Taken by my mate; Second Chance
Chapter 22 - Taken

AMBROSE

I was waiting outside, assessing the fighters and taking notes on a pad of paper. I used a strange short hand and code to keep others from reading over my should, but half an hour of watching the fighters and watching me write and Evadiene had figured it out. I couldn’t praise her enough and her cheeks flushed as she warmed into me, feeling the love I openly gave her.

She had gone with the Alpha to find a washroom, and I was sure she would stop by the kitchen for another hot drink on her way back. Evadiene hated to be cold, but had still followed me outside early in the morning to keep me company… and tease the men by giving her version of sport commentary.

One of our men, Lucas, had practically bust a gut at one of her comments, crouching to the ground in a fit of laughter. She had gone to check on him after a minute and apologized for interrupting his training. My mate was so caring of others, and I could feel her guilt in thinking she’d distracted him into getting injured. However, he had insisted she keep going in her commentary as it had brightened his morning immensely.

Then she had gone off to the bathroom and even I was starting to feel a chill standing outside. I waited for her to come back, keeping to my work, making more detailed notes in her absence for her to try and decipher. I threw in a couple of shapes that meant nothing to throw her off, chuckling to myself in the hopes that she would get that little crease between her brows and pout in her frustration. I would always love challenging her and seeing what she could do.

Time ticked by and I glanced at my watch. She had been gone for nearly an hour and the bathrooms weren’t very far through the doors. I hadn’t felt any strong emotions from her, but I still worried and decided to go look. First I dismissed everyone I was monitoring to pick up later and headed for the door she has used.

Inside the door her scent was already getting weak, smothered by everyone else that had come by, but she had clearly not gone to the bathroom. I followed it the opposite direction, finding it drifting into the alpha’s office but not scenting it leaving.

Why is she alone with him, in one of the few sound proof rooms in the house.

I tried to control myself, to remember that he was the Alpha and I needed to address this calmly, but before I could Emrys took over and kicked the door open. I could feel spit run down my chin as he started seething, marching over to the desk in the middle. I smelt her scent in his chair, confirming that she had been sitting here with him. As I slammed my fists into his desk I demanded an answer from him.

He looked absolutely perplexed. “Evadiene? She left my office over half an hour ago. She didn’t go back outside to you?”

“Why was she in your office?” I demanded again.

He sighed like he considered lying but didn’t. “She’s worried her family will come after you. She wanted my help to leave the pack before they found her to keep you safe. I obviously told her no, that we would find another solution.”

I felt my lip curl up into a snarl. “And then?”

He shrugged. “She left through the library. I assumed she was heading to that bathroom to avoid the main hall.” He lowered his voice and coughed uncomfortably. “She had been crying.”

I growled louder. “She better be alright…”

I trailed off, stalking through the doors behind him to look for her.

I followed her scent but it didn’t go to the bathrooms, instead heading out of the library and towards our bedroom. I tried to calm my face for her, pausing outside the door to take a big breath, and opening it slowly, but all my anger returned when I saw the state of the room.

My eyes were still raking over the space as Emrys began growling loud enough to shake the window. My phone was quickly in my hand and I heard Covyn’s voice like he was background noise.

“I want the pack lands shut down, now! Someone has taken Evadiene.”

His snarls matched my own and I barely heard his confirmation before I was on the line with Ellion, helping to spread the word.His words were few as well, but he would get our guards on the boarder on high alert, I just had to pray they hadn’t left already. Another minute and the sirens were sounding, no one in or out and once the boarders were locked down the woods would be searched

The smell of blood in the room made me nauseous, but it wasn’t all hers. I tracked the strongest smell of blood and found a leopard laying on the floor in my bathroom. The shock surprised me more than anything and I halted, staring at it for several seconds before I noticed it was bleeding heavily. Covyn ran into the room and I heard him cursing and swearing at the state of it before coming to me. As he entered the frame of the floor the animal lifted its head, let out a slow breath and shifted before our eyes.

A woman now laid on the floor, blood over her face and oozing from her side into her dress. She coughed and spat blood on the floor looking at both of us but her eyes lingered on Covyn. After a moment she shook her head turned back to me.

“Please hurry, Evadiene is in trouble,” she pleaded, and that was when it clicked.

