Chapter Nineteen
Dominic
Nothing was out there, nothing that he could see, but the feeling of something being wrong was growing deeper inside of him. The woods had become silent, almost too silent. No animals scurried around, not another limb snapped, nothing at all but a hollow, stillness night. And Dominic knew that wasn’t right.
Feeling overly cautious with every bone in his body, he was only a few steps in the woods but turned around and quietly crept back to his own cabin. The lights were still off, and at first glance nothing seemed to be disturbed at all. But as he stepped one paw onto the porch, he saw that his front door was open just the tiniest crack. With his nose he pushed it open and tentatively stepped inside.
Nothing was out of place but he could tell immediately that Olivia was no longer inside. The air, the feeling, the warmth that had surrounded him every time he was in her presence was gone. She wasn’t in the cabin and he would have felt her outside, where did she go?
One job, Atticus had given him just one job, to protect his daughter and that was the only job in his life that ever even mattered to Dominic, to make sure that he kept Olivia safe, and now she was missing.
He hopes that he hadn’t failed and that she was still safe somewhere. That he wasn’t too late. But if they caught her, then why would they have kept her alive? He knew what those poachers were capable of and they showed no mercy. This wasn’t about hurting and killing, this was about destruction for a game. For amusement. So if they really did have her, then he was going to have to find her fast.
Back outside he slowly made his way from cabin to cabin, a shadow in the night. Many of the shifters had been called away to help guard the other packs, those that were left were exhausted form their constant duty. If there was nothing wrong at all, he didn’t want to cause a raucous. There was still a chance, though Dominic knew it was smaller and smaller, that nothing was wrong at all and that everything was in his head.
Suddenly there was a high-pitched scream. Commotion tore apart the silence of the night and Dominic turned quickly in the direction of Atticus’ cabin. Before he could even think about it he was racing toward to Atticus where he was sure that he would find Olivia.
The light was on outside of Atticus’ cabin where it hadn’t been before and he could see a ring of men standing outside in the yellow light. Dominic slowed and surveyed the scene. He wasn’t sure what was happening but before he went barreling into a group of dangerous men who potentially held Olivia, he had to get a better sense of what was happening.
He got down low in the shadows next to the cabin and was ready to pounce at any moment if needed.
“Listen, Alpha, we’ve got your daughter. Took her without even trying, we’ve got the upper hand here,” one of the poachers said.
Atticus stood there in the middle of the ring of poachers, they were large and Dominic could see how dangerous they were. In their hands were knives that glinted in the moonlight. They weren’t playing around and they clearly didn’t intend to leave anyone alive.
But why were they taking to Atticus like that? They’d had the upper hand. Even with the commotion the other pack members were still in their cabins and Dominic wasn’t sure if it was because they hadn’t heard what was happening or if they were too afraid to come out. He hoped it was one of those possibilities and not that they’d already been attacked themselves.
“What is it you want?” Atticus asked.
Dominic had to admire the calm in his voice; the strength that exuded from him even when they were threating his daughter. Though Dominic felt anything but calm. He could feel the snarl on his lips and the growl inside him was building low and steady. The only thing he wanted to do was to rip these men apart, but he needed to follow Atticus’ lead and stay calm.
“We want you. We want all of you dead.”
Atticus spoke again, only a slight tremor to his voice. “But my daughter, there is no reason to take my daughter. She isn’t a shifter— she’s human. You’d be killing a human.”
The main poacher shrugged with indifference. “She’s one of you, she dies too.”
“Then why use her as bait? Why haven’t you killed her already? Perhaps you don’t want to kill a human?”
He had to give it to the old Alpha, using logical tactics on men that had torn apart whole packs before was risky. But what choice did he have?
“Because, Atticus, we needed you to come out here. We needed to capture you, an Alpha is the winning ticket in this game. But do you know what’s even better?”
Atticus shifted uncomfortably, he was running out of words and ways to stall these men. Death was becoming more imminent as each second ticked past.
The Poachers didn’t say anything again, not until Atticus spoke.
“What is better than catching an Alpha and winning the game?”
“Killing your daughter right in front of your own eyes. Destroying the Alpha before we cut off his head.”
Dominic was almost ready right then to pounce on these men and kill as many as he could, no one was going to talk to Atticus that way. But before he could, one of the men with the largest knife on the outer ring shifted just enough and he could see Olivia.
His girl.
And she was being held hostage by a man that was as large as Dominic. But his stomach sank when he saw that the man had a knife too and its sharp blade was pressed against the soft flesh of her throat. He held her so tightly that a bead of blood was dripping down her neck.
She was looking around frantically when her eyes locked on Dominic’s. Even in the shadows she had been able to find him. He didn’t know what to do or how to save her, but somehow she was able to get inside his mind.
“Follow my lead,” she seemed to say.
So, Dominic continued to stay in the shadows, ready to follow her into battle.