Finding Wisp

by Noelle Marie

  Felix frowned, his grip tightening around my arm. “Why do you think?” he shot back.

  I blinked. “I… well, I… I don’t know,” I muttered. After all, in case he hadn’t thought of it, I wasn’t about to give the man the idea of luring Derek to him.

  Felix’s mouth twitched, a sign of his annoyance. “His driveway has the easiest access to the highway. Why would I lug you across miles of rough terrain when there’s a much more civilized option?”

  Felix? Civilized?

  Right.

  “There’s a car waiting for us in the driveway. Now move,” he ordered, jerking me forward by my arm.

  I didn’t know whether or not to be relieved that Felix wasn’t planning some sort of nefarious tête-à-tête with Derek. While I was glad there wasn’t some fight-to-the-death scenario looming in Felix’s mind, I knew that if I got into whatever vehicle Felix had parked at the cabin, there was a good chance I would never see Derek again.

  My mind whirled as I desperately tried to think of an escape plan. No matter how hard I thought, however, no ideas were forthcoming.

  I heard the creek before I saw it – its usual languid current flowing faster than normal in the windy weather. Felix brought me to the same stepping-stone-like rocks I had used to cross the river a month ago to leave out those muffins for Abram – where I’d washed up nearly two months ago.

  He nudged me forward. “You first.”

  Having no choice but to obey, I stepped onto the nearest rock, planning on taking my sweet time traversing the water.

  “So… why did you come for me?” I asked, carefully stretching to reach the next rock and nearly slipping on its slick surface. I was stalling, but also infinitely curious.

  “What do you mean why?” Felix demanded, stepping onto the stone behind me. “Did you really think I was about to let some mangy bear take what was mine?”

  I stepped onto the next rock. “But the Vanderbilts don’t want me anymore,” I pointed out, attempting to appeal to his sensible side. “I mean, they think I’m dead. Or, at the very least, not worth the trouble.”

  Felix didn’t answer, and two rocks later, I was nearly to shore. I planned on running as soon as I reached the grass – as futile as the effort would undoubtedly be – but Felix was there a half-second behind me, grabbing my arm before I could so much as take a single step in either direction.

  He spun me around, forcing me to face him. “You think I’m doing this for Henry or his spoiled brat of a son?” he asked before laughing – a mocking sound. “Sweetheart, like I said, you’re mine. Surely you didn’t think I would just let you go? Not after all the time I invested in you.”

  Before I could even think of what to respond to that, he jerked me forward, continuing to lug me through the forest.

  Now that we were in more familiar territory, I could see that we were, in fact, headed in the direction of the cabin.

  I bit my lip. “It was only a couple of weeks,” I protested. (Though it had seemed like much longer than that trapped in the basement.)

  “Weeks?” Felix repeated, tone incredulous. “Try years, darling.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  I supposed it was possible we could have met before. The memories of my life before Pine Ridge were still fuzzy. (And to be honest, I preferred them that way.)

  Instead of answering, though, Felix only tugged me forward.

  And suddenly, we were there. Stepping out of the trees, we stood on the edge of Derek’s property, the chicken coop, garden, and cabin all in sight.

  “Ah, Pine Ridge,” Felix said, finally coming to a halt as he, too, took in the scenery. “This place brings back memories. Of course, the house that stood here years ago was much grander than this… hut,” he decided on eventually, his upper lip curling in distaste.

  I frowned. “It’s a cabin,” I pointed out testily. “And I’m glad you remember the fire and the lives that it – that you – took so fondly.” (The “you murdering sociopath” was heavily implied.)

  But Felix, unrepentant, only grinned. “Oh, I do,” he assured. “But that isn’t what makes this place so special to me.” He turned, facing me. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Figured what out?” I asked, giving my arm an experimental tug (for the fiftieth time), but there was still no give.

  I was distracted – still trying to think of some sort of escape plan, glancing around the yard for something I could use as a weapon – and so almost didn’t hear what he said next.

