Chapter 21 Theodore
Theodore
The tent strapped to Rory’s back caught another low branch, jerking him backwards with a sharp thwack. He stumbled, swore creatively, and kept walking.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry the tent?” I asked for the second time.
Rory shot me a look that could have stripped paint. “Just because I’m shorter than you doesn’t mean that I’m weaker.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh yeah?”
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “What, you think you can take me?”
Fighting my own grin, I shot him a sensual wink. “In a fight?”
Rory waggled his eyebrows at me in the most ridiculously adorable way that made me have to resist the urge to pin him against the nearest tree and kiss him senseless.
But there was no time for forest make-out sessions. We were on a reconnaissance mission.
Earlier, I’d hovered in the corner of the cottage living room whilst Isla stood in the middle, listening to Rory fill her in.
I’d probed gently into her thoughts—which seemed innocent enough.
She didn’t try to block me, and I caught nothing that suggested she’d go running straight to Edina with tales of underground operations and shifters being tortured.
She’d been extremely confused—then horrified. Disturbed, even. When Callum’s name was mentioned, she’d visibly flinched. She promised not to tell anyone anything yet, including her father. It wasn’t hard to convince her to babysit Dev for us. Until Freddy bit her. Then she was less keen.
Still, the decision to involve her sat wrong in my gut.
Every police instinct I possessed screamed that bringing more pack members into this mess was asking for trouble.
But I’d relented, not able to bear the thought of Rory believing I didn’t trust his judgement.
Not when he’d been so certain involving his cousin was the best idea.
The cousin he hasn’t seen in five years. I pushed the thought from my mind. It was done now. Dev had agreed to go with Isla to go hide at the BnB, where Isla would find a radiator to cuff him to.
Our connection hummed with his contentment as we walked. At least one of us felt confident about our choices.
“How much further?” Rory asked, pausing to untangle himself from another aggressive branch.
I checked the GPS on my phone. “About half a mile northeast. Felix’s coordinates should put us within sight of the building complex.”
He nodded and resumed walking, the tent bouncing against his shoulders with each step.
Every so often he’d deliberately rub his arm against mine, reminding me of his behaviour as a wolf.
It made me smile each time, and certainly provided a welcome distraction from the thoughts circling my mind like vultures.
Christ, I was glad to be away from Dev.
My teeth ground together as I remembered our earlier conversation. I’d been rearranging my bag when I’d asked if he’d contacted Ezra yet. Purely professional interest, of course. Nothing to do with hoping they might reconcile over the phone and Dev declare that they were back together.
“I will do later. I’m still annoyed at him for jumping to the conclusion that I was cheating on him,” Dev had said. Then he’d sighed, running a hand through his hair, damp from the shower. “It’s sad this happened, but maybe it was for the best. I couldn’t see it lasting between us anyway.”
He’d looked me dead in the eye, and I knew whatever he said next, I was supposed to listen closely to.
“Shifters date humans all the time, of course. But when it comes to settling down, finding a life partner? It feels more natural for us to be with our own kind. It’s just the way we are.”
The pointed nature of that comment had hit me like a slap across the face. I’d stood there speechless, processing the deliberate sting of it, the casual dismissal.
Maybe it was that, or maybe it was the way he’d been dressed in Rory’s jumper, the one that matched the colour of his eyes. Regardless, the anger surging up inside made me reckless and I let my curiosity get the better of me to ask, “Why did you break up with Rory?”
Dev’s eyes had widened in shock before his expression turned thunderous. “That’s absolutely none of your business,” he’d seethed.
I’d been so embarrassed by my own behaviour that I hadn’t even attempted to read his thoughts.
Rory glanced my way, those sharp blue-green eyes narrowing with concern.
“You alright?” he asked, slowing his pace.
Before he could probe deeper into whatever emotional mess he was picking up from me, he stopped short, sniffing the air.
“Can you smell that?”
I shook my head. “What is it?”
