Page 13 of The First Year Continued (Marked Blood Academy #2)

Odin

It’s been four hours. Four hours since Sol broke the electronic locks on our door and burst inside, telling us the bad news.

Roxy had been taken. Sol went to the bathroom for three seconds, his words, and when he came out, she had vanished.

And by the way everything was a mess, it wasn’t her choosing.

She’d been taken from us. From me.

Sol had left shortly after he told us the news. Took off in his wolf form into the night. He’d run the perimeter of the whole school and found nothing. We caught up with him on his third round of scenting things out, but he had found nothing.

“What in the fuck do we do?” he asked, shifting back so we could talk.

“We split up. That way we can cover more ground.” I didn’t see any other way to find her.

“I’ll take the east,” Evander said. “We should check the buildings too, but what if we get caught?”

“Who the fuck cares if we get caught!” Sol yelled, getting red in the face. We were all worried. All upset that someone took my mate, our, whatever. Roxy. But getting angry with each other didn’t solve a single thing.

“If we get caught, Sol, it means we can’t look for her.

Whoever has her might do…I can’t think about what would happen, so not getting caught is paramount, don’t you think?

” Evander got in Sol’s face as he said the words.

Not trying to instigate a fight but standing up to what was a frantic and desperate friend.

“You’re right. Of course. You’re right. Okay. We’re wasting time. Let’s split up and look.”

I shifted in place, not caring about the shredded clothes. My wolf ran with a vengeance. Our mate was missing.

My paws soon were cut up as I damned the boundaries of the school and scrambled over the wall, landing on some broken glass. It didn’t matter.

I’d found a scent.

Roxy. She’d been here. The scent was faint, barely there but it had to be her.

It had to be. I treaded lightly, letting my nose to the leading.

The grass was patted down in a path that led away from the school.

Someone dragged her. The images popped up in my head without permission.

Roxy being dragged by her feet or her hair.

Was she knocked out? Drained? Worse. No.

It couldn’t be. Fate wouldn’t do that to me after I’d just found her.

Roxy, me, Sol, and Evander had been through hell with the war. We deserved a good life.

Roxy deserved everything.

At some point, the scent faded so much that I doubled back, not knowing where it stopped. I found myself running in circles until I couldn’t get a lock on the scent at all.

The grass didn’t lie down anymore. It was like at this point, she had vanished.

I stopped and raised my muzzle to the moon. I took a long, deep breath, trying like hell to center myself. Scents didn’t just stop. I’d just lost it. I could find it again.

That’s when something inside me tugged. Like a rope knotted around my heart, it pulled and beckoned me on. I couldn’t get a hold on the scent anymore. No path to lead me on.

But something in my blood called to me. That was it.

I was tethered to Roxy in a way shifters aren’t usually. This was different from a mate bond. Kin to a mating mark but somehow more. Deeper. Closer.

My blood was inside her. It flowed, buried inside her own.

It locked me to her and now, it pulled me toward her.

I stopped sniffing and ran with my instinct as my only compass. I followed a line of trees until I came upon a scene that shot freezing-cold blood through my veins. Roxy in the arms of a pale vampire. He was whispering something in her ear and from the looks of it, she was being hypnotized.

I had to decide on my options. I could attack him in my wolf form or take my chances as a human. I had more flexibility as a human but better healing as a wolf.

One way to find out. I ran full speed toward the vampire. He was so busy speaking to Roxy that he didn’t see me coming until the last second.

I attacked him, jumping as high as I could, trying to go for the head with my fangs out.

I didn’t land my bite. Instead, the vampire flung his arm out, throwing my wolf to the side as though I weighed nothing. I landed against a tree with a thump. Roxy screamed, or so I thought. My ears rang. It took me a few shakes of my head to get my thoughts together.

“Stupid mutt. She’s mine.”

The fuck she was. I ran after him again, this time sinking my canines right into his thigh. He might be a vampire, but injuries to the thigh hurt no matter what species you were.

“That’s it.” He dropped Roxy who instantly came to her senses once he wasn’t touching her.

The vampire rounded me, ready to strike.

Then Roxy shifted. She shifted, and now I had another fighter on my side. Too bad Evander and Sol weren’t here. This vampire would’ve been dead at first sight. Not that I wasn’t a good fighter, but a little help never hurt anyone.

I snapped a few times at the pallid bloodsucker, trying to keep his attention off my mate. He had no scent, which I found interesting. No wonder I couldn’t pick it up that night. I was sure now, the shadow person we chased was him.

He’d come to get my woman.

Roxy lunged forward, piercing his calf. I heard the sound of her fangs crushing against his bone. He cried out and landed on his knees in front of me.

One second couldn’t be wasted. I stepped forward and bit down on his neck as hard as I could. His acid-like blood filled my mouth, and my wolf turned to spit it out, poison as it was. His body thumped on the ground, lifeless, even though he was undead in the first place.

I shifted back to two legs and ran over to Roxy. “Roxy, I’m here. Shift back. I’ve got you. It’s over.”

She looked at me with wide wolf eyes and in seconds shifted to two legs. I checked her body, not caring anything about her nudity but looking for new bites, new wounds. Anywhere that fucker had hurt her, but I saw nothing more than the bite to her stomach and the one on her neck.

Still, who knew what plans he had for my mate once she was all the way under his spell.

“You saved me,” she said, out of breath.

“I will always come for you.”