The Lost Wolf's Destiny

Chapter 17

“Lucas,” Blythe said urgently. “You’ve got to hang on. We’re surrounded by humans and Shifters.”

The moment her words registered, she saw it in his gaze. Slowly, he nodded. “The legal system had better make sure that bastard pays for what he did to her.”

“And for what he did to the little ones,” Kane said, joining them again. “Just be glad you didn’t have to see that.”

Blythe swallowed hard. “I don’t know how anyone could have done such a thing to children. Are they going to be all right?”

Grim-faced, he looked away. When he met her gaze, his own was bleak. “We hope so. We had to round up several ambulances from nearby towns. All of them will have to go to the hospital to be checked out, just like your sister.”

Blythe blinked back the sting of tears. Seeing the condition of Lucas’s sister was horrible enough. She didn’t know how she would have reacted if she’d seen little children in similar shape.

“What about the others? The adult members of Jacob’s church? What will happen to them?”

“They’ve all been taken to a safe house for questioning and evaluation. Charges may be filed if we learn they knew something about the kidnapping and torture of minor children.”

“Did you find Dr. Silva?” Blythe put in. “That woman definitely knew what was going on. She was a major participant.”

Kane gave her a grim look. “Not yet. Evidently she didn’t live on the premises. But I promise you, we will find her. And when we do, she will be charged.”

Blythe nodded. “Fair enough.”

“You two can come with me,” Kane said, his expression once more professional. “We’ll need to take your statements, and then there’s one more thing I’d like you both to do.”

Blythe didn’t ask what that might be. Neither did Lucas. Instead, they followed Kane down the long hallway to the elevator, stepping inside and riding back to the main floor.

Kane took them through the kitchen, which was completely empty, and into a huge pantry. There, he pushed on one of the shelves, and an entire side slid open.

“Our base of operations,” he said. “This house had several hidden places like this.”

Lucas nodded. “Lilly and I used to explore them when we were kids.”

Glancing around the room, Blythe was reassured to see so many men and women with their auras proclaiming they were all Shifters. She recognized surveillance equipment—admittedly only because of what she’d seen on television rather than personal experience.

“Are they all Pack?” Lucas asked, telling her that he, too, recognized the auras.

“Most of them.” In his element now, Kane seemed buoyant and completely at ease. “Several, like myself, work for the Society of Pack Protectors. We’ve worked very hard to integrate our operations with those of the FBI and Texas State Police.”

Lucas nodded. “Impressive.” He took Blythe’s hand, and she drew on his strength.

“What now?” she asked.

“We’ll have some questions for you, but first I want to show you something.” Kane motioned them to follow him. “This way, please.”

He led them to an oversized monitor and gestured at two office chairs. “Take a seat. It’ll be just a moment,” he said. Once they were seated, he began fiddling with the switches on a control panel.

Blythe glanced at Lucas, who shrugged. “No idea,” he mouthed. She eyed the back of Kane’s head and settled back to wait, still holding Lucas’s hand.

“Here we are,” Kane exclaimed. He sounded happy and excited, which seemed odd, at first.

A second later, a blurry image appeared on the screen, gradually coming into focus. “Mommy?”

“Hailey!” Blythe nearly jumped up from her chair, pulling Lucas with her. Instead, she let go of his hand and scooted closer, until she was only a few feet away from the monitor. She gripped the edge of the desk, fighting to maintain control of her emotions. “Baby girl, I have missed you so much.”

“Me, too.” Hailey’s freckled little face looked so solemn. “Are you all right, Mommy?”

“I’m better now,” Blythe answered honestly, pushing the words out past the knot in her throat. “How are you feeling?”

Hailey pursed her lips while she considered the question. “Really good. I’m all better now, Mama! I can do a lot of things that I couldn’t before, thanks to Samantha.”

Blythe glanced at Kane, finding him grinning broadly. “Samantha?” she asked, almost afraid to hope. “Who’s that?”

“My new friend,” Hailey shrieked. “She’s a lady like you, but she’s a Healer. She put her hands on me and fixed my heart.”

