Becker was about to confirm receipt of the instructions, but the sound of gunfire stopped him.
“We’re going in!” he shouted at the same time he kicked away from the wall and swung toward the window. A movement to his right told him that Cooper was doing the exact same thing.
When he reached the apex of his swing, he lifted his M4 and put a three-round burst through the window. Pieces of shattered glass were still falling as he and Cooper swung into the room. Becker yanked the quick release on his rappelling harness and dropped to the floor. There was a light thud beside him as Cooper did the same. The second their feet touched down, they both tossed stun grenades, immediately followed by smoke grenades. Becker ducked, covering his eyes from the brilliant flash; then he was up and wading into the smoke-filled room, searching for Jayna and her pack, slugging whoever got in his way.
His nose led him to an overturned chair in front of Frasheri’s desk, then across the room to the flipped over couch. Behind it, he found Chris flat on his back and in pain, with Moe and Joseph kneeling over him holding pistols and shooting anyone who tried to get near them. Relief crossed their faces when they saw Becker.
“Where’s Jayna?” he shouted.
Panic flashed in Moe’s eyes as he frantically looked around. “She was here just a second ago.”
Shit.
“Cooper,” he said into his mic. “I’m going to find Jayna. Her pack is over by the couch near the wall. Three males—one African American, two white, one injured.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when he heard Jayna shouting his name. Becker ordered Moe, Joseph, and Chris to stay put, then raced for the door, slowing only long enough to rip the MP5 away from the Albanian blocking his way and smacking the man aside with it. He charged down the hallway in the direction he’d heard Jayna’s voice.
Becker growled as he caught sight of Brandon dragging Jayna into a room at the far end of the hall. He’d never felt the urge to just plain tear someone apart before, but seeing the omega manhandling Jayna made him want to do that and more. He should have killed Brandon that first day he’d shown up here.
Becker ran through the doorway, skidding to a halt to avoid falling through the huge opening where the floor should have been. Thanks to the construction crew, sections of the floor and walls were gone, revealing rebar, plumbing pipes, electrical conduits, and AC vents. That should have made disappearing difficult, but parts of the floor were piled high with junk, toolboxes, and other construction materials, all of which provided excellent places to hide.
Becker was so focused on tracking them by scent, he didn’t see Brandon appear from behind a tool chest with Jayna in front of him as a shield until the omega began shooting at him.
Getting shot didn’t bother Becker, but the sight of Brandon’s claws wrapped around Jayna’s throat so tightly that blood ran down his fingers sent him into a rage like he’d never felt before. He dropped his M4, letting it hang by its strap across his chest, and rushed the omega with a snarl that shook the dust off the walls as he leaped from rebar to rebar. He felt one round, then another smack into his tactical vest. He ignored them, just like he ignored the one that drilled straight through his unprotected right shoulder. The pain didn’t even register. It only pissed him off more.
Becker hadn’t been a werewolf very long, but unlike some of the guys on the team, he’d never really had a problem with controlling his anger or the random shifting that came with it. But at that moment, he gave in to the instinct to let go and become the animal inside. He’d always been fast, but as his body twisted and rippled into a form that was nearly as much wolf as man, he was practically flying across the floor.
Brandon’s eyes flared and he issued a growl of his own as he tossed Jayna aside like a rag doll. Becker’s heart tore apart as the woman he loved bounced off a steel support column to land in a crumpled heap. He wanted to race to her side, but that would have left him open to even more bullets. One fatal shot and there’d be nothing to stop Brandon from shooting Jayna too.
Brandon raised his weapon for a head shot as Becker hurtled a tool bin and slammed into the omega like a two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound truck. Bone crunched—both his and Brandon’s—as his momentum drove the omega backward through the air and into the concrete wall. But as violent as the impact had been, Brandon shook it off and came at Becker, eyes like that of a berserker and fangs ready to rip and tear anything they could.
Becker bared his teeth with a deep, menacing growl, more than ready to fight.