Page 56 of Betrayed Kidnapped Mate

“Byron?” I shout, running out into the hallway. “Kaila?”

There’s no sign of them. I sprint back into the chem lab, my voice getting more high-pitched and frantic with every step.

“Kaila? Kaila!”

I slam into Maisie, who rocks back but keeps her footing. She puts her hands on my biceps, trying to steady me.

“Rosa, take a breath, it’s okay—it’s nothing.”

“The scent…” Percy says, his nose twitching. While his physical appearance is still frightening, there’s a sense of clarity behind his eyes—a lucidity that I haven’t seen there before. I don’t have a chance to rejoice in the relative success of the serum, or take notes.

My daughter is missing, and the man who was supposed to be here with her, protecting her, is gone.

“Someone is here,” Percy says, his eyes meeting mine. “From a different pack.”

My stomach drops to the floor. My father.

My father is here in Rosecreek.

I turn on my heel and sprint out of the room, dropping my lab coat behind me on the floor as I go.

Chapter 31 - Bigby

“Do you smell that?” Aris asks, his nose in the air. I don’t, but it makes sense that his ability to smell other shifters is stronger than mine. Especially if that shifter is an alpha encroaching on home turf.

We’re running through the house. Aris sent out an alert to the rest of the pack, warning the weaker shifters to shelter and calling the fighters to action. After Olivia ran out of the house, I went after her, catching her by the arm. She’d shaken my hand away angrily but stayed where she was.

“What are you going to do?” I’d growled, and Olivia turned her chin up at me, giving me a look reminiscent of before, back when I first turned up at their house in California. Like she doesn’t think I’m capable of taking care of my mate and child.

“I’m going to go find Rosa and Kaila,” she said, “and warn them before it’s too late.”

“Think about it for a second,” I growl, “we don’t know how close Amon is, but he more than likely doesn’t know about the underground compound. If you take off right now, he will catch your scent, and you will lead him right to the people you want to protect.”

Olivia stared back at me, her eyes wide, and I sighed.

“Rosa and Kaila are in the compound,” I’d said. “It’s the safest place for them right now. We can alert Byron to get them to safety in the residence quarters.”

“And then we’ll need him,” Aris had said, breathless from the porch. “Come on, Bigby. We need to arm ourselves.”

As we run to the armory, Aris wrinkles his nose again.

“You really don’t smell that?” he asks, his voice low, almost a growl, coated in protectiveness. It can’t be a good feeling for him—to have another alpha encroaching on your territory.

“No,” I admit. But I don’t have to smell Amon to believe he’s coming. I’ve seen Linnea have these visions before and how they’re true, every time. It’s not been long enough for me to forget how it was one of her visions that saved our asses before.

Aris and I are armed to the teeth from using his personal armory, and sprinting out of the house. Linnea and Olivia are taking the kids through the secret tunnel to the compound as we go.

“I’m projecting the location to the rest of the pack,” Aris says gruffly as he jumps into the passenger seat of my Jeep. I throw it in reverse and rocket down the path, heading for town. “Turn right here,” Aris says, “I want to intercept him on the outskirts of town.”

I yank the wheel and re-route the Jeep, rolling down a different gravel road, dirt, rocks, and dust kicking up behind us. The woods are all around us, the light filtering through the trees, and I think about what I told Rosa, about Rosecreek being the most beautiful place in the world.

Amon is here now. He found her. If Amon could find her in Rosecreek, he could find her anywhere. The knowledge rolls through my body—Rosa and Kaila won’t be safe anywhere until Amon is dead.

We turn a corner sharply, and Aris says to stop, so I pull the car over, and we get out, running through the last thin thicket of trees before reaching a clearing.

“Alright!” Aris says, stalking in front of the shifters gathered in the clearing. There are over a hundred, but looking at them, I know it’s insufficient. Ado stands at the front, his hands clasped, but Byron is nowhere to be seen. And while we’ve been doing our best to train any shifter who wanted to learn how to fight, they’re nowhere near being able to battle on our level.

Based on everything I’ve heard about Amon, we’re going to need a hundred Bigby, Aris, and Ado’s to get through him.

---