Chapter 31
I lost track of time after our conversation. We didn’t talk much, he asked about how I was doing and wondered about the pack. I told him about Blake’s new mate and mine. He was surprised when I told him I had a second mate, he was sure Blake and I would be together. I also told him how Blake tried to kill us.
Hours passed, or maybe days I don’t know. Sometimes my body felt exhausted and I would sleep, with Derek promising that he’d watch over me. I was hungry and thirsty as well. I mean they did take me before I could eat. I tried not to think about Dylan as I was here, it hurt too much being away from him.
Just then I heard a sound coming from the silver door. I moved back against the wall, fear gripping me. A guy around his mid-thirties walked in, there was a beautiful lady with snow white hair with him. I heard Derek’s intake of breath and figured that was his mate. She was gorgeous.
“Oh good you’re up.” She walked towards me, completely ignoring Derek.
“If you guys are going to kill me just do it already.” I growled at her. I wouldn’t go down without a fight. She let out this musical laugh.
“Kill you? Why do you think we want to kill you?” She asked.
“You’re the council, right? What else would you want with me?” I was confused with the way she was acting. If they weren’t going to kill me then what did they want?
“We’re not the council, we’re the people that does the councils work. When they don’t want to get their pretty little hands dirty, and we’re sick of it.” The guy next to her let out a snort, she shot him a glare.
“Then what do you want with me?” I was even more confused.
“You’re friends with Jacob, right?” I glared at her.
“What do you guys want with him?”
“He works with the council, we plan to kill him.” She smiled at me.
I laughed in her face. “Jacob isn’t part of the council.”
“Then you know less about him than you think.” She had to be lying, no way was Jacob part of the council. He’s been protecting me from them. He’s had many opportunities to kill me if that were the case. She just wanted me to doubt him and leave myself opened to an attack.
“Keep your lies to yourself.”
“Lies? Jacob is the one that warned you about the council, right? He’s also the one that said they wanted you. Honey I can tell you now that all your facts are messed up. Jacob hasn’t been telling you the truth, and I’m afraid to say that he’s not your friend.”
“You’re wrong about Jacob.” I glared at the offensive women. “If you think turning me against him will help you in the slightest, I promise it won’t.”
“Such a naïve child. He’s already gotten into your head.” She smirked.
“Leave her alone.” Derek spoke up for the first time.
“No one is talking to you mutt.” She hissed at him. I watched as Derek flinched from her tone.
“What is wrong with you?” I screamed.
“I’m done being nice! If you refuse to help me your parents will die.” With that she stormed out of the room. My parents? She wouldn’t dare.
“We’re going to play good cop bad cop, or well bad cop bad cop. Since neither one of us is good,” The guy that came in with Derek’s mate started. I forgot he was even in here. “Penelope wanted to just talk with you guys, and we see how that turned out. I on the other hand do not.” I cowered in fear as I saw him pull a knife from behind his back. This guy is crazy! He walked over to Derek, plunging the knife into his leg. All I could hear was screaming, as the blood started rushing out. “Shut up before I cut your tongue out!” He yelled at me.
“Don’t hurt him anymore! We’ll help!” I cried. I just wanted him to stop. I don’t really know what they need help with, but I’d do it. If it would stop him from hurting Derek.
The guy laughed. “You really think you had a choice? You’re tied up and have no idea where you’re at. You never had a choice to begin with.”
“Penelope said I had a choice.” I growled at him.
“She’s a manipulative liar.” He cackled. Derek growled when he insulted her. He turned his attention back to Derek. “And you’re just pathetic, growling over some whore that doesn’t even want you. She’s probably upstairs banging the mailman right now.” All Derek could do was growl louder, with a murderous glint in his eyes. I’ve never seen this side of Derek before.
The guy walked over to me and I panicked. He bent down till he was face to face with me. “When we’re done with you two you’ll be as good as dead, and then we’re going after your mate.” I felt something snap in me as he mentioned my mate. “Didn’t think we knew about him huh? I told Penelope that we should’ve kidnapped him instead, and then maybe you guys would’ve actually noticed and cared.”
“You wouldn’t touch a hair on him.” I growled lowly.
“Oh really?” He moved his face right in front of mine. “How are you going to stop me? You’ll be dead.” I closed my eyes as I felt the fire building within me.
Opening my eyes, all I saw was red. “Like this,” I smirked before blowing flames into his face. He fell back screaming, clutching at his face.
