Just Lucy's Luck [Grey River 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Maia Dylan

  * * * *

  “Ty! Something’s happening up here!” Kyle’s voice blared over the radio and Cody could hear the excitement in it. Ty grabbed the handheld.

  “Go ahead, Kyle,” Ty spoke quickly.

  “As crazy and fucked up as this sounds, the fire is turning in on itself and burning itself out. Just like before it is almost as if it is being directed where to go, but this time it is being sent inward!”

  “Are you able to push forward with your team?”

  “Affirmative, Ty!” Kyle sounded like he was on the move, breathing hard. “We are heading in now, we are past the location where we last had contact with AJ and Sam. Still heading south. We’re pushing forward, but the damn fire is moving away faster, and all we are doing is putting out the hot spots in its wake! It’s the damnedest thing I have ever seen, Ty!”

  A second voice came over the radio. “Ty, this is Josh. We’re coming in from the west, and it is exactly like Kyle was saying. The fire has turned in on itself and we are moving fast. I reckon we’re about a mile from Kyle’s position!”

  Ty continued to assist the chief coordinate the groups. Cody sat there for a moment, dread pouring through every cell in his body. The more they cleared and the closer they got to actually putting this damn fire out without any sign of AJ or Sam, then the more likely it was going to be a body recovery rather than a rescue.

  Ty was over by the bank of computers against one wall of the unit, no doubt looking at wind shifts and the like, leaning over the shoulder of their fire chief, when he suddenly groaned, gripped his head, and dropped to one knee. He heard the chief shout Ty’s name, but he was already on the move, Brendan right behind him. When he reached Ty, he crouched down and grabbed him to stop him from keeling over. “Trent?” Ty said through gritted teeth.

  “Chief Riley! Get on the horn and see if Trent is okay!” Cody yelled as he went to help their alpha to lie down on the floor, when Ty suddenly pushed him out of the way and struggled to his feet.

  “Get the fuck away from me, Cody.” Ty the stubborn bastard pushed to his feet, swaying a little. “Trent is fine. Faith is unconscious, but Chris is on the way to her now.” Ty closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths.

  When he opened them Cody could see that the glaze of pain had subsided, and they flickered blue.

  “Ty, what the fuck was that?” Brendan asked.

  Both stood in a defensive position, guarding their alpha from anything that might come at them through the door.

  “I was right,” Ty growled. “There was someone blocking my link to AJ and Sam. I had been trying periodically to get through, but the block held. There were two of the fuckers there at one point. I could feel them in my head and could almost fucking scent them they were that close. One was trying to incapacitate me, and the other was trying to shield me, and fight the other one. I have no idea who or what they are, but in that moment it felt like my fucking head was going to explode. Trent and Faith caught it as well. I put Faith out, trying to spare her the pain. Trent and I took it all.” Ty frowned, his hands on his hips. He was one exasperated wolf.

  “Guys, whoever that was trying to shield me is the one pulling the fire under control. They won’t be able to help put it out completely, though.”

  “Why?” Cody was having a hard time believing in all this, but if the past few weeks with their mate had proved anything to him, it was that accepting that there are things in the world that are unexplainable is way easier than trying to explain it! Even to yourself.

  “Because by fighting the other one, and shielding me, she has just shouldered all that pain on herself.” Ty explained.

  “She?” Brendan queried.

  “Yeah, B. She. I heard her scream just as she pulled all the pain down on her.” Ty ran his hands through his hair in frustration.

  Cody knew they were all thinking the same thing. There was a woman somewhere out there who had tried to help them, had shielded their alpha for fuck’s sake, and she was hurt, in pain and they had no idea how to find her. A thought suddenly hit Cody. “So is the shield to AJ and Sam gone?”

  “Fuck!” Ty roared, then got real quiet, and they knew he was reaching for them along their alpha link.

  Cody tried to read Ty’s face, but it stayed expressionless as if carved in stone.

  After a moment, Ty came back. “I got ’em. Sam can hear Kyle off to their left. They need help.”

