Opening the office door, I met his yellow gaze.
“I warned you!” he screamed into the phone and slammed it down as I walked in.
“What’s wrong?” I stood there, panicked. His emotions were all over the place. Fear, sadness, and rage burned through the mate bond.
“Kai?”
He looked up at me, eyes burning yellow, his voice gruff. “I warned the council about what Jeremy told us. I told them to tell all of the packs that vampires might attempt to abduct our females. To use them as breeders for Layla’s sick plan.”
No! Then I knew. I felt it through the mate bond. Sadie. His ex-girlfriend of five years. She’d been taken. So had others from other packs. I quickly sifted through our pack bonds. All of our females were accounted for. I sighed in relief.
Reaching out, I touched his hand. “Kai, I’m so–”
He stood quickly. “I’m going to go tell Earl to be extra vigilant when guarding the perimeter. Grab Max and meet me in the barn.”
I nodded. This bitch has gone too far! Stealing female werewolves to use as incubators. It made my omelet threaten to come back up. Layla needed to be taken out now! I stormed out of the house and rounded up Max and we made our way to the barn.
Max paced the barn in anger as we waited for Kai to show up. “Sadie is like one of our own,” he stated.
I tried not to let it hurt my feelings. She was in this pack for a long time before me. I nodded and sat down cross-legged on the floor.
“I feel like it’s all my fault. This all started when I survived the change,” I confessed.
Max sat next to me and put an arm around me. “Hey, you are the best thing that ever happened to Kai and our pack.”
I smiled and when Max went to pull his arm off of me, his skin touched my shoulder and I was pulled into a vision.
Tara, Max’s mate, was roaming a wooded area. She was a changed wolf and like all changed wolves, her human DNA, when mutated into the werewolf, left her with a gift. Tara’s gift was similar to that of a chameleon.
In my vision, every time she passed a tree, her fur would change to match. She looked frightened and she had the feeling she was being stalked. I could feel her fear, her thoughts. Then, I heard footsteps behind her and she froze, crouching down. Suddenly, a dark-haired vampire came out of nowhere and pounced on her. She tried to howl but the vampire knocked her out quickly. Then a silver net was cast around her.
I came back to myself lying on the floor of the barn. Max was used to this by now and he sat patiently with my head in his hands.
“You back? What happened? New mate couple?” He didn’t seem too alarmed because usually my visions were about mates and they were happy visions. I had already told him Tara was his mate and they were dating and taking it slow. He still had a lot of healing to do from losing his mate and child during labor years ago. The thought of having two mates in a lifetime was not easily accepted in werewolf culture. Technically, Tara was still his first mate, only reincarnated.
I didn’t know what to say. “Max, it’s Tara. I need to call Kai.”
He pulled me up into a standing position quickly. His face looked serious. “What do you mean?”
I didn’t know when the reality of the vision would happen or if it already had. My hands trembled slightly as I pulled out my phone and dialed Kai. I didn’t know how far away he was and calling him on the phone was 100% foolproof, where our mate bond had potential issues. This was time sensitive. How long ago had he left to talk with Earl? Ten minutes?
“Aurora?” he answered.
“Quick, search the pack bonds. Is Tara okay? I had a vision. She’s in trouble. I can’t tell if it’s happened yet.” Timing in my visions was weird and sometimes the future could be changed. My birth mother had a vision I was going to die at five years old if she didn’t do something drastic, but luckily that vision never came to pass. I could feel Tara through the bond but not like Kai could. Kai would be able to tell if she was in danger and what exactly was going on with her.
“She’s fine. She’s been a bit depressed lately with how slow things are progressing with Max. She went for a run. I just checked in on her,” Kai said.
Max was close enough to hear that. He winced.
“Check again, Kai. She’s in danger!” I told him.
Then I felt Kai’s fear through our mate bond. “Oh, shit. Something’s wrong,” he said then hung up.
“No!” I cried out in frustration. It happened. I knew it. She was taken. I could feel her panic now. Dammit!
I tore out of the barn, blindly running through our property with no idea where I was going. Max was right beside me, panting frantically.
“Tara!” He tore off his shirt, shifting into his wolf form.
Max ran off into the forest and I stood there frozen, sniffing the woods trying to catch her scent, any scent.
Just as Max’s wolf retreated into the thick trees off to the left of the barn, Earl came running from another part of the woods. His arm was bleeding, his chest covered in vampire dust.
“I was deep in the woods with a few of my guys when Todd came over the walkie talkie saying that Kai was looking for me. I was hiking back towards your property when I heard a howl. The bloodsuckers got one of your girls. I’m so sorry.”
I fell to my knees. “Which way did they go?” My voice sounded hollow. This was awful. This wasn’t happening. If Jeremy was right, Tara was going to be used as an incubator for vampire spawn. No, no. Don’t think about it. Oh God.