Nico's Heart (RARE Book 1)

by Dawn Sullivan

  “I want names,” Angel demanded. “Aiden and Xavier were on the gate. Sable and Selene were at the playground, and the pup that took Lily is Callie. She’s 19 and is in college. Callie helps out with the children when she has time,” the enforcer responded.

  “And you are?” Angel asked. “I’m Bran Delaney, ma’am, the beta of our pack,” he said.

  “Ok, we have the when and where taken care of. I want every person that you just mentioned pulled into different rooms in this building. My team and I will talk to them each separately. Now, we need to work on who and why. I want a list of names of anyone you can think of that would want to take Lily along with why you think they would want her. Money, payback, grudge, whatever it is, I need to know about it. Don’t hold anything back.”

  Jenna tried to keep up as she watched Angel in action. She had never seen anyone like her before. It was obvious this was not the first time Angel and her team had done this. She had jumped in and taken charge like she was born to do it. For the first time since Monday, Jenna started to feel hope. She glanced over at Nico and saw that he was watching everyone in the room. Checking for their responses, she assumed. Her mate, god she just couldn’t get over it. But would he want her once he heard what she had to tell them? In her mind, Jenna knew that what had happened hadn’t been her fault, but it did not change the fact that she felt ugly and dirty after what had been done to her. And would Nico want Lily knowing who her father was? Lily was nothing like that monster. She was the kindest, sweetest, most caring little girl Jenna had ever known. But would that matter to Nico? Guess she was about to find out.

  Chapter 5

  Chase and Bran were over by Jaxson telling him everyone they could think of that had something against Chase as alpha. They were going into details as to why and what their motives might be. They had already been through all of this numerous times, but they knew that if RARE was to help then they would need all of the information also. Angel was listening to them as she read some notes that were on a white board at the front of the room. Sable and Selene were standing off to the side waiting to be taken into a room for questioning. Two of the other enforcers had gone to the gate to relieve Aiden and Xavier of their duties so they could come in and answer questions. Callie had been at the college, but she was on her way back to the compound.

  Nico watched Jenna over by the window for a few minutes not liking the vibes she was giving off. She was obviously scared and upset because of Lily, but something else was wrong. God, she was so beautiful. And she was in so much pain. He wanted to go over to her and just hold her. To tell her that everything would be ok, that he would fix it. He was an alpha male. They fixed things. Finally, he gave into the need and crossed over to her. Instead of pulling her into his arms like he wanted, he just stood beside her letting his wolf soak up her presence. She calmed him by just being near, and he was hoping his presence did the same for her.

  Jenna turned and looked up at him with her beautiful blue eyes full of tears. “I’m going to find her, Jenna. I’m going to find her and bring her home to you. Nothing is going to stop me,” Nico said. “I believe you,” she whispered.

  “Nico, there is someone else that needs to be on that list. Lily’s father. I need to tell everyone about Lily’s father.” As she looked at Nico with scared, pain filled eyes, he thought ‘Oh, hell no’. Whatever had her this upset was not something he wanted everyone in this room to know about. “Come on,” he said holding out his hand to her. “You can tell me and I will talk to my team.”

  “But shouldn’t everyone know?” she asked. “Only my team needs to know everything”, he said. “We just took over, remember?”

  “Yeah,” she whispered, “but it would probably be best if I told your team all at once, and I know Chase will want to be there. I’ve never told him what happened. I can do this, Nico. For Lily, I can do anything.”

  “Ok, my team and your alpha, but no one else,” Nico decided. Silently she put her hand in his and let him lead her over to where Angel stood.

  Angel looked up as they neared and focused on Nico. Taking a chance, Nico whispered into her mind “Something’s wrong with her, Angel. She’s upset and scared, but I don’t think it is just about Lily. She says she needs to tell us about Lily’s father. I don’t want anyone hearing whatever she has to say except the team and Chase. I can already tell I am going to gut the bastard.” Angel glanced away like she was reading the notes again and responded, “We will take care of your mate, Nico. I promise.”

  Everyone on the team was telepathic. It was one of Angel’s requirements for a team member and it came in really handy when out on an op. Another requirement, you had to be a badass. So when Nico said he was going to gut the bastard, he meant it.

  “Jenna needs to tell us about Lily’s father,” Nico said out loud. Just then a young, very upset girl came through the door. “Callie,” Chase said, “thank you for coming. We need to talk to you about Lily and the day she went missing.”

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t watch her more closely,” Callie said crying. “I left her to go help one of the other children on the swings. I wasn’t gone very long, I swear!”

  “I know, Callie. We have a new team helping us out now. They need to hear from you everything that you remember. Don’t leave anything out,” Chase ordered. “Yes, Alpha. Anything for Lily, “she said. She turned towards Jenna, “I really am sorry Jenna. So sorry!” Nico pulled Jenna closer as he felt her tense up. He sent a look to Angel who once again took charge.

  “One of my team members will take each of you into a room to ask you some questions privately. Aiden, you’re with Rikki. Xavier is with Trace. Sable, you go with Phoenix. Callie, you will talk with Jaxson. Selene, you’re with me. Let’s get this done,” Angel ordered. Nico looked at her in confusion. “I need you to take Jenna to her house quickly and get whatever Lily loves the most there. A blanket, a teddy bear. Whatever it is. Get it and get right back here.” He nodded in understanding and pulled Jenna out of the room.

