*Maddox*
I have hurt Isla’s feelings, and I feel terrible about it, but I don’t have time to ponder what to do about it at the moment. I have got to track down Zabrina. I imagine she is a good hour ahead of us at least. Without footage of a vehicle leaving the palace, it’s hard to say. And none of my guards outside seem to have seen anything to help pinpoint a time of departure.
All of the pack Alphas that are close enough to my location for the mind-link have let me know they have barricades up on every major road and as many of the minor ones they can get to leading into and out of their packs. Every single car will be stopped. I’ve given them a description of the vehicle Zabrina’s family is driving, but I wouldn’t put it past her to steal another car along the way.
Rushing out to the garage, I get into my own sports car and head out to where the vehicle they drove Isla in was spotted. I decide to start there and see if I can track Zabrina’s scent. That will be nearly impossible. I have already sent teams out from that spot in all directions to look for signs of which way they went, but it’s not likely they will catch up with Zabrina unless she is delayed by a roadblock or stops somewhere for the night.
Who knows what other hidden cabins she may have located when she was deciding to use that one for Isla. She might have plenty of places to hide.
I pull the car to a stop along the ditch near where their car was spotted and get out. It’s within a few miles of the castle wall, so they didn’t have far to run as wolves coming or going. I should’ve had someone take care of the car while I was out looking for Isla, but it didn’t occur to me.
Now, I look around for clues as to where they went. It’s dark, and even with my keen wolf eyes, in my human form, I cannot see anything that truly lets me know where they went. The road runs east and west, but within a mile in each direction are junctions with roads that go north and south. It’s not an all-terrain vehicle, so they will have to stick to the roads. That’s something at least.
The freshest tracks appear to be headed west, which doesn’t surprise me. That’s the direction I expected them to go. Zabrina’s father’s pack lands lie in that direction. I doubt they are stupid enough to go directly back there, but I do think they will try to get to an allied pack and then sneak back into their own.
I’ve made it clear that no one is to help them, but that doesn’t mean that Duster pack or Green pack will listen to my directives. Anymore, their Alphas sort of do what they want. After all, Green pack has a new Alpha, and if they cared what I thought, that wouldn’t have happened, not without my approval anyway.
I head off to the west, driving recklessly, on the edge of control, as I think about the damage that could be done if Zabrina has the opportunity to drop any of those chemicals into the water supply.
People will die from the wolf’s shadow on its own and be exceptionally aroused by the red wolf’s blood. But put together, they will die long, agonizing deaths caused by their sexual drives making them go mad. They will become sexual deviants while their bodies are slowly being deprived of oxygen via the wolf’s shadow.
“The water supply….” I’ve already told people at the castle to turn off the water and not to let people drink it two hours after I left. We have bottled water in great quantities as a reserve, just in case of war. But… where would Zabrina take the chemicals to poison the water.
She won’t know that I am aware that she’s stolen them. So she’d probably go to the lake. But then… she might assume that the water treatment facility would remove enough of the chemicals that it would be safe to drink after it was treated, though I wouldn’t want to take the chance.
Would she pour it into the water towers?
Using the mind-link, I contact as many people in charge of water towers and the water treatment facility as possible. She might also try to poison our food with it, so I send out a bulletin to the farmers, including those that raise cows. She could poison the milk…. Who knows what she intends to do!
We need to find her, and we need to do it fast.
I come to an intersection and have to decide which way to go. To my right, I will be headed toward Duster pack. To my left, I will be headed toward the water treatment facility.
I turn left.
* * *
*Isla*
Cursed….
Mystica had said that the cufflinks I gifted to Maddox were cursed, and that’s why they were left behind in the palace on Maatua. I’ve never believed in curses before, but now, I have to wonder.
She didn’t say much more to me, only that the cufflinks had been a gift from one brother to another, and when they were given, everything went wrong. Could those two brothers be my Uncle Tony and my dad?
