Four

Vali

“How long?” I asked, panic lacing my tone as Jackson led me through the house.

“Two hours.” He said.

“Where were the other two? We need to travel in-”

“Vali, they took the three of them.” My body froze at his words. I couldn’t cry. That would make me look weak and that was something that I couldn’t be. I had done everything I could to keep my people safe, and yet those same parameters have lead to three of my wolves going missing instead of one.

“Two hours since they last checked in?” I asked, just to make sure that I had my facts straight.

“Yes, we’ve had wolves tracking the trails left since then but they just…”

“I need to-”

“Vali, if they are taking three wolves at once then you can’t go anywhere.” Jackson said, I turned to look at him as if he had burnt me. He essentially had. “You need to stay safe, and-”

“I need to keep my people safe, Jackson. And I am failing severely at that.” I cut him off, pointing out to the forest that surrounded the manor we had turned into our home. “Don’t tell me to stay here and do nothing, not when another three of my people have been taken. In broad fucking daylight none-the-fucking-less.” I swore.

“There’s nothing you could have done to stop this, you know that.” Jackson said.

“Don’t. Just… just don’t. I need to go and look for them.” I was half-ready to shift when he spoke again.

“We have our best trackers out there, Vali. There’s nothing to follow.”

“Bullshit. They can’t just disappear off the face of the planet, Jackson.” I knew it wasn’t a lie. That there wasn’t a trail to follow. It was a part of the reason so many wolves went missing every single year, that there was never a scent to trace. There was no natural reason as to why the scents would simply fall off the earth like they always did, which meant there had to be something we were missing. “They have to leave something behind, it’s impossible to not to.” I said, after taking a couple of breaths to calm myself down.

“The vampires have been doing this, not just for centuries, but for millennia, Vali. They have it perfected. They don’t leave anything behind, and none of our people ever escape with their lives. Making everyone travel in threes worked for a while, it has saved far too many wolves to even bother trying to count, but now the vampires know and are preparing for it. So we have to change what we’re doing.” Jackson said, and the tiny sense of calm I had felt after my breathing went out of the window.

“What else can we fucking do?” I asked, and this time I shifted without giving him any time to respond to me. We both knew what the answer was; that we couldn’t do a damned thing to keep our people safe anymore.

My bones popped and changed, my skin covering in white fur as my wolf came free out of my body and we stood on our four paws. The clothes I had been wearing were ripped all over the ground, now useless, but I didn’t care. My people were in danger.

I sat and stared at Jackson, who was still in human form.

He was either going to come with me or he wasn’t, and I was waiting to know which it would be.

“Fine.” He said, taking the time to take his clothes off before shifting. After he fully shifted he just stood in front of me and stared, his dark brown eyes contrasting against his pale grey fur.

Lead the way.

I heard his voice echo in my mind, so I nodded and let my paws carry me through the forest. Sprinting towards the scent of panic and worry and concern that was seeping through the trees. We eventually reached the clearing where the wolves had been taken, so I started investigating.

There were too many unknowns about how the vampires abducted wolves to know what to look for. That also pissed me off. Somehow, vampires were able to overpower us to take us hostage when we were the ones who’s bite was toxic to them. They couldn’t even drink our blood.

How did they manage to take three of us at once? Without any blood being spilled?

That was one of the first things I had noticed, that there wasn’t a single drop of blood anywhere on the forest floor. And then there was the absolute absence of vampire scent. I looked at the other wolves who were around the clearing, all of us in animal form in case vampires came back.

What are the trackers tracing? I asked Jackson, who came to stand next to me and point his nose to the west.

One of them caught the brief scent of one of the missing wolves, Kira. Thought there might be something but there wasn’t. There are these flashes of scent, but they get further apart as the distance increases from the clearing. He explained, I nodded and looked around once more, inhaling deeply to catch anything that smelt strange and could help us.

I sat down, tucking my tail around my paws.

Wolf’s Bane. I communicated to him, he nodded. Can you smell it, or is it just me?

Well, now that you mention it…

I watched as he walked over to another wolf, maybe the one in control of investigating the disappearance. Normally this would be something Marcy would take care of, but she was probably out tracking. Or trying to.

Liam says that they had noticed the Wolf’s Bane, but there’s no other evidence aside from scent that it was used. He told me when he came back, I nodded at Liam before turning my attention back to Jackson.

So, how the hell do they do it then? How can they attack us, kidnap us and not leave a single trace aside from the hint of Wolf’s Bane in the air? I asked, standing up once more to walk around the clearing and try to figure it out. The scent of my people’s fear kept harassing my nose, but it was just fuelling my anger and my need to figure this all out. To stop it.

Well, they wouldn’t be able to sneak up on us unless they had a way to hide their scent. Surprise is the only way they would be able to take us, especially a group like they did here. Jackson said, I nodded as I kept pacing the clearing.

There isn’t a natural way to do that, so how could they hide their scent? I asked, he sighed and tilted his head to the side.

Magic. He said, I tilted my head to the side.

The witches have been vocally opposed to the vampires for centuries now, so why would they help them hunt us? I asked next, knowing that theoretical situations were what Jackson was best at.

They wouldn’t… Jackson said, very sure of himself. I paced a few more times, so they had magic to hide their scent, but the magic was recent.

What if it’s like their moonstones? I asked, he slowly blinked at me. The witches made the vampires the charmed moonstones millennia ago, they allow them to walk in the sun. What if the witches made them something back then for this, another item that can be passed down through the generations that covers their scent, something they only use when they come after us. Possibly even during the Hunt too in order to give them an edge.

It’s possible… I’ll have to talk to my contact though, to see if we can confirm that. Jackson said, I nodded.

Do it. And this is the last straw. I’m going to the fucking Summit.