Chapter Seven #2
We were of similar age, had matching dispositions, and I trusted him with my life. He was my cousin, but also the closest I’d ever let myself get to a confidant.
“Check every inch of pavement. Twice.”
“You got it,” he said, halfway out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him.
I leaned back with a prolonged exhale. The Devereux pack was exceptional in size, both pertaining to blood relatives and strangers who’d joined our ranks once they’d proved themselves worthy.
I had an ally in every single corner, street, and back alley of our region, even a few dotted around in others. How had no one seen her?
We had footage of the thugs taking her, but no faces.
They were blurred out, the tapes left as a taunt most likely.
They’d carried her into the back of an unmarked van parked outside Dylan’s house.
I’d watched him run after them, tears of fury branding his cheeks, screaming at the top of his lungs, but his legs had given out.
That was where the trail had gone cold. We hadn’t even found the van.
The mastermind was no amateur. They were meticulous.
They’d hatched their plan right down to the finest details.
I supposed if they had the patience to linger for two years, they also had the time to ensure their scheme was entirely bulletproof.
That was what bothered me most. They had the upper hand, and they would know it.
I just needed one of them to make a mistake.
An alert pinged on my phone. I sat up, swiping the screen and typing in the code. It would be Dylan treading a hole in the carpet again, but I had to be sure.
The image popped up, and for a beat it was a view of the room and nothing else, but he drifted into view two seconds later. His fingers were cradled to his chest, picking the nail beds as he trekked from one side of the room to the other.
My jaw clenched.
I primed my finger to close the app, but paused at the realization he was muttering to himself. “No, no, no,” he chanted. “Not now. Please, not—why now?”
My chair rolled out from under me as I stood, intent on marching over to his room and evaluating his well-being. He’d clearly worked himself into a state of delirium and required the doctor.
However, as I rounded my desk, he spoke again.
“Stupid fucking heat. Stupid omega body. Please, not now.”
Ah.
I returned to my chair, taking another glance at him.
He was in heat, it was obvious—the familiar flush on his skin, the dilation of his pupils.
Fuck. That was all I needed. A knot-hungry omega stinking up the place with pheromones.
By my calculations, and from what he’d told me, it would be his third heat.
The first with me, the second came six months after our daughter was born, and now this one.
He should’ve had another, but his body clearly hadn’t thought him fit to cope with it.
He wasn’t now either, but something had triggered it.
I’d send a beta guard to supply him with whatever he needed—water, food, nesting materials—but I’d leave him be. It would last longer without an Alpha’s assistance, though it wouldn’t be as debilitating as his first. He could endure it alone.
I set my phone on the desk. He hadn’t requested an audience.
Or help.
Twenty-eight more hours of nothing. If my concentration was shot to shit before, it was in the gutter now. I was losing composure, tolerance, and everyone was fucking incompetent.
“Where the fuck is she?!” I slammed my fist against the wall, the pain offering a momentary reprieve.
I’d resorted to having betas tortured from every pack, wastrels who wouldn’t be missed, but none of them would talk.
She wasn’t dead, Dylan would sense it—they shared a pack bond—but that didn’t mean she was unharmed or she’d remain alive after how much goddamn time we’d wasted.
“I don’t know,” Raegan said, her voice tinged with sympathy.
I didn’t need sympathy. I needed to find my daughter and tear out the throats of whoever was responsible.
“We will find her, but we can’t be careless.
The Grimshaw lackey succumbed to your brother’s antics.
This is what they’ll want—you breaking the treaty so they don’t have to.
It’ll cause an uproar that you don’t need right now. ”
“I don’t give a shit,” I snarled, my usual restraint cracking. “Kill them all. Carve our symbol into their skulls and dump their heads on their leaders’ doorsteps.”
“No. I won’t be doing that.”
I faced her, adjusting to my full height. “You’ll do as I say.”
She squared her shoulders, meeting my gaze. “Not if it will ruin you.”
I gritted my teeth, my nostrils flaring with my rabid huffs of breath as my body howled at me to lunge. Raegan didn’t budge, and I broke eye contact with a growl.
