Shifter Magick (26 page)

He checked up on her mother just to be sure and she was dead just as Kera had told him. Car accident five years ago. Kera’s father had called her cell phone at least once an hour since she missed his first call the morning after her birthday.

Maddox didn’t know what they were doing to make any since of her disappearance. She had taken the book and his car and neither had surfaced.

He assumed the worst of course. He was torn between her betraying him all along and Luke killing her as soon as he had the book in his hands.

“Sir.” Daniel, their oldest member walked into the dining room. “I need to talk to you in private.”

Maddox looked at his father and laughed. “Try it.
Anything
you find out I want to know.”

Jason looked at Daniel. “I agree.”

“Nicholas is here. He just pulled up in the drive.”

Maddox was out of his seat before either male could blink. He made it to the door before his father came up behind him and bound his arms. His chest slammed into the door and Jason into his back.

“Now is the time to make friends. We will never find her if you go about this recklessly.” Jason growled into his ear.

Maddox nodded.

“Good. Go back into the dining room, poor two cups of coffee and set one next to you.” His father ordered.

Maddox did as he was told. His heart pounded with such ferocity that he imagined it breaking free and searching for Kera on its own. As he poured the coffee, he tracked the movements in the house. Nick had entered the front door and was being questioned by his father and Daniel on the whereabouts of Rayland.
Nick maintained an answer that gave nothing away but insinuated of mutiny in the pack.

With two cups in his hand, Maddox sat down at the table and placed one between the head where his father had been sitting and where he was seated. The seat to the right of his father was reserved for the heir, but Maddox hadn’t sat there since Nick became a murderer and it was only fitting that he let Nick sit there now.

“
Maddox I needed to talk to you.” Nick said when he entered the room.

Maddox clinched his jaw and motioned to the cup beside him. “By all means, take a seat.”

Nick didn’t hesitate. He kept eye contact with Maddox as he rounded the large oak table and pulled the seat out. “I didn’t kill Hannah.” He said as he sat down.

Maddox pounded his fist on the table in anger. “
Don’t
lie to me now.”

Nick shook his head, his face pail. “Andrew told me that Hannah came on to him. He said that he couldn’t help himself. He had sex with her but if you remember, at the time Andrew was pretty shy. He said he lost control during the moment and she died. I believed him.”

“And now?” Jason growled.

Nick looked at his Alpha and answered. “I think my dad had something to do with it. I always have. He left and in the hindsight of what Andrew did and Maddox almost dying in that car accident, I think he hid something.”

“And why is that?” Maddox asked bitterly.

Nick turned to him, “Because when he returned was the first time I ever heard the name Kera Conway.”

Jason quizzed Nick for the next few hours as Maddox sat there in stunned silence. He learned how incredibly stupid he had been to shut himself off from his life when he was only sixteen. This evil he had seen had matured. Nick had done his best to control Andrew in the years that followed but he hadn’t been able to do everything. Rayland had taken to Andrew when he had first moved in and sided with him. Nick didn’t come out and say it but it was apparent to Maddox and his father, if he was reading him right, the
n
Nick had been severely abused by Rayland.

“
I had to come but I don’t know how much help I can be. Father told me that it was apparent very early that I would never be his heir. Andrew has taken that spot now.”

“Where’s Kera.” Maddox spoke for the first time in hours.

Nick blanched.

“Please tell me.” He found himself begging. “I don’t care how bad it is, I want to know.”

“I never saw her. Luke came in with the book the other night and,” Nick spun the coffee cup around on the table a moment.

“And,” Maddox prompted.

“He said she wouldn’t remember a thing.” Nick said gently. “I thought that meant he’d released her back to you. Since you’re asking I guess I was wrong. But I don’t know where she is.”

“The only thing he wanted from her is the damn book.” Maddox growled. He stood up so fast his chair slammed into the wall. He paced the room trying to think back to what happened that night when she left in his mustang. She said she was going to take the book to Luke and nothing would detour her. All this he had told to his father and helped investigate. Nick had just confirmed that Luke had the book and since he was here, the next step would be to convince Nick to help them get into the hide out.

Maddox was ready to find Luke and beat the truth out of him. He would find out what he did to Kera once and for all.

“
I don’t know where they are.” Nick said solemnly. “Father drops by the house every few days but they are all hiding out. He doesn’t trust me so it makes it harder to help you. I am going to follow him next time but I wanted to make sure you picked up the phone when I called. I don’t think I will make it back but I want to know that I did something to stop them before it was too late.”

“We’re going shopping.” Maddox announced. “You aren’t going anywhere where I can’t track you.”

Jason rapped his knuckles on the table. “That’s it then boys. You go get what you need, meet me back here in no more than two hours and we’ll assemble the council with Nick standing in for his father as second below Alpha.”

Maddox lead nick to the garage and took a random set of keys from the rack. He pointed to the mass of cars and unlocked it with the clicker. A black range rover lit up and Maddox went for it.

“Don’t trust me in your mustang.
” Nick mused darkly.

Maddox felt his temper explode. The lid was only on temporally any way. He punched the brick column closet to him and watched the debris scatter like an explosion to match his emotions. His fists shook as he stood there trying to remember the way her skin felt against him. He had come to rely on the steady wave of energy that she would feed into his body on contact. It would soothe him and make him feel alive at the same time.

