10

I think this is the last week I'll be posting a double-chapter update since I have three other projects I'm also working on. Thank you all so much for your well wishes on my last post. I am *so much* better it's crazy (from 20+ pills a day to 1 inhaler) and I thank my lucky stars every day for my health and all of you! If you are interested in proof-reading any of my projects send me a message through this site and I'll get back to you soon. ♡ Ava

NINE

"Ashleigh! Ashleigh! God damn it," the pack listened as Travis searched the parking lot.

"Why can't he find her?" Mack panted and winced as Soren packed the bullet hole in his shoulder in what would turn out to be a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. "Just calm down," Soren told him, "it'll bleed slower if you're calm." He wasn't sure that would actually help and Mack had lost so much blood already Soren was certain this exceeded his first-aid skills.

"Travis, we need to get him out of here," he shouted. When the alpha didn't answer he tried again. "Travis, I can't stop the bleeding! We need to make some decisions here!" Finally the alpha jogged around the corner, his revolver still drawn. "Soren, take Yosef and my truck. Get Mack to the guy, you know the one-"

"I'm not leaving until we find Ashleigh," Mack rasped now and strained again to stand up, but Soren held him down.

"I don't want to leave Jana," Yosef started to say, "and yourself, alone. Jana is hurt, too. She should come with us." Despite being occupied with Mack's injuries Soren still saw the look that Jana gave Yosef and noticed that Travis seemed to be ignoring the Iraqi.

What's with that

, he wondered.

"I'll stay here with River and Jana and we'll find her, Mack. You need medical attention now and she'll be just as upset with me if something happens to you as you are right now." Travis wiped cold sweat from his brow. "And to be honest, son, I'm more afraid of her than I am of you."

Mack cried out in pain as Soren and a reluctant Yosef lifted him and hurried to the truck before he could argue more. Jana listened to the diesel engine start and the sound of gravel ricocheting off the metal siding on the other side of the shop as Soren punched the gas. Her own injury bothered her a little, but wasn't anything serious.

"Let me see that leg," her dad demanded, but she waved him away. "I tied a rag around it, it's just a graze. We need to find Ashleigh." He sighed and led her and River to the spot where he had lost sight of Ashleigh in the fray.

"It's fuckin' carnage," he swore at the sprays of blood that dripped from the fleet of new white trucks, "but no sign of her anywhere."

Jana knelt and studied the wet pile of what had been hunter scum. "It looks like there's three guys here," she said quietly, "did she shift? How did she do this?" Travis shook his head. "I couldn't see her. She was running behind the trucks and I lost sight of her. Then it all stopped and there was no trace of her, just this." He kicked a pair of blood-soaked handcuffs and sighed.

"Looks like the plan was to take her alive," River interjected. The trio sifted through the assorted weaponry, knives, a rifle, and a couple of pistols before Jana held something strange aloft.

"What's with this antique shit?" she asked. Travis was going through one of the men's wallets and didn't look up until he heard River swear. After finally turning to see what had upset the battle-hardened wolf he stood, slowly, his mouth hanging open as he realized what Jana had in her hand.

"Iron manacles," Travis grumbled.

Jana squinted. "I thought the myth was silver, not iron."

River shook his head, "it's not to catch us," he began.

"It's to catch a faerie," Travis finished.

Jana looked from one man to the other and wrinkled her nose. "Are you two fucking with me right now? I can't tell."

"Your little gal pal isn't a wolf, Jana," Travis explained as he took the manacles out of her hand, "she's fae."

River frowned and ran his eyes over the carnage again. "I know some fae are nasty, but I don't think a fae did this. Do you think-" he started to ask, but didn't have to finish.

"A hybrid?" Travis finished for him.

"Like a car?" Jana snorted. "Nice try, guys, but be serious. We need-"

"He's not messing with you, Jana. She could be fae and wolf." River stood and began searching between the trucks again, more urgently than before.

"I thought faeries weren't real. What are you guys talking about?" Travis had turned away from her as well and begun looking high and low for any sign of Ashleigh.

