Page 78 of Chased

Tranquilizers. The Renards had caught up with her.

As if from far away, she heard the rattle of gunfire, and saw Dealer fall.

And then all she saw was darkness.

Sanchez knew the minute something happened to Madison. They were on a plane heading back to the Ridge, sitting on the hard seats in the back of the troop transport. He and his wolf felt it, in that place in the middle of his chest where Madison lived all the time now, where he carried her with him and always would.

He sat up, immediately on the alert, and pulled his phone out of his gear bag. No signal.

Sanchez unstrapped and made his way to the front of the plane, all the way to the cockpit.

“Call the Ridge,” he said to the pilot. “I need to talk to Madison. Now.”

The pilot took one look at his face and got on the comm system. After a moment he said, “She and Breanna went into town with Dealer. The comms officer is calling her phone.”

“Something happened to them,” Sanchez said.

The five minutes it took for the comms officer to call all their phones seemed like a year.

The pilot looked up at him, concern on his face. “They can’t reach any of them. They’ll keep trying.”

“Tell him to ping their phones for location. I’m telling you, something happened to them.”

The pilot didn’t ask how he knew. A lot of wolves had bonds that made no sense to outsiders, felt things that happened to people they were close to.

After the pilot relayed the message, Sanchez said, “Call the Big House. Get me Sugar.” He had to go to the top of the command chain, to somebody with the authority to call out the troops, and Gunn was here on the plane, not there.

In fact, Gunn was coming up to the cockpit right now, to see what was happening.

“Sanchez,” Sugar said when he answered. “Aren’t you with the mission team?”

“I’m on the plane,” he said. “Madison’s in trouble. I felt—shit, I don’t know what, but she’s in danger. She went into town with Breanna and Dealer, and the comms officer can’t raise any of them. Somebody needs to go look for them.”

Sugar said, “We’re extremely shorthanded, as you know. There are two mission teams out.”

Sanchez knew that neither Sugar nor Thanatos probably had a heart. But they had brains, and they had to know what it would do to morale on the Ridge if anything happened to Madison and Breanna.

Sanchez said, “I can’t even describe to you how much I don’t give a fuck how shorthanded you are. This is Madison and Breanna we’re talking about. If there’s no reliable wolves left on the Ridge—” meaning guys who weren’t too feral or PTSD to go out— “then fucking go yourself. Or—I don’t care, get Thanatos to call up his dragon or whatever the fuck he rides when it’s time to terrorize the peasants, and look for them himself. But if somebody doesn’t go now, I swear to all the gods that when I get back I’ll rain down hell on everyone who could have gone, and didn’t. Up to and including Big T himself. And you.”

There was a short silence. Then Sugar said, “I’ll speak to Thanatos.” And he hung up.

Gunn was at Sanchez’s side by this time. “What’s going on?”

“Madison’s in trouble. Breanna and Dealer were with her in town, and no one can reach them.”

He moved restlessly. He had to be there. He had to find her.

Gunn said, “Is Sugar sending people out?”

“If he doesn’t, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

Gunn said, “He’ll do it.”

Sanchez pressed his lips together. He didn’t even know if it fucking mattered. If the Renards had taken Madison, all they’d find was an empty vehicle. And maybe bodies, since the Renards didn’t care about Breanna or Dealer.

But he couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about the devastation he and Switch and everybody would feel if they lost Breanna. He had to focus on his mate. He was the one who could track her. He needed to be there.

If the time it had taken to call their phones seemed like an hour, the hour it took for the plane to get back to the Ridge felt like a fucking eternity.