Operation: Marauder

Rowan left the meeting feeling like he had personally escorted Zoey to the executioner. Just by looking at Jack’s pale face, he knew he felt the same.

His chest felt tight, heavy, making it nearly impossible to breathe, at the thought of Zoey behind bars, lumped in with a bunch of criminals. The more he thought about it, seeing her terrified expression whenever he visited her, made his rage burn hotter.

Jack glanced down at Rowan’s claws warily. “Hey, man. . .”

Rowan growled. Couldn’t help it. His control was slipping. His instincts demanded he protect his mate and, after seeing how willing the humans were to throw Zoey’s life away so they could continue to use his men and his craft freely, he was reaching the point where he didn’t care about anything else as long as Zoey was safe and with him.

“Rowan-”

“She is your sister, your blood, and you did nothing to defend her,” he seethed, wheeling around to shove him into the wall. His claws tore through his shirt as he held him against the wall. “You sat there and told them exactly what they wanted to hear!”

Even had them thinking it was Zoey’s idea to have Mave teach her how to fly when Rowan tried to convince them that Mave didn’t understand the repercussions of his actions.

A pair of soldier stepped towards them to interfere. Fine by Rowan. He was rearing for a fight. All he needed was an excuse.

Except Jack waved them away. Once they were alone, he looked up to Rowan, emotion swirling inside his eyes he hadn’t seen in the human before. “I know it sucks, Rowan, and trust me, it doesn’t sit right with me, but we’re low on options. My dad said he would take care of Zoey as long as I focused on staying on your team and ensuring you come out of this Scott free.”

A snarl ripped out of his throat. The savage, primal need to tear out his throat rose to the surface; he felt his canines grow into fangs meant for tearing as he growled in his face. “And you believed him? You said so yourself that your father was out to get Zoey. If anything happens to her, I’m coming for your head and we’re leaving.”

Later, he would remember the logistics of leaving weren’t as simple as him wanting to get off this fucking planet. Right now, all he saw was red. He wanted to find Zoey, and if they kept her from him, there will be blood.

Jack gaped at him, disbelieving of the transformation before him, that Rowan would threaten him. Pain took over in his eyes, but he clamped it down in the rest of his features and held a blank mask. “What the hell has gotten into you, Rowan?”

Rowan plucked him off the wall, gripping his shirt furiously to hold himself back from ripping the human apart. It was more difficult than it should have been. “You don’t threaten an Arthonian’s mate, Jack. Ever. I will kill anyone before they hurt her.”

He watched as Jack slowly pieced it all together. Then the shock settled in. “My sister. . . is your mate? Like, the ‘you only get one’ kind of mate? The one you can only find during your Fever? Rowan-”

He wouldn’t know what Jack thought about this new development. The alarm went off. It was so loud to his sensitive ears, he dropped Jack to cover them. The infuriating red light blinded him for a second with every flash and it took him way too long to adjust to it.

When his senses finally acclimated to the sensory overload, Rowan stood straight and saw Jack on the phone. Even with the stupid alarm wailing, he could hear the gunfire on the other end of the line.

“Three vehicles broke through the front gate!” the man on the phone answered Jack’s question. “Two vehicles passed us for the compound. One stayed in the parking lot. They’re killing everyone! We can’t stop them. Our bullets don’t do anything. We-” He was cut off by a distant cry and then the line went dead.

“Fuck,” Jack muttered then looked at Rowan.

He nodded, answering his unasked question. If bullets couldn’t stop them and they were humanoid, it could only be his mortal enemy. “Wraythe.”

They made a bold move attacking the base like this.

“Where’s the team?” Jack asked him, brandishing his sidearm.

“Quarters. Where are they keeping Zoey?” His men didn’t need him to know what they needed to do. They had been fighting Wraythe since they were old enough to grow their claws. Zoey, on the other hand, might have gotten lucky the first time, but she didn’t have a cast iron pan and he doubted the men they had assigned to her could protect her from one Wraythe, let alone fifteen of them.

Jack peered down at his gun then to Rowan’s claws, knowing his weapon would be no match for the Wraythe compared to Rowan’s natural ones. “How are Maliki’s incendiary rounds coming?”

“They managed to stop them from blowing up. They’re kept in one of the test labs until they can make enough to supply the armory.”

Seemingly decided on their course of action--even though Rowan had made his mind up on where he was going, with or without Jack’s permission--Jack nodded then gestured down the corridor to their right. “We’ll grab Zoey then head to the test lab. With any luck, we’ll run into the team along the way. If she’s not still in an interrogation room, they will have taken her to a holding cell.”

Rowan was all too familiar with both locations, but right now, they couldn’t move fast enough. They were on the opposite side of the base from the interro rooms and every second counted with the Wraythe swarming the base. Every second away from Zoey put her in more danger.

Jack kept pace, answering his cellphone every five minutes when someone demanded the status of his team--and why they weren’t stopping the Wraythe right this instant. More than once Rowan wanted to snatch the phone away and ask them how exactly they expected them to run into a fight with next to no intel. The most they knew was that they were outnumbered and mostly outgunned if the Wraythe felt confident enough to raid the base. His men weren’t stupid. Of course they’re not going to run head first into the fight. They would take it slow and methodically, as they were trained.

They cut through the cafeteria, running into the first signs of the attack. Tables were turned over for cover, resembling Swiss cheese with all the bullet holes in them. A few bodies--not as many as Rowan was expecting--littered the floor, staining the white vinyl floors with their blood.

