“You’ll have to keep trying, Jadrian. You’re not limited to one animal, you know? You’ll find one you feel most at home in, but you’re not locked into one choice.” Cade sipped at his coffee, his eyes still on the door. “When you find that one animal, your spirit animal, it will live on your body somewhere, as a tattoo. What’s Mary doing here?”
Jadrian looked up to see an almost exact copy of Annie coming into the doorway. Jacqui, Cade’s wife, had wanted a dog just like Annie and, as a witch, had managed to make it happen, to her own surprise. And theirs. None of them had known she was a witch when she’d first come to them, not even Jacqui herself.
Cade gave a short whistle that caught the dog’s attention and she came trotting over to Cade, a whine escaping her as she scuttled near. Jadrian had never seen the dog act so submissive with her bottom low, tail tucked between her legs, and head down as she came to Cade.
“What’s wrong with her?” Jadrian asked and Annie went over to her twin, licking her as both dogs began to whine in unison, their bodies doing an awkward dance of distress.
“Now they’re both at it! Where are the girls at?” Jadrian looked around but didn’t see Damesha or Jacqui anywhere. A tingle of apprehension went down his spine. Something wasn’t right.
Jacob came into the hall, making a beeline for Jadrian and Cade.
“Come with me.” The brother, the one that had lived in the shadows for so long, was now giving commands and walking away with certainty that they’d be followed. Cade and Jadrian went without question.
Jacob was the king of the magicals now, his words were law. Everybody had accepted it. He was the only shifter that had survived being transformed into a vampire as well. He was the king of kings.
Jadrian’s unease didn’t settle down as the dogs followed along, their whines not stopping. He knew that this wasn’t going to be pleasant, whatever it was. Jacob hadn’t summoned them in such a way ever before. He knew it was to do with the women, that was apparent from the dogs. They rarely left their ladies this long, and with the whining, Jadrian knew something bad had happened.
Fear knotted his stomach, fear of what had happened, what was about to happen, but he suppressed it. He was an Alexander after all. They didn’t do fear, ever.
He just wanted this over, he thought, as he glared at his brothers’ backs, feeling a moment of doubt return. What was the good of having a vampire shifter and all of these Alphas floating around if the issue wasn’t handled? Why were they now following Jacob to another chamber, dread making all of their hearts pound as these poor animals cried like this? Too much inactivity was making Jadrian restless and the tenseness of the situation made his attitude even worse.
“Right. Two things.” Jacob turned as he entered the chamber, Jadrian closing the door. “Allana, Damesha, Sabrina and Jacqui are missing.”
Jadrian cringed as he heard Cade roaring beside of him and he turned to his brother to offer a steadying hand. His own stomach dropped out as Jacob said Allana’s name. She was gone too. Who had her and why? That was all he wanted to know as he started thinking up ways to kill whatever prick had taken her.
“We also think Allana took them.” Jacob’s words were spoken quietly and without inflection.
“What?” Jadrian’s dark blond eyebrow raised, disbelief making his face twist. “No, that’s not possible. Why?”
“We have had some intel. Allana is the Mungons’ leader’s daughter.” Jacob’s face remained impassive, no blame or accusations being made.
Jadrian felt the world fall from under his feet. His initial distrust and the sense that she was up to something had been correct then. So she hadn’t actually given a shit about him at all, she’d been using him as a pawn. He wanted to break things, tear walls down with his bare hands, but instead he stared at the floor, taking deep breaths as he wrestled his anger. At least he hadn’t fucked her. He’d avoided her since that near tragedy in the tunnel, and now he was glad he had. He hadn’t seen this coming at all.
“His daughter? How? They don’t breed!” Jadrian had been to all of the meetings about the Mungons and what was happening, he knew the information about the group.
“It seems the psychopath took a bride a couple of centuries ago, they had one daughter. She ran away at eighteen and from what we know, hasn’t been back since. She let it be known she hated her father and this could very well be a ploy of hers, but we don’t know. Are you two ready to go?”
