Page 10 of Betrayed Mate (Rejected Fate Trilogy #1)

CHAPTER TEN

H is face flushed, and some sort of film shimmered over his eyes. I blinked. Each time I opened my eyes again, the sheen remained.

He straightened up as his nostrils flared. “She said to find and protect Adira. I couldn’t make out a damn word after that. Anything she knew about her attackers died along with her.”

“Ryker,” Gage gritted out as he leaned over the vampire, placing her hands by her sides like he was trying to make her more comfortable. “What’s the plan? A lot of vampires have died.”

My heart squeezed uncomfortably at his tenderness. At one time, I’d expected Reid to be kind like that, but I’d learned that anyone outside my pack could turn on me so quickly I’d get whiplash. The wall around my heart hardened once again. I had to remember that I couldn’t trust anyone but myself.

“I’m going to check the perimeter since Kendric went upstairs.” Xander walked around Annabelle’s head, his brows creased in concern. “Do you wanna come with me?” His eyes flicked toward mine.

“She stays with me.” Ryker cut the air with one hand. “You two see if you can catch a trail out back while Ember and I go out front. I need you to focus on our task, not sniff around her.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. He intended to watch my every move, and I was certain he didn’t like the way his pack tended to protect me from him. Still, his concern wasn’t for my safety. Ryker was smart and knew that if the attackers did have Briar, I was the person most likely to locate them due to the packmate connection I had with my sister.

“Fine.” Xander didn’t hesitate to rush to the door.

Gage jumped to his feet and paused like he was considering arguing, but before he could speak, Ryker took my wrist and led me out the front door.

Not wanting to waste time, I didn’t argue. Ryker and I were at least in agreement on one thing—we needed each other. I needed him to help retrieve my sister, and he needed me to find more answers.

I hadn’t noticed any strong scents inside, but I’d hoped that was due to the overpowering vampire blood. The two of us slipped through the front door as a chill racked my body. I searched the area for signs of somebody watching us, but I didn’t see anything as the rain continued to fall. The only sounds were the handful of passing cars and the spatter of rain on the rooftops.

The air held a slight hint of musk, indicating wolves once again, but I couldn’t identify anything distinct about it. I rocked back on my heels as the rain hit my face. “How is this even possible? They were just here.”

A muscle in Ryker’s jaw flexed. “I know. This is exactly what it was like when we got back to our pack and the royals. I’d hoped that your pack situation would be different, given how Reid acted, but it wasn’t. I don’t understand how any of this is possible.”

A strong breeze picked up, taking more scents away with it, but the sensation of being watched didn’t go away. I hated it when I got paranoid, but the air seemed to hold a warning.

Ryker didn’t seem to notice as he headed over to the corner of the yard, sniffing. Even though he was in human form, I could see the faint glow of his wolf coming to the surface.

Something inside me responded, and my feet moved closer to him of their own accord, without permission from me.

“Son of a bitch.” Ryker’s voice was guttural, his eyes returning to normal, but the weird sheen over them was somehow even more visible. “I don’t understand how they’re doing this.”

When his face tightened and his jaw clenched, my feet stilled. Whatever had flared inside me was gone. Luckily, there was still about ten feet between us.

I understood his frustration. Without proof that Reid engineered these attacks, no one would believe us. Not after Reid had shamed me in front of everyone, and especially not now that I was associated with Ryker and his pack of merry men. I would look like a woman scorned who got herself to believe in something that wasn’t real. “How the hell are we supposed to prove Reid’s behind it all so that we can punish him and his pack?”

“We need to figure out who the fuck Adira is and locate your sister.” He shook his head as we headed around the building toward the side of the road. “For them to attack like this, they had to be somewhat in the open. I don’t—” His eyes flashed with a pack link connection, and then he took off running toward the back of the house.

My heart dropped as I wondered what could possibly be wrong now. Refusing to be left behind, I sprang into action and moved quicker than I expected. When I rounded the corner of the stone house, Ryker was approaching Xander and Gage, who had a man in their grasps. The sweet smell informed me the man was a vampire.