“Sequoia?”

She nodded, wheezing in pain. “Hunters have her. They overheard us in the kitchen, and had been eavesdropping the other night outside. They know what she is, and they’ll torture her until she shifts for the trophy. Please find her.”

She could barely hold her head up to talk to us and I heard Covyn call out her name and rush to pick her up. Her head nearly hit the floor, with his hand just barely able to slip in between the two before they met.

“Where did they take her?” I growled out. Checking over the room as Covyn brought her to the bed.

I stifled the sudden urge to argue against another woman touching my bed, this wasn’t the time for animistic wolven possessive instincts and I needed to keep control of Emrys to think. Covyn was already on the phone, calling medical staff to the room, but had torn her dress to look at the wounds further. Taking pillow cases he pressed them against the wound after his initial assessment to try and slow the bleeding.

Sequoia was shaking her head. “It’s your land. Somewhere no one would hear them, probably cold.” Her words were cut off as Covyn put more pressure on the wound and she groaned out in pain. “They jumped us in here, they didn’t think we would be back, they were searching her stuff for clues, but they figured it out and ‘couldn’t pass it up’.” She sounded like the words made her feel sick, and I had to agree that my own stomach felt like it could empty.

I was tracking her scent through the room, seeing the claw marks and blood where it sprayed and soaked different areas. She hadn’t gone easily, and Sequoia had clearly gotten a few swipes of her own in. I could see the different broken objects one of them had thrown or hit the intruders with, not caring about a single one of them if it had gotten Evadiene even a second more away from them.

She must have been… still is.. so scared.

“How did they get her out of here?!” I demanded.

Sequoia pointed to the corner where there was a blanket over a mound. “They emptied your punching bag.”

I hadn’t even noticed it was missing and that made me even angrier. “They put my girl in a punching bag!”

Even Covyn was growling again. “Out the window,” Sequoia wheezed. “Leave me,” she glared at Covyn as she waved me off, begging him to leave as well.

“I’ll be right behind you Spencer, as soon as the doctors have her,” he assured, and I didn’t wait for anything else.

There was blood outside too, none of it hers. And they walked over to the gravel road, the trail ending beside some tire tracks. I cursed out loud, before radioing the guards to check their footage of that area for any cars. Our property was the size of small city and organized about as well as a university campus. Buildings were added as they were needed and the gravel paths were used for both cars and pedestrians because we felt it was less disruptive to our environment.

I ran in the direction they went, doing my best to get speed while not losing their impressions. At a certain point they had diverted farther from everything and the gravel trail split off, the tire tracks continuing towards the back of the property. I trusted very few people at this point, but called Covyn.

“I’m at the back of the property, by the water shed. The trail split, one going toward the warehouses, and the other to the green houses,” I informed. The tracks clearly go to the warehouses, but it looks like there could have been hesitation. The treads are more defined like they were going slowly.”

“Sequoia said cold right? There are all those fridges in the warehouses right? Maybe they were considering whether today is a delivery day. Everyone here for more than a week knows they’re empty except for delivery and stock days so those men can train.” He returned but I was already thinking the same thing.

“I can’t sense her, I think she started blocking me when she went off with you, and they must have knocked her out to keep anyone from hearing outside. I’m heading to the warehouses, but they’re big and more than one room could be considered cold in all of them.”

He made a sound of agreement. “I’ll cut through the middle, meet you there. Sequoia said there were five of them,” he added in a growl. “She doesn’t know if they were from our pack. I’ll only bring Ellion and McLain.”

I agreed with his decision and ran as fast as me and Emrys could go. We hadn’t been letting ourselves think about it clearly but now on this straight run the thoughts thundered like a smiths hammer.

Our mate is being torture by head hunters. Our mate is hurt and in pain because they want her as a trophy.

The thought disgusted and angered me. That anyone could think hunting, especially each other, as a sport disturbed me more than I could let myself feel yet. I entered the first warehouse between forms, neither of us willing to give in with our mate in danger. They were empty, leaving them eerily quiet considering why I was here.

I tried to keep my steps silent as I headed for the first storage room. My breath sounding loud and weak even to me, my hand wrapped around the cool metal handle and I eased the door open.

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