They would need that, Bram feared. That and so much more in the time to come.
As soon as they reached the neutral territory, Bram and Shane hopped out of the vehicle. Kameron and Brandon had been in the front of the SUV and were right by their sides.
Another SUV pulled up almost at the same time, and Maddox, Ellie, and a couple of Redwood enforcers, including Quinn, hopped out.
“Where is she?” Maddox asked, his voice low. He was looking right at Bram. “Use the bond if you have to, but find my baby girl.”
“Maddox,” Ellie admonished. “Let’s get to the site before you growl and go crazy.”
Maddox’s nostrils flared, but he nodded once at Bram, then Shane, before turning and following his mate.
Shane met Bram’s eyes, his brows raised. “I guess those are her parents?” Though Charlotte had told Shane of her childhood and mentioned Maddox and Ellie, Shane hadn’t left the Talon den before this to actually meet the Redwoods.
Bram nodded. “Let’s find our girl.”
They ran to the place where Charlotte had last been, and he almost tripped when he saw the body lying in the rubble.
She was the wrong shape, her hair the wrong color, but he’d had a moment when he’d thought it was Charlotte.
Brandon let out a curse and fell to his knees beside the fallen wolf. Chloe. “Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.”
Kameron bent down, as well, his jaw tense. He helped Brandon turn the woman over, and Bram sent a prayer to the goddess for her soul.
“Walker is on his way, got waylaid by a sick pup, but he’d have been too late,” the Talon Enforcer growled. “Damn it. He’d have been too late.” The other man closed his eyes and put his hand on Chloe’s cheek. “Too damn young.”
“What did this?” Brandon bit out.
“Someone left a bomb that wasn’t too cleverly concealed over here. The center of the impact is here, and whoever made it shoved it full of a fuckton of shrapnel. Anyone too close didn’t have a chance.”
Bram looked over at Shane as the other man spoke. “She’s still alive, Shane. We can feel her. But where is she? She wouldn’t just leave Chloe right here out in the open if she could help it.”
“We can feel her too, along the Pack bonds,” Maddox put in. “But where is she? I’m not the Omega anymore. I can’t find her like I used to.” He turned to Bram then. “Find her. Use the bond and find her.”
Bram ran a hand over his face. “You think I don’t want that? I don’t know how. Not all bonds work the same.”
Shane stalked toward them, his hands shaking by his side. “I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to find your daughter.”
Ellie raised her chin, her wolf in her eyes. “I know you will. We all will.” She reached out and cupped Shane’s face, surprising the other man from the way his eyes widened. “The bond is always different, but try at least. Close your eyes and picture the bond. Then travel along that thread, follow each path it takes, and try to sense her. You’re not going to get a perfect picture, but maybe you’ll get a feeling. Your bond is still so new, it’s finding its place amid the bonds of the Pack. It can do extraordinary things right now, and perhaps even more later. Just try, Shane. Find my baby.”
Bram let out a breath, and something caught his eye. Blood stained a large rock that didn’t look like it had come from the bomb itself. In fact, it looked like it had fallen over pieces of the bomb material.
He frowned, kneeling near it. Charlotte’s scent hit him full force, and his wolf came to the surface. A growl ripped from his throat, and his claws tore through his fingertips.
“Someone hit her over the head it seems with this rock,” he bit out. The words were hard to form, and he knew he was far too close to shifting for comfort. He took deep breaths and reined in his wolf. Brandon put his hand on Bram’s shoulder, and though the other man wasn’t his Omega, he was his mate’s, and somehow, the other man helped him. He wasn’t sure if it was some trick of the bonds or the fact that Brandon just had a steadying presence. Either way, he was grateful. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Brandon said softly. “It’s what I do.”
Bram looked over his shoulder at Shane, who still had his eyes closed, his features focused.
“Someone took Charlotte,” Bram said after a moment. “That’s the only answer. I don’t know who, and I don’t know why, but we’re going to find her.”
Kameron rubbed his chin. “It all smells like a trap to me.”
“Then we’ll get trapped,” Bram said simply. “But I’m not going to let them have her because we’re too scared to do anything about it.”
Kameron’s eyes rose, and the bastard smiled. “I’m going to like having you as a Talon, I think. And yeah, we’re going to find her. Montag isn’t going to win. Ever.”
“You think it’s Montag?” Bram asked.
“It’s his calling card,” Shane answered instead. “And I’m pretty sure Kameron here has been studying Montag’s moves for a while now.”
“Better to know your enemy than be surprised by it,” the Talon Enforcer answered.
“I think I can find her,” Shane put in at that moment.
Bram turned quickly to face his mate. “You can?”
Shane nodded, his eyes cloudy. “I think you can, too. Just do what Ellie said and try. We’ll find her, damn it. There isn’t another option.”
Bram leaned forward and kissed the other man hard on the lips. “No, there isn’t. We’re going to find her. I know it.”
