Charlotte POV:
Chaos erupted.
Gabe dragged me out, shouting orders to his Beta. "Lock down the perimeter! Jam signals! Get the car!"
He was terrified. If the King found a pregnant, abused daughter here, the Sullivan Pack was history.
"Let me go!" I screamed, digging my heels into the carpet.
"Shut up!" Gabe hissed. He dragged me out the back exit.
A black SUV screeched to a halt.
"Get in," Gabe shoved me.
"Charlotte!"
My foster mother, Mary, ran toward us. For a second, I thought she was coming to save me.
"You forgot the sedative!" she yelled, tossing a syringe to Gabe.
My heart didn't break this time. It just hardened.
Gabe caught the syringe. He uncapped it with his teeth. Wolfsbane.
"Don't make me use this," Gabe warned. "Get in."
I scrambled into the backseat. Gabe jumped in beside me. The driver, a grim-faced enforcer named Vince, floored the gas.
We sped away.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"The clinic," Gabe said, scanning the sky. "We do the procedure. Then we hide you in the mountains."
"He will find me," I said. "I felt the bond, Gabe. He's close."
"He knows where you were," Gabe snapped.
We arrived at a secluded, run-down building in the woods. It wasn't a hospital. It was a chop shop.
As I was pulled out, I felt a pull in my gut. Like a compass needle swinging north.
Run.
Gabe was distracted, talking to the doctor.
I stomped on Gabe's foot. He grunted, grip loosening.
I wrenched free and bolted toward the woods.
"Get her!" Gabe roared.
I pushed through brambles, thorns tearing my skin.
Suddenly, a sharp pain pricked my neck.
I reached up. A dart.
My vision blurred. Vince had a good aim.
"Got her," Vince said.
I fell to the dirt.
Gabe stood over me, panting.
"Why do you make this so hard?" he asked.
He picked me up. I tried to push him away, but my arms were lead.
"Please..." I slurred. "My baby..."
"It's for the best," he whispered. "We can't have a Rogue baby, Charlotte. Mother was right."
He carried me into the clinic. The smell of bleach and silver hit me.
They laid me on a metal table. Leather straps buckled around my wrists.
"Hurry," Gabe said to the doctor. "Do it now."
The doctor picked up a scalpel. Silver. It burned my eyes just looking at it.
I couldn't move. I could only watch the blade move toward my stomach.
Father, my mind cried out. Daddy, please.
And then, the world exploded.
BOOM.
The wall didn't just break; it disintegrated.
Through the hole, a figure stepped in.
He was huge. He radiated power so intense the lights burst. His eyes were glowing crimson.
"I SAID..."
The King's voice knocked the doctor backward into the cabinets. Gabe fell to his knees, blood trickling from his nose.
Antony Dean looked at me strapped to the table. His expression shifted from the wrath of a god to the heartbreak of a father.
"...DO NOT TOUCH HER!"
