Sydney
Blake babbles the entire late evening drive to Silverhide. He likes rock music, especially when it’s loud enough to send a tremor through the truck, and squeals with delight every time I go over a bump or a corner too sharply.
Sarah would kill me if she knew how loud the music was or how reckless I’m driving, but Blake notoriously hates his car seat, and he’s having the time of his life right now.
I can’t lie. I really enjoy having a kid, especially a son. Lately, when my thoughts aren’t on his mother, I imagine what kind of life we’ll have together. What kind of sports he’ll want to play, whether he’ll go to Wellington to pursue academics or warrior training. I wonder whether he’ll continue to look like me or grow to resemble his mom. I wonder what our next baby will be like, especially since we’re not trying to stop that from happening.
The idea of Sarah pregnant again sends heat coursing through my body. I remember how beautiful she was when I stopped at her shop for the first time.
This time around, I’ll get to be there for all of it.
And the next, and the next, because I honestly can’t keep my hands off her, and I’m sure Blake will have more siblings than I have when it's all said and done.
But my light as air mood shatters the second I pull up to Ryan’s house and notice the two cars in the driveway.
I bang on the front door, carrying Blake’s car seat around one arm, and find myself face to face with James.
He’s a handsome man and roughly my age with curly, black hair he keeps brushed away from his angular face. Dark eyes meet mine as he bobs his head in greeting. Normally, whenever I have the displeasure of running into him, he greets me with silence and a heavy dose of skepticism. I’ve never liked him, but admittedly, I never took the chance to get to know him.
Ryan, apparently, adores him enough to justify making him his Beta.
Right now, however, James looks withdrawn and exhausted. He holds the door open for me. “We’re all in the kitchen.”
“You and who else?” I set Blake’s car seat down for a moment to slip off my boots.
“Alpha Ryan and Evander.”
“Evander?” I look up at the Beta. “Why is he here?”
Suddenly, this doesn’t feel like a casual hangout with my twin brother under the guise of picking up my soon-to-be-wife's car, which she doesn’t know how to drive.
I scoop Blake up. He gives James the biggest smile I’ve ever seen in my life–all gums–and to my surprise, James gives him a smile back.
I’ve never seen James smile.
I follow him to the kitchen and find Ryan and Evander cloistered around the kitchen island in front of the ancient laptop Ryan used at Wellington that somehow still runs. “What’s going on here? I thought you left for Eastonia several days ago?”
“I’m back on Ghost business for Commander Artyom,” Evander says dryly. “It was not my decision.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What’s going on?”
“Remember those rogues I mentioned?” Ryan sighs, rolling his neck.
Vaguely. The memory drifts back to the forefront of my mind while Blake reaches for James, babbling incoherently. “The wolves spotted skirting the far edge of your territory?”
“Yeah,” Ryan practically growls. “James sent scouts to pick up their scents so we could follow them, find out what they wanted and what pack they belonged to. I’ve been having some issues with our neighbors to the west, Raven Hall, as you remember.” He flexes his hand, the one that was busted and peppered with healing bruises when I went to his shop. “I thought it might have been some of their pack members, maybe kids just old enough to shift goofing off in their wolf forms, but our scouts found evidence of them coming and going from Silverhide into the NZ and followed their scents to a known underground rogue den.”
He turns the laptop toward me. Blake squeals, and I look over my shoulder to find James making faces at him. James catches me and immediately goes rigid and serious again, much to Blake’s dismay.
I catch Evander’s eyes. “What do you have to do with this?”
“The Ghosts are still looking for Gabriel and whatever sympathizers he has here in Crescent Falls since he’s been run out Eastonia with his tail between his legs. I might be ruling beside my mate in Veiled Valley, but King Ryatt has me heading this mission now. I assume you understand why.”
Because this is about family. One of our own is at risk again. My mate.
My son.
Speaking of my son, he damn near launches himself out of my arms to get to James, who is standing a few feet away. “Will you hold him for a second?” I ask gruffly. James nods, and accepts Blake into his arms. Blake immediately settles and starts playing with the hood of James’s sweatshirt.
I give them both a skeptical once over before turning back to the computer. “You think these wolves you tracked have something to do with Gabriel?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. My pack doesn’t do business with anyone in the NZ,” Ryan says sharply, bitterly. “We already have enough issues with our neighbors on either side. I need to know what exactly these wolves want and why they’re involving my territory.”
“The Ghosts have surveillance set up in that den from back when I came here this summer, and they did a bust on an illegal breeder auction,” Evander says without an ounce of emotion. “We’re going through the footage right now.”
I glance at James and Blake before rounding the counter to watch the somewhat grainy CCTV footage. “Is this live?”
“No, it was taken early this morning.” Evander clicks a few keys, zooming in on the video. It’s a wide room with an untidy bar set up in one corner. Two unassuming men are seated at a table talking, a third pouring drinks.
James walks up beside us. “We picked up Hadley’s scent in the NZ, mingling with whoever had been running along the boundary of the Silverhide territory.”
“Hadley?” I glance at Ryan and James. Ryan’s eyes darken as he dips his head back to the footage, but James sighs deeply, adjusting his grip on an especially squirmy Blake.
“She’s been acting suspicious for a while now. Making trips into the NZ, lying about it.”
“My mate–Sarah–is her friend. Sarah lived in the NZ for a while.”
“I’m aware, but she wasn’t going there to just meet up with Sarah. I had no problem with that, in fact, I begged her on several occasions to bring Sarah back to Silverhide. I made sure Hadley was bringing food and vitamins to Sarah, but she kept telling me Sarah wouldn’t leave.”
