Page 43 of Blood and Magic (RBMC: Helena, MT #2)

Vermillion

T he sun had nearly set by the time all of our reinforcements arrived.

Dozer, Apollo, Grinder, and Jagger from the Royal Bastards MC chapter in Montreal made the trip as soon as Kodiak put out the call for help.

Captain Pink and Odin from St. Louis got settled in yesterday.

They were supposedly the sons of Gods, which said things about the afterlife I’d never considered.

I could spend hours talking philosophy with them and never get any real answers.

The guys from Montreal didn’t know about vampires or shifters, but what were a few secrets among Bastards? They didn’t believe us until Kodiak showed them his fangs.

“What the fuck?” Dozer said, taking a step back.

“Fucking awesome,” Jagger replied, moving closer, squinting in wonder.

“Amateurs,” muttered Captain Pink with an eye roll from Odin.

All had agreed to go after these Scorpion motherfuckers with everything we had. Even the Steel Roses MC envoy had been willing to throw down. Lore was human and wore an eyepatch over one eye, but that didn’t stop him from being a badass.

“If you need help, the Roses always have your back,” he’d said, running a hand through his dark hair.

The problem was the resounding ache in my chest that only got worse as time went on.

I hadn’t seen Maeve since she went hiking with Holden and Ginny, but things hadn’t exactly been great between us.

I was still scared to touch her, and she was still testing her boundaries.

Until Morwyn got the results of our blood tests, I didn’t want to get too close, which had only created more distance between us.

Now, though, something else was wrong, and I didn’t know what it was.

Panic surged in my veins, my heart pounding, the magic connecting me and Maeve barely a whisper of what it was immediately after the transition.

If I focused hard enough, I worried I might not feel her anymore.

We were standing in Kodiak’s office, waiting for him and Orion to deliver the final plan, while I called her phone to check in.

When it went straight to voicemail, I pulled up the app I used to track her, ignoring how fucked-up it was that I’d started doing it to begin with, and my blood iced over when I found no signal.

Even if it was off, it should have thrown out a location—something my tracking software ensured.

“Anyone seen Holden?” Kodiak shouted, rubbing his chest while his gaze swept the floor.

Fuck.

Anxiety gripping my heart, I pushed through the crowd to the head table.

“He went with Ginny and Maeve earlier today, just out on the trails,” I explained. “They should have been back by now.”

“Ginny was supposed to report to patrol a half an hour ago,” Talon said. “She didn’t show.”

“Fuck.” Orion glanced around the place, waving Guin over when he found her across the room.

“Can you feel Holden?” I asked. “Through the pack bonds?”

I couldn’t, but I wasn’t very close with him.

As alpha, Kodiak was connected to us all.

Instead of answering, he grabbed his phone and dialed Ginny, only to get the same result as I did.

Ginny’s voicemail message rang through his speaker while Orion told Guin what had happened.

Kodiak tried Holden next, but it only rang and rang.

Something’s wrong, my wolf urged. Go to her. Run. Now!

“I’m heading down to the trail,” I said, my beast growling with rage and anticipation.

“Moose, Serpent, and Larentia, you’re with Mill. Orion, take four others around the other direction. I’ll take Guin, Ruby, and Fenris up the middle. Reach out if you find anything.” His voice stayed steady, which was worse because it meant he’d gone into reaction mode.

I didn’t know how his bonds worked with his own family before they transitioned, but I could imagine he still felt them.

Maeve hadn’t officially been blooded yet, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t sense her.

Whatever he felt (or didn’t) had startled him, and I tried not to let that send me into a tailspin.

The pack took off into the woods, and I followed the path from the stables where Polar said he’d last seen them.

We made it about two miles before I stopped.

The rotten stench of vampires permeated the atmosphere, a couple of hours old but no less potent.

Maeve’s scent mingled with Holden’s and Ginny’s.

They’d come this way, but hadn’t gotten farther than this, and when I noticed a few broken plants on the undergrowth, I found Maeve’s busted cellphone against a tree.

