Chapter 69

Dominic

Please come find me.

Her voice was so clear in my head that I actually turned to see if she was standing behind me. Maybe by some chance she had been hiding and was safe from whatever danger was after her.

But she was gone.

Lucas was tending to Wyatt, who started to mumble and wake up after a few minutes. His consciousness lasted just long enough to get him into the back seat before his head lolled and his eyes closed again. We couldn’t get any answers out of him, but it seemed clear from the state of him that he had been drugged and knocked out.

I stood in the middle of the halfway between the van and the building. I slowly spun in a circle, surveying every inch from the dirt to the tree tops using all my senses. There were no discernible tire marks, no footprints that looked out of place.

It was like Mira had simply vanished into thin air.

Lucian had been quiet since it happened. After helping Wyatt was just sitting in the open door of the van looking intensely at his phone. I felt disdain like an ulcer in my stomach. He spent so much time getting close to her, and yet didn’t even seem to care that she was missing and in danger.

My emotions were high and my temper was short, and I felt my wolf rousing. He was salivating at the thought of tearing apart Lucian for the years he’d been a pain in my ass.

Without trying to suppress it, I felt my transformation begin. My hands clenched as claws pressed out from my flesh. My spine cracked and morphed as I stalked toward Lucian. My eyes closed deliberately, and when they opened the world was red.

“You!”

That one word triggered a reaction in my target. Lucian looked up quickly and looked like he might wet himself. It was not a long distance to close between us, but I took my time with long strides back to the van.

Lucian stood, his hands instinctively reaching out in front of his chest as a line of defense. My laughter was deep and guttural at the pathetic sight of him. I could tell he was trying to summon his wolf, and I almost wished that he would. Maybe it was time to finally have it out between us, see who deserves the title of Alpha.

I was closing in, my arm raised in preparation to strike if I needed to, when I felt the burn.

Just below my ribs on my right side, underneath the heavy mass of my raised arm, something hot and poisonous was jabbing me.

I winced and retreated, reaching around myself to inspect the pain. My body clicked as the shock of the unusual pain brought me back from the edge of going berserk.

Lucian took the opportunity to run away across the clearing, to be safe. That left me alone next to the van, panting, my mind breaking the surface coming up for air. And there was Lucas.

He stood still with a heavy nightstick in his hand. It was made of pure silver.

I spat when I saw it, then grinned up at him. It was a weapon I had given him, after all. After my last unplanned-wolf-outburst, I had gifted him the custom baton as a precaution against future issues. I trusted him to use it when he deemed it necessary.

“Forgive me,” I sputtered, my face still a bit numb from the rapid transforming and the silver in my side. “The stress…”

“We all want her back, Alpha,” Lucas said. He knew employing my name would have a humbling effect on me, and I appreciated his ability to be honest and succinct with me.

“I know.”

Lucas offered an arm to bring me back up from my half-crouched position, and we were resolved again.

Lucian took careful steps back towards us. He held up his phone, open to a map of the area.

“I was contacting my source,” he said, “and he thinks there is another location. This comes from word-of-mouth rumors, so it could either be a decoy or right on the money.”

“Lead the way,” I said, gesturing to the van.

We made it about one hundred yards before confronting the fact that one of the tires was flat. Lucas made quick work of putting on the spare from the trunk, and we could only hope that it would hold up for the rest of this journey.

This new location turned out to be the most difficult to get to, the roads unmarked and winding the GPS on the fritz as went further west into the wooded mountains.

I let Lucian take the front seat and role of navigator, knowing I was too distracted with worry to be useful. Against my will, my mind drew up the worst possible scenarios for where Mira might be and what might be happening to her. My heart was throbbing with turmoil at the thought of losing her. I just kept repeating a phrase in hopes that it would come true.

I’m coming for you.

It seemed like we lost the entire day by the time we stumbled back on a road that would get us to the coordinates on the map. The adrenaline started to hit us and the musky scent of wolves and testosterone filled the car as we braced for this mission. Whatever it took to get Mira back, we were ready to do it.

Even Wyatt was awake by the end of the drive, and ready to honk the horn of the van if anything happened outside.

“We’ll stick together, and move quickly,” I said, the first words I’d spoken in hours. “We can assume that Mira was probably drugged as well, so our exit strategy will have to include transporting her safely out of here.”

The others nodded.

And then the road came to an end. The trees just suddenly came up in front of us, and there was no path in any direction. We had to hike with flashlights the rest of the way.

After a few minutes we saw light up ahead, and sure enough there was a small square building of a similar brick style.

The three of us paused and huddled just before the light would hit our bodies, silently assessing an entrance plan. There were fresh tire marks heading around the side of the building. Lights in the windows and the sound of a generator were clear signs that this place was occupied. And somewhere deep in my soul I knew that Mira was here.

I was to lead the charge towards the door closest to us, with Lucian right behind me. Lucian would give us space before joining, watching the building for guards. It was a side door, unmarked, and Lucian said he could get us in.

Taking a breath and locking eyes with my team, we took our first steps into the light and bounded toward the building.

We were halfway across when the front doors burst open.

Lucian and I froze in the middle of the yard, captivated by what we saw. Standing in the doorway, glowing in the light pouring out of the building, was a werewolf.

And she was beautiful.

And she was not alone. Clinging to her back was a teenaged girl who looked both frightened and safe.

The she-wolf’s golden fur shimmered as she howled into the dark night above her. I thought my heart was going to leave my chest. I didn’t realize that my feet were bringing me closer to her until she caught my scent.

Her head whipped over to me, teeth snarling, pure fire and brimstone in her eyes. But then they focused on me, taking me in, and something broke within her. I watched the magnificent wolf weaken and collapse slowly to the ground, trying not to crush the ward she carried.

My pace quickened and I ran to them, fearing the worst.

By the time I reached them, the wolf had transformed back into a human.

It was Mira.