This was magnificent. Her eyes closed.
“Mira?”
“I’m fine, just going to close my eyes for five minutes. Then I’m going to let you do it all over again.” She snuggled deep into his arms.
His chuckle followed her into her mini nap time.
Chapter Sixteen
What the hell was that noise? She snuggled closer into the warmth that was thumping under her ear and closed her eyes when that strident sound, was it bells, went off again.
“I need a mallet,” she mumbled trying to ignore the sound.
“A mallet?” Tristan’s deep voice asked.
“So, I can beat the shit out of that phone. Who is calling this early in the morning?” She opened one eye and lifted her head to look at the clock. It said eleven, but she decided that was too early to call. When the phone went to voice mail for the fourth time, she finally relaxed.
Then it rang again.
“Darn it! Mary, Margaret, and Joseph!” She jumped out of the bed and found the phone in the other room. “This better be good,” she growled into it.
“Good morning sunshine,” Jax’s deep voice came through.
“Why Jax, why?”
“We have a lead on Meghan as well as the six other kittens you texted about. Northside, we’ll be there in forty-five, thought you might like to know. He told her the address and hung up before she could give him a snappy reply.
“We have to go.”
“Five-minute shower,” he told her. She was already disappearing into the bathroom where the water was running. He seemed to know what she needed. The warm water woke her up and gave her the extra motivation to get going. When they walked into the kitchen, there were several travel mugs with coffee in them.
“Are we going on an outing?” She looked at Ven, Cade, and Taris.
“Yes,” they responded at the same time.
She picked up her coffee dumped sugar and milk in it and followed them out to Tristan’s Jeep. It was bigger. He gave her the keys and got in the passenger seat.
She smiled; it was a small thing. No one would really think much about it, but it meant something to her. He had no problem with her driving. “You can drive every car we have,” he told her. “I reserve the right to pilot the spaceships.”
She was pretty sure if they went into space, she’d be too busy looking for the grab handle or assist handle or whatever they called that handle on the spaceship to hold on to just in case of a sudden turn, and the hatch came open. A laugh came out. It happened every time she thought of Tristan swerving to miss a planet.
The drive wasn’t long since all she could think of was space. She pulled into the driveway which thankfully curved around back. They got out to find Jax and Lea waiting for them.
“I wanted to go in, but muscles over here wouldn’t let me,” Lea said pointing at Jax.
He smiled and flexed his biceps. Normally, she would have drooled and turned to wipe it away. Now all she could see was Tristan and his biceps. It was more than that. Now that they were here she could focus on herself. There was a low-level hum in her body that felt like Tristan. It was how she felt when she was curled up against him.
He winked when she looked over at him.
“Is anyone here?” She looked at Jax.
“I don’t think so. The building looks deserted, maybe they left in a hurry.” He pointed out some clothes that were strewn on the ground. They did look like something a teen would wear.
Tristan turned and walked to the door stopping when he got to the bottom step that led to the porch. He frowned and looked back at Mira.
“Are you in my head?” She asked him.
“A little, we’re connected. It can mean different things for different mates.”
“Do you feel that?” She walked over to stand by him at the bottom of the steps.
“I do.”
“I can see it!” Her voice rose with excitement.
“See what?” Cade asked coming to stand by them.
She stared hard at the doorway then looked back at Cade.
“Tristan, can you see it?”
He shook his head. “I can feel it. It must be because we synched last night.”
She nodded, then carefully walked up the steps stopping inches away from the door. “I see what looks like a black box intertwined with red threads. Let’s call it an emote-mine. Think of a land mine that was planted underground and goes off when the pressure is lifted. This mine is planted in the air, and the strong ability to sense emotions that an empath has will set it off.”
“Like the one planted at your apartment. Were they expecting you?” Ven asked her.
She stopped in her tracks. That was a good question one she hadn’t gotten around to thinking about. Were they expecting her? She carefully lifted a hand to get it closer to the emote-mine.
“No. I can’t feel anything personal from this one. The one I encountered previously was tuned to my frequency. This one is set to a wide range catching anyone who has medium talent to a full-blown empath.”
“Mira what are you doing?” Tristan asked her.
Her eyes were closed, and she was making small sounds while her fingers twitched in the air.
“I can see it better with my eyes closed. I am unraveling it. Neither of us can enter the building while it is here. If we leave it an unsuspecting person could be taken down by it.”
She didn’t think it was sophisticated, of course, until today she didn’t realize they existed. This one seemed to be fashioned in a hurried method which made taking it apart easier.
It took her ten minutes before she was confident that it wouldn’t hurt anyone.
“With this one, I deconstructed it. I took it apart backward. We can go in now.”
“Wait.” Cade walked in front of her opening the door wide so that Mira would have a chance to look in before they entered.
“What I can see of the first floor looks safe.”
He nodded before entering. Taris and Ven walked in next followed by Mira with Tristan bringing up the rear.