"They were real, a long time ago. They mixed with humans all the time, rarely with our kind, until they disappeared into the human race," Travis explained as he weaved between trucks, Jana following him dumbstruck as he explained. "A lot of humans have just a drop of fae ancestry, but some say that's enough to make them fae. There was one family that I knew of, a man my father knew, actually, who bit a girl with fae-blood," now he tore open the doors of trucks, desperately searching every possible place Ashleigh could have hidden.

"Well, what happened to her?" Jana prompted while she watched her father tear through the parking lot.

"Usually they die when we bite them, but it's hard to resist them. They smell different, almost too good," as they rounded the end of the last row of trucks they met up with River, who finished the alpha's thought. "No wonder Mack couldn't resist her," he shook his head. "I can't believe I didn't think about it when he brought her to the compound," River admonished himself, but Travis shook his head, swearing, "this has been the longest morning of my fucking life." Jana couldn't help laughing as Travis spoke, "how were we supposed to realize we had a fae-wolf in our midst in the middle of all the crazy shit that was going on this morning? This is no one's fault, except maybe Mack's. He should have known. Let's look inside the shop before we give up."

"So what happened to her?" Jana prompted, impatiently following her father through the garage. "Did she die? Did she shift?"

Travis shook his head and finally stopped having looked everywhere he could imagine someone might try to hide. "She lived, the only one I ever heard of but there could be more. Had a bunch of kids. She couldn't shift, but the kids all could, whenever they wanted to, and in small amounts." Jana shook her head, not understanding. "Small amounts?"

"Yeah, like one arm, or just their face, weird abilities people attributed to their fae lineage," River finished.

Jana balked at River's description. "I've never heard of partial transformation before, are you sure? That sounds scarier than full-transformation, to be honest."

Travis nodded. "My dad said their kids were living nightmares. He and their father were really close, but once the kids came along, he started to keep his distance."

"The other stuff didn't help," River added with a shrug. Travis laughed dryly and nodded.

"What other 'stuff'?" Jana asked hesitantly, putting air quotes around the last word.

"Ahhh, well my dear, wolves will be wolves," Travis said without further explanation. Jana wasn't sure she wanted to know more. "Whatever," she said, rolling her eyes, "we need to look at the cameras and see if there was another vehicle, if she took off on her own, or what direction they took her, if we can see that much." Travis snapped his fingers and pulled his phone out of his pocket, briefly frowning at the screen as he fumbled the password before finally unlocking the phone.

The trio gathered around, their heads touching as they watched the camera feeds. It was still dark when the first truck, the blue rusted clunker, pulled into the parking lot. Three men slid off the bench seat and out the driver's side door, waving as another rust bucket pulled up, then disappeared out of the camera's view. Jana squinted at the screen.

"Isn't that truck still back there?"

Travis nodded at River, who immediately disappeared outside. Usually Travis insisted that pack members moved in pairs, but River was old and mean like Travis, and a grizzled veteran of war on top of that. There were very few scenarios that Travis thought River couldn't handle on his own. Jana stayed and watched on as a third vehicle, this one a newer SUV with tinted windows and dark paint, pulled in behind the second beater. "That's how they got her out of here," Travis muttered, "and we missed it in the chaos."

"Speed it up, figure out which direction they went," Jana encouraged him, eager now that they had a clue. They watched as the events of the morning unfolded, watched Yosef, River, and Soren pull Mack from beneath the truck and scuttle to safety, watched Ashleigh run across the parking lot like a madwoman, sprays of blood erupting in the aisle between the pristine white trucks. "I wish we could see if she transformed," Jana muttered, but Travis shook his head. "After what my dad described, I'm not sure even I could stomach it, Jana. You need to understand that she's not like us at all. Get whatever ideas you have out of your head. If she really is one of these hybrids, they're unpredictable, violent, even by our standards."

Finally they saw movement near the dark SUV, but with all the trucks in the way and the tinted windows of the car, it was impossible to see what was happening on the side of the car farthest from the camera. While they watched the video River burst through the door of the garage, dragging a struggling man behind him just as the video showed the SUV leaving the lot. "Here," Travis said, handing Jana the phone and turning his attention to River and the struggling man. "Who the Hell is this?" Travis asked.

River grinned. "I'm pretty sure this is our buddy, Ronnie."