  But, of course, I did hear it, and the words that came out of Felix’s mouth were the sort that had the power to change my life irrevocably.

  “Why, this is where we first met – when I first saw you all those years ago: just a little baby sleeping in your soon-to-be-dead mother’s arms.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was Thane, and his fur was matted with blood.

  * * *

  For a moment, I froze.

  Then my whole body sprang into action.

  I sprinted to the dog, and ignoring the dark red blood knotted in his fur, I threw myself down next to him – nearly on top of him as I pressed my ear to his exposed side, attempting to pick up a heartbeat.

  The lub-dub was faint, but there – barely audible over the sound of my own blood pounding loudly in my ears.

  But there was no time for relief.

  “What is-… Is that Thane?” Abram, who had followed me to the source of the coppery smell, asked in an alarmed voice.

  “What do you think?” I snapped, but didn’t otherwise respond.

  Instead, I concentrated on searching Thane for injuries, carefully running my fingers through his fur. It didn’t take long for me to find the puncture wounds on the back of his neck, still slowly oozing blood. I covered them with my hands, pressing down with my palms in an effort to stop the flow.

  To Abram’s credit, he kneeled down to help me, smoothing back the coarse hair between Thane’s ears in an effort to sooth the animal. “Should we move him?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I didn’t think I had felt any broken bones when I’d checked him, but I was far from an expert.

  “Thane, can you hear me, boy?” I asked, making sure to keep my voice pitched low as Abram continued to tenderly stroke his fur.

  The tiny whimper that escaped him in response was heart-wrenching and comforting all at once.

  As concerned as I was with Thane’s injuries, however, there was an even more pressing matter to attend to.

  Wisp.

  She was gone.

  That fact kept battering against my skull.

  And considering the condition of Thane, I doubted that leaving was a decision she’d made on her own.

  I glanced over at Abram, who, judging by his somber expression, was thinking along the same lines as I was. Namely, that someone – the same someone who had inflicted these injuries on Thane – had nabbed her.

  I swallowed. “Where’s Wisp, boy, hmm?” I asked the injured dog. “Did someone take her?”

  Another whine, even higher-pitched than the last, whimpered out of him. The noise – as good as a confirmation to my question – caused my stomach to clench.

  “Shh,” I shushed. “It’s okay, boy. I know you did your best to protect her.”

  As I continued to assure Thane, I eyed the blood that stained the grass beneath his body. Judging by the trail he’d left, along with the mud caked to his fur and mixed with the sticky blood, it wasn’t here that Thane had been injured. More likely, it had been somewhere near Abram’s porch.

  I peered into the forest.

  The only reason I could think of that Thane would have dragged himself all the way over here was if this was where Wisp had been hauled into the woods.

  “What do you think caused his wounds?” Abram asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

  I frowned, carefully examining the cuts under my fingers. From what I could see and feel, they were deep,
but relatively clean. “Hard to say,” I muttered. “Some sort of claws if I were to hazard a guess.”

  I didn’t have to turn to face him to know that Abram and I were thinking the same thing. A shifter.

  Felix.

  I tore my eyes from Thane’s injuries, returning them to the forest in front of me. “I have to go after her.”

  “What about Thane?” Abram asked.

  It was a valid question, and this was probably one of the few times in my life that I regretted living in the woods – so secluded from the rest of society. Abram had long ago tossed the burner phone he’d purchased to contact Cornelius, so it wasn’t like we could call anyone for help, and my truck was at the cabin.

  “You’ll have to take care of him until I get back.”

  Abram scoffed, jerking backwards. “I’m not about to let you go after that lunatic alone,” he protested.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured, shaking off his concern. I leaned down, and uncaring of the blood that covered him, rubbed my cheek against Thane’s. “You did good, boy,” I assured softly, stroking his fur one last time before standing.

  Abram, too, got to his feet. “It’s not only you I’m worried about,” he pointed out.

