Page 43 of Love Bites (Timber Creek #2)

CHAPTER 43

MAX

I stopped dead in my tracks, adrenaline spiking my system as an odd weightlessness hit my gut. Like the crest of a rollercoaster right before the drop.

“Son?”

Rubbing at my chest, I glanced up at my father, already seated at the dinner table, set with a simple meal the house staff had prepared. Gia had left already, having vampire business to attend to, but it hadn’t felt right for me to leave Malachi here alone so soon.

“One moment.” I backed out of the dining room, heading to the patio as I whipped out my phone. I couldn’t be sure what this feeling meant, but my gut said something was wrong.

With my mate.

Before I could overthink it, I hit Summer’s name, heaving out a breath of impatience into the Tuscan sunset as the call rang out.

“C’mon, Summer,” I whispered. Begged.

Was she not answering because she, rightly, hated me right now? Or because I was right, and something was very, very wrong?

“Dammit.” I ended the call, switching over to West’s contact and punching his name.

Did he hate me too? He should, if Summer had told him anything.

I exhaled in relief as the call connected. “Couldn’t you just pop over if you need something? Marriage has made you lazy.”

I cut right to the chase, ignoring his dig. “Where’s Summer?”

I couldn’t see him through the call, but I could practically feel the way his guard raised immediately, his second of silence tight with tension. “What do you mean, where’s Summer . She’s with you.” It wasn’t a question. It was a threat. “You two have been holed up in her apartment for days.”

Fuck, West Larkin was definitely going to murder me. “No, she’s not, and we’re not. We haven’t been.”

More silence that cut like a knife.

“I suggest you start explaining yourself.”

That was not a conversation for over the phone. Or ever, preferably. “We don’t have time for that right now. Just — track her down for me, and let me know when you find her. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” My heart was pounding, needing to know she was safe. I swallowed my pride to add, my voice shakier than I wanted to admit, “Please.”

Another beat of silence, then, “ Fuck,” before West hung up the phone.

West would find her. She was pack, and their pack bonds tied them together. There was nowhere she could go he wouldn’t be able to track.

Unless someone cloaked her.

That thought got me dialing again, this time to —

“Rhain Allaway, happy to help you today with your car’s extend?—“

“Not now,” I bit out. “Do you have any idea if Grigor made it out of Venice?”

He was the only thing that made sense. The only one who would try to find Summer, who might have any idea where to start looking. The one who had the strongest motive to send her fight-or-flight response spiking enough to punch through our bond to me, halfway across the world.

The only one who had a point to make.

If he was dead, then I was just being paranoid. Maybe experiencing a spot of indigestion.

Please be dead, please be dead.

Rhain hummed. “Grigor… blond lad, Boston duke, little too interested in your girl?”

“That’s the one.”

“I don’t remember seeing him on the casualty list at the palace. Let me check in with some of the others and I’ll get back to you.”

“Thanks.”

I ended the call and stuffed my phone back in my pocket, already moving. If Grigor wasn’t confirmed dead, I was going to Timber Creek — there was no way he’d let Summer go if he’d made it out alive. Not after she’d gotten the best of him twice.

Turning, my eyes widened at the sight of my father standing in the open doorway to the patio, concern furrowing his features. But he was standing on his own; he’d been doing better the past few days. His wings had even started to regrow. The doctor we’d called in — a witch who specialized in both human and supernatural medicine — had assured us his magic was just severely depleted, but that he’d recover in time.

Malachi had his staff here, and Headquarters was only a phone call away if he needed anything.

“I have to go.”

He nodded. “I heard. I’ll be fine.” Grey eyes met mine, a knowing resolve in them. “Sometime soon, we do need to talk more, you and me. But for now, just know I’m sorry about all of it, and I love you very much.”

My feet moved before I could stop them, and I wrapped my arms around him, careful of his shoulders where his wing growth would be tender.

Grunting something incoherent, my father gave me an awkward pat on the back. It wasn’t quite a Heath Larkin hug, but hell, we were out of practice.

We pulled apart, and he clapped my shoulder.

“Go save your mate.”