Signs of a struggle lined the ground—displayed dirt, limp grass, and a small puddle of blood.

“Fuck,” Moose said, stepping in next to me.

I tried to stay calm, but my inner animal was already bucking at my restraint.

He wanted to sprint toward the vampire smell and hunt them down.

He wanted to tear their throats out with his teeth.

We were only a few days on the other side of the moon, so I wasn’t as powerful as I’d need to be.

It didn’t matter to him. A shifter was never as strong as when its mate was on the line.

Fuck, I’d been such an idiot. I should have taken the time to go with her today.

I should have made our bond official when I had the chance.

What the hell had I been waiting for? Why had I been in such denial?

Of course, she was my mate. Her absence and the threat of harm coming to her only made that more glaringly obvious.

“Is that what I think it is?” Larentia said. “Is that her phone?”

“Yeah,” I replied, but it came out in a growl.

“They’re not here anymore,” Pink said. He’d tagged along because he said he could sense when the Scorpions were near, perhaps even anticipate their moves. But none of that helped us now that they were off our property.

“Guys!” Moose called from a few meters ahead, squatting over a prone body—one of our own. I recognized the scent immediately.

Holden.

“No,” Larentia said, running over to him. “No, no, no.”

Moose pulled out his phone to call Kodiak, but my world narrowed, darkening into one focus, one predatory drive.

I would find the fuckers that took them.

I would tear into Marx’s neck and rip his head from his body.

And when I was done, I would hunt down every last Scorpion that dared touch her, that dared take one of our own.

Holden.

This was my fault. I’d asked him to go with her. I put him in danger. His blood was on my hands. Hot fiery anguish shot through my body, making my knees weak, and I bent over, dry heaving into the dirt.

“You alright, man?” Pink asked.

I sucked in lungfuls of air, trying to catch my breath, but it was no use. The pain wasn’t mine. It raced down the bond between me and Maeve, sending waves of terror and pain barreling at my molecules.

“She’s hurt,” I said. “And she’s scared.”

“C’mon.” Moose wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me upright. “We’ve got to get back.”

I clenched my eyes shut and tried to walk, making it only a few steps before I fell against a tree and crumbled to the ground.

“Help!” came her scream inside my head. They were torturing her, burning her, and there was nothing I could do.

“I have to go after her,” I roared. “Now!”

She was mine. Mine. And I needed to protect her, to get to her, to keep her safe.

“We will,” Larentia said, wiping tears from her cheeks. “We have to regroup. You can’t do it alone.”

Somehow, I returned to the homestead, my feet reluctantly dragging me forward.

Both the wolf inside and the human ached to follow her cries until I located her, but Larentia was right.

I couldn’t fight them alone. Hell, the pack had called in reinforcements for a reason, and nothing could be done until we had a solid plan.

When we got back to headquarters, Kodiak was already in a fit.

He barked orders at everyone, somehow still maintaining his composure despite Ginny being taken, but the signs of panic were written into the tight muscles around his lips and the rigid way he stood.

My body coiled with tension, boiling in my veins like poison, and when Larentia loaded people up with guns, I trembled with the first signs of a battle.

We’ll find you, I tried to tell her through our bond. We’re coming for you.

Help, was all I got in return. Help! Mill, I need you!

I’d never felt more trapped and useless. I had to get to her, and standing here while everyone got ready only made it worse. No one moved fast enough, though the logical side of my brain said they were going as fast as they could.

A wail rang out in the hallway, and everyone quieted down, showing respect for our fallen packmate.

Holden’s parents had just been informed of his death, and though an undercurrent of grief gripped all of us severely, we couldn’t give in to it yet.

There would be time to mourn his loss, and we would.

But we had to get Ginny and Maeve first. He’d want us to do that.

He’d want us to save them before tending to his last rites.

It was the price we paid to be in the pack.

If I were him, I would have insisted on the same thing.

“Serpent, did you perfect that special mist?” Ruby finally asked when Holden’s mother’s sobs died down, bringing us back to the present.

