“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
“Grab his feet, dammit!”
Aubrey whimpered as she turned her head toward another male voice and the blurry image of the two other men attempting to shove Dex into the back cab of a large truck with a green F and A painted on the side parked close by. “Ow! Damn kid’s wild as a bobcat.” And then a lone tear slipped down her cheek as the door slammed shut.
I’ve lost him.
Laughter followed as one of the men got into the driver’s side of the truck and the other one walked toward her and then nudged her leg with his foot. “Someone gettin’ this bitch?”
“I got her.”
Aubrey shook her head and clawed at the pavement before she was roughly hauled up from the ground by hard hands and then slung over a bony shoulder stinking of stale cigarettes. She shuddered at that and the man’s hands caressing her butt. He chuckled, saying, “Helluva great ass you got there,” as he carried her across the parking lot.
The distant roar of her name drew her wavering vision to her phone getting further and further away, but she hopelessly stretched her arm out toward it anyway.
“And that’s enough of that.”
She dropped her arm as the heel of a muddy boot crushed her phone into silence and then kicked it away.
Resignation weighed her down as her vision dimmed but brought with it a moment of clarity in the encroaching darkness. Her mind filled with the image of her panther, his face transforming into that of her dream lover—his features coming into clearer focus than ever before.
Why hadn’t she accepted it? He had been right there in front of her all this time. And though she didn’t understand it, she knew somehow it truly was him.
The truck door opened, and she was thrown inside next a bound Dex. Her last thoughts before the darkness completely closed in were of the man from her dreams—the man she would never see again.
The man she loved.
“Rafe.”
9
“Aubrey!”
The seams of Rafe’s clothes burst open as he yelled and crushed the now useless phone in his grip. They were gone, and once again he was helpless to do anything about it. This couldn’t happen. Not again.
“No,” he roared as his vision grayed and he bent to swipe his claw-tipped hand over his desk. Splinters shot up from the wooden surface as his palm connected with his laptop and sent it flying to crash against the wall.
“What the hell is—”
Great heaving breaths huffed from Rafe’s Alpha as he turned toward his wide-eyed Guardian standing in his office doorway.
“Fuck,” Bash muttered as Rafe’s Alpha stepped away from his tattered clothes and ruined shoes before stalking across the room, not caring his bare feet crunched over broken circuits and shattered glass scattered across the carpet.
Find them.
Bash grabbed hold of the doorframe and hollered over his shoulder. “Slater! Max! Get your asses here now!” His Guardian slowly backed up into the hallway with his hands up and eyes averted the closer Rafe’s Alpha got. “Okay, boss, what’s happened?”
“Gone,” he growled. “Dex… Aubrey…” He hit the side of the doorframe with his fist, smashing the wood. “My mate,” he roared.
“Your mate…” Bash’s gaze hardened as his expression went flat. “We’ll find them.”
The human Rafe saw this as exactly why Bash was his Guardian Regent. The panther shifter’s demeanor had morphed to calm, focused, and decisive in an instant.
But more importantly, deadly. And deadly was exactly what he needed. Someone was going to pay for taking those who belonged to him.
Aubrey.
Another roar left his Alpha as a gut-wrenching fear hit Rafe unlike anything he had ever known. Fear even greater than that on his drive to Javier’s and Catherine’s house that horrible night. Fear so intense it nearly doubled his Alpha over before he could make it through the door.
Find my mate. My cub.
Rafe’s Alpha paused, his fists clenching and palms stinging where his claws dug into his flesh, as deep down inside his human heart raced with something he had never accepted before.
Dex was now his cub, and he and Aubrey were his family.
A greater resolved filled the three entities residing within him. Their family would not be lost to them. His Alpha stomped past Bash only to meet Max and Slater skidding to a halt on the hardwood floor.
“Holy…” Max blew out a harsh breath.
“Shit,” Slater murmured as he looked passed Rafe. “What set this off?”
“Someone has his mate and Dex,” Bash said on a growl as he sidestepped around Rafe.
