by Juniper Hart
13
Someone kicked Marcel’s foot, but he didn’t move from his spot or open his eyes.
“What the hell, Marcel! How long have you been like this?” He didn’t respond, even though Snaz’s voice was grinding into his pounding head like a drill. “Marcel, open your damn eyes!”
“Screw off, Snaz. I’m sleeping,” he slurred, but Snaz wasn’t having it. Suddenly, Marcel was seized by his shirt collar and dragged up into a sitting position, forcing him to open his eyes. “What do you want?” Marcel muttered. “Leave me alone.”
“Man, you’re a mess!” Snaz growled in disbelief. “Do you know how bad this would be if anyone else saw you like this? Do you want Ever to stage a coup against you?”
Marcel grinned maniacally. “I don’t give a shit what my brother does,” he answered honestly. “Unless he comes in here and gets you out of my face.”
Snaz’s confusion was tangible, and he released Marcel’s shirt slowly. “Marcel, I know you’re upset about Emily—”
“UPSET?” Marcel yelled, leaping unexpectedly from the chaise where he’d been passed out. A whiskey bottle fell to the ground in a crash, the glass splintering into a million pieces along the sitting room floor.
“Okay,” Snaz said comfortingly. “I know you’re beyond upset, but sitting here drinking away your sorrows isn’t helping anything. You’ve neglected pack meetings, and the club. Marcel, come on. You have to accept the fact that Gabriel has her and that she’s not coming back.”
Marcel’s face was the picture of desolation. “I have accepted that,” he hissed. “That’s what I’ve been doing. Accepting.”
“Marcel, how long is this going to go on?” Snaz asked quietly. “You’ve been on a bender for three weeks. The pack is getting restless, and—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the pack! Let Ever take over. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop sulking and pick yourself up!”
Marcel looked at Snaz, willing himself to be angry, but there was nothing left, like his last bit of fight, his last ounce of ire, had dissipated in the past month with the leads to Gabriel and Emily. Nothing Trace had found had panned out, the phone calls were useless, and even Marcel’s contacts in the police department had been of no use. A burner phone hadn’t been recovered on the scene, so that had been a dead end.
Marcel could feel in his bones that Emily was still alive, as if their souls were connected by an invisible cord. He knew that it had always existed, but now, it was a physical tug inside him, calling out and begging for Marcel to find her.
If only he knew where to look.
Those first few days, he had been ready to start a search grid and tear all of Salem apart looking for her, door-to-door, but when a heist in Seattle occurred with all of Gabriel’s markers, Marcel realized he was biting more than he could chew.
The alerts were out for Emily, of course, and his pack had been instructed to keep their ears to the ground and their eyes peeled. But wherever Emily was, she hadn’t been spotted. Aside from the robbery in Seattle, there had been no sign of Gabriel and his minions, either.
The depression had hit Marcel hard and suddenly as the days slipped into weeks. Landon Burke had been livid to hear that he had come to a dead end.
“Maybe I was right about you after all,” the councilman snarled. “You really weren’t cut out for the job. You’re in over your head.”
He’s right, Marcel thought. I can’t protect my mate. How am I supposed to protect a pack? I’m not worthy of anything.
“You need to get up, shave, and shower,” Snaz ordered him. “I’m not leaving here until you do that.” Grunting, Marcel looked around for another bottle of whiskey, but Snaz was faster, and he swooped it up. “Is this what your life is now?” he growled. “Wallowing in self-pity while everyone else takes on your responsibilities?”
The fire that Marcel thought he had lost came flooding back, and he bared his teeth at Snaz.
“No one asked you to take on my responsibilities,” he shot back, but even as he said it, he realized how unfair the words were. Sassafras couldn’t run without him, certainly not for weeks on end. Snaz had already picked up so much of his slack, but there was only so much he could do.
“Marcel,” Snaz said quietly. “I’m your friend and your right-hand man, but I’ve gotta tell you, things are falling apart without you. If you want to step down, step down.”