She looked back at him her eyes shining. “Why do I feel like we made a Mira sandwich?”
“Sounds tasty, but we only need one piece of bread.” Her cheeks flooded with heat, and she made sure not to make eye contact with anyone. The hushed laughter was enough for her.
She stopped when she got to the middle of the floor. “They were here.”
“They were held hostage and beaten. Looks like it was done with a whip,” Jax said coming out of one of the rooms off the living room.
“Can you tell how many?” Cade asked.
“I can pick up at least four different patterns of fear. There are more, but they are blending making it impossible for me to unravel them.”
“Meghan was here,” Lea said walking out of the room Jax was in earlier.
“How do you know?” Lea held up a pink cell phone case with Meghan’s name on it.
“Shit, the other girls were probably here with her. Who wants my kittens?”
“What if they’re different?” Lea raised her hand to cut Mira off. “Whenever Meghan came around, you were always staring at her as if something wasn’t quite right. What if she is like you, but different?”
Meghan was cagey. She knew not to stand still too long in her presence, preventing her from getting a read on her. The emotions were there, but there was also a wall. It wasn’t something she tried to hide her feelings behind. Still there was always a disconnect that she couldn’t pinpoint when dealing with Meghan. That was one of the reasons she was still on the street.
“Let’s say you're right. She is different from what we consider the norm. I say that, then I remind everyone that few people fit what we consider the norm in the states.” They nodded encouraging her to keep talking. “Then who would want to hurt her, or others like her?”
“Who hurt Tina?” Ven asked.
Flashes of what she had seen came back to her. None of it made sense, even now when she knew she wasn’t
hallucinating she still came up empty-handed.
“Maybe the police have found the suspects.” They had talked to the police when they took Tina to the hospital. They hadn’t seemed to think that finding the offenders would be easy. Which was interesting since Mira and Tristan neglected to tell them that the suspects disappeared. That meant they couldn’t be human, but she had a niggling at the base of her skull that said everything wasn’t as pat as it looked.
“I think if they had any suspects they would have called us in,” Tristan said. He turned back to examine the evidence. The rags were soaked with blood most of it days old, but some of it was fresher.
“It looks like they left roughly three hours ago if the fresh blood by the door is any indication.” Tristan turned to look at Cade to see if he agreed.
“I agree. This blood was spilled on the way out. You can follow the spatter here.” He pointed it out. It disappeared where they assumed a car was waiting.
“How did they know we were on to them?” Mira asked.
“We could have asked the wrong person or been too persistent in our inquiries. We may have an informant who is working both sides.” Jax told everyone.
“Maybe they move them every couple of days,” Mira muttered to herself as she walked through the bottom level. “I’m going upstairs.”
Her hand went to her mouth to keep from throwing up. There were chains up here where the girls had been held. From what she could pick up it had been all girls.
“Mira.” Tristan came up behind her taking her into his arms.
“They were tortured, like Tina. Why?”
“I wish I knew love.”
“I can still feel their emotional distress. I don’t feel any masculine emotions, but I know their captors were male.”
“How?”
“There is a specific emotional feel or smell when a woman fears she’s about to be violated. It’s all over the building.”
“Is that what happened?” His voice was low and steady when he asked giving her the safe harbor she needed when dealing with the thought of such abuse.
“I don’t know.” She looked up at him, her brown eyes flashing in pain.
“We’ll find them and help them.”
She nodded; this is what she dedicated her life to. Together they would find a way to help them.
“I don’t think they were here more than four days. I can backtrack the emotions, find the oldest one. It was about four days ago before that this place was abandoned. There isn’t even stale or dead emotions haunting this place.”
Emotions like thoughts took up a bandwidth. If you knew how to tune into it, you had access to information. The fact that there are no older emotions around indicated that this building had been abandoned over three years ago. She knew it was possible to be this detailed when dealing with emotions, but she never had this level of sophistication before… she turned and eyed Tristan. Mating with him last night changed her to some degree.
“I don’t know if I should freak out right now. I’m different; I can feel it.”
“Two became one.” He leaned over and kissed her with enough passion to make her flame on.
“You and your incredibly talented tongue are going to be the death of me.” Oh, what a way to die.
There was a discreet clearing of the throat. She jumped back like a teen caught doing something naughty.
“Did you find anything?” Locke asked.
“Besides each other,” Key added.
She took a minute to glare at them before laughing. Neither of them looked apologetic.
“Not much more to be had in here. The house was abandoned; that's why they chose it. I can feel the pain that the girls were subjected to.” She turned to walk away stopping when the room felt fuzzy.
“Mira, what’s wrong?”
She turned big brown eyes on him. They were filled with pain. “All the girls were here.” She spread her arms to give them an idea of the spot. “I can feel them clinging to each other thinking one thing.”
“What?” Ven asked coming into the room.
“Mira, help us.”
