Chapter 17
They landed at Cullen Manchester’s stately home. It was no Ice Storm, but it was gorgeous and had more the look of a manor than a fortified stronghold. Those who had been prisoners were given food and drink while their needs were assessed. She tried to stay close to Adriana, but they became separated.
A woman with short red hair with blonde highlights, freckles, and a thousand-watt smile joined her. She was dressed in faded and distressed jeans and a thin oversized sweater that did far more to show off her looks than hide them.
“I’m Jinx. Rumor is you’re concerned about being here.”
“Why would I be concerned? Your people rescued us.”
Jinx laughed. “Girl, don’t ever try to play poker for money. You don’t have the face for it. So let me come at this another way. Hi, I’m Jinx. I work with the Shadow Sisters.”
There was something credible about Jinx that made Zenya want to trust her. For one thing, Lucian and Cullen had never gotten along, but at this point, no one here knew she was part of the Baihu Clan, much less Lucian’s claimed and fated mate.
“Yeah, that look of relief is a dead giveaway. Let me guess, you don’t want to go back to your clan?” Zenya shook her head. “How bad is it?”
“Claimed mate to Lucian, and sister of his beta.” She still couldn’t bear to say Zaiden’s name.
“Ouch. Oh well, Cullen and Lucian aren’t exactly chummy. I think if we just tell him you don’t want to return to Ice Storm, he’ll get you to Windsong.”
“They say Reynolds supports the Shadow Sisters.”
Jinx laughed. “That’s one of the kinder things people used to say about him. Come to find out he’s kind of an upstanding kind of guy, but he does support the Shadow Sisters, and he too is no fan of Lucian’s. We just need to get you to Windsong.”
“Thank you. What if Manchester won’t help?”
Jinx laughed again. Zenya suspected she did a lot of that. “No worries. We’ll get you out. Trust me, Cullen has far more of us ‘rogue females’ than he’d care to think about.”
She followed Jinx out toward the dining hall, but they detoured through the kitchen where Manchester was issuing orders. “Problem?” he asked, looking between Zenya and Jinx.
“She’s a tigress from the Baihu Clan. She doesn’t want to go back.”
Manchester nodded. “We have a chopper headed to Windsong. We’d best get you on it. Lucian’s already doing some saber rattling. Lettie’s making sandwiches for all of you to eat on the way.”
“How did he know I was here?” Zenya asked suspiciously.
“The vamps kept good records. They recorded there was a tigress among those taken. Baihu was the closest tiger clan so we asked Lucian if he was missing anyone. From his reaction, it would seem you’re important to him. I was going to come look for you to see what you wanted to do. You can stay here if you prefer. We won’t turn you over to him.”
“You don’t want to fight him. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“I am not unaware of the prowess of the Baihu Clan, but I’m not inclined to just turn a female over because some snarly alpha wants me to.”
The man who had been identified as Manchester’s beta chuckled. “Fact is, Cullen and Lucian don’t like one another, so spiriting you off will just be the cherry on top for Cullen.”
Zenya could feel herself starting to relax just a little for the first time since the alley. “Thank you. Lucian really isn’t as bad as most people think. He can be, but he isn’t always, and the clan has benefited and prospered under his leadership. Clan life is not for me, though, and he can’t accept that.”
Cullen searched her face. “Few alphas want to lose a vibrant, beautiful female such as yourself, but he’ll have to learn to live with the loss. Come on, let’s get you onto the helicopter.”
Within half an hour they were airborne, and Zenya finally began to breathe easy.
The ache in her heart wasn’t as easily resolved.
LUCIAN
The night before, Lucian had been a little wobbly when a cadre of his warriors had taken him up to the chambers he now shared with Zenya. Zenya, his gorgeous, sexy, responsive mate. His cock had been perpetually hard since she’d walked down the aisle to him. If he hadn’t been so incredibly aroused, he might have worried about his performance, but it had never been an issue in the past, and he had never been as wildly attracted to any woman as he was to Zenya.
