Kate (Safe Haven Wolves Book 3) Read online

They, you know what, that is beside the point, you are not a wolf-pup, you were not even in wolf form, and you licked me. And another thing, I am your only sister, so of course I am your favorite.

  Technicalities, mere technicalities. Are you telling me when you have a pup of your own you will be wiping his kisses away and calling them disgusting? You know you will crush his little wolf feelings if you treat him that way.

  I remember watching her mouth drop open and her eyes widen before she screeched at me.

  That is not at all the same. You licked me. You did. You know you did. And it was disgusting.

  I will be certain to teach my nephew to give you lots of wolf-pup kisses when you mate and have your own little one.

  Would my mate laugh about things like that, or would she side with my sister. In that moment I knew, it did not matter. The magic was never wrong, whatever she was like would complement and complete me. So caught up in dreams of magic and a future, I never saw the attack coming, never knew how many were in the attack, and never had a chance.

  Our arrival did not take the ones guarding the distant prison-like building by surprise. I heard the snarl moments before a body landed on my back. As I slung the other wolf from my back, the pain of his teeth sharp, he tore into my flesh. Whirling and dashing, teeth snapping I fought back. The one attacker was soon joined by others and I knew I had little chance. Blood loss soon began to weaken me as I tried to latch onto the throat of one, ripping and tearing flesh. While I was trying to take out one, the others were busy tearing into me. My mental screams could not reach my Alpha, and I knew I didn't have much longer unless something happened.

  I tried to lunge at the closest wolf, but when I fell short, I did not have the strength to rise again. I could feel my wolf give way to my human form as I lay face down on the sandy ground. Barely conscious I felt the foot kick out and roll me to my back. The laughter of the attackers rang in my ears. As the darkness tugged at me I heard single voice ring out, "Hope you are still hanging on when the buzzards come to pick your eyes from your face Seeker. This time you found what you had no business seeking."

  The last sight my fading vision caught was a golden wolf sitting on my chest, a feeling of peace and completion despite the unbearable pain settled in my soul. I thought on the mate I would never get to meet, the forgiveness I would never get to give, and wondered why no one had ever mentioned a golden wolf leading them to the next life.

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  CHAPTER THREE

  Marcus

  Marcus

  Whirling around, Marcus took off running, calling through the pack bond as he all but flew toward the one helicopter sitting on the pad. At his mental scream echoed through the bond, a team of Seekers, Enforcers and Pilots dropped whatever they were doing and rushed to the helicopter. Marcus could not talk to his pack if they were too far, but he could feel them dying. And through the bond Marcus had felt the life leaving Craig. Even though Marcus knew, with what he had just felt, Craig would be long dead before they could get to him, he had to try. For the moment the connection told him Craig still breathed, but he knew, as weak as the connection was, that link would not last long. Doc was one of the last to arrive, medical bag in hand. Less than twenty minutes after his shout roused the men to their duty, the bird was in the air and flying toward the cabins.

  Both helicopters were supplied with a wealth of medical supplies, the job the Seekers did was a dangerous one and more than once the team had come back short. Marcus was determined never to lose a team member for lack of medical supplies. But all the supplies in the world would not help if a pack member was too badly injured. Doc had scrambled into the helicopter moments before Roberts took to the air. The bird, fully fueled, would make it to the cabin, but it would be a couple of hours.

  As the helicopter headed south the men began to ply Marcus with questions. At first Marcus did not answer, focused inward, on the pack bond he shared with Craig, desperate to know more, feel more. Shoulders slumping he finally turned toward the men, the roaring of the motor impossible to hear above, even with the enhanced hearing of the wolf. But for them, the sounds around them did not matter, they were all pack, all bonded, all able to speak to each other through the bond they shared. At the moment the roaring of sound in Marcus' head from all the pack, both in the helicopter and still on the ground, almost drowned out the sound of the helicopter. A quick command silenced the pack, allowing him to give what little information he had to share.

  Looking around the helicopter, at the men he had called, he saw the same resigned look, the same hopelessness on each face that he could feel on his own. This was not the first time he had called a team to retrieve a body. The men knew, from what he had said, and what he had not, that even if Craig was still alive, by the time they found him, if they found him, he would be gone. Craig was hours away, and fading fast, no one had illusions they would make it in time. Never, since Marcus had taken over as the Alpha of the pack, had any link gotten so weak and the pack member still live.

  More than a few eyes were wet on that long trip south. Feeling a vibration in his pocket, Marcus lifted his phone, wincing he tried to figure out how to break the news to Jaden that his best friend was dying. As he studied his phone he saw other pack members taking phones out of pockets, looking at the message, and turning toward him. Each time a phone was lifted from a pocket, the look on the pack members face turned even more grim. He knew who was texting them, his brother, his beta, and Craig's best friend had finally landed back in the States from his honeymoon, and he could feel something wrong in the pack.

