Page 49 of Torn By The Alpha

The older man pressed his lips together, and Zac knew that he wanted to argue. His daughter was a very talented mechanic but was out of work at the moment, and the elder wanted to create a job for her.

“Marissa can apply for grants to start her own garage. I’m sure that most, if not all of our pack, would use her regularly, and I bet the other shifter clans would, too,” Zac said, a little more gently.

The elder started to say something, but Zac held up his hand and cocked his head.

“Do you hear that?” Zac asked.

“Hear what?” the elder asked, confused.

Zac listened intently. “Zac, Jade and I are in trouble. We are in Marsden’s cave. There are five witches, total. We are tied with magical knots. We need help.”

The elder was about to speak, when he heard Zac say,

“Jade and Olivia are in trouble,” Zac said, rushing out of his office. “Ian,” he bellowed.

“What’s wrong?” Ian asked, running up to him.

“Marsden has Olivia and Jade. Get your guys together and call the other clans. I’ll call Matthias and Lucius,” Zac said.

“We have some people on the mountain right now. I’ll start at the creek because I know that Jade likes to go there when she shifts. We might be able to catch their scent,” Ian said.

Matthias said, “We’ve got shifters on the mountain right now. We’ll look for them.”

Lucius already knew about the situation because Jade had reached out to Marvin.

“We have dragons in the air,” Lucius said. “We’ll find them.”

Zac thought about Marsden’s words and wondered if it wasn’t so much a prophecy as it was a warning as to what she had planned. She was the reason that Olivia was in danger and so was another member of his pack.

Ian and Zac ran out the door and jumped into Zac’s truck. They ran as fast as they could into the wooded area, made sure there were no mundane people, and shifted, running toward the creek.

“Jade’s and Olivia’s scents are everywhere,” Ian muttered.

“Look for any areas where the vegetation is crushed. Seven people can’t just walk through the forest without leaving behind signs,” Zac said, trying to keep his voice steady.

It was obvious where the five witches had come through the woods and surprised Olivia and Jade. The leaves were tamped down and several twigs were broken where they had walked and stood.

“Looks like they went this way,” Ian said, pointing to a path through the trees.

They both stopped abruptly when the path ended.

“There is no way that they could have simply disappeared,” Zac said.

“Remember that Adam said that he felt like they floated him to their cave,” Ian said. “Maybe they did something like that.”

“I guess that is possible, but that would still mean that there are five witches who would leave a trail.”

“Could they have found a way to cover their tracks?” Ian asked.

“I don’t know. How could they fix broken twigs and make the leaves look like they haven’t been walked on?” Zac asked, frustrated.

“There has to be something here,” Ian said.

They looked around carefully, sniffing the ground, trying to find a trail. Finally, Zac spotted a tiny drop of blood.

“They went this way,” he said. “That smells like Jade.”

“Were they forced to walk through the woods as humans, naked and barefoot?” Ian asked, the anger pouring out of his voice.

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