Jadrian didn’t have to be told where they were going or what to expect. If the Mungons had the Alexander women they were going to get them back, come hell or high water. Finally, something to do.
Jadrian’s jaw popped as he ground his back teeth together. The first one he wanted to see was Allana. Not for answers, he knew her reasons now that he knew who her father was. He just wanted to watch her being chained and taken away for her betrayal of him and the magical world.
“Let’s roll.” Cade’s tone was calm, deadly, and cold.
Yeah, Jadrian was pretty certain they were bringing a little death and a whole lot of hell to the Mungons today. He just needed the knots in his stomach to go away.
* * *
Jacob
Jacob’s insides were roiling so much he could barely stand it. The woman he’d come to understand was his soulmate was far away and he was certain that Kane and Cade were feeling even worse. He couldn’t sense Sabrina and wondered how the shifter had lured her away. She wouldn’t have been able to render Sabrina unconscious, she must have lured her somehow.
Jacob didn’t know what Allana had planned, but whatever it was, taking the women wasn’t cool. She would answer every question he had when he found her, one way or another. She would pay.
Kane soon came through the door, his hair twisting in dozens of directions from his fingers combing through it every five seconds. Jacob felt his anger, his fear and frustration. As their king he felt responsible for what was happening and knew he couldn’t fail now, it simply wasn’t an option. The wives of his brothers, and indeed their lives, all depended on getting them back.
Standing together the brothers felt some inner instinct working within them, and they moved closer, their hands coming out to lock together in the middle of the circle they formed. With eyes blazing they all focused on the woman they were tied to and let their instincts guide them. An orange light grew in the room, as though a fire were turning into an inferno around them, and with a flash of light the brothers disappeared.
This was their battle now.
Chapter 12
Jacob
Somewhere in West Virginia
A low static sound broke the night sounds of a mountain deep in the heart of West Virginia coal country. As the sound cracked the night a flash of orange fire briefly lit up the night. Anyone glancing out would dismiss the flash as a trick of their eyes, as the rumored foxfire said to plague the hills, or an odd flash of the millions of fireflies that turned the night into a fairy forest.
As Jacob looked around he stared in awe as tiny greenish yellow lights winked off and on, and for a moment he knew why fairy stories were told. Nights like this, filled with reality but hued with a sense of magic in an age without science. Then his own reality sank in and he dismissed his wonder. Fairies were real after all, not glowing bugs in the darkness. He looked at his brothers and found their eyes on him, waiting for his direction.
Jacob had begun to adjust to his new position but sometimes he still felt a moment of doubt. He had no time for doubt now. His plan was clear.
“We go in hard, fast, shifted. I go in first. No, Cade, before you start, I’ll go first. You know that’ll be for the best, trust me.” Jacob had yet to reveal he wasn’t just a vampire shifter but a vampire dragon shifter to his other brothers, only to Cade. He was all but invincible and he knew it, he was going in first.
“I hear you, brother. I don’t like it, but I hear you.” Cade closed his mouth again and leaned against a scrubby pine tree, one of the many trees dotting the mountains
ide.
Jacob looked up for a moment, seeing the moonlight. It had taken them longer to get here than he thought, he realized suddenly. It had been morning when they left but now it was night. Or maybe the forest canopy was so thick in these hills that it looked like night all the time. Either way, he had a job to do.
“Alright, Jadrian, I want you to shift. Concentrate on something—anything that will give you strength and power, you hear me? Go ahead.” Jacob knew that Jadrian had been hesitant to shift since that first time and wanted to get this out of the way. If Jadrian shifted into something harmless they needed to sort that now.
Jadrian closed his eyes, his face a mask of concentration and in an instant another creature had taken his place. All of the brothers stared down at the creature shorter than Jadrian’s normal stature with awe, impressed at his choice. This was an animal that could fight.
Jacob looked down at the silverback gorilla staring up at him with glowing orange eyes.
“That’ll do just fine, well done. The rest of you?” Jacob looked at his brothers expectantly.
