Page 92 of Destined for Shadows
Chapter 28
Bartol
The town of Livengood numbered its population in the lower double digits. Bartol didn’t find much to note it as a town other than a few old buildings and houses dotting the area and a trading post. Someone mentioned it was founded after gold was discovered in the early 1900s and then mostly abandoned a few decades later. It was a hilly area with thick vegetation and crude roads, constructed mainly of dirt and gravel. The primary attraction to the place was that it began the long and arduous ground route to Prudhoe Bay.
They stopped in the town first to organize their search parties. It was the middle of the night, so thankfully they didn’t have to deal with the few residents who might have noticed a large group of supernaturals gathering conspicuously, particularly those who shifted into wolf form so they could hunt easier.
Bartol paced back and forth as everyone broke off into teams. They assigned Kariann to him because it was decided by everyone—except him—that no one should hunt alone. Also, to be on the safe side, anyone with angel blood had to have someone else on their team who would not be susceptible to whatever Griff was using for protection. Bartol didn’t like it, but Lucas and Melena had spent the entire drive north convincing him that this was the best approach.
“We’ve got the land to the northwest of here,” Kariann said, holding up a map with an outline of their assigned search area.
Bartol was tired of standing around “planning” and didn’t feel like discussing their tactics anymore. He grabbed the female vampire’s arm, jerked her to his side, and flashed them away. As soon as they landed, he let go of Kariann and began investigating the land around them.
“Wow.” She gave him a disgruntled look as she clutched her stomach. “In a hurry much?”
“Yes,” he replied.
She took a moment to collect herself and started walking with him. He was glad to find she could keep up with his long strides as he pushed his way through thick brush and around trees. The snow that had hit the region two days before had mostly melted, so at least they didn’t have to tromp their way through much of it. Bartol only found small patches in places shielded from the sun.
After more than thirty minutes of walking, his gut churned when he crested a rise. Intuition told him he should veer east, though he saw nothing in that direction to indicate the reason. Many times his sixth sense had guided him well in the past, and he would not ignore it now, especially since he felt it through his mate bond. Cori was in pain again.
Kariann rushed to his side. “We can’t go that way. Someone else is assigned that area.”
“I don’t care. Cori is in that direction,” he replied.
“How do you know?” the vampire asked.
“She is my mate, and she’s in trouble. I can feel that we are getting closer to her.” Which was likely the reason Lucas insisted someone go with Bartol so that he didn’t just take off on his own, which was exactly what he wanted to do.
“Right.” Kariann drew her sword and started chopping down the vegetation ahead of them. “I heard mates can sense each other.”
He continued in the direction his instincts guided him. As far as he could tell, there were no signs of human civilization to confirm this was the correct path, but that didn’t deter him. They walked a few more minutes before breaking through a copse of trees. Approximately five hundred feet in the distance, Bartol thought he caught the hint of a structure with a faint light coming from the window.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
Kariann squinted in the direction he looked. “Yes, barely.”
“Cori is in there.”
She pulled a radio out and called in their position to the other search parties.
Bartol shifted on his feet impatiently. “We need to go to her now.”
Kariann moved in front of his path, smart enough not to touch him. “Not yet. We need to scope this place out and see if Griff has any friends in there who could cause trouble. Melena can help with that.”
Bartol worked his jaw, feeling another jolt of pain run through him as Cori was hurt yet again. He clenched his hands at his sides. Kariann was right that it could be a trap, but he couldn’t stand idly by and do nothing. “Five minutes—that’s as long as I’ll wait.”
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” The vampire gave him an annoyed look. “It’s going to take more than that for the others to get here. Be patient!”
He crossed his arms and glared at her.
Rapid movement caught their attention, and a moment later, Lucas and Melena appeared next to them. Bartol had suspected that though Lucas couldn’t flash his mate anywhere, he could still move very fast with her. That had only taken two minutes of the five he’d allotted.
After the sensor caught her breath, she turned in the direction they were looking. Her brows knitted. “I don’t sense anything that way. It could just be humans.”
“It’s her,” Bartol insisted.
His patience had worn thin. Feeling another burst of pain from Cori, he used his flashing vision to check on her. It didn’t work. It was as if he had hit a brick wall and couldn’t penetrate farther. Bartol tried flashing to the house, but that didn’t work, either.
