<b>Chapter </b><b>72 </b>


    E & Alexander


    E


    The world kept slipping in and out of focus.


    100


    One moment I was sitting at the restaurant table, the next I was being carried out the back door, seeing Lilith’s bloodied head on the ground behind me, and then I found myself staring at the back of a car seat, my cheek pressed against cracked leather.


    My head felt like it was filled with cotton. When I tried to lift it, everything spun.


    “There we go, sweetheart. Just rx.”


    The man’s voice came from somewhere above me, but it sounded distorted, like he was speaking underwater. Or maybe I was the one who was underwater, drowning, sinking. I tried to turn toward the


    sound, but my neck wouldn’t cooperate.


    “What…” My own voice sounded strange and slurred. “What did you…”


    “Shh. Don’t fight it. Makes everything easier.”


    I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision. The man was driving with one hand on the steering wheel, the


    other reaching back to… to touch my leg.


    I tried to pull away but my body wouldn’t listen. My arms felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.


    “Get away from me…”


    The manughed. It was an ugly sound. “You’re not in any position to make demands, Luna.”


    Luna. He knew who I was.


    Terror shot through me, cutting through some of the drug–induced haze. This wasn’t random. This wasn’t just some creep who’d seen a pretty girl in a bar. He’d targeted me specifically.


    I tried to sit up and get a better look at where we were going, but something was wrong with my wrists. When I looked down, I saw silver duct tape wrapped around them, binding them together.


    “No, no, no…” I struggled against the restraints, but they held firm.


    “Save your energy,” the man said. “You’re going to need it.”


    The car hit a pothole, jarring me against the door. Through the window, I could see we were no longer in town. Trees shed by in the darkness.


    Sat<b>, </b><b>23 </b>Aug


    The man held up something small and rectangr. A camera


    “Smile for me, sweetheart.”


    The sh went off, temporarily blinding me./squeezed my eyes shut, but he kept taking pictures, the shes hurting my drugged retinas even through my eyelids.


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    Finally, the car began to slow, turning onto what felt like a dirt road. Branches scraped against the windows as we drove deeper into the forest. And then we stopped.


    The man got out and came around to my side


    of the car. When he opened the door, I tried to scramble away,


    but my legs wouldn’t support me. He caught me easil


    gag.


    and the acrid scent of his unwashed flesh made me


    “Easy there. Don’t want you hurting yourself before we have our fun.”


    Ignoring my weak protests, he dragged me toward an old barn, maybe, or some kind of storage building.


    The wood looked rotten, and half the roof had caved in.


    “Perfect spot, don’t you think?” He pushed open a door. “Nice and private. No one to interrupt us.”


    Inside, it smelled like decaying hay and animal waste. My feet dragged across the dirt floor as he hauled me toward the back of the building, where a few broken stalls remained.


    He shoved me down onto a pile of moldy hay, and I couldn’t catch myself with my hands bound. My shoulder hit the ground hard, sending a spike of pain through my body.


    “Now then,” the man said, pulling out the camera again, “let’s get


    me good shots.”


    The sh went off again and again. I tried to turn away, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to look at


    him.


    “Please,” I said, my <i>voice </i>stronger now as some of the drugs began to wear off. “Please don’t do this.”


    “Oh, but I want to. Someone’s paying me very well to make sure you have a really bad night.”


    Someone was paying him?


    Before I could process that information, he reached for the hem of my dress.


    That was when the adrenaline kicked in.


    I rolled away from him, ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and scrambled to my feet. The barn door was still open, a rectangle of slightly less darkness against the ck walls.


    I ran.


    11:36 Sat, 23 Aug t


    60<b>% </b>


    33


    But with my hands bound, I couldn’t bnce properly, and the drugs were still making everything swim in and out of focus. I stumbled over broken boards and Goddess knows what else, but I kept going.


    Behind me, I could hear him cursing and giving chase.


    “You fucking bitch! Get back here!”


    Somehow, I managed to make it outside and plunge into the forest. Branches tore at my dress and scratched my arms, but I didn’t stop.


    I didn’t get far, though, before I tripped over a fallen log and went down hard, tasting blood where I bit my


    tongue.


    “There you are.”


    He was on me before I could get back up, his weight pinning me to the forest floor. I could smell his breath, sour and rotten, as he leaned over me.


