Chapter 1

Lachlan

“Tilly!” I screamed into the phone. “Tilly!”

I had never felt so helpless in all my life.

Someone was there in my parents' house. Why? How? We'd taken every precaution possible to keep them safe.

For a brief moment my team came to mind. I pushed that thought away entirely. They may have made a poor decision, but they weren't malicious.

Despite everything I still trusted them, at least about this.

My mind was already racing with different scenarios and weak points. Where had I gone wrong?

I crumpled to the floor in shock as sharp pain pierced my heart.

Tilly.

I sat there torturing myself as I listened to them dragging her away until all that remained was utter silence, the sort of silence that drove sane men mad.

There was a knock at the door and Grant poked his head in.

“We're about to order room service. Do you want. . . Lachlan? What's wrong?”

Taylor came running up behind him pushing him further into the room to assess the situation.

Grant knelt next to me and started checking my vitals.

“Lachie, you gotta talk to me, man. I can't fix it if I don't know what happened.”

“What is it?” Chelle asked.

For some reason her voice pierced through my shock. Maybe it was the similarity to Tilly's voice or maybe just her presence, a small piece of my mate to hold on to.

I shook my head trying to brush her off. I was still trying to process what was happening. I didn't want to say the words aloud, as if somehow that would make them all the more real.

“What’s wrong with him?”

A sharp sting against my cheek shook a little sense into me.

“Tilly?” I begged.

My stomach lurched and I fought down the urge to throw up.

How? Why? What the hell was going on? None of it made sense. Why would anyone go after my family? There were added protections in place and they lived in the city surrounded by humans. Why risk that kind of exposure?

A million questions flooded my mind, but when I closed my eyes, I could still hear her breathing on the other end of the phone, could still hear her begging me to help her.

Never in my life had I felt so helpless.

Rocking back and forth to stave off the unsettled feeling in my stomach, I stopped and listened.

There was still the muted but unmistakable sound of men talking in the background.

My training kicked in and I pulled the phone back long enough to hit the record button on my phone that Archie had installed for just such an occasion. I never dreamed in a million years I’d have to actually use it.

“She’s a fighter. Might want to keep this one,” a man’s voice said.

My whole body was going numb and I was shaking violently as I listened.

“Too much trouble. Best we get rid of her right away.”

“I don’t know. He wants the strongest of them all. Look at her. She’s still fighting the serum.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I could now hear her thrashing around as someone fell to the ground.

“Stop fighting it,” one of the men said. “It’ll hurt less.”

“No!” I screamed. “Tilly! Keep fighting, baby!”

The other end went silent for another moment, but then I heard some rustling.

“Lachlan,” she whispered.

“Shit. She’s still on the damn phone.”

Then it all went dead and it felt as if something inside me died too.

“Lachlan. Lachlan!”

Taylor slapped me across the face again.

I growled at her, menacingly.

“Back up, babe. Now,” Grant told her, leaving no room for argument.

“Something’s wrong,” Chelle told them.

It was as if I was there and could hear their conversations, but not really there either. They sounded muffled and far off, though I was acutely aware of their presence in the room.

Grant pulled the women away from me, and rightly so.

My mate was in danger. There was a very real possibility that I would never see her again. My parents had been taken too, but my brain could barely process that fact with the fear of my mate scared and all alone.

Other things started coming back to me slowly. I had no idea how long I’d sat there just trying to cope and process through the situation.

I was in shock.

I knew the signs well and had helped countless of victims through it in my time with Westin Force.

Finally, I cleared my throat and picked up my phone. I was still numb, but I knew what I had to do. I dialed the number and waited.

“Archie, I’m sending over an audio file. I need you to run it through your system for voice recognition. Get me names ASAP.”

“Lachlan? What’s this all about?”

“The dingoes are under attack, and they just took my mate.”

I heard some muttering I couldn’t make out on the other end, then he returned. “I’ll do whatever I can. You have my word.”

He didn’t question it or probe me for answers. For that, I was grateful. I had never called in a personal request beyond a few minor securities around my family, but that was standard protocol for all the active members of a Westin Force team. This was very different, and I think he knew that I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.

Once off the phone with him, I quickly dialed another number.

“Lachlan? Dude, what’s up? I don’t hear from you in years and now this is twice in as many days.”

“Hey, Siggy. I have a big favor to ask.”

“Sure, anything.”

I forced my voice to remain calm so as not to send up any red flags. Siggy was human and didn’t know anything about my world or what I did for a living, but he was the sort of mate that didn’t bother with the details and would do absolutely anything for those he considered friends.