  “Come on everyone. Let’s get this done!” Angel ordered. As they all filed out of the room, Angel looked back at Chase. He gave her a quick nod, his face a blank mask. He was keeping a tight hold on his emotions. Typical alpha. She nodded back and took off.

  *************************************

  It was cold and dark when Lily opened her eyes. She was so hungry. She hadn’t had anything to eat since the snack she had before she went to the park. And she was scared, so scared. She missed her mommy so much. Sometimes she closed her eyes just to imagine her mommy was there with her, cuddling her and singing her favorite song. She didn’t know where she was. Or where her friend was. They were supposed to be getting a special flower for her mommy, but that never happened. Now Lily was with some men. Mean scary men. They had thrown her in the back of a van, and she remembered screaming and crying for Mommy and Uncle Chase. Someone had hit her and told her to shut up. Lily had crawled back into the side of the van away from him and had held onto her face where it hurt, whimpering. No one had ever hit her like that before. One man had turned to her and said, “Once we get you to the boss man, you will be his problem. Until then, sit there with your mouth shut unless you want some more of what you just got.” As she thought about her Mommy again and how much she missed her, Lily curled into a ball on the hard floor and cried softly until she finally fell back to sleep.

  Chapter 6

  The interviews took no longer than 30 minutes. Angel had trained her team well, and they knew time was of the essence. They needed to gather as much information as they could quickly and move on. As soon as they were done and everyone was back in the conference room, Angel shut the door behind her, locking them all in. Nico and Jenna were back and were over talking to Chase. Off to the right in a corner she saw the two council enforcers, Storm and Ryker. She had worked with them in the past and really liked them. If she thought they would leave the council, she would hire them in a heartbeat. She didn’t know if they had any other abilities,
but she knew for a fact that they were both telepathic.

  She briefly connected with her team, “Anyone get any suspicious vibes?” She got the “All clear,” response from all of them. “Not clear on my end.” She said. “Selene’s in on it. She told Lily they were looking for a flower for Jenna, then took her and handed her off to some sleaze balls. I can’t prove it, yet, but if pushed hard enough, she will break.” And she would push. She had council enforcers here, and she would use them. She would do whatever it took to get that child back.

  Nico tried to keep a tight hold on his wolf. He wanted to get to Selene and punish her for what she had done to his Lily. But he could not stop the growl that vibrated through his chest. He was going to kill the bitch slowly for putting his little girl in harm’s way. No, he had not even met her yet, but Lily was his just as Jenna was. His mate, his child. Jenna placed a hand on his chest looking up at him. “What is it?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?” He just shook his head and stared straight at Angel, the muscle in his jaw ticking. His control was slipping and he needed help fast. Even the soothing touch of his mate wasn’t working. His growl was getting louder and louder. All eyes in the room were on him. Angel motioned for Jaxson and Phoenix to come over and stand in front of the door saying something softly to them, and then she headed towards him. Standing in front of him she growled right back. Angel was the alpha of their team. His wolf wouldn’t back down to anyone but her. “You will back the fuck off, Nico. You will stand down and let me handle this,” she said in a low voice.

  “My mate, my child,” he growled back. “Trust me,” Angel said. “Stand down and let me handle it.” Angel stared him down still growling low in her throat. It took a while, but he was finally able to reign in his wolf and he stepped back. He nodded his head at Angel letting her know he was once again in control. She punched him in the arm lightly and said, “Now, let me take out the trash so we can get down to business.” She turned towards Storm and Ryker, “Selene is yours, enforcers. Please take her to the council and have her explain her part in all of this.”

  “What? Wait, what the hell are you doing?” Selene yelled as the two enforcers moved towards her. “We know you are the one that helped the kidnappers, Selene,” Angel said. “I don’t have time for your crap, so I am going to let the enforcers take you and get what they can out of you.” As Storm reached for her, Selene yanked away and jumped up over the conference table to try and get to the door. Before she got two feet past the table, Angel grabbed her and swung her around slamming her face first into the table. “You have already pissed me off enough, bitch,” Angel growled. “You do not want to push me further. One more move like that and I’ll let Nico at you. Right now he wants to tear you apart piece by piece. “

  “Look,” Selene said struggling to get up, “I only helped them because I needed the money. I have no idea who they are, but they promised me they wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “And you believed them?” Chase looked over at the enforcers, his wolf visibly pushing towards the surface. “Do what Angel says. And when you are done with her, the council can decide what to do with her. If she comes back here, I will kill her.” Storm and Ryker cuffed Selene with silver handcuffs and headed out the door.

  Once they were gone, Angel ordered everyone else out of the room except her team, Chase, and Jenna. It was time to get busy, and what she was about to do she didn’t want anyone else to see. She trusted Chase and Jenna with her secrets, well as much as she could, but no one else. First, she needed to know about Lily’s father, though. He was the one wild card in the equation. And out of everyone that could have snatched Lily, Angel was leaning towards him. Angel had learned to trust her gut, and her gut was screaming at her that somehow he had found Lily.

