13 Reckless Rescuing

Onyx

Crickets chirp when I wake. From the warm moonlight, it’s obviously still early evening. Ember and I should head back. But her warm shape is no longer curled against me.

My entire body goes stiff, tension through every muscle.

Where is she?

There are a dozen reasonable explanations, but somehow I know it’s the worst one. She’s gone. Her clothes litter the ground, so either she left naked or she shifted.

No.

This can’t be happening.

The onslaught of violent emotions triggers my shift, and before I can think anything through, I’m in my gray wolf form leaping into the trees.

My wolf senses try to track her, following her scent northward. I lose it in the creek. Pain cuts through my panic. My paws stumble, and I throw my head back and let out a heartbroken howl.

Granite Ridge is on the other side of the creek. I cannot cross into that territory unprepared.

I don’t know how I manage to get home. My paws shift to feet as I stumble up the steps to the front door. It’s only by habit that I grab a pair of sweats and tug them on.

Cedar steps into the entry, his eyes wide with concern. I crash into him, pushing both of us against the wall. My twin grabs me, holding me up.

“She left,” is all I can choke out. He muscles me toward the sofa, and I collapse, gulping down air to control my panic.

A few minutes later, Hazel bursts through the front door. She wraps me in a tight hug and I feel my head clearing. Slate enters behind her.

“Okay, what happened?” he asks.

Guilt eats away at me. I could have prevented this.

“We were out in the woods, and we dozed off. When I woke up, she was gone.” My throat is raw, each word scratching. “I tracked her to the creek.”

“Oh, Onyx,” Hazel says, her hold tightening again .

Slate lets out a growl. “How could you have let this happen?”

“Slate,” Hazel says softly. “That’s not fair.”

“It was his job to watch her. We shouldn't have let them leave the cabin.”

Anger cuts through my haze of anxiety. It hones my mind and gives me something to focus on. Shrugging Hazel off, I stand to face my best friend. “You wanted her to leave so you should be happy.”

“I wanted our pack safe and her to be safe too, and that would all be possible if you weren’t too busy thinking with your dick.”

I swing at him before my brain registers the decision. My fist connects with his jaw and he reels back. A split second later and he’s on me, pressing me to the wood floor. The ringing pain in the back of my skull feels deserved. This is my fault.

His voice is dark and dominant. “Do not do that again, understood? You’re not helping her right now.”

My brain finally regains control and I stop struggling. The realization I just punched my Alpha horrifies me. I was thinking of him as my childhood friend, not my leader. He lets me sit up and I keep my gaze on the ground in submission.

“Understood.”

“You two fighting really doesn’t help the situation,” Hazel says, crossing her arms. “We have to figure out what to do about this.”

“I’m going to get her,” I say without thinking.

“You can’t do that.” It’s Hazel who stops me and I blink at her in surprise. “They’ll treat you like an enemy, even if it’s Sienna who catches you. She needs her pack to like her, and killing someone they see as an enemy would help her. I don’t trust her to uphold our alliance right now.”

“She’s right,” Slate adds. “We have to be smart about this.”

“I can’t-” I start to argue.

“I’ll get Hawthorne and Jasper. We can get a hold of Sienna and sort this out.” Slate heads to the door.

“Just hang tight. It’ll be okay,” Hazel says, smiling sadly.

Cedar watches from the hallway. I brush past him and head to the bathroom. It takes a while for him to go back to bed and fall asleep. It’s just past two in the morning when I sneak out and head toward the parking lot.

While I’d prefer to shift and run, carrying clothing in my mouth is hard enough. I can’t carry any weapons. For once, I’m grateful to be the son of the Delta, because I know the codes for all the locks in the training building.

I’m able to slip on a tactical vest and a couple of guns loaded with wolfsbane. To be safe, I also tuck in four small daggers. My black hoodie goes over the top so I can appear somewhat peaceful.

I grab the keys from the sun visor of my dad’s beat up pickup truck and promise myself I’ll save up and buy myself a decent vehicle soon. The gravel crunches on the drive out, but I timed my escape to when patrol is on the north side of our commune and shouldn’t hear it. Even if they do, it’ll be too late to stop me.

This is reckless, but I don’t care. No one else is going to help. They’ll put our pack first. But I can’t live without her.

