Page 38

Bellamy

I stab at my breakfast harder than necessary.

I’m not sure if it’s because the bond is so fresh or what, but waking up to Ever’s note that she went down to work has me agitated and on edge more than normal when she’s out of my sight.

If it wasn’t for Myles confirming her location on the trackers in her necklace and phone, I think all of us would have lost our shit.

She’s safe. The wards around this house are solid enough that a bomb could go off and we’d be fine.

She left notes instead of waking one of us up, which means she wants to work without us distracting her.

And even after this side quest is finally done, we have a safe place to regroup while figuring out what the hell we’re going to do about going home.

Ledger’s worse than me; he already broke a plate stabbing his eggs, and snapped the handle off his coffee mug. When a member of the kitchen returns to place a tray of muffins on the table, he asks, “Did one of you bring breakfast down to the workshop for Ever already?”

The man blinks slowly, remains as eerily silent as the rest of the staff, and continues unloading the cart before leaving.

“Well that was… weird.”

Out of habit, I do a quick check to see what sort of myst the guy is, but there’s nothing there to latch onto. So either a human that knows about mysts, or a powerless one born into our world. Shame.

Myles’s nose scrunches up in distaste. “Dane clearly likes his staff to be as invisible as possible. Money really goes to some people’s heads..”

We return to eating, all lost in our own thoughts, but Ledger only makes it five more minutes before he breaks.

“Nope, I can’t do it. My wolf won’t shut up until I’m sure our mate ate before us.

Gimme your bacon.” Snatching it out of my hand, he loads a bit of everything onto one of the serving dishes, stealing something from each of the guys’ plates.

Arson pushes around what’s left of his food with a fork, sulking. “She made it very clear; no barging in when she’s working. That it’s hard to get back in the right mindset when we keep interrupting her.”

Myles squirms. “I don’t like having her out of my sight either, but I get it.

If it wasn’t for the trackers, I don’t think I’d ever sleep again.

But I just got a flare of shock and excitement from her not too long ago.

I know firsthand how much it sabotages our line of work when people pop in when we’re at that stage of something finally clicking, so I really don’t want to bother her when it isn’t the end of the world if she skips breakfast this one time. ”

Ledger isn’t as convinced. “I don’t have to interrupt her. I can just slide the food next to her and leave. Won’t say a word.”

I tug at my collar. “If I confess something, do you guys promise not to lose your shit?”

A chorus of resounding no s have me grimacing.

“Okay, yeah, that was a stupid question. Just remember that we’re all a little obsessed when it comes to our mate.”

Arson snorts. “Obviously.”

Pulling out my phone, I bring up my camera feeds, scrolling until I get to the one I want. “I maaaaaaay have slippedacamerainherglasses,” I admit in one long breath.

Arson nods solemnly like it makes perfect sense, and even Myles seems delighted. Ledger side-eyes me a bit, silently scolding and judging me, but after watching her on the house cameras with me before, knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Turning my chair, I angle my phone so we can all see.

And immediately frown as a strange man fills the screen.

“Who the fuck is that?” Ledger snarls, trying to snatch my phone out of my hands, but I jerk it out of his reach.

“Where is she?” Arson asks, eyes narrowed on the screen.

“The audio doesn’t work, it’s video only.

Hold on.” Quickly rewinding the footage, my stomach sinks the longer I go back.

Three and a half hours earlier, we finally see it; Dane’s face and the blur of a fist in the corner of the screen before Ever collapses and Bennet hauls her into his arms, leaving us staring at the ceiling.

Hands braced on the tabletop, Ledger’s nails tear through the linen tablecloth, gouging the wood beneath. "I'm going to kill him."

A flicker of shadow draws my eye to Arson pausing mid-step out of the shadow realm. "Oh shit, we were waiting on that? Oops." He tucks the bloody knife in his hand behind his back.

Myles snatches my phone, fast forwarding back to the moment the stranger appears. The color drains from his face and his hand trembles. “There’s no way.”

“Wait, you know this guy?” Ledger demands.

“Skylar,” he breathes. “But… I watched him die. There’s no way anyone could have survived that.”

“Unless he wasn’t human.”

Arson disappears and reappears a second later. “Okay, we’ll deal with Myles’s zombie boyfriend in a minute. Where the fuck is our mate?” He tosses her necklace and phone onto the table, jaw clenched.

“Split up,” Ledger commands, looking between us all. “Bellamy, keep searching for anything on the video that shows where they took her. Myles, you take the second floor, Arson, you do the main and the basement.”

“What about Dane?”

He cracks his knuckles. “He’s mine.”

Myles doesn’t make it halfway to the door before he stumbles. Three steps later, he collapses.

“Shit, are you okay!? What happened?” I jump to my feet, getting a wicked head rush and fall back into my seat.

Taking a few deep breaths to stop the spinning, I get back up, stumbling over to check on Myles.

I drop to my knees, rolling him onto his back and feeling for a pulse when mine skips a beat, and I start to go down next to him.

As my head hits the floor, I see the blurry shape of Ledger’s body sprawled out on the opposite side of the room.

Nausea hits next, but it’s the spinning in my head that really fucks with me. Thoughts are harder and harder to connect, my blinks lasting a little longer each time as darkness threatens to drag me under. If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone drugged-

The food.

Fuck.