Something ugly and dark twists its way through my gut, spreading like a disease. I think back on every conversation I’ve ever had with Sarah, every moment she mentioned that Hadley was the only one helping her, but Hadley had to do it in secret because her brother was controlling and abusive.
But the man standing next to me holding my son doesn’t fit that description. An asshole? Sure, that’s a personality trait common in most men with power.
My head starts to pound with a sudden sharp ache as I slowly turn back to the computer.
Another man enters the room, wearing a hood. The seated men stand, and the three start conversing rapidly before the hooded man slowly turns his head, half of his face illuminated by the grainy fluorescent lighting.
“Gods,” Evander rasps. “We got him.”
“That’s Gabriel,” I growl, my blood boiling as Gabriel’s face comes into view as clear as day. “How long ago was this?”
“This was at six A.M.” Ryan speeds up the video. Gabriel moves in and out of the frame for the next two hours of footage, but then two more people arrive. “Ten hours ago, give or take.”
One man, and one woman.
James thrusts Blake into Ryan’s arms and crowds the laptop as Hadley steps into the room. Ryan shoves back in front of the laptop, and the look on his face as I swiftly take Blake back into my arms is….
Heartbreak. Pure, and unforgiving.
James and Ryan watch the screen without blinking as Hadley talks to Gabriel. We’re all thinking the same thing right now as the impossible plays out before us–but she has to be there against her will. There’s no way Sarah’s best-friend is working against her.
But when Hadley smiles and throws her head back in a laugh, that idea shatters.
Then I remember where Hadley is right now.
“Oh fuck,” I say, feeling like I’m going to lose my balance. “Hadley–she’s with Sarah at the manor.”
“We’re going,” James says without an ounce of emotion as he tugs on Ryan’s arm, but Ryan’s eyes are still glued to the screen like he’s trying to make sense of it. He shakes his head repeatedly. “Alpha, come on. We need to go get her.”
“Why is your sister working with Gabriel?” I snap. If Blake wasn’t in my arms, I’d pin this man to the wall and choke the answer out of him.
“I didn’t know,” James growls. “I knew something was up which is why I got Alpha Ryan involved–”
“We don’t have time for this,” Evander says, and I look over to find him staring back at the computer screen with Ryan.
Time moves to a crawl as Evander pulls up the live footage.
Gabriel is back at the den, lounging in a chair while sharpening a knife.
My mind goes blank as my senses go haywire. A sharp pang of pain radiates through my left temple, waking me back up.
“Hadley’s at the manor? You’re sure?” Ryan asks somewhere in the distance. I feel like I have tunnel vision. Gabriel is right here, just a few miles away, and Sarah….
“Oh, my Goddess.” I pull out my phone. Blake starts to whine, upset by the sudden shift and onset of tension in the room. Sarah doesn’t answer her phone, a new replacement for the one she had to sell several months ago. I try Cosette instead. Nothing.
I have to go up there. I have to go home to my mate, but…
Gabriel looks directly into the camera and smiles.
“We need to move, now,” Evander says, shutting the laptop. “Ryan, James, go get Hadley. Bring her to the castle.” He pulls a phone out of his pocket, pressing it to his ear.
“Stop,” I growl. Evander looks at me as I shake my head. “He’s mine. Call off your Ghosts.”
“You need to go get Sarah,” Ryan says sharply.
He’s right, but this won’t end until Gabriel is dead with his blood staining my hands. I slowly hand Blake to Evander. “Take him to my parents,” I say slowly.
“Sydney,” Ryan growls in warning.
I turn to my brother, looking between him and James. “Go get Sarah.”
I’m gone before anyone can protest. Shouts follow me to the door, followed by Blake’s high-pitched wail at my absence.
Sarah can protect herself. She knows how to shift. She can jump, just like the day she tried to run away from us, from me. She can spirit away somewhere safe. I have to believe that she will and that Ryan can get to her in time.
I only have a few minutes to get to Gabriel before that tricky bastard disappears again.
I leave Ryan’s house at a sprint. I don’t even bother shifting, not yet. I’ll need all of the power I can get when I’m standing in front of him.
The NZ comes into view before me, covered in thick, rolling fog. Spring air ripe with the scent of garbage and burning rubber hits me like a shockwave, blurring my senses for only a moment as I turn toward the entrance of the alleyway leading to the den from the videos. I recognize the side entrance to the five story apartment building with a small grocer on the first floor. I see the exterior steps Hadley had to journey down to get to the basement, but it doesn’t matter.
All I know is that the pain in my head is getting worse the closer I get to Gabriel.
I thought it was Sarah’s doing. She broke something inside my head, something that shimmers to life with fresh pain whenever Gabriel is mentioned, but I was wrong.
It’s my powers telling me where to find him. I’ve had this ability all along.
I rip open the door to the basement and step inside, but it’s empty.
I look up at the camera, at the smoke detector now hanging from the wall, the wires torn and sparking.
Slowly, I turn back toward the stairs and hike up them, sniffing deeply for his acrid, rotting scent.
The fog rolls in so thick I can’t see below my knees, but the pain is still there, growing stronger and hotter with each step I take.
People mill along the street. Restaurants and shops are still open for the night. It’s busy, too crowded, as I pass through a group loitering in front of a small pub.
A man darts between two buildings, his dark cloak giving him away.
I follow, and he knows I’m right behind him.
Gabriel thinks he can run.
I’m still faster, even after he shattered my legs.
I don’t turn down the alley. I keep walking, waiting for him to cut back down between the tall, narrow buildings.
And then there he is, running like he’s being chased just a few feet in front of me. He whips around at the very moment I leap toward him, tackling him to the ground.
But the cold pavement disappears into the fog. I fall into… nothingness.
The bastard spirited away, but I’m going with him.