With the mind link of the pride, it took less than a minute to be updated on the battle he’d missed. He’d followed the trail of Jordanna’s blood as he’d listened. “The trail of our mate’s blood ends by the tire tracks of a large vehicle. It headed north. There is a lot of blood.” His cat was snarling so loudly that he nearly missed the soft voice of the vampire as he spoke directly to him.
“Richard West drives a white Ford Transit Connect. I will join you in your search.”
“Have you tried to contact Jordanna through the mating bond?” Hunter asked. “It may not be possible, but you should still try.”
“We’ll try to establish a link with her. Thank you, Hunter,” Gabriel said, as he ran out of the trees to stand beside Caine.
“Jesus, Gabe. You look like hell.” Caine could see the open wound on Gabriel’s side; it was deep and still bleeding freely.
Gabriel raised his head and inhaled deeply. “Whoever took Jordanna is the same wolf who attacked her. I recognize his scent.” They both roared, and started to run, their cats becoming frantic with their need to find their mate.
“Then we find Liam’s killer when we find your mate,” Aiden said. Even his mental voice carried the depth of his anger.
They ran until Drake met them with their truck a few minutes later. They needed the speed of the truck, so they climbed in, but remained shifted so they could attempt to reach Jordanna.
“Jordanna, honey. It’s Caine, can you hear me?”
“Sweetheart, we love you. We’re coming for you,” Rowan said. He was running from Eminence toward them, keeping to the tree line along the highway. He assured them that a white van had not yet driven past him.
“Angel? Can you hear us? We love you so much. Don’t be frightened, we’re coming for you,” Gabriel said, pacing the bed of the truck.
Caine was squashed in the backseat of the truck, his whole mind focused on his mate. He tried not to dwell on the amount of blood she’d lost at the scene of the accident. Now they were mated she would heal rapidly from wounds. But she could still be killed.
“Why has the wolf Alpha taken Jordanna?” Caine didn’t really expect an answer; he was just frantic.
“I will make certain I have your answer, young wolf, before he is lost to the madness of his pain,” Aiden said. Caine shuddered at the tone of the vampire’s mental voice and resumed talking to Jordanna. He couldn’t lose her. She’d come into their lives and made them all whole again. He finally had everything and it was being taken from him.
“We’re coming for you, Jordanna. We’ll never let you go.”
* * * *
Jordanna was dreaming of her mates. They were all so angry and they were hurt. Her chest ached from the pain they were feeling. She moved her hand to rub at her chest, she wanted to ease the ache, but her hand wouldn’t move.
Forgetting again the futility of opening her eyes, she blinked them open to find herself staring at a hazy darkness. Fuck. Why do I keep forgetting I’m bloody blind?
“But you’re not, angel. You see us. You see our very souls,” Gabriel whispered to her.
“You’re awake,” said a harsh, guttural voice she was certain she’d never heard before. “We don’t have a lot of time. I won’t have that fucking vampire pet of my brother’s ruining my plans. I need to remind you of what you saw last week.”
Jordanna could hear the sound of an engine. The sound of tires on blacktop. Feel the sway and bump of traveling in a car. Her head was pounding and her body felt as though she’d been in a boxing match. She ached all over.
“Can you fucking hear me?”
She screamed as something slammed onto her shin. Her eyes watered and she gasped for breath, the pain threatening to make her sick to her stomach.
“Jesus, Jordanna. What the fuck did he just do to you?” Caine asked.
“Angel, we heard your scream. We felt your pain. Reach out to us with the mating bond,” Gabriel said.
“I don’t understand. What’s happening?” Jordanna gasped and swallowed the bile rising in her throat. Her leg throbbed painfully, but she managed to rasp out the words.
“I’m taking you to my pack elders is what’s happening,” the stranger said. “These fucking cats don’t know who they’re dealing with. Look at me when I’m talking to you, you dumb bitch.”
She turned her head toward his voice, but she saw nothing but a hazy outline of a man.
