Chapter Three
Angel Falls, Idaho
Wyatt
Just what I needed, the captive getting killed. If I didn’t save her and get the information I needed, my cousin would be furious. And rightly so.
Beside me, Nyria growled low and deep in her throat.
“I don’t sense anything,” West whispered before changing back into a wolf. The bloody rag fell off his leg. The bleeding had slowed, although the scent of his blood was still as fresh as the stench of fear wafting up from below. I took advantage of his shift to pad quietly down into the darkness, Nyria right behind me.
The stairs led into a small, dark cellar edged in shelves filled with various human knick-knacks and machinery. Toward the back, haloed by a single, horror-movie looking lightbulb dangling from a chain attached to the ceiling, was a barefoot woman in a tank and a pencil skirt bound, blindfolded and gagged in a chair. The bright red hair glinting in the light told me this was our missing Brigit Rayna.
A visibly shaking, sweating young male holding a gun to the woman’s head. A ruse, perhaps, if the wizards needed her alive, but a lone survivor, and a human at that, might not care about long-term consequences if killing her might distract everyone enough to guarantee his short-term safety.
A loud snarl tore through the air, and behind me, West went wild. There was no other word for it. Ears against his skull, he tore down the stairs, claws scrabbling against the cement floor as he skidded to a halt when he registered just how close to death the human female was. We hurdled forward, Nyria throwing herself in between West and the hostage situation while I quickly changed into a human.
“Calm down,” I said coldly to West, who snarled at me and paced back and forth, eyes fixed on the hostage in a death stare. Shit. I’d never seen my brother like this. Could that woman be…?
No. Couldn’t be a mate. She smelled human. Human mates—or rather, part-human mates, as all mates were at least part shifter—were fragile. A weakness.
Yet West was behaving as though she was.
Just what I needed. Great. Nothing worse than a shifter with the scent of a mate in its nose. Especially when they were in the middle of a dangerous situation. Although all things given, the fact that West hadn’t just flung himself in a boiling rage at the human male was nothing short of miraculous.
“Tell that shifter to stand down or I’ll—” The gun jabbed hard against the woman’s head, and at her muffled cry, West became even more agitated.
I slashed my arm through the air in West’s direction, warning him to back off. Clearly alarmed by the threat to another female’s life, Nyria sank her teeth into his side as an additional warning. West turned on Nyria and for a heart-stopping second, I feared he would attack anything and anyone who stood between him and the human. But after a second, he quieted, the look in his flat, golden eyes even more terrifying in the deafening silence.
Guess I get the play good cop this time around.
“If you want the girl alive, I want out. I want out of all of this.”
“You already called for backup,” I pointed out, my voice as calm and soothing as possible. “How long before they show up? Half an hour? You know you’ll end up like your friends up there if there’s another battle. Hell, they might even do it themselves to tie up any loose ends.”
The human was in his late teens, early twenties at most. Young enough to be malleable, old enough that there was no excuse for his behavior.
“I didn’t sign up for any of this shit. Was told to get the girl, and I’d get to… get to be like them.” The way his voice dropped at the end suggested that it just dawned on him that while he might have held up his end of the bargain, he had no leverage to ensure the favor was returned.
“How noble of you,” I replied dryly, mind spinning through my options. I honestly didn’t give a shit what happened to the human male. He wouldn’t go to the police. The wizards would get just as much information from him as they would from the few seconds we were caught on the security cameras. Besides, the wizards would probably kill him on sight in retaliation for this all going down badly.
The human’s gun-holding hand slipped briefly, and then lifted again and pressed against her temple. The woman flinched. She was a pretty little thing, with a smattering of freckles visible under her blindfold, and a bright gold locket that stood out like a beacon against her pale skin.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, hands spread out in a gesture of unthreatening goodwill. Probably would have gone over better if there wasn’t blood smeared all over my naked body. Oh, well. I tried. “We don’t give a shit about you. All we care about is the hostage. You kill her, you’re dead. If not by us, then by the wizards you were hired by. You try to kidnap her, you won’t get far before either we take you out, or the wizards catch up to you, get the information they want, and then incinerate your body. They hate loose ends.”
“And you don’t?” The human snapped.
“What sounds more dangerous? A man running around saying he saw a man turn into a wolf, or a man who can testify in human court about a kidnapping? You see any other humans taken out by wizards they trusted? You’re next.”
The man’s breath caught. Bingo.
