Chapter 21 - Wilf
The pre-training meeting for the new recruits runs over by twenty minutes, which is what happens when you put Connor in a room and someone starts asking questions about how the southern line was run last summer.
I don’t usually come to these things, but as I’m here anyway, it made sense for me to sit in because the recruits will be running their first outer sweeps with me on the ridge next month, and if they're going to be my responsibility on those runs with more rogues causing problems, I’d better know their faces first.
We're in the small office we usually use for tactical meetings at the back of the hall.
Connor is at the head of the long table running through the new wards' layout.
Nick's leaning on the radiator with a coffee, listening more than talking.
Bryan is beside Connor, handing out the printed maps, which he loves because it lets him add a bit of commentary every time.
Ethan's on the other side of the room, arms folded, sizing up the recruits. I think Connor’s earmarking him to head up his own training soon, and Caleb is next to me, nursing his third coffee of the morning, the clearest indicator of how well his new baby is sleeping.
It’s when the meeting begins wrapping up, and Nick and Connor are chatting through some final details with the recruits, that Bryan settles into the chair near and gives me a sideways look that I’ve known him well enough to read as trouble.
"So," Bryan says. "Wilf."
"What," I reply.
"How's that mate of yours doing?"
"She's not my mate, Bryan," I tell him.
"Right, right," Bryan says, easy. "The woman living in your house, then. How's she doing?"
"She's at lunch with Skylar and Fern," I tell him, keeping my voice even.
"He's been at this all week," Connor says, walking over. "Working up to it."
"I’m just being observant," Bryan protests, laughing.
"Wilf," Caleb says. He hasn't spoken since the meeting started, but looks me dead in the eye when he says. "She is your mate."
"She's not," I protest because my wolf would know; it would feel clearer than this.
"I'm not just saying it to make Bryan feel better," he says. "I've seen you two together, and anytime someone even mentions her name, it’s like you switch on. Remember, I didn’t think Dina was my mate, and look where denial got me."
"He's right," Ethan chips in, surprising me. He's looking at me straight. "Don't pretend, Wilf."
I’m about to tell them both to get lost, but I find myself pausing, the denial getting stuck in my throat. Perhaps because they clearly wouldn’t believe it anyway, but Connor gets there first.
"Guys, leave him alone," Connor says and then adds, “he’ll admit it when he’s ready.”
That has the whole group erupt in laughter, and someone claps me on the back. I know they mean well, but my wolf is pacing, not in anger, just straight up confusion. I’m about to say something back when Connor’s phone starts ringing, and he answers it, still laughing, still pleased with himself.
He starts talking, but his laughter dies almost immediately.
"Fern," he says.
The room shifts, and we all feel it at the same time.
Everything about the men in the room shifts.
We can hear her on the other end. Not the words.
The pitch. The pitch you get from someone who has just run somewhere fast and is trying to talk into a phone while still getting her breath.
Connor's listening, and his face goes briefly white and deadly still.
"Slow down, Fern," he says. "Where are you?"
He listens as she explains, tears obvious; the entire room holds its breath.
"How many?" he asks, signaling for us to follow as he heads for the door. "Stay there. Don't go after them. We're coming."
He hangs up. He looks at me.
"Wilf…" he starts.
"Tell me," I say, already knowing where this is going.
"Lara was on the river path," Connor says. "Skylar and Fern heard her use the voice from inside the clinic. By the time they got out front, they saw that three men had her on the ground. They got her into a van. Skylar and Fern are still on the path; they couldn't catch up to them."
"How long?" I ask.
"Minutes," he tells me.
We're in the trucks within seconds. Nick and I go with Connor, and the others follow behind. The hall yard fills with engine noise. We're out of the gate and cutting across town toward the river before my brain is even really in gear; my wolf is controlling everything at this point.
The river park is only three minutes from the hall by truck, especially the way Connor’s driving.