  Cody felt relief crash over him like a wave. Oh thank Christ. He looked at his brother and they shared a thank-fuck look, then followed Ty over to the radio.

  “Kyle, AJ and Sam are off to your right. You are heading in the right direction you’ll come across them soon,” Ty advised.

  “Thank you, God! Roger that, Ty! On our way!” Kyle said.

  Cody smiled at his response. That smile slipped when he met Ty’s gaze and he saw the bleakness in them.

  “They’re hurt bad, Kyle. We’ll radio for a chopper evac. Sam has AJ stabilized, but he was hit by a falling tree. It pinned him across the lower back. Sam had them under a couple of fire shelters when the fire came over the top of them, but AJ hasn’t regained consciousness.” Oh. Fuck. “Sam said he had a couple of burns, but Kyle, he’s hurt worse than he let on. I could feel it. Get them both to the evac point, and Cody and Brendan will meet you there.”

  “Roger that.” Kyle’s voice had lost its excitement and was replaced by steely determination.

  “Go, get to the evac point. Trent has radioed for the chopper and it will be there soon. See for yourself how bad they are and then report back to me.”

  Brendan and he took off, running back to their ambulance. Cody looked over at the triage tent and was glad to see it all but empty. Ryan, who had no doubt heard the conversations between Ty and Kyle on the radio, turned in their direction and thumped his right fist against his chest just over his heart three times. Yeah, they were pack. They were all brothers and they stood strong. Strong alone but stronger together.

  Leaping into the ambulance they tore out of the make shift command area and made for the car park at the bottom of one of the forest trails. They pulled in lights, blazing. Jumping out of the ambulance, they could hear the chopper coming in from east. They could see torches moving through the dark forest and heard the urgent voices of men talking to each other. They raced over to the edge of the car park and got there just as Kyle and five other men came out. Two each carrying rescue stretchers and two holding IVs that led to the two men on the stretchers.

  Cody felt his heart pitch when he looked on his cousins for the first time since he’d heard the news that they were missing. He hadn’t let himself think about how much he had feared never seeing them alive again until that moment. Cody moved to AJ, who was on the stretcher, and noted that he was covered in soot and sweat. His face was red from the heat of the fire, and he was strapped from chest to ankle on the board to help keep him immobilized until they could get him to the hospital.

  After grabbing his wrist, Cody slumped in relief at the strong steady beat. He turned to Brendan, who was looking Sam over. Brendan’s face was serious and showed his concern.

  “He has first-degree burns on his legs, and what could be second- or third-degree on this neck, right shoulder, and both hands.” He looked up at Cody. “There’s silver material burned into the injury on his neck. It looks like the fire shelter might have melted into his skin.” Jesus, the temperature in that fire must have been phenomenal for that to have happened.

  “I’ve dosed his IV with a truckload of morphine. He wouldn’t admit it when we found them. He was too busy trying to assist us with getting AJ out, but he was in a shitload of pain,” Kyle said as they lowered the stretcher to the ground, as the helicopter started to land.

  “He’s alive, Kyle. We’ll deal with the rest when we know how bad it is!” Brendan shouted to be heard over the helicopter. “Thanks for bringing our cousins home!”

  Kyle nodded, and then they moved as one unit to secure the brothers and their stretche
s into the helicopter and handing their care over to the medical team aboard. As the helicopter took off, the men stood off to the side, watching. No doubt all of them sending their prayers and strength along with them. They didn’t have the specialist units at Grey River to deal with their injuries so they were heading for Amarillo.

  Cody reached out to update Lucy on all that had happened in the last while, but there was nothing but black down that link. “Shit! Lucy!” Cody twisted to look at Brendan, who appeared startled as well, as if he had reached out at the same time.

  “What the fuck!” Brendan threw him a look of unadulterated fear then they took off for their ambulance.

  “Ty,” Cody reached out to their alpha, “we can’t reach Lucy down our link. It’s like she’s not there.”

  “Go, Faith is coming around now. I’ll come as soon as I can,” Ty sent back.

  Cody and Brendan leapt into the ambulance. Cody drove and Brendan reached for his cell phone just as it started to ring.