“Dex,” Max snarled, his eyes glowing with his bear. “Who took him and Aubrey?”
“Aubrey’s his mate?” Slater rubbed a hand over his head. “Shit…again.”
“Destined,” Rafe chuffed out as he pushed his way between the three men and then lumbered toward the front door. “Don’t know.”
Slater headed him off and stood in his path with his hands out and body tense.
“Move.”
“Think,” Slater said, stepping toward him. “Your mate needs you.”
His low chuff filled the air. “I know.” He took another step but his Beta held his ground. A rumbling growl left Rafe’s Alpha as he reared back one clawed hand and bent toward Slater’s face. His guttural, “Move or die,” hung in the air between them.
Slater didn’t flinch as he presented his neck and cast his eyes to the side. This was something the Alpha understood. Submission.
“Alpha,” Slater said as Rafe’s Alpha lowered his claw. “We need Rafe. It’s important. Bash,” he said, glancing behind him. “Get him some clothes.” The other man grunted an acknowledgment before his feet sounded running up the stairs.
Max eased behind Slater and kept his own gaze just below the Alpha’s eye level.
“Dex needs you human right now,” Slater said, his voice imploring. His Alpha jerked as a spasm ran through his body. His Beta carefully met his gaze while Max stayed back in a ready stance. “Aubrey needs you to be there for her.”
Rafe’s Alpha glared at Slater, his low growl meant as a warning he wasn’t to be challenged. But his human mind understood.
He’s right.
Rafe’s Alpha was a killing machine and one he needed to take swift retribution. But killing had to come later. So, deep within his Alpha, Rafe pushed to gain control.
His Alpha roared in protest and shoved back. Hard. And then he shook his head, holding onto his rage as his mind filled with images of death and destruction.
Kill.
Rafe pushed again.
We aren’t any good to the people we love like this. Aubrey. Dex. Think of them. You can’t find them, but I can. And when we do, I promise those who took them will die.
It was enough to get through his Alpha’s red haze of anger. Rafe’s Alpha threw back his head and roared as Rafe’s human mind wrested control from him. Then with a deep breath, he tensed in anticipation of the coming pain as he forced the transformation instead of letting it occur naturally. Once it started, it came at him with the force of a freight train, with his loud bellow reverberating down the hallway as each muscle contracted and his bulk and height diminished.
“That’s right,” Slater said low as Rafe struggled to stay upright.
If he’d thought his usual slow transformation was agonizing, he had been wrong. Nothing had prepared him for the screaming pain coursing through his body as the torturous process of his bones snapping and reshaping was made even worse by the speed at which they occurred. He braced his hands on either wall and bit his claws into the sheetrock as another anguished roar left him when his legs buckled as the joints in his ankles, heels, and feet twisted back into shape.
Rafe growled—but this one a more human sound—as he reached one hand out to the banister behind him. His extended fingers and claws shrank and the fangs filling his mouth retracted. He breathed through the last of the spas
ms and clenched his jaw as his face reformed.
He then slowly opened his eyes to a swaying world filled with color and attempted to focus on Slater and Max’s concerned gazes. “Gotta get to the movie theater,” he said on a rasping groan as he sat down hard on the steps. He watched the last of the fur slowly drawing back into his skin.
Rafe took a deep, cleansing breath and shook his head as he glanced up at his Beta. “You have to have some giant balls.”
“Or I’m just crazy,” Slater said on a relieved breath as Rafe scrubbed his hands down his face.
Just then, Bash landed in crouch in front of him from the top landing with a fresh set of clothes and boots held against his chest. Of course his Guardian grinned at him. “I’m pretty certain mine are bigger.” Leave it to Bash not to make a big deal of the drama from the past few minutes, that was until his expression sobered as he passed the clothes over to Rafe. “Now get your ass dressed so we can find your family.”
Twenty minutes later, Rafe sat forward in the passenger seat of Slater’s SUV with the claws he had unconsciously released over and over digging into the dashboard as they finally pulled into the movie theater parking lot.