"Oh, Ronnie!" Travis exclaimed, walking across the garage to grab a folding chair. "Long time, no smell! We were wondering when you would show up. Here, take a seat," he growled as River hauled the man into the chair. "You know what's funny? The last person to sit in that chair was your buddy, Ben!" Ronnie was wild-eyed as he looked from one man to the other. "Ben? I don't know anybody named Ben," he stuttered.

"Finally," Jana breathed, ignoring the men. "They got on the highway going eastbound. I'm going to try and catch up." She disappeared from the shop before Travis could stop her. He thought about going after her, but the engine of the motorcycle started on the first try, and he knew she'd be on the road by the time he got outside. He settled instead for giving Ronnie his most menacing look. "You're going to tell me everything you know, and if anything happens to her, you're going to feel it. Do I make myself clear?"

⏾⋆.˚

It felt like her body weighed a thousand pounds. Her mind reeled as the distance between her and Mack grew, but she was helpless to do anything to stop it. In an instant she had gone from feeling invincible, tearing the hunters apart between the trucks - she closed her eyes to shut out the memory of the gore.

I can't believe I did that. I didn't do that. I didn't do that.

Now she couldn't even move. When she tried the worst pain she'd ever felt in her life seared through her, starting at her bound wrists and spreading outward. "What did you do to me," she rasped, but the men in the seats in front of her didn't answer. She bounced roughly along on the carpet of the car, the sky the only thing visible through the rear window. "Did you drug me?" She kept trying to get them to talk. She had read somewhere to get your captor, if you were ever kidnapped, to talk.

No second location.

She closed her eyes to shut out the pain.

I have to get out of this car. I can't let them take me somewhere else. No one will ever find me if they do.

Every time she tried to pull her hands out of the manacles the pain intensified, but they seemed to be stopping her from doing anything else.

Are they magical? What the Hell is this? On a normal day the only thing I'd be concerned about is tetanus,

she thought as she looked down at the rusty contraption.

But this wasn't a normal day. I can't believe I-

No, not right now. I have to think, have to get out of this car. What would Travis do? Fuck that, what would Jana do?

Jana wouldn't let a pair of rusty handcuffs stop her from doing anything, Ashleigh thought bitterly.

Why didn't I realize it was a trap? But why did they trap me?

She closed her eyes again, wishing the memory of the morning would go away.

I know why they trapped me. I would have trapped me, too, if I were them.

"How much do you think she's worth, anyway?" one of the men asked. Another laughed. "A fae-wolf bitch? Who knows? Millions?"

"Just don't harm a hair on her head, although she's already in pretty rough shape."

"Who knows what they were doing with her?" Ashleigh heard the first man again.

"Probably trying to breed her," the second man said, snorting.

"Who knows how they feel about these things?" said the first man.

"Why do you think they're so rare? They killed all the other ones." The third man was the only one without a Southern accent, and seemed to be the one driving, Ashleigh noticed.

"I'm not so sure," said the second one. "When you killed that other one she sure showed up in a hurry. Didn't Ben say they were a mated pair?"

Killed? Did they kill Mack?

"Are you sure he's dead? He still looked pretty alive to me when he scurried under that truck like a roach in the light," said the first man. It sounded to Ashleigh like he was in the passenger seat.

"Oh, he was bleedin' real bad," said the second man, sitting in the seat directly in front of Ashleigh. "Nailed him in the chest, probably hit one of his lungs, or an artery, maybe both." He laughed, clearly under the impression that Ashleigh wouldn't or couldn't do anything to him.

"He probably imprinted her," the driver was talking now, "so she showed up when he needed help. But where is he now? Not here to help her, you notice. They aren't even following us." The men laughed like it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. Ashleigh wanted to look out the back window to see if she recognized any cars but couldn't see anything except the sky above and the back of one man's head from where she rested on the floor.

Focus on that,

she told herself.

If Mack could get to me, he would. But I don't need him to teach them a lesson.

It took everything she had just to sit up without screaming. Her skin burned and she trembled from head to toe from the exertion and pain. Counting to ten, she breathed slowly in through her nose and out through her mouth, not wanting to alert the man sitting in front of her that anything had changed with his unwilling passenger.

"You already got a buyer lined up, or just fishin'?" asked the man in the passenger seat.

