“I don’t know what you guys think…” Jace drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. “But I think we should get the fuck out of here. Now.”
Piper smiled and reached through the bars to him, grasping his arm and squeezing. “You can shift. I know you can—I saw you. And we need you, Jace. We need your wolf.”
Jace frowned. He had almost shifted in the chair; it was at least possible. He just wasn’t sure what would happen after that. He’d blacked out before, in the village, and every time since, whenever he couldn’t control himself…
“I don’t know if I can control it, Piper,” he said quietly. “I’ve only shifted a few times since Afghanistan. And I never remember it, I just see the damage afterward. Jaxson’s had to tranq me a couple times…”
The gleam in her eyes didn’t dim. “Things are different now. You know the truth.”
Owen had straightened up. “What is she saying? Did they not give you the inhibitor? Holy shit—”
“No, they did,” Jace cut him off by holding up a hand. They needed to keep this quiet. “It’s just that, for me, I don’t think it’s enough. I think my wolf might still be able to come out and cause some problems.” He grimaced. “I’m just not sure how big of a problem that’s going to be. Or if it’ll help. We still need a plan.”
Piper’s smile tempered into a devious look that perked up his wolf, almost like he was drawn to her more dangerous side. The side that probably had experience breaking out of secret prisons. “They use key cards. That’s all I need. You shift, get me a card, and keep them occupied with your badass self. I’ll do the rest.”
He grinned and pulled her close, reaching through the bars to quickly kiss her again. He loved that she believed in him, but the idea of shifting was tying his stomach in knots. “I don’t know…”
“Remember how I said you need to listen to me?” she asked, playfully. “Well, you need to listen to me now. You can do this. Because even when you were completely out of your mind, you were trying to save people. I told you—you’re good to the core, Jace River. You can’t help it.”
“Heads up,” Owen said quietly.
Jace looked up—one of the paramilitary thugs was headed their way, key card in hand.
Piper reached through the bars to kiss him fiercely. “Do it,” she whispered.
Jace stepped back from the bars. The guard was coming straight for his cell. Jace closed his eyes briefly—could he really do this? If it all went south, at least Piper was safe in her cage. The others, too. The guards would take him out first—that would be the idea, anyway, as he distracted them—and if he died in a fiery blaze of bullets, at least he would’ve done all he could. Nothing could make up for leaving Owen in this horror show for a year… except breaking him free. And saving his brothers and Piper and all the others from the same fate.
That was something worth dying for.
Jace opened his eyes just as the guard swiped his key card across the door to his cell.
He glanced at Piper. “Tell my brothers.” He wanted them to know the truth about him—she would know what to do.
Then he closed his eyes and summoned his wolf.
Piper watched as Jace shifted, her mouth dropping open in awe.
It was fast, over in an instant, but in that split second of time, the man she had fallen in love with transformed from a sexy ex-Army Specialist to the most magnificent beast she had ever seen. He was huge. Jace had said his wolf was twice the size of a normal one, but that wasn’t even close. The wolf stood as tall as the guard who had just swiped open his cage—he could stare the guard in the face, eye to eye. Only the guard’s face was slack with shock. Jace’s black fur was ragged and bristled out, his fangs bared with drool dripping to the floor in fat drops. A growl started low inside the beast’s chest and slowly rumbled up from the depths.
It reached a peak just as the wolf lunged.
The guard was so immobilized by the sight of this enormous creature coming for him that he barely got an arm up to defend himself—and it was the one holding the key card. The wolf clamped his jaws on the guard’s arm and shook it. The card went flying, and the man finally screamed as his arm was shredded. The monster wolf barely fit through the narrow door of his cell, and as he surged through, he sent a shudder through the rest of his cage and Piper’s as well. He rampaged out into the open space of the hangar between the cells and storage bins, heading straight for the medical suites at the far end. Shouts erupted, and more screams rang out as Jace’s wolf disarmed the panic-stricken guards by clamping down on their gun-wielding arms and tossing them like rag dolls against the cages. Piper was momentarily mesmerized by the insane amount of power in Jace’s wolf form, the snarling fury of it… but she had a job to do in these precious few seconds he was buying them.