But I wasn’t done with him, he threatened my mate. I melted my chains off as I rose up walking towards him. I bent down grabbing his arm as he screamed in pain. I grabbed his other arm pulling it from his face as I stared into his eyes. My grip tightened as his screaming started up again, much louder. Once his screams stopped I dropped his limp arms and kicked his body.
I walked over to Derek and easily snapped his chains off using my werewolf strength. “What was that?” His eyes kept drifting towards the dude, who was burned from the inside out.
“That, was the consequences of threatening my mate.” I balled my hand into a fist as we reached the door. It turned into wood, I used it to slam against the lock, it instantly broke.
“What’s the plan? We don’t know where we are or how to get out of here. Not to mention how many people are in this building.” Derek pointed out, as we stepped into a hallway. I looked at him over my shoulder.
“The plan is to get the hell out of here, now run!” I took off down the hall with Derek following close behind. I knew I had to get us out of here. We stopped as we reached the end. There was a door to the left, much like how ours looked. In front of it were two bodyguards. Oh, so they get guards but not us? I wonder who’s in there.
“Do you think someone is in there?” Derek asked quietly.
“Yes, the bodyguards are a giveaway.” I was hesitant to keep moving. Either way I’ll have to take these guards out. But who was in there? Were they prisoners like Derek and I was?
I stepped around the corner and the bodyguards instantly started for me. Wow they weren’t even going to ask my name? Fine then I won’t ask theirs.
As they ran towards me I throw fireball after fireball at them. One hit the guy in the chest, burning him alive. The other guy dodged everyone and tackled me before I could react. We both fell to the floor. Next thing I know he was thrown against the far wall, cracking his head. I looked over at Derek whose eyes were flashing. “Great teamwork.” I huffed. I was feeling drained, I’ve never used so much power in one day.
We slowly crept up to the door they were guarding. I wrapped my hand around the handle twisting the doorknob, surprisingly it was unlocked. I slowly pushed it open. The first thing that hit me was the smell, it was horrible. I heard Derek gag behind me and rolled my eyes. What a girl.
Once the light from the hallway made it into the room, my eyes settled on two figures in the corner. It was a man and a woman, much older than Derek and me. They were chained up much like we were. But there were also weird symbols written all over the walls.
“If you’ve came to finally kill us then do it already.” The man snarled out. The woman didn’t say anything.
I cleared my throat. “We’re here to set you free.”
“Set us free? You think we’re dumb?” The guy growled. I took a step forward, but Derek grabbed my arm shaking his head no.
“Maybe we should just leave them.”
“We stopped to free them and that’s what we’ll do.” I made my way to the woman, she shrank back against the man. I grabbed her chains and quickly melted them off. I looked over at the man, he was just staring. I reached over and released him as well.
“Thank you.” He sounded so grateful. I nodded at him.
“We have to leave now!” I followed Derek out the room. I didn’t know if the man and woman would follow us but then I heard more footsteps. They didn’t even ask questions about the two guys knocked out in the hallway. Well one knocked out and the other burned alive. In fact, the woman kicked the one that was knocked out.
“What’s the plan?” The man asked.
“To get out of here.” Derek answered.
“Perfect.”
“Do you know where we are? Or where the closest exit is?” I asked them.
“Yes, follow me.” The guy took the lead.
“Where is everybody?” I was actually thinking the same thing. Through all our running we didn’t bump into no one besides the two bodyguards. Did they not think they needed the extra protection? How foolish they were.
“I don’t know, let’s just keep moving.” I walked slowly up the steps the guy stopped at, guess I’m leading again. There was a door at the top. I looked back at Derek counting to three on my finger, before pushing the door open.
“I was wondering how long it would take.” A familiar voice greeted us on the other side. “Aww look it’s a family reunion.”
Dylan’s POV
“What do you mean they took her?” Jacob asked.
Flashback
I was downstairs making popcorn when suddenly I smelt this strange scent. It wasn’t wolf or cat, in fact it smelt a lot like Ashley, but I knew it wasn’t her. I sat the popcorn down making my way upstairs. Halfway to the top I heard a thud. I quickened my pace, feeling that something was very wrong.
I rushed down the hall to Ashley’s room. I pushed the door open just in time to see a guy jump out the window, holding my unconscious mate. I growled as I shifted, following him out the window. I landed harshly on my paws, that jump was higher than I thought. But I didn’t care, I had a mate to get.
