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We drove right to the pack house, and Celeste jumped out of the truck before I shut down the engine. She rushed toward Maya, who ripped herself out of Danny’s arms to meet her in a hug. Maya was shaking, and it looked like her legs couldn’t support her. Danny looked on helplessly, and I thought maybe he was struggling with Maya looking to Celeste for comfort and protection instead of him.
‘For eleven years, Celeste was her protector. It’s a natural instinct to her,’I mind-linked Danny.
‘No, it’s not that. Maya was still sleeping when it happened. She forgot Celeste was out of the pack house. I was searching in the woods when she woke up, and she was going nuts trying to find Celeste. She thought she was taken, too. Two guards had to restrain her and stop her from shifting and running off to find her, and I couldn’t even fucking find Ruby while she went through all that alone. It was all for nothing.’
‘That’s not your fault—’
“Show me,” Celeste said to Danny, holding Maya around the shoulders as they walked toward him. Maya transferred herself from Celeste to Danny and buried her face in his chest.
Danny hesitated, flicking his eyes toward me before looking back at Celeste.
“I don’t think you want to see, Luna. It looks worse than it likely is,” he said.
“Show me,” was all she said, and she waited for me to get to her before we followed Danny inside. I wrapped my arm around her waist, and she held on to my arm as we walked to the third floor. The door was open, and a few of our security people were taking prints. I couldn’t help the growl as I took in the scene in front of me.
There were smeared splashes of blood on the floor and the broken window. Ruby fought tooth and nail, and I was damn proud of her for that. The guards all turned and bared their necks at us as both of our auras rolled off of us.
“Tell me everything. How did they get to the third floor of our pack house without anyone noticing?” I growled.
“Several crews have been coming in and out of the pack grounds to deliver decorations and settle the menu for the luna ceremony. They followed one of the approved crews in. They had the same type of van. We didn’t realize they weren’t part of the crew until the other two delivery vans left without them. We hurried to find them, but by the time we heard the staff screaming about intruders, they crashed through the windows and ran with the unconscious she-wolf over one of them.”
Atlas pushed me to the back as he pushed forward and roared. “Where’s the video? Show me.”
One of the techs came by with a tablet. He pulled up the feed, and I felt Celeste get close to us as she looked over my shoulder. The first camera feed was of the crews coming in through the gates. The first two had clear catering signs on the side, while the third was just white. I growled when the van was stopped. The guards chatted shortly with the driver before they were allowed to pass through.
The feed cut to a camera on the front of the house. The two catering vans left, and Kelly walked over to a guard and asked about the other van parked closer to the side of the pack house. I heard her asking who the vehicle belonged to, bringing confusion to the guard’s face as he explained they were the caterers, and Kelly shook her head, saying the caterers had already left. They both ran inside when a girl’s voice yelled, “Help, someone’s attacking Luna’s friend!” Every guard on the outside moved inside, a few shifting on the way.
The feed flipped cameras once again. It showed a camera attached to the back of the pack house. I could hear struggling and grunting, then a young male voice screaming, “Leave her alone! Millie, go get help!” Two yelps were heard before a chair crashed through the double windows. One man jumped out, shifting midway through to avoid injury. It shifted back and looked up to catch Ruby.
Atlas growled, and Celeste gasped. The man looking up toward the window was one of the men Danny photographed. The man caught an unconscious Ruby as she was dropped from the third story. Moments later, a second man dropped down, blood clear on his face and torso before he shifted. Ruby was strapped to its back before the other shifted, and they ran. A couple of minutes later, you can hear Millie's voice calling for help in the distance and the guards rushing inside. A bit later Danny and Gillian jumped out the window in their wolf forms to chase after them.
“Where’s the boy from the video? Is he okay?” Celeste asked. Atlas retreated at her words, letting me take back control, knowing she wouldn’t be able to deal with his anger right now, but vowed there would be changes to the guards’ training. Celeste had too much worry in her voice, and it tore at him. She cared too much for everyone.
“I had him taken to the pack doctor. He tried to fight the traffickers and got knocked into the dressers. The pack doctor linked that he would be okay. Mild concussion and a lot of anger that he got knocked out. He’s Millie’s twin brother,” Danny reported.
“Where’s Gillian?” I asked, and Danny looked at me with his mouth gaping open. He’d never seen Atlas give back control as quickly as he had after something like this happened. Atlas had a habit of making himself understood that failure was not tolerated when it came to protecting the pack. It was probably why the guards were out of practice with proper protection procedures. No one dared attack our pack since word had gotten around of what the last people to get into the pack were put through. We would have to change that. The pack would not get this close to danger again.
“He’s still out with a couple of trackers, trying to get a trace of which way they went. We were in the middle of a conference meeting with one of Alpha Rhett’s men, who found some information about the men in the pictures. I’ve been working with him on and off sharing information as we were both trying to track them a few months ago.”
“What did they find?” I asked as Celeste walked towards the window. I was itching to grab her to my side, every nerve on my body on edge that she was so close to the open window. Even though I knew it was irrational, I wanted her nowhere near any kind of danger.
“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far. I will have to get in touch with him again when this is settled.”‘I need to get Maya out of this room. I can feel her anguish,’he added through the mind-link, and I nodded at him.
“Tag everything you can. Ruby fought. Let’s not let it go to waste. Have Gillian come back. I need him to figure out how they knew the caterers were coming in today. This was planned too well for them to have been waiting for a random opening.”
I started walking through the room to where Celeste was kneeling. I saw her touch the edge of the glass and felt myself pulled forward into one of her visions.
We were in a shallow cave opening, and I could see the river rushing over the edge. The sun was high in the sky. The two traffickers were talking on the phone while Ruby was beaten and bloody in a corner, her hands bound in silver shackles. She was crying. Rage filled me, so I turned to the talking men, trying to hear what they were saying.
“The bitch bit my ear off. If we’re found, we’re not going down alone. You better do something. Grab the damn luna before they catch us so they don’t come looking for us. Give them something else to chase… Yes, I told you. The bitch said the luna is the girl you were looking for all those years ago. The Dellarosa kid. Well fuck, I don’t know. You’re surrounded by idiots, cousin. No wonder she was right under your noses this whole time… Look I can keep low for a while, but you need to clean up this mess. I’ll try to leave after it gets dark.”
He hung up and then turned to look at Ruby, whose crying turned hysterical as she listened to the phone call. Her eyes widened as she saw the glint of the silver knife one of the men pulled out.
“No, no, you said if I gave you information, you would let me go. Please, I don’t want to die,” she pleaded, making the man holding the knife chuckle.
“You think I would let you leave after you bit my ear off like a rabid dog?”
Ruby stopped sobbing, making the men hesitate. She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths.
