Taken by my mate; Second Chance

AMBROSE

Nothing.

Just a storage room. Nothing out of place.

“Fuck!” I yelled, throwing the door shut.

“Spencer?” I heard Covyn and the others approach but his phone was ringing before he could say more. “What?! Sequoia?.. umm yes, hold on.”

He turned the phone volume up, that was a good as speaker phone for us but not loud enough to echo. “Amy, are you listening?” It took my a minute to realize she was talking to me as I was leading everyone to the next building.

“Yes, of course.”

“I need you to focus. Don’t interrupt me. They know what she is -SO-,” she continued before anyone could remind her she’d said that, “- they want her to shift. For her species… the only way they get the prize they want requires a lot of..psychological torture. I can’t tell you why, but… be patient and kind and gentle with her. I will be there as soon as my bleeding stops. Covyn.. keep me updated?”

I thought I heard something more than pleading in her voice, but Covyn was assuring her he would text that phone, apparently Evadiene’s, with any updates along the way.

The next warehouse we fanned out. Each taking a row we searched through the racks to the separate temperature controlled room. We surrounded the door and I threw it open, again empty. I threw something off the shelf against the wall, and I’m not sure what it was but it sounded broken as it hit the floor.

Covyn quietly raging along with me. McLain knew this angry side of me from the battles we’d fought together and wisely stayed quiet, only speaking when receiving directions. Ellion was far too encouraging, though with every empty space we passed through I could see his face turning more and more green. I knew he was keeping himself focused by knowing Daley was safe with Sequoia in the medical bay, but imaging what it would feel like if we were looking for her instead of Evadiene.

The third empty warehouse was left worse than we had found it, as I had ripped the door off its hinges and thrown it into some racking. The fourth would have burnt down if it wasn’t for the sprinkler system, but I wouldn’t apologize for being the reason the fire started. By the six and final warehouse my nerves were shot.

Emrys was slowly winning out and I was more beast than man. While the others had been trying to follow my lead I had no energy left to even pretend I was rational. I was growling and snarling through the warehouse, the sounds echoing off the walls back to me. When I got to the door it looked slightly ajar, and I threw it open hard enough that the handle embedded in the wall.

The room was empty, except for the jeep that shouldn’t be there. I rushed to it and there was blood on the seats and in the trunk, all of them familiar, but the blood was drying and dried.

“Fuck!” I yelled, denting in the side of the vehicle and running my hands through my hair roughly. “This isourland. Where the fuck have they taken her that no one can find her?!” I demanded, and everyone began thinking.

“The trail split?” Covyn both asked and reminded.

I nodded, heading to the exterior doors. My eyes were black as Emrys started taking over our body and I was only in charge of planing and speaking. I rough breath snarled through me and I growled for them to hurry up.

“The other led towards the gardens.”

“But she said they would take her somewhere cold, so you think they fucked up?” Ellion asked, all of them following me outside and starting to run.

My voice was low, full of more anger now, some at myself. “The old cellars are also on that side of the property.”

I heard several other curses behind me, but I was shifting and taking off as fast as I could. We had wasted a lot of time with the warehouses, and she had been missing over an hour now. The only thing keeping me going was knowing that despite her blocking me from her emotions, I would know if she was dead. She wasn’t dead, and right now I could work with that hope.

Covyn had linked with some of the guards to join us at the greenhouses while others continued their sweeps incase we were wrong. With their jeep here I was sure they hadn’t left the boarder, but we had more people check the area around the warehouse for any of the scents from the car going somewhere else. At least one of them must have driven it there, which means he went somewhere after.

When I hit the greenhouses I slowed down, shifting back to make my steps near silent. We had multiple cellars underground, used before we had the large walk-in fridges, but now they were manly used to store equipment or seed in the off season. All of them connected to two trap doors in the yard, a main one and a secondary exit, and Covyn had the guards stay up top to watch both as we proceeded. We tossed on the shorts they had brought us before opening the door carefully and filing into the dim space.

My steps were slow and considerate, not the way they had ended in the warehouse, but as they had begun. If they had her this long…. they had likely heard the alarms and would be on edge. She was their bargaining tool now more than anything else and they were in deep shit. I needed them to think they had a way out, and told my party to leave the path towards the second exit free and the guards on that end to be prepared. If they let even one of them get away, they would be taking their place in my anger.