  As his phone vibrated again, and he read the message, he realized every man in helicopter had lifted their phones, Jaden had resorted to group text. With hands not quite steady, and eyes not quite dry, Marcus began to type. As he hit send his eyes closed, losing a pack member was hard, and Jaden and Craig had been close, closer than most. As Marcus reached deep within himself for the link that was Craig he sighed, still there, weaker than before, almost too weak to feel. If they were not so close to the cabin Marcus wondered if he would have felt the link at all. He knew he would have, a link is a link until it is not, but as weak as it was, the idle thought crossed his mind.

  A flurry of text messages came through his phone moments later. An offer from Casey to fly everyone to the cabin. A statement from Gammon that they were on their way. A plea from Jaden to hurry.

  Gammon had some things he wanted to discuss with his twin nieces and Mia had wanted to spend more time with Trina now that she was mated, so they had flown down to Trey's pack the day before and gone with Casey to pick Jaden and Trina up at the airport when they flew into the country. The airport they had elected to fly into was closer to the cabin than to pack territory so if they were going to meet at the cabin, they should reach it not far behind Marcus.

  As he finished reading the text from Gammon he breathed a sigh of relief followed by a pang of anguish. Casey had agreed to fly them all down to the cabin after refueling, having been assured a sort of runway existed in the meadow where she could land the plane. Gammon had Sentinels with him, plus Trey and Gabby and now Jaden and Trina. The bitter words Craig had thrown at Jaden would eat at Jaden for the rest of his life. If Jaden could make it down before Craig passed away he could at least get the chance to say goodbye to his best friend. But first, they would have to find Craig.

  Jamie had volunteered the information Craig had told him a day or so before about feeling a desire to visit the southern part of the property. Although no one had been that way in years, Marcus did not remember anything down that way but an old decommissioned prison from years ago. The area did not make a good hunting ground for humans, too hard to get into the area after they blew the passes years ago. The only way into the cabin was by air now.

  Craig could have tangled with a mountain lion, or fallen from a cliff, been involved in a landslide, any number of things could have happened. All of those scenarios would have been almost inconceivable, but not as inconceivable as a rogue fi
nding him at the cabin. Over the years the cabin had been deliberately cut off from the rest of the world. It was possible to get to the cabin by foot, but only coming from the desert or by repelling down the side of one of the cliffs.

  Of course, if the rogue faction was led by someone in a position of power, someone with access to satellite images, or someone with the power to turn a satellite to look at the cabin, then someone could have watched to cabin to see the helicopter there, and found only one man in residence. Craig had been at the cabin for weeks now, someone watching the cabin, even casually, on satellite, would have had time to put a plan together to take out the pilot.

  Marcus wished, again, for the foresight to have hidden the cabin through shell companies. If he had made the cabin harder to trace back to his pack, maybe the cabin would be a safer place to vacation. But years ago no one could have guessed any of the packs would need to hide anything so deeply. He did not even know if the problem was due to a rogue, yet all his lost pack members for the last three decades could be traced to rogues. He was trying to believe the problem could be anything else, but history had shown him differently. The chance it was just a random accident existed, but Marcus would not believe it until he saw the body.

  Marcus briefly wondered if the helicopter was still there, but the realization the tracking device would have activated if the bird had been started up alleviated that worry. Gammon estimated they would reach the cabin only minutes behind the helicopter, if that. The airport Jaden had flown into had been south of the community, to the north-west of the cabin. So Jaden was closer to the cabin upon landing than the retrieval party had been, but they had been in the air for a while before Jaden landed, and Jaden and Trina had to retrieve their bags, and go through customs, while Casey refueled.

  One by one the men took turns looking at Marcus, they knew when Craig was totally lost Marcus would break down. So far they had seen no sign on Marcus' face that Craig's bond with the pack was gone. Sometimes the rest of the pack could feel a loss, and sometimes they could not. Even when they could feel a loss, the Alpha was the only one who could pinpoint exactly who was lost to the pack.

  The men in the helicopter were silent, both verbally and mentally. All trying to hold on to the hope they could find Craig in time, yet knowing they would not. The men could not feel Craig like Marcus could, but they would feel if Craig was lost. They would feel the loss from Marcus through the bond. So every so often one of the men would turn his head and look at Marcus and the closer the men got to the cabin the harder it was to fight the hope rising in each of them. They could not help but hope, but hope dashed can make the loss even worse in the end. Time had taught the men in the helicopter much, and they knew they could not save Craig, but they could not kill the hope. They had never been able to kill the hope when these things happened. None of the men ever wanted to be able to kill the hope, that hope might one day get them to their pack mate on time. That desperation might one day work in their favor.

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  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dawn

  Dawn

  As the golden shadow wolf rose from the body of their friend, the three females gaped in awe, the golden wolf, merged with a shadow wolf as black as night, before the merged wolf became two again. Watching the split, Kate's now unconscious body was momentarily forgotten on the cold tiles. Although their captors had forced them, or allowed them the privilege, depending on your view of the situation, to watch a mating ceremony, and all three females had seen the wolves rise as shadows to form a bond, loose though it was when not a true-mate, none of the females had ever seen a golden shadow wolf. The very concept should have been impossible, a shadow form is by the very nature, black, without any color at all. But what rose from Kate at the end of the mating ceremony Dawn had just performed, was anything but ordinary.

