Page 4 of Found (Mate Rejected #8)

4

MACK

I t’s 9 a.m. as I stand in the backyard with my back to the wall. The house is quiet as the rest of the pack gets some much needed rest after a long, exhausting night.

Today, we’re going after Aerin and we all need to recharge our batteries before that happens. We’re still no closer to figuring out where Shane took her, but all we have is the link to the Raleighs, and I can only think of one place to look: Karson, Michigan.

I should be sleeping too, but there’s no sleeping with Aerin gone.

I study the white plastic lounger at the bottom of the garden. It’s on its side. Broken. Aerin and I spent countless evenings falling asleep on that thing.

Then I do the thing I came out here to do, and for which I told Bennett I needed to be alone, when he tried to follow me out.

I pull my cell phone from my pocket and speed dial a number I’ve rarely had a reason to dial.

It rings twice.

“Yes.” Moses sounds wide awake.

“Aerin is gone,” I say, still staring at the broken plastic lounger.

I have to get her back and I’m too focused on thinking of the fact she’s pregnant, her powers aren’t working, and I have only guesswork to rely on where she might be. It hasn’t passed me by that we could travel hours to Michigan only to discover she isn’t there at all.

I don’t know what we’d do then.

The pack is inside, ready to do whatever it takes to get her back, but my brain feels sluggish and eyelids heavy.

“One minute.” Moses’s tone doesn’t change.

There’s no hint of pain or disappointment in his tone, and I thought there would be. He loves Aerin. Every time I’ve heard him speak to her, I’ve heard the affection in his voice, and in hers.

I’m not sure if I’m disappointed or surprised. I’m not sure what I’m feeling.

Aerin said he was like a dad to her, giving her time and affection when Douglas Boone, the much respected and often feared Alpha of the Boone Pack, didn’t, which was more often than not.

When the sound of his footsteps echoes down the phone, I imagine he’s gone to deliver the news to Douglas himself.

A door creaks open, and I hear Moses say, “It’s Mack. Something happened to Aerin.”

“The phone. Now ,” Douglas demands.

I have no idea what time it is in Minnesota. The time difference is one I knew before but can’t think about now.

“Talk,” Douglas orders.

My wolf grumbles in my mind, not liking being told what to do. But this is important. Some battles are worth fighting. Some just waste time. He needs to know Aerin is gone.

I tell him about last night.

About the animal sounds that Sara Meacham, owner and manager of the Winter Lake Hotel, heard at 2 a.m., asked Bennett to check out.

I tell Douglas about how I, Bennett, Tina, Warren, Colton, and Penny, went to investigate, knowing it was trouble from Sara saying that an animal rammed the patio glass like it was trying to get in.

And about how Aerin didn’t want me to go, sensing a trap.

I don’t hold back about falling into a pit with wooden stakes, a trap set for us. And about Lester Raleigh, the shifter that Bennett killed who said the Raleigh Pack isn’t just back, they never left at all.

I tell him that the former packmates I thought were long dead are behind the omegas being hunted and kidnapped across the country. That they took Aerin, and that Shane Dacre, the mate who abused her and who she rejected, wasn’t just involved, he set fire to my home and nearly killed Chris.

I talk until my throat is hoarse and my mouth is dry.

A door opens behind me at some point as I speak. One sniff and I know it’s Bennett, though I don’t turn to look. Then the door closes again as he reenters the house without speaking.

Douglas doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t ask a single question, and his steady breaths never change.

He just listens.

It must be fifteen minutes later when I’ve finished telling him everything there is to know.

Click .

I pull the phone from my ear, and I stare down at it, not sure what to think.

“He hung up,” I breathe. “The bastard hung up on me.”

The door swings open and Bennett steps out. “Are you really surprised?”

He must have been waiting for me to finish my call.

I glance at him.

He looks as well-rested as me. Which is to say, not at all. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Everyone else is. Someone had to stay awake.”

“ I was awake,” I remind him.

“Someone else.” He crosses his arms and leans against the wall as I tuck the cell phone into my pocket. I’d call Douglas again, but I have a feeling I’d have nothing to say but a litany of curses about him hanging up instead of helping figure out a way to get Aerin back.

“He really doesn’t give a shit about Aerin, does he?”

There were times I’d thought he did. But maybe I was wrong and his priority will always be the Boone Pack, not Aerin.

Bennett shrugs. “He came to help rescue Aerin when Nolan Lonergan grabbed her. Maybe he figures he’s done enough.”

“Help in limited supply,” I mutter, my gaze once again snagging on the broken lounger. “Some dad he is.”

“We’ll figure this out on our own.”

“I’m surprised about Moses,” I say.

