Ch. 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX:
~Drake:
I fell asleep after a few minutes of bickering with Dane. I’d tried again to get into her head, but she once again kept me firmly away. She won’t talk to me, not about anything real. So fine. I slept on the couch. I need a break from fighting her. I’d fight her forever on this, get close somehow, but I can’t lie and say it’s easy. It fking hurts. She doesn’t need to be alone like this, not anymore. But she wasn’t giving into our bond like that. Not now anyway.
The immediate irritation that filled my blood as I remembered these feelings in my drowsy mind dissipated as I blinked awake. Something in me was forcing me to wake up mid-REM. Like a small tug in my head. I was disoriented but something in me was making me wake up. Something wasn’t right.
I felt the echo of her voice calling to me in a panic. Like a stretched out link.
‘Avery,’ Dane huffed out in a panic.
Something was very wrong. All the hair on my skin sat up straight as I flung myself up off the couch and immediately noticed she was gone. No sound of her breathing, even her scent isn’t very fresh.
She couldn’t have left. She wouldn’t leave. Not again - right? I thought I’d made it clear. She couldn’t - I would just go after her…
I run quickly to the door, throwing it open, knowing she won’t be there. I don’t hear her familiar heartbeat anywhere. Didn’t smell a current scent of hers.
Outside, it’s clear. Other scents, her lingering scent, coated in her panic. A bit of tears, a bit of sweat. She’s not here. But it doesn’t seem like she ran. There were others here, just as fresh as hers.
How did I not feel this earlier?! Where is she?!
My panic and rage fly, my claws and teeth pushing their way out as I rush down and around the building, trying to pick something up.
There’s something far off I hear but I can’t name it. My ears lock in as Dane and I recognize a trail of her scent. I run top speed through a few streets, across to a gas station, through to the opposite end of the road. Exhaust. I think she was in a car with the others. I follow on. The trees. A park. Turning quickly on my heels, fur sprouts in patches all over my body as Dane fights to take over, but I can’t be sure-
The loud roaring whir of mechanical spinning takes over my senses. Like a giant fan or motor. Dane pushes me out of the way, taking over, shifting while running out into a field. It’s a few moments before we see it. A helicopter. No - there’s three of them. All slate black and unmarked. The outlines of figures move around in them. We’re across the field in seconds but it’s too late. It’s lifted up too high off the ground, the one she’s in is in the middle of the bunch. We jump as high as we can, fighting the air that seems to be pushing us back down, but it’s just out of reach. We try again, with every molecule of will, trying to reach it - only to grab air.
The spinning blades are too loud. They obscure the voices we pick up inside. I don’t hear her, I can’t hear her heartbeat - just waves of her scent getting thrown at us from the wind in those blades. She’s in there. She’s right there, just right there.
We scan the area for any weaknesses, any hostages we can take, any weapons we can use, but it’s bare except for all the grass. Panic builds up sending our heart into overdrive. We leap as far as we can again, but they’re even higher, they’re out of reach. The first helicopter tilts in the air, starting to take off.
We see a large branch, a tree far off, and it’s the only thing I can think of. We bolt over to it, shifting back into human form. I reach for it, my muscles screaming at me, and I grab hold fiercely before I throw it with all that I have. I aim for the back one, not willing to risk hurting my mate in any kind of crash. But the branch gets smacked right off, the pilot’s reflexes quick as maybe even mine. He moved at the last second, making my hit miss the right mark. The helicopters rough off then, but not before I eye the pilot of the last one take off his black mask, flip me off and grin mockingly.
We shift back and run with every last ounce of energy we have, but sooner than we’d like, they are out of view. We won’t stop chasing the same direction, and keep heading south. Muscles burning, joints feeling the impact of the full force of our run, we run on for another hour before I see two of them in the sky. Could it be the same ones? If so, then why only two? The third appears soon after. They start as specs and become clearer and clearer until they are nearly above us. They’re incredibly high up, I can’t name a single scent up there.
‘Do we shift?’ Dane asks me.
I can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel like he already knew what to do.
But before I can give him an answer, the helicopters part. In opposite directions. One heading dead east, the other, southwest, the last - northwest. We come to a full stop then.
‘No’, Dane utters the word as my stomach drops.
They did this on purpose. Went out of view so I couldn’t tell which was holding her. Came back to go in different directions. They knew I would follow like this. They knew exactly how to mix me up. And from that high up, there was no way I could trace her scent, not with all that wind up there. The earth held onto scents. The wind could be a wolf’s enemy like that. They knew that. They played us like that. I knew the Lycaon were intelligent, but this was another level.
Goddess, no. No, no, no.
My brain went blank then. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t blink. I couldn’t live. Dane took over, running into trees and electrical poles, knocking them over. The brown and gray, the green, they all blur. I can’t function with this and am blinded by rage.
How could I have let this happen? How could she have been taken from right outside the door? What kind of mate am I? What kind of man? Wolf? I knew she had been in danger and I got too comfortable. I should have been in that bed with her. I should have held a watch. I should have felt her get up. What the h*ll is wrong with me?! I was too moody to use my brain?! I break.
It doesn’t surprise me then when a group of horribly drunk human males enter the area. I feel numb to everything. It doesn’t surprise me when we tear them to shreds. I sit back, far back in my mind as blurry images of Dane’s rampage fly across the view. It doesn’t phase me when I come-to with human blood soaking my maw, my teeth digging into flesh and ripping it, ripping him in two.
I don’t care about leaving this mess. I don’t care about being discovered. I only care about my mate. About finding and destroying those that took her from me. And I will kill them all just like this.
I don’t know where to start other than back where they took her. I hope she has left me some clues to follow. Back in my human form, wearing the torn bloody clothing of some of the guys we killed, I head back to the motel. Rushing back there took over an hour and I worry that with people waking up soon, anything she could have left could risk being moved.
Back at the motel, I check and double check but there’s nothing here. Someone opens a door nearby at the same time I walk into our room. I go to the bed she had just been laying in not so long ago. I hold the pillow up, breathe in her scent, and I breathe out, shaking, trying to steady my thinking. I need to get to her but don’t know how.
Where would they take her? Back to my Alpha? To a different location? Should I go back there? Try to infiltrate the place? I wish I could talk to Archer.
Thoughts flit around until I settle on it. I have to try Rafael first. He’s the one who wants her as leverage over me. He either has her or has to know where she is.
‘We will be walking into a trap,’ Dane points out.
‘I know. But we don’t have a choice,’ I shoot back. ‘I don’t hear any clever ideas from you.’
Dane grunts.
I pack up Avery’s things quickly. I know her main bag is important to her and I figure we can stash it somewhere close to my pack, to get it later after we’ve freed her. The scent in her clothes, in her hairbrush, fill some hole in our soul, comfort us.
Stopping quickly to fill up on gas using the cash we took from the bodies in the field, we hit the road with one direction, one mission in mind - to kill Black Mountain’s Alpha.