Thirteen Days, Twenty Hours Missing
It didn’t take long for me to relay to Michael what I found out from Samantha. I was finished by the time we reached the car in the underground parking lot of the hospital.
The car doors unlocked as I touched the handle, but Michael’s hand slammed down on the door, keeping me from opening it.
“I’ll drive.”
“What? Why?” I usually drove, even when we were just going to the store in Texas.
Michael was usually pretty calm and easygoing, but he didn’t like cars or traffic. He kept to rural areas and—until recently—rarely left St. Ailbe’s. He always said he was too old and too set in his ways to deal with the frustrations that came with driving in a big city, and this was Los Angeles. The traffic here was epic.
And yet, he had his hand on the driver’s door. Why?
“Move,” I said. “I’ll drive.”
“No. You won’t be focusing on the road, and you need to plan. By the time we get to the airport, we’ll need our destination.”
“Okay.” Michael would drive slower than I would, but he had a point. I wasn’t going to be able to focus on driving when I wanted to figure out where to go.
I walked to the other side of the car and got in. “Who do you think could do this?”
Michael concentrated on getting around the tight curves as we drove up a bunch of levels to the exit. “I don’t know. We’ve questioned every Alpha already.”
“Do you think Samantha could be wrong?”
“No.” He left it at that.
The whir of the window lowering filled the car, and Michael moved to pay the parking fee.
I stared at my phone, waiting for service to come back online. As soon as I had reception, I was calling everyone. We’d missed someone. Some Alpha somewhere had lied. Clearly.
Three tiny bars showed up on the top of my phone, and I called Chris. “I have info. Start looping everyone on the line,” I said as soon as he answered.
“Finally.” Chris’ raspy voice came through the line. “Hang on. Let’s switch services. I’ll call you back in a few.”
“Wait. What—” The line went quiet, and I pulled my phone away from my face to look at it. “He hung up.”
“Just give him a second. This is good,” Michael said. “We have information. Focus on that.”
I was trying, but I wanted to find her already. We were making progress, but it was too slow. Way too slow. I wasn’t built to do this kind of digging around. I liked to fight, to do, to move. It felt like the last two weeks were filled with too much waiting.
There were a bunch of texts on our group chain, and then my phone started buzzing.
I looked at my phone and saw that Chris was Wi-Fi calling me back from an app. I hit the green button. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Chris said. “You’ve got Cosette, Van, River, Kyra, and Elowen here.”
Meredith joined the call. “Heya! I’ve got Donovan with me. You’re on speaker.”
“Anyone else ringing in?” My knee bounced as I waited. I wanted to start filling them in so that I could figure out where we needed to go next, but I had to wait. I didn’t think I had the patience to explain everything we’d found out twice.
“Few more,” Chris said. “Just a sec.”
“Hi.” Claudia’s voice came through as she joined the call.
“How’s Axel doing?” Michael asked.
“Good. He’s on a run with Lucas right now, but he seems to be doing all right despite being worried about Tessa. It’s enough to set any werewolf on edge. Was Samantha able to help?”
“She was.” I really owed Samantha for what she’d done. Especially since helping us physically hurt her. “I have some answers, but a lot more questions. Anyone else joining—”
“Hey. What do we know?” Adrian’s voice came through. “Shane’s with me. We’re ready to roll. Just tell us what we need to do.”
“Is this it?” I ran through the list in my head. There were so many of us now it was sometimes hard to keep track, but I trusted every single one of them. We’d fought together. Bled together. We’d forged a link, and there was no hiding from it. “Where are Blaze and Beth? I don’t want to tell this twice.”
“They’re investigating something, and I’m not sure they can make it. I haven’t heard back from them yet,” Chris said. “I’ll fill them in later. Spill. What do you know?”
I hesitated to speak for a second. I was nervous that this would eventually lead to another dead end, but I couldn’t let it. I needed this to work. This was a start. This was exactly what I’d been hoping for.
Now I just needed to narrow down which wolves I was hunting. I needed a target.
“I saw Samantha today, and things didn’t quite go as expected.”
There was a gasp. “Is she okay?” Claudia asked.
