Chapter 26

Gavin

Banging penetrated my sleep. I blinked open my eyes, then shot out of bed. My first thought was that we must be under attack. But, as I wrenched the front door open, preparing to shift, I took in Oslo and Gretel's bare forms heaving in great lungfuls.

"Why aren't you at the borders?" I demanded. They'd both been on sentry duty, but judging by the way they were heaving in breaths, they'd just sprinted here from Pine Creek.

Oslo thrust out a scroll of paper.

I flicked a switch on the wall, flooding the porch with light, then undrew the paper. David's writing littered the page, and I wondered what threat he could have sent to my Betas that could have gotten them both running here and abandoning their watch of our boundaries.

I read the message, recognizing David's writing. "Your fated mate is in my custody once more." My breath caught in my throat, and my grip tightened on the letter. "Deliver Muriel tonight, or Billie is dead." David's scrawl seemed like claws rending my chest open.

As I crumpled the edge of the letter, my first thought was that David Hexen was a damned liar. My gaze charged to the Mundy's front door. I'd seen Billie back here safely tonight. David couldn't have taken her from the cabin only forty feet away from my door.

But my heart plummeted. I knew enough about Billie's compassion and tender heart from the fact that she'd forgiven me tonight, and she'd still been worried about Colt earlier. With a sinking feeling, I realized that she must have gone back out tonight after we'd returned—to check to see if her adoptive brother had made it back to Dalesbloom.

With sudden clarity, I remembered how she'd asked me where I'd seen Colt. At Pine Creek, I'd told her. Regret seized my heart. Why hadn't I offered to go to check on him myself? Anguish punctured my chest as I thought of Billie being back in David's hateful hands.

My Betas had caught their breath, and Oslo was the first to explain, "A Dalesbloom wolf brought that letter to the border at Pine Creek two hours ago. The wolf announced his presence from afar, clearly wanting to be sighted."

Gretel added, "I was at the other end of the border, but once the scout had turned around and disappeared, Oslo shifted and read the message. When I heard Oslo's howl summoning me, I came to him. We both decided to come back here as quickly as possible." Gretel's face tightened. "Given David's ultimatum."

I looked up at the deep blanket of night above me, alarm washing through me as I wondered how many hours I had in which to get to Billie.

I gave my Betas a brisk nod and instructed, "Wake Aislin and Muriel, and come back here." I turned into my cabin, each of my footsteps feeling like a drumbeat as I hurried to the kitchen to check the clock on the wall. The black hands against the white clock face read just past two in the morning.

Relief washed over me. We still had time. Raking my hands through my hair, I tried to rid myself of the image of Billie's delicate form in David's cold and callous hands. Anger seethed through me as I thought of how the man had already stolen her from her pack when she'd been a child. David had already deprived Billie of her rightful place here with her pack for most of her life. The fact that she'd fallen into his custody again set my blood on fire.

Fury pulsed through me, and I felt my wolf bristling through me, wanting to break through. The threat that hung over Billie made my beast want to claw out and take to the woods immediately. My wolf's temptation to burst out of my skin and sprint toward Billie as quickly as he could rebounded through my body, and it took all of my self-control to rein him in.

Coldness stole through me as I thought about the choice I had ahead of me. David's threat pounded through me: to kill her if I didn't hand over Muriel tonight. Sickness churned through me, and a cold clamminess came over me. I wished that I could say that the man wouldn't follow through on such a threat, but Catrina had already proved that she was capable of cold-blooded murder in killing Joseph. With what we knew about Billie's parents' disappearance, I suspected that the apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.

A moment later, footsteps sounded, and both Aislin and Muriel burst into the cabin. I paced back into the room. Dread clogged my chest and reminded me of the feeling that had charged through me the night my parents had died. My throat constricted again, and my frenzied mind tumbled with the idea that this feeling was a kind of premonition.

What if it's my lot in life to always lose the people closest to me?

Aislin's face was rigid with tension, her brown eyes sparking with anger. She came toward me, taking the letter from my hand. I had forgotten I was still holding it. She scanned the lines, her face scrunching with more anger as she read. My gaze wound over her messy auburn hair and PJ shorts and T-shirt. She must have been as sound asleep as I had been when her parents had woken her.

My gaze went to Muriel, who hugged her arms around herself. Her silver hair hung in a plait over her shoulder, and she wore a silk dressing gown. Her expression, usually so warm, was tight with distress, too.

Clearly, my Betas had filled them both in.

Both Oslo and Gretel, now dressed, had returned, too. Mind-numbing dread threatened to paralyze me, and I couldn't seem to think past David's threatening words. "Deliver Muriel, or Billie is dead."

Those last three words twisted in my gut, making me feel as if my intestines were knotting themselves together. As nausea churned, those words kept repeating themselves, "Billie is dead, Billie is dead, Billie is dead." A sickening chant that built up momentum as it cycled around my head, refusing to stop.

It was Oslo's grave voice that finally cut through the terror I was drowning in.

"Call Everett and ask for Eastpeak's help," he advised me, his serious brown eyes pinning me.

"We need his help," Gretel agreed.

Aislin's voice rose, "But we only have until morning. Can we afford to wait for Everett, who might come down from his mountain and might not?"

A mixture of anger and panic thumped through me at her words. Everett had refused to help before when I'd asked for Eastpeak's aid against Dalesbloom. What was to stop him from refusing again. My pulse spiked, pumping my body full of adrenaline and telling me that I had to act now. Billie was my fated mate. I had to save her.

"Aislin's right," I said. "Everett had his chance to help our pack before this. I can't endanger Billie's life by delaying things."

My heart squeezed as I thought of how Billie was nothing to Everett but everything to me. The memory of that sweet sense of knowing that pervaded me tonight as we'd sat in Ridge Bay, watching the stars blink down at us, was potent. Vana had gifted me with Billie as my fated mate, and I damn well wasn't going to lose her.

Not tonight and not ever.

"We, the whole pack," I clarified, my gaze sweeping over my Betas and Aislin so that they were in no doubt of my instructions, "will save Billie tonight."

"And you'll have what Dalesbloom wants with you anyway," Muriel said, her silvery stare like a blade as her voice filled with a grit I'd never heard in it before.

Shock swept through me. "Muriel. You can't …," I began, my stomach twisting at the idea of bringing the person we'd sworn to protect right to Hexen Manor, where they and the Inkscales were lying in wait for her.

"I can, Gavin," Muriel stated decisively. "You've protected me, as has Billie, since the night I met her. And I won't cower here, allowing my friend's life to be put in jeopardy when it's me the Inkscales and Hexens want."

My gaze warmed as I looked at the middle-aged woman, admiring her selflessness when it came to Billie. I knew Muriel and Billie had become close since Muriel had taken up residence here with Grandbay. It didn't surprise me that this being, with such a pure heart, recognized Billie's worth.

My eyes met Muriel's resolute stare, and with emotion thickening my voice, I said, "Thank you, Muriel. I know Billie would want you a million miles away from the Hexens and Inkscales, but I need to do everything I can to get her back. So, thank you for being with us."

She dipped her head in acknowledgment, and I turned to my Betas, my heart racing with urgency. "Wake everyone. And tell them that their Alpha calls them to help him save Billie. We're going to Dalesbloom."

With necessity igniting us, we all moved out of the room. Alertness prickled over me, and my wolf burst from out of my skin. Resolve ground through me as I padded past my pack"s houses, each light flickering on, telling me that my pack was rousing, that my wolves were about to unite and run with me.

Nothing would stop me from retrieving my mate and bringing her home to be by my side where she belonged.