Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91636 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I go out to give the good news to the others. I find Tailor sitting on the porch in a rocking chair pretending not to be asleep, or maybe he’s pretending to be awake. I can’t tell. He’s languishing in a state of stasis that evaporates the moment he hears the good news.
“He’s going to be okay. He’s been patched up. Doctor says she’s confident he’ll make a full recovery if we can keep him from getting more shot.”
“That’s good news,” he smiles.
“Yes. Kita will be happy to hear it.”
I turn to Kita, but she’s not there. I could have sworn she was out here with him. I assumed the two of them had gone off to canoodle in some way.
“Where is she?”
“Isn’t she with you?” There’s instant tension in his voice.
“I thought she was with you,” I reply.
Where the hell is Kita?
We can’t find the girl anywhere. I find it hard to believe that she would have run away with Damon so gravely ill, but that seems to be exactly what she’s done. It’s quite literally un-fucking-believable. I do not think I have ever been so angry in my entire life. One of her mates might die and she leaves?
“What the hell? Is that who we made our mate? Someone who wouldn’t stand by us? Who escapes at the first opportunity?”
“Calm down,” Tailor says. “There are a lot of reasons she might be gone. She might not have run away. She might have been captured. We could have been followed. We can’t assume the worst every single time something happens.”
“You’re assuming the worst. You’re just assuming it in a different direction.”
Maybe she’s in the car.
The car is empty aside from a bloodstain on the back seat where she tried to keep him alive. God. She should not have had to do that.
We have not protected her properly.
All the anger I was directing at her is instantly directed at myself. We let this happen to her. It’s not her job to deal with threat after threat. It’s her job to take our cum and bear our pups.
Tailor puts his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”
“If we were followed, why didn’t they come in here and shoot us all?”
“Maybe they just wanted her?”
“She was upset about Damon. She blamed herself,” I say. “She probably ran away out of guilt.”
“I just punished her for that,” Tailor says.
“If anal sex solved emotional problems, they wouldn’t exist at all,” I say. “We need to get on her scent. Now.”
“We can’t leave him behind,” Tailor frowns.
“Yes, we can. He’s safe here. She’s the one who needs to be found.”
Mandy Molloy has been helping us look. At first I’m not sure she was even aware of what she was looking for, but she’s one of those terminally helpful people who cannot help but be useful in terrible times. She’s worked it out now by context, and the way we keep cursing about how we can’t find our mate.
“Never worked on a wolf shifter before,” she says. “That’s what you are, right?”
“Yes.”
“I expected there to be more hair. His physiology was human. You’d never know. At some point I’d love to be able to observe a transformation…”
“Doctor, we need to find our mate.”
“Go find the girl,” Mandy says. “Your boy will be safe enough here for as long as he needs to be.”
“Thank you,” I say. “Truly.”
“Don’t worry. The port brought us a lot of business. Can’t say I’m pleased to hear it burned down. Can’t say anyone here is. You will be rebuilding, won’t you?”
For the first time, I’m realizing that the port meant something to more people than just me and my mates. We were always focused on our own profits and aims. Never really thought deeply about how we were supplying the local economy.
“We’re going to try, ma’am,” I say. “Looks like we’re going to need some firepower to do that, but we’re going to try.”
“We are?” Tailor mutters the words to me as she goes back inside.
“We are. But we get our mate first.”
Tailor and I take our wolf forms and head off after our missing mate. Her scent is easy to find because we are tuned into her in a way we are not tuned into anything else.
This is a simple task.
We run until the sun rises.
We find blood.
Not hers.
Animal.
Then we find the trap site. Silver. Still no blood of hers. Good.
It smells like her here. It’s like she’s right in front of us, but we can’t see her. It’s strange. How can she possibly be here without being here? We maintain our wolf forms. Easier to move. Easier to scent.
“Run away! Run. The fuck. Away!”
She screams suddenly from the darkness. Our ears prick up. She’s here. We’ve found her. But she’s not happy. And she’s warning us. That’s what run the fuck away means.