“We’re having a bit of a family emergency. Nothing to worry about. But I need someone to go to the school and pick up my siblings.”

“Yeah, mate. Okay.”

That was it. It was as simple as that for him.

“Can you keep them with you or somewhere safe until I return to town?”

He hesitated a moment. Then said, “Safe as in not your parents’ house?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. I got it.”

“Don’t tell me. Just lie low with them and I’ll be in touch when I can make arrangements for them.”

“Whatever you need.”

I gave him the details of their schools and then called the headmasters personally to notify them of a family emergency and to inform them that he would be picking them up and they would not be returning to school this week.

There were questions, but I deflected them and Siggy was already there before we got off the phone.

I sighed in relief knowing that they would at least be safe for the time being.

“What’s going on?” Taylor asked.

“Someone took my mate.”

“What happened? Tell us everything,” Taylor insisted.

I took a deep breath and forced myself to share everything Tilly had told me and everything I’d overheard.

“You did good. We’re going to find her.”

“They’re eradicating the Tribes to boost the sales of the remaining ones they captured,” I said numbly.

“We already knew that,” Grant reminded me.

“No, that’s not what I mean. If they’re doing that, if that’s the plan, then why did they just keep my loved ones alive? They didn’t kill Tilly, they took her. From the sounds of it, they took my parents alive as well. Why?”

“We don’t know yet. We don’t even have proof that the Tribes are actually in danger.”

“I’d say that was proof. They took my little sister,” Chelle yelled as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Without thinking, and needing something of Tilly to ground myself, I stood up and pulled Chelle into my arms. We just stood there holding each other while she cried.

I wanted to cry too, but I was still emotionally and physically numb from the shock of it all.

“They shot me with a tranquilizer dart, too,” she whimpered.

“We know,” Taylor admitted.

“What do you remember from there?” Grant asked. “Can you tell us about it?”

She sniffed, then pulled away from me as she slowly nodded.

I observed her posture—shoulders sagged and slightly hunched forward, head down, eyes looking at the floor where her foot drew small circles in the carpet. I’d seen this sort of behavior in countless victims. And I knew before she opened her mouth that I was not going to like what she had to say.

“When I woke up I was in the back of a van, restrained. Two men were in the front. They never go out alone, always in pairs at the very least.”

“There were more of them then?”

“Dozens.”

“Go on,” Taylor encouraged.

“They took me to some sort of lab.”

“What did you say?” Grant asked.

“A lab. You know, like you see in the movies when they’re running tests on mice? Only it wasn’t mice, it was dingo shifters. They had a couple dozen of them. I was shoved into one of the cages too. Time seemed to stand still I guess. I lost all concept of time and day. They let us out at meal time but we weren’t supposed to talk to one another.”

“But you did?” I asked.

“Of course I did. I’m the daughter of Alphas, I know how to be discreet when gathering information.”

“I like this girl. Go on,” T said.

“They’re running tests on everyone. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but it was more than just a blood sample. And they have this one drug that forces you to shift. Those that came in while in their skin were given it to prove they were a dingo shifter, and those of us arriving in our fur were forced to shift to human form. It was all highly humiliating.”

“That does not make sense,” Taylor insisted.

“What doesn’t, babe? We all know these drugs exist.”

“Yeah, we know it, but most of the Collectors I know of have no clue that all witches are shifters. And if they don’t know about shifters, only their prized super-humans with extra powers, then why the hell would they be testing for this?”

“We’ve rescued a few shifters that aren’t witches,” Grant reminded her.

“Yeah, but the Collectors all thought that shifting into an animal was their superpower,” I explained as things slowly began to click into place. “T’s right. They’re selling the dingoes as extinct shifters, not super-humans. Why? All the others we’ve found in collections have been one-offs.”

“There are some Collectors who know about shifters, but I’ve only seen a few of them. This is out of character for an auction. Way out of the norm. And now this?”

“Sounds more reminiscent of the Raglan than Collectors,” Grant said with a snort.

Taylor and I shared and uncomfortable look.

“What?” Chelle asked. “What’s the Raglan? What’s he talking about? And why did you just look at her like that?”

“Like what?” Grant asked.

“Like they know something we don’t know.”

“We don’t know anything for sure, but what you’re describing is more like an old Raglan lab than a Collector holding cell pre-auction,” I told her.

“How would you know that?” Grant asked.

Taylor snorted. “Who do you think every single shifter we ever saved talks to? He probably knows the details of both better than we do and we’ve actually been in them.”

“But I’ve heard countless detailed accounts of both over and over through the eyes of those you rescued.”