Mated in Mist (Talon Pack #3)(53)

“Where is he?” she whispered. Her magic slid through her, ready to fight. But without knowing who to fight, she came up short.

“Finn? Can you come over here?” Charlotte knelt on the floor next to the side door, a frown on her face. “Everyone else keep your distance. I think I scent something, but I don’t want to mix it with others.”

Leah froze but tried not to be annoyed that she couldn’t help. She didn’t have the senses the others did, but hopefully, she’d be able to help in some way.

Finn carefully moved toward his cousin and cursed. “It’s human. Fucking human.”

“It’s mixed with Ryder’s scent,” Charlotte added then moved back to Bram’s side.

Leah’s knees buckled but she didn’t fall. Brandon stood at her side, looking as if he were ready to catch her, but she couldn’t look weak.

“We’ll find him,” Leah bit out. “We’ll find him and make those who took him pay.”

Finn met her gaze, his wolf in his eyes. “Hell yeah. They don’t f*cking take what’s ours.”

“We’ll need to follow the trail,” Bram put in. “How’s your mating bond?” he asked Leah.

Leah shook her head. “I don’t know how to use it, but I’ll figure it out.”

Because she had to. Someone had taken her mate, her Ryder. And there was no way she’d let that stand. She would find him as he’d found her once before. They were meant for eternity, and she’d be damned if she’d let that eternity end now.

She’d find him.

She had to.

****

Ryder held back a scream. The blade slid into his fingertip as if searching for hidden claws. Fucking humans didn’t understand that it wasn’t an actual wolf right under his skin. It was his wolf, another part of his body and soul. They shared his body, but not at the same time. It was magic.

The man currently slicing off parts of Ryder’s skin couldn’t just peel it all away to see his wolf. The goddess had both blessed and cursed them with the magic of their wolves.

Humans would never truly understand, and yet this one wanted to find an analytical and sadistic way to prove that magic truly existed.

Ryder had been a f*cking idiot. Seriously. He hadn’t even scented the damn humans until it was too late. He’d gone inside for his tablet and had ended up with four darts in his body. He’d moved fast enough to duck another ten of them, but the humans after him had been prepared.

If he’d been a weaker wolf, he might have died from the amount of drugs coursing through his system. They’d knocked him out and dragged him to whatever building they held him in now. Though his body raged in agony at the slices on his skin and the drugs in his veins, his wolf was at the front, taking in every detail of the place he could.

He was underground in a bunker of some sort, but this was no hovel, it was some high-end expanse. Large cages lined the walls, though they were empty. He didn’t want to know why they were empty. He wouldn’t be able to take it. Bright lights covered the room, bathing it in a sickly glow, and long medical beds dotted the area. The thick belts and leather cuffs attached to each bed weren’t lost on him.

He wasn’t in a place designed to help people. He was in a place where people were studied. Vivisected. Murdered.

He needed to get the f*ck out.

“He’s bleeding like the others, but he seems to have a firmer spine,” the butcher in front of him stated coldly.

Ryder let out a growl, just a slight warning before looking over the man’s shoulder at the familiar face in the doorway.

Senator McMaster.

The eagle-eyed, smooth talking politician, who had been the first in power to speak out against the supernatural. The man had subtlety put a firm boundary between humans and those who were not. The Pack had been keeping an eye on him, but it seemed they had missed something crucial.

The man had plans of his own.

“You wolves think you’re the top predator, the top of the food chain, yet you’ve spent the past year hiding, waiting.” McMaster slowly moved toward Ryder, even as the butcher with the knife kept cutting.

The slices burned, and blood flowed from his body, but the man with the knife knew what he was doing. Ryder wouldn’t die from the cuts, but he’d hurt until he did something stupid—like give up key information about his Pack.

That meant Ryder would have to do his best to keep that from happening. No matter the pain. It killed him that he couldn’t feel Leah like he should. The drugs and searing agony made his mind a little muddled—enough that he was having a hard time finding the bond and keeping track of where she was or what she was feeling. Their bond was too new, too fragile. If they’d been mated for years like the Redwoods were, maybe Leah and the Talons would have had a chance to find him.

As it was, he was afraid it would be too late.

He’d die with his secrets, die for his Pack, but he’d be damned if he went easily.

“It was really quite exhilarating seeing you change on the screen as you did,” McMaster continued. He gestured toward the empty cages. “The ones that came before you shifted countless times for me, but they didn’t have the same…finesse that you had when you were jumping through fire for that witch.”

Ryder’s wolf held back a whimper at the idea of so many lost wolves. He knew they hadn’t been Talons or Redwoods since there hadn’t been any disappearances, but they could have been Centrals, lone wolves, or countless others. He couldn’t let them die in vain.