The Healer. The news almost sent Blythe to the floor. Luckily, she was sitting. Her grip on the front of the desk became painful. “Are you...are you sure?” she managed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’re all better? The doctors said so?”

“Yep. So did Samantha.” Leaning closer to the monitor, Hailey’s eyes widened as she studied her mother. “Mommy, why are you crying? This is good news!” Dismayed, her lower lip trembled and she appeared on the verge of tears herself.

Immediately, Blythe reined in her emotions. Swiping at her eyes, she smiled. “These are happy tears, sweetheart. Is the Healer still there with you?”

Hailey shook her head. “She couldn’t stay. She said she was busy, sort of like Santa Claus only she doesn’t have any elves.”

Behind her, Blythe heard Lucas snicker. She looked up to find both him and Kane grinning ear to ear.

Looking back at the monitor, she saw Hailey leaning closer, her lips pursed to give a kiss. “I miss you, Mommy.”

Scooting forward, Blythe did the same. “I miss you too, baby.”

Someone beside Hailey spoke, causing her to swivel her head. “Okay,” she said, sounding sad. “Mommy, I have to go. When can we go home?”

“Soon,” Blythe promised, her eyes stinging from holding back a fresh spate of tears. “Very, very soon.”

“Bye...” Hailey said and waved. Blythe waved back, just as the screen went black.

“That was something,” she murmured, again swiping at her eyes. “My baby girl, all healed. You don’t know how hard I tried to get Hailey moved up on the waiting list.”

Lucas squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. She glanced gratefully at him before turning her attention to Kane.

“Who did this for us?”

Kane’s smiled widened. “The Society of Pack Protectors might have had something to do with it.”

She nodded. “Give them my heartfelt thanks. If there’s ever anything I can do to repay them...”

“You already have.” He winked. “Getting between Jacob and the children, giving us time to get the victims out... That was payment enough.”

Taking a deep breath, Blythe tried to adjust to her new reality. Despite all that they’d gone through, the possibility of her daughter having a future made everything worth it.

“When can I see her?” she asked, not bothering to hide her eagerness.

Both Lucas and Kane laughed.

“It won’t be too much longer,” Kane said. “We’ve got to ask both of you a few questions, and then you’ll be free to go. I’ll have a driver take you to your daughter.”

“A driver?” Lucas put in. “She’s that close?”

Kane nodded.

Barely able to contain her excitement, Blythe pushed to her feet. “Then let’s get this questioning over with. The sooner I can get on the road, the better.”

In the end, what should have taken thirty minutes ended up taking over two and a half hours. First the FBI and then the state police. They questioned Blythe and Lucas separately, and finally went over the same set of questions together.

Twice.

By then, most of the FBI and the state police joint task force had headed into town for a planned news conference. A few were left to finish up the interrogation and then help Blythe reunite with her daughter.

Near the end, during the final interrogation where the officers questioned them together, Blythe struggled to control her irritated impatience. Looking up, she caught Lucas watching her with a reassuring smile.

Suddenly, she wondered if, once this was over, she’d ever see Lucas again. While they were still working as a team right now, comforting each other, celebrating together, even kissing, she remembered how intent he’d been on keeping it casual.

It wasn’t casual for her anymore. She couldn’t expose Hailey to a man who wouldn’t be in her life for good, and she couldn’t expose her own heart to the pain of keeping it casual with her one true mate. She’d shrivel up and die bit by bit.

Abruptly, she stood. “I need to use the ladies’ room,” she said. “And if you tell me I have to be escorted, I’m going to start wondering why you’re treating me like a criminal.”

At this, the officer conducting the questioning cracked a smile. “No need for an escort.”

Relieved, she smiled back. “Do you have any idea where it is?”

He shook his head.

Lucas stood also. “I know. I can show you.”

“I’m not finished with you yet,” the officer said. “It’ll just be a few more minutes.”

“Just tell me where it is,” Blythe told him. “I’m sure I can find it.”

“The closest one is near the foyer.” He gave her step-by-step directions.

