Chapter 64
Chapter Sixty-Four
Otis
It was a fucking mess. The beast in my chest roared, and I was trying to keep it together for the team, my family, and Hailey.
Fuck. Hailey.
The cops had turned up, and the human hate group had scattered like roaches in the light. Some didn’t make it far, but many more disappeared into the busy traffic and the maze of alleys.
Eric had a concussion and a giant lesion on his head that needed stitches. Louis was inconsolable. He’d shifted to his werewolf form and snapped at anyone who even came close to Eric, like if he couldn’t protect Hailey, then he was going to defend Eric with teeth and blood.
Hailey.
I finally managed to get everyone back to the center, and they paced like caged animals, because what the fuck did we do?
What did we do?
Chet was there, and his energy was scary. “We’ll find her, Otis,” he promised, and I felt like a failure. I couldn’t keep her safe, couldn’t protect either of them. I was so sure of my own abilities, and I failed them.
Clapping me on the shoulder, Chet got in my face, his eyes meeting mine. “We will find her, Otis,” he repeated. “I swear it.”
Liam was on the phone with the CVPD, chasing down information, and Chet sat us at the big conference table.
He growled at the auditor, and she lifted her hands.
“Be calm, Drokan. Get your team member back. I’m…
off the clock,” she murmured to him. My eyes bounced between them, and I didn’t have time to decipher the tension between them, not when Hailey was missing and my family was falling apart.
Chet could swallow her whole for all I cared. “What do we know?”
Liam returned, hanging up his phone. “They are processing the guys they picked up at the shoot-out. They are a mix of human hate groups, but the main one seems to be the preservers of humanity movement.” He hesitated. “Hailey’s parents were members, right? Do you think it was an… extraction?”
The rumble of my beast made the hair on the auditor’s arms stand on end. “She is not a double agent, Liam. Suggest it again and we’ll have a problem, blood or not.”
He nodded, and Deuce chimed in. “Maybe they think she’s a traitor to the cause. A legacy child who’s fornicating with the enemy. No offense.”
“How did they pluck her from the car mid-roll?” the auditor, I mean Eleanor, asked.
How much did we tell her? Fuck it, I didn’t even care if she closed this place down as long as Hailey came back in one piece. “Syke thinks it was demons.”
As if I’d summoned him, Syke shadow walked into the room. He was panting and wild-eyed.
“Syke?” Ilyas asked softly, and he flashed his eyes toward us, their swirling depths like a sinkhole. He was teetering on the edge. “What did you find?”
“It’s not a demon,” he hissed. “It has to be a celestial. An angel. Mohan thinks an angel is working with the humans, preying on them to use them as some kind of army.”
“What?” I whispered.
Liam frowned. “It’s impossible. They are literally programmed to do the right thing. Look at Allison…” He trailed off, but the thought hung between us.
“She wouldn’t,” Chet said, but he didn’t seem so certain. “She’s one of us.”
“Was one of us. Has anyone heard from her since she went on leave?” Deuce asked. “Because I sure as shit haven’t.”
My mind rebelled at the idea that our coworker, an angel I’d worked with for years, would try to provoke an uprising and steal a human. She was a do-gooder, a rule follower through and through, but an angel scorned was not someone you wanted to fuck with.
I looked at Chet. “Wouldn’t she?”
Chet swore, pulling his phone out and calling Allison. “Allison, it’s Chet. We need you to come into the center. Everyone has lost it, the orcs, the humans… We need you.”
He hung up, and I could see the disbelief in his eyes. “If she isn’t hiding anything, she’ll call back. I know it.” He sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s keep working through it. Who else could it be?”
“The orcs,” Ilyas suggested, his tone completely calm, like his bond mate wasn’t gone, but he could feel her in his chest, and that must be reassuring, even if it was muted. “They might have taken her to use as leverage against Eric to get him to drop the lawsuit against the state and clan.”
Eric was resting, the effects of the concussion making him tired, but I knew he wouldn’t be down for much longer.
“That guy who broke into her apartment was a preservers of humanity member. Maybe they are doing a little eye for an eye trade?” Louis suggested, though his hands twitched with the need to run to her rescue. He just didn’t know where to run.
Eric stumbled in, sitting beside us and rubbing his chest. “She’s awake. I can feel her in here. She’s scared.”
The growls that flowed through the room made Eleanor shrink back in her chair. I didn’t want to scare her, and I gave her an apologetic look. “She is our mate. We are protective.”
I watched as the woman steeled her spine. “I understand. It’s just instinct.” I didn’t know if she meant our growls or her cowering or both.
Syke jumped to his feet, the silver in his eyes brightening until they glowed.
“Syke?” I barked.
“I know where she is. She broke the moonstone.” He gathered the shadows to himself, and I leapt across the table to halt him.
“Syke! Wait. We need to neutralize the threat to our mate. You need to tell us where she is. Shadow walk there and back, and we’ll meet you there.
We will end this once and for all.” I wasn’t negotiating with levelheaded Syke right now.
I was negotiating with the demon who cared nothing about causing fear and pain.
He would inflict it on those who’d wronged him and the woman he loved.
I saw him fight to regain control of his instincts. “I won’t leave her there for a moment longer than necessary.”
I nodded in agreement, and then he was gone.
I was already heading to the armory to get kitted out. The rest of the team did the same, putting on their Kevlar and strapping on their guns. These were humans, not creatures. They didn’t fight with their bulk. They used weapons made to kill us.
Syke reappeared a moment later, shouting an address then disappearing again. Chet huffed a surprised sound. “So close to where she used to live. The original POHM headquarters. Not the homecoming she wanted though.”
We piled into two cars, and we tore out of the underground parking. I was coming for Hailey, and when I got her in my arms, I was going to tell her that she was mine and I was hers and that I loved her. I wouldn’t waste another second.