"To the place Dustin has been secretly meeting his pack for weeks."
Emma's heart sank down to the pristine floorboard of Beast's truck. "No," she said on a heartbroken breath. "He wouldn't."
"And yet … "
"You followed him?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Because like I told you, stalking is fun, and that wily wolf made the game interesting. His pack is the one who hunted Lexi of the Bloodrunners."
"Air Ryder's mate?"
"That's the one. They hunted her, and the Bloodrunner Dragon burned their asses. Ate most of them, but a few of them got away. Far as I could tell, Dustin didn't join the hunt, and he's being punished by his alpha."
"Axton. His brother."
"Who he still gives fealty to. We would've offed his dumbass earlier, but Rowan demanded we let you try to save him. Kane and I have been prepared to pull the trigger on the weremutt as soon as he picked a side."
"Choose a side? Valdoro Pack or Blackwings?"
"Exactly."
"And has he? Picked a side?"
"Those bodies back there? They were coming after you, Emma." Beast cast her a significant look. "They're dead because he picked you. He chose the Blackwings, too, but he should've asked for backup. He doesn't understand how a crew works." Beast swerved this way and that, avoiding tree stumps and mud holes in the road. "Or fuck, maybe I don't understand. I'm used to a pride, and you breathe, bleed, and die for each other no matter what. Winter and Logan should be in the backseat. The fucking dragons should be in the air headed our way. They're not, so it's you and me. And Dustin if we reach him before those wolves tear him apart."
Beast slammed on the brakes and cut the lights and engine. He reached in the back floorboard and pulled a rifle out of the darkness. "Please, woman, tell me you know how to use one of these. You lived in a coven. Tell me they gave you some form of self-defense training."
Emma realized she knew almost nothing about Beast. This was the most words he'd ever strung together in front of her, and now he had a Raptor, knew everything about Dustin, he'd been Kane's secret right hand in the crew, and had a really nice weapon that he was currently shoving bullets into.