Several sets of feet made sounds as people ran to see what happened. Daniel was the first to speak. “Master Maddox?”

Maddox turned on his heal to Daniel and nodded his apology, and then he turned to Nick. “She took the Mustang Nick. I haven’t been able to find it.”

“God.” Nick whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Help me find her and you’ll make it up to me.” He said harshly. He kicked a large stone out of the way on the way to the path finder and heard the stone crunch under Nick’s feet as he followed.

They drove in silence. The only time they spoke at the electronics store was to question the employees. Maddox was quickly frustrated and demanded a manager to direct them somewhere else who would actually have something they could use. He was pretty sure they called the cops after they
left and told them something suspicious was up. Maddox could care less. He figured out quickly that he wouldn’t be able to buy what he needed from the store.

Instead he
dropped by the bank and withdrew ten thousand dollars and
took Nick back to campus and found some of his old friends from high school who were into technology. He
met briefly with them and found more than he needed. Solomon and Erik bunked together and were delirious that he needed their help. Nick stepped in after they started asking too many questions on what they were going to use it for and promised to come visit them afterword to give them the whole story.

Though disappointed, they let it go. Maddox was grateful. He was becoming violent below the surface. At the end of the day it would be seventy two hours that Kera would have been missing. Even the police would say that it was slim that she was still alive. What could have kept her from coming back after giving the book to Luke?

Kera’s body shook from the cold. She watched bugs chowing down on the old food that fell just out of her reach.
She’d counted another two nights of capture. Andrew had withdrawn himself after she had refused to become his wife or whatever he considered their arrangement would be. She still ached from the abuse afterwards.

Kera moaned when her dry lips cracked. She knew what he was doing now, trying to break her. It was working. She was breaking, but not for him. Her will to live was slipping. Kera looked up at the ceiling again and whispered to the nothingness around her. “Help me help me please.” She whispered.

If there were shifters and sorcerers then was there a God?

“Help me please.” She spoke louder.

She heard something outside. Knowing it could be Andrew she found herself wanting the blackness of unconscious rather than this blatant awareness of pain.

“Help me!” she screamed.

“There she is.” A male voice exclaimed.

Kera’s heart shuttered. “
H
elp.” She screamed, hope rising in her chest. “
Thank
you God.” She whispered to herself. “Help.” She screamed again.

After a struggle with the door, it opened to reveal Markus and two other boys. She smelled the alcohol on them and it turned her stomach painfully.

“Let me go.” She told them.

Markus laughed and knelt beside her. “You stink.” He sneered.

“What do you
want to do? Give her a bath?” O
ne of
the
others laughed.

“Ha ha.” Markus stood up and slapped the back of his head. “No wonder Andrew hasn’t tapped that yet. I thought it was because Maddox would kill him if he found out.”

Kera stopped breathing in that moment. Relief washed over her. Maddox was alive. Thank God. A tear she didn’t know she had left slid down her cheek and stung the chapped skin on her face.

“So what do you want to do?”

“Leave her for now.” Markus told them. “She’s not going anywhere.”

The third boy cursed.

“What?”

“We could at least take off her clothes.” He suggested. “I don’t want to just leave.”

Markus chuckled. “I’m down.”

Kera felt her jaw shift in response. She growled low in her throat and all boys stopped what they were doing and watched her.

“Think you’re tuff?” H
e knelt beside her and grabbed her jaw and smirked as he ripped her shirt down the middle.

Kera felt the beast inside her snap. She rocked her head to the side and bit down on the soft part of his hand. Blood poured into her mouth. From behind her, someone laughed and began to tug down her jeans.

“Get a bucket of water.” The third boy called out.

A smirk crossed the second’s face as he nodded and ran to do as he was told.

Markus caught her check in a right hook that put Andrew to shame. Her teeth banged together and the collar around her throat tightened painfully against the back of her neck as her hear whipped back and hit solid brick.

She must have been unconscious
because next thing she knew, water was being pored over hear. Kera coughed and choked on the water.

“She looks hot.” One of them said. “Like a sex slave.”

Kera pulled as hard as she could on the bonds behind her back. He tried to squeeze her hands through the small holes. She could feel skin and muscle ripping but she didn’t care. The boys began to be bolder in their torment. One grabbed her breast and another began to touch her between her thighs. Kera closed her eyes and threw all she could into shifting the lower half of her body. She kicked out with her feet and caught one in the stomach.

Markus tried to hold her down and she panicked. She let her body shift. The pain was excruciating but she was able to slip her hands through the cuffs. Though her arms were broken now and useless, the rest of her was able to shift into a protective suit of armor. Her beast was injured, cornered and very dangerous. She smelled blood every time she struck out.

“Get out.” Andrew screamed over the commotion.

Everyone froze and backed off of her.

Kera felt exhaustion and agony taking over her consciousness. Her instincts told her to stay awake and alert so she told Fang that it was up to her before she passed out.

Inside the darkness of her mind Kera tucked away a very special place for her precious memories. She began to pull them out one by one to ease her suffering. Her mother sang her songs in another language. “If you’re in danger then you can sing this one.” She had said.

She would sing as she folded laundry or cooked dinner. Her father would come home and ask what they were singing about and Laura would just smile and laugh. “Old stuff.” She’d respond.

Kera would wink at her mother like she was taught and her dad would tickle her and they would all laugh. One big happy family.