21. Sol
CHAPTER 21
Sol
I woke up the next morning to the text from Orion, and I would have called him back immediately. But Guin and I had a lot to do in order to get Vanderbilt Holdings turned over to us. We drove into Helena to make an appearance at headquarters in order to officially gain the controlling share of the company. The shareholders had agreed to a 51 percent share split 70/30 between Guin and myself. Guin would have the largest chunk, with the option for the split to be more equal as I gained more experience. It was a step in the right direction, one that settled in my gut with a sense of rightness that I hadn’t known since Father had been alive.
Now on the drive home, I stared at Orion’s text message again. “We need to talk.”
I wanted to, desperately. But a small lurch churned in my gut. What if he had bad news? What if he didn’t want me anymore?
“Oh, stop pouting and call him already,” Guin said. “Your anxiety is spilling over the family bonds and driving me mad.”
I sighed and worried my bottom lip. “What if he rejects me permanently?”
“He can’t,” she said. “You know he can’t. You can still feel him, right?”
I nodded. “But that’s the transition magic. He said his power would be in me for a while. It’s only been a week.”
Guin rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’re more stubborn than a mule, you know that? It’s been days since you last saw him. Your fox is suffering. If you miss him, if you want him back, call him and tell him.”
“I thought you said mating was ridiculous, that it only ends badly.”
“It does,” she said. “But it’s too late for you.” Guin nodded toward my phone on my lap. “Put us both out of our misery and call him. It might be good news. The pack might want you.”
“If I join the pack, will you?” The hope in my tone spread between us like melted chocolate, sweet and sticky. I wanted my sister close. I wanted her to stay and run with me in the woods during the next moon.
“ When you join the pack, I’ll consider it.” She let out a sarcastic laugh. “As long as Kodiak keeps all that alpha energy to himself. I’m already dominant enough. I don’t need some hulking wolf thinking he can tell me what to do.”
I didn’t know Kodiak very well; I’d only met him that one time. But it was enough for me to recognize strength and power seeped out of his pores. He demanded obedience; it was the foundation on which the pack rested. Guin bowed to no man, not since our father had died. The thought of Guin and Kodiak in the same room made me want to roast popcorn and pull up a chair to see who would come out on top.
We pulled up to a stoplight outside of town and I started to ask if she thought any of our siblings would ever go through a transition now that the two of us had. But the words died on my lips when a black SUV pulled up behind us and another perpendicular in front of us. My heart pulsed, my fox recognizing the trap for what it was. We couldn’t move. We couldn’t get out of this.
Tension boiled through me, sending rancid fear careening in my blood as the doors opened and heavy black boots hit the ground. Dread lined my veins, and now that I was a shifter, I smelled the rotting flesh hanging off their bones even through the cars. This was the Scorpions, and when my gaze connected with Marx through the windshield, he pulled his lips back into a toothy grin that sent shivers down my spine.
“Shit,” Guin said, shifting the gear into reverse. But it was too late. The Scorpions had closed in on us on either side, and Marx came to stand in front of the SUV, putting his hands on the hood.
“Isolde,” he growled, his eyes a deep shade of violet. “Did you think you could run from me? Such a naughty girl.”
My lungs sank into my stomach, my nerves lighting with the first signs of adrenaline. I wouldn’t be taken by him, at least not without a fight.
Orion! Help!
We were too far away from each other for telepathic communication, and I wished I had called him back when he first texted. I wished he had sealed the mating bond when we had the chance. Would he even know something was wrong? That Marx had come for me? My canines extended and my fox took over, enhancing my senses. I heard at least four guys behind us, and another three still in the cars. We were extremely outnumbered.
I hovered over Orion’s name on my phone and pressed call, hoping he’d answer soon enough for me to get out a plea.
“Come now, darling,” Marx said, tilting his head to the side. “Don’t make a ruckus. This will go much easier for you if you give in.”
“Like hell,” I said with a snarl, pushing my claws out.
“Oh, dear.” He tsked. “I was afraid of that.”
Orion didn’t answer, and the deep sultry tones of his voicemail message echoed over speaker as glass exploded on my right, one of Marx’s vampire cronies punching the window. When he reached inside to grab me, I scratched at his skin, grappling with the force of a man who was clearly much stronger.
“Get off me!” I shouted, biting and snarling at whatever I could, but it didn’t matter. “Orion, help! The Scorpions—” I didn’t get the rest out. He grabbed the back of my neck and slammed my head forward into the dash, and despite the fact that being a shifter should have made me more resilient to injuries, my vision blurred from the impact.
“Sol!” Guin’s panicked cry faded into the background, and I thought I heard a gunshot, but after that, the world turned fuzzy.
I fought against unconsciousness, knowing I needed to stay awake, but my brain simply wouldn’t comply. The world whizzed around me, hazy and confusing, and as a strong pair of arms lifted me into their embrace, I prayed Orion would get my message and find us, that this wouldn’t end the way I feared.
* * *
Focus, my fox hissed. Wake up.
