Jenna swung open the large iron grid and watched with a sense of pride and relief as the first few captives began to shuffle out of their prison.
One by one, woman by woman, the group of them stepped away, finally free.
Chapter Thirty-one
The warriors had been only a few miles away from the location when Rio got a frantic cell phone call from Dylan, telling him everything that had happened. Even though they had been clued in, even though they knew that she and Alex and Renata and Jenna had somehow--miraculously--found and freed the captive females Dragos had imprisoned for so many years, Brock and his brethren seated in the Order's SUV had not been prepared for the sight that greeted them as they roared up the shoreline road and saw the big yellow house on the rocks.
The sun had just begun to dip below the opposite horizon, casting its last, long shadows across the snow-covered yard of the tall Victorian. And in that yard, filing out of the front door wrapped in blankets, antique quilts, and crocheted afghans, were easily a dozen bedraggled, haggard young women.
Breedmates.
Several were already in the Rover parked in the driveway. Still others were being escorted out of the house by Alex and Dylan.
"Jesus Christ," Brock whispered, awed by the enormity of what had occurred.
Renata was standing near the Rover, helping some of the former captives into the backseat.
Where the hell was Jenna?
Brock scanned the entire area in a quick glance, his heart climbing up his chest. God, what if she was hurt? Dylan surely would have said something if there'd been casualties, but that didn't keep the rock from forming in the pit of his stomach. If anything had happened to her ...
"Hang on," Niko said, as he pulled in to the driveway, then steered the big SUV right up onto the lawn.
Brock leapt out even before the vehicle had come to a full stop.
He had to see his woman. Had to feel her warm and safe in his arms.
He ran across the frozen yard, his boots chewing up the distance in mere seconds.
Alex looked up at him as he tore toward her.
"Where is she?" he demanded. "Where's Jenna? Did anything happen to her?"
"She's fine, Brock." Alex gestured toward the open front door of the house, where the bloodied corpse of at least one Minion lay visible and motionless inside. "Jenna's making sure the rest of the women get out safely from the cellar where they were being held."
He sagged at the news that she was okay, unable to hide his relief. "I have to see her."
Alex gave him a warm smile as she led one of the shivering, wan Breedmates toward the pair of waiting vehicles. He stepped forward and was about to vault up onto the veranda porch.
"Brock?"
The small, feminine voice--so unexpected, so distantly familiar--
stopped him dead in his tracks. Something clicked in his brain. A spark of disbelief.
A grinding jolt of recognition.
"Brock ... is it really you?"
Slowly, he pivoted around to face a diminutive, dark-haired female who was paused in the driveway, just off the steps of the porch. He hadn't noticed her when he'd passed her a moment ago. Good Christ, he wasn't sure he would have recognized her if she'd come right up to him in the street.
But he knew her voice.
Beneath the grime of her captivity and the neglect that had made her cheeks sallow, her alabaster skin marred with dirt and scratches, he realized that he did, in fact, know her face, as well.
"Oh, my God." He felt winded, as if someone had kicked all the air out of his lungs. "Corinne?"
"It is you," she whispered. "I never thought I'd see you again."