Kane shifted into a brown bear, his claws long and capable of flaying flesh from bone. Cade went for the black panther again, his blond streak back above his eyes. Jacob intended to save his for the moment he needed it. No need to try and ramble through the area as a cumbersome dragon.
Leaning on his instincts once more, Jacob led the small group through the woods until he found an abandoned mine shaft. Something was pulling him in that direction, some invisible force that he couldn’t explain. His gut told him the few surviving Mungons were down there hiding in the darkness, holding the women as insurance for their lives.
He peered into the darkness, his vampire eyes making it seem almost like daylight once he’d focused. He doubted his instincts for a moment, doubted there was anyone in there. There had to be, though, this is where his instincts, his search for Sabrina through the ether, had led him.
A low growl from behind him and a nudge from Cade’s panther head let him know his brothers agreed; this was the place. Jacob knew some of those interrogated had mentioned a place such as this but hadn’t believed it. From that intel alone he knew there must be dozens of Mungons down there but he didn’t sense any of them. Jacob stepped into the shaft, his brothers stalking behind him.
They followed the shaft and went further down until the cold and damp turned into a steady heat and the air became stuffy. Jacob had no idea how men could work down here, crawling along shafts that went from head height to passages they practically had to crawl through. They walked for a half hour before they heard anything.
The shaft they’d followed, one of many, turned to the right and he edged to the end, seeing the faint flickering in flames on the wall. A man stood there on his own, playing a game on his phone.
On silent feet Jacob moved towards the man, not realizing he had turned into a form of fog until he reached out and punched the man in the head. The man looked up as he felt something brush his face but saw only a mist. He examined it but saw nothing so went back to his game. Jacob changed in a flicker, turning human once more, and punching the man in the head, knocking him out.
Jacob knew the Mungons leader was close. They were down here and stupidly burning something for light. Jacob might have grown up a farm boy in Kansas but even he knew you didn’t allow so much as a spark down in a coal mine, the places were notorious for filling up with explosive methane without anyone realizing it. The idiots had placed themselves in danger that went beyond just taking the women.
There was some kind of room that had been dug into the space off to the left, voices came from the area, but that was it. There wasn’t even a guard posted, as far as he could see. Too easy, his instincts screamed. Far too easy.
What might not be easy was the mass of Mungons rejects not far below. Jacob could sense them now, their anger, their thirst for blood, but not the blood of their leader. Those shifters still wanted to fight for their leader, to have a chance to prove themselves once more. Fanatics that would do anything. Jacob shuddered, hoping they wouldn’t find their way free.
He looked back at his brothers, tried to urge caution with his eyes, and went into the shaft heading straight for the room he had spotted. Sabrina was close, and he felt his heartbeat pick up the closer he got to her.
* * *
Sabrina
Sabrina stared at the people sitting around a tall rough pine wire spool, obviously something that had been used down in the mine. The men sat on wooden boxes with the words “dynamite” printed on them. How long had it been since those boxes were brought down here? Were they really sitting on dynamite or had the boxes been emptied? Stupid men. Her gaze shifted as the men, six of them, finally turned to the woman sitting at the end, her hands tied behind her back.
Allana, the shifter Alpha with the flaming red hair. Sabrina planned to drain her of blood and life as soon as she was freed from the enchanted chains wrapped around her wrists and waist. Sabrina had known other chains like the ones she’d used on Jacob existed but she didn’t realize anyone in America had them. They were an ancient tool, expensive and hard to come by.
They also worked on vampires, though they didn’t burn her skin, they simply rendered her muscles too weak to fight. Sabrina felt her fangs slide out of her gums as she watched the women. A man began to speak, a handsome man but for the cruel twist of his lips.
“So the prodigal daughter returns, bearing gifts as well.” His hand spread out to indicate Sabrina, Jacqui and Damesha. He looked them over, his sneer somehow growing deeper, his eyes becoming ugly with hateful glee. He had a bargaining tool now. And if the Alexanders didn’t want to play ball, well, he would enjoy torturing each woman to death.