“So here’s how it goes,” I continued, aware that every minute that passed was another minute closer to a dozen or so furious, fully-alert wizards showing up. “You untie her, walk her carefully up the stairs. We follow. You leave her unharmed at the front door and run out on the brightly lit street. We aren’t going to follow you and risk being seen in wolf form by other humans. Also don’t want my dick to freeze off.”
“What about the wizards?” The gun’s nozzle had slipped again, but the human didn’t care. He was starting to trust me. See my logic.
“You keep your mouth shut about us and run. No one will believe you anyway. Build a hut on the beach in Bali for all I give a shit. We torch this house and if you’re lucky, the wizards will assume you died in it. We all get to live another day.”
The human looked down at the hostage.
“Ten seconds to choose.”
“Or?”
“Or we write this entire thing off as a failed mission, and you die anyway. Why do you think security was so lax? The info I want from her I can get in other ways. Might just have to wait a week. I’m as impatient as the next guy, but this isn’t big enough for me to risk my pack’s lives.”
West snarled. If he messed up my bluff, I was going to be pissed. Then again, West could tear my throat out in retribution for putting his mate in harm’s way and probably avoid most repercussions.
A few seconds spun out as the human’s eyes darted between the hostage and West’s sharp teeth.
Self-preservation won out, as it often did. “Damn it.” The human pulled a pocketknife out of his pants and, with shaking hands, sliced at the ties securing her legs and torso to the chair. The female made a gasping noise as her limbs were freed, probably in pain as the blood rushed to places unused to movement for too long. “Get up,” the man snarled.
She staggered to her feet, still blindfolded, gagged and arms bound behind her. West growled, and she shrank back against the human. I couldn’t blame her. “We won’t hurt you, lady,” I told her, and she made a sound that could only be described as disbelieving.
Fair enough.
The male roughly shoved her along one way toward the stairs as I slowly circled in the other direction, the two wolves behind me. “Don’t try anything funny or they’ll hunt you down in three seconds flat,” I said, my voice colder than before.
“I know, man, I know. I just want to get out.” He started up the stairs backwards, keeping one hand on the woman’s ponytail as he dragged her up, keeping her as a shield between him and the wolves. Nyria growled her displeasure as the woman stumbled and made a pained noise.
In an agonizing dance, we moved from the basement to the front door, first the man, then his hostage, then me with Nyria and West on either side, clearly thirsting for blood. The woman’s breath started hitching dangerously as she stepped and slipped through the puddles of blood upstairs, and the human male came close to retching when he accidently stepped on a nearly dismembered hand. West whined low in his throat at the sound of the female’s distress.
Poor West. This wasn’t exactly the first date anyone wanted to share with a mate.
When they finally reached the door, the human opened it, glanced out, and winced at the blood on the dark porch. He looked me square in the eye, determination warring with fear. “I have your word that you won’t hunt me down?”
I resisted the urge to make a cutting remark about how a man with no honor was at the mercy of another man’s honor. Goal was to save this human. “Yes.”
Without another word, the human shoved his hostage forward as hard as possible and sprinted out the door. Anticipating the move, I stepped forward to catch the woman, but before I could touch her, West was in human form and had her pinned to the wall, one hand across her torso, the other on the necklace, his fingers scrabbling with the small trinket.
“West!” Nyria howled in outrage after shifting. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked hard enough that she could have dislocated a human’s arm. West barely flinched. “You’re terrifying her! Stop!”
What the…?
“It’s the damn locket!” West easily snapped the chain and brought it to his nose, face stark and almost in shock. He cracked it open, and a lock of hair fall into his waiting palm.
It had to be from his mate.
Wyatt knows what his mate smells like. Why don’t you?
I gritted my teeth. Hard.
Nyria’s hands flew over the woman as she tore at her bindings. “Are you okay?” Nyria asked anxiously. “He’s usually not this much of an ass. Seriously. He’s never done this before. It’s just that your locket has…”
As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, the woman’s gaze darted past them to the bodies on the floor, and a few seconds later, Nyria was holding a limp body with an incredulous look on her face. “I forgot how easily they faint.”
“She was rescued from kidnappers by a bunch of naked shapeshifters covered in blood, one of whom attacked her for her necklace while she stood in a kitchen full of butchered bodies,” I pointed out dryly. “No, seems about right. She’s probably hungry, too. Let’s get out of here.”
“The hair.” West was holding a small curl of dark brown hair in his hands as reverently as one might hold a newborn cub. “It’s her, Wyatt.”
Something dark and ugly moved inside me. Jealousy. Resentment. I shoved it back into the dark part of my soul. I could unpack it later when everyone was safe. One day I will find my mate again.
