Chapter 24: Colt

Chapter 24: Colt

Shortly after we had finished preparing the feather darts, my heart plunged into my stomach with such intensity that I felt sick. Blanched with nausea and inexplicable fear, I sat at the kitchen table and stared out the nearest window, fighting to keep myself from hyperventilating. “Something happened.”

Everett looked suspiciously at me. “What do you mean?”

“Something happened,” I repeated with mounting anxiety. Standing up, my legs trembled, although I hadn’t exerted myself at all that day. I barely made it to the window and stared outside into the night as if I could see the very source of the trauma that suddenly struck me. But the mountainside was quiet that night. Deep within me, I knew something was wrong. My fated mate was experiencing intense fear, and now pain radiated through my head and into my body, exploding through my hands like I was impaled by a hundred teeth. “Kiara’s in trouble.”

Still sitting at the table, Everett and Gavin exchanged looks. Aislin and Billie had gone to bed, leaving just us three keeping guard, but I wished I had Billie by my side again for her familiar reassurances. I expected Everett and Gavin to tell me to relax and sit back down.

Surprisingly, Gavin rose and came to stand next to me. “What do you feel?”

I peered down at my hands, shaking and reddened as though I was the one enduring some kind of impact. “It feels like my whole body was just thrown against a wall. And there’s something in my hands, stabbing like needles. My head is pounding. It has to be Kiara. Nothing like this has ever randomly happened to me before.”

“Call Sebastian,” Gavin suggested to Everett.

He already had his phone up to his ear. “It’s ringing. Usually, Sebastian answers right away.”

“Keep trying. Is there anybody else we can call?”

“I have Brad’s number. I’ll try that next.” Everett took his phone away and scrolled through his contacts for the next number. We waited silently for him to begin speaking, but Brad didn’t answer the phone either. “Let me keep trying,” he muttered, searching for more Mythguard connections.

The longer we went without contact with the Mythguard, the worse I felt. Foreboding sat heavily within me, the sense of something wrong worsening with each second. I wasn’t just imagining this. Anything Kiara was feeling, I could feel it too. Her pain was unimaginable, her uncertainty and dread resonating through me. I paced, growing restless until finally, Everett’s voice broke the silence.

“Where’s Kiara? …A car accident? …Yes, that’s definitely the dragons. That’s David’s truck. …Shit, okay, hurry. Call me back when you get to it.”

Each word drove a stake of fear deeper into my heart. I held my breath until Everett raised his eyes to me.

“The dragons attacked the Mythguard on their way out of Grandbay. They targeted the SUV that Kiara was in and ran it off the road into the ditch. It hit a tree. The operative I spoke to said it just happened a couple of minutes ago, and they’re going to check it out right now.”

I swore under my breath, running my hand through my hair. “I knew it. She should have let me mark her. No, I should have gone with them. I should have insisted.”

Gavin clapped a hand on my shoulder. “They would have attacked whether or not you were with them. The difference is that you’re still safe and able to act instead of possibly dead in a car accident. You can still feel Kiara through the connection—that means she’s still alive.”

“But she’s in danger, and I’m not there to help her!” I could do nothing except stand there fretting.

Gavin stepped back, shaking his head. “I’ll go wake up Billie and Aislin.”

He took off upstairs while I was left with Everett, exposed to a whirlwind of uncomfortable emotions. Anger. Fear. Anxiety. I wanted to take off right now and drive to the spot where I suspected the crash had taken place, looking for Kiara myself. No, it would be a better idea to go straight to the mine and intercept them before they could hide Kiara back in that cave. I wanted to confront my father and yell at him for endangering my fated mate. There were so many things I wanted to do and nothing I could do, at least not yet.

Everett’s phone rang again. He answered, nodding as his eyes remained downcast. “Everyone that was in the SUV is dead, including Sebastian.” Grave concern lowered his voice as he looked back up at me. Everett didn’t reveal much in his expression, ever—but I saw a flicker of grief and pain behind his cutting grey eyes for the sudden, ruthless death of his contact. He swallowed. “They took Kiara.”

I balled my fists, aching to strike something, anything. “Fuck!”

Within minutes, Gavin was charging back down the stairs with a sleepy Aislin and Billie trudging after him. They had barely even fallen asleep before he’d roused them.

“What happened? Is she okay?” Aislin asked, wrapping herself up in the arms of an oversized sweater she borrowed from Everett.

