Page 27 of Blood of Vengeance

He grunted. “I don’t know?—”

“How old are you?” Zella asked, sounding really annoyed. “Go to your Find My app then scroll to her name. It’ll show you that she’s in some patch of nothing right off highway 12, northeast of the city.”

“Who the fuck is this?” Flinch asked, the growl in his voice growing more pronounced with every syllable.

A fact that didn’t slow Zella down in the least. “I’m Zella, and Lock is my best friend. So, are you going to make sure your guy doesn’t murder her, or do I need to get my ass on a plane?”

“I’ve got her. Locklyn, stay put.”

He disconnected, leaving only Zella and me on the phone.

“Uh,” I started, unsure what to do next. “I guess he’s handling things.”

“Are you still following your murderer?”

“He’s probably not my murderer.”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“You’re ridiculous, and yes, I’m still following him. I just need to make it around this turn?—”

But that was when I dropped the phone.

Flinch

There was no rage in the world like what burned inside me. My mate was scared, possibly in trouble, and I had no idea how to get to her. “Locklyn, tell me where you are.”

Cutter and Zed walked closer, both of them having pulled over on the side of the road when I had. We’d been riding when Locklyn’s text had come in, the flat, computerized voice reading it to me through my headphones making me want to throw my bike into the desert and shift right there. But I had to know how to find her first, had to figure out a direction to go before I could take off.

Cutter mouthed “She good?” at me, but I shook my head, still holding my phone to my ear. Waiting.

The device pinged, and then I heard Locklyn say, “I sent you my location.”

I pulled the phone away from my face and tapped through to put it on speaker, my hands trembling in both fear that someone would hurt her and fury that someone had dared to attempt it. I tried to figure out what she meant, even looking in my texts for something from her, but my brain could not focus on the frustrating little rectangle in my hand, plus the rate of her breathing, and forcing my wolf not to explode into being on the side of the highway.

I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know?—”

“How old are you?” someone—a voice I had never heard—asked, making me nearly drop my phone. “Go to your Find My app then scroll to her name. It’ll show you that she’s in some patch of nothing right off highway 12, northeast of the city.”

Cutter lunged and nearly took the phone from my hands, his growl and mine melding into a cacophony of predator instinct. Thankfully, I held on as I shoulder-blocked him, tapping the app the voice had instructed me to even as I snapped back at them.

“Who the fuck is this?”

The unknown woman didn’t lessen her tone or volume a single bit. “I’m Zella, and Lock is my best friend. So, are you going to make sure your guy doesn’t murder her, or do I need to get my ass on a plane?”

I did as she said, focused solely on the little blue dot right where she had said it would be. Locklyn—my mate—would be there. I looked up, eyes meeting those of my VP before holding up my phone so he could see the screen with that blue dot. He glanced at the phone in my hand, his face set in a scowl I had never seen him wear before, and nodded before jogging back to his bike. Location determined and leader notified. We were riding out.

“I’ve got her. Locklyn, stay put.”

I ended the call and pocketed the phone, revving my bike to life. I tended to ride at the back of the line—the tail gunner rode last in our club—but not this time. I rolled to the very front, settling in beside Cutter.

“You good?” he asked over the engine noise. I wasn’t—not in the least. My girl needed me, which meant the only thing I could focus on was finding her and killing Rooster for scaring her. Killing was a nice word—I was going to rip his fucking arms off and use his own fingers to disembowel him.

But that would have to wait, seeing as how I needed to get to her first.

So instead of going full berserker on some stupid motherfucker, I nodded, skipping words.

Thankfully, Cutter seemed almost as rage-filled as I did. He accepted the nod and held up one arm before yelling, “Let’s roll.”

---