44: A Pack Divided

Prince Caspian Romanov

My phone started ringing as soon as I found out that Quincy is missing. My pack sensed my distress and called to find out what happened.

Now they are all here, in Jonah’s house.

It’s been half an hour and Layla, Quincy’s roommate, is still staring at my pack members with huge eyes and mouth hanging open. She stopped being useful the moment my pack arrived.

“Wait! Wait! Wait! Let me get this straight. So, you’re Quincy’s cousin?” asks Penny for the third time since they got here.

She’s staring at Jonah in disbelief, while Darius is glaring at the man as if he wants to murder him. Correction, he ~wants~ to murder him.

Well, I don’t think we can let that happen. I doubt Quincy would be too happy with us if we hurt her cousin. Jonah is still struggling to come to terms with his cousin being my erasthai. Judging from the look that he keeps sending my way, I don’t think that I’ve won his approval yet. Not that he gets any say about it. She’s already mine.

Lazarus and Constantine are standing near Jonah and Darius with a sofa between them, just in case, while the girls are almost in the kitchen. I guess we are all very big. The house feels crowded. We’ve already established that Jonah is, in fact, Quincy’s cousin and that she’s been missing for at least two days now.

Layla was visiting her pack, and she just came back yesterday. She didn’t suspect anything until this morning when Quincy never came home last night. Jonah came home to find a very upset Layla. According to Jonah, he stayed away from home right after Penny’s kidnapping.

He had been laying low just in case the person who hired him came looking since he helped Penny escape.

“Yeah, he’s her cousin, Penny, and we need to find Quincy,” replies Genesis.

“I think my old pack has gotten her,” says Jonah angrily.

As if on cue, my phone rings. My agent, Samuel Franke, is calling. I take the call and put it on speaker. “Where the hell are you, and where is she?” I say.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. She left with three men on Thursday night. I followed her to a werewolf pack near, excuse me, some podunk town in Pennsylvania. It’s up on the mountain, in the middle of nowhere. The phone has little to no connection,” informs my agent.

Indeed, the connection is weak. His voice keeps breaking up.

“The human population is less than two thousand people, scattered throughout the town and farmlands. The pack has some fifty families—”

His voice is breaking again.

“—is full of warriors. Do you want me to go in and get her?”

“No, Samuel. I want you to keep watch,” instructs Lazarus.

I reluctantly agree. Somehow I don’t think sending Samuel in alone would end up well for him. A lycan might be able to get her out of there, but Samuel is a werewolf. Our warriors are lycans, but most of our spies are werewolves. We lycans don’t blend in too well.

“Get more information,” I tell him, feeling on edge.

“Let me send you the coordinates,” he says.

“That’s okay, Samuel. I think I know where we’re going. We’ll meet you there,” says Lazarus just before the connection breaks.

“I think we ought to bring Lord Archer in again for this,” proposes Constantine.

The rest of us nod in agreement.

Lord Archer is a well-known and well-respected ambassador of the palace. He’s an important liaison between the palace and the packs around the world. It’s not that we can’t deal with the pack ourselves, but Lord Archer’s presence can help smooth things over much better.

Besides, he came through for us when Constantine was fighting to get Genesis from the alpha of her pack a few years ago.

“Tell Lord Archer not to inform the king and the queen about this just yet,” I tell them.

I don’t want my father and my mother to be involved in this until I get everything ironed out between us.

“Do you think she might have gone back willingly since you said some of her clothes and stuff are missing?” suggests Serena.

The thought of her leaving without waiting for me to come back to her like I promised hurts like a knife twisting in my chest, but I say, “No, she wouldn’t do that.”

“No, she’d never go back willingly,” growls Jonah at the same time.

“I gather that she hasn’t been treated very well by the pack?” asks Constantine.

“Wasn’t treated very well? They wanted to get rid of her as soon as she was born. Our Nana saved her,” growls Jonah.

“She came here to hide because our former alpha wanted to make her his second mate. She’d never go back there willingly.”

Just the thought of another man wanting to claim her makes my chest burn with rage. My heartbeat escalates, and my vision turns red. Nobody touches what’s mine. Nobody! I will kill him!

“Caspian, you have to calm down,” warns Lazarus.

Too late. My body is burning. Changing. My lycan will not be contained. I have to go before I kill somebody.

“Meet you on the way,” I hiss before I sprint out.

Quincy St. Martin

There’s a tiny opening at the far end of the narrow space where the sunlight filters through.

It’s not much, but the dim light is enough for me to see what’s around me and to know that it must be morning now.

There are eight small holding cells. I’m at the farthest end from the stairs that lead outside. My cousin Jorden is a few cells away, closer to the stairs.

He’s still sound asleep. He didn’t move a muscle when they dragged me in here last night. I was worried that he’s dead when nothing worked when I tried to wake him up.

But then I heard him snore. I’ve never been so happy to hear anybody snore before, but I’ve given up trying to wake him up.

I guess not all holding cells are created equal. The ones nearer to the stairs, including the one that Jorden is in right now, have tiny beds and look clean.

Mine, at this far end, doesn’t have anything but bare walls and cold, dirty concrete floor.

The walls and the floor at one corner of my cell look charred, as if something was being burned there at some point, so I crouch down at another corner.

I’ve been crouching here the whole night.

The floor, the wall, and the steel bars are freezing cold. The air is chilly, musty, and stale. I have nothing else on except for the thin gown they put on me last night.

The arms that I wrap around myself feel stiff. My feet feel numb.

My body might be shivering, but the whole night I’ve been trying to think of the things that make me happy. Sometimes it works, and I find myself smiling. Sometimes happy memories lead to dark thoughts.

It’s strange how I can’t think of one single happy moment with Nana, but I remember her crazy sayings, the warmth of her love, and the routines that we shared together.

I hate how old Maddox taints my memory of her. Now I wonder about her last moments. What was her last thought? Was she scared? How long did she suffer? Then I think of Caspian. The things that he did that drove me crazy. He annoyed me like no other, but he made me feel loved and treasured.

He made me feel safe and protected.

His touch is electric.

He’s beautiful and magical. Almost unreal.

He made me feel whole and alive. What I wouldn’t do to look into his eyes, to feel the touch of his hand on my skin, and his lips on mine again. Do I ever cross his mind? Will I ever see him again? My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the lock being turned, followed by several footsteps descending the stairs.

Jorden stirs on his bed.

A guard appears at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a woman carrying a tray. They both leave after delivering our breakfast.

I watch as Jorden pushes himself up. Then he sits cradling his head in his hands. Soon afterward, he moves sluggishly to look at the food on the floor.

“I wouldn’t touch it if I were you,” I say.

He almost falls. “Q! How…? What…what are you doing here?”

I move my stiff muscles to shrug. Then I crawl to get closer to where Jorden is. “I think they drugged our food and drinks,” I tell him.

“No wonder I feel so tired and weak,” he says.

I sit holding the bar and tell him about what Old Mr. Maddox did to our Nana. When I’m done, he’s shaking with fury. Then I tell him about what happened to old Maddox after he bit me. Next, I tell him about what happened to me in California.

“Goddess, Quincy…” Jorden shakes his head in wonder after I’m done telling him about Caspian. Prince Caspian, my golden god.

“I don’t claim to know everything about lycans, but I’ve read some stuff about them in our library a while ago,” he says. “I think I know what happened to old Maddox.”

His face contorts in distaste and anger when he says his name.

“A lycan’s blood is poison to a werewolf. That means you’re already turning into a lycan, and that could only happen if you’ve accepted your bond with the prince. Q, when did you—”

We both swiftly turn our heads to the door when we hear the key being turned in the lock.