The town is small, and that’s the thing that bothers me the most—how has this happened in our town, our own backyard?
It’s broad daylight. How on earth did they get into town under our noses without someone raising the alarm?
We pull up at the furthest entrance to the river park near the clinic, and I’m out of Connor’s truck and running before he’s even come to a full stop.
Skylar and Fern are on the path and run toward us when they see us coming.
Fern goes straight to Connor, and I can see she’s shaking. Skylar heads for me.
"Wilf," she says. "We were inside, in the back, and we heard her voice from out here. It felt just the same as in the garden. I felt it, and Fern heard it. We knew straight away that it was Lara. We ran out, but they were too far away."
"Where?" I ask, and she walks me back along the path with Nick and Connor right behind me, and I’m vaguely aware that Caleb, Bryan, and Ethan have joined us.
"Here," Skylar says, stopping. "She'd come from the clinic. We watched her walk back along the path after lunch. We thought she was fine. There were people on the path when we left her…it was just a normal day. They must have been waiting."
"How many?" I ask, feeling a tightness that feels an awful lot like fear settle in my chest.
"Three," Fern says, sounding a bit calmer now that Connor’s here, but her voice still trembles. "Three men. I didn't see any faces. They were already getting her into the back of the van by the time we got out here. She was on the ground. She wasn't moving."
"What van?" I ask.
Fern looks at Skylar. Skylar looks at me.
"It looked like a patrol van," Skylar says.
I stop. We all stop and turn at the same time
"A patrol van?" Connor repeats. “One of ours?”
"Yes," Skylar says. "I'm sure of it. We didn’t catch the numbers on the back I didn't catch, but it was one of ours."
"It can't have been one of ours," Connor says, and the calmness in his voice is the sort of calm that Connor gets when he’s actually the opposite of calm. "All my vehicles are accounted for."
"All your vehicles in the lot at headquarters are accounted for," Nick says quietly. "Skylar, you saw the van. You're sure."
"I'm sure," Skylar tells him.
"Alright," Nick says, getting his phone out. "Back to the hall. We work it out there. Wilf…"
"Yeah," I reply.
"We’ll get her back," Nick tells me. "If your wolf needs to run point, just tell me what you need."
I look at him. Nick is my alpha, always in control, and he’s telling me that he will let me run point. He knows I need to run point, and my wolf exhales with relief because I don’t think he could be caged at this point.
"Hall, now," I say. "All of us. Skylar and Fern, you can go back to the clinic or come back with us. Just don't be on your own."
"We’ll come back with you,” Fern says, “we need to help.”
We move quickly, back in the trucks. I hear Connor talking to Thomas, telling him we need every patrol on lookout and checking if their group is almost back.
I hear Thomas yelling instructions over the line, and I know the call has already gone out across town.
They’re treating Lara like one of our own, and I feel that.
We're back at the hall within minutes, and the meeting room is already filling up as Thomas and the others pile in. This is the room we always use for tactical missions, and it’s ready to go almost straight away.
Nick is on the phone coordinating with the guys already out on the border, and Thomas is already splitting the volunteers into groups as quickly as they arrive.
"Connor, we’ve got to find out if it was a patrol van," I say. "We need to find it."
"On it," Connor says, and he's on the radio. "All security units, all security units. Anybody got eyes on the patrol vehicles? I want every single one of them accounted for. Anyone who has not radioed in the last fifteen minutes, radio in now. I want all the numbers."
The radio crackles. Voices come back in. Dylan from the ridge. James from the eastern line. Patrol vehicles four, seven, and nine come in one after the other.
Then a voice I don't recognize comes over the radio.
"This is the depot. Connor, I tried to reach you this morning. Vehicle three's been missing from the lot since last night. It was in for repairs, and we’ve been flat out this morning. We hadn't put it on the boards yet. I'm sorry, man. I should have flagged it harder."
Connor closes his eyes for a half-second and rubs a hand across his face.