“Yes. She’s in the hospital but fine. I swear. I wouldn’t have left if—”
“Come on, man. We all know you wouldn’t just leave her. What the hell happened?” Adrian asked.
They waited patiently while I explained. I tried to answer all the questions I could but took as little time doing it as possible. My wolf was urging me to run, find, hunt, and I had to keep reminding him that we needed to wait. I had to use words right now. I couldn’t be a wolf.
I watched the city go by as I talked. There were so many people on the road. So many lights and cars and sounds and smells. I’d noticed it last time we came here, but Tessa had been with me. I got to see it through her eyes, and it wasn’t so overwhelming. She’d seen it as something familiar. This had been her home.
But now, it was overwhelming.
My friends’ voices filled the car as they asked questions. My adoptive father was sitting in the car next to me, driving. And yet, I was alone.
Alone and hollow.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever not feel alone again.
They were arguing with each other now, and I was letting them for another thirty seconds, and then I was jumping in.
“No. No. We already looked into this.” Chris’s voice held a thread of frustration. “I questioned Lisabetta extensively with Cosette. You talked to the French Alpha. Right?”
I nodded, but they couldn’t see that. “Yes. I know we talked to everyone, but clearly, we missed someone.”
“How? How could we have missed someone?” Chris was almost yelling. “We’ve been to every Alpha—even alphas who weren’t quite powerful enough to hold their own pack.”
I got his anger and frustration—I really did—but it wasn’t helpful right now.
“We made a list, and we talked to everyone. Everyone.” Now, Chris was actually yelling. “No one knows anything. They wouldn’t be able to lie—”
He wasn’t listening. And if he wasn’t listening, then maybe no one else was. That was unacceptable. “Then we missed someone. We’re going over the list again,” I snapped. “Who’s powerful enough—”
“Wait,” Kyra’s voice came through my phone.
I didn’t know her very well—she’d been traveling a lot—but I was open to ideas. Especially new ideas. And most importantly, new ones from the fey. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure if you’ve already discussed this. I haven’t been here for most of the meetings since… But you’re talking about how you questioned Alphas. You’re assuming it was a strong werewolf that participated in her kidnapping, but that might be ruling out the real culprit.”
“You think a weaker werewolf could pull this off?” Michael said.
I turned to him. His eyes were focused on the road, and he’d been quiet. So quiet that I thought he wasn’t listening to the call.
“It’s extremely possible if I’m understanding this correctly,” Kyra said. Her words were crisp and clear. “Samantha said it was fey magic messing with the bonds. Right?”
“Right.” I wasn’t sure why that needed clarification. I’d said it plainly.
“Then the werewolf element doesn’t have to be strong,” Van’s voice came through the phone.
“That’s right.” Cosette muttered something that had to be a fey curse. “That’s actually right. I can’t believe we missed that. I was so focused on—”
“How?” I asked. I didn’t understand fey magic at all. Clearly.
“Whoever accessed your bonds just opened the door for the fey to take over. They served as a link. I’m not a werewolf, and I’ve never tried to look at your pack magic, but all of you are tied together, right?” Kyra asked. “In a similar way to how this council is linked?”
“I think that’s right,” Michael said. “We all have access to the pack bonds. Although the level of control we can exert over them depends on the strength of the werewolf. That’s why some can command, and some must obey.”
“But you all have access to the bonds that tie each wolf to another, no matter the power level?” Kyra asked.
I looked at Michael. God. We were so stupid. “I just assumed if they were going to overpower her like this and for this long that we were looking for someone very alpha, if not an actual pack Alpha. There are enough of them that are mad at her, and a few that have made it clear they want her gone. It made sense that it had to be one of them.”
“Yeah. That made sense when we thought a werewolf took Tessa,” Adrian said. “They’d have to be strong enough to overpower her. Which takes some serious claws to do.”
“But it wasn’t a werewolf that took her,” Van said. “We know Helen was behind the attack. So, it could literally be any wolf. Although I might add a caveat that it’s probably a wolf that’s familiar with your bonds. Most likely someone of loose connection or someone who left your pack.”
I was glad to narrow it down some, but putian. The betrayal was a sharp burn in my soul.
Someone I knew did this?
