Chapter 4

Jupiter and several security team members arrived in the employee lot a few minutes later. August's gorilla had been hooting in his head non-stop, demanding he find their soulmate and get her back to the park where he could keep her safe.

Jupiter clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll get to her, I promise."

He nodded, swallowing over the lump in his throat.

He'd seen her eyes flashing to the amber of her beast as she'd sped by. He wondered if it was out of fear or because she'd felt the connection to him. Did she even know he was her soulmate, or was she so consumed with fleeing that she didn't feel the connection?

Jupiter handed him the tablet that showed the vehicle she'd stolen, the small red dot getting farther away.

They were on their way in minutes, Jupiter behind the wheel and August using the tablet to tell him where to go.

"She's on the parkway going north," he said.

"Got it," Jupiter said. He floored it, the SUV's engine roaring.

"I should have just followed her," August said, staring at the red dot on the screen.

"You needed the tablet to keep track of her and most likely would've lost her on the road when you went to grab it and the keys, plus you'd have needed to wait for us to catch up to you anyway. She's got less than a ten-minute head start, we'll catch up to her."

"Tell me what happened with the jackals that showed up again," he said. He glanced in the side mirror and saw the other park SUVs behind them, his friends and fellow shifters coming along for support and in case there was danger where Ginny was headed.

"They were stealthy as hell. They triggered different paddock alarms and places around the park's exterior walls. While our security team was split going to see what was up, a few of the jackals appeared at the season ticket office where Mercer's mate Rhomi was alone. They demanded she tell them where Ginny was. She played dumb and triggered the silent alarm, but we were quite far from the ticket office, so one of them managed to break the window before Mercer and a few others got there."

"Rhomi's okay, though?"

"Yeah. They split before we showed up. These jackals, man," Jupiter said, shaking his head. "They're smart and coordinated."

"Did she say why her people would come for her?"

"Her story is pretty fucked-up," Jupiter said. "Jackal packs have a law that an alpha abdicates his or her authority when they turn seventy. Her grandfather didn't want to give up his position, so he killed his heirs starting with her uncle, his eldest son, then her aunt, followed by her parents and her brother. She's the only one left in the family, the only threat to his leadership."

"Shit."

"Yeah." Jupiter gave him a quick glance. "Listen, she saw what she believes was her brother's body being taken away by some of her grandfather's closest males, who intimated that she was next on the chopping block. She fled right then—no money, no phone, and because she shifted so she could move faster, she didn't even have any clothes. She was caught by those asshole animal hoarders and kept in a cage for weeks."

August nodded. "Then she was rescued by the animal shelter, but they were going to kill her, right?"

"Yeah. She's had a hell of a time. We told her she was safe, but it was pretty clear she didn't believe us. When did you realize she was your soulmate?"

"When I locked eyes with her when she stole the SUV. Wait, she's getting off at the next exit."

"She is? That's weird, you'd think she'd keep going."

He watched the red dot exit the parkway and turn left. He told Jupiter.

"She must be scared," August said. "Or…could the jackals have caught up to her?"

"I don't know. Could they have been watching the park for her to leave? Possibly. They're tricky fuckers, that's for sure."

Jupiter pulled off the parkway, taking the exit ramp and turning left at the light. They'd managed to get close to Ginny, but not close enough to see her vehicle.

"Where is she going?" Jupiter asked.

"I don't have a clue, there isn't anything here. It's just…woods."

She was a few miles ahead of them. Then he realized the dot wasn't moving.

"Shit, I think she stopped," he said.

Jupiter hummed. "I don't think that's a good thing."

August rubbed the space over his heart as his gorilla hooted in worry.

Ginny had thought she'd gotten off scot-free when she fled the park, but two vehicles pulled up behind her just as she got onto the parkway. She could see in the rearview mirror that it was males from her pack. She didn't know where she was going, just that she was headed north.

The faster she went, the faster they went. No matter how she darted between cars and changed lanes, they always stayed right on her tail.

Then they split the lanes, with her in the middle, the two vehicles creeping closer and closer. They were going to box her in!

She jammed her foot hard on the accelerator and jerked the wheel to the right, taking an off-ramp and flying through a red light at the bottom of the ramp. A horn blew as she narrowly missed T-boning a pickup, and the SUV tilted on two of its wheels for a heart-stopping moment before she was able to keep going.

They were going to catch up to her. She could just feel it in her bones.

She wasn't ever going to be safe.

Not while they could find her.

Panic choked her as she saw their vehicles speed up behind her again.

How was it possible that they'd caught up to her so quickly?

She looked at the GPS screen. On either side of the road was nothing but trees. She zoomed out and didn't see another road for miles ahead. If she stayed on this road, they'd definitely catch up to her, so her best option was to pull over and run for cover, shift and race away as fast as she could.

Pulling over, she jammed on the brakes, put the SUV into park, and nearly fell out in her haste. Righting herself, she ran into the woods on the right side of the road, ignoring the sting of tree branches.

Something moving fast darted in front of her and she stopped, tottering on the balls of her feet.

The male stopped a few yards in front of her and grinned in a way that made her think nothing but wicked, vile things.

"You never were very fast, Ginny," her grandfather's right-hand male, Diedrich said darkly.

She saw the others as they circled around her.

All her grandfather's most trusted males, the ones who'd been party to killing her family, including the two who'd been carrying her brother's body.

"You can let me go," she said, trying not to panic or cry or barf. "I'm not a threat to him. I don't want to be alpha, I never did."

"As long as you're alive, the claim to the pack is yours," he said. "You know that."

"Let me leave. I'll just disappear."

"That's not good enough," he said.

"Please. You already killed my whole family for him. Don't kill me too."

"We're not going to kill you," Diedrich said. "Your grandfather prefers to deliver the killing blow himself."

For the briefest of moments, she wondered what would have happened if she'd run to that big male in the employee parking lot of the park and asked for help. Maybe he would have swept her up into his strong arms and taken her somewhere safe, and maybe he would have been able to keep her safe forever.

She wanted him to be safe, but damn it, right now she wanted to be safe too. And there was no safety in these woods, surrounded by males who thought nothing of her life and blindly obeyed an unhinged monster.

She was too scared to shift, too exhausted to run and outnumbered to boot.

This was the end of the road for her.

I hope you have a good life, sexy male.

Closing her eyes, she waited to be taken captive and led to her death.