“Isabella!” I went going room to room, growing more frantic with each one.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I plucked it out. “York. Please tell me you have her.”
“Isabella told me she was resting today, but Lyon is there with her. What the fuck, Cash?”
“My bear is going fucking nuts, and she’s not here. Or Lyon.”
“I’m ten minutes out. Keep looking. Shift and let your bear scent it out.”
“No. Just get here.”
I searched every room again. The side yard.
Shit, the back porch. As I walked back there, my bear growled, demanding to take his fur, but I wasn’t ready to give up the ability to speak. “Isabella!”
My bear picked up a scent. Our omega. I sprinted into the woods for about thirty feet and came upon a nightmare. Right out of my head.
What we’d feared all along.
Some of Mark’s goons flanked Isabella. She was gagged and tied up with zip ties. Her eyes widened when I arrived.
“Well, this changes things,” a sickly sultry voice said. Mark’s mistress wore a cocktail dress as though this were one of their fancy parties instead of a crime scene. “You weren’t supposed to find her until she was dead.” There was a gun in her hand, held awkwardly as if it was the first time she had a firearm in her grip.
Still taking in all the details of the situation, I was willing to buy time with a conversation. Either to come up with a plan of action or for York to get home and join me. We were not far into the woods, so I made sure to speak loud enough for my voice to carry. “Well, I’m great at messing up plans.”
“Then we’ll be killing two people today. How romantic. Dying together.”
“What?” I asked. “Why does she have to die. She left Mark, and you have him all to yourself. You never have to see her again.”
The mistress laughed. I thought it was funny I’d forgotten her name. Whatever it was, she didn’t deserve to be called by it. “That’s the thing about Mark. He refuses to concede defeat. Refuses to give up. And since he won’t divorce the patheticomega, and I want to be his wife in the legal way, the only answer is to make him a widower.”
All this bullshit about status and wealth and connections and societal levels was enough to make me want to vomit.
A subtle movement from the corner of my eye made me finally be able to breathe. Isabella’s eyes caught it as well. Her nostrils flared. She could smell her alpha. Lyon. He was shifted and so close, I could hear his claws slicing through the ground.
This mistress and her goons had no fucking idea what they’d gotten themselves into.
Lyon was going to rip them to shreds—if they were lucky.
I made eye contact with Isabella before I spoke. This was going to be too easy. “Omega mine,” I called out. Her eyes shone with unshed tears but she gave a nod, her jaw set. Yeah. They were so dead. “Be very, very still, my love.”
York’s bear’s scent hit me from the east, while Lyon honed in from the west. He must’ve left her alone for a second and that was when they struck. He would never put her in danger.
The bodyguards would never see my pack brothers coming.
My target was the mistress and her steely confidence.
“What are you…”
I shifted, shredding my clothes. Never again would anyone touch or threaten our mate.
The mistress screamed as I closed massive jaws over the gun-holding hand and ripped it clean away. Blood sprayed over everyone in the clearing. My bear’s satisfaction would have been terrifying if it had been directed at anyone but our enemies.
Lyon charged one bodyguard.
York the other.
Coming here and threatening what was ours?
