Chapter Nine
Something wasn’t right.
For the twentieth time, Lyric checked the mouth of the road that led into the clearing. And for the twentieth time, Vic’s truck wasn’t there. She checked her phone again.
The delivery driver was dropping Vic’s house on the concrete pad near the tree line right now, and Vic wasn’t here to oversee it.
She texted him again. Hey Hot Vicious. The driver couldn’t wait anymore. He’s taking a guess on which way you want the house to face. Where are you? Send.
She’d had an awful sinking feeling in the pit of her chest for the past hour, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.
His last text had explained that he was going to try and get an entire floor drywalled at work so he wouldn’t have his phone on him for a little while.
Surely, he’d just gotten caught up with the task.
But he was missing the delivery of his house. He was only supposed to be working a half-day today.
“I tried to call him but no answer for me either,” Destiny said, approaching from her house. From the way she held her cell phone up to her ear, she was probably trying to call Vic a second time.
Lyric sighed and wrapped her arms tighter around her chest as another wave of dread washed through her.
The sound of a truck engine brushed her sensitive ears, and Lyric turned for the mouth of the road again only to find Liam’s truck picking it’s way to his house a minute later.
The hope in her chest slammed to the ground.
Liam pulled to a stop near them and rolled his window down. His greeting smile quickly faded as he saw Lyric’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Something is off,” Lyric said. “I can feel it in my chest. Vic isn’t here, and he’s not answering his phone.”
Liam looked over at his house being delivered, and then back to Lyric. “Get in.”
“I’m coming too,” Destiny said and jogged for the back door of Liam’s truck. “I can help.”
“I’ll make sure the house is all good,” Delta offered. “Keep me in the loop. Let me know when you find him.”
Lyric had barely buckled in before Liam peeled off and took off down the road.
“Destiny, ask Bridger if he’s seen him,” Liam said low as he maneuvered his truck down the winding road.
“I’m already texting the entire Pack. Does anyone know where his jobsite is this week?”
“Tabian does maybe.”
“I’ll call him.” Destiny held the phone up to her ear.
“Hey, T, where is Vic’s jobsite this week?
” She paused, staring out the window. “He didn’t tell you anything about it?
Okay, do you have their number? Yes. No, everything is probably fine, he’s just not answering his phone, and he wasn’t here for the house being delivered.
Would Dodger know?” She paused while Tabian talked.
Destiny looked down at her phone and her eyes went wide.
“Hey Tabian? Let me call you back. Dodger just sent an address in the loop. Yep. Bye.” She leaned forward over the console and set her phone in the cupholder.
Immediately it started telling Liam to take a right at the main road.
She’d connected the address Dodger sent her to the maps function.
“He told Dodger where his jobsite is?” Liam asked. “I haven’t seen them hang out at all lately.”
“Apparently they have each other on some location sharing app.”
“Well, that’s weird.”
“To be fair, all of y’all are weird,” Lyric murmured.
Liam snorted.
Okay. Okay! Vic was in town. From the directions on Destiny’s phone, he was right in the middle of a busy area and would be surrounded by humans.
Eden’s Pack wouldn’t try anything in public.
That was forbidden. Vic’s phone was probably just in his tool bag or something, and he was going to come back to it with a million messages and voicemails and wonder why everyone was freaking out. No big deal.
But the uneasy sensation in her chest didn’t ease up, no matter how much she tried to convince herself everything was fine.
When Liam pulled to a stop in front of commercial building on Boardman Avenue, Lyric instantly knew something was wrong.
There were a dozen people waiting out front, talking in loose groups, and looking around with troubled expressions on their faces.
Lyric shoved the door open and slid out of the truck, then ran toward the crowd. A whiff of something stopped her in her tracks right in the middle of the street though. In horror, she looked down at the huge puddle of dark red on the asphalt. It was wet, fresh blood.
“It’s not his,” Destiny whispered, squeezing her hand, but her tone was uncertain.
Chills rippled up Lyric’s spine as she scanned the street. She could smell Vic, but she could smell something more as well. Cian.
Liam was talking to the crowd by the building. One of them disappeared inside and brought out a work bag and a phone, then handed it all to Liam. Vic’s phone. Shit. He wasn’t here. Only his phone was.
“Load up,” Liam said, his eyes flashing with anger.
“Where are we going?” Lyric asked.
“The police station.”
Horror filled Lyric. “What’s he doing there?”