  “Hello! Judy! Where’s Lucy?” Brendan yelled down the phone. Ty’s must have contacted his mom as well. “Fuck! When was she last seen?” Cody could hear the mumble of Judy’s voice with his enhanced hearing but couldn’t make it out over the sirens he had blaring on the rig. He wheeled onto the highway that lead to Grey River from the forest road on two wheels, and for once, Brendon did not comment.

  “We’re coming. We’ll be there in less than five minutes.”

  Brendan shut the phone off, threw it on the seat, and punched the dashboard. Cody heard it crack.

  “No one’s seen her for at least an hour. In all the confusion and then Faith blacking out in the kitchen, it wasn’t picked up that she wasn’t there. Fuck! Cody, that son of a bitch has got our mate.”

  Cody had come to that same conclusion. Strangers were usually picked up pretty fast in Grey River, but with everyone helping out with the fire it would have been an opportune time to take her. “We’ll get her back, B, and when we do, she had better not be hurt. If she’s okay, then we’ll let the law deal with this fuckwad Mani. But what if she’s hurt?”

  Brendan turned to look at him, his eyes brilliant blue and his wolf so close his shift was almost on him. “We rip his spine out through his throat.”

  Cody turned his eyes back to the road. “I was going to say though his nose, but I’m fine with either.”

  When Cody pressed his foot flat to the floor, the ambulance leapt forward, and he concentrated on getting them to Country Blue as fast as possible. When the he finally tore into the car park, he slammed the rig to a standstill beside the police unit that was parked just outside the entrance. Cody could see Faith standing there talking with Grant Snow, one of Ty’s deputies from the sheriff’s department. Judy was standing with an arm around her back supporting her. Damn, Ty must have put her down a little too hard if she was still that shaken up. They leapt from the ambulance and tore over to the group.

  “Cody! Brendan!” Faith turned in their direction, throwing her arms out in their direction.

  Cody leaned down first to hug her, noticing the egg shaped knot on her forehead. He stood back to let Brendan give her a hug, too. “What the hell happened to your head?”

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine!” Faith dismissed with a wave of her hand. “When that awful wave of pain hit, it knocked me off my feet, Ty had me unconscious before I hit the ground. The more important thing is that our Lucy is missing and we’re not sure where to look.”

  “The cameras in the car park have been disabled,” Grant said, anger in his voice, and Cody turned in his direction. “I thought I might get something off them, but the leads have been cut. Her scent is strongest over there, and there’s a small amount of blood on the ground. I’m sorry guys, but it’s hers.”

  Cody’s anger started to rise, and he heard his brother start a continuous growl. Their mate had been hurt, so now all bets were off.

  Chapter 9

  Lucy groaned and fought the urge to throw up. For some reason she had woken up with one humdinger of a headache. She was moving back and forward, and she had a distinct motion-sickness feeling. God she felt terrible. She cracked her eyes open and had a quick moment of panic that she might actually be blind when she saw nothing, no light or anything. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself and tasted exhaust fumes on the air.

  What the hell? Panic really started setting in she connected the dots and realized that she was traveling in the trunk of a vehicle. Her heart started to race as she fought to remember how she came to be there, and then everything started to come back to her.

  She remembered being outside the Country Blue and counting off the boxes that were heading to Red Ridge for the firefighters. She had been standing there looking up at the glow on the ridge praying that everyone would come back safe and then…someone punched her!

  Shiitake mushrooms on an excrement cracker! Someone had punched her! Her jaw felt swollen and sore and as she reached up to touch her face, she became aware that her hands were tied in front of her. Fear now eclipsed panic and she whimpered a sob, she was in trouble!

  Taking deep breath after deep breath, she tried desperately to stave off a panic attack that would severely inhibit her chances of surviving this, tied up and put into the trunk of a car. She rolled her eyes. Oh good Lord, she had the worse luck! Moving she felt in all directions around her trying to see if there was a weapon or a way to get out. Oh boy, how she missed her mates.