I followed the guy as he ran through the woods. My growls getting louder when he accidently smacked her head against a tree. Couldn’t he be more careful? I was now no more than a foot from him when he finally noticed me. His eyes widened as he looked back, then he smirked, I snarled. Pushing myself faster I was about to take a bite out of his leg, when he hopped in the tree. Dang angels. I watched as he hopped from tree to tree. I couldn’t use my angel powers when I was in cat form, since I wasn’t full angel. But I also couldn’t shift because I’d lose him.
Not paying attention to where I was going, I tripped over a branch. I swore in my head as I face planted.
“Keep up kitty cat!” I heard a mocking voice up ahead. When I looked up I noticed the guy was no longer in sight.
Flashback over
I spent hours trying to pick up the scent again, only to come up blank. When all hope was lost of following him I went to Jacob. This all happened two days ago.
I slammed my fist into the nearest wall. “Your stupid angels took her!” I growled out.
“That’s not possible, I put protection spells around her house.” He put spells around her house? When did he do this?
“Well your stupid spells didn’t work.” I glared at him.
“You need to calm down Dylan.” He said soothingly. I felt myself starting to calm down against my will. Then got mad once again when I realized he was using his abilities on me. I ran over grabbing him by the neck.
“Don’t you ever try that again!” I growled into his face. He clawed at my hands trying to breathe.
“We won’t be able to find Ashley this way!” He wheezed out. I dropped him at the mention of Ashley’s name. “You need to be calm and thinking rationally, right now your cat and angel have full control over you. I might know where she is.”
“Why didn’t you just say that?” I wanted to choke him again. He rubbed his neck as if he knew what I was thinking.
“I wasn’t sure before, but now I am.”
“Alright let’s go.” I started making my way to the door.
“We can’t go along, we need backup.” He told me. I paused, he wanted to go to those mangy mutts.
“Let’s go.”
----------------------------------
“What makes you think we’re going to help you? That mutt deserves whatever it is she’s getting.” Blake growled at me. My eyesight went black, all I saw was him. I summoned my fire, while my hands were in flames I wrapped them around his neck. He didn’t scream but I saw the pain in his eyes. As an Alpha he had too much pride. I smirked.
“I’ll kill you right now and have no regret.” I tightened my hold. I could see he was struggling to breathe, not to mention the burn damage I was causing him. That was going to leave a scar, guess he’ll have one to match his mates.
“P-please.” He tried to say.
“Dylan, think about what you’re doing. We need their help.” Jacob stood next to me.
“We don’t need these mutts.” I stared into Blake eyes as they started closing.
“Ashley wouldn’t want you to hurt him.” I knew he was right. She was too pure for her own dang good. I dropped him, letting the flames vanish.
I left him there, going to find his father. “Get your warriors together now!” I stormed into the office. James was sitting there at his desk doing paperwork. He looked up as I stormed in.
“What do I owe this surprise visit?” He asked.
“I know where Derek is and we’re going to get him tonight.”
“How do you know this?” I wasn’t in the mood to be asked questions. Before there was a repeat of what happened in the hallway Jacob quickly stepped in.
“Angels took him, and I know what angels.”
“You’ve known all along?” James asked him. I frowned at his question. How does Jacob know which angels? How long has he known? Or even suspected? And he’s just now bringing it up.
“I didn’t know if my guesses were right.”
“Then who has him?”
“My ex.” I looked over in surprise.
“Why the hell would your ex kidnap my mate?” I asked in confusion.
“It’s a long story. Do you want to go save her or not?” That snapped me back to attention.
“Very well then, I’ll have my pack ready soon.” James nodded.
“You’ll have them ready now.” I glared. He raised an eyebrow at me. I felt my palms heat up.
“There’s no time to waste. She won’t waste any time to kill them, and we have to travel far.” Jacob spoke up. I was silently challenging the Alpha to go against me. I’ll do things much worse than what I did to his son. Just then the door burst open and Lizzy ran in.
“Dad! What are you waiting for? They know where Derek is! Don’t you care about him at all? Put your Alpha pride to the side for one minute and care for someone besides yourself.” She yelled. Wow had to give her props for speaking up. James seemed surprised at his daughter outburst as well.
“We’ll leave in two hours.” I nodded.
When I get my hands on whoever took my mate. They’re as good as dead, female or not.
Ashley’s POV
I stared at the scene before me. Penelope stood before us with a group of maybe twelve people behind her. It was dark out, none of the faces were familiar to me though. That’s her army? Sure there was only two of us, maybe four if the strangers decide to fight, but I expected more people.