  He meant Wisp, of course. Because as cold and aloof as the man liked to act, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he cared for her.

  As much as that fact rankled me – poked at the natural possessiveness I felt over her – I couldn’t really blame him. It was inevitable that anyone who spent any significant amount of time with Wisp would come to care for her.

  She just had that effect on people.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t above using his feelings against him. “You care about Wisp, yeah?” I asked bluntly.

  Abram frowned at the question, his eyebrows creeping together, but he nodded.

  I waved at Thane. “Well, Wisp cares about him. If we leave Thane like this to go after her and he dies, she’ll never forgive us.”

  It was nothing but the truth.

  The muscles of Abram’s jaw tightened, like he wanted to argue, but as cognizant of the lack of time we had to work with as I was, he merely offered me a jerky, reluctant nod. “Fine,” he muttered, already kneeling to reapply pressure to Thane’s wounds.

  Thinking that was the end of it, I turned towards the tree line, ready to run.

  “But Derek?”

  I tensed. “What?” I snapped.

  “This time,” Abram said, voice as hard as I’d ever heard it, “make sure you kill him.”

  He didn’t have to specify who.

  “I will,” I promised, and unwilling to waste any more time, I took off into the forest.

  I shifted mid-stride into my bear form, bones breaking and mending back together as I changed into something much larger and more ferocious – and most importantly, faster – than my human self.

  Using my nose as a guide, I bounded through the forest on all fours. Wisp’s honey scent was ingrained into my very being, and it was easy enough to pick it out amongst the other smells of the forest.

  I trampled through overgrown grass, following the trail she’d left. It eventually led me to the same branch of the Skagit River that I’d found Wisp in all that time ago, and it didn’t take me long to realize where he was taking her once I crossed the water.

  The cabin.

  With a destination in mind, I picked up my speed, her scent – and his – growing more pungent the closer I got to them.

  As I ran, I prepared myself for a fight, anticipating the crunch of Felix’s bones between my massive jaws, the taste of his acrid blood pooling in my mouth.

  I was nearly there when I heard it.

  A strangled scream. Wisp’s strangled scream.

  And in response to the sound, I roared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “Why, this is where we first met – when I first saw you: just a little baby sleeping in your soon-to-be-dead mother’s arms.”

  * * *

  I froze, the extent of my disbelief rendering my body – my brain – temporarily useless.

  Eventually, I managed to blink. And then open my mouth. (Because that always seemed to be working, whether my brain could keep up with it or not.)

  “Wh-what are you talking about?”

  Felix grinned in response to my stuttering question. “You wouldn’t remember, I suppose. You were just a baby, after all. Not even a year old yet.”

  I swallowed. “A baby?” I repeated dumbly.

  Everything that Derek had told me about the fire rushed through my mind. Derek’s parents, Boone and Rose, Abram’s wife, Fiona, and their baby had all died of gunshot wounds before being burned so badly by the flames that their bodies had hardly been recognizable.

  I supposed it was possible that the firefighters had assumed one had been lost completely to the blaze. The smallest one.

  Abram’s baby.

  Had it been a girl? I couldn’t remember if either had ever said.

  But surely Felix didn’t mean…

  The man tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, trailing his fingers down my cheek in a parody of affection. “I have to admit, I didn’t think much of you then – the pink, wriggling thing that you were. But you were a bearer, and considering the… match-making service,” Felix decided on eventually, “that Henry and I ran on the side, it would have been a waste to kill you.”

  It made me sick that he could so nonchalantly refer to kidnapping young girls and selling them off to the highest bidder as a match-making service, but I could hardly concentrate on that considering what he was implying about my parentage.

  “It was easy enough to convince Henry that keeping you alive was a worthwhile investment. After all, it wasn’t like you would remember that we killed your mother. Coincidentally enough, he even had someone in mind who could take care of you until you came of age.”

  I licked my lips, still not over my shock, still not sure if I even believed Felix. (But why would he lie?) “Cornelius?” I guessed.