I allowed myself one moment in the darkness of the In-Between to prepare myself for what would greet me on the other end.

A lot of angry wolves, probably. And I couldn’t even blame them.

With a deep breath, I plunged through shadow and materialized just off the Larkin pack house back deck. My wings punched out to slow my fall, and I soared down to land with a thump on the railing. I hopped off onto the deck as the sliding glass door whipped open.

I hardly had a second to register who ran out before three men rushed me, shouting in my face. My hands went up in surrender as green eyes met mine, flashing to amber with slitted pupils in rage, and a snick of metal hit my ears as the tip of a knife pressed to my jugular.

“Where the fuck is our sister?”

Cooper and I were almost the same height, but the cat-shifter packed pounds of muscle that a flier like me would never build.

“I’ll find her,” I tried to get out, but shouts from the doorway interrupted me. I glanced over Cooper’s shoulder to see Terran yelling obscenities at me as West held him back.

The knife at my throat pressed deeper, drawing a trickle of warm blood down my neck, and I brought my attention back to Cooper. The more immediate threat.

I tried again. “Let me find her. I can sense her.”

“Why the fuck can’t we sense her?” Terran shouted from the door.

“Coop, stand down,” West ordered. “And T, shut up so we can figure out what’s going on.”

Cooper’s eyes narrowed, flitting between amber and green a few times before he eased off. He crossed his arms, but kept the knife firmly in his fist. Noted.

West shoved Terran down into a patio chair, keeping a firm hand on his brother’s shoulder to keep him down.

Finally able to take a breath without slicing my throat, I turned to West. “How much do you —”

“Everything,” he bit out, his own eyes flashing gold with his wolf. “Aspen told us everything about your little arrangement with our sister. I’m assuming you’re also the reason she needed to take off alone today on a solo adventure, avoiding us all.”

I winced, but this wasn’t the time for apologies.

Then Heath joined us, his own expression pained. Hurt. Betrayed. And fuck if I didn’t feel like the most pathetic excuse for a male.

West continued, “What we don’t know is why we can’t fucking sense her. I’ve never been cut off from any of them like this.”

I was vaguely aware of others joining us, emerging from the house, the woods, the driveway. Called here by their pack’s distress, their Alpha’s emotions.

Jade, who had been through so much. Hailey by her side. West’s Shields Atlas, Nova, Zion, Jett. Aspen, who looked angry enough to take that knife from Cooper’s hands and gut me herself. I wasn’t sure I’d stop her.

“There’s a vampire,” I began, making myself loud enough for everyone to hear even though I hated my own voice. “We encountered him in Boston, and he fixated on Summer. I think he’s taken her. His name is —”

“Grigor.”

We all turned at the voice. At the bottom of the steps to the deck, Quentin stood with Leif. Quentin came up the steps, his pallor ghostly pale, his hands trembling.

“He’s here. I can feel it.”

Terran tried to stand but West shoved him back down, so he settled for throwing out an arm at Quentin. “What does he have to do with this?”

I tilted my head in question at Quentin. It was his story to tell, or not.

“I knew Grigor before coming here.” Quentin bit his lip. “He — he’s the one who turned me. And then Max found me, saved me.”

“So, Grigor is really here because of you? ” Terran asked.

Leif took a step in front of Quentin, fists clenched at his sides. “That’s not what he said.”

“ I brought Quentin here after getting him out of Boston. He needed to be far away from Grigor’s den.” I’d already dug my grave with this family anyway, so I might as well make sure Quentin didn’t go down with me.

Cooper turned to me slowly, glaring. “We keep circling back to this being your fault.”

“Would you all let him speak?” Leif shouted, and everyone started back, stunned at the usually mild-mannered kid snapping at them.

“I had to get away from him because I’m bonded to him. The closer we are, the easier it is to feel him,” Quentin said quickly, like he was afraid he’d be interrupted again. He lifted his head, meeting first my eyes, then West’s. “That means I can track him down.”

Behind us, the distinctive sound of ammo clicking into a gun sounded. Apparently, while we’d been talking, Atlas had been gearing up.

He checked the barrel of a rifle, then slung it over his shoulder. “Then let’s fucking go.”