“Think about who hates Tessa,” Van said. “Who else had access to and knowledge of your bonds and hates her? A close friend? Maybe an ex of yours who—”
Chris’s raspy laugh came through the phone, and I knew—I knew—what he was going to say because I was thinking the same damned thing.
“Anyone know where the hell Imogene’s been?” Chris asked. “She hates Tessa, and she knows our pack bonds. She knows all of your bonds, Dastien. You grew up with her. You dated her. She’s top of my list.”
“Anyone talk to Shannon?” Michael asked. “She’d also be at the top of my list. And possibly—”
“I’ve talked to Shannon,” Meredith said softly, but we all heard her.
Everyone was quiet as we waited for what Meredith would say next.
“I talked to Shannon last week. I…I don’t think she’s involved, but I didn’t really believe Tessa when Shannon was being a jerk to her. I don’t think I’m the best person to read her.”
No. Meredith really wasn’t. “Do you know where Shannon is?”
“Look, I…she hates Tessa, but Shannon asked about her. I thought it was from guilt over what she’d done and what had happened, but now I’m not so sure.”
My hand tightened around the phone, and the screen cracked. I dropped it into my lap before I could do any more damage. I wasn’t going to like whatever Meredith said next, but I needed to hear it.
“Shannon asked about what we knew. I thought she was coming around—caring about someone other than herself—but I could be very, very wrong. She could’ve been asking to find out if we knew she was involved. I hadn’t talked to her in months. I thought…I was just happy to hear from a friend. I didn’t think about—”
Meredith’s rambling was getting on my nerves. She talked to Shannon and felt bad about it. Fine. But I needed the facts. “What did you tell her exactly?”
“Everything I knew. Everything.”
I was trying to be patient. Trying and failing. “How much everything? I need to know exactly—”
“I’m so sorry. I told her how you’d gone to a bunch of different witches trying to break the magic hiding your bond. I told her you’d been to the Lunar Court and talked to Helen. That we knew Helen was involved somehow. She already knew we’d questioned all the Alphas, but she doesn’t know about Samantha, Dastien. I talked to her before I knew you were heading that way, and she doesn’t even know that Samantha exits. Hell, I’ve never even met her and…” She was quiet.
I wanted to scream at her for telling Shannon so much, but it wouldn’t solve anything.
“I’m so sorry,” Meredith said it so quietly, but I could hear the pain and guilt in her voice.
I didn’t want to blame Meredith for talking to her friend. Meredith hadn’t been around in a while. I knew she still trying to sort out the mess of the Irish pack with Donovan, and I knew—I knew—she would never do anything to hurt Tessa. But this still felt like she’d betrayed us. Betrayed my mate.
After a minute, I realized that everyone was waiting for me to scream or yell or get upset, but I knew that wouldn’t do any good.
Meredith was always too kind, too giving. Even as angry and frustrated as I was, I knew she wasn’t the bad guy here. She didn’t actually hurt Tessa. And she didn’t mean to give information to someone who might have participated in her kidnapping.
“We don’t know anything for sure yet. So, don’t beat yourself up. Just send me Shannon’s address if you have it. We’ll go there next. And if anyone else starts asking about her—if any of you have anyone that comes to you that makes you feel the least bit—”
“It gets a little worse, Dastien,” Meredith said. “Please, don’t get mad.”
I couldn’t promise her that. I was doing my best to not be upset already, but I wasn’t about to promise anything. “What?”
“She’s living with Imogene.”
Michael reached out, gripping my shoulder, feeding me power to keep me calm. “Breathe. We didn’t know, but this is good. We have so much more than we’ve had.”
It took me a second to realize that I was growling. It took me a while longer to make myself stop.
I wanted to yell at her for not telling me this sooner, but we discussed who could’ve pulled this off. When Tessa was first taken, we all agreed that if there was a werewolf element in play here, then it had to be one of the Alphas. They had the power and the motivation to pull off something like this. Meredith couldn’t have known.
“Where?” The word was more growl than anything else.
“Miami with a few others that got kicked out of St. Ailbe’s. I’ll send you the address.”
My knuckles popped, and I looked down at my hands. They were shifting. I was losing control.