There had been much laughter and frivolity as they had carried him up the stairs, and Lucian hoped like hell she hadn’t heard some of their ribald comments. His men weren’t trying to be rude, but they were drunk and happy that their alpha had finally claimed his mate—his incredible fated mate. Zaiden had not opted to join them. Lucian knew it wasn’t that he was unhappy about Lucian taking his sister to mate, but it had to be difficult to hear about your sister having sex with anyone.
He was fairly sure his cock was going to burst if it didn’t get sunk in her depths. Perhaps releasing his barbs should wait until he was more sure of what control he would have. Besides, right now, all he wanted to do was fall on her and get inside her warm, wet pussy. And given how sweet she’d smelled at their bonding ceremony, he was pretty damn sure she was aroused as well.
Finally, his men set him down in front of the door to his chambers.
“We can help you inside and with your husbandly duties,” said one of his men.
Lucian straightened his clothes. “That won’t be necessary. The lot of you need to leave. Zenya doesn’t need to be treated to your lewd comments.”
They all laughed, wished him well and stumbled back down the staircase. They’d be lucky if none of them fell and broke something. He worried about several of them being able to do anything other than fall into a bed to sleep it off. It had been a glorious bonding ceremony.
He waited until they were out of earshot before opening the door and entering the darkened bedroom. He was a little surprised the room was dark, as a lighted room had never bothered Zenya before. Had there been candles lit, he would have thought she was being romantic. But the entire room was dark, with the exception of the moonlight flowing through the french doors.
The soft glow cast by the moon showed a form on the bed. Only it wasn’t that of his mate; it was the form of her pet bobcat. Lucky sat in the middle of their bed, licking his paws before rubbing his face and casting a baleful eye towards him as if to say, ‘fool.’
Lucian ran to the balcony and looked out into the night. There was no sign of her. He rushed to their closet and her tapestry bag as well as the clothes she had brought with her from North Carolina were missing. The only thing she seemed to have taken from her time here with him was the anorak jacket. Damn her.
He went back out onto the balcony and scented the wind. Nothing. He closed his eyes, steadying himself by holding onto the railing and tried to feel her presence along the link. Nothing. He roared into the night, hoping somehow that the sound might reach her and compel her to return. Nothing. She was gone. She had played him for a fool and had slipped away, leaving him with nothing but resentment and regret.
It was interesting how he could go from drunk and besotted with his mate to furious and sober in almost the space of a heartbeat. Heading back to the hallway, he got to the top of the stairs and bellowed for Zaiden. If he could have avoided the embarrassment of the entire clan knowing she had deserted him on their wedding night, he would have done so, but she had left him no choice. He would need to have people start looking for her and tracking her by whatever means they could.
“Alpha?” Zaiden asked, running up the stairs.
“Remember how you kept telling me this week that you felt as if your sister was hiding something?”
“Yes,” Zaiden said, slowly nodding his head.
“You were right. She lulled me into a contented belief that she had accepted her place as my fated mate, all the while plotting her escape.”
“What do you mean?” Zaiden asked in a surprised voice. “You mean she’s gone?”
“That’s precisely what I mean. Get anybody who’s still sober to start looking for her. I’m going to shift and see if I can’t start tracking her.”
“Can you feel her down the bonding link?”
“Barely. I chalked it up earlier to my being drunk. I’m sober now, and there is nothing. Her little ploy gave her time to get away. I swear to the gods, I’m going to chain her to our fucking bed.”
He had men working on trying to find some trace of her all through the night. They had dispatched men to the airports as well as the bus and train stations in Kodiak and Anchorage. They’d also tried to cover the train and bus stations in some of the smaller cities.
When they’d come up empty, Lucian had told his men to take shifts. If she wanted to leave Alaska, she was going to have to do so on foot. He’d gone into his study to try finding some inkling of where she might have gone or who might be helping her, but that too had proved fruitless. He remembered sitting back in his chair and closing his eyes for just a minute.
