Chapter 18
· King Soren ·
“She isn’t just an Alpha’s daughter, she is Blackwood Packs heir and…I have a feeling this is more than just a pack war, Rhett was after those ports.” Damian says what I am now thinking.
“We need to find her. She not only will have every single one of my enemies after her, but I bet Rhett is after her too if he learns where she is…” I trail off as I pull the hospital’s number.
The dial tone echoes in my ear, each ring amplifying my anxiety. One ring. Two rings. Three—
“Blackwood Private Hospital, how may I help you?” A calm, professional feminine voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts.
My throat constricts as I force the words out, “This is King Soren, I’m in search of Aubrey Blackwood,” a tremor of urgency seeping into my voice, crumbling my attempts at calm. “Her father, he’s a patient there, I need to speak to him or his Luna now.”
The receptionist doesn’t answer for a second before she abruptly starts laughing like she believes I’m joking. If she were in front of me, I may have just strangled her. “Yeah right, who’s really speaking? Is this you, Jack?”
I growl. “Lady, my patience is hanging on by a damn thread, I told you who it is, it’s King Soren, Aubrey’s fiancé, now put me on with her or Alpha Jefferson’s Luna or Beta,” I tell her and I see Damian glare at me out of the corner of my eye.
The receptionist sighs heavily. “Either put someone else on or answer me. So help me when I get there I will cast you out as a damn rogue!” I snarl and she pauses.
“Alpha Jefferson... he was rushed into emergency surgery not long ago,” she stutters out finally coming to her damn senses.
Cold dread slams into me. “Is he alright?” I manage to ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
I glance over at Damian whose knuckles tighten on the steering wheel.
I peek at the dash where the tracker is blinking but hasn’t moved.
I touch the screen to see she stopped nearly thirty minutes ago and realize the tracker is delayed in some way.
“I…I don’t know,” she admits. “The Beta has been tight-lipped about it all, not letting any information slip. He was fine then something happened and the pack went into lockdown. No one has heard from the Beta or Luna, all I know is the pack is in lockdown, sir.” My mind draws a blank. Maybe he had another heart attack?
“Can you get a message to his Luna for me?”
“I’ll do my best; as I said no one is allowed on that floor. I can try to get the Gamma to give a message to our Beta,” she says.
“Yes, do that. It’s important.” I give her my number, wondering what caused the pack to go into lockdown and Alpha Jefferson to be rushed in for surgery.
“Tell her to call me. It’s urgent and it’s about her daughter.”
“Yes, My King. I’ll pass along the message straight away,” the receptionist replies, her voice a lifeline in the storm of my thoughts right now, I just hope she can get a message to her mother at least.
“Thank you.” I end the call, my fingers moving on autopilot as I stare blankly out the windshield.
For a moment, I sit frozen, the phone still clutched in my hand. The roar of the engine seems deafening in the sudden silence. Each second that passes is another moment Bree could be in danger.
The speedometer creeps higher as we race toward the hospital. Trees blur past the windows, a greenish gray smear against the dark sky. The waning moon is high and my senses are going haywire, that pit returning, becoming bottomless, there is nothing worse than not knowing.
“What did the receptionist say?” Damian finally builds up the courage to break the eerie silence enveloping us.
“Jefferson has been rushed into surgery, the pack is in lockdown, and no one knows what is going on.” My voice is vacant, detached from everything going on.
“Maybe he had another heart attack?” Damian suggests, trying to calm my rattled thoughts.
“Then why would the pack go into lockdown? Something has happened.”
We’re barely halfway to the pack when the shrill ring of my phone cuts through the silence startling me from my thoughts.
For a moment I stare at the screen as it lights up, praying it’s Bree but it’s not.
An unknown number flashes on the screen, and a cold dread washes over me, dousing my frustration in an instant and making me instantly alert to my surroundings. .
My hand trembles as I answer the phone. “Hello?”
“Is this King Soren?” a woman’s voice asks, one so similar to Aubrey’s the resemblance is uncanny.
“Hello? It’s Aubrey’s mother,” the woman’s voice grows higher in pitch and comes through, trembling and frantic.
I know this conversation isn’t going to be what I want to hear.
Some part of me is too scared to hear what she has to say, by her tone, I know it’s bad.
“Hello, King Soren?” she asks again. My mouth goes dry. All the anger of Bree lying and ignoring me evaporates. I keep my voice steady. “Yes, this is King Soren. What’s going on? Is Bree okay?”
Aubrey’s mother immediately breaks down into sobs.
“Where is she?” I demand, my words coming out harsher than intended. I can feel Damian’s eyes on me. “I need to know where she is. If you know you need to tell me!”
The woman quiets to hiccupped sounds before finally regathering herself enough to speak.
“Rhett took her,” she gasps. The moment she speaks the words, it feels like the air has been punched from my lungs.
“He took her! I don’t know where, but he has her.
” Panic is evident in her tone as she continues.
“I couldn’t stop him. He just… he just took her!
And that bitch Luna slashed my husband’s throat and I was knocked out cold. I tried, My King, I tried.”
The world around me seems to tilt on its axis. My vision narrows, and for a moment, all I can hear is the rush of blood in my ears. Rhett. That bastard has Bree. My Bree.
Damian slows the car, waiting for a command, overhearing her words. Suddenly we are at a loss because her tracker says we are going in the right direction but if Rhett has her, where do we go from here?
“What do you mean he took her?” I growl. “How could you let that happen?”
I’m dimly aware of Damian beside me, his face a mask of concern. But I can’t focus on him right now. All I can think about is Bree, alone with that monster who tossed her away like she was garbage and now he has kidnapped her.
“Mrs. Blackwood,” I say, fighting to keep my voice level. “I need you to tell me exactly what happened. When did Rhett take her? Where were they going?”