“Let’s finish up here. No—” I held up my hand as West turned on me, furious. “You can leave to find your mate tonight. I promise. But we must finish up here and get this woman to safety. Besides, she’s your best bet for an easy search. Probably her sister or best friend. We all need answers from her, and then you can set out to find your mate.”
West’s gaze shot to the unconscious woman, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ll take care of her.” He stepped forward, but Nyria scooped her up in her arms and shot West a death glare.
“You’ve done enough damage, you jerkwad. Go help Wyatt torch this place and take the time to reconsider how you approach females. Because at this rate, your mate would probably kick you in the balls before wanting anything to do with you. And rightly so.” With her head held high, she stepped through the carnage like a ballet dancer and headed out the back door. “I’ll meet you guys back in the van.”
“Need any dating tips?” I asked lightly.
“From you?” West shot back, and then froze when he saw my face, his arms going up instinctively. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I spun away from him, fists clenched, fighting the animalistic urge to swipe at my brother with years’ worth of pent up rage and frustration. I know my enemies laugh at me behind my back—the ones who initially did so to my face could no longer talk. What shifter couldn’t scent his mate after they already met and touched? What shifter couldn’t track his mate after the mating mark showed up on both their bodies? And what kind of leader left the most important being in their life out in the world, alone, without protecting them? A scream of rage rose in my throat and I bent over at the waist to contain it.
Focus. Focus. Fire. Bodies.
“Wyatt.” West’s voice grew closer. “Wyatt. You’ll find her again. You know that. It’s not your fault, everyone knows that. And once I’ve found mine, I can help you again.”
I didn’t respond, and not another word was said until we reached the van, flames licking the night sky behind us as sirens screamed. The back door swung open and we hopped in. “Don’t change back until we’re home,” Nyria said, swinging the door shut again. “She’s had enough drama today.”
The former hostage was awake and sitting on one of the benches in the back of the van. Nyria, who was now dressed and washed clean of blood, sat on her haunches in between us and the human and went back to treating cuts on the woman’s bare legs while the human ate like she’d been starved for a week. When she saw us, she froze-mid bite, fear clear on her face. Nyria gently touched her knee and murmured something reassuring to her.
I stayed in wolf form and gently nuzzled Nyria’s arm to let her know all was well. Next to me, West sat with the hair-filled locket clamped in his mouth and stared soulfully at the woman, doing his best apologetic-puppy impression. She didn’t look too impressed. Smart human.
Luke started the engine and started an intricate path through the sleepy suburban town, eyes peeled for anyone following us. As expected, the emergency vehicles were approaching from the other side, so the path was all clear.
“Brigit’s filled me in a bit about what happened. She was kidnapped when she thought she was meeting a new source about a lighthearted little profile she did about a project her sister is working on. I told her that while we need to know what information she has that got her kidnapped to begin with, that we will not hurt her and she will be free to go, although we might recommend she lay low with us for a while in case she’s still in danger. She also wants her necklace back, West.”
West started to growl, then clearly thought the better of it and changed it to a sad whine instead.
“Why… why do you want the necklace?” Brigit asked. Her voice was raspy and pained, and she immediately uncapped a water bottle and took a swig after talking. “Can he understand me?” she asked Nyria.
Nyria nodded. “Yes, we understand human speech even in wolf form. But I don’t think either of the guys are going to shift right now in case they scare you. As for the necklace, um…” she hesitated. “It smelled funny to him. He can explain more later. But you need to tell Wyatt, our Alpha, what you told me. He’s the one with the yellowish fur.”
I winked.
Brigit looked straight at me, body language changing as she clearly acknowledged my social ranking. “Thank you for rescuing me from those… that group. They were going to use me as bait to get my sister. She’s an art historian who absolutely loves travelling whenever possible, and after winning a small jackpot last year, she’s been on a kick lately tracking down these strange statues.”
Statues? I glanced at Nyria, and she gave a little shrug. Not ringing any bells for her, either.
“I wrote a little story about her adventures and went to meet someone who claimed to know more about the statues, and next thing I knew, I had a bag over my head and a knife to my throat. They wanted to know where my sister was, how many statues she’d found, where they were, what she knew about them, et cetera.” Brigit shuddered. “I think I convinced them I knew nothing more than what was in our emails to each other and managed to lie about what country she was in, but… I need to call my sister. Right now.”
“Is that locket with the hair in it from your sister?”
