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LOCKE

My fingers flew over the keyboard as I stared at the screen. My eyes burned like they’d taken a bath in acid overnight, left to soak like dentures in a glass. But I didn’t stop. There were more avenues to take, more routes to check.

“Locke,” Puck said, his voice low.

“Hmm?” I didn’t look away from the screen. There was a bus station two towns over that Wren could’ve used if she’d hitched a ride.

The idea of her getting into a car with a stranger had my wolf snarling. It didn’t matter that he was submissive; his mate was at risk, and that was enough to bring out alpha tendencies in anyone.

“You need to get some sleep.”

My gaze flicked to my brother in the chair next to me. Puck looked rough. His scruff had gotten thicker in the last five days, and dark circles rimmed green eyes that had gone dull. Even his blond hair seemed to have lost a little of its signature shine.

I looked back to the computer screen, trying to find the right backdoor channel that would allow me to access the bus station’s security cameras. “Like you’ve slept.”

“I got a few hours last night,” Puck defended.

What he meant was that he’d crashed for about two hours on my couch while I hacked into our local taxi company. There were no pickups around the time Wren disappeared.

Every single avenue I took came up empty. It was like Wren had simply vanished into thin air. But I knew that wasn’t possible. She was somewhere. Or worse, someone had her.

“Locke.” There was a bite to Puck’s tone this time.

“I’m not sleeping,” I clipped. “Not until Wren’s sleeping with me.”

My wolf howled this time. He was in agony, right along with me. We missed our mate. Missed her scent, her feel, her essence. Wren made everything in our world better. Without her, everything turned a sickly gray.

Puck let out a long sigh and scrubbed his hands over his face. “All right. What can I do?”

The tiniest bit of tension bled out of me at his words. I didn’t have it in me to fight with Puck. He had been the only one who’d had Wren’s back with me. “I want you to look for her in this camera footage. I just need one sec—there. Got it.”

There were two camera angles covering the ticketing area. The bus station itself wasn’t large, but they did a share of their business in cash, so it made sense that they had security. I was damn glad. I sent one of the two feeds to the monitor nearest Puck and put the other on mine.

“Let’s see if she got on a bus,” I muttered. If she did, I could match the timestamp from the footage to the transactions from the teller and discover where the hell Wren was going.

My gut twisted at the thought. I knew Wren leaving of her own free will was the best option, but the knowledge that she might’ve been okay with walking away from me killed something inside me.

The video began to play at four times normal speed. “Holler if you see anything that might be her. I’ll pause it,” I told Puck.

He nodded; his gaze remaining trained on the screen. “What are we going to do when we find her?”

Puck’s voice had gone soft. Not with gentleness, but with defeat. Because we were going to lose something no matter what. There was no way around it.

“We go get her,” I said, my back teeth grinding together.

His gaze flicked to me for a split second. “She doesn’t want to be here. We can’t force her.”

Pain swept through me. “I know. We’ll have to start over somewhere new.”

“Just the three of us?” Puck asked.

If Wren wanted that, then yes. But Brix and King knew they’d fucked up. They would try to make things right. I just had to hope Wren gave them a chance to atone.

Ender, on the other hand, was still locked in his obsession with seeing Wren as the villain. It was like she’d gotten too close to his vulnerabilities, and it’d scared the hell out of him. So, he did the only thing he could. He went on the offensive.

“I guess we’ll have to see. One thing at a time. We need to find her first.” I reached for my energy drink. Tipping it back, I realized it was already gone. I kept my eyes on my screen but reached for my mini fridge and pulled out another.

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Puck muttered.

“You have your drug of choice, I have mine,” I muttered.

Person after person flew across the screen. We had a fairly large window of time for when Wren could’ve been at the station, so it would take a while to get through all the footage. My fingers drummed on the desk, my body dying to move, run, find Wren. But there was nothing I could do.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. I listened to the rhythm, trying to decipher the cadence. They weren’t quick and excited— the kind of footsteps that carried news. They were defeated. Both sets.

I didn’t bother turning around as they reached the threshold of The Lair. I simply waited.

“Anything?” Kingston asked. I heard pain and rage in his voice, his words strangled as he desperately tried to hold on to control.

“Nothing,” Puck mumbled. “You?”

“There’s not a damn sign of her anywhere,” Kingston said.

“She probably had a pack mate pick her up,” Ender spat. “Who knows how many Red River bastards are crawling all over Crescent Creek?”

In a matter of seconds, I smashed my empty drink can and hurled it at Ender. He caught it at the last second, surprise lighting his features. I shoved to my feet and paused the footage. “If you don’t stop with the bullshit bitterness, I’ll hold you down while Brix removes your tongue.”

Ender’s amber eyes flashed gold. “You could try, but you’d fail. I’ll?—”

“Enough,” King growled. “This isn’t what we need. End, if you’re still on this Wren-is-evil mission, you’re on your own. You want to work with us, do me a favor and shut the fuck up.”

Ender’s mouth snapped closed, but fury still burned in his expression.

I would’ve loved for King to kick him to the curb, but the truth was, Ender was a hell of a tracker. And we needed all the help we could get.

“Where’s Brix?” Puck asked.

Something passed over Ender’s face. I swore it was pain. Or maybe regret.

But it was Kingston who spoke. “He won’t come in. Not until we find her.”

Hell . Of course, Brix would be taking this hard. He’d hurt Wren. He was part of the reason she’d run. And if anyone was into self-flagellation, it was him.

Puck let out a low growl. “Someone must have seen her somewhere .”

A ding sounded, and I turned, just catching sight of the icon before it disappeared. It was an incoming email, one sent to our general folder at Crescent Kingdom Security. But the subject line had my blood turning cold. Missing something?

A buzz lit beneath my skin as I hurried to open the inbox. My hand trembled as I missed the email the first time I tried to click. Cursing, I got it as the other guys moved in around me.

Opening it, I saw it had an attachment. A video. Nausea churned in my gut as I clicked Download . My security software would block any viruses, but it didn’t block this attack. Not anywhere but on my device anyway.

The video opened to one of those boomerang images—a few seconds of a clip, repeated over and over. Wren. Hanging from a hook. Her body broken and battered. Soaked in blood. Strands of hair matted to her face.

And she wasn’t moving.