Several days passed, each one making Lucian more anxious than the last. Each night it took more and more good scotch to help him pass out.
“Lucian,” said Zaiden, sticking his head into Lucian’s office. “There’s been an incident.”
“What kind of incident?” he said, coming awake. “Is she hurt? Alive? What?”
“From what I can tell, she was picked up by a group of vampires…”
Lucian felt his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. Was he going to have to destroy the creature she would have become if they had turned her? There was no way he’d let the evil that it was to be a vampire destroy the beautiful creature that had been his mate. He would not let her be condemned to such a fate. He loved her far too much to allow that to happen.
He stood up, wearier than he’d ever been in his life. It wasn’t just his body, which had been taxed by the alcohol and worry about Zenya’s safety. Now it was his heart and soul as well. Maybe if he had listened to her and allowed her to be free…
“Lucian, don’t go there. They didn’t turn her.”
He snapped his head up. “They didn’t?”
Lucian grinned. “No, you can let the guilt go and go back to being angry with her. She got picked up and taken along with a group of others to the old mill. Cullen Manchester and Colby Reynolds, working separately, attacked the mill and got them out. Manchester took them all to Ghost Moon Manor to start and then flew part of them to Windsong.”
Lucian stood up, leaning on his fists on the desk. “Where is your misbegotten sister?”
“Have you ever noticed that when she’s behaving, she’s your beloved mate, and when she isn’t she’s my misbegotten sister—although the adjective on that one changes depending on what she’s done and your mood?”
“Why are you in such a cheery mood?” Lucian snarled.
“Because she isn’t dead and she isn’t a vampire. Had she been the latter, you would have sacrificed yourself to save me from having to kill her. She’s alive, Lucian. Let’s take a little comfort from that.”
Lucian slumped back into his chair. “You’re right. Forgive me. So do we know if my misbegotten mate is at Windsong or Ghost Moon Manor?”
“We do,” said Zaiden, sitting down in one of the chairs opposite Lucian.
“Judging from the look on your face, it’s Windsong.”
“Would you rather it was Ghost Moon?”
“Yes. If it was Manchester, we could just take a small group of men, hit them hard, and get her out. With Reynolds, I’ll have to negotiate and be diplomatic.”
“Is Windsong really that well-fortified?”
“I think it is far better able to defend itself than any of the rest of us realize. Reynolds is smart and a hell of a lot more dangerous than most people think. He’s got an intelligence network to rival any government, soldiers of his own and several mercenary units he keeps on his payroll. He’s also part of the Resistance, and they need him far more than he needs them. Trying to get her out of Ghost Moon Manor would be far less difficult.”
“Doesn’t Reynolds have ties to the Shadow Sisters?”
Lucian nodded. “He’s been bankrolling them and giving them safe haven for years. There’s also a rumor that his fated mate is their leader. Get the plane ready to leave for Windsong. I want four of our best men to be ready and waiting at the plane.”
“I hate to point this out, but you haven’t had much, if any, sleep in days.”
“True enough, but I sobered up the moment I realized you found her. Get the men ready, and I’ll go upstairs, grab a shower and get changed. You stay here while I go fetch my mate and bring her home.”
“How much length of chain do you want for her to have?” asked Zaiden. Lucian looked at him questioningly. “You said you were going to chain her to the bed. I’m not sure that isn’t a good idea.”
Lucian chuckled as he knew Zaiden had wanted him to do. “Let me get her home first, then we’ll figure out how to keep her here.” Lucian pushed back from the desk, stood, and then started toward the door. He stopped before exiting. “And do something about that damn bobcat.”
“Something? Like kill it?”
“Hell, no. Either see it into the wilderness or back into its enclosure.”
“Do we even know where it is?”
Lucian nodded. “Last time I saw it, the damn thing was sitting in the middle of my bed, and I don’t want him getting comfy up there.”
All Lucian could hear as he walked briskly down the hall and jogged up the stairs was the sound of Zaiden’s laughter wafting through Ice Storm.