“It smells like…” He trailed off, looking beyond me, then checked our location on his phone. “We’re almost there, but let’s go that way.”
I followed Rory through the dense undergrowth, branches catching at my jacket as we climbed steadily uphill. His pace never faltered, even with that bloody tent strapped to his back. My breathing grew heavier with each step, sweat beading despite the cool Highland air.
The trees began to thin as we reached higher ground, granite outcrops jutting through the soil like broken bones.
Finally, we emerged onto a rocky cliff edge that dropped away towards a vast, dark lake below.
The water reflected the grey sky like tarnished silver, too still, too quiet.
Something about this place felt wrong beyond just the obvious.
“Look over here,” I hissed, spotting something that made my stomach clench.
Rory followed my gaze to where the ground ahead had been scarred black—a wide circle of charred earth that spoke of repeated use. Ash and debris was scattered across the rock in grey drifts, and the skeletal remains of multiple bonfires dotted the area.
“I thought I smelt it,” Rory said, gesturing at the burnt ground. “The smell of… death.”
We moved carefully through the bonfire remnants, me pulling on latex gloves from my jacket pocket. Dread pooling in my gut as ash crunched under my feet—Christ, I tried not to think about what we might be walking through.
“What’s that?” Rory asked, crouching near the edge of one of the burn circles.
I followed his gaze but couldn’t see anything obvious among the ash and blackened stones. “Where?”
“There—” He pointed to a spot where the wind had carved a shallow depression in the debris.
I knelt beside him, brushing away layers of ash with careful movements. My fingers found something hard beneath the surface—smooth, curved. As more ash fell away, the shape became unmistakable.
A large wolf’s canine lay in my palm, discoloured to a sickly grey-brown, its surface cracked and brittle from intense heat. But still unmistakably sharp, unmistakably what it was.
Rory stumbled backwards, putting his head between his knees.
“God, I hate them so much, but this is still… It’s still my family doing this shit.
” His words came out in a rush. “Like, how fucked up is that? I can’t escape them, can I?
Now I have to live knowing the Thornes are literal mass murderers and I’m one of them and…
I just wanted to get away from all their shit, you know? ”
Looking down at the dark water below, the pieces clicked into place with sickening clarity. “This would be a great place to burn bodies. Then throw the ash into the lake.”
Rory made a horrible noise, and I squeezed his hand, offering what comfort I could. No words seemed adequate for this.
My gaze drifted across the lake toward the far shore, where the skeletal remains of an ancient castle perched on a rocky outcrop.
Most of the structure had long since crumbled, leaving only jagged stone teeth against the grey sky.
But there—atop what looked like the remnants of a tower—something caught the light.
“Can I have the binoculars?”
I handed them over, watching him focus on the ruins.
“There’s something there,” he breathed. “On top of the castle ruins.”
Taking the binoculars back, I studied the crumbling stones. “A tiny solar panel? Could be something? But we really need to go see those buildings.”
We set back off immediately. Half an hour later, we spotted wire fencing through the trees, choked with ivy and brambles. The rusted wire had corroded completely in several places, creating gaps large enough to slip through.
“If they’re really running a high-tech underground operation here, you’d think they’d invest in better fencing,” Rory mused.
“This is very much off the usual hiking routes, but they’ll still get people passing through. Like us.”
We scanned for cameras—tree trunks, fence posts, even the canopy above. Nothing visible, but that didn’t mean we were in the clear.
Once through the gap, we crouched behind a cluster of gorse bushes and surveyed the complex ahead.
Four buildings sat in a semicircle around a central courtyard.
Three were modest concrete blocks with flat roofs.
The largest dominated the site—red-brick facade with tall windows, clearly some sort of educational facility originally.
One smaller building had partially collapsed, twisted metal beams jutting skyward like broken ribs.
“Whole place looks abandoned,” Rory whispered, already shifting forward with that familiar restless energy.
“We can’t go any closer,” I said.
Yet I watched him creep closer to the buildings, tiny step by tiny step, until he was dangerously exposed.
