“Did you see Ms. Elise Westin this morning?”
“How should I know?” she said again, before adding, “I see hundreds of people a day, think I can really tell one from the other?”
She was lying again, only this time I wasn’t the only one who knew it with certainty.
The big guy had seemingly been typing away at a laptop, ignoring the situation, and truthfully, pissing me off, but he swung the laptop around toward us and pointed to a slender, dark-haired beauty I’d recognize anywhere. Elise.
“Is this your lady friend?” the man asked me, and I nodded in confirmation, unable to speak as I watched the lady convince Elise to follow her, then lead her down the hall I knew would lead to the room we found her stuff in. The lady returned on the screen a few minutes later. Two men appeared, their backs to the camera, but we could tell she was talking to them, then she ushered them off into the same direction she had taken Elise. The desk sat empty for what felt like an eternity on the screen before I appeared, banging on the bell in frustration. I knew the exact moment, and knowing now that Elise had been just down the hall made me feel lower than I could ever have imagined. My mate had been in trouble just a few yards away, and I hadn’t been able to stop it.
“I want a lawyer!” the lady cried, interrupting my self-deprecation.
“This isn’t a jail, Viv, and we aren’t real cops, but if you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll be forced to call them in.”
She took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. Tears sprang from her eyes and her nose instantly turned an ugly shade of red.
“Those two men,” she began as the story spilled from her, “they contacted me about an hour after she checked in. I told them the boyfriend was there, but they didn’t seem to care. Should she find herself alone, I was to assist and keep her isolated in a safe place, and call them. They weren’t staying here, but they couldn’t have been too far away, because they got here within about twenty minutes from when I called.”
“How much?” I asked, sounding deathly calm.
She shivered and refused to make eye contact with me, but she answered. “Five thousand dollars. Look, I have student loans and money’s tight. I needed that money and they promised no one would get hurt and there would be no way to trace it back to me.”
“And you believed them?” I spat out, disgusted by her.
“Tell us everything you can about the men. Did they take her off-site? What did they look like? Any distinguishing features?
“They both had heavy foreign accents. It was hard to even understand them sometimes,” she confessed. “They were going to take her out the back door, you know, the employee entrance, but when I unlocked the room you found her luggage in, there was no sign of her at all. They were really angry, but I had to leave because you were banging on the bell and causing a scene. By the time I’d gotten rid of you, there was no sign of any of them. I swear, that’s all I know.”
“Check the emergency exit footage. We had an alarm go off there this morning, could be around the same the time. I'd been on a smoke break at the time and came back in to the noise, glanced at the monitors, but didn't see anything suspicious, but maybe I missed something.”
Desperation clawed at me from within.
“Look at this,” the big guy said, pointing to the screen again. Just off-screen, one of the cameras picked up evidence of a struggle. For a split second, I saw Elise appear, running, before being jerked backwards and out of view. What appeared to be her leg shot out within view of the camera on two occasions, then nothing. A few minutes later an ugly burgundy-colored work van with faded white lettering on the side—that none of us could make out—passed by. Following it on the perimeter cameras in the parking lot, we could see it turn right out of the resort, then head north before it disappeared entirely.
My breathing was coming too quickly and I could feel fur sprouting on my feet and legs. If I didn’t reign it in, my wolf would overcome me. Our mate was in trouble and he was desperate to join the search for her. Excusing myself, I walked out of the room in attempt to regain my composure and phoned Kyle to fill him in on all we’d found.
Elise
Chapter 13
My head was throbbing as I rolled over with a groan, unable to force my eyelids open. I was surrounded by unfamiliar sounds and smells, and didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. I felt like I was waking up from the dead, my body stiff all over, and as I went to roll onto my stomach, a searing pain shot through my left wrist. I cried out from the pain and began the excruciating process of opening my eyes.
“Patrick?” I asked to the darkness still enveloping me. Hearing my voice aloud jarred me back to reality. I had left Patrick. The lady at the front desk of the resort had set me up. Two men—I sat up quickly, my eyes now wide open with fear.
I looked around the room I was in, instantly relieved to find I was alone, but that relief was short-lived as I realized my left wrist was handcuffed to what felt like a metal bedrail. I imagined some sort of hospital bed, but nothing else about the room itself screamed hospital. Not the lack of lights, the sounds, or the smells.
The room was so dark I couldn't make out whether it was day or night. Hadn't it been morning when they took me? How long have I been out?
My head continued to throb, making it difficult to think. I wasn't sure what they had knocked me out with, but it left a bitter taste in the back of my throat and my mouth was uncomfortably dry. Wishing for a toothbrush and some mouthwash caused a hysterical giggle to erupt from me. I knew I had bigger issues than a severe case of morning breath.
I paused. Think, Elise, I demanded of myself. Calling my wolf close to the surface, I channeled my wolf hearing and listened. I couldn't make out any sounds. It was eerily quiet.
I jiggled the handcuffs and had a momentary feeling of nostalgia. In a warped way they comforted me. It hadn't been that long ago that my rambunctious youngest brother, Chase, had gone through an obsession with law enforcement. He carried a real, cop-issued pair of handcuffs everywhere and frequently used them on his siblings. Sadly, it wasn't the first time I had awoken to find myself locked to a bed. I knew from experience that attempting to change into my wolf form while in handcuffs, was a very bad idea.