"Send the plate to the hall radio," Connor says evenly. "Not your fault, do it now."
"On it," the voice says.
The plate comes through over the radio. Thomas writes it on the map with a marker, big enough for the whole room to see. Tango three eight seven Delta Bravo.
"That's how they got in unnoticed," Nick says, voicing the obvious. "And out unnoticed."
"That's how they got Lara unnoticed," I tell him. "Anyone in this town sees a patrol van and assumes it's pack. They drove straight through our town and took her because everyone trusts those vans."
"They've planned this," Caleb says, from the back of the room. "This isn't a lucky grab-and-go. They came in with a plan."
"And we thought they’d gone quiet," Ethan mutters.
I don't have time for people to sit around and question if we should have done more; we can get to that later. I tune out all the voices and look at the map.
"Right," I say. "Connor. Get that plate out on the radio to every road out of town. Every checkpoint. The pass road, the southern line, the eastern line through the forestry road, every single person in the pack, not just security. I want eyes on that van immediately; it can’t just vanish, and they probably still think they’ve got some cover. "
Connor nods and gets back on the radios.
"Thomas," I say. "Get these volunteers out into trucks ready to roll as soon as we have a direction. We’re going to need to move fast, so I want everyone ready."
"On it," Thomas says, turning to shout instructions across the hall before leading the volunteers out to the lot.
"Wilf," Nick says.
I turn to look at him and try to temper my wolf, who is getting more frustrated as the moments tick by. Organizing is one thing, but I need to do something now.
"Luna and Anya are on their way," he tells me. "Anya hadn't left for the city yet, and they’ll be five minutes. She was just dropping Luna at ours when I called. Anya says she might be able to get a tail on Lara if the magic is strong enough."
"We’ll take her with us," I tell him, and then stare at the radios, “we just need to know which damn direction first.”
He nods, and then he’s back on the phone, presumably with Luna.
I try to take a breath and look back at the map, considering the most likely route.
The pass road goes north over the mountains.
The forest road, the southern road to town toward the valley, and the road that goes east past the river.
The depot was over on the east, which is in the opposite direction of the ridge and hut where I found her, but it does lead back to the old Cheslem stomping grounds, so that would make sense…
I run through a thousand different scenarios, but the pressure under my chest is only growing, and the weight of it is making it hard to concentrate on anything else. It’s been building ever since Connor got that call, since I realized she’d been taken.
She is my mate. I love her.
That's what this is. That’s what my wolf is trying to tell me.
Forget the lottery, the magic left open, or anything Elder Amelia warned me about—I don’t care about any of that.
I just care about Lara. She has been the simplest good thing in my life; nothing is actually complicated about this situation once you strip the lottery and my own baggage out of it.
This isn’t just my wolf leading me; this is the man and the wolf knowing she’s perfect for us.
She might never accept a shifter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love her.
I am about to lose her. I haven't even told her. I was too much of a coward to risk rejection, and now I might lose the chance.
But that isn’t what she needs from me right now, so I push it down. I glance around the room, at everyone who’s working hard to find the patrol van, and try to focus my wolf. Whether she wants me or not, if I love her, the only thing that matters is getting her back.
The radio on the table crackles.
"All units, all units," it’s Dylan on the eastern line.
"Patrol van, plate Tango three eight seven, just sighted on the pass road heading north past the second cattle grid. They seem to have pulled up near the fork toward the high pass. We’re coming down the ridge road, but have a clear line of sight, so going to try and cut across. "
"Pass road, now," I say. "Everyone in the trucks. Nick, can you follow up with Anya when they get here?"
"Yes, go," Nick says.
We are out the door and on the road quicker than I have ever moved before. Connor’s driving while I stay on the radio with Dylan, and we hit the mountain road hard.
"Drive, Connor," I tell him.
"I am driving, Wilf." He says.
"Drive faster," I tell him, and he somehow manages to drive even faster.