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He cursed the Cloudclimbers again. “Luc is searching for him.”
“How can Luc search for him and keep our daughter safe?” There was no mistaking the anger in Boris’s tone. Tor didn’t blame him. He would’ve acted the same had it been his daughter.
Tor worked hard to unclench his jaw. “Our other sons are there, too.”
“And what about the child?” Boris demanded, his tone firm and unyielding. “Is it true she bloomed for Luc?”
“Yes, and the child is safe.”
A long pause, and Tor knew Boris wasn’t finished interrogating him. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“There’s a lot I’m not telling you. Your daughter is safe and protected. That’s all you need to know for now.”
Boris let out a string of Romanian curse words.
“I’ll have her call you as soon as she gets home,” Tor said and then hung up the call, even though Boris wasn’t finished cursing him out.
He gave his mate and brothers a long look. “The Cloudclimbers didn’t even wait a day.”
“Did you expect them to?” Skoll asked with a snort. “Don’t forget their grandfathers once challenged our fathers over the chiefdom.”
Tor had forgotten, but now it all made sense. He dragged a hand down his face, fatigue wearing down his heart and soul. “The vultures are circling.” And they’d continue to circle so long as they thought they had a chance to steal the chiefdom from Tor’s sons.
* * *
Drasko
Drasko watched hiscaptors through hooded eyes while pretending to be asleep. They’d muzzled his face and bound his feet, which might have worked on an ordinary wolf, but all Drasko had to do was summon his protector, and his bindings would break in the shift. He didn’t see any sign of Amara, which meant his plan of drawing out the Russians had worked. At least, he hoped it had.
His heart pounded out a drum in his ears when the Russians pulled a laptop out of their backpack and pulled up a screen with images of the tracker wolves out in the snow. How much did they know about the Amaroki wolves?
They pointed to various pictures, then zoomed in on an image of Nyx, one of the wolves in Luc’s squad. They pointed to the collar he wore around his neck, their voices rising while talking so fast, Drasko couldn’t pick up on any familiar words. Then a tall Russian with sandy-blond hair who smelled of vodka went to him and searched his neck.
“Vorotnik?” one of them asked.
Vorotnik?Drasko ruminated on the word, and he thought it meant collar.
“Nyet,” the Russian answered, which Drasko knew meant ‘no.’ The same Russian ran a beeping wand over Drasko’s body. What were they looking for? A microchip?
“Nichego,” the Russian said to his comrades. Drasko remembered ‘nichego’ meant nothing.
“Ubey yego,” one of the Russians called out, the malice in his voice palpable. Drasko feared it had been an order to kill him and knew his time was up.
Drasko was prepared to shift when the sandy-blond pulled out his blade, but then an agonized wolf howl sounded outside. Drasko knew that howl—Rone. What was he doing here?
The glass window shattered, and a familiar wolf landed on the Russian with the blade, ripping out his throat. The sound of gunfire filled the cabin. Rone let out a yelp and fell off the Russian. Drasko shifted into his protector form with an angry roar, snatching a gun out of the closest Russian’s hand and snapping his neck, using his lifeless body as a shield when another Russian shot at him. The front door came crashing down and Hakon barged inside, banging his broad, furry chest like an ape. The two remaining Russians dropped their weapons and tried to run, but Hakon caught them in a few strides, popping off their heads.
He threw the heads across the room and turned to Drasko with a snarl. “Where’s Amara?”
Drasko’s shoulders fell as he looked at his brother. “I left her in the cabin.”
“A cabin?” Hakon jutted a foot forward, a maelstrom of emotions swirling in his eyes. “She’s alive?”
Drasko swallowed. “She was when I left her.” But he had no idea how long he’d been knocked out by the Russians. What if she tried to go after them? She couldn’t survive in the woods by herself. What if more Russians had stayed behind? What would they do to her? He heaved a shaky breath. “We have to get back to her.” He spun around when he heard a whimper.
Rone was still in wolf form, bleeding out all over the floor.
“Brother!” he knelt beside him, checking his wound. He winced when he saw the bullet had struck just below his ribs and had exited through his lower back. No telling what organs were damaged. He looked frantically around the room for a first aid kit, dumping the Russians’ backpacks onto the floor, cursing when he found only electronic equipment. They needed to stop the bleeding.