“That doesn’t sound too difficult,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Stepping out of the room, she took a deep breath. Amazing how things could turn on a dime. From feeling as though all hope was gone to this, having received an answer to her most fervent prayer—the gift of her daughter’s health. She’d certainly had a wild roller-coaster ride.

Exiting through the pantry into the kitchen, she looked around in surprise. Sanctuary was strangely empty, as it always was every time she’d been here. This shocked her, as she’d expected to see the place swarming with law enforcement personnel.

Ah, well. Jacob’s reign of terror was finally over.

The large bathroom was exactly where Lucas had directed, right off the foyer. In keeping with the rest of the entryway, it was efficiently elegant, with understated opulence. She stepped inside and reached for the handle to pull the door closed.

She never made it. Too late, she realized someone else was already inside the bathroom. Something heavy slammed into the back of her head. She went down without being able even to scream.

Lucas glanced at his watch for the second time. The officer had finished the questioning, dutifully recorded the answers and was packing up his equipment. Blythe still had not returned.

“I’d better go look for her,” he said, standing. “I know she’s eager to get on the road.”

The other man looked up, appearing unconcerned. “You know how women are. She’s probably reapplying her makeup or something.”

“Not Blythe.” Lucas spoke with certainty. “She’s been gone nearly twenty minutes. That’s far too long.”

The man yawned, not nearly as worried as Lucas. “Then I’ll go with you.”

There was no sign of Blythe—or anyone else—on the way to the bathroom. This felt a little unsettling, and Lucas’s feelings of unease grew when they reached the foyer without seeing Blythe. The bathroom was empty, too.

“Maybe she got lost heading back to interrogation.”

Every instinct on high alert, Lucas shook his head. “She knows how to find the kitchen. Something happened to her.”

“I doubt that.” The officer yawned again. “All the cult members have been rounded up. There’s no one here but cops and feds.”

Heart racing, Lucas pulled out his cell phone. “I’m going to call Kane.”

Looking at him askance, the officer didn’t appear convinced. “And tell him what?”

Swallowing, Lucas struggled to control his fury. “I’ll let him know I believe one of Jacob’s people—maybe even Dr. Silva herself—was hidden somewhere in the building. And that I believe they’ve taken Blythe.”

With that, he punched in the number and made the call.

The instant he’d been reassured that Kane was on his way, Lucas began searching every square inch of Sanctuary. Obviously, Dr. Silva or one of Jacob’s other people had managed to hide from the joint searches of the FBI and Texas State Police.

But they wouldn’t stay hidden from him. If he had to, he’d shift to wolf and use his efficient lupine nose to sniff them out.

They had Blythe. Damned if he was going to let them hurt his mate.

His mate.

Stunned, he said the words out loud. Earlier, Kane had intuited the truth. Blythe truly was Lucas’s mate, the other half of him. He’d heard somewhere that Shifters, like their wild counterparts, mated for life.

He could well believe this. He refused even to consider the possibility of a life without Blythe.

Gut instinct told him she hadn’t left Sanctuary. Whoever had taken her hadn’t had time to get her past the authorities and off the compound. He’d find her, before anyone caused her further harm.

Weapon drawn, he began searching the top floor. That was where Kane found him, cold determination fighting off panic, a scant thirty minutes later.

“I’ve called my unit back in,” Kane said. Lucas appreciated the way the other man moved right back into search-and-rescue mode without questioning.

“Thanks. I’ve been doing a search, room by room. I’m reasonably sure they haven’t left the building.”

Kane nodded and drew his weapon. “Sounds good. We need to see if we can find blueprints of this place. I know there are a ton of hidden rooms, much like the area we used for a base.”

“There are.”

Kane snapped his fingers. “Did you say you and your sister used to explore them as kids?”

Lucas nodded. “We did. I can even remember a few of them. I’ve been looking for hidden entrances while I searched the obvious places.”

“Let me help you finish up on this floor. I’ll take the west side of the hall, you take the east.”