“Let me go,” he gritted out as he twisted in their hold, trying to get his arms free. “I was heading into town.” Wavy hair fell over dark eyes, the irises outlined in crimson—proof he’d recently drunk his fill.

“Oh, we are aware.” Xander fisted the hair at the back of his head. “We saw you scrambling out of the crawl space.”

Ryker threw a punch to one side of the vampire’s skull. The vampire’s eyes rolled back, and his head slumped forward to hang limply.

“Tie him up with the rope in the back of the Suburban and put him in the trunk.” Ryker marched toward the back of the house like he was on a mission.

My mouth dropped open as I stumbled back several feet. “What the hell ?” I couldn’t have seen what I just saw. Yet the poor man’s head hung loosely, emphasizing that he had, in fact, been knocked unconscious.

Xander and Gage grimaced but began dragging the vampire toward the Suburban.

They were actually going to obey Ryker’s command.

“You can’t be serious,” I muttered, watching Ryker slam the back door as he went into the house. A part of me wanted to follow him to see what he was up to, but it was for the best that I remained outside, especially after seeing how the one vampire died.

Images of Rosa appeared in my head, and bile churned in my stomach once more. Still, I had one task I could focus on that wouldn’t result in me falling apart again, so I jogged in front of Xander and Gage, blocking their path.

“We don’t have a choice.” Gage lifted a brow. “He’ll alpha-will us if we don’t obey orders. Either way, Simon here ends up in the same situation. The only difference is whether the two of us also have to deal with Ryker’s annoyance when we try to disobey.”

My breath caught. Dad had used alpha will very sparingly and only used it more frequently since the whole debacle with Reid. In fact, before that, I remembered only one occurrence in my entire lifetime, and that had been when a member of our pack, Steve, had wanted to attack another wolf for taking the woman he wanted to mate with. Dad had decreed that Steve had to obey the woman’s decision, and he’d left our pack shortly after that.

Obviously, Ryker didn’t have an issue using alpha will anytime he wanted to.

“If I let him go—” I started.

“It’ll be worse for Simon if you do that.” Gage placed his free hand on my shoulder. “If Ryker believes he knows something, he’ll just hunt him down. His scent would be fresh too.”

“So what? At least he’ll have a chance to escape.” I doubted this poor guy who’d just endured an attack would be willing to tell us anything after Ryker had punched him out.

Xander snorted. “He’s unconscious. There’ll be no escaping. Besides, do you want our help locating your sister?”

Yes. Yes, I did. And they did have a point about the vampire being passed out…

Even though the last thing I wanted to do was help kidnap the man, I made my way to the Suburban and popped the trunk open for them. I refused to tie the vampire up, but I wasn’t angry at Xander and Gage. Their hands were metaphorically tied …unlike the way Simon’s would be soon.

After a few minutes, they had Simon bound and shoved into the trunk with the door closing when Ryker and Kendric came out of the house three doors down. Their expressions were strained, and Kendric had blood on his shirt.

“We’re heading out,” Ryker announced, and all of us climbed into the vehicle.

The stench of blood and vampire had already saturated the Suburban before we pulled out of the driveway. Kendric had his phone out, typing some sort of message, and I sat in the back, glancing over my shoulder to watch Simon’s head bob at each bump.

Even though I knew the answer, I had to hear it from Ryker and Kendric. I swallowed, bracing myself for the truth. “Were there any survivors?”

Somehow the silence felt heavier than if they’d already said the words. Gage looked back at me, the skin around his eyes tight.

I hated it when people treated me like a delicate flower. They just needed to be straight and say the words. “Were they all dead?” I asked again but louder.

Of course, it was Ryker who rasped, “Yes.” The word was deep and heavy with pain that I understood within my own heart. A little bit of my anger toward him ebbed, though I still couldn’t believe what he’d done to the poor, innocent man behind me.

Kendric rubbed his temples. I imagined what he’d seen was worse than my dead pack. Somehow, that knowledge sat bitter on my tongue.

“Raven will be okay, man,” Xander said as he reached over and patted Kendric’s arm. “She’s dealt with loss before.”

