Chapter 9
NINE
Logan
The second I walk into the café and don’t catch my mate’s scent, my gut tightens. I can tell right away that something is very wrong.
My bear, who’s been quiet and content, knowing Vivian was safe and surrounded by the other women, jerks awake so violently that it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
Where is she? he snarls.
I stop inside the doorway, scanning the room. The place is full. People are laughing, talking, and eating. Plates clatter in the kitchen. Coffee and sugar and warm bread scent the air, but none of that matters.
Vivian isn’t here.
A hard knot forms in my chest.
One of the girls, Roxie, I think, looks up from behind her seat and smiles. “Hey, Logan.”
“Where’s Vivian?” I ask.
The smile slips from her face immediately. “She left a little while ago.”
Every muscle in my body locks up. “She what?”
Quinn blinks, clearly hearing the edge in my voice. “She said she was heading home. She looked okay but said she missed you and wanted to get back.”
My stomach drops. “She left alone?”
Roxie nods slowly.
I’m already turning for the door before she can say anything else.
Mine, my bear roars, slamming against me so hard that it hurts. Alone. She left alone.
I’m outside in seconds, my boots hitting the dirt hard enough to send dust flying. My truck is parked a few spaces down. I get in, slam the door, and fire it up.
The drive home feels like it takes a lifetime. Every second I’m not with her, my anxiety climbs higher. My hands are locked so tightly around the steering wheel that the leather creaks under my grip. My jaw aches from clenching it.
My bear paces violently inside me, snarling and furious. We should have gone with her. Never should have let her out of our sight.
“I know, I know,” I tell him.
I should’ve insisted she stay with me. I should’ve driven her. I should’ve made sure she got home, but she wanted lunch with the girls. She was smiling when she left. Happy, relaxed, safe, and because I’m a fucking idiot, I let myself believe she was.
By the time I pull into the clearing in front of my cabin, I’m half out of my mind. I kill the engine and jump out of the truck so fast that I almost leave the door hanging open.
“Vivian!” I shout, already running for the porch.
The front door slams open beneath my hand as I storm inside, scenting the air so hard that my lungs burn.
Her scent is here. Sweet and soft and wrapped around everything in my house. It fills the kitchen, clings to the blankets in the living room, lingers in the hallway, but it’s old. Faint. Not fresh or current.
She’s not here.
A growl tears out of me.
“Vivian!” I call out anyway, needing to be sure.
Nothing. The cabin is empty. The silence hits me like a punch to the gut.
My bear loses his mind. Find her! he bellows. Find our mate!
I whirl and head back outside, pulling my phone from my pocket. My hands are shaking with rage when I hit Knox first.
He answers on the second ring. “Logan?”
“She’s gone.”
“What happened?” he asks immediately.
“I went to get her from lunch. The girls said she left to come home. She’s not here.”
A low curse comes through the phone.
“I’m calling the others,” he says. “Start tracking.”
“I will.” I’m already moving toward the edge of the yard, my eyes on the ground, my senses stretching wide. “Logan.” Knox’s voice hardens. “You find her, you call us. Do you hear me?”
My jaw flexes because we both know what he’s really saying: Don’t kill anyone before backup arrives.
Too late for that, my bear growls. If someone took her, they’re dead.
“I hear you,” I snap, ending the call and heading back to town.
I park outside the café and take a deep breath, then another, and another. Finally, I pick up Vivian’s scent.
I take off, following it down the road. It’s lighter than usual here, touched by the air and sunlight, but I know it instantly. My entire body locks onto it, every instinct narrowing until there’s nothing else. I follow it down the road.
Toward the woods.
No.
No, no, no.
She wouldn’t go into the woods alone unless something drove her there.
My chest turns cold as I run. Branches slap against my arms as I tear through the trees. My boots crush leaves and twigs beneath me, but I barely hear it over the blood pounding in my ears.
Her scent gets stronger. Then other scents creep in. Male. Human. One of them is sour with sweat and fear. The other—
My lip curls back from my teeth. I know right away they’re from the cult.
My bear surges forward with a snarl. Kill him, he roars.
I break through a thicket and skid to a stop so suddenly that dirt sprays up around my boots. Thirty feet ahead, in a small clearing, is my mate.
Vivian is struggling in the arms of a man twice her size, her dark hair tangled around her face, her body jerking as she fights him. His hand is clamped around her wrist, the other at her waist, dragging her backward through the brush.
