“He’s not here,” Taylor said unnecessarily. “Should we check for his stuff?”
“He was never here,” I huffed. “There isn’t even a trace of his scent. Whatever happened to him, it was before he arrived.”
“Fuck.” Corbin looked like he was about to be sick. “I shouldn’t have let him come alone.”
While I agreed -strongly- Taylor patted the other Omega on the shoulder comfortingly.
“Dex is an adult and he’s fully capable of taking care of himself. If you’d have been with him, it’s more likely that you’d be missing as well and, since your friend is the one who alerted you that Dex didn’t show up, we wouldn’t even know there is a problem.”
My brow raised skeptically but the scowl Taylor shot in my direction kept me from tossing in my two cents worth. I was glad I held back when he continued.
“Besides, we all know why Dex needed some time alone. Maybe if some fucking Alpha hadn’t been treating him like a god damned toy he wouldn’t have needed to hide in the first place.”
Ouch. I mean, fair but fucking ouch.
“What do we do now?” Corbin asked. “Go back and report him missing?”
Taylor looked at me expectantly. “Well? Yousaidyou had an Omega to find, didn’t you? How are we going to do that?”
I drew in another deep breath, scenting the air again. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t in this immediate area. Not only isn’t Dex’s scent here, there is no recent scent at all. It’s been unoccupied for a while.”
Corbin nodded. “Yeah, the gal who owns it only rents it out during the summer usually. She uses it herself the rest of the time and hasn’t been able to get away for a few months.”
“So, we know he made it to your apartment,” I said to Corbin, trying not to glare at him, “and we know he didn’t make it here, so we need to figure out if he left Unity or not before we know where to look.”
There was a long silence and then Taylor snapped his fingers. “His Uber account!”
Corbin and I stared at him and waited.
“His scooter isn’t reliable for longer distances. If he left Unity, he would have needed an Uber,” Taylor explained, tapping away on his phone, “and I have access to his email account that the receipt would have gone to. It wouldn’t tell us where he ended up, but it would tell us if he caught a ride. We should be able to guess an approximate distance by the charge.”
“Good idea,” I said grudgingly. “How long will it take?”
“I’m already done,” he said shortly. “He did catch a ride yesterday morning. Cross referencing it with what a ride would cost from here to Corbin’s place, it’s pretty close. His trip before tip was only six dollars more and he did tip the driver after dropping him off, so he was dropped off somewhere.”
“And if he tipped after the ride, that would suggest the driver wasn’t involved, yeah?” Corbin suggested.
“So, for whatever reason, he was left off somewhere in the area instead of at his destination,” I muttered, making my way back out onto the small porch and looking around. “Logically, that means he’s either further West or North or Northwest,” I concluded.
“How do you figure?” Taylor questioned me.
“The last road fork was several miles back and it’s a dead-end. If he been taken that way, the trip cost would have been much less. I think our best bet is going to be to shift and then split up, each of us taking one of the three probable directions to see if we can find his scent.” I paused for a second and sighed, “Actually, I guess the first thing I should do is ask what yoursense of direction is like? It’s not going to help if one of you gets lost, too.”
The twin scowls aimed at me almost made me laugh.
“You know damn well I was a boy scout and Corbin does those off-road mudder races. We’ll be fine.”
“Perfect,” I huffed back at him, “then we’ve got a plan. We should be able to cover a fair amount of distance in an hour. If you find something, send up a call showing your direction and the other two will head that way.”
“So, you want us to yell north or west?” Corbin clarified.
“Yeah. In this area the sound should travel well, and we should be able to keep to our directions pretty easily, I think. If we get separated or don’t find anything, we’ll meet back here and then figure out what to do.”
Being the largest of the bears once we shifted, I took the hardest path and headed due west, straight up the mountain. I lumbered slowly, checking the air carefully but found nothing.
Well, at least until I came out into a small valley with a beautiful lake and was slapped full on in the face with not only Dex’s scent but also that of an intruding Alpha. It only took a moment of scanning the valley in front of me to find them at the bottom of a small incline, the Alpha holding Dex by his wrist. I charged toward them, snarling a challenge at the asshole who had the nerve to manhandle my Omega.
I took them by surprise and Dex barely had a chance to snatch his wrist away and jump out of the way before I was on the Alpha, snarling and snapping. Somewhere in the distance, there was the retort of a rifle firing but I was too engaged in the current situation to give it much thought.