“True, but I hate that another of her friends was taken from her.” Kendric dropped the phone into his lap and shook his head. “She’s lost so many people in her life.”

“We all have.” Ryker cleared his throat. “Don’t forget that.”

“None of us have forgotten that, man,” Gage snapped, jerking in Ryker’s direction. “You act as if we aren’t all suffering the same as you, but we are.”

Ryker’s hands tightened on the wheel, his knuckles blanching. “Doesn’t seem like it. None of you are focused on finding the attackers who murdered the royals and our pack after sending us on some bogus mission so we looked like we were either cowards or behind it.”

My breath caught. I hadn’t intended to cause such a harsh atmosphere. Yet the hair on the back of my neck continued to rise, and I glanced behind me to confirm that the vampire was still unconscious.

“We’re driven to find them just as much as you are.” Xander wrinkled his nose. “Just because we’re also worried about others outside our pack doesn’t mean that our goals aren’t aligned.”

“Distractions allow the trail to get colder. We have to be able to move at a moment’s notice.” Ryker shook his head. “We just arrived at the vampires, but the scents might as well have been hours old. We can’t be days behind.”

The other three leaned back in their seats, becoming quiet. My mind reeled as I realized that, even though they were a pack, they weren’t fully united in their objectives. The incident in question clearly had driven a wedge between them instead of bringing them closer together—it seemed tragedy had a funny way of making relationships take an extreme turn for better or worse.

I tossed my feet onto the other end of the back seat and leaned against the door. I didn’t want to chance the vampire waking up and somehow finding a way out of his restraints then attacking us before we arrived at our destination. Wherever that was.

Leaning my head back, I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds of the vehicle—the purring of the engine and the breathing of each one of us in the vehicle. Images of my pack tried to pop into my head, and I nearly gave myself over to the crushing pain. However, I couldn’t lose myself right now. Not with them.

Pushing away my loss was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, so to help, I focused on the faintly warm spot in my chest.

Briar.

The reason I remained with this pack. They had agreed to help me, and if Ryker didn’t follow through on his words, I wouldn’t hesitate to leave.

After what felt like hours, the vehicle slowed, and I opened my eyes to see that we’d pulled onto a gravel road surrounded by woods. It took me only a moment to recognize where we were—Shadowbrook National Park—but the setting sun meant that the park was closed.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“We’re going to get some answers.” Ryker got out and slammed his door shut. He marched around to the back of the Suburban, but the other three didn’t move from their spots.

I dropped my feet back onto the floorboard just as the trunk opened. Ryker reached down and tossed the vampire over his shoulder like he didn’t weigh two hundred pounds.

“And exactly—” I started, but he shut the trunk and headed into the woods. When the guys stared at the ground and didn’t move, I realized they knew what was going on. I finished my question. “How does he plan on doing that?”

“It’s best if you don’t know.” Gage rubbed the back of his neck and remained facing forward.

I tensed. “No. He wouldn’t.” I’d heard rumors of how Ryker interrogated people, but I’d hoped it was blown out of proportion. Yeah, he hadn’t seemed friendly to me, but he had saved me. Torture was a whole different level.

When the other three didn’t respond, I got to my feet and shoved in between the middle-row seats. Torturing people, especially fresh victims, was beyond cruel—it was inhumane, and I wouldn’t stand for it.

“Whoa.” Xander grabbed my arm, trying to prevent me from edging past him and out the door. “It’s best if you stay here with us. Trust me.”

Those words alone made me even more determined to go. I growled, “You can either let me out the easy way or I’ll fight and still get out the hard way.” I didn’t care if he was a man with five inches of height on me. “You pick.”

“Let her go,” Gage said. “Someone needs to try to reason with him, and the three of us can’t.”

Pursing his lips, Xander seemed to be trying to decide what to do next. “Fine.” He moved so I could get out the door.

I rushed after Ryker. I couldn’t see him anymore, but I could smell him clearly and hear the burble of a stream. I jogged to catch up…and then I heard something sickening.

I broke through two oaks to see what was causing the noise, and it was even worse than I’d thought.