“Why?” was the only word he used.
“Where is my mate? She’s been taken,” Caz shouted.
Wyatt’s head tilted to the side, looking confused. He glanced at his sister and she ran to the house. “She’s not here. We had a plan.” Turning to his people, he ordered, “Shift and find Raven. Conceal yourself as best as you can. It will be turning dark soon. Now go.”
Caz and his alpha watched as the ones surrounding them shifted into the biggest eagles they had ever seen. The wind from their enormous wings blew across their faces making it hard to watch as they took to the sky.
“I thought your kind were all dead,” Lennox said.
“Almost. This is the last. When the wars started and almost took us all out, we went into hiding. We are growing, but we’re tired of hiding and moving. Once I learned that you had moved here and were surrounded by other shifters, I knew this was the place we were meant to be.”
“Where’s my mate?” Caz growled.
Wyatt looked at him. He was growing impatient. “I don’t know. Come inside and I will explain.”
Calum and Riley pulled up as they were walking onto the back deck. Wyatt tried to get him to sit but he couldn’t. Until he found Raven and had her safe in his arms, his beast wouldn’t settle down. All he wanted to do was kill someone.
Riley rushed to her brother’s side. “Have you heard anything?”
“We were just about to hear what the eagle here knows. You were saying,” Caz said, but he was already growling.
“My wife and Boris’s wife were best friends. Two years ago, we were both on business trips and our wives and my son were going to the mountains for a weekend trip. They were ambushed and taken. Not one witness was found but it was made to look like a car accident and the vehicle had burst into flames.
“But we knew it would be impossible for that to happen. It was raining and whoever it was made mistakes. They used accelerant to make the car catch fire. Their phones were found in the car. When an autopsy was done by my people, we learned that none of the bodies were my wife and son or Boris’s wife. They were kidnapped.
“At first, we thought they were after money, but a call never came demanding cash for their return. Humans wouldn’t have lived against our wives. They were both trained well as we all are. Then we started hearing rumors of a place humans and possibly shifters were taking shifters and vampires hunting them. When you killed the Strong brothers, we thought we were close. Then Boris got another lead about Archie Peebottom. One night, he was drunk and told someone about his job. He was making a lot of money and spending it too. We also heard that Raven and Leo had caught Archie before us and we decided to watch them for our next lead. But Raven—”
“What about her?”
“She reminds me of my mate. She looks like her...and no, I would never take your mate. However, Raven isn’t dumb, and she came to my property upset yesterday. I knew I could trust her with my secret and she trusted me with hers.”
“What?” Caz demanded, walking closer to the eagle shifter.
“That she loves you, but you can’t accept her as she is and that you have made a mistake about her being your mate. She believed that until we talked. I told her how hard it was for a mate to let anyone hurt her. And we both know Death Hunters get hurt all the time. But they are tough, and you endure it. I can see it in your eyes that you can’t bear your mate feeling any pain.”
“She is my mate.”
“Yes, and I think she knows that. But she wants to continue being a hunter. This is when we decided to combine forces and find my mate and Boris’s. But first we needed to find where they were taking them. We knew their phone wouldn’t work because they would destroy them once they were taken. We placed a tracking device under her skin on her arm. It had to be deep enough that it wouldn’t be seen.” Caz watched as Wyatt’s sister brought a laptop in the room and turned it where he could see it.
“There isn’t a signal yet, which probably means she’s in some type of metal building. I would think they are in-route somewhere and have them hidden in something. But eventually, we will get a signal,” Charlie informed.
“What if we don’t? Then like your mate, we’ve lost—” He couldn’t even say the words as he dragged his fingers through his hair.
“Trust your mate, Caz Milton. Raven and Leo are together. They have been trained for this. They will find a way to get a signal out. She knows how the tracking device works and will find a way to get outdoors. If you think she’s unconscious right now, then my sister is correct. They have them somewhere they can’t get a signal out. As much as this is going to suck, we need to wait until we hear something. I promise you we will get your mate back to you and mine too.”
Trying to calm down, and as much as Caz hated to admit it, Wyatt was right. Raven was a great hunter and she would find a way. Then he would go to her and, yes, the killing would begin.
Chapter Twenty-One
Raven tried to touch her head. It was killing her. This was when the memories started to pour in. Leo and the truck started to roll. She tried to open her eyes, but something covered them. She tried to move her arms, but she couldn’t do that either. They were tied to something. Calling on her bear, Raven couldn’t budge the contraption that she was in. Every time she tried to move, whatever she was tied to wouldn’t give.
“Leo,” she whispered. When she didn’t get an answer, she tried to see if she could smell him, but nothing. All she could smell was metal and something else, but she didn’t know what it was. “Leo?” Raven still couldn’t hear or scent her brother. Whatever she was in was moving fast. She didn’t know how long it was before the moving stopped.
Then she could hear gears grinding again and she was being moved to something else. Fear started to slip in and she prayed that Caz and the Death Hunters knew she was missing. What if the tracking device didn’t work?
She never got the chance to tell him how she felt about him. Fear had stopped her from telling him. And she never thought about how this was going to affect Caz. He could possibly go mad and it would be all her fault. Just stop, Raven. Calm yourself. Revert to your training. Lennox has put you in more places than you can count and left you there tied up for days. The training was to not panic and learn to control your fears.
She had to do this or die trying.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Caz was about to strangle someone. And the alpha of the eagles was the perfect candidate. “Why would you let her do this?”
Everyone turned to stare at him. He didn’t care. If it hadn’t been for Wyatt, this wouldn’t have happened. She would still be in New Hope and they would be going to the ball. Like a regular couple, but no, this egotistical shifter had to use her as bait.
“Caz stand down. It’s not his fault. You know Raven planned this. You know she was planning something with Leo. That was why they knocked you out. As crazy as it seems, they would never expect a tracking device to be inside her. They won’t find it. You’re a Death Hunter and you know the chances we take. Raven is your mate, but she is also a hunter and she would never be happy if you tried to take that away from her.