Finding My Pack (38 page)

  His green eyes lock on mine. I see no worry in them, just understanding. "I do know that Kitten. I just think it's better for all of us. We men can still have our work, and each other and you. While you get to do everything your little heart desires because the chances are, at least one of us will desire it as well."

  As I'm about to respond, Jace bursts through the door. "There are officers here to collect Kitten." His face is clouded with worry and I instantly panic. "Come on...” Jace takes my hand and the three of us run down the hall, away from the front door.

W
e enter a bedroom with bright purple carpet, neon pink walls, and an astonishingly large lime green bed. There are no windows, but an entire wall is made up of a fish tank. An open door reveals a bathroom with a huge tub. It's mostly white, but with purple accents and I see a stack of fluffy pink towels. I'm so shocked about the overly girly room that for the moment, all thoughts of cops flee my mind.

I look around the big room, now noticing that my stuff, including my gifts from today, are in here. Big Jace in the corner, my stuffed wolves placed on the bed with Noah, a bookcase with the books Finn gave me, a small table and two chairs with the shiny black case that I never opened. It's probably a chess set now that I think about it. There's a big mirror with a weird desk attached to it and a bench seat. I see the necklace Remy got for me in a wooden box sitting on top of it. My treasure chest is sitting at the foot of the bed. A painting of me hangs above the padded headboard, Reed must have done that. On shelves and the dresser are the pictures he gave me in the frames.

"What is this?" I whisper to no one in particular.

  Jace walks towards me, clasping my hands in his. His face is pinched in worry. "This is my gift to you, Kitten. I wanted to give you a room. A space that was just for you. Your own bed, your stuff. You deserve to have that. This whole place is your home now, but here, this is just for you. For always." He tells me.

  Tears stream down my face for the billionth time today. I tug his hands toward me, making him bend a bit. I reach up and kiss his lips. "Thank you so much Jace, you can't....it's...you have no idea what this means to me."

His long, elegant fingers find my chin, holding my head in place. "Pretty girl....don't you know we would give you the world?" His golden eyes are intense.

"Jace, I...." I'm cut off again when Kellan growls deep from his chest.

  "No....he can't...." Kellan's face pales and his shocked and worried eyes turn to Jace, who gathers me in his arms and holds me tightly. I don't know what's going on, and it's scaring me.

.....................

Remy

"I still don't understand the whole scavenger hunt thing. If it means she wears outfits like she had on today then we should have more of them, though." Ash was telling me. I agree. Especially if she straddles me again. Fuck that was hot. I got her to submit nicely to me too. I wonder if she even realized she was exposing her neck to me so prettily. It took every ounce of my self-control not to bite her enticing flesh.

  "Yo, you with me Rem?" Ash asks loudly.

  "Yes, your words just brought something to mind is all," I reply smoothly. He smirks, letting me know I didn't fool him about the subject matter of said thoughts. Ash knows me well enough to see that my control slips quite often when it comes to our little Kitten. In return, I know him well enough to notice the changes she's brought about in him. Like how Ash talks much more often these days, and he actually smiles as well. Not his usual predatory smile meant to make you mess yourself, but real smiles. I admit, it's going to take some getting used to.

"We should shift and head out to..." I stop talking immediately, hearing cars coming up the drive. I look to Aeshlyn, his stormy expression telling he hears it too. He takes a deep breath. I do the same.  "Humans," I say aloud. It's safe to speak now, humans won't be able to hear us from this far.

"You better get back to the house. I'll shift and find out what I can." He tells me. That sounds good so I gesture for him to turn as I race around the house to the back door.

  I have time to enter the house, smooth down my clothing and peek out of a front window before the slow humans approach the door. They are police officers. I can't imagine they are here for anything other than Kitten. What the fuck now? I spot Jace at the top of the stairs, he must have heard them as well.

"Hide Kitten. Now." I whisper, knowing he'll have heard me. I wait until he is well out of sight before I open the door and step outside.

"Good evening Gentleman. How can I help you?" The short, fat officer in front looks taken aback for a few moments. Either from my formal tone or the fact that he didn't have to knock, I'm unsure.

"We're looking for a missing girl." The guy behind him says, looking down at a folder in his hands. "A Mr. uh... Vanderson, informed us that this is where she's been staying. Her paperwork at her workplace confirms it."

  "What missing girl? Does she have a name?" I ask. If they give a last name, it might indicate who really wants her.

  "A Katerina Ivaskov. Long blonde hair, four foot, eleven inches, ring any bells?" The second man's tone tells me that he knows for sure she's here.

  "I know of her, yes. But she's not missing."

"According to her father, she is. Katerina seems to have ran away a couple weeks ago. He's been worried sick. The Vanderson boy came to our offices this morning....said something seemed fishy with her."

