West’s gaze shot to the unconscious woman, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ll take care of her.” He stepped forward, but Nyria scooped her up in her arms and shot West a death glare.
“You’ve done enough damage, you jerkwad. Go help Wyatt torch this place and take the time to reconsider how you approach females. Because at this rate, your mate would probably kick you in the balls before wanting anything to do with you. And rightly so.” With her head held high, she stepped through the carnage like a ballet dancer and headed out the back door. “I’ll meet you guys back in the van.”
“Need any dating tips?” I asked lightly.
“From you?” West shot back, and then froze when he saw my face, his arms going up instinctively. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I didn’t mean it like that.”
I spun away from him, fists clenched, fighting the animalistic urge to swipe at my brother with years’ worth of pent up rage and frustration. I know my enemies laugh at me behind my back—the ones who initially did so to my face could no longer talk. What shifter couldn’t scent his mate after they already met and touched? What shifter couldn’t track his mate after the mating mark showed up on both their bodies? And what kind of leader left the most important being in their life out in the world, alone, without protecting them? A scream of rage rose in my throat and I bent over at the waist to contain it.
Focus. Focus. Fire. Bodies.
“Wyatt.” West’s voice grew closer. “Wyatt. You’ll find her again. You know that. It’s not your fault, everyone knows that. And once I’ve found mine, I can help you again.”
I didn’t respond, and not another word was said until we reached the van, flames licking the night sky behind us as sirens screamed. The back door swung open and we hopped in. “Don’t change back until we’re home,” Nyria said, swinging the door shut again. “She’s had enough drama today.”
The former hostage was awake and sitting on one of the benches in the back of the van. Nyria, who was now dressed and washed clean of blood, sat on her haunches in between us and the human and went back to treating cuts on the woman’s bare legs while the human ate like she’d been starved for a week. When she saw us, she froze-mid bite, fear clear on her face. Nyria gently touched her knee and murmured something reassuring to her.
I stayed in wolf form and gently nuzzled Nyria’s arm to let her know all was well. Next to me, West sat with the hair-filled locket clamped in his mouth and stared soulfully at the woman, doing his best apologetic-puppy impression. She didn’t look too impressed. Smart human.
Luke started the engine and started an intricate path through the sleepy suburban town, eyes peeled for anyone following us. As expected, the emergency vehicles were approaching from the other side, so the path was all clear.
“Brigit’s filled me in a bit about what happened. She was kidnapped when she thought she was meeting a new source about a lighthearted little profile she did about a project her sister is working on. I told her that while we need to know what information she has that got her kidnapped to begin with, that we will not hurt her and she will be free to go, although we might recommend she lay low with us for a while in case she’s still in danger. She also wants her necklace back, West.”
West started to growl, then clearly thought the better of it and changed it to a sad whine instead.
“Why… why do you want the necklace?” Brigit asked. Her voice was raspy and pained, and she immediately uncapped a water bottle and took a swig after talking. “Can he understand me?” she asked Nyria.
Nyria nodded. “Yes, we understand human speech even in wolf form. But I don’t think either of the guys are going to shift right now in case they scare you. As for the necklace, um…” she hesitated. “It smelled funny to him. He can explain more later. But you need to tell Wyatt, our Alpha, what you told me. He’s the one with the yellowish fur.”
I winked.
Brigit looked straight at me, body language changing as she clearly acknowledged my social ranking. “Thank you for rescuing me from those… that group. They were going to use me as bait to get my sister. She’s an art historian who absolutely loves travelling whenever possible, and after winning a small jackpot last year, she’s been on a kick lately tracking down these strange statues.”
Statues? I glanced at Nyria, and she gave a little shrug. Not ringing any bells for her, either.
“I wrote a little story about her adventures and went to meet someone who claimed to know more about the statues, and next thing I knew, I had a bag over my head and a knife to my throat. They wanted to know where my sister was, how many statues she’d found, where they were, what she knew about them, et cetera.” Brigit shuddered. “I think I convinced them I knew nothing more than what was in our emails to each other and managed to lie about what country she was in, but… I need to call my sister. Right now.”
“Is that locket with the hair in it from your sister?”
Brigit looked at West and he wagged his tail like a damn dog. I kicked him when Brigit looked back at Nyria. “Yeah. She has a lock of my hair, I have a lock of hers. It was a joke gift at first but…” She looked pleadingly at all of us, even looked over her shoulder at Luke driving up front. He stayed focused on the road. “She needs to be warned. Now. I’ll give you her damn number, you can talk to her yourself in case you think that I’m going to slip her some coded message, but you need to tell her she’s made enemies.”
“We’re going to need all your information about these statues,” Nyria told Brigit, and the human nodded.
“I don’t know much about them, but my sister sent me a picture of one of them. I’m afraid the wizards already saw it, though. They’re life-sized statues of men, made of stone …” She trailed off. “With cool stones for eyes?”
“Some sort of precious gems?” Nyria offered, but her voice was uncertain.
Statues. What the hell could the wizards want with a bunch of statues? Nyria looked as confused as I was, and West had once again buried his nose in the locket and was inhaling his mate’s scent over and over again. If you’re going to piss off a bunch of wizards, having West as a mate really wasn’t the worst way to go. West was slow to anger, but once you tipped him over the edge, half your blood would be on the floor in about five seconds flat. Homicidal joy aside, he was pretty playful, and as my second-in-command many shifters went to him first before bothering me because of his level-headedness and good nature.
Luke’s phone rang in the front seat and he grunted. I barked. “Not getting that,” he replied. “Last thing I need is a cop pulling me over for being on the phone and seeing y’all in the back.”
Translation: if Brigit screamed for help, we’d have to silence the cop. And in this town, they were good people. No one wanted it to come to that.
Then, in a wave, every single other phone we had went off in a nerve-jangling cacophony. Nyria’s brow creased with worry. “Luke,” she started. “I think you need to park for a moment and—”
Suddenly, a wave of emotion unlike anything I’d ever felt before hit me. I was vaguely aware of a gasping noise, of the bone-snapping sensation as my body transformed back to human of its own accord. Cold hands were suddenly on my body, a frantic Nyria saying my name—Wyatt? Wyatt? What happened? Shit, Wyatt!—but all I could focus on was a sudden crystal clear sense of someone else. Someone other than me, someone who was…
Her. It was her.
After all this time, it was like a veil had been ripped off of my mind. I could feel her. Somewhere out there, she was there. Terrified. Running as the enemy closed in…
I grabbed Nyria’s arms, sweat dripping off my naked body. The van had stopped, but my mind was racing. “I can feel her.”