I want to talk to my parents, but they don’t have a phone. I can’t call Alpha Ernest at this hour and expect the Alpha to send someone to fetch them. I wish I could just pay them a visit, but I know that King Maddox won’t allow me to leave the castle while all of this madness with Zabrina is going on. So I’ll just have to stay there.
I hope that my family will be all right.
Sleeping will be difficult, even though I am exhausted from everything that has transpired with the kidnapping. I want to bury my face in Maddox’s chest and let his strong arms lull me to sleep, but I can’t do that because he is out there chasing that monster.
“Please, Moon Goddess,” I prayed. “Let him find her.”
She is the epitome of evil, and I know the Moon Goddess is real because I’ve seen her with my own eyes.
Well, perhaps I had been hallucinating. Or just dreaming. But it seemed real.
I roll onto my side and close my eyes, hoping that the Moon Goddess will hear my prayers and answer them. Whatever Zabrina and her sinister allies are up to, they need to be stopped.
I stare at the wall in the distance, unable to keep my eyes closed.
Princess. I was a princess?
Was that true?
It doesn’t seem like it could be true. I need some sort of proof about the entire situation other than the fact that I had left an island around the time that the Alpha king had been displaced. Mystica had said lots of people had left the island then. How did she know it was my father who was the king?
“She’d said his name, hadn’t she?” Tupu Daniel and Masiofo Constance. Yes, she had. King Daniel and Queen Constance. Those are my parents’ names. I don’t think I said them to her first, and I doubt she could’ve looked that up before she came in here.
So… it sounds like she might be right. But Daniel is a common name, right? Maybe it’s a coincidence?
Constance is not a common name.
I try to remember back to those moments I’d been dreaming about when I was in the basement, when we were leaving on that boat. What had they been saying? Did my mom ever call my dad Tupu? I don’t think so.
What about before that? Why can’t I remember a palace? Or guards? Or any of the fine things we must’ve had if my parents were royals.
“Because I was only three,” I remind myself.
How awful is it that my parents had to give all of that up and become common workers because of something my father’s own brother did?
I want to find my Uncle Tony and figure out what had happened. Why had he betrayed my father?
It is all too much, and my head is pounding and swirling. I want to go to sleep! I decide to get up for a glass of water and go into the bathroom to fill a glass I keep in a drawer by my bed.
Padding across the floor, I try to keep my eyes focused, but I am tired. I turn the tap on, but nothing happens. No water comes out. There’s just a gurgling noise and some air.
“That’s weird,” I mutter. I try the other tap, the hot water, but nothing happens. So I try the bathtub and then the shower.
No water.
Frustrated, I go to the door between my room and Poppy’s and knock. “Just a minute,” I hear her say in a groggy voice. She opens the door, and it’s clear I woke her. “Yes, Miss Isla?” She is trying to be respectful but is clearly annoyed.
“Hi. No water is coming out in my bathroom. Do you know why?”
She nods. “Yes, we received a bulletin about it. Sorry, I guess you wouldn’t get it since you don’t have the mind-link with the castle authorities. The water has been shut off while the king investigates tampering with the water supply.”
My eyebrows knit together. “Tampering?”
“That’s right. They think that Zabrina might try to poison all of us.”
I wouldn’t put anything past her.
“All right,” I say with a sigh, not bothering to ask when it will be turned back on. I wonder if Zabrina said anything about her plans while I was in her presence but drugged up. I can’t remember that she did.
“I’ll get you a bottle of water from my stash,” Poppy suggests.
“Thank you,” I say and wait for her to do so. A moment later, she comes back with a bottle of water.
“It’s room temperature,” she says apologetically.
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “It’ll work. Thank you.” I take the bottle over to my bed as Poppy goes back to hers, and take the lid off, sipping it down and hoping it’s enough to help me fall asleep.
I have never seen this kind of water before. It says, “Bottled at Wolf Springs,” and has the king’s seal on the label. Back home, we couldn’t afford bottled water. We only drank from the tap.
I set the bottle down and try to go back to sleep, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
“What are you up to now, Zabrina?” I ask myself aloud. I get no answer, though, and soon enough, my dry throat quenched, I find myself dozing off.