Chapter Twenty-One
Scott
Banging on Dakata’s door, they did his best to stop the terror circulating through them, battering at the tiny thread of self-control he had left. All his life, Scott had no problem holding it together.
He had more than enough experience with his family to learn control. Yet, in this moment, he had none. It fled with the knowledge that someone had his blissful one and could do untold harm to him. He wanted his mate safe and in his arms. He didn’t care how they had to achieve that, but it was all he could think about.
The door opened before he could bang again. Dakata appeared to tower over him with a pissed-off look Scott was more than familiar with, his demon side not so much, but they didn’t care. “I need you to summon Merihem,” his demon demanded without ceremony.
Dakata blinked slowly as he looked from Scott’s demon to Dougal and back. “What’s going on? And why would I be doing that?”
“We got a bit of a problem—”
“A bit of a problem!” he screeched at Dougal. “My mate has been abducted, and something is blocking our connection. Dougal believes it’s his family, one I know nothing about. I don’t even know what George’s real name is.” He threw up his arms. “How am I supposed to find him when I don’t know where to start? I need your help, please,” he begged around a harrowing sob.
“Let them in,” Silas murmured from somewhere inside the house.
Dakata stepped aside, and only then did they notice he wore only boxer briefs, not that his demon was wearing anything.
Silas appeared, tying a long flowing robe at his middle that reached his bare feet. “Come sit, and I’ll make some ginger and lemongrass tea.”
The politeness of it all would have impressed Scott if not for their utter panic, which was coming from him and his demon, who was growing more fretful the longer he continued to search for their connection to George and couldn’t find it.
“Explain what’s going on,” Dakata stated brusquely.
“George is missing. He didn’t turn up to collect me from the office. My demon can’t feel our connection to him. I came to the forest, because I knew this was where George heads when he needs some thinking time. When I realized something was wrong, I got Miller to bring me to the forest. He took me to the wrong place, then left after I expressly asked him to wait.”
Dakata stared at him with such concern that Scott struggled to keep seated. “What do you mean? Miller left you in the woods and drove off? He has been my driver for twenty years, why would he do that? Why drop you in the wrong place? The man has an excellent sense of direction, so I don’t get how he got you lost?”
“How would I know,” he snapped, then took a deep breath that did fuck all to help. Each of Dakata’s questions added a ball of anxiety to his stomach. As they developed, each one got bigger until the damn boulders were weighing Scott down. “I’m sorry,” he muttered through clenched teeth when he got a narrow-eyed look from Dakata that was all warning.
His demon could barely move his legs as he rose off the couch, wanting to pace off the dread that grew with every passing second he waited for Merihem to arrive. “All I know is I asked him to take me where I thought George might be. After running about the damn forest attempting to find Dougal in the hopes that George would be with him, I got nowhere. So, I headed back to the car only to find it and Miller, gone.”
“None of this makes sense,” Dakata muttered as Silas came from the kitchen carrying a tray of drinks.
“It seems this Miller person is in cahoots with whoever took George,” Dougal murmured, rubbing at his jaw while taking a mug from Silas.
“You think George being taken is a setup, and Miller aided in it?” Dakata didn’t sound like he believed it.
Except why else would Miller drop Scott in the wrong part of the woods, ensuring that he delayed Scott? “This is all well and good, but we need Merihem and his skills to see if he can locate George for me.”
Dakata went to a bowl near a window, and Scott saw him reach in and pull out several colored tumbling stones. His eyes closed, and Scott’s nerves danced at each passing second Dakata stood motionless.
When he opened his eyes, his demon was there. “I’ve summoned him. Be patient, he is busy dealing with something else.”
“Something else?” They weren’t sure if the ‘something else’ was Peni, and if so, then he felt bad. If it was Merihem taking care of some person who had committed a heinous crime, then couldn’t they wait? George was out there somewhere, enduring who knew what.
“He was working,” Dakata supplied as if he had read their mind.
“Here, drink this, it will help settle you.” Silas offered him a mug and a gentle smile.
Scott worked at putting a smile on his face when Dakata gave him another warning look that suggested snapping at Silas would be a mistake. He took the warm mug. “Thank you.”
Dakata looked at Dougal, who had taken the seat Scott had vacated. “What do you know about George’s family?”
Dougal was back to scratching at his jaw, his eyes on Scott. “George’s father is the leader of a sleuth of bears that have strong lineage to some of the first ever bear shifters. Over the centuries, their lineage has become diminished through interbreeding. George, however, is a purebred.
“His father has definite ideas about how George should give up his sperm and create as many cubs as possible to keep the lineage going as the last true purebred bear of his fathers. A true sperm donor, if you will. George has other ideas about that and left the sleuth, changed his name, and has been in hiding ever since.”
Scott’s tea sloshed over the back of his hand, he didn’t notice it burning his skin as he growled. “No one is having sex with my blissful one. No one!”