Jack knelt beside two soldiers, one with a slash across his chest while the other administered first aid. They were the only survivors.

“Where’s everyone?” he asked them.

The man scrounging through his bag for gauze tilted his head for the other entrance to the cafeteria. “They went to hunt a Wraythe down there. There were only two of them, but they killed ten of us before we could take down one of them.” He shook his head at the odds.

“How many went after the Wraythe?”

Rowan nudged Jack’s foot, reminding him that they were wasting time Zoey couldn’t afford talking to this guy. Jack cut him a sharp look, and Rowan was tempted to leave him behind while we went to find and protect his mate.

“Seven of us,” the injured man grunted. “He was only armed with a pistol. We should be able to take care of him.”

Rowan shook his head at their ignorance. What was the point in informing the humans of the dangers of the Wraythe if they weren’t going to listen? Judging by Jack’s look, he knew he was thinking the same thing.

He rose to his full height. “Let’s go, Rowan.”

It was along the way to the interro rooms, so he led the way. There wasn’t a chance he was going to let a damn blood sucker near Zoey if he could help it. His claws grew as he stormed down the corridor. Once they passed through the cafeteria, evidence that the base was under attack was plain on the walls, the floor, and even the ceiling. Gunshots rang further down the corridor, and his sensitive ears picked up the struggle and more gunshots all around. It sounded like far more than fifteen Wraythe invading. Then again, he was used to needing far less men to take care of the Wraythe, but given the humans’ fragile bodies and inferior technology, it required many more men to deal with them.

Rowan wrinkled his nose as the scent of fresh blood filled his senses. The gunfire ceased. Silence hung in the corridor.

He stopped short and grabbed Jack before he could round the corner. He didn’t need to complete the turn to know the Wraythe was in the next corridor; he could hear it feeding. “Stay here,” he hissed. The Wraythe had killed seven humans, Rowan didn’t want to make it eight.

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but Rowan shoved him hard against the wall, pinning him to the wall with a dark glare. After a beat, the human relented and gestured down the corridor where they came from. “I’ll watch your six.”

Confident Jack would stay out of his way, Rowan stepped around the corner. The Wraythe snapped his head up from his prey’s throat, barring his blood-drenched fangs. He was one of the bigger Wraythe Rowan had seen, standing a few inches taller than him, with shoulders so big it was a wonder he could fit through a door. It was no surprise the humans had such a hard time with him, any Arthonian would.

Was that going to stop him from reaching Zoey? Fuck no.

The Wraythe dropped the human at his feet and stepped over the body, a slow smile stretching across his face. His nostrils flared as he took in his scent. “Hello, cattle.”

Rowan sneered at him and grew his claws out. “What are you doing here, Wraythe?” Might as well get what he could from him before he killed the bloodsucker.

He screwed his face up at him. “What does it look like? We’ve come for your blood and your ship. A little birdy told us it was space ready.”

A little birdy, eh? Rowan stored that information in the back of his mind and braced himself as the Wraythe hurtled towards him. He collided into him. Rowan barely held his ground and managed to dig his claws into the beast’s back while he broke away. The Wraythe dove for him again, seemingly unaffected by Rowan’s attack, despite the blood pooling at his feet.

Rowan inwardly cursed for not stopping the Wraythe before he had drained all of the humans’ in this hallway blood. It was going to make him harder to kill without his plasma sword or bullets.

The Wraythe lunged for him again. Rowan used his weight to throw him to the floor. While the Wraythe was down, he pressed his knee into his spine, grabbed either side of his head and wrenched-

The Wraythe threw him off, smacking him into the wall. His skull cracked into the wall then again when the Wraythe punched him. White light flashed in his eyes.

The Wraythe grabbed his hair and yanked his head to the side, exposing his throat. Rowan only just managed snapped out of his daze and rammed his knee into his stomach. The brute was so big, he didn’t feel it.

Grunting, Rowan held his forearm against his throat and held him off while trying to knock him off his feet. The Wraythe was too damn strong. Stronger than any he had fought before.

A gunshot sounded at the end of the hallway. The Wraythe made an irriated noise in the back of his throat then stepped away from him. He faced Jack. A low snarl rolled out of his mouth. “Pesky human.”

He walked towards him. Jack unloaded an entire clip into his head; it slowed him down, but he kept going and was just an arm’s length away. Swearing, Jack tossed his gun aside and unsheathed his combat knife.

The Wraythe’s mistake was forgetting about Rowan. He lunged for him before he could touch Jack and grabbed the Wraythe’s hair, yanked his head back, and raked his claws across his throat. The beast slumped in his grasp, but Rowan didn’t want to take any chances and cranked his head around until his body fell to the floor at his feet. Grimacing, Rowan tossed the head aside.

“What the fuck?!” Jack cried, gaping at the head further down the hallway. He looked a little green.

“It’s the only positive way to kill a recently fed Wraythe,” Rowan explained. He agreed it wasn’t the most elegant way to kill someone, but their options were limited without his weapons. “Come on.”

Rowan turned him away from the body, urging him for the interrogation rooms. If the Wraythe had found a way to compete with Arthonian strength, he didn’t want to leave Zoey’s life in the hands of human soldiers.

But then he heard more gunshots and screaming further down the hallway. He grew out his claws and let out a growl of frustration. He would find Zoey eventually. Hopefully not too late.