She’s terrified. I smell it instantly. I can see it in the way she twists, hear it in the ragged, desperate cry that tears from her throat when she catches sight of me.
“Logan!”
One of the men looks up, and that’s it. That’s the end of him.
Something savage and absolute rips through me. My bear doesn’t ask this time. He takes.
Bones crack. Muscles stretch. Heat explodes beneath my skin as I shift mid-stride, fury swallowing every human thought I have.
I hit the ground as a bear and roar. The sound tears through the woods, loud enough to shake the leaves overhead.
The man’s eyes widen, and he shoves Vivian so hard that she falls to the ground. Then he turns to run.
Coward.
Mine, my bear roars. Hurt our mate. Touched our mate.
I’m on him before he makes it three steps. He screams once. Just once. My claws sink into his back, driving him into the dirt. His body hits the ground hard, and I rear back with a roar that rattles the trees before bringing all of my weight down on him again.
A wet crack. Another. He tries to scramble away, sobbing something I don’t care enough to understand, but I’m beyond hearing words. All I know is that he had his hands on my mate.
He hunted her. Frightened her. Thought he could take what belongs to me.
Rage burns so hot that it blacks out everything else. My jaws close around his throat.
And then… silence.
My bear pants over the body, chest heaving, claws dug into the ground.
The other man shakes in his boots as I prowl towards him, my bear flashing its teeth at him. He tries to run, but I lunge for him, quickly ending his life too.
My bear is on edge, scanning our surroundings for any other threat.
Then I hear it.
A broken little sound behind me.
Vivian.
The blood rage vanishes so fast that it leaves me dizzy. I spin, and there she is, a few feet away, sprawled in the dirt where he threw her. Her light blue eyes are huge, fixed on me. Tears track through the dust on her cheeks. Her whole body is shaking.
Pain spears through my chest at the sight of her, and I shift back immediately.
The forest air hits my bare skin, but I don’t give a damn. I drop to my knees in front of her and reach for her carefully, slowly, like she might break apart if I move too fast.
“Vivian,” I rasp. “Baby.”
She makes a choked sound and throws herself at me. Relief slams through me so hard that I nearly collapse. I catch her against my chest and pull her in, wrapping my arms around her so tightly that I hope she can feel it clear to her bones.
She’s here. She’s alive. She’s in my arms.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur against her hair. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”
She clings to me like she’s drowning, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her whole body trembling. I shift us slightly so I can check her over, my hands moving down her arms, her back, her legs.
“Are you hurt?”
He touched her, my bear snarls. Get their scent off her!
I focus on my mate instead of my bear for now.
Vivian shakes her head against my chest, but I don’t trust that. I tip her face up gently, scanning every inch of her. She has dirt on her cheek, fresh panic in her eyes, a red mark already rising where he must’ve grabbed her, but I don’t smell blood. Don’t see any real injury.
Thank God.
A car door slams in the distance. Then another. A few seconds later, I catch the scents of the Midnight Haven guys coming fast through the woods.
Knox gets there first, followed by Ansel and Pryce.
Knox takes one look at Vivian in my arms, then the body behind me, and nods once. “You got her?”
“I’ve got her.”
Ansel crouches in front of Vivian. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do you need me to get the doctor?”
She shakes her head again, though her lower lip trembles. “No. He grabbed me, but I don’t think… I don’t think he hurt me.”
Ansel glances at me. I know what he sees on my face because I can still feel it pulling at my bones. The rage. The need to find every last member of that cult and tear them apart with my teeth.
Pryce steps up beside the body and blows out a breath. “Well. That’s handled.”
“Pack will clean this up,” Knox says quietly. “You take her home.”
I don’t argue. There’s no world where I’ll let her out of my arms right now anyway.
Ansel reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “We’ll take care of the rest.”
I nod, then look down at Vivian. “Can you walk?”
She clutches my arms tighter and shakes her head. That settles it. I scoop her up carefully in my arms. She immediately buries her face in my neck, and my chest caves in on itself at the trust in that movement.
Mine, my bear says more softly this time.
I look at the guys. “Call if you find anything.”
“We will,” Knox says.
Turning, I carry my mate out of the woods.
The walk back to my car feels different from every other time I’ve crossed this land. The trees, the wind, the mountain air, everything is the same, but I’m not. Something inside me still vibrates with leftover fury, with fear so sharp that it hasn’t fully left my bloodstream yet.