  Felix nodded, his eyes darting to my tongue, and I immediately zipped it back into my mouth. “He owed Henry some political favors,” he explained, “and as soon as his wife saw you – barren as she was – it was practically a done deal.”

  I’d already known that Cornelius and Vanessa hadn’t been my real parents, of course – I mean, I was a bearer and neither of them had shifter blood – but I had no idea that my “adoption” (if it could even be called that) had been so under-handed.

  I remembered some of Vanessa’s last words to me before she had died: “We never should have taken you.”

  “Did they even ask how you acquired me?” I asked quietly, trying to picture the scene in my mind, and what I would do if some stranger offered me a baby out of the blue.

  Felix raised his eyebrows. “Cornelius knew better than to ask too many questions, and Vanessa… well, she wanted a child so badly that she didn’t care where you’d come from.” He frowned. “I admit that I was concerned whether she would be able to let you go when the time came for me to collect you, but then she conveniently fell ill,” – Felix shrugged, a grin pulling at his mouth – “and I didn’t have to worry about that anymore.”

  I remembered the state Vanessa had been in before she’d finally succumbed to Alzheimer’s, and I couldn’t help but think that for all she had done wrong, she hadn’t deserved to die in such an awful manner. It made my stomach swirl with upset that Felix could take any pleasure in it.

  “You’re sick,” I muttered.

  Felix ignored me entirely.

  “Of course, I hadn’t expected to find such a beauty waiting for me when I returned,” he admitted, grasping me by the chin, fingers digging into my cheekbones as he turned my face this way and that before I managed to rip it from his hands. Felix’s smile faded. “But you were already promised to Henry’s son, and pursuing you was hardly worth inspiring his anger.” He paused, tilting his head to the side. “After all, pretty as you were, you were also a sullen, littl
e thing. Beautiful, but dreadfully dull.”

  I snorted. “I’m sure I thought you were perfectly charming.”

  I tensed when Felix brought his hand back to my face, but instead of brutally digging his fingers into my skin, he tenderly cupped my cheek. (It was infinitely worse.) “But then you surprised me, and you ran.”

  “I wonder why,” I muttered sarcastically.

  Running.

  It was what I longed to do now.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible with the iron-clad hold Felix still had on my bicep. And even if I did somehow manage to yank my arm from his grip, I knew I wouldn’t get far before he caught up with me again.

  Which was why as Felix talked – reciting his villainous monologue – I surreptitiously scanned the yard for anything that could be construed as a weapon. My eyes were continuously drawn to the shovel lying on the ground near the garden, its metal spade glinting in the dark.

  Unfortunately, I doubted I would be able to reach it before he inevitably re-captured me. Thus, I was forced to contain my search closer to where we stood.

  It was then that I saw it, resting innocently in the grass, not two feet to my left.

  The remains of the glass bottle I’d obliterated when Derek had taught me how to shoot his gun. The entire neck was still there, perfect for grasping, its jagged shards protruding outward.

  If only I could somehow lean over and…

  I tensed when the hand on my cheek suddenly creeped backwards, Felix’s long fingers curling around the base of my neck as he pulled me closer. “Then, low and behold, Cornelius actually managed to do something useful for once in his life,” he said. “He found you. But the girl that came back wasn’t the same as the one that had left. She was different. Defiant.” He twisted his fingers into my hair and I winced. “It was like you’d suddenly found your backbone, and I… I was enthralled.”

  The confession made me want to throw up.

  “I was already trying to figure out a way I could keep you for myself without inviting Henry’s anger when your little boyfriend took care of that problem for me.” Felix grinned. “He took a page from my book and set the place ablaze.” Felix inched closer to me, pulling me forward and forcing me to press my chest against his even as I arched my back, trying to get away. “You see, Cornelius and the Vanderbilts may have been willing to let you go, but not me.” He leaned forward, brushing his nose against the softness of my cheek, nuzzling me. “Not when you’re mine, practically handed to me by Fate herself.”