Smiling at the memory and thankful for horrible lessons learned, I used my free hand to reach into my pocket. I could almost guarantee to always find a hair tie and a few bobby pins in there. I felt around, thankful to find I was still wearing jeans, and relief washed over me as my fingers closed around the cool metal pin.
I quickly pulled it out, using my free hand and teeth to straighten the pin. It took me no time at all to pop the lock on the handcuffs. When your brother goes through a handcuff phase like we had to endure with Chase, you learned quickly how to break out of them.
“Thank you, Chase,” I whispered into the darkness.
Taking a moment to take inventory of myself, I patted my body down. My clothes seemed to all be in place. I didn't feel like that had been an issue anyway and the reality of that was a huge weight lifted that I didn't realize I was carrying. I wiggled my toes next and found my shoes missing. That was okay. Sure, I loved those shoes, but if I could just get outside, I could change and run, and wouldn't be able to take them with me anyway.
I jumped out of the bed and carefully felt into the darkness around me. I shrieked and jumped back when my hands hit the wall. My heart was pounding so hard it was escalating my headache and causing a slight roar in my ears. I took a deep, cleansing breath, held it for a moment, and let it out, trying to calm myself and just breathe.
Reaching out for the wall I carefully and slowly followed it around the room until I hit something soft. Grabbing hold of the fabric and pulling it back, I winced and shut my eyes at the bright light of day. Still daytime. Maybe I hadn't been out so long after all.
I peeled back the blackout curtains, throwing light across the room. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw a small room. Only the one window and a door adjacent to it
. It was entirely empty except for the bed. Wood-paneled walls and a wooden floor should have given it a more homey feeling than the vibes I was getting from it. It reminded me more of a prison cell.
Turning back to the window, I found it locked, but unlocking it was not helping my cause. On closer inspection I saw large, thick nails hammered in at an angle from the outside, halting any thoughts of opening that window.
I went to the door and leaned my ear against it; still I heard no movements on the other side. I jiggled the handle. Locked.
Fear began to set in stronger than it had since I first woke. I was locked in this small room and running out of ideas.
I went back to examining the window again. I tried with all my strength to lift it, wanting to snap the nails that held me captive. Whoever had brought me here clearly meant to keep me. I looked to the top of the window and wondered. The windows looked old and wooden. I grabbed on to the slat across the top half of the window and gave a jerk down. Sure enough, the window budged and slowly lowered. Whoever my captors were, perhaps they weren't quite as smart as I thought. They had secured the lower window pane, but left the top unattended, and on a double pane window the top half slid easily down to rest on the nails used to secure the lower half of the window.
It didn't look like much, but it gave me great hope. The act of actually climbing up and through the small opening would prove a much harder task, but no matter what, I was going through that window. Not knowing why I had been taken to begin with meant this was life or death, as far as I was concerned.
The windowsill was proving just tall enough to keep me from climbing up, and I didn't think it wise that I try to go headfirst out the window I pulled the bed over as close to the window as I could, holding my breath as it screeched across the hardwood floors. I listened closely for any movement beyond the room in the moments that followed. Nothing. Breathing a sigh of relief, I climbed up on the bed and evaluated my options.
The thought of going headfirst still didn't appeal to me. I could see through the window that it wasn't a very far drop and I was definitely on the first floor of the building, but still, headfirst. No thanks. Planning what I knew would not be a graceful exit, I made my first attempt at being a contortionist, only to get one leg out up to my knee before getting stuck and unable to move the other. Pulling back into the room, I fell ungracefully on the bed.
Frustrated, it took six more attempts before I ended up in some sort of awkward handstand on the windowsill with both legs out, hinging at my waist, as I tried to get a foothold on the outside. Finally my toe caught the outside sill and I slowly began walking my hands up and exiting the window. With my balance still in question, and only my shoulders, head, and arms remaining inside the room, I prepared to launch myself backwards and prayed for a soft landing.
You can do this, E. I gave myself a last minute pep talk. One, two, thr—
Large hands grabbed my waist from behind and pulled hard, my neck and face scraping against the top of the window as I was dragged from behind. In my focus to get out of the window, I had not heard the approaching man. My heart thudded hard in my chest, and as soon as I was clear I began kicking, screaming, and flailing my arms out. He dropped me with a hard thud to the ground. I began crawling as fast as I could to get away and just on the precipice of shifting he grabbed me by the feet and yanked back, hard. My wolf growled in anger.
“Get the medicine,” I heard him say in a deep foreign accent. “Quick, she's a feisty one.”
“Hold her still,” said a second man with similar accent.
I was pushed face-first into the ground. With my wolf so close to the surface already, a deep inhale heightened my fear just before everything went black again. Bulgarians. I recognized their scent.
Patrick
Chapter 14
Pacing a circle around the front lobby of the resort for more than twenty minutes was not proving beneficial. My wolf was getting more irritated by the second. At last check, Kyle's trackers were still several hours out. I knew I couldn't wait that long. My mate was in trouble and I had to find her.