“I’m up to my fucking neck in shit and these cats have given me a way out. I thought you’d screwed everything up that night I killed my sanctimonious brother. But you fucking gave me the perfect scapegoat.”
Jordanna had no clue what he was raving about.
“Where are you, sweetheart? We’re searching for you,” Rowan said. He sounded hurt. His voice strained.
She turned her head searching for her men’s scent. When she tried to take a deep breath, her chest wall seemed to snap. She screamed at the stabbing pain in her side. Her airways filled with fluid and she started to cough. She tried to roll over and clear her throat but she couldn’t move. She felt like she was drowning.
Her arms were pulled tight above her head. Her wrists stung as she pulled against some sort of restraint. She coughed again, and it cleared her throat. She turned her head as much as she could and spat out the contents of her mouth. Very unladylike.
“What the fuck,” the man said. Her wrists were suddenly freed. Her hair was grasped tightly and used to pull her into a sitting position. She tried to move her feet, but they were stuck together. She was dragged by her hair until she felt cold metal at her back. He released her with another curse.
“You’re no fucking use to me dead. I need you to tell the elders you saw one of those fucking cats kill my brother. We scented him all over his corpse. It was perfect.”
More liquid ran from her mouth. Now that she was no longer choking she noticed its coppery-salty taste. It was blood. Why am I bleeding?
“Bleeding where, sweetness? I’m going fucking crazy here. Talk to us, Jordanna.” Rowan sounded frantic.
She inhaled shallowly, her chest aching. She couldn’t smell anything except sweat and gasoline. Her men definitely weren’t here with her. But she’d heard them. She’d heard them all except Drake. Her heart squeezed tight. Is Drake dead?
“No. He’s driving, honey. The rest of us are all furry. We’re looking for you,” Caine said. He used the same word she’d used this morning when he’d woken her. She wasn’t imagining them. She really could hear them, and they could hear her.
“Can you really hear me? Or am I having some kind of a hallucination?”
“Good, you’re breathing. Now, tell me who you saw attack my brother last Saturday.” She turned her head toward his voice. She wasn’t sure what to answer. She tried to remember what he’d been saying to her.
“There is a man here. He says that he’s taking me to elders. He says that he killed his brother and then he smelled of cat. I’m supposed to say something about seeing a cat. He said the cats were scapegoats.” She didn’t know if any of that would help her men find her, but it was all the information her pain-filled brain could remember.
“This idiot thinks he can take me from you. I know you’ll find me.” She wasn’t weak and alone now. The bond to her men was unbreakable. Their love would keep her alive until they found her. She would never be scared and alone again.
The throbbing in her leg increased as she felt a weight crush down on it. “Don’t make me repeat myself, bitch.”
She couldn’t remember what he’d asked. She screamed as the pain in her leg became unbearable. Reaching down she found his booted foot. He was standing on her leg. She pulled at his foot, trying to get him off her. When he lifted his boot she sighed with relief, but then it slammed down on her shin. She screamed until she ran out of air.
Chapter 18
Rowan thought he’d felt rage before, but when Jordanna’s scream was followed by silence he slipped into a maddened haze. He barely heard the vampire, hi
s mind buzzing with so much unleashed savagery.
“I have heard that you have somehow communicated with your mate. Her mind is closed to me. What have you learned?”
Caine communicated Jordanna’s last words to Aiden word for word. His rage burned through him, he was unable to do anything but continue to run.
“If he is taking her back to his territory, then I will intercept him soon.” Aiden’s reassurance did nothing to ease Rowan’s fear and anger. Jordanna was being hurt by that wolf again. He’d vowed to keep her safe and he’d failed her.
He’d welcome death if she was no longer alive. But he’d make sure the wolf died first.
As if by magic the vampire appeared at his side. He was running in long easy strides, appearing to expend no effort. Rowan knew that he could run as fast as fifty-five miles per hour at top speed.
“Richard West’s van is approaching. You need to be ready to immobilize the driver once the van is stationary.”