Brigit looked at West and he wagged his tail like a damn dog. I kicked him when Brigit looked back at Nyria. “Yeah. She has a lock of my hair, I have a lock of hers. It was a joke gift at first but…” She looked pleadingly at all of us, even looked over her shoulder at Luke driving up front. He stayed focused on the road. “She needs to be warned. Now. I’ll give you her damn number, you can talk to her yourself in case you think that I’m going to slip her some coded message, but you need to tell her she’s made enemies.”
“We’re going to need all your information about these statues,” Nyria told Brigit, and the human nodded.
“I don’t know much about them, but my sister sent me a picture of one of them. I’m afraid the wizards already saw it, though. They’re life-sized statues of men, made of stone …” She trailed off. “With cool stones for eyes?”
“Some sort of precious gems?” Nyria offered, but her voice was uncertain.
Statues. What the hell could the wizards want with a bunch of statues? Nyria looked as confused as I was, and West had once again buried his nose in the locket and was inhaling his mate’s scent over and over again. If you’re going to piss off a bunch of wizards, having West as a mate really wasn’t the worst way to go. West was slow to anger, but once you tipped him over the edge, half your blood would be on the floor in about five seconds flat. Homicidal joy aside, he was pretty playful, and as my second-in-command many shifters went to him first before bothering me because of his level-headedness and good nature.
Luke’s phone rang in the front seat and he grunted. I barked. “Not getting that,” he replied. “Last thing I need is a cop pulling me over for being on the phone and seeing y’all in the back.”
Translation: if Brigit screamed for help, we’d have to silence the cop. And in this town, they were good people. No one wanted it to come to that.
Then, in a wave, every single other phone we had went off in a nerve-jangling cacophony. Nyria’s brow creased with worry. “Luke,” she started. “I think you need to park for a moment and—”
Suddenly, a wave of emotion unlike anything I’d ever felt before hit me. I was vaguely aware of a gasping noise, of the bone-snapping sensation as my body transformed back to human of its own accord. Cold hands were suddenly on my body, a frantic Nyria saying my name—Wyatt? Wyatt? What happened? Shit, Wyatt!—but all I could focus on was a sudden crystal clear sense of someone else. Someone other than me, someone who was…
Her. It was her.
After all this time, it was like a veil had been ripped off of my mind. I could feel her. Somewhere out there, she was there. Terrified. Running as the enemy closed in…
I grabbed Nyria’s arms, sweat dripping off my naked body. The van had stopped, but my mind was racing. “I can feel her.”
She didn’t need to ask who. Everyone knew the story of my missing mate. How’d I’d found her and lost her in the space of a single night. “Where?”
“I don’t know. Someplace far from here. Southwest, I think. It’s too vague.” Frantic. Fear. Adrenaline. The mark on my thigh burned like fire. “She’s being attacked. Right now. I don’t know where she is but I can feel her.” The powerful onslaught I felt—anger, heartbreak, fury, pain—was enough to bring a grown shifter to his knees. A kaleidoscope of messy emotions that made me want to gasp for air and grab at my chest to relieve the pressure. I’ve never felt anything like that before.
Luke’s voice was crisp, clear, and worried as hell. “On the phone with one of the shifters on duty back home, Wyatt. A shifter who works as a volunteer nurse at some small Nebraskan clinic just called in a panic, said there was a huge ruckus at her job, a shifter patient by the name of Jerry Menard is begging for you specifically. Before she was hustled out of the room by the sheriff, her old man said that his daughter Isabel’s in trouble and she needs you. Now.”
Every single muscle tensed up. “That old bastard’s been living under the alias Jerry Menard for all these years? Where the hell is Isabel? Where has he been hiding her?” And how did he manage to hide her so well?
When West named a small, shitty town about five hundred miles over in the next state, I cursed. She’d been in another pack’s territory the whole time? I figured they’d have fled to a large city where our reach and control was more limited. Is that why she was in trouble? I leaned over the van seats to snatch the phone from Luke’s hand.
“Get the chopper ready,” I barked, hanging up on whoever it was and calling the Alpha of that territory. It rang five times before going to voicemail. I cursed. “If I find out that Talin’s been holding out on me this whole time, I’m going to…” Probably better off to not finish the sentence. Not that I needed to. Of the few packs that dared to challenge me, none remained.
My fiancée. My mate.
I finally, finally had a traceable lead.
“I want five of our best with me, including… Shit, West. Not you. I know you need to find Brigit’s sister. Nyria. You too, Luke. It’s time for me to get my mate.”
And make her mine. Irrevocably.