The thought of giving up his alpha status was shocking, and Marcel found himself staring at Snaz with a new clarity. A look of relief crossed over his friend’s face.
“That’s what I thought,” Snaz said, exhaling. “Come on, Marcel. I know things have been rough for you, but you can get through this, and you don’t have to do it alone.”
“That’s easier said than done,” Marcel muttered. “Now I’m on the Council’s shit list, too, above all else.”
“Never mind the Council right now,” Snaz told him firmly, reaching to offer Marcel his arm. “Let’s just start with getting you presentable. You have a full beard, and you reek.”
A look of embarrassment crossed over Marcel’s face, and he sighed, shaking his head. “Sorry, Snaz. I-I don’t know how I let this happen.”
“You don’t owe anyone an apology. All that matters is that you’re getting it together.”
Marcel reached for his phone, but there was no longer any hope when he looked at it. He’d resigned to the fact that there would be no news of Emily. Gabriel had hidden her away so well that they would never find her. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about what they might be doing to her. It didn’t make sense that Gabriel had gone through all that trouble to find her, only to terminate her existence. Gabriel obviously had another use, one that the males in his pack couldn’t help with.
He shuddered to think what it was and forced himself to move forward before falling back onto the chaise and back into his oblivion.
“I’m going to make some coffee,” Snaz told him as Marcel retreated up the stairs. On his way through the foyer, he paused, noting that the door had been kicked in.
“You owe me a new door,” he called out to Snaz. His partner popped his head around the corner and glowered at him.
“You’re lucky that’s all that broke. I thought I was going to find you dead in here.” A smidgen of guilt found its way into Marcel’s darkened heart, and he looked at Snaz sadly.
“I can’t die,” he sighed. “Not until I find Emily.”
“Marcel…” Snaz paused, as if he was considering his next words very carefully.
“What? Spit it out, Snaz.”
“What if she decided to join Gabriel after all?”
Marcel’s breath caught in his chest. That thought had not occurred to him, not once.
“Impossible,” he said flatly. “She was kidnapped.”
“Yes, I know she was,” Snaz agreed quickly. “And no one is disputing that, but what if she stayed by her own choice?”
“What nonsense are you touting? Her very purpose for staying here in Salem was to be safe from Gabriel.”
“She was safer in New York. She was there for years, and he never found her. I can’t help wondering if she came here by choice, to seek out her pack.”
Marcel gaped at him in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded. “She didn’t even remember being turned! She hasn’t exhibited any Lycan traits! She didn’t know anything until she got here, and Gabriel was the one who lured her out!”
Snaz threw up his hands in mock surrender.
“I stand corrected,” he muttered. “Go shower. I’m making coffee.” He hurried away before the argument grew more heated, and Marcel scoffed after him.
Emily is being held against her will, he thought, and Snaz is taking desperate measures to keep me from finding her, putting this idea in my head. If Emily remembered being turned, maybe that would be a possibility, but since she didn’t… He finished mounting the stairs in a sprint and burst into his suite, hi
s thoughts jumbled. Unless she was lying to you. Maybe she came to you as an agent of Gabriel.
Oh, how he loathed Snaz in that minute for putting the doubts in his mind. It had been so long since he’d touched Emily’s skin, inhaled her sweet scent. If she was standing in front of him at that moment, he knew there was no way he’d be second-guessing whether she was with Gabriel by choice. But as he disrobed and stepped into his steam shower, Marcel realized that Snaz’s theory held some merit, though only if Gabriel wanted something from him.
“Argh!” he yelled, dropping his cloudy head against the smooth stone of the shower as the hot water poured down over his beaten body. He would never know the truth about what had happened if he didn’t find Emily. He soaped his body and washed his hair before giving his full beard a trim in the shower. He didn’t have the patience to shave off the newly grown hair, but he would deal with it later.
Snaz was waiting in the kitchen when Marcel returned to the main floor fifteen minutes later.