  Even Julie's hiccuping sobs had stopped, she sat frozen on the bed where Dawn had moments before sat comforting her. As the merged wolf, a sure sign of a true-mating from what the girls had been told by Kate, separated both seemed to hover above Kate, yet both seemed to leave. When Allison approached Kate, the golden wolf turned toward her, eyes of fire. The shadow wolf solidly mated to the golden wolf turned eyes toward the girls at the same moment. The pair still seemed to be one, but Kate had told them during late night talks that once mated the shadows merged back into the person. These two wolves were not merging back. They eyes of the black shadow wolf also seemed filled with a flame, and the sight was nothing the girls had seen before, nor anything Kate had shared with them.

  Before Allison or Dawn could say anything, both shadows, one black and one golden, if a golden wolf could be called a shadow, seemed to sink into Kate. This almost matched what the girls had been told would happen, with the exception of them separating back to the individual, which they certainly had not done. Slowly and silently vanishing as though they had never been. Allison took a deep breath and turned startled eyes toward Dawn.

  "We can't hide her scent, if anyone comes around they will know she is a mature female now. What are we going to do? What happened to her? Why did she scream? What is going on?" The last a wail as the events of the morning began to have effect on her.

  Dawn, teeth gritted, knowing nothing more than Allison, or little more, forced her feet forward till she reached Kate. Kate had kept her sane in this place as reality had crept in a little at a time. Most of that reality was a result of Kate and her irrefutable logic and undeniable claims. But now Kate, who told them they must flee soon, lay on the floor, unconscious, and Dawn noticed the blood seeping from her mouth and nose, along with tiny spots of blood here and there on her body. Turning and racing toward the bathroom she wet a washcloth before returning to the room.

  Julie was still silent on the bed but Allison had been busy while she was gone. Though still laying on the floor Kate now had a pillow under her head while Allison was checking for injuries. When Dawn began wiping the blood away from Kate's mouth and nose, Allison's hushed voice asked the questions in both their minds.

  "Why is she bleeding from her mouth and nose, and look here, she looks as though someone beat her. She has bruises everywhere. She did not hit the floor hard enough to get that badly injured so what happened? I watched her, she swayed on her feet as she screamed, she doubled over, she slowly sank to her knees, then she just seemed to collapse the rest of the way to the floor in slow motion as you mumbled the mating chant. Just as the wolf rose into the air, and the other wolf showed up, and they combined into one, she stopped screaming and just sighed one deep sigh and then nothing. What is happening?"

  Dawn didn't have any better answers than Allison, in fact, she had no answers at all. She did have one guess based on a late night conversation she had with Kate months ago. As that conversation fluttered though her mind she tried to remember everything Kate had told her. Shoulders slumping she gave her best guess.

  "Kate told me once that when two wolves are true-mated they can feel each other. What hurts one hurts both and what kills one kills both. She said her parents told her rarely does a true-mate survive the death of the mate. Sometimes, if a child is involved, one may live long enough to raise the child, sometimes finding the will to live longer, and sometimes the need to avenge a death may be what keeps one holding on when the other is taken. Plus, she also said, a true-mated pair can draw energy from each other, what might kill can be survived if the other is strong enough to share their strength. You heard her plea there at the last moment My mate, we have to help him. But until I did the mating ceremony she could not help him. She could only feel him die. I don't know what is wrong with her mate, but it has to be bad. I don't know much more than you, will she survive whatever is going on? I don't know that either because I don't know what is going on anymore than you do."

  "But Dawn, the mating bond, how did you do that, it has to be an Alpha, you know that. Are you an Alpha? Can you use that power to get us out?"

  Allison looked around the room, trying to figure out what do to next while
she waited for Dawn to answer her. Somehow they would have to get Kate out, and how they would accomplish that when she was not even awake just added to the problem. And Julie was not really there, mentally, most of the time, escaping with her, and Kate, wasn't even feasible. When Dawn still had not answered her after a couple of minutes she jerked her attention away from looking for things to convert to weapons and back to Dawn, who was staring at Kate.

  "I don't think she is going to live. Her mate, where ever he might be, must be in bad shape. He has to be close though." Dawn brushed the hair from Kate's face and wiped the blood away again. "He was close enough to feel. But we don't know how close a mate has to be to perform the mating bond. Kate learned a lot about our kind from her parents. She seemed to know more about what is going on with the shifter world than anyone I have ever met. We used to talk late into the night, when everyone was asleep. She has people looking for her, maybe they were getting close, I don't know. Maybe this mate of hers was one of the people looking for her. If the mating is a true one, she said the wolves want to bond, have to bond, and it doesn't matter who calls them forth. She said it doesn't matter how little power the person has, or even if they have any power at all."

  Allison, a look of concentration on her face, shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. We have been to three matings since I have been here, and each time a powerful shifter had to call the female wolf out before the bonding ceremony could happen. Is it because she is so different from us? What is she anyway? She is not like us, and yet she is at the same time. "