Talon didn’t confirm it, but he also didn’t deny it.
I shook my head. “I will never give you one iota of my power. You’ll have to kill me first.” I hadn’t even realized I’d leapt to my feet on the bed until I was meeting his hostile stare. “I won’t comply with you raping my energy. You’ve already taken too much from me.”
Like my quintet, and my free will, and my sense of safety.
All of which was unforgiveable.
“You have no choice.”
He was probably right, but I sure as shit wasn’t about to make it easy for him.
“When will Hunter’s father return?”
Talon took a step towards me, and I shuffled back on the bed, keeping him in my line of sight. “Alpha Fletcher Davenport will return via helicopter in two days. He expects the task to be completed. If we fail, there’ll be consequences.”
A matter-of-fact statement, and now I had the name of the asshole haunting my existence: Fletcher Davenport. I’d beenexpecting something more along the lines ofEvil Motherfucker,but I supposed Fletcher would do.
“Why do you comply with him?” I asked, genuinely curious. “He treats you like an object, a weapon he owns and can do whatever he wants with. You didn’t even have a name, Talon. He doesn’t give a single shit about you.”
When he tilted his head to the side, observing me animalistically, it reminded me so much of Slade that I almost lost my composure.
“He is my family,” he said in a low, strangely soft voice.
Which was wrong on so many levels. “Family don’t call youit. I promise. You deserve better than that poor excuse of an alpha. Just kill him and find your freedom.”
I had no idea what would happen to me if Talonfound his freedom, but at least Fletcher would no longer have this extremely powerful weapon under his control. We could save a lot of lives just by removing this one player from his board.
Now all I needed was the dragon to be in on the plan.
CHAPTER 4
HUNTER
Aweek. An endless, agonizing week had passed in our search for Emme.
“How can there be no trace of her?” Kellan snarled, his phone pressed to his ear as I floored the Range Rover, on another endless chase which would probably lead nowhere. Once again.
We’d followed leads. We’d killed and destroyed and broken our council down to pieces, but in the end, no matter how much blood we’d spilled, no one in Golden Claw knew where she was, including my former best friend, Sorenson. He was involved in this somehow, and had disappeared the same night as Emme.
“We’re in Silver City.” Kellan rested his head on his hand, exhaustion and pain dragging his features. “It’s the only lead we’ve got at the moment. Find us something else. Now. You’re the best tracker in the business. You’re the fucking one who found her in Florida in the first place. How could you have lost her scent?”
I pressed my foot harder to the gas, swinging around a corner to follow the navigation system directions. We’d received a tip that the Rogers pack were holed up deep in the industrial area of Silver City. We’d staked out their compound earlier todaybut there’d been no sign of life, so this was our last hope. It might have been quicker if we had Slade’s help, but his dragon had taken control, sending him hunting after Emme in his beast form. Finley was the same.
Leaving Kellan and I in a struggle to remain semi-coherent.
We were barely fucking holding on, but the pain of our strained bond and missing mate was enough to keep our beasts subdued. I hoped our more animalistic brothers were having better luck at tracking our mate.
My growls filled the car as my wolf mourned and cried out for her, the clawed end of my hands digging into the steering wheel. Kellan hung up a second later with a huff. “Fucking useless,” he muttered as he leaned forward and peered out the windshield, taking in the large lots of land.
The secret Rogers Pack property was surrounded by warehouses, all of them behind large chain-link fences. It was late afternoon, the sun already setting, and while it would be safer to wait for the cover of night, I knew we wouldn’t.
Our mate was out there, in the hands of whoever took her, doing whatever they wanted with her, and it was only the tendrils of our bond that even told me she was still alive. When she’d first been taken, I’d felt nothing but a cool calmness from her, and then there’d been this sharp slash of pain, and then… nothing. They’d taken her too far for me tofeelher as I should.
Our bonds were too new, and we were all suffering.
“Fuck,” Kellan groaned, palming his chest and rubbing briskly. “My wolf is getting worse. We’re restless and broken without her. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. It’s only the sense through the bond that she’s still alive that’s keeping me functioning at all. That, and the need to fucking gut whoever took her.” His breaths heaved in and out in a rasp, and the car filled with the scent of his beast. “We missed her damn birthday. The first one she could have had with us, being actuallycelebrated…” His voice rose dramatically. “…and she’s out there having goddess knows what done to her.”
Without taking my eyes from the road, I grasped his shoulder and used my alpha influence to soothe his wolf. It offered a few seconds’ reprieve at best, as the ache of our missing mate wouldn’t ease until she was back in our arms. “We will find her,” I muttered, the statement bitter on my tongue. “We won’t stop until she’s back with us, and there will be a hundred birthdays to celebrate.” And those responsible for touching her would be dead at her feet.