“What the hell is all this shouting about?” Merihem materialized in front of Dakata. Merihem wore trousers but nothing else in his demon form. Blood smeared his chest and dripped from the claws of one hand. “And why the urgency for me to finish with the asshat I was sending to hell?”
“We have a situation,” Dakata supplied before Scott could gather his wits at the thought of George being forced to have sex with someone.
Scott didn’t know how that was possible, as George had claimed Scott and he had touched George, making the blissful connection. He was pretty sure that would stop George from being able to get hard for anyone— he hoped.
“Someone has kidnapped George, it seems, and severed the connection to Scott.” Dakata sounded so matter-of-fact it helped a little, but not much.
“Severed how? Drugs or…”
Scott wailed. “He’s not dead. I would know,” he insisted. “I would.” His demon kept quiet.
“Drugs, I’d say. They gave him something when they took him to the hospital after the crash,” Dougal supplied, watching them all with a look Scott couldn’t even begin to fathom.
“That could be a problem…” Merihem gave Scott a searching look. “Can you feel anything? Sense his spirit?”
He couldn’t speak for the lump in his throat, so he shook his head, blinking back the tears frantically clutching the mug.
“Fuck…” Merihem went to run his bloody hand through his hair, stopped and then dragged it down the leg of his trousers. “Come here, Scott. I need to touch you, get a sense of your connection to George.”
Plonking the mug down on a small table, he went to Merihem and offered his hands. “No, I need to touch where George bit you?”
Naked after their rampage through the woods, they could see George’s claim. Scott wasn’t keen on Merihem touching it, but these were desperate times.
Merihem placed his still sticky fingers against the raised bite mark, his eyes flickered, changing color. Scott held his breath, wanting to get Merihem to rush, but also wanting him to find George.
“I can’t get an exact location on him—”
“Fuck!” Scott bellowed at the crushing reality.
“Give me a fucking moment to finish. I can’t get an exact location because of the corruption to your link, but I sense the area he’s being held in. It’ll be a mile or two radius from where George is.”
Scott’s legs wobbled, and he had to lock his knees to keep standing from the relief they had something to go on. “That’s good.”
We need to go now.
Don’t even start with me.
“Let’s go,” Dakata stated, looking at Merihem.
Merihem smirked. “You might wanna put some pants on first.”
Dakata snapped his fingers and was dressed a second later, wearing a scowl.
“I’ll come, too,” said Silas.
“What? Wait, no.”
Silas didn’t listen to Dakata and came to thread his arm through his, giving him a smile that clearly said he wasn’t listening. “George might need my help.”
Silas looked at Dougal. “Do you have some of your special brew?”
Dougal rooted about in a coat with numerous pockets and pulled out a flask.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a healing potion for animals,” Dougal explained, giving it to Silas.
“Give it to me, I’ll take it, and you can stay here.”
Scott wanted to snap at Dakata for wasting time, but he got why he didn’t want his blissful one coming into a dangerous situation with an unknown foe.
Silas tutted at Dakata. “I need my bow and arrows.” One arched look, and Silas wore dark clothing, holding his bow and a shoulder harness holding arrows.
“If we’re done with the arguing part of the evening, I have my own blissful one waiting at home, so shall we get on with this.” Merihem took hold of Scott’s hand and Dakata’s, who had hold of Silas. The air shimmered around them, then they were deep in a forest that smelled of… chemicals.
His demon cast out, searching for George. His pulse was hammering hard enough to make it difficult to hear, they had to take three calming breaths to get to focus. There, under the other scents, was the barest hint of their blissful one. “I can scent George,” he murmured as Merihem let him go.
“Which way?” Silas whispered, his eyes glowing in the darkness of the surrounding dense trees. “I can use the trees to guide us.”
“It’s coming from the right, through that big clump of trees.” Keeping his voice low, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The woods were too quiet. None of the night creatures made a noise and sent shivers of apprehension through Scott.
“Scott, walk at my side. I’ll guide you.”
There was a rumble of complaint from Dakata, but he said nothing as they set off. Each twig breaking set Scott’s pulse to leap as they went deeper into the woods. The air wasn’t fresh but stagnant beneath the chemicals.
Scott wasn’t sure how long they walked through the woods before George’s scent thickened the air. His teeth ground together, and his heart pounded hard enough to give him a headache. Because the scent didn’t give Scott joy, it brought back the fear, because all he could smell was George’s arousal. The scent was potent enough to make them react, and his demon’s claws were ready to shred whoever thought they could touch their blissful one. His cock, hard and aroused to the point of pain, was just as ready to stab anything that got in its way.
“What the fuck,” Merihem hissed in his ear. “Sexy time isn’t on the fucking agenda here!”
Scott’s demon glowered at Merihem, whether he could see it or not. “I fucking know that!” he ground out. “Someone has aroused my blissful one. I’m reacting to that, okay!”
An earth-rumbling roar filled the air and Scott’s demon froze before he took off running. I’m coming, my honey bear.
I’m coming!