Wolf's Fall (Alpha Pack #6)(33)

Without further warning, he plunged the blade into the top of her thigh. Calla screamed in agony, head thrown back.

And Nick could take no more.

He ran from the room, from the stronghold. He bolted straight to their pond, the last place she’d been seen. Once there he stripped and shifted, and wasted no time sniffing the entire area to pick up her scent. He found it on a rock, and her sweet aroma almost knocked him to his knees. He would get her back, and then this bastard had better watch out.

“Nick!” John called.

Turning, he saw his team racing down the path after him, John in the lead. When they reached him, the big man stopped and scowled at him.

“You’re not doing this alone,” he reminded Nick. “I suggest half of us help you track her on the ground. The other half should go back to the compound and retrieve our air transport because we can’t always rely on the vampires to get us where we need to go. Ryon will go with our group on the ground so he can communicate where you are to the rest of the team, and they can rendezvous with us. Sound good?”

Frustrated with himself, Nick nodded. He should’ve thought of his team, but instead had gone off half-cocked. They couldn’t function if their leader couldn’t keep his head.

“All right,” John said to the group. “How about me, Ryon, Kalen, Micah, and Jax go with Nick? The rest go back for the transport and be prepared for a rescue. They can take Tarron with them if he wants. Does that work?”

The others agreed, seeming a bit awed by the typically quiet man taking charge. Nick knew the truth—John’s personality really wasn’t that quiet or shy. He simply felt much more comfortable taking the reins now that his identity wasn’t a secret and he no longer felt like he had to blend into the woodwork. It was good to see this side of his old friend that had been sleeping for years.

Those going back for the helicopters left. The rest began to strip their clothing for their shifts—except for Kalen, who, as a Sorcerer, didn’t need to remove his clothes to change into his panther. Lucky bastard. But he was good to have around when the rest of them needed to change back to human form and had left their clothes far behind. His magic had also saved their asses in more ways than Nick could count.

Once his group had shifted, they joined him by the rock to imprint her scent on their brains.

There were other scents, too, ones Nick didn’t recognize. In one spot blood was pooled on the ground, and he investigated. This scent probably belonged to the guard who’d been injured. He and his team filed that information away as well.

From the rock, he followed Calla’s and her captors’ scents across the open area and down the path, away from the stronghold. The trail led to a dirt road, several miles away, where there were tracks from an unknown vehicle that had pulled in, turned around, and drove off again. There, the scents were drastically reduced.

They’d taken her away by car. He could’ve howled his anger, but forced himself to remain focused.

Pushing himself harder than he ever had, Nick ran. On and on, hour by hour, his team flanking him. Though he eventually grew tired, he stopped only to allow his team water from the streams and lakes they came across.

He had to find Calla, refused to think it might already be too late.

And he made a vow—if she was spared, he’d step up and grow a pair of balls. He was going to be a mate she could count on and be proud to call hers.

Or die trying.

Seven

If there was a place on her body that didn’t hurt, she couldn’t locate it.

Calla slumped against the wall in the little box she thought of as her coffin. Weakness weighted down her limbs and her vision was blurry. She couldn’t see very well anymore, but her hearing was still fine. She heard the rain pattering outside the cabin, trickling off the roof and onto the ground. Pat, pat, pat, pat.

It sounded a whole lot like her life ticking away its final hours and minutes.

She could also hear the bastards in the other room laughing about what else their boss had in store for her. More draining of her blood, more cuts to her body. Maybe a beating or two thrown into the mix.

“That stingy vamp better let me have a go at her * before he sends her to hell,” Buzz Cut said from somewhere in the cabin.

“Think she’s still nice and tight after a few centuries?” This from Rat.

“She’d better be, or I’ll skin her worthless hide with my Buck Knife.”

Shivering, she huddled and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to make herself smaller. Conserve warmth. That was easier to do since they’d removed the duct tape from her wrists, though it didn’t help much. It was so cold and tomblike in the dank room—or that feeling could be the blood loss.

The vampire would return soon.

There was something slightly familiar about the voice of the sick bastard hiding beneath the black clothing, but she couldn’t be sure. Did it really matter whether she recognized him? Nick and her brother would figure out the vampire’s identity and make him pay for what he’d done. But she might be dead by then.

As sad as she’d been the past few years, she wasn’t ready to give up. And she didn’t deserve to have her life taken by some megalomaniac with a twisted idea of revenge. He seemed to think her brother and his allies should know what his acts were all about. Whatever it was, the vampire was past anger—he was insane with an emotion that went much deeper than rage. She hadn’t been able to pinpoint what it could be, but the cold, methodical way he was capable of doling out his torture was frightening.