Sabrina saw his thoughts and felt her own anger growing. She didn’t need the Alexander men to take this piece of shit out. She just needed to somehow break these chains.
“Father, I did as you bid me. I went out and found a new clan decades ago. They adopted me and kept me safe. They learned to trust me, and in time I became their Alpha. I brought you the women of our sworn enemies. I come in peace, please untie me,” Allana pleaded pitifully, her eyes round with an innocence Sabrina had never seen before.
She was this monster’s daughter and she was truly loyal to him. Holy hell! The news of Allana’s parentage somehow didn’t shock Sabrina but her duplicity did.
Sabrina had taken little interest in the other woman but wished she had now. She’d seemed like another arrogant shifter, not worth Sabrina’s notice, but now Sabrina saw that was probably what Allana had hoped for. Jadrian must be whipping himself into a frenzy of hatred if he knew that Allana was behind this. If anyone even realized they were missing at all.
She knew that as a shifter, Jacob was probably aware of her absence. The soul mating would not allow them to be separated for long before the consequences would be felt. That meant Cade had to be aware of it too. Jacob’s vampirism would protect him partly but Cade didn’t have that protection. Would they be able to fight? Sabrina didn’t know how quickly being separated from a soulmate would affect a shifter.
Sabrina went back to listening to the group as Allana spoke once more.
“Please, father? How can you doubt me?”
“I haven’t seen you in over a century, daughter. Why?”
“You told me to let the world think I hated you! How was I supposed to contact you and make them believe it?” Allana appeared desperate and that made Sabrina start to wonder.
Allana could be afraid the brutal man sitting beside her would kill her, but did that totally explain her desperation? Sabrina watched as the beautiful woman collected herself, her pale skin flushing slightly as she sat back. Sabrina could see Allana was wondering if she had overstepped herself.
“I suppose you’re right, daughter. You’ve brought me the Alexander women. The Alpha of the clan must already be feeling the effects of being so far from his mate. It’s just a pity there are only three of them. I’d have liked to take t
hem all out.” James waved a hand at one of the other men around the table and looked bored with the whole thing.
Sabrina started to form a plan as she watched the exchange that ended with Allana being freed. She looked over at the other women and caught their eyes. She knew Jacqui was a witch, Damesha a psychic and she used those skills to communicate with the women quietly.
“Can you use your powers to free yourself, Jacqui?” The thought obviously hit its target when Jacqui tensed and looked over at her. A subtle nod of the witch’s head let her know Jacqui knew it was her.
“Good, do it quietly, then free Damesha.”
Sabrina was certain the men would want them to sit quietly until they came to the rescue but that wasn’t her style. She hadn’t lived for centuries without learning how to survive dangerous situations.
A few moments later a warm hand nudged hers, and Sabrina resisted the urge to jump. It was just Jacqui letting her know she was free. It was Sabrina’s turn to nod her head softly.
“Now, can you free me?” They were all huddled on the floor in a corner of the room, left in the shadows as the Mungons made plans for their dwindling future.
“We’re not done yet and now with my daughter and her clan here to help, they’ll not be so fast to attack us. If they can even figure out where we are. Even with that clown they have claiming my throne, they’re not going to find us here.” James spoke with a sneer that Sabrina was hoping to remove from his face, permanently.
That ‘clown’ was her man, not the joke this cretin was trying to make him out to be. She still wasn’t sure what she needed to do but she didn’t feel like sitting around waiting for someone to come and save her. Jacqui nudged her hand once more and Sabrina turned to her, wordless, as the other woman’s hand clasped hers. Her chains fell away and Sabrina tensed, ready to make her move.
* * *
Jacob
Jacob listened at the door, hearing the murmur of people within. He knew Allana was in the room but didn’t know the others. He also knew the women were in there but he didn’t sense Sabrina. He moved around, trying to hear what was being said. A shout came from the other end of the shaft and Jacob turned, blasting the man with a bright white light that made him disintegrate into a pile of dust.
Jacob (Alexander Shifter Brothers Book 3) Page 12
