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Whistling once, he signaled the all clear to Bianca. Even suspecting the ambush, he’d not accounted for the sheer number gathered to the battle. He’d slid the bike to a halt at the entrance to the rest stop, left Bianca with his bike and raced into the fray.
    Had they been there as witnesses? Or had mob mentality seized them? With only Maddy as a survivor so far, he had no one to question. Maybe I should have left one alive…
    “Pity none are alive,” Sovvan said, wiping at the blood on her cheek. Despite the weariness in her voice, her tone still carried a combative note. “We could have asked them what the purpose of your stunt was.”
    “Sovvan,” Faust said under his breath, but the woman wasn’t listening to him. She staggered a step then crouched to check for a pulse. Finding none, she rose and stumbled on to the next. “Sovvan,” he repeated, then caught her arm. She jerked away from him with a snarl and Faust’s expression tightened as he raised his palms.
    Jose and Cyril trailed Bianca. Smart wolves may have been a few minutes behind him, but defending their healer took precedence. The healer did her best not to look at the carnage, but her distress pulled at him as fiercely as Sovvan’s anger annoyed him. “Take the child,” he told Bianca, even as he glanced at Jose. “Stay with them both.”
    “What about…?” Bianca’s attention went to the mad Omega checking body after body.
    “Leave her. When she calms, she’ll need you.” The last thing his healer needed to deal with was an infuriated Omega. Fortunately for all involved, Bianca didn’t argue as she took charge of the slight weight of a child. The little one’s presence at the ambush incensed him all over again. Had the pack fallen so far that they didn’t even protect the weakest among them?
    Fire burns, but it also makes us malleable. If you don’t forge the next generation in fire, what will happen to them? Ignoring the echo of the past playing on a loop in his head, he pointed a finger at Cyril while he tracked Bianca’s movements away from the death box. “Bring your people in. Sanitize the location. Identify all the bodies, catalog what they have with them—return all personal items to their kin.” He wouldn’t wait for notification. As soon as Bianca and the child were out of sight, he returned to inspecting the bodies, memorizing the faces. Some he knew, some were too young to have participated in a previous Reaping—though a handful had been present.
    “Alpha?” Cyril had his phone in his hand, but he wasn’t calling or texting anyone. Instead he stared after the Omega.
    The wolf continued to weave from body to body like a drunken sailor. Her faithful Hound trailed her, not interfering in whatever the fuck she was doing. “Ignore her and do what you were told.” Cassius didn’t have a lot of time. If Faust couldn’t get her in hand before they had to go… I’ll what? Assault her?
    The attempt to contravene his orders indicated a full-fledged rebellion within Sutter Butte. Cyril Quintero shook his head. Whether in disbelief or denial, Cassius didn’t know or care. The wolf obeyed him, issuing orders to those answering the phone. The Quinteros had a fortune invested in trucking companies—refrigerated trucks which carried supplies from one end of the desert to the other. They transported everything from meats and vegetables to dry goods. In this case, carcasses. One face caught his attention as he nudged the body over onto its back.
    Son of a bitch… The wolf staring sightlessly up at him was Jose’s son. “Cyril.”
    The other wolf told whomever he spoke to, to wait. “Yes, Alpha?”
    “Have a care with them all.” Jose told him he’d sent his son home, but what if he’d had more than one son involved? The boy before him couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen. Children.
    They’d sent children to fight. Rising, he glared at the bodies and returned to his own pacing off of the fallen. Closer to