“Moses couldn’t help even if he wanted to. If Douglas isn’t interested in helping, then he has a choice to make. Do what Douglas wants or leave the pack. And they were having issues with the Dacres. Remember?”

I quietly curse.

No, I didn’t remember because my brain is like jelly and I forgot.

Moses called a couple of days ago saying the Dacres were having some kind of battle. None of us knew what was going on. Maybe Bree and Shane fighting to control the pack after they learned Bree killed Iain, their beloved previous Alpha, and Shane’s father. Or maybe it was something else.

They’d been watching their borders to ensure the fighting didn’t spill over from Dacres territory into Boone territory.

Now Aerin is gone.

Bennett is right. Even if Moses wanted to help Aerin, he couldn’t leave them now when he’s in charge of security.

“So what the hell is happening there if Shane was just here kidnapping Aerin? Who is leading the Dacres?” I ask.

Bennett shrugs. “Bree, maybe. Or trying and failing if all that fighting is still going on.”

She will succeed or someone will kill her and another dominant alpha will take over the pack, probably re-naming the pack since a Dacre has always led it.

But I don’t care about what’s going on in Minnesota right now.

I sigh. “He hung up on me the second I’d finished telling him something that I ask myself why I even bothered to.”

“He’s her dad. You thought he needed to know. That’s why you told him.”

I muffle a yawn and cross my arms as I think. “I’m starting to think we should have kept Lester alive. He might have told us something useful.”

“Doubt it.” Bennett sounds thoughtful. “Lester seemed like a martyr. He’d have done something that made us kill him before too long.”

“But he could have told us where they’d take Aerin,” I remind him.

That’s the reason we’re still here in Winter Lake. Shane won’t be stupid enough to stick around here. Shane would have floored it the second he got Aerin into his car, and that’s the problem. He had a fancy sports car, Aerin said, and those things can go fast.

He could literally be anywhere now.

Shane isn’t with his pack. He seems to have left it, and probably some time ago if he’s now involved with the re-emergence of the Raleigh Pack.

So, wherever Shane is has to be somewhere that there wasn’t an established pack already, and I can’t think where that would be. It took us a long time to find Winter Lake and settle here, and the only reason no pack had already claimed this place was because it’s a retirement town with very little to do. Not all shifters want to live somewhere remote, but we do.

Bennett shrugs again. “Possibly. Or Lester lied and led us on a goose chase. Do you know what happened to the Raleigh survivors?”

I shake my head. “Before Colton turned up, I thought I was the only one. Then my dad walked into my kitchen and I knew I wasn’t.”

He still refuses to talk about where he went after he turned his back on the Raleighs—or even why he did it—and I’ve stopped asking. When my dad wants to remain tight-lipped, there’s no getting him to talk.

“So we’re going to Michigan.”

Looks like.

“Right now, it’s all we have. But I have my doubts we’ll find anything there. The Raleighs destroyed the house when they were fighting over who would lead after my dad walked away. Parts of it were already burning before I’d even left the town. There’s nothing there and no pack would want to re-build on the site of what happened there. You know how superstitious some of our kind tend to be.”

“The Raleigh survivors could have rebuilt,” Bennett suggests.

I look at him. “Someone would notice a new pack springing up where the Raleighs had perished. And news would spread.”

“ If they went looking in Karson. But who would think to go looking for the Raleighs when everyone knows they all died years ago?”

I’m pondering his question when a speeding car yanks my focus toward the side of the house. No one speeds in Winter Lake.

“Does that car sound like it’s headed this way?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

Bennett straightens and walks around the side of the house. “It does, because it is.”

I frown. “Recognize the car?”

He shakes his head as we walk out to stand in front of the house, braced for another attack. Inside, the pack is waking up, woken by the sound of the approaching vehicle.

Feet away, I spot the driver and passenger and relax a little. Not completely. They wouldn’t be speeding unless something was wrong.

My dad cuts the engine and flings open the door, leaping out. “They’re after Aerin.”

Ivy scrambles out as he’s speaking. “We drove all night to get here. We have to?—”

“They took her,” I interrupt. “She’s gone.”

He stares at me, then he curses. “Fuck.”

“You knew ,” I growl.

“Why’d you think we raced here to get to you if we didn’t know something was going to hit you?” He curses again, slamming the door shut and stalking toward me.

Ivy follows with less door slamming.

“Why do they want Aerin?” I ask.

My dad shakes his head, eyes dark and, unless I’m mistaken, a hint of guilt stirring in them, an unfamiliar emotion from him. It jacks up my alarm even higher.

“What is it?” I prompt when he doesn’t speak. “What aren’t you telling me?”