Divine Savior (18 page)

“
Just fucking great! Even more ways for you to irritate me. If you can tell where I am then why the hell did you ask me, you dick head? So, what…I wait here while you rush to bring me back to your king bloodsucker? I want you to
—
”

She stopped suddenly; he felt her have a sudden awareness, a ripple of fear race through her mind. There was something else, something he couldn’t understand. Then the pain ripped through her whole being. Incredibly horrific pain had lanced throughout her, radiating from her upper left shoulder and down her arm; her mind hazed with it. Then another strike of pain, this one from her left side. He could feel the blood leaving her body, weakening her.

“
Shade!”
In his terror for her, he was yelling out loud. Everyone in the room heard his anguish for her and knew something horrible had happened. “What happened, baby? Answer me.”

Colin jumped from the floor and flashed to the door, nearly stampeding the woman there running ahead of him. He knew that Elizabeth had felt it too, and wondered about that fleetingly, but the thought was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. He was totally focused on Shade and what may have caused her so much pain.

“
What? What happened? She’s gone now. I can’t feel her. I...I can’t touch her. What happened? Please tell me what you know.” Elizabeth begged him for answers.

“
I don’t know
. She’s been hurt badly. Shot, I think – twice. The pain was incredible. I have to find her, get to her. I’m going to go and look now.” He was opening the door as he spoke, moving out toward the woman he loved.

~
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN~

It was possible for Colin to pinpoint the immediate area where Shade was when she had been hurt and he materialized there in an instant, focusing all his energy on her blood scent. He was very close to a wildlife preserve just outside the city limits of Zanesville. Colin knew the wolf pack was close to this area as well, but had never been there.

Colin had to look around for a few precious moments before he found where Shade had been when she had been hurt. Colin couldn’t see any point of entrance to where she might have been attacked; the snow was still fresh. And there were no marks anywhere that he could see. He looked along the tree line that was perhaps twenty yards from where she could have been standing when it happened. There were no houses around that close, nor were there any signs of fresh car tracks. Everything was covered in deep, fresh snow. There were, however, a set of large paw prints in the large amount of blood. The snow was covered in blood. There was no doubt that it was hers. He could smell her in it, almost taste her scent it was so strong. But Shade was nowhere to be found.

He searched deeper by using his heightened sense of smell to see if he could find her by scent. The fresh snow and cold weather made it easier to smell things, the air crisp and fresh. The cold also kept all the wildlife out of the area and the lack of plant life helped in that their odors did not intermingle with hers.

Colin could smell two others now. One was a female wolf, the other a female human. He knew immediately that the human was the woman from the apartment, Brent’s mother, Brenda Shell. He could tell her scent, having been near it before.

He knew in that moment that somehow Brenda had figured out what had happened to her son. And the scent of the wolf led him to believe that she was aware that the pack had helped. Colin realized with a start someone had told Brenda—
the she-wolf
, he thought. He wondered if it may have been the alpha who had gotten his mate hurt.

Colin had discovered, quite by accident, that Shade had asked for and had received help from the local wolf pack leader, Bradley Wolff, to smuggle Brent out of the hospital for her. He had stumbled upon the information when he had touched her mind sometime during the night they had spent together. He wasn’t happy about it, but he could understand her needed to go to them. Colin and Aaron had given her no reason to trust that they would help her. Colin had a great deal to make up for when he found her. And find her he would because to think anything else would be too hurtful.

Colin needed help so he relayed his location to Aaron. Aaron could find him easily enough because of their blood bond and the fact that Aaron had made Colin, but he needed to be sure that Aaron would get there.

Aaron drove the Hummer to the location at Colin’s request. Colin had hoped they would find Shade all right and bring her home Aaron had also brought Sara was with him. She had become very distressed when he told her that he had picked up the scent of a she-wolf along with the drugged up human.

Colin worried about Sara and the new lives she carried. He hated to bring her into this now, but he had no choice. He needed Shade. Needed her now.

“
I might have an idea who the wolf is. I hate to think about her involvement, but I think she’s the local pack’s alpha’s bitch. Her name is Lynne Wolff. She’s a jealous bitch and can be vengeful—no, that’s not right. She is quite vengeful when she believes some female is after her mate.” Colin watched as Sara rubbed a small scar on her chin. “Lynne made it quite clear all were not welcome near Bradley no matter what the reason.”

“
You think this is about her thinking Shade was trying to take her mate away? That doesn’t sound like anything Shade would do. She can barely stand me most of the time.”

Colin hadn’t meant for it to sound like a joke, but he was scared. The thought of Shade out with a full grown she-bitch wolf terrified him. He knew Shade was powerful, but so was a jealous wolf.

“
I think it smells like her, although I haven’t caught her scent since I changed, but this has her signature all over it.” Sara picked up a handful of snow and scented it again. “This would be something she would do just for the simple pleasure of it. The other scent, as I’m sure you know, belongs to the woman from the little boy’s apartment.”

“
You mean the Brotherhood of Gray? Isn’t that the people you worked for before the Carlovettis?” At Sara’s nod, Colin continued. “If the boy’s mother is involved, and I have no doubt she is, then that explains why these two are together, doesn’t it? Each woman sees an opportunity to get rid of the kid and Shade at the same time. What I don’t understand is why the pack? What could they gain from this?”

Colin didn’t really expect an answer. He was just thinking out loud. He really didn’t understand much about weres and their culture, but he hoped that Sara knew enough to help.

“
Maybe it’s because a wolf killed the human female. Wouldn’t this be the perfect way to keep their secret and get rid of the evidence?” Sara was shaking her head even as Aaron finished his question.