“Here,” Snaz said, sliding a huge mug in his direction. “Drink this, and I’ll get you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” Marcel said automatically. Snaz held up a palm as if to silence him.
“I don’t care. This isn’t subject to discussion. You’ve got enough liquor in you to kill a horse, and I need your head on straight so we can come up with a plan of attack.”
“A plan of attack?” Marcel echoed, sinking onto a high stool at the kitchen bar. “Are we at war?”
“You really don’t know what’s happening, do you?” Snaz sighed. Marcel looked at him.
“Fill me in.”
“Ever has been telling everyone that you’re losing it, that the pressure’s getting too much for you. No one knows about the girl—”
“Emily!” Marcel barked. “Say her name, dammit!”
“Emily,” Snaz said quickly. “No one knows about the situation with the—with Emily, and while I think that’s for the best, your brother is painting it like you’re having a breakdown.”
“That little shit. So what now? He’s drumming up a following? Hoping to stage a coup?”
“I don’t need to remind you that he already has a following. He always was more social than you.”
“Yeah. Mr. Personality, that’s my brother. So what? Is there a plan?”
“Well, as charismatic as Ever might be, he’s not much of a planner, something your father knew about him early on.”
Marcel smirked, and the movement hurt his face. He couldn’t remember the last time his mouth had turned upward. “So you’re telling me there’s really nothing to worry about.”
“I’m telling you,” Snaz said, “that Ever has a bigger following now than he did before you went AWOL, and you need to do some damage control, come up with a story.”
“Like what? My cat died?” Marcel asked sarcastically, lifting the mug to his lips.
“I think we can come up with something better than that, Marcel, considering you don’t have a cat.”
“What have you been telling them?” Marcel asked, suddenly very grateful for having such a pain in the ass in his corner.
“That you were bitten.” Marcel’s eyebrow raised in question.
“By a wolf? That doesn’t make any sense. I would have healed by now.” Snaz lowered his gaze and shook his head.
“Not a wolf,” he hedged. Marcel waited for him to finish his sentence. “By a demon.”
The small sip of coffee in Marcel’s mouth sprayed across the counter, and he began to laugh as he choked.
“I know, I know!” Snaz sighed. “But I needed to tell them something good, something believable! They think you’re healing in an Aldwin coven right now.”
“Because that would be the only thing that could save my life if I was bitten by a demon—assuming an Aldwin witch found me in an unbelievably short period of time.”
“Yeah, well, in my story, you did. But think about this,” Snaz rushed on, rolling up his sleeves. “You’ll be a hero, a Lycan who survived a demon bite! The pack will respect you more than ever before.” But Marcel was no longer listening to him, his eyes trained on Snaz’s wrist.
“W-what is that?” he breathed, his heart rate increasing dramatically. Snaz glanced down and frowned.
“It’s a Garmin,” he replied. “Why? You want one?”
“Oh, no,” Marcel choked, almost falling out of his chair. “How could I have been so stupid?”
Snaz’s face was wrought with concern. “What’s wrong? You’re as pale as a sheet!”
“Her Fitbit. She wore a Fitbit tracker, Snaz!” Marcel gasped, shooting his eyes around for his cell phone.
“Emily?” His gaze rested on his phone, and he stumbled toward it as Snaz suddenly seemed to understand.
“Trace!” Marcel rasped into the receiver. “I need you to log into Emily’s phone again.”
“Marcel! Y-you’ve recovered!” the tech choked through the speaker. Marcel shot Snaz an exasperated look. At least his friend had the good sense to look embarrassed.
“Never mind me. I need you to do what I just said. Can you do that?”
“I have a live version on my computer for any incoming messages or calls already,” Trace told him. “But I would have told you if anything was happening.”
“It’s not the calls I want. I want you to check her Fitbit app. She had one on.”
There was a long silence. “It’s going to be dead by now, Marcel, unless she found a way to charge it, and I don’t see how—”
“Trace, listen to me. Trace the GPS on that app right now.”
