Page 16 of Bound to the Dragon (Wild Fated Shifters #3)

BLAZE

T here’s no doubt the rogue group took Vigo, and I’m incensed.

This attack was much better orchestrated than the last one, for certain.

Three vans waited outside for prisoners; they managed to kidnap several guests while we were distracted by the fighting.

We’d severely underestimated their numbers, but how could we have known when they had been lying in wait for years?

How could Madison have kept this from me for so long? Was she hoping that it just would never come up? She should have let me know after the first attack!

“I want to talk to the ones in the cells.” I pivot and storm out of the security office, my enforcers behind me.

I have half a mind to collect Madison from the suite and force her to come down with me, but I don’t. I have enforcers at her door to ensure she doesn’t go anywhere. I will have to figure out a way to deal with her later. I don’t even want to see her right now.

We head into the prison cells, where we’re keeping even more rogue shifters than we had captured before.

This group is also more defiant than the last. They gather at the bars, claws curled, not a single one in their human forms. They’re still ready to fight, and I keep back, eying them as I try to determine how to handle this situation.

“Who is your leader?” My deadpan question doesn’t faze any of them.

Several of them hiss. One spits.

“I know why you’re doing this, but it has nothing to do with Shadow Pine. Your fight isn’t with us.”

Finally, one of them shifts into her human body to address my statement with a hysterical laugh. “You mated the Beta’s daughter, didn’t you?”

“Not just mated—he’s her fated mate!” someone from the back pipes in after shifting back to his human form. “You’re just as tainted as she is.”

“I have no control over the fates.” I glower at them all. “Nor do I have any control over the history between Granger, the late Beta, and what they concocted between the packs. This has nothing to do with Shadow Pine. You need to leave us in peace.”

“We would have if you hadn’t aligned yourselves with a treacherous pack. Now, everyone who deals with Silver Glade becomes our problem.”

“Some of you are part of the Silver Glade pack!” I accuse, curling my own hands around the cell bars to confront the shifters face-to-face. I recognize some of Madison’s packmates among them. “Why aren’t you being dealt with in the same way?”

The original speaker scoffs. “Because they knew the betrayal when it happened and immediately decided to do something about it. This has been in the works for years. You just haven’t been tangled up in it until now because you haven’t been stupid enough to couple yourself with Silver Glade. Now you’ve made it your problem.”

“To what end?” I snap, my patience wearing thin. “Ultimately, we all do business together. Are you going to run around for the rest of your lives, attacking every mating ceremony connected to Silver Glade?”

“If need be, yes.” The original female grins cruelly, and I believe her.

They’re so driven by spite and hate that they aren’t thinking clearly. I can’t reason with them when no one is thinking rationally.

I grit my teeth. “Where is my Beta?”

They morph back into their shifter forms, refusing to discuss any more with me.

“Stay with them,” I order one of my enforcers. “No food. No water. No bathroom break. Someone will tell me where they took Vigo and the others if they want to go home.”

The shifters in the cell look at one another.

“That’s right. I’ll release you if you tell me.” I raise a brow meaningfully. “You have my word. No repercussions. No retaliation. Just tell me where they are and if they’re unharmed and?—”

The female shifts back to cut me off. “And if they’re not?”

The question hangs over us like a dead weight, and my stomach drops. I don’t want to imagine finding my Beta other than how I left him. “We’ll deal with one issue at a time. For now, we just want to know where you took them.”

She snorts, and there’s a general mumbling as if my answer is understood. I can’t make them a promise I don’t know the answer to. If something has happened to Vigo and the others in retaliation for how I dealt with the first round of rogue shifters…

Fuck. Why hadn’t Madison been honest with me from the beginning?

I need to get back to her, as much as I don’t want to deal with her right now. I’m not sure I can ever really look at her the same way again, mate bond or not.

Can my disgust with her override the pull I have toward her? I’m about to find out.

“Think about what I said. Go free and tell me where they are, or you can starve to death.”

There’s no response from the cell, and I leave them alone to stalk back up the stairs toward my wing, where I’d left my mate.

Maybe she can provide more insight, but she doesn’t even know where they took Vigo and the others. I wonder if there will be a request for a trade-off at some point. An ask for my mate in exchange for my Beta.

Would I entertain it in the rage I’m in?

A terrible part of me says yes, but my tightening chest tells me that there’s no way. I can’t fathom choosing that. I’m getting ahead of myself, anyway. No such ransom has been demanded, and it might never happen.