“You’ve ruined my dash,” Slater grumbled as he drove through one side the building’s full parking lot.
“I’ll replace it,” Rafe growled. He didn’t see Reba anywhere. “It’s not on this side.” He dug his claws in deeper as an exasperated sigh came from the driver’s seat.
Slater rounded the building, stopping for pedestrians walking back and forth in front, and then pulled through to the other side where more cars filled the area.
Rafe’s eyes scoured the parking lot as they drove through each row and then pointed to the very back as his gaze zeroed in on Aubrey’s little S-10 truck sitting by itself under a tree.
“There it is,” he hollered.
“The red one?” Slater asked as he headed down the row halfway to their destination.
“Yeah,” Max said, sitting forward from the back. “But stop a good distance from it. We need to check the scene.”
“Gotcha,” Slater said.
Rafe couldn’t wait, so he opened the door and jumped out. Bash’s, “Of course,” filled his ears as he landed on his feet and took off at a dead run between the parked cars toward Aubrey’s truck. It had been her last location before being taken. He tried the doors when he reached it but they were still locked. So she probably hadn’t even gotten this far. He grimaced while he searched the area as Slater’s SUV came to a stop close by.
Rafe kept his eyes glued to the ground as car doors opened and closed. Max commanded, “You guys spread out. We need a perimeter check for anything unusual.”
Moments later, Slater called out, “I’ve got something here.”
Rafe raced to where Slater stood over Aubrey’s smashed phone a good fifteen yards from where she had parked. His heart sank. Because while he had figured it had been destroyed, seeing the evidence brought it home.
“Cigarette butts. Lots of cigarette butts.” Rafe quickly picked up the remnants of the destroyed phone and shoved it in his jeans pocket before he jogged to where his Guardian waited, with Max and Slater joining them.
“They must have been waiting here for a while,” Max observed as his concerned gaze went around the parking lot before picking up one of the butts and scenting it. “This isn’t Flagg.”
“Let me have it,” Bash said as he took the burned end of the cigarette from Max and smelled over the filtered area. Then his gaze lifted to Rafe’s with a deadly gleam. “I know who this is.” He glanced at Slater. “You remember him. One of the men called him Norman.” He then faced Rafe again as Slater nodded. “The guy smoked like a chimney while we were at Flagg’s ranch this morning and I got close enough to get a whiff of him.”
Rafe held out his hand and Bash handed the butt over to him. He didn’t have to hold it any closer as the man’s familiar scent wafted around him. Rafe clenched the butt in his fist as the memory of finding Catherine and her murderer’s distinct scent blending with the aroma of cigarettes all along her naked body. “He’s the one who killed Catherine.” He held onto his temper to keep his alpha form in check. “And he has Aubrey.”
A new kind of tension filled the air as Rafe met the death-filled gazes of the other men. They had each read the report and knew exactly what had been done to his sister-in-law. So, it wasn’t a far stretch for any of them to imagine the worst.
“We’re wasting time,” Rafe said as he jogged off toward Slater’s vehicle and got in with the others following close behind him.
Rafe kept his gaze focused out the windshield as Slater got in the driver’s seat and blew out a breath before slamming his door. The other two men got in the back. “Okay,” his Beta said. “The situation hasn’t changed. We have to find her and Dex.” Slater’s designation had been in intelligence as a Marine, and he made the perfect third to Rafe’s trifecta in leading the state—power, strength, and intellect. “It wouldn’t be strategically smart to take them to Flagg’s property, so we have to think outside the box.”
“No,” Max said. “But it’s a good starting point.”
“Agreed,” Rafe said over his shoulder as Slater started his vehicle. Then he met his Beta’s stare, growling, “Get us there.”
A heavy silence filled the vehicle as they drove down the interstate and then took the side road leading to Flagg Acres some thirty miles from their previous location.
Rafe calculated each mile in minutes, each of those minutes filling him with regret and what-ifs. But also with the sights, smells, and sounds of Aubrey under his hands and surrounding his body as he’d made love to her the night before.