“All right, but…” Trace trailed off, and Marcel could hear his fingers working along the keyboard. “It’s online! It’s live now!”
The information filled Marcel with a combination of dread and excitement. Surely, it would have lost its charge after a month. Was Emily still using it, or had someone taken it from her? If she was still in possession of it and the battery hadn’t died, that meant that she was there, willingly. He didn’t want to think about it.
“Where?” Marcel demanded. “Where is it?”
“Oh!” Trace breathed, and Marcel relaxed, realizing that he finally had the tech on the same page. They finally had a new crumb on a cold trail that he had thought was dead.
“Do you have a location?”
“Yes!” Trace squeaked. “I’ve got a location on the Willamette River near Wheatland, but… there’s nothing out there, Marcel. No houses, no businesses, nothing.”
“There’s something out there,” Marcel assured him, reaching for his keys. “Emily is out there. Text me the coordinates.” He disconnected the call and nodded at Snaz. “You’re coming with me,” he told his friend. “There’s no time to stop for the others, but we should call for back up on our way.”
“We should see what we’re walking into first, Marcel,” Snaz told him, following the alpha out of the house. “If there’s nothing there and we call for the pack…” He didn’t need to finish his thought. Marcel was already on shaky ground with his underlings. He didn’t want to give them more reason to distrust his leadership.
“Fine,” Marcel agreed curtly and cast Snaz a sidelong look. “When did you get so smart, anyway?”
“Since you gave me no choice,” Snaz retorted. “I’ve been doing my best asking myself, what would Marcel do?”
They climbed into the car, and Marcel gave his friend a wry smile. “You’ve done pretty damn good, Snaz.”
Snaz guffawed. “Tell me that after you see the club,” he sighed. “Come on.”
They zoomed out of Marcel’s driveway and headed up I-5 to Brooklake Road, taking the backroads toward the location Trace had given Marcel.
Hang on, Emily, Marcel willed her silently. I’m coming for you.
He had no idea what he was about to find, but he hoped he wasn’t leading himself and Snaz into a trap.
14
Aiden eyed her contemptuously, but Emily ignored him, standing with her hands on her hips.
“She’s useless to us if she refuses to do the treatments,” Aiden muttered, his weasel-like face boring holes in Emily’s direction. “You have to force her.”
“Are you always this whiny, or is it just because your balls haven’t dropped yet?” Emily shot back. Aiden bared his teeth, ready to pounce, but Gabriel stood between them.
“Emily, will you come with me, please?” he asked gently, despite the firm grip on her arm. She wrestled herself free and glowered at him as he fell back in surprise. Even Emily was stunned at how easily she had let herself out of his hold.
I’m getting stronger, she thought, though it wasn’t the first time she’d realized it in the past month. Perhaps now that she was around Lycans consistently, she was consciously aware of her newfound abilities, her heightened senses, and her thirst for something she couldn’t identify. Emily also reasoned that she was fuelled by anger and disappointment, but the insecurities she had carried with her into the pack’s mansion seemed to dissipate day by day.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped at Gabriel. “I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own.”
His eyes glazed with annoyance, but he forced a smile.
“Of course, hon,” he said, and she bristled. “Let’s talk in my office.”
“Sure, pookie,” she snapped back, storming haughtily from the room.
“MAKE HER TAKE THE INJECTIONS!” Aiden yelled after them. Even though Emily considered whirling back around to confront him, Gabriel stopped her, a frosty smile on his face.
“How many times do I have to tell you that the pack is for me to control, not you, Emily?”
“Then maybe you should start controlling them,” she countered, knowing her words incensed him.
“Emily, what is the problem? You agreed to do the procedures, but you keep stalling. Did you change your mind?”
She scowled at him, her pulse quickening. Expertly, she steeled her thoughts so he couldn’t read her mind, but behind the wall she had erected, her thoughts were swirling in darkness and plagued with worry. She hadn’t actually changed her mind; in her gut, she’d never been ready to do it. Gabriel had just painted such a wonderful scenario for her.