They’d nearly finished searching the top floor by the time the rest of Kane’s team arrived. Kane barked out their orders, letting two of his men check the last few rooms on that floor. “Lucas and I will take the bottom floor. Several of you need to search the basement,” he said.

Taking off, his team skipped the elevator and went for the back stairs.

“Do you remember any hidden rooms down there?” Kane asked. “Other than the labs, that is?”

Lucas thought for a moment. “No. The basement wasn’t used much back then. Other than where Jacob locked up me and Lilly once he found out what we were.”

Shooting him a considering look, Kane grimaced. “My men will still check it out,” he decided. “And while we’re searching this floor, how about if you try to remember the location of some of those secret rooms? We’ll start there.”

Lucas took a deep breath, trying to settle the mounting sense of urgency building inside him. He needed to keep cool, calm and collected to have the best chance of saving Blythe. “I can remember two. Let’s try and find the entrance to the one that used to be my favorite. It’s here on the main floor, so whoever abducted Blythe could easily have taken her there.”

“Fantastic,” Kane said and grinned at him. “I’m assuming it’s like the pantry, with a hidden switch that opened an entrance?”

“Exactly.”

Kane touched his arm. “Show me.”

Lucas led the way. Taking the steps two at a time, he then hurried down the hall. “There’s a seldom-used study at the very end of the hall. I remember a secret entrance inside the closet door,” Lucas said, yanking it open and pressing hard against the baseboard until he heard a click.

There was a sigh of air as the door opened.

“Here we are.”

“Excellent.” Once again, Kane had his weapon up. “We go in together. Be ready for anything.”

Head aching so badly the pain made her want to vomit, Blythe struggled to open her eyes. She couldn’t remember what happened—not exactly—though her intuition told her it wasn’t good. She came to in the dark, her eyelids fluttering as she woke. Her first thought was to wonder how she’d gotten this splitting headache; her second was to gradually realize what had happened.

She’d been attacked. But why? And by whom?

Slowly, she opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the lack of light. When she tried to move, she realized she’d been strapped to a metal table, similar to those in hospital operating rooms.

Immediately, she thought of Dr. Silva.

The only body part not tied down was her head. As things came into focus in the dim light, she knew she had to do something. Moving painfully from one side to the other, she tried to get a better idea of her surroundings.

What she saw made her gasp. Dr. Silva perched cross-legged atop a tall counter, unmoving and staring at her.

Blythe cleared her throat. The sound caused no change to her captor’s unblinking regard. In fact, the other woman seemed totally out of it, as if she’d gone into some sort of trance.

With all the weirdness that kept happening in the place, this possibility seemed entirely feasible.

Blythe tried to determine exactly how securely she’d been tied, wincing as she attempted to raise her neck and shoulders up off the table. Judging from the tightness of the straps at her wrists and ankles, pretty securely indeed. She couldn’t move except to wiggle her hands and feet.

“It’s pointless to try and escape,” Dr. Silva spoke, sounding robotic and lifeless. Either she’d gone into a deep, deep depression, or—more likely—had taken some kind of drug.

“Why are you doing this?” Blythe asked. “Everything is over. Jacob Gideon is in federal custody and the children have been freed.”

“They cannot stop me,” Dr. Silva said, with a complete lack of enthusiasm or energy.

“What’s wrong with you?” Blythe figured she may as well ask. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The longer she kept the other woman talking, the more chance she had of being rescued before the doctor took it upon herself to finish Blythe off.

She could only hope. Eventually, Lucas had to realize she was missing. He would find her. She had to believe it wouldn’t be too late.

“I know what you are. Tell me how you do it.” Dr. Silva spoke again, her voice ragged and hoarse. Still unmoving, her eyes burned with a feverish intensity as she stared at Blythe. “Before all this ends, tell me how you do it.”

Aware she had to tread carefully, Blythe eyed her back. She didn’t immediately reply, afraid the wrong answer might send the other woman into a furious frenzy.

Dr. Silva began rocking in place, her slight shoulders hunched. One hand crept up and began pulling at her short hair. Clearly, the recent events culminating in Jacob Gideon’s arrest had been too much for Dr. Silva’s sanity.