Destiny was already climbing into the back of the truck and was on the phone with what sounded like non-emergency police, from the questions she was asking about Vic.
Lyric felt numb as Liam pulled away. She couldn’t take her eyes from the blood stain in the street. It was so much. Someone had been really badly hurt.
“Cian was there,” she uttered low. “I could smell him.”
Liam muttered a curse under his breath. “Destiny, can you update the Pack.”
“I’m on it,” she said softly. “Local police don’t have any record of bringing him into the station. And there are no reports of shots fired like Vic’s coworkers were saying happened.”
“Shots fired?” Lyric asked. “By police?”
“Vic’s boss said two werewolves went at it in the street in front of cops in a stealth patrol car.
It was a dark gray SUV. The officers asked Vic to put handcuffs on, but he was talking at the other guy, and both went wolf.
They said police took shots and dragged one of the wolves into the back seat of the patrol car while the other Changed back and left in his own car.
He said Vic’s wolf looked…” The word ‘dead’ hung silently in the air between them. “Limp,” she finished softly.
“That’s not the police,” Lyric murmured in terror.
“They would’ve called for an ambulance, and Cian wouldn’t have been allowed to walk away free after a public fight.
It would’ve been a crime scene. What human in their right minds would load up a werewolf into the back of their car? Those weren’t police.”
Hands shaking, she connected a call to Eden.
No answer. “Pick up the phone, bitch,” she growled and connected another call.
It went straight to voicemail. “Hey, if you hurt him, I will personally hunt you down and kill you. Our history means nothing if you hurt him. Do you hear the truth in my voice, sister? You will die.”
Please God, let him be alive still.
“Where do I go?” Liam asked. “Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack territory?”
“No. No, no, let me think. They won’t take them back there.
It is too risky dragging your Pack to their territory again.
You are all monsters and her Pack is limping.
Eden talks a big game, but her Pack isn’t even bonded yet.
It’s new members who barely know each other.
It’s why they hung back when Vic was fighting Cian last night.
They don’t know if they want to go to war for Eden yet.
She wouldn’t have the backup if we all showed up.
They’ll take him somewhere outside of territory lines.
Somewhere they can hurt him. That’s what Cian does.
He tortures people when the Elders need information or to make an example. He’ll want to torture Vic for fun.”
Please be alive. Please!
“Let me think, let me think,” she chanted, closing her eyes tightly and imagining the conversations Eden had engaged in.
She’d talked to her mate on the phone about taking over the small motel in the government territory.
Maybe there? Would Eden be with Vic now?
Had she ordered the Pack to bring him to her? Think.
“Did they tell you what the cops looked like?” she asked Destiny.
Destiny shook her head. “Generic descriptions. Nothing that stands out. They both wore sunglasses”
She couldn’t figure out who they were, or if they were in Eden’s Pack. Maybe they’d been sent by the Elders? It could’ve been an outside job orchestrated by Cian, and the War Wolves he knew.
Fuck. Maybe if she texted Cian and begged him. She pulled up her phone. “Is there any way to do a location on someone’s number?” she asked aloud, mind spinning.
“Hey, Lyric,” Destiny said, resting her hand on her shoulder. “If it was me, how would you find me?”
Lyric didn’t understand. There had to be a way to track Cian’s phone, or maybe call Aro’s old contacts and track down who had taken Vic—
“Lyric,” Destiny’s voice murmured through the chaos in her mind. “Simplify. How would you find me?”
Lyric frowned, not understanding. “Well now I’m going to ask for tracking apps for everyone I know—”
Destiny was leaning over the console, eyes beseeching her. “You don’t need technology. You need your wolf.”
Lyric’s heart was racing with the urgency of figuring out a plan. She searched Destiny’s bi-colored eyes—the eyes Lyric had given her the day she’d Turned her.
“I would…I would try to find you with our Maker Bond.”
Destiny arched her eyebrows and nodded. “Do that to Vic.”
“I didn’t Turn Vic. I don’t have a Maker Bond to him.”
“That’s not the bond I’m talking about.”
Oh, her heart was pounding harder now and faster. She was realizing what Destiny was saying.
“Close your eyes,” Destiny whispered.
Lyric did as she asked.
“Is he alive?”
Lyric squeezed her eyes closed tighter and exhaled a long, steadying breath. The loudest thing inside of her was the pulsing of her Maker Bond to Destiny.
“Move it out of the way,” Destiny whispered.