Because if they didn’t, he’d lose everything all over again. And he wasn’t sure he and Shane would survive without her.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlotte needed to wake up. Pain radiated through her skull, knocking around so it felt like someone had bashed her head in. And if she thought about it that might be the case, but she honestly didn’t know anymore. Her eyes were too heavy, and while the rest of her body hurt even more than her skull, she knew she couldn’t do anything about it until she woke up.
Wake up, Charlotte. Wake up.
No amount of chanting would work, though. And her wolf was too quiet.
Fear began to crawl icily through her body, and she did her best to ignore it. Fear wouldn’t get her out of this situation—a situation she didn’t even know the root of as of yet.
So yes, she needed to wake up.
Muffled voices surrounded her, and she stiffened, her mind slowly working its way to being fully conscious. She tried to open her eyes, but again, they were too heavy, but she was getting closer and closer to being able to see what was going on.
She couldn’t sense her Pack or any other wolves around her, and that was what brought on the fear. Those voices she heard weren’t Pack. They had to belong to whoever had knocked her over the head and most likely taken her away from where the bomb had thrown her down—where Chloe had lost her life.
At that thought, her wolf whimpered a bit, as if waking up from a dazed coma herself. A sense of relief poured through Charlotte for only a moment before she tamped it down. She could feel that when she was home in her mates’ arms, and when those who dared to harm her and take Chloe’s life were punished.
Preferably with their throats slit just like the young wolf’s, who had died before Charlotte’s eyes.
Finally, she cracked open her lids and winced at the harsh lighting. She tried to lick her dry and chapped lips but froze when she realized that there were dark shadows blocking some of the lights above her.
They were watching.
“Good,” a deep voice, a familiar voice, exclaimed. “You’re awake. I was afraid the men had hit you too hard, and we’d lost you before we had a chance to use you.”
Montag.
This was General Montag. Though, was he still a General if he’d gone rogue? The military had to know one of their own had gone off his rocker by now, but she wasn’t sure what anyone was going to do about it right then. The “shifter problem” was on everyone’s minds, and apparently, n
o one could work fast enough to take care of one of their own, a demented man with too much power.
Charlotte held back the rush of breath she wanted to exhale as she brought her thoughts back into focus. She needed to worry about the problem at hand and not everything else going on, but her head hurt too much for her to think clearly yet.
Hopefully, she’d heal enough to figure it out soon, or it might be too late.
Her eyes finally opened fully, and she held her breath. Four men and one woman stood around her, all dressed in dark military outfits that bore no insignia. They were truly off the grid it seemed, and that didn’t bode well for her at all.
The room had been painted the normal eggshell white of most hospital or clinic rooms with metal cabinets and countertops glistening under the harsh lights. Someone had strapped her down with thick rubber and metal bands to a long medical table so she couldn’t move. Whoever had designed the straps knew how to keep shifters contained, and that scared her but didn’t surprise her. After all, she’d known Montag had tortured and studied other wolves at his previous lab before Shane and the rest of them had blown it up.
Charlotte figured she was now in their new headquarters and lab.
Fear once again tried to crawl up her spine, but she ignored it. Montag and his goons surrounding her needed her full attention, and her worries had no place here.
Montag reached out and gripped her face in his hand, pinching her cheeks and chin. If she hadn’t already been dazed, strapped down to a metal table, and bleeding from the bomb that had sent shrapnel into her skin, she could have fought him off.
But because she wasn’t at her full strength, he could try to intimidate her and do whatever he wanted.
She’d be damned if she let him for long, though.
“I know exactly who you are, Charlotte Jamenson. But you used to be Charlotte Reyes, isn’t that right? The daughter of the former Central Pack Alpha. He kept you chained in his basement, didn’t he? Or was that your brother, the man who took over after your father met with an…unfortunate accident.”
He nodded over her head at another person, who came into view. The man in black held out a metal cuff too large for a wrist or ankle.
She knew exactly what that was for.
They were going to make her relive what she’d endured as a child, and perhaps even more. Charlotte stiffened, then cursed herself for letting this man see anything about what she was feeling. She’d known some of the government knew about each of the Packs and had kept it secret. But she hadn’t really thought this one man would know so much about her past.
And if he knew about her past, then he knew her weaknesses.
And for a man who had her in his clutches, that would be exactly what he needed to break her.
I won’t break.
I am strong. I am Charlotte Jamenson. I am mated to Bram and Shane. I am Pack. I am loved. I am me.
I will not break.
“You’re also the daughter of Maddox Jamenson, isn’t that right?” Montag slid his finger down her cheek, and bile rose in her throat.
“Fuck you,” she spat.
His grip tightened. “That’s not the kind of experiments we do here. Fortunately for you. And I think you would do well to remember who came before you. Isn’t that right? Maddox has a scar right on his cheek, one that never healed because of some magic or whatever you wolves call it. Well, we don’t have magic, but I have something special that will make sure you never heal.” He studied her face, his own impassive. “That is, if you live long enough for it to scar.”
She wouldn’t let them kill her, wouldn’t let them take everything she had.
Shane and Bram would come for her.
Her family would come for her.
And damn it, she would save herself, as well.