“Stop. You can’t change now. We’ve got to get on a plane.” Michael fed me more power to fight the wolf. Power to control the wolf. And I took it because I needed to think.
“This is good news,” Michael said.
Right. Michael was right. I had something to go on. That was more than I had yesterday. I wouldn’t think about all the time wasted because I hadn’t wasted it. Everything we’d done led me to here. A place where hope lived.
“Any of our kind could help with the magic hiding her,” Kyra said, breaking the silence. “We have a long history of stealing people. Moving them to places. Changing their memories and clouding them in magic to hide them away.” She shook her head. “If they’ve made her a changeling, she could be anywhere. But there’s hope in that.”
“Why?” God, I needed more hope.
“Because if that’s the case, then she’s probably fine wherever she is. She probably has no idea that she’s missing or who she really is or that anyone is looking for her.”
I wasn’t sure if that broke my heart or gave me hope.
Hope. I’d take the hope.
“Shannon is friends with the fey.” Meredith’s voice was soft and sorrow-filled. “The entrance to the Lunar Court’s underhill is basically next door to our pack’s castle in Ireland. Which means that she has contacts. They know her and could’ve used her. I’m not sure what role she had in it, or if she had any at all, but she has access to the fey, and—”
“No one is blaming you, Meredith,” Chris said. “It’s okay.”
“No. It’s really not.” There was pain in her voice now, and I knew I should say something. I should fix it. But I couldn’t make the words come out.
“There’s one more thing,” Cosette said. “Changelings are usually infants or toddlers when they’re taken. The magic they’d need to create this…it’s not easy. Not just any fey could do it.”
That was good. That was better than good. “Who?”
“My mother, among others. Which we knew, but it would definitely take more than just my mother to pull it off. Changling magic isn’t her forte.”
Great. The one fey we couldn’t go after mixed in with more fey.
“If I can find who else participated, I might be able to track Tessa,” Van said quickly. “I’m going to court. I have—”
“We can’t go back to Helen. Not again. We don’t want a war with the fey.” Michael dropped his hand from my shoulder. “I’m not sure who would win. We have to find Tessa while keeping the peace.”
“We’ve got power on our side. Major archon power,” Chris said.
The fey on the call started arguing with werewolves over who was more powerful, but it was all bullshit. Total bullshit that didn’t matter.
“Be careful,” Claudia said, and the argument dropped off. “Whoever is involved in taking my cousin, they’re dangerous.”
“We’ll be at the airport in a minute,” Michael said.
I looked out the window, seeing—really looking—at what was out there.
He was right. I recognized the oil pumpjacks on the hills. We were ten minutes away, give or take. “I’ve got to go. Send me the address, Meredith.”
“Just sent it. Service is slow here, but it should come through in a sec.”
“Thanks.” I hung up before all the awkward goodbyes and well-wishing could start.
The fey had taken her. My ex had helped. They were answers, but dark worries kept filtering through my mind. “What if they’re hurting her? What if—”
“You can’t think of the ifs. Only what is.” Michael was using his calm, soothing Alpha voice with me, but I wasn’t sure it would work. “Tessa’s missing, but she’s alive. Someone who knew how to navigate your pack ties let the fey access them. The magic that took her from us is something only a very powerful fey could do. This is all great information. We have a real destination now. Shannon and Imogene hate Tessa and have the means to access your bonds. That’s a starting point. That’s the best news we’ve had in two weeks.
“It might not feel like it, but we’ve made a lot of progress in just two weeks.” Michael’s reasoning was starting to get through to me. “With missing supernaturals, it can take a lot longer to find someone than if this were just a human kidnapping. And her chances of surviving this are still very high. Okay?”
He was right. I knew it. I wanted to find Tessa now, today, immediately, but it could take time. The fey magic we were fighting against was powerful. “Okay.”
My cell phone pinged, and I grabbed it from my lap. There was a text from Meredith. An address and another apology. “I have their address.”
It’s okay, I sent back to her.
And then I texted the pilot with our destination. We’d be in the air soon. Five hours—give or take—to Miami. Maybe forty minutes from the airport to Imogene’s condo.
Then I’d find some answers.
I could take six more hours.
I could hold on to hope for that long.