The Release

LORELAI

I woke up sweating. I was so damn hot. And sticky.

Howls resounded in my ears, and I snapped awake, a low growl coming from next to me. Sweat dripped down my body, and my skin felt too tight. I shifted on my aching legs, picking myself back up from my nap, but it didn’t help.

~“Spitfire,”~ Brax bit out in my head, and I gasped, trying to close the link, but it wouldn’t shut. I was so disoriented as I took in everything: the link open, Brax and Derik in my head again, Kai growling and howling. But it wasn’t just his howl; I could hear the pack.

I shivered as a tingle ran through my blood, a sensation accompanying it.

That sensation settled between my legs, and I moaned as my core caught fire.

“The heat,” I gasped, my blood turning to fire in my veins.

~“Beautiful. We’ve got to get you out of there,”~ Derik said strainingly down the link, and I whimpered as his voice pierced my body, caressing it. The heat flared inside me, searing my body like meat on the pit.

“I can’t,” I breathed, trying to handle it, but it was so intense.

I could feel my mates, their need, their desperation. Then there was the pack that I couldn’t quite get to, a filmy gauze keeping them blocked in my mind. But it was enough to have me whining again, needing to help them sate the hunger in them too.

“Little Luna. I am not going to be in control for much longer,” Kai shook from next to me, his fists clenched as his voice deepened. He was covered in sweat, his blue lips gone, his eyes wild with the heat.

~“I’m going to get you out,”~ Brax panted out, and I wished I was there to steady him, his voice shaking.

“How?” I cried as the pressure built inside me to the point of pain. I wanted my mates; I needed them. “Fuck,” I cursed, trying not to lash out, to lose my mind.

I wanted to say yes; my body was urging me to. It was begging me to do whatever it needed to get out of the cuffs and find our mates’ bodies to succumb to.

~“My shadows. I’ve been working with Zale and Enzi, their shadows. We’re going to send them to you, okay? They’ll get you out of the cuffs, then all you have to do is get back here,”~ Brax explained, and I nodded.

“Anything, I’ll do anything, please,” I said, the heat in my stomach boiling, spitting its venom through me, tainting me with this desire that suffocated everything else.

“I thought mates weren’t meant to feel it as potently!” I cried out as the pain almost split me in two.

“You’re a werewolf now. That’s how we feel it, and you are with the alphas. All of us. I’m sorry, Little Luna, I didn’t know how bad it was going to be on the first heat after turning,” he said, his voice pained as he fought back the urge to do whatever it took, like I wanted to.

So fucking bad. But I had to be stronger than that; if I gave in now, then Silas won. No matter what else happened, I had to cement that in my mind.

“It fucking burns,” I bit out, needing to say it out loud so my very soul wasn’t absorbing it all on its own.

~“We’re coming, Spitfire, just hold on,”~ Brax said, his voice so strained, and I knew it was taking everything he had not to lose control, to become a violent monster worthy of the savage stories we were told as humans.

But he held on, and I felt his shadows. They moved, but they were moving away from the link. They were moving from Brax, entwining with the twins, and coming for me. For us. I turned to Kai, his own eyes filled with the pain and heat that was breaking us both.

He growled and yanked on his chains, letting the fury take over for a few seconds before he took heaving breaths to calm down, the chains still unbroken.

“I’m about to chew my own fucking arm off to get this thing off,” Kai snarled, his anger getting the better of him, but I couldn’t even argue because I was almost at that point myself. I needed this heat to stop burning through my will and self-preservation instincts.

~“Talk to me, beautiful. What are you going to do to the vampires once you get out of there?”~ Derik asked, and I knew he was distracting me, but it worked because the images were instant in my head.

“I’m going to make them hurt, ache, and bleed before I let my magic consume them.” I grinned, and Derik’s heat flared in the link. I groaned and leaned my head back. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths.

~“And when those chains come off, how are you going to get out?”~ He asked, and that had my mind spinning. I hadn’t even thought of that. I needed to.

I had no idea what was waiting for me outside the cell door. There could be a waiting army, there could be empty halls. There could be no exit.

“I know the way out from the cells,” Kai grunted, still taking breaths as he clenched his eyes shut in time with his fists.

“And the guards?”

~“That’s my part to deal with, beautiful. I’m sending a distraction in the form of a witch and a beast.”~

I gasped at that.

“Can we trust her?” I asked.