She thrashed under the straps, putting all her weight and strength into the struggle, trying to break free. The others in the room might have weapons, but she was a weapon. Even weak, if she were fast enough—and damn it, she was always fast—she’d be able to take them out even if they hurt her in the process.
She just needed to get out of the prison they held her in.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her wolf in her voice. “Do you get off on cutting up women who can’t fight back?”
Montag looked like he wanted to hit her but held himself back. Instead, he released her and wiped his hand over her clothes as if he couldn’t stand the scent of her on his skin. Good, because she wanted nothing to do with him.
“I want the man you call your mate.”
His gaze locked with hers when her eyes widened. “Yes, I know much more than you think. I saw the way you leaned into him and that other man on the feed when you blew up my compound. You think I’d have left it without someone watching it beyond those guards you took out? You aren’t as smart as you think you are. I want Shane back, and now that I have you, he’ll come right to me. I would have preferred not to have to bother with you, but the man refused to leave the den. He didn’t even budge when we tested the wards.”
He had to be talking about the bomb they’d dropped right on top of the den that the wards had barely been able to hold back. But even as her mind worked through that, she could only think of one thing.
Shane.
Montag wanted Shane.
Of course, the man wanted Shane. Her mate was the only thing left of Montag’s experiments. At least, that was what they had thought before, and from the manic way the former General was acting now, she had a feeling the Packs had been right. Montag needed Shane’s blood to continue his experiments.
Only the other man didn’t know the serum hadn’t worked. It had only brought Shane closer to what he could have been if he’d been bitten. The whole process had almost killed him multiple times, and the ramifications of a man-made serum being introduced into the Pack bonds weren’t even known yet. This human, this Montag, had forever changed the Packs, yet he didn’t even know it.
She wouldn’t be telling him, though. Giving him that much information would be deadly.
And if they didn’t take care of him and make a stand, she knew her people would never have a fighting chance. They would forever be throwing new ways to torture at them and take them out in any way they could.
“While we wait for Shane to show up so I can get what I need from his blood, we might as well begin.”
He tilted his head, studying her, and she wanted to punch him in his too smug face. “This should be interesting.” But he didn’t stay to see what would become of her. Instead, he left, taking one of his men with him.
Maddox and Ellie had been through something like this before when they’d first been mated, and their captivity was how they’d found Charlotte and saved her life. When the human male put the collar around her neck, chaining her to the wall behind her but still keeping her on the table, she knew she’d come full circle.
But she wouldn’t let the others save her this time.
Instead, she would save herself.
It was the only way to make sure Montag never got his hands on Shane.
The woman who had been standing at the edge of the table came forward then, her hand outstretched, and Charlotte held back a growl. The knife in her hand was coated with something, and she couldn’t sense what it was, but it couldn’t be good.
She let out a low breath, relaxing her body as much as she could. It would take almost every ounce of her strength to do what she needed to do next.
The woman passively placed the knife on Charlotte’s temple, and that’s when Charlotte moved. The blade dug in, and excruciating pain slammed into her. But instead of weakening her, she pushed through the pain, letting it help her. With all of her strength, she pushed up with all four limbs at the same time, using her claws to cut through what she could.
Once she got through the rubber that had been touching her skin, she screamed. They had coated the chains with the same substance they had the knife, but she pushed through it and got her arm out of
the strap.
She was one of the fastest wolves out there, and right then, she knew she was faster than she’d ever been before.
Her hand shot out and took the knife from the other woman. Before the soldier could gasp, Charlotte had stabbed the other woman through the neck with the blade and rolled off the table. Her body was bloody, cut up, and she wasn’t healing yet thanks to the multiple shrapnel wounds and whatever had been on those chains.
She knew she’d bear these marks forever, as well as the one on her temple from where the knife had dug in, but it didn’t matter.
Charlotte would not be bound.
She would not be caged.
She would fight. And she would be free.
And she would kill anyone in her way.
****
Shane’s blood boiled, but he didn’t growl, didn’t scream, didn’t say a word. Instead, he focused deep inside on that tiny thread that connected him to the two people who had become the most important things in his world.
“Turn left here,” Bram growled out. “We’re getting closer.”
Kameron turned and let out a breath. “I wish I had the ability to use a GPS tracker like the two of you seem to have right now.”
Shane let out a breath. “I hope you mean in general, because I wouldn’t wish this feeling of being so out of your depths you can’t breathe on anyone if they’re trying to find their mate.”
Kameron met Shane’s eyes, a newfound respect shining in them. “Truer words…” the other man whispered. “We’re going to find your mate, damn it. We’re not going to let Charlotte be hurt.”
Bram, who was in the front seat, kept silent at the exchange as Walker shifted slightly next to Shane in the back seat.
“I still can’t believe you got Maddox and Ellie to stay behind and go back to their den,” the Healer said.
Shane focused on the frail bond again as Bram spoke. “We all know this is a trap of some kind. Everyone was needed back at their dens since we don’t know which one they could attack. And they trusted us to find their daughter and bring her home.”
Wolf Betrayed Page 17