I clenched my eyes and winced against the aching burn cascading between my temples. When I opened them again, I had a long piece of fabric tied around my mouth, attached at the back of my head. My arms were bound behind my back and my ankles were roped together. I sat opposite my sister in the back of an SUV, and when my vision sharpened enough, I took a deep inhale of surprise at the blood caking the side of her face. She had a black eye and a bruised cheek, but the way her amber eyes glared at me told me she was more pissed than anything else. Shifters were stronger than humans and able to heal faster, but this far out from the next full moon, our fox selves were too weak to do much.
I started to panic, yanking at the restraints, kicking my legs to get free. I could only pray that Orion got my message, that he could understand what was happening through the screams.
“Stop that,” came a voice from the back seat, a set of violet eyes staring down at me as a Scorpion smiled with long pointy fangs.
I didn’t know much about vampires. Orion hadn’t explained more than the fact that they were our natural enemies and our blood was an aphrodisiac for them. Iron could wound them, as could a stake through the heart. But it wasn’t like there were giant chunks of wood littering the back of the vehicle.
Guin’s wide-eyed gaze told me to stay put, to play this out before doing anything rash, but the fox inside me squirmed with the thought of doing nothing. No, we had to get out, we had to figure out a way to stop this before it escalated into something that couldn’t be undone.
Orion, I tried to call. Please, Orion. Find me.
When I focused hard enough on the thread tying us together, I sensed his apprehension and the thick cloud of confusion. Had he gotten my message? Could he feel how scared I was? Or had he firmly forgotten me, once and for all?
Impossible, the fox said .
He had to know something terrible had happened. Then that confusion escalated into full-blown fury and panic, the scalding rage of a wolf that had discovered his mate had been abducted, and I sighed in relief.
He’ll come for us . He’ll come. He’ll come.
For the length of the ride, I stared at my sister, memorizing the familiar features of her face and finding comfort in how similar we actually were. We both looked like our father, the same ginger hair, the same green eyes. It shouldn’t have surprised me that she’d turned out to be a shifter, too, but my world had gone from normal to unbelievable so quickly that I nearly had whiplash. Add in an abduction by the vampire enemies of my one true mate, and I’d swear I was living in a nightmare.
Wake up. Just wake up.
That never happened, and when the SUV came to a stop what felt like a decade later, I braced myself for the worst. The Scorpions got out of the vehicle and two of them circled around to open the back, wrapping their cold, disgusting fingers around my arm to haul me out. They did the same to my sister before I shifted my focus to the enormous building in front of me. At six stories tall and longer than a football field, it looked like it had once been an asylum or an orphanage.
The brick facade had been painted black and most of the windows had dark drapery behind them, turning it into a Gothic haunted house. I swallowed down the terror bubbling up the back of my throat, struggling against my handler when I saw Marx get out of the other SUV and walk closer.
“Now, now, my love,” he said, coming close enough to brush a piece of hair behind my ear. I recoiled at his touch, the scent of decaying flesh and old blood permeating off his breath. “If you cooperate, nothing will happen to you or your sister.”
I tried to scream, to mumble something along the lines of Let me go, but the appalling rag was still shoved in my mouth and all that came out was a series of muffled grunts and groans.
“Oh, you are a fighter.” Marx threw his salt-and-pepper hair back to let out a loud, dark laugh, clapping as if that was the best thing he’d ever seen. “That’s exactly how I like them. I want to hear you struggle.”
“There’s something else,” said the guy holding my arm. “She smells different…from how she did a few weeks ago.”
“Really?” Marx raised his eyebrows as he took a step closer and grabbed a piece of my hair, rubbing it between his fingers before leaning in to draw a long inhale. “Oh, how delicious. Are you a shifter, little thing?”
I took slow, measured breaths as I stared him down, biting down on the rag in my mouth to keep from screaming again. My canines dug into the fabric, elongated and penetrating, and I begged for them to be sharp enough to tear it. But I wasn’t a wolf, and my tiny fox teeth barely made a dent.
“Fascinating.” Marx turned his attention to Guin, who shot daggers through him with her amber gaze. “What about you, huh? The infamous Guinevere Vanderbilt.” He took a few steps toward her and leaned down to run his nose over her forehead. “Whew! You both reek of animal. You should be in a zoo.”
Funny for him to say . He smelled like a corpse, like he’d be king of the cemetery. And before this was over, I planned to make sure that was a reality.
“Take them inside,” Marx said. “Make sure they see our guest.”
Guest? I didn’t like the way he said that word, and after my handler forced me up the stairs and into the foyer of the building, I gasped at the sight of my eldest brother standing among the gathered crowd.
Percy had his arms crossed with one elbow bent up toward his face, a finger over his lips as he watched these vampire thugs force us inside. I struggled against the Scorpion’s hold, determined to get to my brother and claw his fucking eyes out.
“How could you!” I screamed around the gag, but the words were unintelligible, and Percy only winced and shook his head.
Guin, on the other hand, went stoically still at the sight, her fiery amber eyes drilling holes into him. I seethed with hatred, wondering why he would do this to his own blood. We were family. Vanderbilts. Did that mean nothing to him?
As I passed him, I realized that something was different about him. He didn’t smell like a human, he didn’t have the same glint to his blue eyes or the same blush in his cheeks. His skin had turned into a pale, translucent gray and his eyes were more black than indigo.
No. No, Percy. What did they do to you? And what about your wife?
Before I could question that further, the Scorpions put a hood over my head and dragged me into another room.