~“She’s staying in the cuffs; she can’t use her magic. And the beast knows he can’t kill her. Whether he does or not is where the trust comes in. But with the heat in the city and infecting the wolves, that is the only distraction I can send at the moment. The others are…busy,”~ Derik said, and I accepted that.

They would be in as much pain and pleasure as I was in. I could feel that in the link. Just.

“Are they suffering?”

~“To an extent. They’re trying to sate the lust, but without us included in the heat, they won’t be able to, not until we are sated, beautiful. But don’t worry about us; just get out of there the second the shadows get you out of those cuffs,”~ he said.

I knew that was what I had to focus on, but finding the will to do that was hard. The second the cuffs were off, all I wanted to do was sink onto Kai’s cock and ride him until I could breathe and think properly. Then go home and do the same thing to Derik and Brax.

It was an excruciating want, one I couldn’t fulfill no matter how badly I wanted it.

“Those cuffs come off, Little Luna, and I need you to get out of this room, turn left; there’s a grate that drops into the sewers just under the window. I need you to get in there as fast as you can. Do you understand me?” Kai huffed, and I frowned.

“I’m not going without you,” I snapped, and he smirked.

“I’ll be right behind you. But your magic is going to escape you; it will surge back to wherever you send it, and I am going to feel it. I will shift, and I don’t want you in the room when I do because I will destroy it,” he warned.

I swallowed. I hadn’t considered that fact, but I didn’t want to leave him. It was painful to even think about, with the heat so strong in my veins already.

“Once my magic is out and I give it back to the pack, will they be okay?”

Derik cleared his throat and breathed hard, even in the link. His heat was flaring in him again, begging me to come back, to sate my mate, to put him out of his misery. And I wanted to, so fucking bad.

“They will survive. And they’ll be able to turn; that will help until you can get here. If we have to, we’ll have another ceremony for them so they are closer and easier to sate with the auras so connected in one room,” Brax said.

I nodded, unable to use my voice as my throat burned with the need that kept me so unhinged.

“Get the cuffs off, get out of the room, turn left, go down into the sewer, wait for Kai,” I muttered quickly, fixing it into my brain to concentrate on something other than the fire consuming me.

“We’re almost there, Spitfire,” Brax said, his connection in the link weakening.

“Brax?” I asked, not sure what that meant.

“I’m good, just haven’t pushed my shadows this far, and I’ve never used them during the heat. I didn’t plan for that,” he bit out, and my heart raced. Sweat prickled all over me again, and my head pounded.

He had to make it; he had to stay with Zale and Enzi—his shadows did anyway. I didn’t want them anywhere near the vamp castle with their shadows.

Panic settled in my stomach as I looked toward the door every few seconds.

“C’mon, Brax. You can do this. Please,” I begged, my voice turning desperate because that’s exactly what I was. I was too hot, my underwear sticking to my sickly sweaty skin that was marked by bruises, cuts, and burns.

The cell stunk of piss and rot; the air was stale, everything was hard and uncomfortable. Not to mention the way my body ached after being splayed against a wall with my arms out and shackled for days.

It was all too much. I needed out; I needed my alphas; I needed to feel my babies in my arms again. I was desperate for it all.

Tears welled in my eyes at the idea that I would never get out, that maybe Brax would pass out, maybe Derik’s distraction would fail in any of the multiple ways it could, maybe Kai would shift and lose control, going after the vamps instead of escaping. Maybe I would.

I had no idea, but I did know that it ran through my head like a stampede, making it throb and ache. I winced and tears fell as I tried to fight the shackles. I was so damn sick of being locked up.

I hated only having my magic to protect me; I hated having that power taken from me. I wanted out; I wanted—

“Keep pushing, beautiful. It’s helping,” Derik strained out, and I frowned, questioning him in the link.

“How is me despairing, helping?” I demanded, pissed that I had let my feelings get the better of me, wishing my hand was free so I could wipe the weakness from my cheeks.

“Brax can feel your need for him, so can the twins. They’re pushing harder, stronger for it. That need fuels them,” he explained, and I laughed cynically.

“Sure, cue mental breakdown mode then.” I rolled my eyes, about to sink into it when there was shouting and commotion on the other side of the door. I tensed, waiting for the vamps to storm in here and finally end us, but they didn’t.

