Chapter 101

Aurora

Nausea overwhelmed me as I looked at Dane and Trajan. “I didn’t even think about it. I knew she was employed by the Reeds. I should have wondered where she came from. I should have wondered why and how she showed up now, at such a convenient time. But I met her away from everyone else, when I was in Atlanta, and it felt like I ran into her by accident…”

My knees went weak. Dane grabbed me and led me to a chair as horror overwhelmed me. “Goddess. Tristan and Seraphina. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault!”

Dane knelt in front of me. “We don’t know for sure it was her. She could have been a victim of the Reeds just as easily as you. They could have found a way to threaten her. Maybe blackmail her. Does she have any family of her own? Maybe the Reeds don’t have the children. Maybe she took them to her family and is hiding with them. Try to remember.”

I took a shuddering breath and flicked through my fragmented memories. It was hard, because even though they were becoming more solid all the time, they were all so terrible I didn’t want to look at them and see. I didn’t want to remember.

I thought back to my earliest days, when the Reeds would spend the day “training” or “purifying” me, and then Mrs. Jamison would come to me. She would bring me food, bathe me, tell me stories. She was so young back then. And she would say…

…I have a little girl just like you…

“A daughter!” I said. “She has a daughter. But I don’t know anything else about her.”

Dane nodded. “I’ll get my people on it. Archer is still on Remington’s trail, but I have others.”

“I can—” Trajan started.

“You need rest,” Dane and I said at the same time. We glanced at each other. I raised a brow at him, and he gave me half a smile.

“You can help them once you’ve slept at least six hours,” I told Trajan. My voice was light, but guilt still threatened to crush me.

This was all so much. Part of me wished the earth would open up and swallow me, because I couldn’t bear any more. The other part of me knew that even if it did, I would wear my fingers to the bone to dig myself out, because no part of me could rest until I saved my children.

Still, if I wore myself out, or Dane, or Trajan, I would lose the most important people in the search for my children. Us, and…

“Wait,” I said, new fear taking hold, “Where’s Evander?”

Chapter 101

Trajan looked grim.

Evander

I slept in the woods on the edge of Broken Forest land that night. A few restless hours, grabbed in the coldest part of the dark, just before the sun rose.

I wouldn’t stop until I found the twins, and my gut told me they were here. Close. Maybe I was cold, isolated, and alone. Maybe I was in a strange country with wilderness wilder than anything I had experienced back home. But no matter what Dane and Aurora said, this was my fault. They were my charges. I’d failed them. How could a man live with himself when he failed to protect two children? Family.

I was too far away from home to hear the back-and-forth chatter of the High Alpine pack in my mind, and it was strange. I’d grown up right in the heart of the pack. Maybe not grandmother’s favorite, but as a charming screw-up, I thought I had a special place in her heart and the hearts of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. But I could never show my face to them again—any of them, including Aurora—if I didn’t fix this.

Chapter 101

I trotted through the forest in my wolf form. The lycan was good for battle, but the wolf was best for living outside, covering distance, for hunting and tracking without being easily discovered by anyone except other wolves.

Broken Forest land was rough. A lot of it was mountains. Places with sudden cliffs, steep slopes, and hidden ravines. At least it was late summer, so the streams and rivers I crossed were warm-ish.

I was far from the Reed pack house—far from everything—when I lifted my nose and scented other wolves. The fur on the back of my neck stood on end, and my wolf growled. Coming out this far was a shot in the dark, but there was a path through the trees that smelled like it was used often. And it was used by important pack members. Like Waylon Reed.

Carefully, I picked my way through the underbrush, following the path. The scents were new enough that I kept my ears pricked, listening for any sound of other wolves. The path led downhill, into a ravine. Right to the open, yawning mouth of a cave.

I would have waited, but I caught a new scent. Two of them. So faint, it was clear they were being masked. Tristan and Seraphina.

Chapter 101

Trajan. I said through the pack bond. I found something. A cave. It smells like the twins. I’m going in.

Trajan didn’t answer. His thoughts were out of reach. I guessed he was finally getting some sleep.

I should wait, I knew. Let someone know where I was going. But my scent would be here, now. If I left, they might come back, know I was here, and block it off. No way I was risking it. I’d just have to keep trying to get ahold of Trajan.

Without hesitating, I slunk into the darkness. I didn’t see the bear trap. Not until it was too late.