Pulling off the freeway, I park on the road that leads to Granite Ridge’s pack buildings. I’m not sure how far it is to their buildings, so I stop closer to the freeway than I would have liked. It’ll be a farther distance for our escape, but it’s just as likely we will ditch the vehicle and run as wolves across the border.

I leave the truck unlocked with the keys ready, in case Ember is the one to reach it first.

The march toward Granite Ridge feels like miles and my heart races the entire time. There’s no way to know what I’ll find, except that Ember is there.

Cinder block buildings rise up in uniform lines. Two dozen identical houses line a street with a large and luxurious modern ranch at the end. The Alpha’s house. Everything is quiet and I can’t even hear a patrol. It’s been at least three hours since Ember returned home, and it seems that everyone has gone to sleep.

The front porch of the Alpha’s house is too exposed, so I creep around to the back. My footsteps are deafening with only the rustle of leaves to drown them out.

I pause at the back door, listening for any noise inside. A tense discussion, yelling, anything. It’s silent.

The door comes open with a little work with a dagger. I step in, waiting for alarms to blare, but nothing happens. It’s a kitchen, sterile and white with a double stainless steel fridge and eight burner stove my mother would love. But there is no warmth here. It looks like a catering kitchen, not a family’s. But then again, Sienna doesn’t seem like the type to cook.

Cautiously, I move through the kitchen into the hallway. It splits in two directions. The scent of Ember is faint and old, but I catch a stronger trail down the left hallway. I pass an office and finally reach a closed door that definitely smells like her.

The door is silent as I ease it open at a glacial pace. Ember sprawls across the bed, eyes on the ceiling. Her face is red and puffy like she’s been crying.

When the door latch clicks behind me, she bolts up.

“Onyx!” she hisses, scrambling to stand and darting toward me. I open my arms, wanting to sweep her up romantically. But she grabs my wrist and drags me forward so she can reach the door behind me and lock it.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“You ran away,” I say dumbly. “I came to get you.”

For a moment, she flounders, her mouth working silently. Not exactly the reaction I was expecting.

“I left because I didn’t want to be there with you,” she says. “Clearly, I didn’t want you following me.”

“No, that can’t be why,” I argue. The adrenaline running through my body is the only thing keeping me going, and my thoughts swirl together into mud. “You don’t want to be here. You want to be with me.”

Her lips purse for a moment and her brows furrow, like she regrets what she's doing, but she shakes her head. “No, you need to leave. I don’t know what they’ll do if you’re caught, but it won’t be pretty.”

“I’m not leaving without you,” I say stubbornly.

“Argh, you guys have my phone so I can’t even call Jasper to come get your dumb ass.” She turns away, pacing the length of her room.

The walls are white, her bedding is ivory, and all of the furniture is pale wood. It doesn’t feel like Ember. She belongs somewhere comfortable and cozy.

“I need to be here to help my mom. Once that’s handled, we can revisit us .” She motions between us, back and forth.

“Then I’ll stay to help.”

“You’re going to ruin everything!” she says, her voice still hushed but rising.

Pounding on the door makes both of us leap.

“Ember, open up. We have an intruder.” A masculine voice sounds through the wood.

“Shit!” Her face pales, all of the blood draining out in panic. “You need to go out the window and run. Please, for me.”

She shoves me toward the window and slides it open with one hand.

Before I can argue with her, she grabs my shoulder and forces me down and half out the window. I have to grab the sill to keep from tumbling out head first.

Her door blows open with a splintering crack, and I push off the window frame to get between her and the attacker.

“No, Onyx!” Ember yelps, clinging to my arm .

Hands shaking, I draw a gun and level it at the three men bursting into her room. They’re taller than I am, filling the entire space. They close the distance between us before I can react.

“Back off, I don’t want to shoot you,” I say.

“What are you doing?” Ember screeches.

They don’t stop. My finger tightens on the trigger and the gun fires, striking the first man. He staggers back and then drops as the wolfsbane hits his bloodstream. Before I can fire again, hands clamp around my upper arms.

Something strikes my head, and my vision swims, pain splintering me apart. Desperate to get back to Ember, I struggle against my captors. Their hold bruises as they jerk me back and down onto my knees.

My vision tunnels, black seeping in around the edges.

Another strike, and I lose consciousness.