“The Inkscales have taken her,” said Everett. “Sebastian is dead.”

“Oh.” Aislin frowned. Then as the news sunk in, her face wrinkled up in frustration before she shouted, unable to contain her anger. “Those fucking dragons! Sons of bitches! Getting Muriel wasn’t enough; they had to take Kiara too? Augh! What are we supposed to do?”

“We have to rescue Kiara,” said Billie. “They’ll be taking her back to the mine.”

“We can’t go on our own,” said Everett.

“We have to do something!” argued Aislin.

“We have to wait for backup from the Mythguard!” insisted Everett. “If we go to the mine now, we’ll be outnumbered and killed. I know you want to act now; we all do. But we have to be logical about this. They won’t kill Kiara unless she’s in her beast form, and I doubt Kiara is going to give up and transform so quickly. Besides, the full moon isn’t until tomorrow night.”

Everett had a point, but it didn’t relax me at all to think about allowing the dragons to take Kiara and hold her prisoner again.

“You and Billie stay down here and try to get some more sleep on the couch, okay? You need to rest, at least.”

“You really think I’m going to be able to sleep now, knowing what just happened?” Aislin fired back.

“At least try,” said Everett.

Billie gravitated to Aislin’s side. “I don’t know if I can sleep either, but let’s just lay down on the couch and wait, okay? The Mythguard will probably be in contact with us again soon.”

Aislin’s eyes turned to me, clawing at me for solidarity. “What about you? What do you think? The dragons have your fated mate.”

“Obviously, I want to race down to the mine and save her,” I growled. “But Everett’s right. Acting too rashly will get us killed.”

She narrowed her eyes, and I knew she wanted to accuse me of holding the group back, allowing the dragons and my father to do whatever they intended to do to Kiara. I hated that she still didn’t trust me and would sooner assume that I’d let my fated mate be slain. I wanted so badly to protect Kiara. But I wasn’t about to risk everyone’s life for recklessness like Aislin would have done.

“Fine,” she muttered, returning to the couch with Billie.

Everett and Gavin sat at the table again, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit. I paced for long minutes while the two Alphas discussed possible approaches to our newest issue. Restless, I grabbed one of the feather darts off the table and examined it, feeling its weight in my hands. I couldn’t wait until the opportunity arose for me to drive these darts into the dragons’ hides. They had terrorized my home for far too long and went so far as to steal Kiara tonight—it was too much.

Finally, Everett’s phone rang again. “Hello? Yes. …Only four of you? No, I agree, that’s not enough. Are you certain we can wait until morning? Yes, I suppose that would give them enough time to get settled, so we’d know for sure she’s back in the mine. You’re right. Okay. We’ll be awake and waiting.”

Gavin and I looked at him expectantly.

“The Mythguard’s reinforcements are coming tonight instead of tomorrow morning. They should be here around 4 or 5 AM. Some of the operatives that were with the caravan are coming back and will perform reconnaissance around the mine to confirm that’s where they took Kiara. They’re asking that we wait and not make any moves until backup arrives and the reconnaissance report comes in.”

I clenched my jaw. Even if they got here at 4 AM, that was still five hours we would have to wait, holding our breaths while Kiara could potentially be suffering, tortured into transforming by my father and Lothair.

“We have no choice but to wait,” muttered Gavin.

“I know,” I grumbled. “I just hate feeling so helpless.”

Once more, Gavin rose and loomed over me. I was accustomed to his intimidating figure bearing down on me, threatening to hurt me, but this time his body language had tamed into understanding. He met my eyes, reaching out with empathy that I hadn’t expected of him. “We’ll save her. You understand? We’ll avenge Muriel, we’ll take out Lothair, and you can get everything off your chest to David before we take him out too. I promise.”

There was still a part of me that was conflicted about Gavin’s eagerness to kill my father. I’d always love my father, in a small way, but I had to tell myself that the man I loved, who raised me and cared for me, wasn’t the man I wanted him to be. He was evil, and he had to be destroyed… for everyone’s sake.

If I wanted to live a life relieved of the influence of his cruelty, I had to let him go.

Everything he did—hurting Billie, killing innocent people, taking my fated mate—was making it much easier to hate him. I’d never hated my father before, but as the minutes ticked on, I was rapidly forgetting what it felt like to love him anymore. That small part of me was getting smaller and smaller until I knew with certainty that he had to die.