“How’s it feel to be reunited with your mommy and daddy? None of you are leaving here though. I offered you an option. It seems you’ve decided to not help me, therefore you’re of no use to me anymore.” She smirked at me. I was confused by her words. Then my eyes drifted to the man and woman standing next to me. As I took in their features better I sucked in a breath. I look like a mixture of them both. I had my mom’s hair color and my dad’s sharp features.
“Penelope what is this nonsense you’re sprouting? Our daughter is dead.” The man said, choking up at the end.
“Oh, but she’s standing right there! But you’re right she’ll be dead soon enough. Enjoy this moment while you can.” The evil witch clapped her hands together in delight. I stiffened as the lady started making her way to me. She stopped a breath away and sniffed. I was confused with her actions. I watched as her eyes started to water.
“This is our baby Gabriel.” She cried, throwing her arms around me. For some reason I felt safe in her arms, it felt like home. But now was not the time. I pulled out of her embrace, turning my attention back to Penelope.
“Get out of our way.” I growled.
“Oh, but the fun is just beginning! Although I will be nice and offer you a chance to return back to your cells. You know, before things get ugly.” What the hell was wrong with her? I looked over at Derek. He stared at her with a blank expression. If we went to war against them, he’d have to watch his mate die.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” I told her honestly. Hurting her would mean hurting Derek, no one can live without their mate. Blake got a second chance but look what happened to him. Derek doesn’t have any more options, he would probably die of loneliness if his mate died.
“Hurt me? Child you wish! You’re not the only angel with powers.” She glared. I watched as her hands started to glow blue, the wind picked up around her. She’s using two elements at once. Something I haven’t mastered. “You may be an archangel, but you’re still just a child.” She was right, and I don’t think my parents were strong enough to fight her.
“And neither are you.” A voice called from the nearby woods. A figure stepped out, I had to hold in my surprise when I realized it was Stacy.
Pure hatred covered Penelope’s features, and I thought she didn’t like me. At least there was amusement when she looked at me. “You think you can take me Stacy? What a joke. You couldn’t take me back then and you can’t take me now.” Before any of us could react, Penelope shot out a string of water. When it was halfway at its mark the water froze, turning into an ice spear.
Stacy dodged it just in time before it pierced her heart. Letting out a battle cry she shot out her hands. Weird purple string like things came from them. What kind of magic was that? I thought angels only controlled elements?
When they reached Penelope, they wrapped around her arms. She let out a scream as her arms started to sizzle and melt off.
Derek let out a growl next to me and turned to attack Stacy. I went to grab his arm, but he shifted. I watched in horror as he raced towards Stacy. Stacy looked over as he neared her.
Thinking fast I quickly wrapped vines around his legs pulling him to a stop. During Stacy’s distraction, Penelope was able to free herself. She stood up glowering at Stacy. Once again, she shot more ice spears at her. Stacy dodged as many as she could, but one got pass her.
The spear went straight through Stacy’s heart. She grabbed at it, but it was too late. She looked up at me, defeat in her eyes.
“Sorry.” She croaked, right as the color drained from her eyes and she fell to the ground. I didn’t know Stacy very well and only met her two times. One where she kidnapped me, but she just sacrificed herself for me. I felt anger grip me. I faced Penelope once again, she had a smirk on her face as she watched Stacy die.
I threw a fireball at the side of her face. She let out a shriek, wiping at her face. She turned to me glaring.
“Attack them!” I looked back at my mom and dad to see their eyes glowing, wings on full display. I guess they were strong enough to fight. Well if it’s a fight she wants, then it’s a fight she’s going to get. I let out a battle cry as we charged forward.
Dylan’s POV
All you could hear was the sound of paws hitting dirt as we raced through the forest. Even Jacob had shifted. Although his choice of animal was strange. A giant black bear amongst cat shifters and werewolves.
All I could think about though was getting to Ashley. As we continued to run I felt a sharp pain in my side. It caused me to stumble slightly, but then it went away. But I know what I felt, Ashley was in trouble. I pushed myself harder. The cats were all in front, wanting to help their Luna. With me in front of them all. James decided to stay back. Blake and ten other wolves came with us, it was twenty-five of us in total.
“We’re almost there.” Jacob spoke to all of us in our mind. He didn’t need any sort of link to communicate with us. As we ran further, I started to hear a commotion up ahead.
“That’s them.” I put my nose to the air and sniffed catching Ashley’s scent, mixed with blood. A snarl tore through my lips as the clearing came into view. I burst through the trees letting out a deep growl at the sight.