Chapter 21 - Kane

"Kane, wait!" Jack hissed, grabbing hold of Kane"s arm to yank him backwards into the trees.

"She"s in there! I know it!" Kane snarled back, trying to free himself from Jack's grip.

"We can"t just go in there all guns blazing!" Jack warned him, pulling him close. On his other side, Hanson appeared, barring his way.

Kane glared through the trees at the farmhouse just outside of Pine Valley, the place they'd easily tracked Miley"s scent to along with the fuckheads who had taken her.

"Why not? I"ll tear their goddamn heads off!" Kane snapped. He could hear himself, and even he wanted to slap himself silly for it, but when it came to Miley, he seemed not to have any control anymore.

Ever since he had been inside her—even before then—she was all he could think about. And it was driving him wild. Just having smelled her fear, surrounded by the scent of strange wolves, he wanted to rip off heads and tear out tracheas.

Normally the most level-headed and in control of the group, save for maybe Jack, Kane felt as if he barely recognized himself. It only made him more certain of the truth he had suspected all along. He needed Miley even more than she needed him, even now.

"Calm down, man," Hanson urged him. "You can"t do anything for her if you go and get yourself killed."

"If we don"t get in there right now, who knows what they"ll do to her?" Kane protested. He fought against them still until he felt more hands on him.

Soon, Jack and Hanson were joined by Zander, Eddie and Will. The whole gang was there, holding him back, and still he fought on until, finally, Zander slapped him clean across the face.

The sound rang through the trees, and everyone paused, eyes wide and listening.

"Shit! Fuck! I"m sorry," Kane said, Zander"s slap having knocked him out of his bullheadedness.

He pulled back, running his fingers through his hair, pacing up and down on silent yet anxious feet.

It had taken him ten minutes to run back to the manor and barely any time at all to fill Jack in on what he had found—Miley gone and the scents of strange wolves on their territory. It had taken only twice that long to pick up their scent again, and another half an hour to follow it to the farmhouse.

But Kane knew as well as the others did that every minute down was one more minute for a situation to turn from a rescue mission into a recovery mission. And there was no way Kane was carrying Miley out of that farmhouse in a body bag.

Yet, every time he closed his eyes, that"s all he could see.

What if she dies in transition and I"m not there for her? What if she attacks them and they kill her? What if…what if…what if…

So many scenarios ticked through Kane"s mind that he could barely think straight.

"We need to split up and figure out exactly what we're dealing with," Jack said, glancing at Zander. "I"ll take Hanson and Kane to check out that barn over there. You, Eddie and Will go scout out the other side of the house and see what the situation is."

Zander gave a grunt of acknowledgement and silently gestured Will and Eddie to follow him.

Only Will paused to look at Kane and ask, "You good, man?"

Kane knew what he was asking. Was he going to lose his shit again?

Kane looked him in the eye and forced a nod, his jaw clenched. It took everything he had in him to keep himself under control.

He could sense Miley. He wasn"t entirely sure exactly where she was, but he knew she was there, and he knew damn well she wasn"t in that barn.

"We"ll meet back here," Jack said, and the two groups split, acting like the well-oiled machine they had become over the years through their black ops missions.

Kane tried his hardest to put himself into work mode, imagining Miley was just another civilian they had been tasked with helping.

And it worked, to a point. Yet he knew at the slightest sign she was in serious danger, he wouldn"t be able to stop from shifting. He could sense his wolf clawing at his insides.

She"s strong, he reminded himself over and over. She survived her father for nineteen years, she can survive this.

***

By the time they returned to their meeting spot, Kane was struggling more than ever to keep himself under control.

"The barn is full of humans," Jack explained to Zander and the others.

A knowing look passed between the men. This wasn"t the first time they had encountered this kind of situation.

"Illegal turning ring?" Will asked, and Kane, Jack and Hanson all nodded in unison.

"Looks like it," Jack said aloud.

"At least now we know why Miley was bitten," Will mused aloud.

"The question is, why now?" Zander asked.

Jack shook his head. "We can worry about that later. What matters now is putting an end to it and getting Miley and the others out."

"Safe and sound," Kane put in, growling low in his throat. Too many times he had seen these things go sideways.

More often than not, werewolves were likely to kill the humans they"d attempted to turn in order to stop them from talking if they were caught. Kane wasn"t about to let Miley become just another statistic.

Zander looked at Will and Eddie before he said, "Jack, there"s something you need to know before we go in there."

Kane"s insides twisted. He didn"t like the sound of that.

"What?" Jack demanded, glancing over his shoulder at the farmhouse.

Kane had heard them, too, the voices and laughter of men as a couple of them appeared from the farmhouse out on the porch, acting as if it were just another day and they had not a care in the world.

"This place is crawling with wolves, and we recognized at least three or four of the scents," Eddie explained, looking to Will and Zander for confirmation.

"Who?" Jack asked. Kane"s hackles rose.

"We don"t know who, exactly, but they are the scents of wolves who followed Christian," Zander explained, and the look on his face suggested that just speaking the man's name made his blood boil.

"Christian is dead," Jack pointed out.

"Many of his men aren"t," Zander responded. "And they did promise they"d be back with more trouble."

"This looks like trouble to me," Hanson put in.

"You knew Christian and his friends from before," Jack said, turning to Hanson. "Does an illegal turning ring sound like something they"d be capable of?"

"Do we really have to discuss this right now?" Kane demanded, feeling as if he had ants crawling all over his skin. He needed to shift and kill something.

And he"d vote for killing the two laughing on the porch first. Anyone willing to risk the life of another by turning them was worthy of a death sentence in his book. He"d been on the receiving end himself. He knew the pain and fear these rings caused in the humans they infected all too well.

"Hanson?" Jack asked, ignoring Kane"s question, but gesturing to Zander to keep an eye on him as if he thought he might do something stupid.

"Christian would never have been foolish enough or stupid enough to come up with it himself, but he had brothers, ruthless brothers, who would, yeah. I heard one or two of them suggesting humans were nothing but toys. One even once suggested to Karl that we should just turn everybody in town and be done with letting outsiders in."

Bile rose in Kane"s throat. He"d heard that kind of radical talk before.

It never ended well. Not for the humans or the wolves who tried it.

"I can"t stand here like this anymore!" Kane hissed under his breath, a little louder than intended. Again, he started to pace. "We have to get in there. I won"t lose my mate to fuckwit radicals!"

At that, Kane stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening.

The others all looked at him. Will and Eddie stared at him as if they were just as shocked, while Hanson looked sympathetic. Zander and Jack"s reaction was the one that angered Kane.

They looked at each other, smirking before they turned to him and said as one, "Welcome to the club."

A low growl erupted in Kane"s throat even as Will exclaimed, "No way!"

"Who"d have thought Kane would fall for a human!" Eddie put in.

Kane snapped at him, baring his fangs. "She isn"t human. She"s one of us."

Eddie threw up his hands.

"Kane"s right," Jack put in, moving to clap Kane on the back. "Miley is one of us, and so are all those newly transitioned in the barn."

He then pulled Kane around to face him and gripped hold of his shoulders as he said, "Let"s go rescue your mate."