“How are you going to stop the van without killing my mate?” She’d already been injured from the collision with the tanker. She may not survive another collision.
“I am going to block the road.” Aiden vanished.
“Fuck. The vampire moves fast. He says he can stop the van without harming Jordanna. We are at the south end of the Wilder’s property.” Rowan heard a thunderous bang and the ground shook beneath his paws.
Rounding a curve in the road, he saw a massive blue spruce lying across the road. Leaping on top of the tree, he could see a white van slowing as it approached the felled tree.
He couldn’t conceive of the strength it entailed to topple the massive tree, but he was glad the vampire was a friend.
“They’re stopping,” Rowan said. He stayed where he was, concealed in the branches of the tree, until the van had nearly stopped.
“I am five minutes from your location. The wolf Beta is accompanying me. Do not kill Richard West.” Finn’s voice boomed the edict. Rowan snarled his displeasure as he leaped to the driver’s side door and shifted.
The vampire had indeed stopped the van without harming his mate further, so he’d trust him now and follow his plan. His cat wanted to get to his mate. But the man knew this was the best way to ensure her safety when he was the only cat here. He would’ve gotten them both killed had he’d attempted to take her from the moving van by himself.
He ripped the door open and took in the surprised look on the driver’s face as he sliced through the man’s seatbelt with his extended claws and pulled him from the van.
Rowan heard the wrench of metal and saw the back doors of the van slide noisily down the road.
“Please don’t kill me,” the wolf begged. He was a large man, but still smaller than Rowan’s six foot three. Rowan easily dragged the man by his neck toward the back of the van.
“You take my mate from me and expect mercy?” The man in Rowan’s hands paled, his eyes widening. He scratched at Rowan’s arms with his extended claws in an attempt to free himself. Rowan had reached the open doors of the van and what he saw had him squeezing tighter on the neck in his hands.
The scent of Jordanna’s blood filled his nose and stoked the fire of his rage. In his peripheral vision he saw Aiden holding a large insensate man in one hand. His eyes moved to fix on Jordanna’s prostate form.
“Your brothers and Alpha are approaching. She is alive,” Aiden said. Rowan finally noticed the struggles of the man in his hands. The wolf’s claws had shredded his arms.
Relaxing his grip on the wolf’s throat, the man drew in a breath, his color changing from puce to red. Rowan had nearly killed him. He didn’t much care, except that he wanted the man’s suffering to last longer than just a few minutes.
* * * *
Gabriel leaped from the bed of the truck before Drake had skidded to a stop behind the van’s doors. They were lying on the road some fifty feet from the van. Even at this distance his mate’s blood cast a thick pall on the morning air.
He was at the back of the van in seconds, the sight of his unconscious mate driving a roar of both anger and pain from him. His gaze then fell on the man responsible for all her pain. Even over the thick scent of his mate’s sweet blood he recognized the scent of the wolf.
“I was the paramedic who attended to Jordanna in Sheridan last Saturday,” Gabriel said, directing his thoughts to the vampire.
Aiden’s eyes glowed red as his eyes snapped to meet Gabriel’s. “I am the witness you should have been seeking to identify the murderer.”
The murderer who was currently dangling from the vampire’s hand. His beast’s nature rose up in him with its primal need to avenge its mate. Caine’s roar shook the van when his brother came to stand beside him.
They were both too big to enter the rear of the cab and Gabriel was reluctant to shift in case more wolves were about. He ached with the need to hold his mate. Touch her. Heal her.
“She’s alive,” Rowan said, the words husky with the snarl of his cat.
Drake pushed between himself and Caine to climb into van. He knelt beside Jordanna with a first aid kit and gently stroked a hand down her blood-splattered cheek. “She’s so cold.”
Drake had only just begun to assess Jordanna when Gabriel scented their Alpha approaching. The stench of another wolf had Gabriel spinning around and readying himself for a fight.
Finn paused by their truck and shifted, as did the wolf. Gabriel recognized the wolf as the Beta they had encountered at the ranger station and he allowed himself to relax slightly. He raised his head and used all his senses to search for any other wolves.
