Permission to love - The Rogue Pack

Chapter 6

With incredible difficulty, Sam passed the purple-eyed wolf over to Aiden. All she wanted to do was hold them close. Even after the short contact they'd had, she was prepared to protect them from every harm, jump in front of every threat, kill everyone who ever tried to hurt them again. She felt incredibly possessive, and a low growl rose in her throat as she saw Aiden's hands on them. She knew she was being ridiculous, for all she knew, Aiden and them might also be mates, and she realised that staying with them would only harm them more, yet her heart wouldn't let her accept the rational thoughts of her mind. It felt like she was breaking from within. For a few moments, her hands lingered, halfway through passing the wolf over as she fought with herself. But her rational side won, as she knew it would, and with a heavy heart, she let go.

She trusted Aiden to keep them safe.

'But who's going to keep Aiden safe?" she wondered, worry tugging at her mind. She knew he could take care of himself, and yet doubt nagged at her. She couldn't help but wonder whether leaving them was condemning them, yet no matter how much she wondered, she knew that staying with them would condemn all the prisoners. Someone needed to act as a distraction if they were going to have any chance of escape.

Forcing herself to brush off her doubts and focus on what needed doing, she averted her eyes and took a step back, trying to escape the combined smell of the two wolves that was rolling over her, almost overpowering her resolve. With a final glance, she marched past them, walking straight for the door. 

'I will not look back. I will not look back. I will not...' But she couldn't. She needed a final look, a final confirmation that it was real. That she really had two mates. She needed to seal a final picture in her mind. She turned around as she reached the door. Two pairs of eyes stared back at her, worry and confusion etched into their irises.

Her resolve strengthened. She didn't know what was waiting for her on the other side of the door, but she knew she would face it for them. For them, she would face anything. Turning, she pushed her way out of the door. 

***

On the other side of the door, the corridor was empty. She set off down it at a brisk pace, wanting to meet the guards on her own terms, not in a narrow corridor where they had the advantage. 

She pulled her sunglasses out of her backpack, pushing them onto her face to block out the blinding lights above. Luckily, the other sense cancelling tactics that the DIR had put in place against wolves didn't seem to have come back online since Sam had taken them down.

Once again, she found herself at the crossroads between the circular corridor and the path to the cells. She decided that the best thing to do was to stick to her original plan. She had estimated that there were about 45 people in the compound. 42 now, she thought grimly, remembering the gaolers from the cells. 

In her mind, Sam revised the steps of plan as she moved towards the storage room that was on her right. Close off access to the cells, herd all staff into the barracks... 

"Oi!!" A loud shout interrupted her thoughts. She'd been so focused on her plan that she hadn't noticed the group of guards standing in front of her until she was mere metres from them.

At the shout, her head jerked to attention and she goaded herself internally for being so distracted. It was only a small group, yet they could easily signal to other guards before she'd had a chance to set up her trap. 

"Don't kill..." The voice was faint and almost barely registered in Sam's subconscious. 

She launched herself at the group, before they'd even had chance to react. Twisting on her foot, she attacked the first member, knocking him out with a solid kick to the temple. Using her momentum, she lashed out at the second guard, locking her hands behind his head and jerking it downwards, straight into her raised knee. The final guard had drawn his weapon as she turned to him, so she ducked, spinning with her leg outstretched and knocking him off balance. As he fell, she wrenched the gun from his hands and smashed it into the side of his head.

She strapped the gun to her back, and started pulling the guards into the nearest room, hoping that no one had been alerted by the noise. The corridor was long and empty, so sound travelled easily meaning that even though none of the guards had werewolf hearing, they would easily have been able to hear the scuffle. Ignoring the desire to rip their heads off, Sam bundled the three guards into the nearby room, a meeting room with a square table in the centre. She chose not to tie them up, they would need to preserve their ability to run. 

Sam sauntered back into the circular corridor and almost immediately crashed back into the door she'd just exited. A large group of guards stood chatting as they wandered through the corridor. Luckily their backs were turned, and they didn't seem to have noticed her. She gently backed away, taking care to keep as quiet as possible. Passing the door to the storage room she'd used before, she gently opened it and slipped in, closing the door behind her. Removing her sunglasses, she used her wolf vision to look about the room without turning on the light. 

Canisters of cleaning products met her eye and she grinned. Her plan was going to work. 

***

The fire roared violently, the heat creating an impenetrable wall, with the colourful flames serving as a further deterrent. Alarms rang wildly, yet as Sam gazed in awe at her achievement they seemed to fade into the background as the power of the flames captured her attention. A four metre wall of flame separated the path to the cells from the circular corridor, essentially blocking off the cells from all potential attacks, whilst preventing fleeing soldiers from escaping down that route. The wooden walls of the recently constructed connection to the ranch burnt brilliantly, the dry wood catching quickly, snapping and popping from the fierce heat.

Suddenly Sam heard the sound of approaching guards, about ten she estimated, obviously alerted by the combined sounds of the emergency and fire alarms that were ringing throughout the compound. 

Sam moved back to let them approach. They were so captured by the wall of flames that they didn't notice her small form hugging the wall, a scarf covering her face. With a cry, Sam detached herself from the wall, pulling a glass beaker out of from behind her back and throwing it into the blazing inferno.

Without a backward glance, she set of at a sprint, confident of her aim. Sure enough, a fraction of a second later, she heard the glass shatter. If Sam had looked back, she would have seen the green mist that oozed in front of the flames. Yet as it was, she only heard the choked cries of the soldiers that she was distancing herself from with every step.

Reaching the opposing end of the circular corridor, she ran straight into the entrance hallway. 

With a growl, she ripped the door to the security room off its hinges. Seeing the fire burn so brightly had filled her with a new sense of power, a confidence that she would succeed in her plan. As she stared at the guards within the room, their eyes wide, some filled with fear, others with hatred as they stared at her sharpened canines and glowing eyes. She tore through them easily, giving in to the animal within, using the confinement of the room and their inability to run or escape to her advantage. It was only when all five lay bleeding on the floor, motionless, eyes glazed over, did she suddenly snap back to reality.

Shaking her head she forced herself to focus, she couldn't let her emotions overcome her. The plan relied on her level-headedness. No matter how angry she felt at them for what they had done to her, for what she had just witnessed in the cells, she had to stay focused. They might have taken her wolf from her, they might have forced her into a lonely, miserable, self-doubting existence. But for her to crush them as they deserved to be, like bugs on the sole of her shoe, she needed to concentrate.