Chapter 16

Jasper would have preferred to stay in bed with Melody all day, but she wanted to spend time with her parents and he hadn’t wanted to intrude on that time. She was worried about them going to confront Ludo, but Jasper knew that Finn was a smart male and would succeed in freeing his people and taking control of the pack.

After he took Melody to meet Joss and Jeanie, he and Melody spent hours in his house—which was hers now too—making love and talking. Then he’d dropped her off at the apartment complex to meet up with her parents. He’d been walking through the park on his way to the employee cafeteria when Joss had called and asked him to relieve Amadeus in the security office for an hour.

Which was good for Jasper because it gave him something to do to pass the time instead of missing Melody. He’d heard that it was difficult for mated wolves to be apart from their soulmates, and that had turned out to be very true.

Even now, as he stood behind the counter of the security office and stared at the stark white walls, his wolf was banging around in his skull demanding to find their soulmate.

The door opened and a middle-aged female walked in. “Hi, I was wondering if anyone turned in a set of keys? I can’t for the life of me find them.”

“Sure, let me check lost and found.”

He ducked under the counter and lifted a large plastic box, setting it on the counter. “Feel free to look through this,” he said. “If they’re not in there, we can check with the ticket office and other buildings and see if they were turned in.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said, going onto her tiptoes to look into the box.

Jasper’s heart clenched suddenly, and a bolt of fear ratcheted down his spine like bony fingers. He inhaled sharply.

Turning to one of the offices, he leaned in the open door and said, “Hey, Justus, can you pull up the cameras for the apartment complex?”

“Sure thing,” Justus said. “Everything okay?”

“I don’t know, I feel weird.” Jasper lifted his phone from his pocket and dialed Melody. It went straight to voicemail.

Shit.

He turned before Justus even pulled up the footage. “Send help to the apartment complex,” Jasper yelled. “Sorry, lady, I hope you find your keys!”

Jasper hit the door with enough force to crack the glass as it swung hard into the side of the building. He called Joss as he raced through the park toward the apartment complex, worry for his mate on his mind. His wolf wanted out, wanted to shift and find her fast, but there were humans around and Jasper couldn’t do anything but run as fast as he could.

“Joss.”

“Melody’s in danger,” he said as he dodged a family on their way to the carousel.

“What? Where?”

“At the apartment complex, I think. I’m on my way. I just got this awful feeling, and I think I was feeling her emotions. I had Justus pull up the footage but I didn’t wait to see what he found.”

“I’m on the way. Shit, I just got a message from Jupiter that there are intruders at the back of the park. Hurry.”

Jasper ended the call and doubled his efforts.

Hang on, Melody, I’m coming!

Jasper skidded to a halt when he saw a bleeding and bruised Finn cradling a sobbing Viola.

He scanned the area and didn’t see his mate.

“Where’s Melody?” he asked as he joined them.

“Gone,” Finn said. “A handful of Ludo’s males attacked, and as I was fighting them, one of them took Melody. I didn’t realize she was gone until the males scattered and she wasn’t there.”

Jasper didn’t know how anyone got into the park—there were security measures all over the damn place. He jogged past them to the complex and walked along the side of the building until he reached the fence at the back. At one time there had been an entrance, but it had been closed off after a wolf pack had tried to gain entrance and take over.

Pounding feet made him look over his shoulder and he saw Joss, Jupiter, and several other security members coming his way.

“Where’s your mate?” Joss asked.

“That asshole’s people took her.” Jasper was seething. How the hell did this happen? She was supposed to be safe in the park.

He’d promised she was safe with him, and the first damn time she was free to walk around the park, someone took her.

“Look, someone covered the cameras,” Jupiter said, pointing to the equipment on the wall. “Damn it, that’s not supposed to be possible.”

“They covered the cameras and broke through the fencing that we had installed to close up the original gate,” Joss said. “They worked fast because our patrols pass this area once an hour.”

“You know where they took her,” Jupiter said. “We’ll get a group together and go get her back.”

Finn joined them, with a shivering Viola at his side. “I’m so sorry, Jasper,” he said gravely. “We’ll get Melody back.”

With a sharp nod, Jasper turned with a growl and stalked away from the apartment complex. The sooner they got on the road to Northbelle, the faster he could get his mate back in his arms and put the threat down for good.

Lucius used his thumb to crack the knuckles on his right hand while he handled the wheel of the SUV. In the passenger seat was his growling friend Jasper, who was staring at his phone and texting with his alpha Joss in a following vehicle.

Jasper dropped his phone in the cup holder with a snort. “I’m so fucking pissed.”

“Understandable,” Lucius said. He glanced in the rearview at Melody’s parents, who were sitting shoulder to shoulder and staring out the window without speaking. They looked like statues carved during a period of grief, forever etched with pain on their faces.

He glanced at his friend. “We’ll get her back.”

“I’m so fucking worried they’ve hurt her. That male is…not sane.” Jasper rubbed the space over his heart.

That was probably the understatement of the year. The male had stolen into the pack’s territory and killed the alpha, his mate, and their adult son. Then he’d used the mates to force the high-ranked males into the prison.

Lucius’s former lion pride had a leader who was an asshole and liked to punish his people publicly, but they never had a prison in their territory. There was something severely fucked-up about that.

“We’ve got a lot more people with us this time,” he pointed out. “I’m sure we’ll get her safely back and ensure he never comes near Melody or the park again.”

Jasper growled in agreement. “Thanks for coming with me. Again.”

“That’s what friends are for. I know you’d help me in a heartbeat if I needed it. It’s no hardship to stand with you and help get your mate back.”

“I hope you never have to deal with this.”

“Well, hell yes, I hope so too. But of course I haven’t found my soulmate yet, so who knows what the future will bring.”

“I hope you find her soon,” Jasper said. “It’s the best feeling in the world—but also terrifying because you know someone is relying on you to keep them safe. I failed, and I hate myself for it.”

“You didn’t fail,” Lucius said. “We had no way of knowing that they found out where you took her and her parents. I still don’t know how they found us; we’re in another damn state.”

“I don’t know either.” Jasper blew out a breath.

The GPS screen lit up as Joss called them on Lucius’s phone. He pressed the button to answer.

“What’s up, Joss?” he asked.

“We’re approaching from the north side of the territory, not the south.”

Finn spoke up from the back seat. “Why?”

“Because our people came in from the south last time,” Joss answered. “Jasper, you can navigate?”

“On it,” Jasper said.

“We’ll follow you,” Joss said.

The call ended and Jasper fiddled with the GPS screen, and in a few minutes, a new route was directing Lucius to the opposite side of the pack’s territory.

Jasper looked over his shoulder at his in-laws. “You don’t agree.”

“I need to set the other high-ranked males free. Your friends aren’t willing to kill the intruders, and I can’t take on so many males on my own.”

“Melody is my priority,” Jasper said.

“She won’t be safe as long as Ludo and his people are walking around free.”

Jasper exhaled on a growl. “Melody first. And my friends aren’t endangering their lives, period.”

Finn was silent after that.

Lucius knew if he had a soulmate and her life was in danger, he wouldn’t wait a second longer than necessary to get her to safety. Jasper clearly felt the same way about Melody.

He envied his friend. Even if he was in hell right now because Melody was in harm’s way, at least he had someone. Maybe someday soon Lucius would have someone too.