“My house, Mom and Dad’s, anywhere you can think she might be.” I thought I did a good job of controlling the panic in my voice.
A half dozen members of my pack brought out trays of donuts and pastries along with several pots of coffee. We planned on starting at the top of the hour to make sure we had time to find her before the meeting started. I tried to get my mind off Maddy by working my way through the crowd, shaking hands, exchanging a few words with other alphas, and eating even though I had no appetite.
Over thirty minutes later, I spotted Luis coming through the back door. He caught my eye and shook his head, then shrugged, turning his palms toward the ceiling. Fear cascaded through me. She was missing. My vision sharpened, and my throat constricted. I started making my way through the crowd toward the door. My mental voice was screaming at me to run. To find her and kill whoever had taken her.
I was a split-second from bolting for the door when a calming blanket descended on my mind. I stopped in my tracks and probably looked like I’d lost my mind—eyes open wide, hands outstretched like I’d lost my balance. A voice murmured through my mind like a sensation or idea expressed from one mind to another. It was Maddy—that much was certain.
I’m fine. You need to calm down.
It was the strangest thing I’d ever experienced in my life. I’d heard that fated mates shared a connection, but this was crazy and far more intense than what I’d ever heard of.
Closing my eyes, I attempted to do the same to her. I focused my mind and tried to send her a similar message.
I was scared.I didn’t know where you were,I thought, forcing my thoughts through my mind and out into… into what I didn’t know. All I could hope for was that it would get to Maddy.
Her response was immediate and direct.
Don’t worry about me. I’m all right. I’m still in the pack lands.
Stunned, I opened my eyes as a stupid, surprised smile spread across my face. All around me, the other alphas were looking at me like I had a third ear growing from my forehead, but I didn’t care. Maddy was safe. I ignored the looks and squeezed my eyes tightly, sending her one last message.
I love you.
Sure that she’d received it, I made my way back to the center of the room. My chest had been tight and constricted when I thought Maddy was missing, but now I walked with a bounce in my step, confidence, and strength once again pouring from me and my wolf.
Once I was in the center of the room, all conversation stopped, and silence fell across the meeting hall. Without Maddy here, the mood was markedly different. There was less tension, fear, and anxiety. It made me wonder how many of the alphas were actually uncomfortable with Maddy’s existence.
“What’s the plan?” an alpha from near Miami called out, not even waiting for me to speak.
The questions came fast and hard, with more and more men speaking up and taking the floor. After the first thirty minutes, it was obvious all the men here truly had been cowed by having the last descendant of Edemas in the room with us. As much as I loved Maddy, I had to admit that we might be able to get more done with her somewhere else.
A young wolf shifter I didn’t know stood up, holding his phone in the air. “Has anyone seen the news?” When all he received were blank, confused stares, he went on. “They madethe final announcement. From today, shifters have thirty days to turn themselves over to the nearest facility. Once that thirty-day window has passed, the National Guard and local police forces will begin rounding up those who haven’t willingly submitted.”
Several men started pulling their own phones out to confirm this news. An icy sliver of fear shoved its way into my belly. We’d all known this was coming, but hearing the words made it so much more real. More immediate.
“Well, that’s a trap if I ever heard of one,” a man called out from the back.
I couldn’t see who’d said it, but he was right. I held my hand up for quiet. “He’s right. We can’t hand ourselves over. The royals want nothing more than to subjugate us and take what freedom and power we have. If alphas or members of our pack turn themselves over, nothing good will come of it. At best, we’ll be prisoners, and at worst?” I let the question hang in the air, knowing everyone here could connect the dots.
One of the alphas who’d spoken yesterday stood. It was Tiago. “We need to reinforce our pack territory. There are too many shifters in the country for them to truly come in one big force. The first few waves that come will be small units. We can hold them off for a while.”
“True,” I said. “And you should have escape routes and plans ready, but the best thing we can do is figure out how to deal with Viola and the royals over the next thirty days. That was the plan from the beginning, but now the clock is ticking.”
The entire hour was devoted to creating security plans and early warning systems between the packs, as well as fallback positions that could be used to hide the most vulnerable of our packs—the women, children, and elderly. The Gator and Panther shifters offered their swamp and bayou territories as good areas to hide, which were incredibly hard to access. By the end of the meeting, almost every shifter pack in southern Florida hadcreated an alliance, but it was definitely a worst-case-scenario treaty. The only way to truly strike back was for us to go for the vial.
As the alphas filed out of the meeting house, I caught Luis’s eye and nodded toward the front of the building. He met me there with Felipe and Sebastian. We stood there and waited until the last man was out the door.
“So,” I said. “How do we get to Europe?”
“Are we still on the No Fly list?” Felipe asked.
I shrugged. “Even if we were taken off it, we’re still shifters. After everything that was broadcasted on the news, there’s probably no way they’d allow us on a flight.”
“Could we try to buy our way onto a cargo ship? Take one from one of the ports on the Atlantic side of Florida?” Sebastian said.
“Christ, how long would that take? We’ve only got thirty days,” I said.
Sebastian gave me a pained look. “Depending on the weather? Anywhere from ten to twenty days.”