I hadn't been able to stop the local police from getting involved. The head of resort security had insisted, with the evidence that Elise had been kidnapped. They asked me to sit tight and wait while they ran their investigation. They asked too much.
After hanging up with Kyle, I needed some fresh air. As soon as I walked outside my skin began to crawl, like an itch all over that couldn't be scratched. I needed to change and I needed to change soon. My wolf felt my anxiety and heightened his need to find our mate.
I walked across the parking lot and headed up the street in the direction the red van had driven off. I couldn't help but continue to sniff the air. I had spent so much of the morning watching the security camera videos from every possible angle that I knew the second I was out of view. I shifted and sniffed the ground for any signs of Elise.
Remembering how my wolf had followed her to the Westin Foundation, even as I was in disbelief of his abilities, I gave myself over to the animal inside and set my wolf free. Within seconds we were off running. I didn't turn off my humanity entirely. That was too dangerous a thing when out in the human world. I would only chance such a thing in a controlled situation, like in a mating challenge arena.
I diverted us to the edge of the woods along the road. I couldn't risk humans seeing my wolf on the hunt. He wasn't happy with my decision as the smells were stronger on the road, but it wasn't safe for us.
Stopping to sniff the air, my nose raised to the sky and I let out a satisfied howl. My wolf had caught the scent of our female. My feet pounded against the forest floor, dodging around trees and jumping over underbrush. Moving so quickly, I lost my sense of direction, but I was confident my wolf would see us through. After what felt like several miles, we checked up and slowed. Coming to a clearing, I forced the wolf down on our belly when he wanted to continue at full speed to our mate.
There was a small cabin in the woods, far off from any main road. It was almost like it appeared out of nowhere. The red van seen on the security tape was parked in front. A low warning growl erupted from me before I could stop it.
There appeared to be no movement coming from the house, so I lay down and watched and waited. I was alone, without backup. I couldn't be stupid. I needed to know how many I was dealing with. Who were these guys? And what did they want with Elise?
After what felt like an eternity, a large, stocky man walked out on the front porch. Before he lit the cigarette in his hand I saw him raise his nose to the wind and sniff. My hackles stood up. This wasn't a human. He was wolf. I already knew I was well downwind. Unless he was a very good tracker, it was unlikely he would smell me, but as he looked around, lighting his cigarette and letting out a puff of smoke around him, I stayed perfectly still.
He may not have been able to smell me, especially with the added smoke surrounding him, but any movement and he would see it. I only allowed my eyes to move, scanning the area for any other possible threats.
My human side was regaining control, despite the urge of my wolf to attack, regardless of this man's human form. It was a shifter's most sacred vow, never take a human life, or a wolf shifter's while in human form. As long as he remained in his skin, I couldn't touch him, but that didn't stop the animal desire within me from wanting to.
“Toma, get in here,” I heard a voice from inside the house yell.
At least two, I thought. Toma, and another male. I committed the name, the voice, and their smells to memory. I could not allow them to live after what they had done. First, I must rescue Elise. Once she was safe, I would come back for these men. There was nowhere they could hide that I would not one day find them.
I knew Elise didn't want me as a mate, but that could never stop my need to protect her, and seeing her captors dead was my vow of her protection.
There was a significant distance between the edge of the woods, where I lay, and the house, all open space. I couldn't stand her being in
there for even a second longer, and I knew, without a doubt, that my mate was inside that house.
My options were to wait until nightfall, go get help from the humans, or wait for Kyle's men to track us. In truth, a combination of the second and third options would be the fastest and likely safest, means of rescue, but I could not bring myself or my wolf to leave her. If they moved her while I was out seeking help, I'd never forgive myself. No matter what, I just couldn't head on.
For the most part, the entire area, even inside the house, was quiet. I strained my ears to hear any true sign of Elise, but nothing. We didn't have a bond for me to know she was okay and the thought put my heart crossways in me. I needed to know she was alright.
It felt like donkey’s years before anything else happened. All the while I lay there watching the house, my wolf ears on high alert. The sound that distracted me wasn't coming from the house though, it was in the woods, a good mile out. If it wasn't so out of place in the midst of the quiet forest and noiseless house, I would never have tuned into it.
I raised my head and scanned the area, but could see nothing. Still, I knew the noise was coming from somewhere beyond and I needed to investigate. Keeping my eyes on the house, I headed towards the backyard, staying to the tree line. As I rounded the back corner the wind blew, and I caught a whiff of Elise. My footsteps stilled and my heart began to thump in my chest. It was definitely her scent, but tinged with a strange, bitter smell. Were they still drugging her? I hadn't considered that while formulating multiple exit strategies to pass the time.
Another sound drew my attention back to the task at hand. I continued around to the other side of the house before heading deeper into the woods. I smelled the petrol wafting off the motorbikes before I saw them. Three men, all with binoculars, watching the house carefully. I crouched low and approached as slowly and quietly as I dared. I needed to clearly hear what they were saying.
Fighting Destiny (Westin Pack Book 2) Page 9