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Her uncertainty only fueled my determination. “We’ll find her, Mama. Thank you for letting us know.”
With that, I hung up the phone. Ry looked ready to wrestle an alligator, and I didn’t blame him. I was right there with him.
Without missing a beat, I marched out of the woods around our property and Ry followed. I filled him in on what I knew, and his stewing increased probably tenfold in a matter of seconds.
“I’m going to rip that pack apart,” he growled.
“Not if I get to them first,” I snarled.
I hopped into my SUV while Ry climbed in on the passenger side. In seconds, my tires were peeling across the pavement.
The drive to Barataria Bay was a relentless rush of adrenaline and tension. Neither of us could relax until Kaci was back in our arms. The dark, winding roads of the swamp seemed tostretch into infinity. The bayou’s eerie stillness made my anxiety worsen.
What if something happened to her? I would never forgive myself. Sure, the mate-bond was shit and all, and if she died, we died too, but right now that wasn’t my concern.
I didn’t want her hurt. I wanted her back safe in my arms. Regret washed over me at what had happened between us. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t regret the spanking or the fucking. Truthfully, I’d been far too gentle as it was, but I did regret not holding her after I was through. She deserved that.
I pushed the pedal to the metal, and as if by some weird twist of fate, I spotted her along the side of the road, her form illuminated by my headlights. Her steps were slow and cautious, her arm lifting to shield her eyes from the bright lights.
“Kaci!” I shouted, relief flooding through me.
I slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a halt just beside her. In an instant, we were out of the vehicle, enveloping her in our arms. She looked tired and shaken, but she was alive and in our embrace.
Her once-lustrous hair was tangled, disheveled, and matted with dirt and leaves. Her clothing was torn and stained. Mud and grime streaked her skin, and her cheeks were streaked with tear stains. Despite the exhaustion and fear etched across her features, there was a determination in her eyes that I was really growing to love about her.
“Caelum, Ry,” she whispered, as if afraid that we might vanish if she spoke too loudly. I hated how small she sounded. Whatever had happened had shook her to the core, and I wanted to take it all away.
Her hand was clutched to her chest and Ry reached for it. His gaze dropped to her palm and his jaw clenched, his expression darkening with unmistakable anger. It was gone an instant, quickly replaced by a look of raw concern.
“You’re bleeding, princess,” Ry whispered.
My own jaw clenched with fury. My eyes dipped to her palm where there was a clean cut. Without a thought, I tore a strip of fabric off my shirt and took her hand from Ry. As gently as I could, I wrapped it up with the strip of cloth.
“I’m going to kill them,” I vowed.
CHAPTER 25
Ryker
You know the feeling you get when your mate is trembling in your arms because, by the smell of it, she was drugged with some sort of fentanyl agent before she surged with adrenaline to escape a rogue Lycan holdup all on her own?
It felt like shit. Not old shit, but the wet, soggy shit that you step on that can seep through a shoe. That sort of shit. I wanted to curl up somewhere and die with patheticness.
The good news was that I wasn’t alone. With one look at the guy, I could tell Caelum felt exactly the same way I did, only he had to drive while I got to hold her on my lap, against my chest, with my body folded around her while I tried to warm her.
She stopped trembling after a little bit. She seemed to fall asleep for a long moment, but then she straightened.
I rubbed my hand against her back soothingly. “You want me to go back and kill them now?” I asked like it was as easy as getting eggs from the store.
“No. These guys arehuge, Ry. I only got away from them with luck, a charmed pendant from Wendy, and a broken-off chair leg.”
I lost her after ‘luck’, so I blinked. “A broken off chair-leg?”
“Yeah. I used it as a club. But still, these guys are not gonna be a walk in the park. You should see the main guy—he was even bigger thanyou.”
I pressed my lips together as she described him. I was certain I could still kick his ass. I felt turbo-charged right now. Size didn’t mean anything; she could have described this guy as a twelve-foot-tall living tree, and I’d still want to go out there and take a bite out of its face.
“Does the name Silvermane mean anything to you guys?” she then asked.
