Chapter 38: Chapter 38

ETHAN

A row of black off-road vehicles is sitting out front as my team loads the last of the equipment. We don’t know what we should expect, but we are planning to be ready.

“Ethan!” Caleb calls to me as he jogs up. I turn to him before he continues, “I sent the scouts and a couple of the strategists ahead; they’ll keep us informed through our links. They are going to get us as close as they can and figure out our best way to get in undetected.”

I nod before my brothers come up to me with someone I wasn’t expecting in tow. “Will? What are you doing here?”

“I heard that piece of shit alpha took Scar,” he answers angrily.

“That’s what we suspect, yeah.”

He nods curtly. “Then I’m coming with you.”

I give him a hard look, and I can see he’s determined. I could use all the help I can get, and I know he’ll have her best interests at heart.

“Fine,” I answer. “We’re heading out in five. Grab what you need.” The men continue to scramble around me, and we finally climb into the vehicles and take off.

The roads become more worn as we head out of the city limits. We bounce around on the rough terrain, but we keep the speed as we zoom across the old roads in the direction that our scouts went.

A burning sensation rips through my chest as a weird tingling feeling creeps along my neck, and I instantly know what the cause is. Lucien is kissing my mate. I can sense her fear, her disgust, and my fists clench tightly as I fight the urge to break something.

“Faster. We need to go faster,” I urge. The driver of my vehicle quickly nods before pressing his foot harder into the gas pedal.

We are flying as fast as our vehicles will go as we grip onto the handles above our heads, preventing ourselves from being thrown around like rag dolls. I try to link with Scarlet, make sure she’s okay, but I can no longer sense her.

That causes my anxiety to spike, and my fear to escalate exponentially. I hate that I couldn’t protect her from being taken from me. But I won’t let him hurt her. “~We’re going to kill him for touching her,~” my wolf growls angrily in my head.

“~You bet your ass we are,~” I quickly assure him with a snarl of my own.

I should have known he couldn’t be trusted. My gut told me that I shouldn’t have let her anywhere near him. This is my fault. I knew something was up, and I didn’t do anything about it.

“~We’re going to do something about it now. Just focus on getting our mate back.~”

I nod resolutely. Right. I need to focus.

I try to link Scarlet again. Still nothing. I get increasingly worried. “~We need to hurry,~” my wolf urges.

“~I know!~” I growl back.

I don’t need his constant reminders. My anxiety is already at its max right now. I don’t need him adding to it. I want to find our mate as bad as he does.

There is no way to know what Lucien has planned, but my stomach is twisting inside of me, and my chest is clenching. It’s like I can sense something bad, like my body is telling me that he’s going to do something drastic.

The car hits a particularly bad bump, and with our current speed we go flying. We land with a crash as the car swerves and bounces, but luckily, we continue on our way. Our scouts are so far ahead of us that we can no longer see them, but we soon hear their voices in our heads.

“~We’re outside the city. You should pull over and hide the vehicles before getting too close. There are no walls around pack territory, but there are guards stationed in watch towers that are spread out about every twenty yards or so.~”

“~Okay. Do we have a way in yet?~”

“~Not yet, but we are working on it. We should have something by the time you get here.~”

“~Have you found Scarlet?~” I question, and my heart instantly starts hammering in my chest. Goddess, I hope we got here in time. I hope we can find her.

“~No sir, but there is a building that looks like a castle with a gate around it. We’re willing to bet that’s where our luna is.~”

“~Good. We’ll be there soon.~”

“Pull over up here,” I tell the driver, and he immediately does as commanded, followed by the rest of our party.

We strip down and tie our spare clothes to our legs before shifting into our wolf forms. From there we run in the direction of what’s now called Silver City. Soon, we can see the blue and yellow lights coming from the buildings and perimeter.

It’s late but the territory is quite busy. We sniff out our fellow pack members and find them hiding among some abandoned houses a little way out of town. It looks like it was once some sort of suburb.

They all bow their heads to me as I approach them. “So, what’s the plan?” I immediately ask one of my strategists, Duncan.

“You see that watchtower up ahead?” he asks as he points toward a tall structure with a platform at the top that is surrounded by a rail with a small square roof above it. I nod.

“Billy and Jordan just went to take out the guard. Once they give us the go-ahead then we are going to go single file into the city. The grass is overgrown enough that if we take our time and keep low to the ground, we should be able to reach the tower unnoticed by anyone else. From there we’ll need to split up and try to look like a normal part of the city as we make our way to the castle from different directions. Once we get there, we’ll have to figure out how to get in.”

***

We manage to reach the tower without any problems. A guard lies on the ground, stripped down to his boxers, while Billy wears his uniform. We swiftly shift and dress before Billy addresses me. “Hello, Alpha,” he says with a respectful bow of his head.

I nod at him in greeting before we huddle around, hiding in the shadows.

“Billy, stay here and maintain this exit. We’ll need a safe route out of here, and the vehicles are parked a few miles that way. This is a stealth mission. We want to call as little attention to ourselves as possible. Kill if it’s the only option. We don’t want anyone being alerted because of the smell of blood. Duncan, I want you to lead a team north, Jordan, lead a team east. I’ll lead the team to the south entrance, and Roger will take a team west. Be on the lookout for any openings we can use. Be quiet and search for Scarlet. Remember we may not be able to smell her. She said they sprayed her with something earlier that masked her scent. The goal is to get her out of here unharmed,” I explain, and all of the men nod.

A burning sensation crawls up my thigh and across my chest. I immediately grit my teeth, knowing that Lucien is touching my mate again. A low growl rumbles through my throat, and I clench my fists tightly.

“And if you get your hands on Lucien, detain him. I want to kill him myself,” I snarl, turning to lead my team away.

“Wait,” Will loudly whispers. I look over my shoulder to see what he wants to say. “Everyone should cover their scents. We may not have whatever spray they used, but these plants should help,” he explains as he holds up some green leafy plant that had been growing around the base of the watchtower.

I give a quick nod, and everyone begins rubbing the plant over themselves, trying to hide their natural scent. Once that is finished, I begin leading my team toward the castle while the other groups do the same.

As we reach the gates, I see that there are no guards. Everything is electronic. ~Perfect.~

I try to ignore the painful burning sensations that are telling me that Lucien is touching my mate as I focus on the task at hand.

Carefully, I creep up to the camera and disable it, setting it to replay the last fifteen minutes over and over. I immediately open up the keypad next before disabling it as well.

With a few more steps I have the gates on the other sides open and quickly inform my team. I’m not sure how long it will take for someone to notice that something is up, so we need to hurry.

As I make my way toward the entrance of the glass castle, there is suddenly an inferno building inside of me. My mark feels like it’s on fire, and the pain is blinding. I stop and lean against a wall as I close my eyes, trying to push past the horrible agony that I’m feeling. Something is terribly wrong.

“Ethan, are you all right?” Will asks as he comes up to me, placing a hand on my shoulder as he looks at my face. I grit my teeth together and let out a grunt as I nod.

“Let’s get my fucking mate.”