The stares had started from the moment Trinity opened her eyes. Hours later, the nosy wolves of the ST's still seemed to have their fill of the rumors. The short amount of sleep her team was able to get was just enough for her to fall into one of her weird dreams. Each one brought its own trauma, along with a sense of warning. But this one was different. She hadn't been ready to feel it—to know what a mate really meant.
She had been told about the mate connection, but she had lived as a human all her life. The type of love everyone spoke of seemed like words you told a child to give them hope and faith. She had been so wrong. Her balled fist rubbed the same place on her chest once again. The echo of a bond that wasn't hers was still sending pangs of loss through her. She wanted to scrub away the knowledge. She had no idea the bond was so profound. In the darkest little part of her chest, she felt a sudden hunger to find her mate, to feel as if her being was finally finished.
If only everything could have stopped with the dream. Her mind kept drifting from the cameras she was meant to be diligently monitoring to her team's questioning gazes. They had peppered her with questions after they had found her curled into Lucas's chest. Even with their heightened senses, they seemed to jump to conclusions about how they had spent the short six-hour rest they had been given. If that hadn't been enough, the other wolves liked to listen in on other people's conversations, leading to everyone giving her harsh glares.
A passing team spoke openly about her. "Just another whore defective."
Trinity bristled, a comment that normally would just breeze by her now made her indignant. Before the she-wolf could pass her, Trinity's arms shot out at lightning speed, too fast for even the she-wolf to discern. She gripped her throat, her gold-flecked blue eyes shining brightly. Her flexed muscles seemed to pulse with energy as she held the woman's throat unyieldingly. She didn't even turn her face to look at the struggling woman. She heard the woman's desperate gasp for air as she struggled to remove Trinity's hand.
"Cam 6 is down," Trinity stated calmly, still watching the monitoring board as if she wasn't violently strangling the woman in her grasp.
"Hey, let her go!" Of Team 9, Jared was the first to notice that Vicky wasn't pretending. Her face was beginning to turn a sickly, mottled purple and blue. She truly couldn't breathe.
"Can she really not breathe?" another voice asked, laced with skepticism.
"Defectives are weak, she's fine!" a third wolf scoffed.
"Trin, just—" Kael started to speak, only for Trinity's sharp eyes to pin him down with their intensity. She looked at him as if she was willing to attack him next.
Finally turning her attention to the she-wolf who was quickly draining of all color and life, Trinity's face stayed deceptively neutral. She couldn't fully understand her actions at the moment. She didn't feel particularly angry. It was more pride than anything, which didn't make sense. Her body was moving on instinct, but it felt separate from how her mind actually felt.
As Trinity watched her nails grow into sharp, obsidian points that slowly pierced the skin of Vicky's throat, a sense of wild thrill rose inside of her. It didn't feel real. It didn't feel like it was her, but it had to be. Or was this what it felt like to be a wolf: lethal and violent?
"Trinity! Put her down," Wesley's voice cracked with urgency. He hadn't thought much of it when Trinity initially grabbed Vicky. Other than her movement being deceptively fast, he assumed this would end like most squabbles: a little blood, some harsh words, but nothing more substantial. He'd been more ready to intervene to help Trinity keep her head. But he felt it now: the obvious shift in the air that spoke of true bloodlust. Trinity wasn't pretending; she actually would kill Vicky.
Trinity growled, low and deep in her throat. Her blue eyes started to be overtaken by the luminescent gold coloring, signifying her slumbering wolf was very much waking up.
A strong thud-thud-thud could be heard as four sets of heavy footsteps ran down the path that led into the ST's main operational space.
But Trinity didn't turn, she didn't look, she didn't care. Her entire focus was on this insignificant speck that had the audacity to think she could speak to her.
Just as she felt something shift inside of her, as if a decision had been made, her ears perked up at the sound: metal slicing through the air. It was heading directly for her. Not just one blade, but three.
The air seemed to go absolutely still, heavy and charged with impending violence. In a quick, fluid, almost impossible movement, Trinity snatched Vicky's body and hurled it forward, using it as a human shield. The she-wolf's body moved like a rag doll, propelled by inhuman force. The three silver blades—meant for Trinity—easily found their home in Vicky's shoulders, stomach, and thigh. The sound was distinct: a sickening, heavy thwack as the silver cut through flesh. A spray of blood patterned the floor, followed by Vicky's agonizing, piercing screams. The faint but acrid smell of burning flesh—the silver reacting with the wolf's skin—began to sizzle in the air, sickeningly pungent for everyone in the room.
With little ceremony, Trinity shoved the bleeding woman aside. She saw her four guards, blades ready, all of them running toward her at lightning speed.