Finn reached into the back of Drake’s truck and found some clothes. He drew on sweat pants and tossed some to the wolf before approaching the van.
“Jason will be here shortly to care for your mate,” Finn said. “I understand how hard this is, but I ask you to stay on guard until he and Samson arrive.”
Aiden moved to the back of the van. He still held the wolf steady in his hand. The man was big and solid, but Aiden held him with apparent ease. The vampire’s lithe frame belied his true strength.
“What have you done to our Alpha?” Patrick asked. He scented of rage and fear.
“My mind control has no effect on shifters but my fist does.” Aiden’s stare clearly dared the Beta wolf to make issue of the way he’d handled their duplicitous Alpha.
He jumped down from the van and came to stand in front of Finn and Patrick. “We were seeking the wrong witness. This young cat is the one you needed to identify your Alpha’s killer.”
Gabriel should have felt insulted by the vampire’s use of the word young, but he recognized that Aiden used it simply as a description. He wondered at the true age of the creature who looked to be no older than thirty-five.
Patrick looked past Aiden to Jordanna. “Richard did that to her?” His voice was a husky growl, his wolf very close to reemerging.
“I heard them speaking to their mate while Richard held her captive,” Aiden said, his lip curling in disgust. “He was using pain to coerce her into accusing the cats of Liam’s murder. He also admitted to her that he killed Liam.”
“I have known you a long time, Aiden. You place a great deal of trust in these cats?” Patrick said, looking at no one but Aiden.
“They have been honest and fair in their treatment of me,” Aiden said. “Even after I abducted a mate. If I had taken your mate would you have waited to hear the reason before simply killing me?”
Patrick looked at Finn and nodded. “I will listen to your cat.”
“Gabriel, please,” Finn said.
Gabriel shifted, the snarl of anger continuing from his cat to his human throat as he stared at the unconscious wolf.
“How do you know this man?” Patrick said.
“I don’t,” Gabriel said. “I worked as a paramedic in Sheridan. I was sent to care for the victims of a wild dog attack. That is where I first discovered my mate.” He glanced over his shoulder to Jordanna. Drake had inserted an intravenous lin
e and Caine was still standing guard at the rear of the van.
“That is why you brought the woman here? She’s your mate?”
“Yes. I scented wolf on both victims. Jordanna was badly injured so I brought her to my pride for her own protection.”
“And this is the wolf you scented?” Patrick indicated the still-unconscious man hanging from Aiden’s hand.
“Other than the dead man’s. His was the only other scent I detected.”
“Aiden, I think we have a lot to discuss with our new Alpha,” Patrick said. His eyes began to glow a luminous pale green. His rage rolled off him in waves.
“He revealed a great deal already while torturing this mate,” Aiden said. “He used the paramedic’s scent on Liam’s body to convince you the cats were involved.”
“He also lied about your confirming the cat’s involvement and their plans to attack our pack,” Patrick said.
Gabriel began to understand how Richard West had convinced his pack to attack them. But it still didn’t explain why he’d killed his brother in the first place.
* * * *
As fascinating as the machinations of wolf politics may usually be, Caine didn’t give a fuck right now. He wanted Jordanna. He nearly collapsed with relief when Samson’s truck came into view.
Jason came straight to Jordanna. Caine may not have been able to shift and hold her, but he could hear what Doc said, and stand guard to keep her safe from further harm. It was enough to calm both cat and man.
Samson came to stand at Aiden side, his amber glare fixed on the perpetrator of today’s unnecessary bloodshed. “I’ve had to kill today because of this lying sack of shit.”
Patrick’s own illuminated stare grew brighter. “He has enforcers at our pack home standing guard over our pups and elders. Any who refused to fight for their pack were to be killed along with everyone in their bloodline.”
“Brutal,” Aiden said. “I will remember that threat in the months I dole out his punishment.”
Jordanna [Eminence Shifters 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 16