“The beast and Adrenna are close to the castle. They think the pack is close because of it. They think it’s a distraction to get the pack in. We’re closing in on the castle now,” Brax urged, his voice determined as he kept going.

I tuned into his heartbeat, letting it soothe me, soothing it right back. He was coming for me. Derik was in my head, staying with me. Kai was here with me. We were together, as a family. It warmed the cold stone in my stomach that something was going to go wrong.

I was still waiting for the moment I was going to wake up and be back in the cell like my last nightmare, but that wouldn’t come until I had gotten out, so until that point, I had to trust in it. I had to believe in my alphas.

“That’s it, beautiful. Stay strong,” Derik said, and I held onto those words.

“Where are my words of wisdom, D? I’m here too, in case you had forgotten,” Kai teased through a crazed look, and I knew it would hit him hard when I got out of the cuffs. He was already flexing his muscles, stretching out his legs, ready for it.

“Don’t kill our mate. Get her out of there safely, and you can be the first one to claim her when you get back,” Derik offered, but that had Kai barking out a laugh.

“You think I’ll last until we get back? The second we are free of this castle, I will be inside her, but thanks for the thought.” Kai laughed, and I shook my head.

“As much as the heat is eating away at my sanity right now, I still have my babies to get back to, and I need them, so let’s just get out of here and then talk about which dick is getting inside me, hmm?” I said back, and they all went silent, but I felt the amusement from them all.

And then I felt them.

Brax. Zale. Enzi.

My heart rate picked up, and I narrowed my eyes on the door, waiting.

“I can feel you.” I let out on a breath, and Brax grinned.

“Almost there, Spitfire. The vamps can’t see our shadows,” Brax said, and I looked to Kai, who was smirking, a side smirk that made him look devilish. A far cry from the broken wolf of the last few days.

The heat bit into my skin, pain and desperation tugging at everything inside me.

“Hurry, Brax,” I urged.

Then his shadows were there. Zale and Enzi’s with him.

They were pouring in and covering my body in love, warmth, and affection. I absorbed it all, letting it heal the inner parts of my soul that Silas had started to hack at.

“I have to do this quick, I can’t hold it,” Brax bit out, his voice shaking with anger.

“Brax?” I asked, wondering why he had changed, but his rage was polluting me and the shadows he had twined with Zale and Enzi.

“You—you can’t see what I can, Spitfire. I don’t—I can’t see you like this while I’m so connected with the twins,” he bit out, each word sounding as hard to say as the last.

“Hurry then,” I urged, understanding what he meant. If I looked even half as bad as Kai, then I wouldn’t want that image in my kids’ or my mates’ head.

Brax was slipping, his shadows hissing and spilling the longer he moved over me. I felt the tension in them and waited anxiously for him to stretch them over my arms to the shackles.

“Ignore it; when these cuffs come off, I’ll heal. Kai can bite me. I’ll get strong again, don’t let it get to you.” I tried my best, but Brax was wavering in the link.

“Brax,” I warned, and he snarled.

“I’m going to kill him.”

“We will, but I need to be out of these first.” I shook the shackles.

“Please, Brax. I need you,” I begged, terrified he was going to disappear, his shadows were going to leave, extract the darker half of his will before I could get out and help.

But it worked.

His rage turned to a simmer I could breathe through, and his shadows caressed along my arm, like little kisses of silk on my skin until they were at the shackles.

My eyes fluttered closed as I heard the click of the shackles.

My arm dropped, pain lacing through the muscles, radiating in my chest. This was going to hurt like a bitch.

Brax hesitated, then went for the other shackle. Another click echoed in the room, and the second it did, I dropped to my knees, my legs weak, but it wasn’t the weakness that sent me to the floor. It was the power.

It exploded out of me before I could move. A blinding mix of purple and black, power and shadow that filled the room.

It threw Kai’s shackles from his body, then caught him as he fell, caressing over his body, calming him enough to keep him from turning instantly, softening his transition into his wolf.

I didn’t have that. My fangs were out, my claws, and my power. And it was fucking hungry.

I shouldn’t have worried about Derik failing, about Brax not making it, or even Kai fucking up the escape because I knew the second I read my power and its intentions that it was me.

I was the one about to fuck it all up because there was no way I was leaving this damn castle without being covered in vamp blood. A lot of it.

I didn’t care whether it was Silas or his disciples; they were going to see what they tried to cage. What they failed to cage.