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When my dad walked out on me and the rest of the pack, I cried. I hadn’t thought I would, but I had nothing and I had no one. Just despair.

She’s gone. Aerin is gone and I don’t know how I’m going to even begin to get her back. Shane took her, and when I catch up to her, the first thing I will do is rip Shane’s throat out. He deserves nothing less.

But first thing’s first, I can’t sit here wallowing in guilt for failing Aerin.

I cut the engine and swing the door open.

I’m getting out of my car when the front door swings open and Bennett fills the open doorway. His eyes flick from me to my empty side. “You didn’t find her?”

He’d wanted to come with me. I told him he needed to put out the fire. I had my cell phone. If I found something, I’d call him.

Instead, I feel like I wasted hours aimlessly driving around, the only car on the road for much of the early morning.

I shake my head. “He took her and I have no?—”

Movement just behind him catches my attention and Bennett steps aside, revealing an unexpected face.

Clary, the shifter from New Mexico who came searching for his missing omega mate who someone had kidnapped two weeks before.

I’d ordered him to leave when he’d admitted to watching Aerin and later, startling her so badly that she fell down a hill and knocked herself unconscious.

He had said he wasn’t sure if he could trust us, so watched from a distance to make sure we weren’t part of the missing omega problem spreading through packs around the country. But he’d made Aerin fall. I wanted him gone from Winter Lake, and gone from anywhere near Aerin, so he couldn’t hurt her again.

But now Aerin is gone—taken—and I’m struggling to cling to my anger that he came back. I just feel numb and hopeless.

“He came back,” Bennett says unnecessarily when I stare at Clary.

“I know you ordered me to leave, but I can help you. And you can help me,” Clary says.

“He helped with putting out the fire,” Bennett adds. “We couldn’t have done it without him.”

“Chris?” I ask, hoping at least something has gone right today.

The last time I saw him, he was flat on his back, blood pumping from his neck. Skin tinged a bluish-white, and barely breathing.

I’d stayed with him for fifteen minutes as we’d battled to save his life.

It had been Adela and Helena, doing the bulk of the first aid, who had said there was nothing I could do. That they knew what to do. I had to go after Aerin.

Bennett, Tina, and Aerin’s grandparents had been fighting to put out the fast spreading fire.

I’d ordered Penny, Colton, and Warren to secure the perimeter and make sure we weren’t facing an attack.

Adela and Helena had been fighting to save Chris’s life as Zoe, his mate, gripping his hand, seemed to be willing him to live. Blood was pouring from a wound on her head, but she’d barely seemed to notice Adela bandaging it.

“Will pull through,” Bennett says.

I relax. That’s something to be relieved about.

I had to go after Aerin, but I hadn’t wanted to leave my pack.

And I’d left them to search for Aerin, but come back empty-handed. Chris could have died while I was gone. My house could have burned down. There could have been another attack and I wouldn’t have been here to defend my pack.

More guilt eats at my belly.

“He’s upstairs with Zoe and the others,” Bennett continues. “Not sure anyone managed any sleep, but we’ve been doing hourly patrols, so everyone had a chance to get some rest. There’s been no sign of anyone or anything.”

Because they got what they came here for.

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