“How did they know?” Tristan asked.
“Meghan, she would know I would come looking for her.”
Chapter Seventeen
“What now?” Mira was listless thinking about the pain the girls were suffering. They might die before she could find them. How would she live with herself if that happened?
She looked at Tristan and tried to smile. They tied the knot last night, became mates. She should be saying I’s married now. All she could think of was Meghan and the other girls who were missing. Were they suffering like Tina suffered? If so, why? What kind of monsters had tied Tina up and were literally draining her life force from her body? Human, alien, animal, or a combination of all the above?
“All we can do is our best,” Troy told her.
Troy was an alien. She didn’t know what kind, and it didn’t matter. He had always treated her with kindness and respect. That was more important to her than where he was born.
“They could die.” That was her worst fear spoken aloud.
“They could,” Tristan took the chair next to hers. They were out in the back with the grills going.
“They could also live. If we focus on the worst-case scenario, we’ll miss what’s in front of us.”
She knew he was right. If she was looking for the dead, she’d miss the living.
“I just don’t understand.”
“There’s not always an answer,” Ven told her. “Where we come from we fight a war every day. There is no reason why. The ones in command like to fight, and when they were killing their people, they still wanted to fight. That’s how we came about. Soldiers they didn’t have to feel guilty about.”
“Do you really believe that Ven?”
“Yes, the ones who created us were like little boys playing war. They didn’t want to give up their games.”
“I’m happy all of you got away.”
“We are too,” Cade told her. He flipped the steaks while Ven was teaching Locke to make side dishes.
“Now we just wait?” She asked Cade.
“The hardest part of war, Is the hurry up and wait. You’re ready to fight; the adrenaline is pumping, but the enemy hasn’t revealed themselves yet.”
“Knock, knock, we’re here the party can start now,” Anna announced with a grin.
“I hope that steak has my name on it, medium well with every side I see,” Eve said handing the bowl she was carrying to Ven. “This is the best potato salad in the whole wide world. You’ll slap your mom after you taste it.”
“My mom slaps back, and it isn’t pretty,” Ven told her. He sat the salad down and took a taste. “It is good, but my moms is better.”
Eve opened her mouth then shut it. “I respect that.”
“Ven.”
“Eve, nice to meet you.” They shook hands grinning at each other.
“Introduce yourselves and try to ignore the loudmouth.” Mira winked at Eve.
Tristan gave his chair up to Anna.
“How are you feeling my porcelain doll?”
“Fine. Julie has left me alone; Eve is okay with me staying with her.”
“Then why are your eyes scrunched up?”
“They are not scrunched up.” She whipped a mirror out of her purse.
“Scrunched up,” Mira said in a sing-song voice.
Anna made a disgusted noise and put the mirror away. “How do you always know when something is wrong?”
“Blessed I guess. Spill it.”
“I don’t want to be a burden to Eve. She’s so sweet. I think I always knew she treated me like I was royalty, but lately, I see it. I feel strange. Yesterday I said something, and I flinched waiting for her to hit me. Instead, she was like maybe we should talk about that.”
“She beautiful and intelligent too.”
“Mira, she’s my friend.”
“They say it’s better with a friend.”
Anna’s face flushed as she looked at Eve. “I’m not ready,” she whispered.
“Is she forcing you?”
“No, she’s perfect. Not perfect her feet stink.” She giggled. “I can live with that though. I make her soak her feet at least three times a week.”
“Did I hear something about feet?” Eve called out.
“No one’s talking to you,” Anna replied with a laugh.
“Take your time she’s not going anywhere.”
Anna stopped to stare at Eve. The smile she wore showed she was halfway there.
“You saved my life. I can never say thank you enough.”
“Yes, you can. Stay away from Julie that’s all the thanks I need.”
“You got it. If I can ever do anything for you, let me know.”
“Be happy Anna.”
Anna hugged her tight. “I never had a mom. Thank you for coming into my life.” She went to see what Eve was up to.
“That’s why I keep opening night after night.” Troy took the chair Anna vacated.
“Here I thought you were just a pervert who liked to watch half-naked girls dancing.”
“I didn’t say I was stupid. I appreciate the humanoid form in all its various states.”
“Good answer I have a sudden and complete appreciation for it too.”
“So, you and the Kur’ik.”
“Yeah.” She looked over with a smile on her face.
“I’m happy for you. There was a time I wasn’t sure you would find anyone.”
“Me too. Have you heard anything about the girls?”
“Everything’s been quiet.” He leaned back in the chair, then popped his back. “I didn’t expect to hear anything. That doesn’t worry me.”
“What has you worried?”
“I can’t find anything on the males that took them.”
That had her worried too. She contacted the detective who asked her about Meghan hoping he might have some information. He knew less than she did. They were looking into several sex trafficking rings. She knew better than that, but her word wasn’t going to convince the police.
The Wolf & The Empath Page 12