19. Morgan #2
“To the clearing we marked this morning.” Birch steps back but keeps his knife in view. “Play nice and you might get out of this alive.”
Is it my imagination, or did he purposefully avoid looking at me when he said that?
Again, he’s met with silence.
After Beth and Flint are dragged out of the van, Birch’s gaze lands on me, lingering on my unbound hands. “Restrain him,” he orders as they reach for me next.
“Why?” the guy next to him asks, scowling. “It’s not like he’s a threat.”
“No.” Birch smiles, and my stomach drops at the coldness of it. “But it’ll kill Lynx to see him like that.”
I don’t get the silver-coated handcuffs, but they find rope from somewhere and bind my wrists in front of me.
Birch walks over to me, dipping his head to sniff my neck. I stumble back to get away, but there’s a solid wall of muscle at my back, stopping me. “I see things have changed since we left you in the forest.”
The reminder of what they did to me sends ice through my veins.
I’d managed to block it from my mind until now, but as I watch big, nasty fangs slide out from his jaw, the memories flood back.
My heart thuds, each breath drawn harder than the last as Birch stares at my neck, tongue sliding over those teeth in a way that makes my skin crawl.
He reaches up and traces the base of my throat.
Where they bit me.
I was expecting it to scar badly, but Corey’s shifter blood has healed them to almost nothing.
Birch presses down with his thumb, to the point that it hurts. “I bet it killed him to see my mark on you. To smell my scent.”
He ducks his head again.
It takes a second to realise the wet sensation is Birch licking me.
“Fuck off,” I hiss, trying to step back but there’s nowhere to go. I shove my bound hands at his chest, but he laughs, warm breath hitting my throat, the rest of him not moving an inch.
Then he bites down.
Hard.
Rage-filled roars echo around me, but I’m lost to the fucking terror of Birch’s fangs sinking into my skin.
It’s over and done before the pain fully registers and he steps back, licking my blood off his now human-looking teeth. “There,” he says, wiping his mouth and sporting a smug grin. “That should piss him off enough to react.”
The other guy laughs. “You’re a sick fuck.” There’s admiration in his tone, and it’s horribly familiar.
He was there that night too.
It takes everything I have in me to stay upright, to not let the panic take hold. I am so fucking scared right now.
Terrified.
And I’ve never felt so helpless.
Not since the last time the FBs had me in a fucking forest. What the hell did I do to deserve this? Why me?
Pretty sure I’ve answered these questions once already, but I cling to the anger building inside me, grab a hold of it tight, because it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
Birch eventually turns away and saunters off, like he hasn’t a fucking care in the world. The guy behind me shoves me forward.
“Walk,” he grunts, shoving me again, so hard this time, I stumble into Flint.
He takes my weight easily, righting me as best he can. “You okay?” He tilts my head gently as we start to walk. It’s awkward but I don’t stop him.
“It’s not deep,” he assures me. “Just a graze. Not enough to turn you.”
My steps falter again as his words register.
Fucking hell.
I hadn’t even considered that.
“You’re sure?” I grip his arm, suddenly desperate to have him say it again. My stomach rolls at the thought of Birch making me anything like him.
“Yes.” Flint looks me dead in the eyes. “I’m sure.”
We walk in silence after that, only Mal’s pained grunts breaking it every so often.
The dirt track we’re on has fresh tyre tracks on it.
Apparently it’s wide enough for a vehicle, but only just. The clearing we eventually come to is about thirty feet across, surrounded by trees on all sides except ours.
“On your knees.”
We don’t get chance to even register the command before we’re shoved from behind.
Mal falls forward onto his arm, the scream that tears out of him so awful that when he turns to the side and throws up, I almost join him.
“Was that fucking necessary?” Beth snaps, as Flint does his best to keep Mal upright when he passes out from the pain.
No one answers her, and it’s like I can feel the anger rolling off her. There’s a heaviness to the air around us and I half expect claws and fangs when I look at her, but instead her face is screwed up like she’s fighting against something I can’t see.
“Beth?”
Her eyes snap to mine. “M’okay,” she grits out. “I want to shift and tear his fucking face off.” She lifts her shackled wrists. “But I can’t.”
Oh.
The guys behind us laugh. “We’d swat you like a fly.”
She looks over her shoulder and sneers. “Why don’t you take these off and find out?”
LYNX
“Fuck!” I roar the word, hands gripping my hair as I fight the urge to shift in the middle of the road.
The scent of blood surrounds us.
It’s on the road, on the discarded bikes half-hidden in the trees.
Fucking everywhere.
Beth’s, Mal’s, Flint’s.
My fucking pack.
But not Morgan’s, thank the Goddess. I don’t know if Corey’s blood is still helping him heal and I’d rather not fucking find out.
Callum snarls as he bends to inspect the damage to Flint’s Ducati. “It’s like they didn’t even try to disguise their scent.” He stands and kicks the dirt, thinly veiled anger in every line of his body.
Blood isn’t the only thing we could smell from a fucking mile away. The stench of Feral Beasts crawls over the entire area.
“Why?” I turn to Callum, arms out wide. “Why did they take all four of them, and how the fuck did they know they were headed this way?”
Callum scowls. “No fucking clue. They had to have been waiting for them.” He turns in a circle, gesturing at the road. This stretch is long and straight. There’s no way the FBs managed to come up behind without anyone noticing. “They’d have called it in the second they saw them.”
