Chapter Twenty-six

There were Kur’iks walking in and out The Wolves Den asking questions, doing research, leaving then coming back to find out more information.

Fire looked over and ran her hand down Declyn’s arm.

“Stop frowning your people can see you.”

“Lately all we have been using this place for is finding missing mates. I’m trying to remember the last time I had a drink in here.”

“I’ll make sure you have something to drink tonight.”

He flashed her a smile. “Do I get to pick my brand of poison?”

“I’m ignoring you.” She went to walk away, but he wrapped an arm around her middle and pulled her closer kissing the side of her neck before he let her go.

She walked away with a definite wiggle to her ass.

“Alpha,” Chase raised his hand in a wave.

“Chase, Jasper, how is the search going?”

“I’ve been searching for signs of them on the internet. Maybe just a mention of seeing two incredibly tall males with a female. It’s the needle and haystack that Deja told me about.”

“I’ve been looking for transmissions that might have come from them,” Chase added. “I’m looking for cell phone transmissions. They dump their original phones, but they should have picked up another set of phones. I’m not getting anything from a possible phone.”

“Why do they need a phone? They should just be able to talk to each other mentally.”

“Not without you or Declyn picking up their conversation. They would use a tight bandwidth of mental energy, but at some point, it would bleed out, just enough for either of you to pick it up and get a trace on them.”

“It’s not like they could have left the Earth.” She turned to look at Declyn worry in her eyes. “You don’t think they left the Earth, do you?” Her voice was low, but he could still hear the anguish.

“Why would she leave? Deja has always been there for me. Now she just ups and leaves. Do you think I did something to offend her or upset her?”

Declyn took her hand and led her to a table away from the others. He pulled out a chair for her to sit and slid it in when she seated herself.

“I don’t think you did anything to make her leave. Deja is a brilliant female and a sensitive one. You wouldn’t know that because you weren’t around as she began to grow. I’ve been thinking about this since you started questioning me about what I was feeling. I think she left to cut something off.”

She ran her hand through her hair trying to hide the trembling that didn’t seem to want to stop. When Deja first left, she was sure she would be back. No need to worry she assured herself even though she was worrying. That’s what friends did, or at least it was what she did. The longer she was gone, the more acid piled into her stomach making her sure something was wrong.

“We have to find her.”

“You’re our best hope at that. Tell me where she would have gone.”

“If I knew that Declyn, don’t you think I would already be there?” She blew up yelling at him.

He reached over caught the arm of her chair and pulled it until she was right in front of him.

“If Enzo disappeared on the ship he would go the very bottom of it. There was a room that had a view screen that allowed you to look from every possible angle out the ship. It was like being in space with the ability to breathe. No one else would be able to find him. I was the only one who would know where he was.

“Ven found a crawl space when he first came on board the ship. He was so little, and he disappeared one day. Enzo was losing his shit looking for his son. We were going over every word Ven ever said to either of us, that’s how he remembered his casual comment about a roomy crawlspace. Roomy, I still shake my head when I think of that, but we found him.”

“Was there ever a place that Deja talked to you about?”

She stood running her hands up and down her arms before she started pacing. The beauty of the wood floor caught her attention as she moved.

They had their own clubhouse. It was more like an overhang over an old porch for a house that was condemned. They would go there and sit because no one liked to be around that place. They spent hours sitting there and dreaming when they were teens.

“About two hours outside of the city there is a manmade lake. We learned about the lake in school and looked it up once. They rent what looked like estates around the lake. They are private and beautiful, she always wanted to able to vacation there.”

“We’re on it.” Jasper and Chase said together as they turned back to their computer interfaces.

Fire continued to pace rubbing her hands against her thighs to keep her from pulling at her hair. She took deliberate slow breaths as she wondered how life had become so good and so fucked up at the same time?

“We’re going to have to replace those floor boards.”

“I can’t stop thinking about why she left. Whatever the reason it had something to do with me.”

“Safire.” She stopped him with a shake of her head.

“Friends don’t just leave friends. Maybe some of them do, but Deja wouldn’t have just left.”