Enough. I moved swiftly, catching his arm and hauling him back against my chest.
“Don’t make me handcuff you again,” I growled into his ear.
“You gave your handcuffs to Isla!”
“I always bring spares.”
He twisted to face me, eyes sparkling with delight. “Promises, promises.”
Christ. Even in the middle of a surveillance operation, he could make my blood run hot.
I pulled out my binoculars and focused on the largest building. An old security camera hung at an awkward angle near the main entrance, no red recording light visible. Beyond the complex, I could trace the ghost of an old track—a subtle depression in the landscape.
We found a single tyre track pressed into soft earth nearby.
“Dirt bike?” Rory questioned.
“If they’re moving kidnapped shifters, they’d need something bigger. Possibly, they have another way in?”
“I’m going to shift,” Rory announced suddenly, already moving towards the cover of a large tree, shrugging out of his jacket. “See what I can smell or hear.”
“What?” I said, following him. “Hold on.”
But then, he was already down to his underwear, clothes all over the ground. “Shut your eyes,” he instructed, and for a moment I considered a joke about being pretty well acquainted with his cock.
I faced away while he shifted, the agony leaking through the bond now familiar.
A soft bark. I turned to find wolf--Rory, dropping to my knees to give him a quick scratch behind his ear, his fur thick beneath my fingers. Rory’s bright green-blue eyes were alert and intelligent as they met mine. He panted, his pink tongue contrasting beautifully with his black lips and nose.
“You still can’t go right up to the building,” I whispered firmly. “Just sniff around the perimeter, understand?”
Rory’s wolf smiled at me—an unsettling expression on a canine face, tongue lolling slightly—and then he was off.
I watched through my binoculars as he began a wide circle around the complex, his movements fluid and purposeful. Golden fur caught occasional glimpses of filtered sunlight as he wove between the scrubby bushes and patches of heather.
The circle grew tighter.
And tighter.
My jaw clenched as I realised what he was doing. The bloody fool was spiralling inward like a hunter closing in on prey, each loop bringing him closer to the buildings.
“Rory,” I whisper-shouted, as loud as I dared.
He ignored me completely, continuing his methodical approach.
Another loop. Now he was barely twenty metres from the buildings.
“Rory!” I tried again, louder but still keeping my voice low.
He disappeared behind the partially collapsed structure, golden fur vanishing from sight.
Anxiety twisted through my veins. Why, Rory, why?!
The connection between us thrummed with his excitement, his wolf’s satisfaction at being useful, at tracking something interesting. But all I could feel was mounting dread.
A side door opened.
Two people emerged from the largest building and my blood turned to pure ice.
A man and woman, both mid-thirties. The man was already rolling a cigarette between his fingers whilst the woman clutched a coffee mug, tilting her face skyward as if she hadn’t seen daylight in weeks.
Terror shot through me like a bolt of lightning. Surely Rory had heard them by now, even if his wolf senses hadn’t picked up their approach long before I’d spotted them.
But where was he?
I couldn’t sense anything from him. Did that mean he was too far away?
My mind raced with horrific possibilities. Images of having to ring Kit, of begging him to come help me save his brother from unknown torture. Of explaining to Seb and Priya how I’d lost Rory on my watch.
The woman said something to her companion that made him laugh—a sound that carried clearly across the open ground. They clearly had no idea that a wolf shifter lurked somewhere nearby.
I found myself holding my breath, straining to catch any hint of movement, any flash of golden fur that would tell me he was alive and safe. The binoculars shook in my grip as adrenaline flooded my system.
Where are you, Rory?
Through our connection, I tried to project every ounce of terror coursing through me—the gut-wrenching, desperate fear that something had happened to him. If he could feel even a fraction of what I was experiencing, hopefully that would help.
The thought of losing him now, even though I’d only just begun to understand what this thing between us could become—it threatened to tear me apart from the inside.
No. I couldn’t think it.
All I could do was pray that somehow, wherever he was, Rory would hear me and know that I needed him to come back to me.