  Chapter 7

  Phoenix and Jaxson stood guard by the door to make sure no one came back in as everyone else took a seat at the conference table. Jenna knew it was her turn to talk, and for her daughter she would. She would dredge up the old memories that gave her night terrors some nights and she would share them, for Lily. As Jenna sat with her head bowed thinking about that night, she felt a hand gently stroke her hair. She calmed as she breathed in the scent of her mate. Would he still want her after all of the nasty, vile things that had been done to her? Yes, she had to believe that he would. Fate wouldn’t have given her a mate to just rip him away again. She sat up, squared her shoulders and looked at all of them as she began.

  “About eight years ago my best friend, Toni, mated with a wolf that lived in California. I hadn’t seen her for a year or so after the mating, so I decided to take a vacation and fly out there. I rented a car and stayed in a hotel because I wanted the freedom to go off on my own and do things, too. I didn’t want to have to depend on her.

  We were having so much fun. We went shopping, we swam in the ocean, and we even went up to the mountains to let our wolves run wild.

  One night we decided to do a bar crawl in Oceanside with some of Toni’s friends. We had been up in the mountains that day running for hours, so around midnight I was exhausted. Toni and her friends were still going strong and wanted to stay, so since I had driven my own car, I decided to head back to the hotel to get some rest. What I didn’t know was that Walker and his buddies had been stalking me all week waiting for a chance to snatch me. When I got out to the car, someone came up behind me fast and I felt a hand cover my mouth. Before I could move, someone shoved a needle in my neck and knocked me out.” Jenna paused as she tried to get control over the fear that still gripped her every time she thought about what had happened after that.

  “When I woke up I was in a small room lying on a bed. My clothes had been removed and my arms were chained to a heavy metal headboard above my head. I saw my clothes were thrown on a chair in the corner of the room. I was so groggy. I could hardly move.” Jenna was interrupted by the growling and snarling in the room. “Stop it,” Angel ordered. “Let her get this out.”

  She looked gratefully at Angel and then continued. “I heard the door open and closed my eyes quickly trying to act like I was still out of it. There were three of them. They were arguing about me. One of them was saying that they needed to leave me alone because in a few hours I was to be moved to where all of the other test subjects were being held. But Walker told them that he was going to have fun with me first. They knew I was a shifter because the other two were telling Walker that he needed to wait. That the General would want to pair me with someone of his choice. Something about he liked to match the subjects with whomever he thought would be the best fit with their psychic abilities. He had never found a shifter before, so I was special to him because my child would have both a wolf and psychic talents, hopefully. I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about at the time. They argued for a while, but Walker won.”

  She paused for a moment, tears streaming down her face. “I fought. My hands were tied, but my legs weren’t. I kicked and bit and screamed, but in the end it didn’t matter. He beat me and raped me while his buddies cheered him on, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  I passed out after an hour or so. When I woke up, Walker was gone. They had taken the chains off. They probably figured I wouldn’t have been able to crawl out of there if I had wanted to. They underestimated my wolf. She pushed and pushed at me to get up off that bed and escape. I was able to get up and get dressed. My keys, money and license were still in the front pocket of my jeans. They must not have checked them.

  As I moved towards the door, one of the men came into the room. I didn’t think, I just grabbed the lamp and beat him over the head with it. Once he was down I just kept hitting him and hitting him until I knew he wouldn’t get back up. He was human, so I probably killed him.

  I ran out of the room and down the hall. I stopped and listened, but didn’t hear anyone else in the house. Walker and the other guy must have left for some reason. I got out of the house and ran and ran until I was a good three to four miles away, running through alleys and back y
ards trying to stay as hidden as possible.

  As soon as I thought it was safe, I ran out into the street and hailed a cab. I had no clue where I was, but the driver took me to my hotel. I asked him to wait while I ran in and quickly grabbed my purse and suitcase that thank God was already packed because I was leaving the next day.

  He dropped me off at the airport and I ran in and went thru all of the security. I waited at the gate for hours for my plane to get there. I worried for months that they knew who I was, but after a couple of years I decided they didn’t because they hadn’t come after me.”

  Jenna stopped as Nico got up and moved away from her. He let out a roar as he swung around and put his fist through the wall. Chase didn’t look much better. She could see his fangs and his eyes had gone pure wolf. “Dammit, Jenna,” Chase growled. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before? Didn’t you trust me?”

  “It had nothing to do with me trusting you, Chase. It had everything to do with Lily. Don’t you see? I had to keep her safe! I didn’t tell anyone anything until now. I have no idea who the General is. I don’t know where Walker is. I don’t know what they planned to do with Lily after she was born.

  Chase, Lily can do things. Things no one knows about. She can talk to me in my head. She can’t hear me when I try and talk back and we have to be somewhat close to each other, but she can talk to me. And sometimes she knows things are going to happen before they do. She picked out her favorite green blanket because she said the color was the same as her Daddy’s eyes. Walker has brown eyes. Brown.” Jenna looked over at Nico, at his green eyes. “She said that her Daddy would be coming soon.”