She moved like a ghost, her form blurring as she vanished from her spot, only to appear just behind the four guards. As if they had expected this, they had already turned, blades moving, ready to catch her. She easily stepped back, a fraction of a second too soon, avoiding their lethal strikes.
"Breathe! Focus. Reign it in!" Kael's words were spoken in a calm, caring way that caught the surrounding crowd off guard. Even though the four guards had their weapons drawn, they would never hurt Trinity—nothing that she couldn't recover from, at least.
"Breathe deeply!"
Trinity felt that fog that had taken over before, leaving her almost catatonic inside her body. She didn't want to lose herself completely. Nodding subtly, she did as Kael said. She tried to breathe as deeply as possible, finding the familiar scents around her. Only to smell something that always felt like home. The smell made her stumble backward as her gold eyes shifted back to their crystal blue. The gold flecks still lightly pulsed.
She felt like herself again. But she could tell that her wolf was just barely beneath the surface. The barrier between them had diminished significantly, and until she was able to shift into her wolf form, she was stuck, two entities warring for one body.
"Told you it would work!" Ian said, pulling Ryan's sweater from the bag he carried on his back. Easily putting away his blades, now noticing the blue of her eyes, he threw the sweater at Trinity. "I swiped that from the boyfriend!" He smirked.
Trinity caught hold of the sweater, gripping it tightly to her chest. It hadn't even been two days, and she missed her friends. She missed her support system. Everything was still happening; everything was extremely raw and real, and she didn't have anybody to talk to. She felt herself becoming more withdrawn down here. It was isolating in a way that she hadn't expected. She thought she would eat dinner in the cafeteria, have a room above ground, or she could go and see her friends, at least speak to them. When she was down here by herself, it felt like she would unravel so quickly. Her mind was reeling with everything, and she couldn't speak a word of it. She felt completely alone.
In her chest, she felt a tug, an emotion that wasn't hers. She could feel Boris's worry. It was the thread that bound them together, their familiar bond.
"Thank you." Her words came out soft as she pulled the sweater on, bathing in the one piece of comfort she had. Wetness pooled at her eyes, but she refused to let any tears fall. She had to figure out a way of breaking out of here.
An air of melancholy surrounded her as she walked back over to the sensors. She noticed the red warning light on one of the screens. "Cam 6 and cam five are down. We don't have eyes on the high school anymore," Trinity said, perplexed.
Team 11 all stared at Trinity in shock, except for Lucas. He had seen Trinity like this. He'd seen Trinity far worse than this. This was control compared to the last time. But the rest of them had no idea she was impossibly fast and incredibly violent.
Jared couldn't help the way his eyes kept shifting to Trinity. His own team was carefully wrapping cloth around the silver blades protruding from Vicky's body. They had to use the fabric to grip the metal, allowing them to pull the blades out and give Vicky a chance to heal without the silver poisoning her further. Even with the she-wolf's ongoing screams and cries of pain echoing in the operational space, Jared was utterly distracted by Trinity.
He felt something deep inside him stir. Jared was still unmated, but his wolf, usually dormant and contained, was stirring with a mixture of appreciation and hunger. It was a primal, potent reaction to the violence he had just witnessed, to Trinity's lethal, untamed power. He wanted to possess her. To claim Trinity and make her his mate. The intense, possessive desire was a raw, new feeling, and it shook him to his core.
Then, Jared noticed he wasn't alone. He quickly scanned the other unmated male wolves in the room, catching the subtle but distinct shift in their postures and the heated intensity in their gazes. Several pairs of eyes were fixed on Trinity with the same newfound, hungry focus. A dangerous sense of collective possessiveness hung in the air, thick and undeniable. They too had felt the powerful, visceral lure of her unleashed inner beast.
"You're a fucking beast!" Tank usually stern face cracked into a smile as he slapped Trinity on the back, more so impressed than unnerved by her homicidal behavior. "We're definitely going into the cage next time."
Trinity was equal parts unnerved and scared. Tank seemed irregularly calm, but she was also huge. Trinity did not want to be crumpled by her in the cage. The last time their team had been put on cage rotation, they had all skipped over her like she had not been there, and she was more than happy to be forgotten.
Malika was the first to go back to normal, her attention on his tablet. "Only team three is in the field. They are patrolling the edge of the pack lands."
Zack pressed a button on his tablet, indicating that there could be a possible problem near the high school. One of the strip lights above them turned yellow, and the board made a clicking noise as it doled out a new assignment. Team eight needed to be immediately dispatched to the school.
Author's note:
I know it's been a while since I've last updated. As some of you may know, I have launched a new book. It does have a connection to this book. But it is a standalone. I hope you will all show support and go and give it a read.