“It’s fucking diabolical,” he answered. “It mimics the sedative effect of shifter blood on vampires. They’ll get high as fucking kites and drop like flies. Then, we’ll move in.”

“What about bullets?” Orion asked. “How much iron do we have?”

“Enough to bring down a small army,” Larentia replied.

Some of the old wives’ tales were true. For example, iron brought down a vampire quicker than tearing its head off.

On the other hand, silver burned shifters like a hot poker.

It would take a large quantity to kill us, but even small amounts slowed us down.

“Channing,” Orion called out. “Is there any way to trace them? A phone or?—”

“What about Ginny’s fitness tracker?” Talon asked. “She never takes it off.”

Channing opened her mouth and shook her head. “I don’t know?—”

I grabbed the laptop and set it on the table, hunching over it to tap away at the keyboard.

I had a few tricks up my sleeve that weren’t exactly legal, but who the fuck cared?

My mind raced faster than my fingers could type, but I could use the same back door method to hack Ginny’s tracker as I did to get into Maeve’s laptop.

Of course, fitness trackers didn’t give off the same signal as laptops and phones, but that didn’t mean they were untraceable.

You just had to know what you were looking for.

First, I hacked into Ginny’s laptop to get the IP address for her tracker.

That took longer than I wanted, and by the time I had it, the excruciating pain rattling through me had started to make my eyes water.

My head splintered like a spear had been shoved between my temples, but I blinked against it and kept going.

Slowing down now would do neither of them any favors.

“C’moonnnn,” I snarled, bouncing my leg as the laptop took its sweet fucking time. Finally, I got the information to bounce a signal off a government satellite and narrow it down to a ten-mile radius. “There. Are there any abandoned buildings in this area?”

Channing brought something up on a different computer, rattling off the names of several buildings for sale: a pub, a few houses, an old lumberyard, and a slaughterhouse.

“That’s it,” I said. I didn’t know how I knew it, but my intuition and my inner beast were sure.

A pub wouldn’t have enough space, and they wouldn’t risk a real estate agent or local youths finding them in an abandoned house.

Besides, there was something poetic about vampires in a slaughterhouse, wasn’t there?

“Take me,” Pink said. “If you get me within a mile of it, I’ll know whether they’re in there or not.”

I glanced at Kodiak, whose wide, angry gaze shifted to Orion. Pink was a Bastard. He had no reason to betray us, but this was putting my mate and the alpha’s daughter at risk. If he was wrong…

“Trust me,” Pink said. “I’m here to help.”

After only another moment’s hesitation, Kodiak nodded and cleared his throat, clearly swallowing down the myriad of emotions that must have been bubbling in his chest.

“We have to consider the possibility that this is a trap,” Moose said. Ever the pragmatist, our sergeant at arms would ensure we considered all options.

“Of course it’s a trap,” Poe added, rubbing a hand over his face. “But we can’t stand around and do nothing.”

“Weapons?” Kodiak growled.

“We’re ready,” Larentia replied.

“Meds?” he asked.

“I’m ready,” Morwyn said, pulling at her bulletproof vest, the few packmates around her nodding in agreement.

“Serpent?” Kodiak asked.

“Locked and loaded,” our enforcer answered.

“Listen, everyone.” Kodiak crossed his arms and took a deep breath. “This is a fight we’ve been preparing for. We know what to do, but the stakes are higher because of Ginny and Maeve. Don’t be stupid, and don’t waste your shots, you understand? You aim to kill, and you keep in touch.”

Orion went over the plan again, pairing us off into teams. I would go with Fenris, Larentia, and Pink.

After everyone else was split up, we headed out, hopping on our bikes with Morwyn following in the medivan behind us.

It might have been smarter to go in something quieter, but we wanted the Scorpions to know we were coming.

They’d infiltrated our home and taken our family. They had to know we’d retaliate.

Even if this was a trap, we were ready for them, and this time, Marx wouldn’t slither away like the fucking snake he was. This time, we’d make sure to take him down for good.