“She’s mine too, Bass. I survived losing my mate. I won’t survive my daughter.”
Bass tilted his head, caught the soft sound of footsteps over snow. “They’re back,” he whispered, stepping forward to meet John as he appeared out of the dark. “So?”
“Five guards around the barn, all armed with semi-automatics, and it appears as if there are people in the house too, though I couldn’t make out the numbers as the room was lit by a candle.”
“Cage?” Jackson asked.
“Same as John. Castor wants us here. His aim isn’t to keep us out but bring us in,” he said, his expression dire. “Are we really just going to walk right into his hands?”
“No,” Bass answered firmly. “I am.” Several murmurs of warnings came after, but Bass didn’t care for their opinion. Katalina was in that barn; therefore, he was going in. “Castor won’t kill me on sight. I’m the only one who can get away with the risk.”
“You don’t know that, Bass,” John warned. “He’s taken Kat to draw you here.”
“He’s taken Kat to draw us all here. He’s torturing her as a message to me. I know Castor. I grew up watching him envy my father’s position. He has a flair for the dramatics. Whatever he has planned in that barn isn’t going to be over quickly. He’ll want to turn our deaths into entertainment. He wants to break us before he kills us.”
“And to break us, he’ll first need to break Katalina,” Jackson finished for him, his tone vibrating with the rage of his wolf.
“Exactly,” Bass replied, meeting Jackson square in the eyes. “Let’s take out the guards, and then I’ll go inside and keep Castor talking while you find a way of taking out as many of his men as possible without getting us all killed.”
“I don’t like it,” John murmured.
Nico stepped forward, expression stark. “Neither do I, but what other choice do we have?”
When no one else answered, Bass turned his back to them and started for the barn. He wasn’t afraid. The time for fear had passed. This was war, this was his mate, and whether he died or not, his enemy was going to pay.
***
Pushing through the small door on the side of the barn, to the left of the larger double doors, Bass smiled upon entry as if he was going to meet an old friend, not the man who’d hurt his mate. He was every bit his father’s creation as he sauntered in, staring down every pair of eyes with lazy confidence. He was the weapon his father had molded—sly, deadly, and cunning. A snake hidden amongst the grass, ready to strike when you least expected.
His gaze found Katalina first, and for a second, he faltered. His heart fractured in two, his soul screaming its agony. Her blood was rich in the air, pooled at her feet and soaked into the white lace covering her skin. But Bass couldn’t afford to let his love for Katalina cloud his judgment. He couldn’t be the man with the soft heart who’d fallen so deeply and permanently. He had to wear the face he’d come to hate, the mask his father had crafted just for him. He had to be steel. He had to be the earthquake that would destroy the earth beneath their feet.
“Bass,” Castor boomed, clapping his hands together as he walked out onto a platform at the end of the barn. “I’m so pleased you could join us.”
Bowing, Bass played along with Castor’s games and risked a discreet glance of his surroundings. There were several platforms erected around the barn, each manned with men or women holding semi-automatics. In the center was the cage holding Katalina. Raven, who’d inflicted such horror on his mate’s body inside, was with her. And lined around Castor stood an army of silent, lethal shifters, all waiting in wolf form.
“I got your invitation. Though next time, may I suggest a letter in the mail.”
Castor laughed. “But where would be the fun in that?”
Suppressing his growl, Bass narrowed his eyes. “Enough of this. I’m here. What do you want?”
“So impatient. Just like your father. I wonder, Bass, are you alone? Because what I want requires a few more people to really make it fun.”
Bass shrugged. “It appears you won’t be getting what you want then, because I came alone. Not everyone is willing to walk into a bloodbath with a grin on their lips.”
“You’re lying, Sebastian, and might I say not as well as you once did. It seems the time without your father has softened you. Katalina holds power over more than just yourself.”
“Or maybe you aren’t as clever as you’d first thought?” Bass smiled as he turned in a circle, meeting the faces of every man, woman, and wolf in the barn with him. “You’re just as blind as my father, Castor, ruling through force and fear instead of trust and loyalty.”
“If you’re alone, it appears trust and loyalty are useless,” Castor spat, his face twisting as his temper got the better of him.
“You’ve turned humans into shifters for your army and forced parents to fight by taking their children, what will you do when they find out I’ve set their children free, and they turn against you?”
An audible gasp rocketed around the building.
“They’re alone, unguarded. I can still get to them,” Castor shot back, his hands fisting.
Shaking his head, Bass laughed softly, his nonchalant exterior all pretend. Inside he was screaming. Inside, the furious snarls of his wolf drowned out the frantic beat of his heart. To have Katalina so close but out of reach was the worst kind of torture. To smell her blood, to see her hanging slack, covered in wounds…. When Bass got his hands on Castor, he was going to do more
