Wild Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary Book 4)

I coughed as the scent of smoke filled my lungs, my chest heaving as I inhaled and a clump of hair lodged itself in my nostril, causing me to choke and panic as I flailed for air.

My arms collided with folds of flesh, my forehead slamming into something which slapped loudly against my skin before crashing into my nose and mouth, making me cry out in alarm as I found myself pinned down by a weight poised just over my head.

“Arghhh!” I cried, flapping and flailing, tears leaking from my eyes as I begged for death because surely the embrace of that couldn’t be so cruel as this truth which was life.

“I got ya, lad,” Plunger crooned, standing at his full height and finally releasing me from the smothering weight of his body.

“Why?” I gasped while desperately trying to force the hair from my nostril.

“I was protecting you, see?” Plunger said. “This whole place is going up in a flame and a flam with us in the depth of its bowels.

“Then we need to get out of here!” I gasped, pushing myself upright and fighting back a retch as I looked at him in his shifted form.

“Yes siree,” he agreed then dove headfirst into the tiles at our feet as if they were water, his claws flipping them aside and hurling dirt in every direction as a huge tunnel opened up at incredible speed in his wake.

I hesitate, loathe to follow him into the dark but as I looked to the exit, all I could see were flames licking up the walls, the smoke billowing into the room and oppressive heat only confirming his claims. The tower was burning and we would too if we didn’t leave.

I muttered a prayer to the stars, begging them to deliver me from this place then dropped into the hole.

It was dank and cold beneath the ground, the Faelight I tossed up illuminating the tunnel ahead of me where I could make out Plunger whacking his ass against the walls while singing about his method to himself.

I scrambled after him, still blowing loose hairs out of my nose and mouth, cringing to myself and swearing on all the stars that I would bathe for a month long if I only made it out of here.

A great rumbling started up behind us, the tower itself cracking apart and I cried out as I broke into a run, tripping and falling against the loose folds of Plungers skin just as he turned upwards, heading for the sky.

My cheek slid down the folds of his ass, a cry of horror tearing from me once more which was drowned out by a tremendous boom as the tower collapsed in full.

I directed water beneath my feet, launching myself up and out of the tunnel as a cloud of dust and debris roared through it and I was launch fifty feet into the air above the snow-covered plains beyond.

I fell on my back amid a group of six Fae who all stared down at me in alarm, Rosalie’s face shining out at me amid Wilder, his brother, Shadowbrook and Cain.

“Hi,” I wheezed, waving up at them.

“Ah shit. I knew I was forgetting something,” Sin said, glancing at the rubble of the tower which he had clearly taken part in destroying with his fire.

Rosalie smacked him on the bicep. “For fuck’s sake,” she hissed.

“Didn’t hear you mentioning it, love,” Ethan muttered.

“That’s because…” she faltered, looking at me with an apologetic expression on her face. “I’m a total stronzo apparently. Sorry, Hastings. But I knew you were too tough to be taken out by a little tower tumbling down.”

She offered me a hand and I let her pull me to my feet and heal me, not really taking in her words as I blinked at the destruction of the tower, trying to figure out what had happened.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Rosalie said, patting me on the shoulder.

“Yeah,” Cain agreed, looking uncomfortable as he gripped my arm. “You practically took down this whole criminal organisation.”

“Even the Dragon?” I muttered, looking at the huge dead body which lay sprawled beyond the ruins of the tower.

“Oh yeah,” Sin said enthusiastically. “You took that Dragon down good, right before finishing the rest of ‘em off and stuffing Roary’s Lion back up his butt where it belongs. You’re a damn hero, Hasslings. A fucking legend.”

“Shit, I must have hit my head harder than I thought to have forgotten all that,” I said, confusion clouding my thoughts.

“Is that…Plunger?” Roary asked with a grimace, pointing to the mole shifter who was stuck in a snow drift, only his ass on show.

“Yeah,” I said slowly, all too much of time with the mole shifter still ripe in my mind. “I saved him right before I cut Sin loose and then-”

“Then you saved the world,” Sin said dramatically and though the rest of the group exchanged several unreadable looks, they all quickly agreed.

“To the unforgettable Hastings!’ Rosalie said loudly, lifting my arm into the air. “May his heroics go down in history.”

“Aside from the fact that none of us can ever speak of this to anyone again,” Roary murmured.

“Yeah,” Rosalie agreed. “Aside from that.”

I grinned at them as I looked out at the devastation I had caused, nodding seriously because I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what I’d done here and the evil son-of-a-guns we’d brought down, but it turned out I was a hero. And I could live with that.