Deja never just left, their friendship was built on absolute trust. The only person she trusted as much as she trusted Deja was Declyn.

“Was there a note when you checked their house?”

“Note?”

“Did you check the house?”

“It was empty. What was I checking it for?”

He’s not human. Of course, he wouldn’t check the house.

We should have thought of this earlier.

Fire! I thought we agreed to never run again.

We run if our friend’s life is in danger.

She was out the door and approaching their porch when Declyn caught up with her.

“You’re fast.”

“Shh don’t tell anyone they will want me to run all the time.” The door wasn’t locked, so she was able to just walk in.

“Where would she place a note.”

He walked through the room. “I don’t see anything.”

“It’s not for you, it’s for me.” She walked into the kitchen and smiled. “The day I came to visit Deja, she insisted that she make me a cup of tea. It was in this tin canister. She went on about it showing me the canister, but I remember wondering why she had two canisters of the same tea.” She took them down one was filled with tea the other was empty of tea all that was in there was a single sheet of paper.

She pulled it out. “One note.”

She sat down before she read the note. Once she was done, she handed it over to Declyn. He scanned it and then looked at it again.

“Fire,” he read. “The compound is in danger. You’re in danger. The only thing I can do is lead it away from you and the others.”

“She left because she thought something was threatening my life,” she whispered.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“What would you have done?”

He stared at her before looking at the note again. “What’s happening here?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out together.”

He stuck the note in the back pocket of his jeans and took her hand as she stood up.

“We’re going to find all three of them.”

“We are, do you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because we don’t leave our people behind. Ever.”

She nodded and followed him out the house.

The walk back to The Wolves Den was quiet as they were each in their own thoughts.

“Did you find anything?” His voice stopped them in their tracks until he relented pulling back his Alpha voice.

Everyone in the room bowed their heads in submission. “Alpha.”

“What did you find?”

“Nothing.”

Fire went to ask a question, but Jasper put up his hand stopping her.

“There was nothing out of place. Not a blip of a random transmission. Not a stray physic thought, nothing.”

“It’s too quiet,” Chase added. “It feels like a dampening field has been placed over a thirty-mile radius. We checked it out and narrowed it down to a ten-mile radius. The bleed is what is covering the other twenty miles.”

“What are we waiting for?” She turned to look at Declyn. He was standing still. She opened her mind and allowed herself to connect with him.

He was telling Xander and Caden where to go. They would start the initial search, but they were to watch if they found them but not to approach. He had Cait and Tristan moving towards Cole. Jessie was taking Mia to Amira’s house because she was coming with Cole.

He touched other minds giving them jobs to do before he took Fire’s hand and led her out the club and to their garage.

She got in the car and watched him as he pulled out the garage and left the compound.

“You’re used to this, aren’t you?”

“Every day, for more years than you want to remember, I directed my people in war. I knew where they were, and who and what they were fighting. I never just sat on the ship safe and sound as they fought, I was in the midst of it. A general with my hands everywhere at once directing my troops. I do not invite war. I don’t like it, but I won’t shy away from it either. My people are used to their lives being in danger. It’s how they live it’s what they are used to. We won’t pretend that we don’t know what to do and we will act even if death is the possible outcome. This is who we are.”

“I like who you are. I like who the Kur’iks are. I’m sorry I brought this down on you.”

“Don’t be they were getting bored. We’ve had more action and chances to fight since we’ve started finding mates, than the whole four hundred years we’ve been here.”

“Remember you said that.”

“I will.”

She closed her eyes trying to piece together parts of an incomplete puzzle. Why had Ron been so sure that she was an alien? Pictures of different planets weren’t enough to come to that conclusion. What makes you even think of aliens from another planet being on Earth? Had he seen something that had shaken him or suggested the whole we are not alone line? Could it have been a government project?

Of course, he could have simply fallen in with the wrong people. There was always that, but the look in his eyes said it was so much more. Whatever was happening was related to Ron, but there was more to it. This was bigger than him, but how much bigger.

She needed to talk to Deja.