“
It just doesn’t sound like something this pack leader would do. When I knew Bradley before he became pack alpha, he was a firm but very fair man. He wanted to change to views of the people, human and other creatures around, into thinking that wolves weren’t all mindless animals bent on tearing into someone and having them for dinner.”

“
Okay, let’s see what we do have then. The human is the mother of Brent, the little guy from the hospital. She more than likely figured that Shade had something to do with his disappearance from the hospital, right? I mean, she did have that hissy fit when he came up missing?” Colin started pacing as he listed what they knew. “We know that Shade had asked the alpha for help and he had agreed. We also know the man who murdered little Becca was one of the packs members—this one, I presume. Shade also believes that same man may have been the one who raped Brent on occasion, as well. I found that when I was...when we...I found it out, okay?”

Thankfully, Aaron rescued him before Sara could question his obvious embarrassment.

“
Then I tell her Brent is gone from the hospital and she ends up in an area not too far from the main pack house. I believe it’s a couple of miles south of here, so it’s probably less than a mile though the woods to there. That would explain Shade being in this part of the forest. She was more than likely going there to see Brent.”

Colin knew that’s where she had been going. He could feel and see in her mind that she’d been on her way to see Brent, to reassure him that he’d be safe. It was just his luck he’d pissed her off before she had left or he’d have been with her when she left the mansion.

“
I had actually thought that the mother had sold him again and was making a noise to draw the attention away from herself when I’d heard that Brent was missing. I don’t know what the connection of the two women is, but it can’t be good.” Aaron looked around the area, and then stared at the direction of the pack house for a minute or two. “Unless it’s like Sara said; the bitch found out that Shade was there talking to her mate and thinks the worst. Then, suddenly, this little kid shows up. Maybe she thinks with him there, Shade will be coming around more too.”

Colin hated to think that something so petty as jealously would cause a woman to shoot another, but he had learned long ago to never underestimate the stupidity of some people.

“
What do you mean sold him again? You mean she sold her son to someone to have sex with him? For money? Oh my God, you’re kidding? No, I can see that you’re not. For drugs, right?” Colin had forgotten that Sara didn’t know all the details. “She sold her son for sex...to supply herself with drugs. Oh God, that little girl, do you think...no, no one could be that depraved...oh, God, Aaron, that baby girl...we have to find that bitch now, right now! I’m gonna
so
kick her ass. She’s gonna regret this for a long, long time. You hear me, Colin? She will pay!”

Sara fired up was almost funny if the situation wasn’t so grave. She had lived on her own for a while before meeting Aaron and was one tough magical being. But, Colin thought, she was still very innocent about so many things.

The three of them piled into the Hummer and went back to the mansion. They needed a plan and standing in the blood-covered snow was not helping to calm any of them down enough to think, especially Colin.

He was grief stricken and worried about Shade. He knew she was alive, but he also knew she had to be weak from blood loss. She had told him that she could heal quickly when her body was in mortal danger after being injured or hurt, but how much did she heal? That knowledge alone kept his hopes high and calmed him in so many ways. But because he was not able to touch her mentally nor physically, it was driving him mad with need. Colin needed to get control and remain calm, and getting away from the scene was the only thing he could think to do. He couldn’t help her or be there for her if he lost it.

The trip back was made in silence, each of them deep in their own form of agony about Shade and helping her.

~~~

All Aaron could think about was what he would be doing if was if that had been his mate, Sara. And what he would be doing right now. Sara meant the world to him, his breath, and his life. And now that they were having a baby—babies according to Shade —his son and his daughter.

They had been talking with them every day, sending them their love. Images of them and the life they were living; every day they thought of something to share with them. These children, his and Sara’s children, were going to be the total of them, and the best parts of them. He couldn’t think of a life without all of them in it.

Sara was thinking of the children she carried, as well. She wanted to keep them safe and warm, to protect them and make sure they never felt unloved or unwanted. She rubbed her hand gently over the flatness of her belly, sending her love to them, feeling their answering love in return. Aaron was her mate, her very reason to keep living, but the children there in her womb—they were her future, their future, hers and Aaron’s. She couldn’t think what sort of lives the small children of Brenda had endured and suffered. How little Becca had been made to pay with everything before her life had been cut so short.

Colin could only think how he had not yet told Shade how much he loved her when he had the chance. And he would as soon as he saw her. He would tell her first thing, he promised himself. He would see her too. He would bring her home.

Colin knew that she had desired a home of own, how she had had that dream for so long. He also know that she had given it up when she had gotten older, jaded about the way things went for someone like her living on the edge, so close to all this violence. He would get her that house, he decided. They would fill it with hundreds of hot water tanks so she would never have to take a cold bath in the local river again. Cooks. He would hire the best chefs to be on staff for her all the time, making her whatever she wanted, every whim. He never wanted her to be hungry again. Never have her want for anything. Yes, he was going to make this all up to her. She was his, but most of all, he was hers. He would remind her of that daily, he thought. Just as soon as he made sure she never left home again.
Yeah
, he thought with a snort,
that’ll go over just great.

When they walked into the house, they were bombarded by questions. Everyone was offering to help him, to help find her and bring her back to them. Colin realized that she didn’t just belong to him, but that she had become a very important part of the little Kiss Aaron was forming. She had worked her way into their hearts one aggravation at a time.

Colin smiled when he thought about how much the young woman was like Sara. He couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for himself. He was in for a long, bumpy ride. He decided he would have the time of his life while he was at it.