Jenna breathed in the crisp, twilight air as she stepped onto the porch behind the shuffling Breedmate. She glanced over toward the driveway, where Renata and Niko were helping some of the females into the Rover.
Rio and Dylan, Kade and Alex were busy on the snowy front lawn, walking still more released women into another of the Order's SUVs.
But it was the sight of Brock that made her freeze in place where she stood.
Her feet simply stopped moving, her heart cracking open as she saw him locked in a tender embrace with a petite, dark-haired female.
Jenna didn't need to see her face to know that it would match the sketch Claire had provided. Or that the fragile beauty wrapped so gently in Brock's strong arms was the same young woman in the photograph he'd kept with him all the years after he'd thought her dead.
Corinne.
By some miracle of fate, Brock's past love had been returned to him.
Jenna choked back her bittersweet sob, realizing that he'd just been granted the impossible: the gift of love resurrected.
As much as it tore at her own heart to witness it, she couldn't help but be moved by their tender reunion.
And she couldn't bear to interrupt it, no matter how desperately she yearned to be the one in his sheltering arms at that moment.
Steeling herself, she took a quiet step off the porch and headed past them to continue the evacuation of the other freed captives.
Chapter Thirty-two
Brock glanced up and saw Jenna walking away from him, toward the ongoing activity in the driveway.
She was safe.
Thank God.
His heart leapt in his chest, jolting with such relief to see her, he thought it might burst out of his rib cage.
"Jenna!"
She pivoted slowly toward him and the relief he'd felt a moment ago drained into his heels. Her face was stricken and pale. The front of her coat was torn in places and stained a garish, deep scarlet.
"Oh, Jesus." He broke away from Corinne and raced over to where Jenna had now paused. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he took her in from head to toe, his Breed senses overwhelmed at the presence of so much coppery spilled blood. "Ah, Christ ... Jenna, what happened to you?"
Her face pinched a bit as she shook her head and drew away from him. "I'm okay. The blood isn't mine. One of the Minions came at me in the cellar. I shot him."
Brock hissed, racked with worry even though she was standing in front of him now, assuring him that she wasn't harmed. "When I heard something had gone wrong here--" His voice choked off on a dark curse.
"Jenna, I was so damned scared that you might be hurt."
She shook her head, her hazel eyes seeming sad but steady. "I'm fine."
"And Corinne," he blurted, glancing across the way to where she still stood, looking small and forlorn, a dim shadow of the vibrant girl who'd vanished from Detroit all those decades ago. "She's alive, Jenna. She was being held here with the others."
Jenna nodded. "I know."
"You do?" He stared at her, confused now.
"One of the new sketches Claire Reichen had provided," she explained. "I only saw it as we arrived here, but I recognized Corinne's face from the picture you have of her back in your quarters."
"I can't believe it," he murmured, still stunned as hell by all he'd just heard. "She told me someone took her that night. She doesn't know who. I have no idea whose body I saw, or why it was staged to look like hers. My God ... I'm not sure what to think about the whole thing now."
Jenna listened to him ramble on, her expression patient and understanding. Far calmer than he was. True to form, she stayed in rock-steady control, the cool professional, even though she'd just been through a hell of an ordeal herself.
Emotion swamped him, his respect for her immeasurable in that moment.