My mind is a whirlwind, a tornado of thoughts and strategies already spinning out of control.
I’m formulating plans, mapping out every possible scenario, each more cunning and intricate than the last. If it comes to it, I’ll tear this city apart brick by brick, street by street, until there’s nothing left but rubble and dust.
“I tried,” she sobs, her voice as fragile as a porcelain doll on the edge of shattering.
“I promise I tried, but he… he had that vile woman holding my husband. She threatened to kill him, and then she tried!” Her voice breaks, splintering into shards of raw desperation and fear.
The sound rips at my heart, a brutal tug-of-war between empathy and rage.
“I couldn’t stop him. He threatened to finish what he started. Please, just find her!”
A knot twists in my stomach, tight and unyielding. Finish what he started? The implications ignite an icy chill that races down my spine.
“Did he let anything else slip?” I push, struggling to keep my voice steady. “Any hint, any clue as to where he might be taking her?”
“I’m not sure, he knocked me out. I…”
Images of Bree, hurt and afraid, flash through my mind. I grip the phone tighter, knuckles white and I hear the crack of the screen, as the glass breaks under the pressure.
As I wait for her response, the weight of the world presses down on my chest. Bree is with Rhett—my instincts scream that I need to get to her. I glance at Damian, seeing my own worry reflected in his eyes as he speeds up.
“He said he was going to mark her. That she ruined everything. After that it was a blur, Bianca attacked my husband, then Rhett knocked me out. I woke up to the Beta, trying to stop my husband from bleeding out and they were gone. Two staff members were killed as they escaped. Our Beta locked the pack down. There has been no trace of them.”
“Fuck,” I curse.
“All I know is they are not here on pack territory, our pack is loyal. Even if he succeeded in killing us, they would have hunted him. I know he isn’t in the pack anywhere, no one would hide him, we would have found him by now.
” she tells me. “Please, Soren. I know she lied, but you need to find her.”
“I’ll find her, I promise,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady despite the fear and anger swirling inside me. “We’re already on our way, but you need to think, I need some help here, did he mention anything at all besides marking her.”
“He was talking about the ports, I can’t remember, something with the ports.”
Damian stops at the next intersection, blocking traffic behind us as he waits to hear which direction I need him to go in.
There is no point going to her mother, Aubrey isn’t there and her mother seems certain he isn’t in their pack limits or the city there.
“Head to Salt City,” I tell Damian and he pulls it up in the GPS.
“Please, don’t hurt her!” Mrs. Blackwood’s desperate plea cuts through the air, leaving me momentarily stunned.
My jaw clenches, a mixture of disbelief and indignation surging through me. “Mrs. Blackwood, I would never—” I start, the words catch in my throat, knowing the council put a bounty out for her. She must think that was me, but it was only to catch her—if someone crossed her not to harm her.
“I swear to you, I’ll do everything in my power to keep Bree safe. I would never hurt her. That is not something you ever have to worry about. I love your daughter, Mrs. Blackwood, I just want her home.”
Her mother sighs heavily into the phone, a weariness in her voice I haven’t heard before. “I saw the reports. I heard what the council said, and Rhett told us you put a bounty out on her. He showed us the evidence.”
I clench my jaw, fighting the urge to snap back. “I know, and that wasn’t me,” I say, keeping my tone as calm as I can. “That was the council, hoping to find her location. But I am not the council; I just want her back.”
I hear her mother exhale again, a slight shudder in the sound that twists something in my chest. “And what will happen when you get her back?” she asks quietly.
My throat tightens, and I swallow hard. I can’t answer that.
I have no clue. I don’t know if I can forgive her, not after what I’ve been through, but the thought of someone else hurting her because of her connection to me terrifies me.
It’s a strange, bitter fear, one that lingers in the pit of my stomach.
All I know is that she’s out there, and the longer I let myself imagine what could happen to her, the more it feels like something is clawing at my insides.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I murmur, then hang up before her mother can respond.
I can’t make promises I might not keep, can’t pretend I know what I’ll do when I finally see her.
All I have is a burning need to know that she’s safe…
and a darker urge, coiled and waiting, that might be impossible to control when I finally face her.
But I know one thing for sure, and that is I won’t hurt her, not the way her mother is thinking, preferably not at all.
The phone call leaves a heavy silence in the car, thick with things unsaid. I glance at Damian beside me, his gaze fixed ahead, his jaw set in that implacable way of his. I know he’s as anxious as I am, though he hides it well.
“Rhett’s Pack?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper as if saying it too loudly will make it true.
The idea gnaws at me, and I chew my lip, wondering if Rhett would really be that bold—or that stupid.
And yet, it’s the only place I can think of unless he’s hiding her down by the docks, where prying eyes and curious minds disappear into the fog.
Damian nods grimly, his face hardening. Without a word, he presses down on the accelerator, the car lurching forward as the engine growls.
The world outside the windows blurs, the night pressing in around us, dark and unforgiving.
Streetlights flicker past, their harsh glow casting fleeting shadows across Damian’s face, and I close my eyes for a moment, letting the darkness settle over me.
A low, familiar urge simmers just below my skin, hot and restless.
I fight it back, the Lycan side of me stirring, wanting out, wanting blood.
My fingers curl into fists, knuckles white as I grip the seat, and I open my eyes again, focusing on the road ahead.
The tension twists tighter, like a wire pulled to the edge of snapping.
Goddess help Rhett if he’s laid a finger on her.
The car speeds down the empty road, the city lights thinning as we approach the outskirts, closer to Rhett’s territory.
Every mile brings us nearer, each passing second a reminder that I’m running out of time.
And as we drive, my heart drums a relentless beat against my ribs, each thud pulsing with the same message: Find her. Protect her.