She was right. I hadn’t wanted the packs involved, and causing all-out civil war by breaking the treaty wouldn’t be ideal.
An eye for an eye, that was the code. No killing one another unless we were content with the consequences.
Torture could be negotiated; we were all aware of what life we were born into.
Fighting and disagreements were inevitable.
Scrapes and bruises were considered a warning, and if you were stupid enough to get caught, then you deserved to take the punishment.
But not a life. That had to be paid back in kind.
The trouble was, one eye wasn’t typically enough.
It would escalate, on and on until entire packs were wiped out because of a ridiculous dispute.
They had pride, and no one would stand by and let one of their own take the fall, even if they’d started it.
If I shipped those betas back to their leaders dead, it wouldn’t matter the cause.
They’d be within their rights to kill mine in return, and it would create a rift.
This shitshow would be infinitely worse, and I’d be playing right into the culprits’ hands.
I released a withered sigh.
On my next inhale, my cold, reserved expression was set back in place.
“Could you make it look like an accident?”
Raegan nodded. “Luckily your brother has a new fixation. A serum that causes pain without leaving a visible mark. The beta was old, and had a long history of alcohol abuse. It could be organ failure. It probably actually was organ failure.”
I cursed my brother internally. “He gets too excited.”
“In his defence, this is the first time he’s done it by accident,” she offered, which was true. “He’s mortified on your behalf and said he’d take the rap if need be.”
“Noble of him,” I scoffed. “Leave the others, for now. Don’t release them until we find Minseo, but treat their injuries. Feed them. It was a misunderstanding. We don’t want them running back to their packs, letting them know we’re occupied.”
“Understood. We kept it vague for that reason, nothing to imply the child we’re searching for is yours or we had a breach of security, but .
. .” She paused. “You won’t be able to keep this a secret forever, Caine.
The other elites will find out you have a daughter.
That’s inevitable, whether it’s now or once we find her. ”
She was observant.
Keeping this off the record wasn’t only to curb the shit we’d receive for being so easily outwitted. I didn’t want the packs knowing because it meant I’d have no choice but to claim her as my own. And that hadn’t been on my agenda. “I know.”
She dipped her head once in understanding, saying no more on the topic. “I’ll sort out the Grimshaw lackey. You should . . . rest. Even if it’s only for a few hours.”
“She could be dead in a few hours.”
“Caine—”
“We’re done here,” I cut off her fretting and returned to my desk. Raegan lingered, but only long enough to bow, before leaving to carry out her task.
My phone dinged.
I ignored it.
It dinged again.
There it was. The real reason for my waning focus. Twenty-eight hours of ding, ding, fucking ding. I had a mind to send one of my guards in to tie him to the bed and shove a vibrator in his hole to prevent him wandering around the room.
My cock twitched at the vision.
I could switch off my phone, put it on silent, but it would be the one instance he’d injure himself or a chancer would take advantage of him in his vulnerable state, and I’d be unaware.
I trusted my staff, and I’d made sure no Alphas would come to the house, but with my senses unravelled, I had to be sure. I couldn’t risk another violation.
I picked up my phone, scanning the footage.
He stormed back and forth, gathering what little clothes he’d brought with him and spare blankets from the wardrobe to build a nest. It was as atrocious as his first one.
If not worse. He appeared more coherent this time, able to get up and wander around even this far into his cycle.
He was panicking, that much was obvious, but he had no visible injuries, nor was he actively trying to hurt himself, so I put my phone down and tried to work.
I lasted three hours.
The scent. How the hell had it travelled this far? We were in separate wings of the house, but his pheromones were in my office, seeping into every corner of the room. It was maddening, distracting. My cock hadn’t flagged and my balls ached.
My phone dinged again.
“Sit fucking still, you little shit,” I gritted through my bared teeth as I snatched up the device, my fingers beating down on the keypad and missing the buttons twice.
I frowned at the sight that greeted me.
He was kneeling on his bed, a black shirt clutched to his nose as his hips ground against the piled-up duvets and pillows, whimpering softly. My shirt.
Where the fuck had he got that from?
Or who?