  WHAT.THE.FUCK. How in the hell am I supposed to keep her from them? I could kill them.....No. Too much attention. Shit! I hate looking so young at times like these. To them, I'm probably just hiding my runaway girlfriend. The second man isn't going to let this go. If I say she's simply not here, they'll obtain a search warrant and we can't have that.

  "Are your parents home, son?" The first man says kindly. He must see my inner struggle, but it's for different reasons than what he's thinking.

  "No, sir. They're vacationing in Europe. I'm of age and chose to stay here."

The second man raises an eyebrow. "Of age huh? The girl in question is fifteen. You ever hear of statutory rape boy?" I curse myself for that one. He's purposely backing me into a corner. I know for a fact that she's older. Not that it matters.

"I haven't touched her." I glare at him. Maybe I should kill them. At least him.

  The first man puts his hands up, taking a step toward me. "We're not saying you did," He says to me before looking back at the other guy. "We're just here to take the girl back to her father. He's not pressing any charges or anything, he just wants Katerina to come home."

  "Not yet. He's not pressing charges YET." The other fucker says. I want to tell them that her 'father' left her in a trash bin and he can go fuck himself. The best I can do here is make sure they take her back to the police station and not straight to the people who may want to kill her. I can get her out of there, it won't be a problem. I'll either hire someone to act as a caseworker or send in Miss Annie as the grandmother. I'm sure she'll be up for it.

"Look, she's here, you know that. I don't want any trouble with you. Did her father happen to mention how he beat the shit out of her? She showed up at my door with bruises all over her. Looked like the asshole took a belt to her." Now they have to investigate. They can't take her back to him without first questioning her.

  The first man sighs, shaking his head. "I thought that might be the case. Usually is in these types of situations. Go ahead and bring her out here. You can accompany us to the station and give a statement."

  This is better than I thought. "My brother should come too then. I'll go get them." I don't wait for a response. Just turn and enter the house, slamming the door in the process.

Tristan, Logan, and Reed have all taken seats on the stairs, listening in. Good. As much as I'd like to take Ash with us, I know that's a bad idea. I need someone who looks younger than me. Ash is too big and scary and might send the wrong signals. Their expressions range from horror and shock to anger and disgust.

"Here's what's going to happen." I talk quickly and lowly. "Tristan and I are going to accompany Kitten to the police station. Logan, you and Finn find someone to pretend to be social services. I don't care if it's a bum from the street you have dress up in my suit. Make it happen. Get Jace to make travel plans for us all. Private jet, out of the country. As soon as we walk out of there, we're heading out. Understood?"

  "What if they don't release her?" Reed asks.

  "Then I'll pick her up and carry her to the car, I don't give a shit. We need to get her out of range." They nod, Logan and Reed racing off to do what they need.

  Jace and Kellan bring a shaking Kitten with them down the hallway. I see in Jace's eyes that they heard me as well. "Kellan, make sure everyone has what they need from here. We'll come back eventually and pack up if we can't remain here, but for now, anything we don't want anyone finding, bring it with us. Get Ash to the plane early, he'll want to do his own maintenance checks and we may not have time."

  "Got it." Kellan whispers.

  I turn to Kitten, gathering her to me. I kiss the crown of her head before whispering in her ear. "We will not leave you. Never. We have to do this and then we are taking you far away from here. Play along with what Tristan and I say. Okay?" I feel her nod. It usually bugs me when she doesn't speak, but, in this case, it works in our favor that she keeps her thoughts to herself. The others briefly kiss her temples or squeeze her hand. We've probably taken too long already. Tristan joins us and I pass Kitten off to him. The officers won't question if she clings to him.

  I open the door and we step out. The second guy looks smug as fuck and I'd like nothing more than to smash his face in. The wolves last night had humans working for them and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this asshole worked for them. The first guy I highly doubt does. He seems more concerned for Kitten than anything. We're escorted to the back of one of the police cars. There were two more of them, but the officers never got out. The windows are down so I know they are humans as well.

K
itten is shaking horribly next to me. I hear Tristan whispering to her, too low for the officers on the other side of the screen to hear. Probably too low for her to hear. It doesn't matter though, Tristan's voice seems to calm her. Good. I sit up straight and look out the window. I can't wait for this to be finished so we can get the hell out of here.

Kitten

                Tristan is whispering non-stop in my ear. I can't really hear what he's saying most of the time, but I catch phrases like 'It's going to be okay' and 'You're fine' every once in a while. I let his kind and soothing voice wash over me, soaking it in to try and stop my shaking. I know that everything is not okay, though. I'm in the back of a cop car. I've avoided this for so long. I don't want to go into the system. I don't want to leave my new family, my new home. I trust Remy though. He said that he wouldn't let me go. I believe him. I have to. Maybe when they open the door, I can just run away. No....no I can't. Remy and Tristan would get into trouble. Even if they ran with me, the cops would just go back to the house and the rest of the guys would get into trouble. That would be the first place they looked for me.