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. If only he had marked her. It would have initiated the bonding process and he might have been able to more easily locate her. He huffed. But he hadn’t wanted to freak her out by giving her the world’s biggest hickey. He’d also not been ready for her to think he was insane when he told her he was the panther shifter from her dreams and he could morph into something more terrifying than anything from her worst nightmares, all while telling her she belonged to him forever.
None of that made for good pillow talk—regardless of the fact said pillow had been filled with hay. But in hindsight, he should—
“We’re almost there,” Bash said as he sat forward and stuck his head between the seats, taking Rafe out of his thoughts. “So, plan?”
“We’ll have to track them from the ranch,” Slater said as he turned onto the road that would lead them to the ranch. Then he pulled over into a heavily treed area where they would be out of sight from passing cars. Slater put the car in park and turned in his seat. “Rafe, I say we get eyes on the ranch.”
“Bash.” Rafe didn’t have to say more.
“I’m on it,” Bash said as he slipped a lather strap over his head with a pouch hanging from it. He placed his cellphone inside and then began stripping.
“Hmm… Smart,” Max said as he took Bash’s clothes.
“Yeah. No pockets can be a bitch sometimes,” Bash said with a grin. “So I came up with this.”
“I don’t have to tell you how important this is,” Rafe said. “So, as soon as you see what you need, find a place where you can shift and call.”
“Gotcha. It’s on vibrate if you need me any sooner,” he said as he left the car naked and then shifted on the run, his sleek black body blending in with the surrounding trees before he disappeared.
About fifteen interminable minutes later, Slater’s phone went off and he hit the speaker option on his radio console.
“Okay.” Bash’s quiet voice filled the interior of the car. “I prowled around the ranch and it’s still pretty empty of hands right now. I guess since it’s Sunday… Anyhow, I didn’t scent Norman or the few men he had been hanging out with this morning.”
“Are there signs Flagg’s wife is home?” Rafe figured if she wasn’t home, maybe Flagg hadn’t gotten back yet. He doubte
d he would have his wife tagging along to k… He shook his head and refused to continue that train of thought.
“His truck isn’t out front.” Rafe’s muscles went taut until Bash continued. “But the house is quiet. And I was able to get close since no one was around. I don’t think she’s here.”
“But that doesn’t mean he’s not left her someplace else,” Rafe said through clenched teeth. “So Flagg could be anywhere.”
“We have—”
A truck sounded behind them, interrupting Max. Rafe peered out the window as a big white truck passed by with a bright green round logo on the side. The F and A were visible when it flashed through the trees as it went up the road toward the ranch.
“Flagg…” Rafe held back the urge to leap from Slater’s car and run him down. “This may be him headed your way. Get someplace where you can see and then get back here as quickly as you can.”
“Right.” The phone connection cut off.
Rafe kept his eyes trained on the spot where Bash had disappeared earlier, willing the trees to part and the panther to appear as Slater and Max talked quietly—about what, he had no idea. Finally, Rafe opened the car door and jumped out, along with Max and Slater, as the panther came crashing through the trees at a dead run. Seconds later, a sweating, naked, and out of breath Bash came up to them saying in a rush, “Get back in the car. He’ll be coming back this way.”
The four of them got in and Slater maneuvered his SUV so as soon as Flagg passed, he could easily leave and they could follow at a distance.
“Is it gonna do me any good to dress?” Bash asked. “I’m assuming we’re going in shifted.”
Rafe did a quick glance over his shoulder to see Max grimacing and shaking his head, saying, “Slater, have you gotta towel or something?”
Rafe turned back toward the road as Bash said, “Don’t be intimidated, man. I’m naturally gifted.”
“Right,” Max said. “But your gift is currently sweating all over Slater’s leather seat.”
“Check the back,” Slater groused as Flagg’s truck passed by again. Then he muttered, “Next time we’re taking someone else’s vehicle.”
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