Page 33 of Fractured Fang: Omega

“Just stay calm,” Macs said. “We’ll find him.”

I wanted to believe him; really, I did. But the first time Levi ran off, I was able to find him because of my wolf; at that time, he hadn’t been hiding from me. He’d been hiding from his father.

This time it was different, and worse, it was my fault. Fighting with my father in front of him when the last time he saw two adults fighting, the end result was his mother’s death? I fucking knew better. And now? Now I had a witch, a witch who understood the ways of my beast, running and hiding from us. If we didn’t find him soon, who knew what could happen?

Especially if the human authorities got to him first. They would bring him in, discover he was missing, and place him with his abusive uncle. And why? Because I couldn’t keep my temper with my father and had to turn it into all about me.

Gods, please let him be okay.

Chapter 17

Macs

Iwaspanicking,mymind spiraling out of control. Though it had only been a few minutes since we got out of the car, Levi could be anywhere at this point. The kid was fast. And more than that, he understood wolves in a way I didn’t think even other wolves did. And that meant he could outmaneuver us.

My mind raced back to when the covenstead first joined us. We almost lost one to the raging river, and they hadn’t been a young child. So much danger laid out there for him to get caught in. We had no time to waste.

Levi had managed to keep up with Gabe and me in our fur when we were at Asilo. He wasn’t a stranger in the woods and had even hidden from his piece of shit father once. The kid knew how to run and escape. That was bad enough. But worse than that, he didn’t know this territory and the dangers it held. He didn’t know the river and how dangerous it was despite its beautiful facade. One slip of his foot and he would be in the water.

I looked to Franklin. He had a vision of May the last time someone had run off. He shook his head. I crossed everything he had a notion of Levi’s whereabouts and safety. He did not.

“I… nothing. I’ve got nothing.” He hugged himself close.

I was glad the triplets were inside with Kate. At the very least, they would’ve sensed that things were not how they should be.

“Who is Levi?” Phillips was saying—to who, I didn’t even know. Had he not seen the young boy holding his son’s hand? Was he so focused on his son’s failures that he completely missed an entire human being?

Phillip had calmed down a little bit, but not enough, in my opinion. His treatment of Gabe in this whole situation was completely unfounded. I wouldn’t blame him for what happened with Levi; there were many variables there, but I one hundred percent held him accountable for the way he treated my mate.

“Levi is our little boy; he’s seven. He was holding your son’s hand, but you were too busy with your agenda to make your son someone he wasn’t that you didn’t even notice him,” I seethed. It wasn’t productive, but I couldn’t help it.

“What was he wearing today?” Wilder asked.

Oh God, what kind of parent was I that I didn’t even know what he was wearing that day?

“Um, a T-shirt. Blue and khaki shorts. Tennis shoes. He’s not a wolf. He wouldn’t be able to shift.”

“We will find him.” Franklin was confident, and I appreciate that. I needed his strength at that moment.

“He’s a witch,” Gabe added.

“Levi!” May shouted. “Maybe he’s just hiding. Scared of all the fighting. Levi!”

“He can’t hear us. Levi is deaf,” I said. “He has hearing aids, but they aren’t the same, not even close.”

Everyone around us went still. Not being able to hear while lost in the woods was not ideal.

“We can talk to him if we shift though. That’s his gift. He can speak telepathically,” Gabe jumped in.

“He can do what now?” Wilder said.

“Levi can communicate telepathically to people in their shifted form,” Gabe clarified.

“That’s new,” Franklin said, obviously impressed. Like Levi, Franklin couldn’t shift, but as strong as he was, hearing us while in our fur wasn’t something he could do either.

“All right. Let’s fan out. May and Allistaire, why don’t you stay here with Kate and the babies? One of you stay outside so that if he comes back, you can take care of him. Send up a signal if he comes back.” We had flare guns for this sort of thing. “Franklin and I will go west, Edith and Phillip will go north, Perry and Troy will go south. Gabe and Macs, go East. How do you talk to him when you’re in fur? How does it work?” Wilder was in full Alpha mode now, taking charge. I was grateful because in the state I was in, I would impulsively try random things until something worked, and that wasn’t the way to get Levi to safety.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s hard to explain. He… you just think what you’re saying, but directed at him.” At least, that was how I thought I did it. It came naturally.

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