22. Mack
22
MACK
I drop my smile the second I slide into the passenger seat of Bennett’s car.
“How is she?” Bennett asks as I snap on my seatbelt.
“Afraid and worried. As expected. Any news from the hotel?” I ask.
“Nothing. Colton, Warren, Penny, and Tina have parked a few feet from the hotel and are keeping watch until we arrive. There’s been no more sounds of animal fighting, but they’ve picked up a recent scent.”
“Good. Let’s go.
I’d specifically told Bennett not to venture out there on his own. This might be a trap to lure one or most of us, which had been why I hadn’t left the house until Adela, Gregory, Jude, and Helena were inside the house with Aerin.
Chris and Zoe were heading around the back of the house as I walked outside. There’s more than enough people that there shouldn’t be any trouble. If there is trouble, they’re under strict orders to send me or Bennett a text and we’ll rush back to the house.
Aerin is as protected as she could be, but I still hated leaving her, especially in the middle of the night.
As Bennett pulls away from the house, all the downstairs lights are on. I’d like to think Aerin has gone back to sleep, is dreaming of something sweet and perfect, but I doubt it. Not after the sudden way I left her.
I’d been deep asleep, a miracle in itself after the news Clary had shared with us, all of it later confirmed by Aerin’s dad.
I hadn’t thought I could sleep knowing whatever was happening in packs across the country could, at any moment, strike here.
We have two omegas, a rarity in most packs.
The most frustrating thing about what’s happening is the lack of willingness for packs to work together to handle this threat. I understand the mistrust to a certain extent. No one knows who is behind the omega snatching, and they’re afraid of trusting the wrong Alpha.
I get it.
But the only way we’ll solve this mystery is by working together, not against each other.
The phone call with Aerin’s dad had gone on late. Aerin had literally fallen asleep in my arms as we discussed who might be behind it. But we have nothing but a map with pins stuck in it, and we weren’t even able to speak to Alphas from all the packs, so one of them might be responsible.
“Do you think Clary would have known more?” I ask Bennett as he continues the drive into town.
“Hard to say,” Bennett says, eyes on the road. “He knew something was wrong but seemed as confused about why as the rest of us.”
I nod.
“Did he say anything to you before you left him?”
Bennett had come back to the house after he’d driven Clary to his car, following behind him to make sure he actually left town.
“Just that he didn’t mean for Aerin to get hurt.”
“And do you believe him?”
Three parked cars come into view, feet from the hotel parking lot. All the guests will be sleeping since it’s so late, but we don’t want to park up right outside and draw attention to ourselves.
Colton and Penny are in his car. Warren and Tina in another.
Bennett pulls up behind them and cuts the engine.
“I do believe him, but the sneaking around for days means I’m more comfortable with him out of Winter Lake than in it,” he says.
Agreed.
When my phone vibrates, I pull it out of my pocket. It’s a text from Warren wanting to know what the plan is.
I take a second to consider my options.
Ordinarily, I’d start a hunt, but I can’t help but wonder what the purpose of this is.
“I don’t like this,” I say, staring into the forest at the back of the hotel.
All the hotel’s lights are off, but I have a feeling Sara Meacham, the owner and manager, is probably lying in bed, wondering at the strange noises she heard in the forest.
“It feels like a trap,” Bennett says quietly.
It does.
Aerin isn’t even here, and she thought so too.
I’d been planning on leaving without waking Aerin, hoping whatever wild animal Sara had heard outside the hotel would be a small thing to deal with.
So I’d stepped outside of our room and called everyone to make sure no one was alone just in case this was a trap.
Everyone was downstairs, and I’d been about to kiss Aerin’s hair before I left her, not wanting to wake her when she’d mumbled something.
She’d been quietly ordering someone to share with their little brother, and I can only imagine she had been dreaming of our future. Not just Thumper and me, but of the child we will have next. A little boy, it sounded like.
She’d smiled so sweetly and so lovingly before she said she’d loved me.
I’d known I couldn’t just leave her without telling her where I was going and why. So I’d woken her. And now here I am, getting the sense I’m about to step into a trap.
Aerin won’t sleep. She was too worried. She’ll wait for me to come home, and it won’t matter how long I’m gone. When I come back, she’ll be in the dining room or the den with the others, cradling a mug of hot tea to soothe her.
“She’ll be okay,” Bennett says.
“Aerin was sure this was going to be a trap. She didn’t want me to go.” I pause. “If anyone other than Aerin was the one saying that, I’d shake it off as just worry. But…”
“She’s an omega, and she has gifts and sight that none of the rest of us do,” Bennett concludes.
She does, even though right now her powers aren’t working. Her gift is innate.
My phone vibrates again. This time it’s Colton.
I shoot off a couple of responses and watch as their car doors open.
“Let’s see what this wolf wants and send him on his way,” I say.
“Lets.” Bennett swings his door open and steps out as I tuck my cell phone in the center console so I won’t lose it when I strip and shift to hunt out this wolf.
It’s the middle of the night, so all the roads are empty and every light in all the stores further down are off. Everyone will be sleeping in Winter Lake tonight. Everyone but the people causing trouble in the forest behind the hotel.
We quietly close our car doors and leave our vehicles behind us, walking away from the road and down into the public forest that makes up a large part of Winter Lake. There’s trouble here tonight. I can’t smell it yet, see it, or hear it, but trouble has come to Winter Lake and I intend to stamp it out.
Aerin is fine, I tell myself for the fifth time since I left the house. She’s safe, surrounded by pack, not in any danger. Yet, she’s all I can think about.
“For the first time, I think I’d prefer not to be Alpha,” I say quietly. “I just want to be Aerin’s mate. No responsibility for anyone else. No duty. Just to provide for her and give her a reason to smile each day. That’s it.”
Bennett squeezes my shoulder. “I’ve had that thought more than once since Helena told me she was pregnant.”
I snort a laugh. “Looks like living in a retirement town has turned us into old men.”
Bennett laughs.
Warren, Tina, Penny, and Colton approach.
We’re still a short distance from the back of the hotel, and where Sara heard strange noises, but I’d intended that. We’ll shift here and start our hunt.
Before I can speak, a howl cuts through the night.
“Who’s up for a hunt?” I ask, already stepping out of my sneakers.
“I thought you’d never ask,” Colton says.
We strip quietly, quickly, and drop into crouches to embrace our wolves.
I take the lead as the rest trail me. The wolf is still up ahead, closer than I thought, given he had a head start.
Head down, we round trees, dart around bushes, sticking close to the wolf’s tracks.
And as I close the distance between us, the wolf’s scent teases my nose.
Where have I smelled that before?
The stronger the scent grows as we close the distance, and the more distracted I am by a scent that taunts me.
The tracks stop, and I slow, the rest of the pack milling around me.
I shift, frowning, and so does Bennett.
“Something is wrong.”
“Yeah.” Bennett gets to his feet, also frowning. “I got that.”
“Don’t shift back yet,” I tell Warren, Colton, Tina and Penny. Still sniffing, I struggle to work out what is bothering me so much about this scent.
“Mack?” Bennett trails me.
“Give me a second.” I continue my prowl around the forest. “I just?—”
I step into a pile of leaves and I keep falling.
I have a second to absorb the pile of sticks pointed up, right at my face.
A trap.
No. An ambush.
Maybe one Aerin sensed was here.
One thought trickles through my mind, and only one.
Let Aerin be okay.