  I look up into Tristan's face. He's looking out the window. I wish he would look at me. I want to stare into his chocolate eyes again. It might be the last time I get to see them for a while. I wonder if I'm taken away if they would still want me once the state deems me to be eighteen. That could be two years from now. Would they visit me? Tristan looks down at me, finally. His face is blurry through my stupid silent tears. His long fingers reach out and brush them away. I suppress a sob, not wanting the cops to hear me. The thin one in the passenger seat keeps looking back at me and he has mean eyes. He's one of Davis' bad people. It's easy to spot.

  Tristan mouths the words 'You're mine. You're okay' at me. The way his lips over exaggerate the words makes me giggle quietly. His face lights up with his smile. He shifts his arm a little, drawing my attention to it. I blink rapidly when I see the small amounts of blood on his arm from my fingernails digging into him. I release him immediately, looking back up at him. I mouth 'sorry' at him but he just smiles and shakes his head. I grip his hand with both of mine instead, trying not to grip too tightly. Remy shifts his leg so it's pressed against mine. It's as reassuring as I'm sure he meant it to be.

The two cops start to talk quietly amongst themselves. I can't hear them, but I'm sure my wolves can. I feel them both stiffen at the same time. That can't be good. The pudgy cop that's driving has a frown on his face when he looks back at me in the rearview mirror. He looks confused about something the mean one said. We slow down for a stop sign and the mean one points out his window, making the pudgy one lean around him to look too. Tristan mirrors him and a glance back tells me that Remy is looking as well.

  "I don't see it." The driver says as the car rolls forward into the intersection. He's still looking out the right-hand window. And that's why he doesn't see the big bank truck barreling straight at us. Unfortunately for me...I'm looking right at it.

  Before I can call out, it slams into the side of the police car. Time slows impossibly, every nanosecond seeming like an hour. I feel my body jerk at the same moment that glass floats at me from the closed windows. Tristan's body slams into mine and mine into Remy's. The sickening crunch of metal sounds and I watch in horror as the body of the car gives way and closes in on us. Shortly after that, I become disoriented as the car flips once, then twice....three times. The only reason I know it's doing that is because the view keeps changing from spotty white clouds in a darkening blue sky, to the pavement.

I must have blacked out at some point because the next thing I know, I'm lying in a heap on the roof of the car. I look up and see the pudgy driver dangling from his seat. The blood and brain matter leaking from his head is enough to tell me he didn't make it. His seatbelt is keeping him in place.  The other officer is groaning, so he might be okay.

Suddenly I'm being pulled backward, my body sliding over the glass that covers the floor, or hood I guess. My heart lurches, thinking it's Remy. He's made it and he's okay. He's going to help me and Tristan. Tristan! My hand is still gripping his. As I'm being pulled, I'm pulling him with me. I cry out when I finally look at him. A piece of metal is stuck into his side, tiny glass pieces are embedded in his face and his head is bleeding. He's not moving, other than my dragging him. Oh God, no. No! Tristan can't be dead. No way.

  "Let go!" A voice I don't recognize keep repeating to me. I refuse to let go. If I'm going, Tristan is coming with me. We need to get him to Kellan. Kellan will fix him. He'll know what to do. Tristan isn't dead, he just needs Kellan. He'll make him perfect again and I'll be his assistant. He'll call me Dr. Kitten and all three of us will laugh about it. No. All nine of us will.

  A sharp blow lands on my elbow, making my whole arm go numb. I whimper, watching my fingers release Tristan. I try to use my other arm to brace myself. To stop me from moving backward, away from my sweet boy.  Arms wrap around me once I'm free from the car. I don't recognize them. I now realize that it's not Remy pulling me out. As I'm swung around, I see him. I see Remy. He's sprawled on his front, his face to the blacktop. He's not moving either. I reach my hand out to him. I can't get my voice to work for some reason.

  My brain finally catches up to my eyes and I start kicking at the person carrying me. My body is too weak to fight though and the person manages to get me in the back of the bank truck with little effort. There is a bunch of loud noises, but I can't process them. Two of my boys are badly hurt, possibly dead. I weakly beat on the doors, looking for a latch, but there isn't one.

As the truck lurches forward, I get knocked back. I curl into a ball and cry. I scream silently. I don't even care who has me now. Nothing they do could be worse than what's already happened. I've lost them. Tristan and Remy.... they're gone. My world goes black as I forget to breathe.

............................

Kellan

  "Stop that!" I bark at Finn. I know he's nervous, we all are, but his leg is bouncing so hard it's shaking the whole truck. He crosses one foot over his knee and the shaking stops. For all of two minutes. I sigh.