    “That was stupid,” he panted. “Now I’m angry.”


    Panic consumed mepletely. This was it. This was how I was going to die. Not from my condition, but


    here in the dirt with this monster.


    I opened my mouth and screamed with everything I had left.


    “Alexander!”


    Alexander


    “Take her to the hospital,” I told Liam as I helped Lilith into his car. Blood was still trickling from the gash on her temple, and she looked ready to copse. “Make sure they check for a concussion.”


    “What about you?” Liam asked.


    “I’m going after E.”


    “Alexander, we should call the police-”


    “There’s no time.” I mmed the car door. “Go.”


    Liam’s car disappeared down the street, leaving me alone outside the restaurant. I pulled out my phone and


    called Gabriel.


    “I need <i>you </i>to call the police and put out the word,” I said without preamble. “Sophia’s red convertible is heading out of town. I need to know which direction it went.”


    11:36 Sat, 23 Aug


    to Aug to


    60%


    “What’s going on?”


    “E’s been kidnapped. Find that fucking car.”


    Before he could answer, I hung up and got in my own car, my hands shaking as I started the engine. Someone had taken my mate. He had drugged her, hurt Lilith, and driven off with E unconscious in the


    back seat of Sophia’s car.


    My phone rang as I pulled out of the restaurant parking lot.


    “Got something,” Gabriel said. “Gas station attendant on Maple Street saw a red convertible speed through about twenty minutes ago. Said it was driving erratically.”


    “Which way was it headed?”


    “North, toward the forest roads.”


    I floored the elerator.


    Twenty minutester, I was driving through rural back roads with no streetlights and nothing but trees on


    either side. I’d managed to track the convertible this far through abination of Gabriel’s contacts and sheer luck a farmer had seen it turn onto Old Mill Road, and a jogger had spotted it near the abandoned


    logging camp.


    But now the trail had gone cold.


    I pulled over and got out of the car, trying to think. Where would someone take a kidnapped woman out here? The old logging roads crisscrossed through miles of forest, leading to dozens of abandoned buildings


    and forgotten campsites.


    I could search for hours, even days, and never find her.


    Suddenly, my wolf stirred.


    And then I caught the faintest trace of E’s scent on the night air.


    Cherry and vani and… fear.


    I closed my eyes and let my senses take over, following the scent trail deeper into the forest. It led me off the


    main road and down a narrow dirt track that was barely more than tire ruts through the trees.


    The scent grew stronger as I drove, so I knew I was getting closer. But whatever was happening to E, she


    was terrified.


    Finally, I saw it–an old barn mostly hidden by overgrown bushes, with a red convertible parked beside it.


    I parked and approached on foot, moving as quietly as possible. Through a gap in the barn’s broken boards,


    11:36 Sat, 23 Aug


    Chapter <i>72 </i>


    I could see light flickering inside. A shlight, maybe, or the sh from a camera.


    “Alexander!” I heard a familiar voice scream.


    My mate was calling for me.


    I didn’t think.


    I just shifted.


    A momentter, I crashed through the barn door in my wolf form, splinters of rotten wood flying


    everywhere. The scene inside made my vision go red.


    <b>60</b><b>% </b>


    E was on the ground, her dress torn, duct tape around her wrists. A man was crouched over her, one hand


    on her throat, the other reaching for-


    Iunched myself at him before he could finish whatever he was trying to do.


    My jaws mped around his throat, and I heard the satisfying crunch of vertebrae snapping. His scream cut off in a wet gurgle as his blood filled my mouth. I shook him like a rag doll, making sure he was dead, before dropping his body to the barn floor.


    “E.”


    I shifted back to human form and rushed to her side, kneeling in the dirt beside her. Her eyes were wide with shock and terror, but she was alive. Breathing. Clearly drugged, but conscious.


    “I’m here,” I said, working at the tape around her wrists. “I’m here. You’re safe.”


    The tape came free, and E threw her arms around my neck, sobbing into my shoulder. I pulled her close and held her tighter than I ever had before.


    “I thought… I thought he was going to…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t want her to.


    “He’s dead,” I said simply. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”


    As I held her, breathing in the familiar scent of her hair, a scent that drove away all of the fear and pain and rage and blood, my wolf quieted for the first time in five years.


    “Mi


    AD


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