It doesn’t add up.
“Maybe they’ve been watching us?” Jet joins us at the side of the road. “We watch them often enough.”
“But they wouldn’t know where Flint and the others were heading. There are about six different routes they could’ve taken once they left the compound. How did they fucking know?”
The four shifters from the Trenton have been quiet until now, keeping their distance while the three of us inspect the scene. But one of them beckons us over.
It’s one of the betas that Beth knows.
“We had a visit from the local hunter group yesterday,” she says, glancing at the mangled bikes behind us. “It was a routine check, same group we always get. You know how it goes.”
I nod, because I do.
But icy dread trickles down my spine.
“We had to tell them that we were expecting guests from another pack for an overnight stay in case they did a follow up visit.” She meets my eyes. “We told them we were expecting your pack.”
We’re all silent as that bit of news sinks in.
“No.” Jet shakes his head. “There’s no way the FBs are working with hunters.” He paces in front of us. “They had one of their pack put to fucking death three months ago because he broke hunter rules. I know they’re a bunch of cunts, but they hate the hunters as much as we do. Probably more.”
He’s right.
Everything he said is true, and yet . . .
“How else would they know to wait on this stretch of road?”
Jet throws his hands in the air. “I don’t fucking know. But does it even matter right now? They have our people, and we need to get them back.”
I share a look with Callum, because once again Jet’s right.
“No, it doesn’t matter.” The only thing that matters is finding out where they took them.
I walk over to Morgan’s Dyna, rage building inside me all over again.
She was a beauty this morning when they left the compound.
Now it looks as though someone took a hammer to her.
I close my eyes, searching for control that’s really fucking hard to find right now.
“Cal,” I grind out, hands curling into fists. “Get someone to collect their bikes.”
He pulls out his phone and makes a call.
Jet walks over to stand beside me. “How the fuck do we track them?” He rolls his shoulders, and I wonder how hard it is for him to remain human right now.
The only thing stopping me from giving in to the growing pull inside is the fact we need to communicate with each other. And that’s easier if we can speak.
We’re surrounded by scents, but they all stop about twenty feet down the road. There’s no way we can track a car or van. I glance at the Trenton pack beta. “You found all their phones, right?”
She nods and shrugs out of the small rucksack on her back. “Here,” she says, handing me four battered-looking phones.
Jet retrieves them and walks them over to me, frowning.
“What?”
Handing me the first two phones, he says, “These are Mal’s and Flint’s.”
I can’t help but growl at the blood spattered all over them. My teeth ache and my fingers throb, the need to shift harder and harder to contain.
He holds up another, the screen saver showing Morgan and Ash laughing at each other with a backdrop of a sandy beach behind them.
I want to fucking break something.
“Morgan’s, obviously .” He pauses. “And then there’s this one.”
I don’t recognise the one he’s left holding.
Jet turns it over, then looks up at me. “Beth’s phone has this crazy-patterned skull design on it.” The one he’s holding has a plain dark purple case. “You think she switched them somehow?”
“Maybe?” It’s not the craziest idea, especially considering what we’ve been through over the last few years. “Or they did.”
“You think Birch is clever enough to set a trap for us?” Jet looks unconvinced.
“They managed to grab our people straight off the fucking road. I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
“What’s going on?” Callum glances between the two of us, then at the phone Jet’s holding.
“Beth’s phone is missing.”
“You tracked it?”
“Was just about to.” I pull out my phone and show them the screen.
“That’s the middle of the fucking forest.” Jet starts pacing again, agitated. “There’s no way it got there on its own.”
“No.” Either Beth managed to hide it, or Birch took it on purpose.
We all stare at the little dot on my screen as it starts to move slowly. “There are three possibilities. Either some random found it and stole it. Beth has it. Or Birch does.”
Callum cocks his head. “Or Beth has it and Birch knows .”
“Fuck’s sake.” Jet fists his hair, frustration rolling off him as he stalks back and forth.
It’s heavy in the air, crawling under my skin, and I want nothing more than to let loose and scream at the fucking unfairness of it all.
But one of us needs to remain calm, and as alpha and president, that fucker is me.
“So, it’s either a trap or a rescue mission.
” I wait for Jet to come to a stop. “But like you said.” I meet his eyes. “It doesn’t fucking matter.”
His lips curl into a feral smile. “Because we’re going either way?”
I grin back, letting a little of the rage out. It feels good . “We are.”
The Trenton pack agree to wait with the damaged bikes.
They offered to come with us, but this is our fight.
I can’t involve them without their alpha’s consent, and she regretfully declined.
I don’t like it, but I can’t blame her. The Feral Beasts aren’t someone you want to piss off if you can help it.
“Lynx.” Callum grabs my arm before I can get on my bike. “We should wait for backup. We have no idea how many FBs are waiting for us.”
He’s right.
They’re on their way, but I can’t wait. My skin itches with the need to get to Morgan and the others. It’s all I can do not to shrug Callum off and fucking leave without him. “I just need to see that they’re alive.”
Callum’s grip tightens on my arm. “You swear not to do anything until the others get here?”
That’s a promise I can’t keep, and he knows it. But I won’t lie either. “Proof of life,” I offer instead. “That’s all I need.”
Cal swears under his breath but lets me go.
I lead us out, adrenalin flooding my body, because trap or not, there’s only one way this is ending.