The driver responded.

So he's the brains of this operation,

she thought. "Yeah, he sort of ordered her, to tell you the truth. I didn't think there were any left."

"It's always nice when the work comes to you," said the man in front of her.

"I suppose, but she was a hard one to find, thankfully not smart enough to be hard to catch." The men chuckled and then were quiet for a little while, giving Ashleigh plenty of time to stew in her hatred of them. Now sitting up, she could see the roadway behind the car. Her heart skipped a beat when the sunlight reflected off a familiar pink helmet several cars back.

I have to signal her somehow

, Ashleigh thought, not realizing that Jana already knew exactly where she was.

"How did you find her, anyway?" asked the man in front of her.

Damn it. I want to hear this, but I don't want to miss my opportunity.

Mental images of Jana passing the car unaware flashed through Ashleigh's mind.

And then what happens to me after that?

"Someone posted a reward on that forum I told you about," said the driver. "They thought she was just a she-wolf, but once I had a picture of her face it wasn't hard to figure out who she was. Used an app to look for similar pictures and found another picture of her from a few years ago embedded in an article. 'Local cop kills intruder with bare hands.'" One of the other men whistled. Ashleigh closed her eyes, biting her lip and chanting internally,

I don't remember that day. I don't remember that day.

"The trucker was an unexpected complication, but that worked out better than I would have thought. Can't believe she led us right to a den like that. What luck."

"It's a good thing we got rid of that big son of a bitch. He's the nastiest piece of work in that pack. The rest of 'em should go down easy," said the passenger.

The idea of these men getting to the pack, to Jax, Jana, and the sweet babies sleeping in the basement pushed Ashleigh to the edge. The idea that Jana might pass her by and never know it pushed her right over it. With an animalistic scream she turned and threw her arms over the man's head and pulled the chain of the manacles tight against his throat. Before he could slip out she locked one arm over the other and twisted, her nerves screaming as the iron bit into her flesh. Panicking, the two men in the front began to fight over a handgun in the console between them as the car swerved to-and-fro on the freeway.

"You can't shoot her," screamed the driver.

"She's gonna kill us if we don't do something," the passenger screamed right back.

"I'm gonna do a lot worse than kill you," Ashleigh's voice was grating, pain overwhelming her nervous system as she shook with the effort of strangling the first man. Looking over her shoulder she could see Jana right behind the car.

There's no way she doesn't know where I am now,

Ashleigh thought before turning her attention back to the purple-faced man in front of her.

She watched intently as the driver and the passenger grappled with each other for control of the gun but she couldn't stop the scream that escaped her lips when the driver finally got control of it and shot the passenger in the face. The man's body instantly went limp, his torso only held up by the seatbelt.

"You can choke that stupid hick to death if you want," the driver yelled at her, all three of them nearly deafened by the gunshot in the confines of the car. "It doesn't matter to me, less people to pay when it's all said and done if you wipe out Ronnie's crew of fuckwits and inbreds. But if you fuck with me I will kill you and that bitch on the motorcycle behind us."

Ashleigh made her choice. She released the man in the back seat and sank onto the floorboards of the SUV, only to be deafened by a second blast of gunfire. The second one wasn't a clean kill, and she closed her eyes to block out the sounds of the man gurgling, choking on his own blood in the seat in front of her.

Thank God my ears are ringing so badly I almost can't hear it anyway,

she thought, then felt a little guilty for thinking it.

After a few minutes of silence the driver spoke again.

"How long do you think she can follow us on a tank of gas? A few hours? Maybe I should just stomp on the brakes and get rid of her."

"No!" Ashleigh rasped, all the strength she had mustered leaving her body as the manacles worked their strange magic over her again.

"Why do you care about them? Other than her, they don't care about you. I bet you Travis knows exactly where I'm taking you, and he won't do shit to stop me."

He's just bluffing so I'll feel like I'm alone. He's not my friend. He wants to hurt me.

"As long as you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you. Do we understand one another?"

When Ashleigh was silent he just kept talking.

"I guess that iron finally got the better of you. I always love a woman who knows when to shut up. It's too bad I can't keep you for myself, Miss Marlow. You are pretty, a bit feisty but nothing those manacles won't cure."