  Wait! Jeez Louise, Lucy, you are slow sometimes. She closed her eyes and opened her mind up to the link between her and her mates. She was a little shocked at the rage, pain, and worry she encountered when she let her mind move along the bond. “Cody, Brendan, can you hear me?”

  “Lucy! Baby, tell us where you are!”

  “Kitten, where are you, are you okay? How bad are you hurt?”

  She smiled when they answered at once and over the top of each other. “I need you two to calm down a little, okay? I can’t concentrate very well when you are both talking at the same time.”

  There was hesitation then warmth and understanding flooded toward her. “Sorry, kitten,” Brendan sent. “We’ll speak one at a time. Are you okay? Where are you?”

  “I’m…okay-ish. I was knocked unconscious when someone punched me in the face in the car park.” Rage pulsed down their link. “Calm down, boys, I need you focused on helping to get me out of this and back to you, okay?” Lucy frowned. She was the one in trouble, and she was the one having to try to calm the other two down?

  “Sorry, Lucy. Go on.” Cody sounded as if he were talking through gritted teeth. She’d take in control if she couldn’t get calm.

  “I’m in the trunk of a car, but I don’t know where I’m heading or who is driving, all though I can make a pretty good guess,” she sent back wryly.

  “Yeah, we figure it’s Mani, too. See if there is anything in the car that you can use as a weapon, or something you can use to pop the trunk with. We’re in a truck with Ty and heading in the direction we’re pretty sure they took you.”

  As she started to run her hands around the top of the trunk looking for a lever or opening of some sort she asked, “How do you figure you’re going in the right direction, Brendan?”

  “Well, we were on the north road out of town. Mani wouldn’t risk running into any of us, or being seen, so we figured he would head out on the east road.”

  Finding a lever, she whooped aloud, then bit her lip and waited to see if she had alerted the people in the car that she was awake. She waited till the count of twenty and when the vehicle stayed steady she breathed a sigh of relief. “I think I’ve found a lever that might open the trunk.” Lucy could sense their excitement. “Should I pull it?”

  “Yeah, pet,” Cody said. “Pull it and hold onto the trunk. You don’t want it flying up and alerting them that you’re awake, or worse falling out!”

  Yeah that would suck. Holding onto the lever with two hands she twisted it and cheered quietly when the trunk popped open
, but she held it tight to stop it from flying open. “I got it open, I’ve cracked it a little and looking out the back to see if I can see anything.”

  It was quite loud now that the trunk was open, the wind and road noise making it hard to hear anything else. Lucy could see that the sun had risen casting the world in a beautiful dawn light that she wished she could have appreciated instead of trying to concentrate on getting out of this alive. She cast her eyes left and right, trying to identify something, anything that would tell her men where she was. But there was nothing, just country road, farmland, and mountains in the back ground.

  “I can’t see anything that helps!” Lucy said to them.

  “It’s all right, kitten, you’re doing great. Calm down we’ll think of something.”

  Brendan’s voice was calm and had the same effect on her. She took a deep breath and concentrated. “Okay, so I am looking at the rising sun so I know I am heading west. We have just passed a farm gate in the shape of some sort of purple chicken. Why on earth would someone do that?” Lucy shook her head. Then she became aware that excitement now flooded their link.

  “Lucy!” Brendan’s voice rang with hope. “That’s the Cameron’s farm gate. His wife makes pottery chickens. We know exactly where you are we’ll be there soon, baby. Hang on! We are only about twenty minutes behind you!”

  “Fifteen,” Cody promised down the link.

  Lucy felt tears threaten. Her men knew where she was and were heading her way. She suddenly lurched back farther into the trunk as the car slammed on its brakes and took a hard right-hand turn. The move wrenched the lever out of her hand, and the trunk flew open.

  “Oh God, they just took a hard right hand turn and I lost my grip on the trunk lever!” Lucy gasped when the car suddenly shuddered to a halt, slamming her head hard against the floor of the trunk. Shaking off the haze that brought, she looked around her. “I’m on some sort of forest gravel road. I’m getting out of the trunk and running.” She took three steps before someone grabbed her by her hair pulling her up short. She screamed as pain burst through her skull. She could hear her mates roaring her name down the link.