When Blythe didn’t answer, Dr. Silva began muttering to herself under her breath, an anxious and breathless sound.

Dread began building in Blythe, making perspiration trickle between her breasts. What should she say, how could she respond? Though she felt 99 percent certain she knew what the other woman was asking—the mechanics of how Blythe shape-shifted—she wasn’t sure exactly how to explain a complicated genetic process.

And with this woman, clearly driven mad by her sadistic research, the wrong answer could have dire consequences.

“Tell me,” the doctor screamed, spittle flying. She slid down from her perch and stalked over to Blythe, circling, eyeing her with an off-the-charts intensity that was horrific.

But Blythe remained calm. Dr. Silva’s entire belief system had to be grounded in the science she’d studied in medical school. Therefore, she had to understand there was no magical answer.

“It’s how I’m made,” she said, her voice steady and sure. “Isn’t that what all of your...experiments revealed?”

The other woman’s eyes narrowed. “I found nothing. No anomalies. Oh sure,” she waved her hand in a jerky motion. “The genetic code was a bit off. But not enough to indicate how such a thing is possible. Your bones change shape! How can that be?”

Sensing the question was more than rhetorical, Blythe knew she had to proceed with caution. Rather than take a chance with the wrong answer, she lifted her shoulder in a shrug, then winced at the sharp stab of pain.

Dr. Silva slapped her hard across the cheek. If Blythe hadn’t been tied down, the force of the blow would have propelled her backward. Blythe bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“There has to be something to indicate how you are able to change from human into wolf. I need to learn the secret before I am arrested. Tell me. Now.”

Blythe said. “You’re asking me to explain the unexplainable. That’s like asking a bird how it learns to fly.”

Dr. Silva slapped her again. This time, Blythe saw stars. As the edges of her vision grayed, she thought she might pass out. In truth, she’d almost welcome going unconscious if it would stop the pain.

But she fought to stay awake. She didn’t dare let down her guard. Who knew what the crazy doctor might do then?

When she could see again, she licked her cracked lip and tasted blood. “Why?” she asked, her voice a croak. “Why is this so important to you?”

Her question appeared to startle the other woman. Tilting her head, she watched Blythe with a cold eye, all the while continuing to yank on her hair. “Because I want to become a wolf,” she finally said, and bared her teeth in a menacing snarl.

Blythe’s inner wolf responded in kind. For the first time, Blythe realized she might have a chance to escape her bonds if she shape-shifted.

As Blythe watched in horrified fascination, Dr. Silva snarled again, then got down on all fours and howled. Did she think somehow magic would strike and change her into a wolf?

Blythe inhaled deeply. This was her chance. Despite the pounding ache in her head and the throbbing of her split lip, she had to go for it.

Closing her eyes, she willed herself to change and set her inner wolf free.

As the tingling began, she saw the familiar sparkle of the fireflylike lights. At the sight, the doctor only howled louder, the sound filled with an insane mournful longing.

Glad she made no move to stop her, Blythe felt her bones begin to lengthen, her face begin to change form. The shackles fell from her now much more slender body parts, long before they could stretch her into an unnatural shape.

Free, fully wolf, she bounded from the table. Crouching over the now groveling doctor, Blythe as wolf contemplated ripping out her throat.

At that moment, Lucas and Kane burst into the room.

Lucas took in the scene, immediately realizing what must have happened. With her clothing torn and left behind on a steel table, Blythe had become wolf, most likely in self-defense. She’d gone on the offensive. And Dr. Silva had rolled onto her back with her belly exposed, adopting the submissive posture known to all wolves and dogs. Except she was neither. She was human.

Still, she’d clearly surrendered.

Though Blythe, with her fur bristling on her back, seemed to be so enraged that she didn’t care. In fact, it appeared to Lucas that she was on the verge of slaughtering the other woman, who clearly appeared terrified.

“Stop!” Lucas shouted, the voice of authority and reason. “Back down, Blythe! Right now!”

Though the huge she-wolf froze, she didn’t move away from her stance over Dr. Silva.