“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 you 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.”


    “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, 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.


    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.


    “Mate,” he whispered.