The Chase

29 Luca

I stirred from my content cocoon of blankets with Evie. There was an alarm. I wasn’t panicked as the alarm started. Evie was warm, safe and soft in my arms. My body wrapped around her. I had her, We were safe here. The alerts were early warning of possible problems. Nothing attacked Blue Willow, these grounds were the most protected of any pack.

I blinked. Evie was gone. I sprung from the bed. I could smell magic in the air. I had her in my arms and she vanished. This was impossible. I looked for Evie, trying to feel her. She was far away, and my sense of her was muted, wrong. Like there was an oily film covering the bond making it hard to grasp at. Blurring the details. 

I growled as I felt someone enter the cabin, and it certainly hadn’t been by the door. Whirling around to see a started Ash, wearing fuzzy duck shaped slippers, and a flannel pj set with bright goldfish emblazoned all over. “Eep” she had squeeked as we made eye contact. I did not miss how her eyes darted downward for a second, before she turned around. “Evie’s a lucky- I mean no. Clothes please.” She made a frustrated growl of her own. “Please put clothes on, I mean. We need to move quickly, something is very very wrong.” She said. I did as she asked, pulling on the discarded sweat pants from earlier.

“I’m decent” I announced, snapping the elastic wasit band into place.

Ash whipped around so her hair spun out in a wide arc around her, “Ok good.” She grabbed my hand and everything spun faster than any carnival ride. We stopped, and I bent over at the waist and hurled everything I had ever eaten into the grass. I looked up, glad my stomach was already empty or I would have had to fertilize the grass again.

We were on my packlands, everything was burning. I could hear and feel my pack mates screaming, dying all around me. This was a battleground. The air thick with the smell of blood and fire. Ash grabbed my arm just as I was about to seek Michael out. I was his Beta, I should have been here. This was my home, I had left it alone to find Evie and now it was in ruins. “We don’t have time, scent for Evie, we need to follow her.” Ash said, firmly. 

I was torn. Elijah was my family, this pack was my family. This was an impossible choice. My pack or my mate. Ignoring the cries of my pack, I turned away and followed the scent of my mate. It was towards a storage shed. Ash stuck her hand out, into the empty air. “Its another gateway.” She said, frowning. “This was a distraction, to keep us from following them.” Ash grabbed my hand, hard, “Think of Evie, think of where she is right now, they aren't far ahead of us.” 

“Wait!” A voice I recognised yelled from behind us.

Ash and I turned and we saw Bydel and Sky behind us. Both looking a little worse for wear. “We heard Evie, not but a few moments ago. If this is a rescue we are with ye.” Brydel said. Linking his arm to Ash while Sky did the same. She nodded, and again, I felt the whirling, spinning chaos that was teleporting, dry heaving on the other side this time. As an attack exploded to life all around me in the confined space. 

Ash screamed, flinging her hands out as a purple bubble of energy enclosed us, any enemies unlucky enough to have been caught in her shield were currently in pieces or small piles of dust on the floor. An arm still clutching a heavy sword was at my feet, after having almost smashed into my skull. 

My head and guts were reeling from traveling with Ash so many times over such a short period. I looked around. It looked like we were in a basement. Evie had been here, along with Sarah. I growled, I was going to gut that fucking cat myself and use her intestines to hang her. 

Brydel and Sky were standing back to back now, watching our perimeter. I saw them both scenting the air as strongly as I had. "Evie was here." Sky sad simply, his eyes studying the dozen living men outside our shield. 

"Fekking reeks of cats." Brydel added, spitting on the floor. "Wasn't it a feline shifter what set Evie up in the first place?" he asked me. I nodded. 

"I can smell Sarah, she's here, with Evie." Vampires, shifters, witches for the gateways. My home was burning, my people dying. This was too much, my brain fracturing trying to hold everything together. 

I saw Sky roll this new information around in his head, before he mindlinked someone. "Alexander and Raven are going to contact your Alpha, Luca. A delegation of Treaty Enforcers are going to lock down Curtis Feltman and his pride." 

"Just so I am clear, these are all fodder? " Ash looked around the room at the vampires, men, and shifters in the room. Her forehead starting to sweat from the effort of holding her shield in place. Everyone outside her wall was armed, and trying to test the strength of her shield. Battering it with heavy clubs and weapons. 

My own head turned sharply. Evie, she was nearby. Someone was hurting her, she was scared. Everything felt wrong. So horribly wrong. They had done something to our bond. "Evie." I breathed out a whispered prayer. I needed to get to her. I told her I would always find her. 

"Fodder, do it Ash." Sky's voice so cold my blood chilled. 

Ash smiled darkly, holding her hands clasped in front of her, before flinging them out. Her shield expanded like the shockwave of a bomb. Disintegrating everyone into piles of charred guts or dust. Weapons falling uselessly to the ground. "Just a second," she said as she grabbed at something invisible in the air and tanked it down firmly in her fist. All the lights went out, the air horribly still after the carnage she had wrought. 

"There's no electricity anywhere on these grounds now." Ash looked at Sky, then Brydel and finally me. "No cameras, no alarms, no fancy electry locks" She smiled, as she cracked her knuckles, carefully stepping over the blood, guts and vampire remains on the floor. Still wearing her fuzzy duck slippers and goldfish pjs. "Let's go get Evie, she's ours, our family." Ash said, already moving out into the dark hallway. "Rhys is very upset I left him home with Dixon, so let's be quick!" Ash called out in a sing song voice. 

We all followed behind her. Until Sky walking in a ready stance pushed ahead of Ash. two curved short blades in each of his hands. Brydel at the rear, guarding our backs with a broadsword and a dagger at the ready. "Lead us to her Luca." Ash said. Looking down at her slippers that in spite of her best efforts had picked up some blood stains. 

Snapping her fingers, she was instantly changed into well fitting leather pants, a white blouse and short boots. A large gun strapped to her back, more on belts on each hip, and ammo belts criss-crossing over her chest. Another snap and her hair was in a neat tight bun at the nape of her neck. Ready for battle. “Anybody need anything?” Ash asked, we were at a solid metal door leading to a flight of stairs. Somewhere over our heads was Evie, I hated feeling our bond subdued. Her thoughts and feelings had already been too great a storm for me to understand yet. I was lost at sea now. Breaking apart every moment she was in distress. 

I had never experienced anything like this. Brydel, Sky and Ash seemed to have a secret language. They all knew what they were doing. I just needed to follow my heart, had to find Evie. Tonight had been the first time my pack had been attacked since the night my parents had died. I failed as Beta. Was Failing as a mate, over and over.

It was Brydel who put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get her back Auntie Jo is on a warpath over the dark witches.” Sky flinched at his words.

He inflected his head,“If she is set nothing will stop her.” Almost a grimace as he thought about what was to come When Josephine and her war machine team arrived.

Ash snapped her fingers and I was in an outfit similar to hers, except I was armed with a massive flame thrower, and weighted, reinforced gloves. I also noticed I was wearing a chest guard when no one else was. Pride be mother fucking damned. I knew I was in over my head, any advantage when at a disadvantage. We emerged as a tight group, into the entrance of a luxe mansion. A Giant crystal chandelier overhead, double staircases leading to a landing on the second floor. After the industrial basement, I wasn’t expecting to be in someone's home.

The scent of cats, of generations of lived in feline shifter was baked into the walls here. This was a pride house. I turned, and over a marble fireplace, was the family picture I was almost expecting. Curtis Feltman, his chosen mate, and their five children. Sarah’s face, painted in oils looking down at me with a fake smile.