Scaling the stairs, I head toward the second floor but leave the enforcers in the hall with explicit instructions to wait for word on Vigo and the other captives.

“She hasn’t left the suite?”

“No, Alpha,” they reassure me. “We’ve been here the whole time.”

I enter without knocking, wanting to catch her off guard.

It’s me who’s caught off guard, though. Madison is nowhere to be seen.

“Madison?”

I search the bedroom, the bathroom, and the balcony, but she’s gone.

Livid now, I race back out to confront the enforcers on guard. “You said she didn’t leave!”

Baffled, they look at one another. “She didn’t come out this way.”

Cursing loudly, I retreat into the suite, rifling through the closet, looking for missing outfits, but all her clothes are still in place. She must have snuck out via the balcony, either in her crow form or down the trellis. I should have known she wouldn’t stay put.

“Where is her mother?”

Both enforcers give me a blank look.

“Lynelle. Where is Lynelle, Madison’s mother?”

“I don’t know, Alpha. We’ve been up here the whole time.”

That’s my first order of business. Finding Lynelle.

It doesn’t take me long to find her. She’s still on the estate, in her typical state of hysteria, but I put an end to it immediately. I don’t have time for histrionics.

“I already know what your late mate did with the pack, so cut the shit, Lynelle. I also know you knew about this all along. Save the tears and innocence. I want to know what you know.”

Abruptly, her tears stop, and she gawks at me like a switch flips in her.

“Nothing!” She’s determined to maintain her innocence, and I don’t believe her for a second.

“You’re staying here until I find Madison and Vigo,” I warn her. “You’ll have an enforcer with you at all times.”

She gawks at me. “I have to get home?—”

“You’ll get home when all my pack members are home. And not a second before.”

Tears pool in her eyes.

I scowl. “That might work on Madison, Lynelle, but it won’t work on me. If you have any way of contacting her, or if you know where she might be, you’d better tell me immediately.”

“I don’t!”

Fighting with her is useless. There’s nothing I can do but wait and see where Lynelle and the shifters in the cells might lead. My hopes aren’t high, but it’s all I have now.

It’s going to be a long wait, and I’m not sure I have the patience to sit still.

The hours tick by agonizingly, and there’s still no word from anyone. I check in with Lynelle frequently, but she’s still useless, as are the shifters in the cells. I’m at my wits’ end.

“Boots on the ground,” I finally order the enforcers. “Spread far and wide. I want ears everywhere. Someone knows where they are.”

They stare at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.

“But Alpha,” one mumbles meekly. “We don’t even know what territory they’re stationed in.”

“Start in Silver Glade and work out from there.”

They’re aghast at the idea. “Silver Glade is our ally.”

“Not when they’re acting like the enemy.” I stare at them steadfastly, daring them to challenge me, but I won’t yield where Vigo is involved. My number one priority is finding him.

But my enforcers aren’t shy about voicing their objections. Enough blood has been spilled.

“They’re not all involved,” one says.

“I have no fucking idea who’s involved, so as far as I’m concerned, they’re all suspects.”

The enforcers hang their heads and nod in consensus, hearing the ire in my tone. “Yes, Alpha.”

They disperse except for the ones who watch over Lynelle. I have a mind to watch over Madison’s mother myself, but I’m far too wired to stand in one place. I need to get out and fly.

Shifting into my dragon body, I let it overtake the airways and cover as many of the territories as I can in my rage. It’s not easy to get a vantage point from that height, but the flight is helping to cool me down somewhat.

Where could they be? Did Madison take off to join them?

It crushes me to think that I might have driven her away, but could that be the solution to saving the pack?

Could I accept the idea knowing that I pushed away my mate?

Most shifters go their whole lives without ever meeting their fated mates, and I am going to cast mine out over something she had no control over?

But that’s not true. She could have told me. We could have handled it together.

I’m so conflicted by it all, shamed and furious simultaneously. Was I that difficult to talk to that she felt she needed to hide it from me?

My wings swoop lower to get a better view of Silver Glade territory, my mind whirling. Could they have taken the captives to the Silver Glade packhouse? There were enough members of the pack in the rogue faction to believe that they could have.

It’s a good place as any to start.

I change direction abruptly, my tail sweeping into a gust of wind and rustling the tree branches as I move, a newfound sense of justice sweeping through me. No, not justice. Vengeance. I just hope I’m not too late to save them.