  I keep wondering if I missed anything at the house. I had planned on going room to room, grabbing anything we'd want or anything we didn't want others to find. That didn't work out, though. Ash insisted on trailing Remy, Kitten, and Tristan in his wolf form. We had all tried to talk him out of it, but once Ash gets something in his head...well, he's unstoppable. I had raced through the house at that point, not wanting to be too far behind him. I spent the most time grabbing Kitten's things. I know she'll want them. I didn't bother with clothes or anything that's easily replaceable.

  I'm not even sure where Jace arranged for us to go. I suppose it doesn't matter, we just need to get away. If only we would have done this earlier. Before the police showed up on our doorstep. I knew after last night, that this was a serious situation but...I didn't think they'd risk exposing her to the authorities. It's a desperate move. Which means that whoever wants her, is desperate. And desperate people are the worst kind of people. I'd know, I see them every day.

The truck starts rocking from side to side again. I let out a frustrated breath of air. "Finn, seriously. Everything is going to be okay. She has two of us with her." I try to say reassuringly.

"I know." Long pause. "But what if they can't get her back out? What if..."

"They will."  I cut him off. He needs to stop thinking so negatively. It's not helpful and it's not healthy. "You know Tristan....he's not above whipping it out and shaking it around to draw attention to himself."

  Finn cracks a small smile, probably thinking of the extra embarrassing moment in time when Tristan pulled his pants down in a crowded restaurant just because Logan said he wouldn't do it. I snort at the memory. It was a damn good place to eat too. That wasn't the only place we've gotten banned from. Secretly, I've always wondered if he did it because their chef's salmon was better than his. Tristan is a God in the kitchen but despises competition.

"Yeah, you're probably correct." Finn sighs out.

  We continue to drive towards town. The trip seemingly taking days. Until we're stopped by a police barricade. It looks like an accident has taken place further up the street. The officer standing in front of his car in the middle of the road waves us to the left. As I straighten the truck out after the turn, I look in rearview, making sure Jace and the rest of them are staying right behind me. It doesn't appear to be, but it could be another trick for all I know. Logan must see me and waves like a loon. That's good, we need to stick together.

  The road we end up on to avoid the car accident runs parallel to a wooded area. I tense, wondering if we're being followed or watched by the wolves that attacked. There's a loud 'thump' and the bed of the truck dips down. Before I know what's happening, Finn is out of the truck, snarling and wrestling someone in the back. I stop the truck quickly and jump out to investigate. Finn is now perched on the rail and a naked Ash is laying in the back.

  "What the hell?" I ask him. Ash's face is normally scary, but the panic I see in his eyes stops me in my tracks.

  "No time," Ash says, jumping back out. "We need to get Rem and Tristan." He dashes back into the woods and Logan and Reed follow him. I get back in the truck, positioning it right at the edge of the trees. Jace does the same with the white SUV.

  When Finn gets back in, his face is sickly pale and he's as stiff as a board. "He said Remington and Tristan." He turns his wide eyes to me. I frown at him. "Ash didn't mention anything about Kitten," He explains.

  Oh God. He's right. Why would we need to get the guys and not her? Surely she's with them, though? "He seemed in a hurry, maybe it doesn't mean anything." I don't know if I'm trying to convince myself or him.

   "I told her I loved her today." Finn whispers. He swallows like he's about to throw up. "I was too chicken to actually say it though. I put it in a note."

  "Hey, it's okay. It's going to be okay. And Kitten probably liked that better anyhow. Now she can keep it. She likes keeping things." I grip his shoulder, pulling him in for a one-armed hug.

  "KELLAN!" Ash's voice booms from the tree line. "Get your ass in the back!" He orders. He's got Remington's upper body in his grasp while Reed carries his legs. Behind them, I see Logan carrying Tristan, tears streaming down his face.

  As soon as they are both loaded into the bed of the truck, I climb in between them. I assess the damage done to my brothers, holding my anger in check. When Ash jumps in the driver seat of the truck, panic takes hold of me.

"Where's Kitten?" I demand.

  "Gone," He growls.

  "WHAT?! We need to go after her then!" Finn shouts at him.

  Ash turns his big body to face him. "You think I don't know that! What was I supposed to do Finn? Leave Rem and Tristan on the side of the road? Let them be taken to a hospital where they'd see them recovering too quickly and they'd be given human blood?" He slams his palm on the dash, making it dent.

  "Let's get them to the clinic," I interject. Tristan is barely breathing and Remy's smashed in face worries me. We can recover from a lot of things, but I need to clear away any and all debris in order for them to heal properly. I just hope that Remy's brain is still intact, if not..... No. I refuse to think that way.

  The truck begins to move and I duck down. I don't want anyone to see me back here and wonder what I'm up to. Police are still in the area. I have a million questions for Ash, but they'll have to wait. Obviously, my brothers were in that car crash we saw. I can't help think....If two strong as hell changed wolves look like this....then what happened to fragile little Kitten?