The Alpha’s Forced Rejected Mate (Silverfang Creek Wolves #2)

Chapter 19 - Cliff

Sydney clamored to get in my lap. “Horsey Dad!”

I grunted as she slammed her dress shoe into my crotch. As soon as she reached my shoulders, she swung a leg over the back of my neck and hauled herself up. I marveled at the acrobatic nature of my kid.

Sighing, I held her steady. “You see anything good up there?”

“Mommy is missing.”

My stomach flipped. “What are you talking about, sweetie?”

“Mommy went into the woods and is missing.”

I stood up and searched the crowd around us for that familiar bob of red-auburn hair. We were in the thick of a celebration right now, and the bonfire was still raging with a pork roast on a spit. Faye was standing near one of the food stations with a crying baby on her hip, and Hector looking grumpy.

“Faye, help,” I whispered.

Her head swiveled like a hawk, focusing on its prey. As soon as our eyes locked, she grabbed Hector and yanked him through the crowd toward me. She looked up into my eyes while bouncing Sierra on her hip. “What’s wrong?”

“Robyn said she heard something and wandered off,” I replied. I gestured to Sydney. “She said she knows her mother is missing.”

Faye took Sydney’s hand. “What did your mother say before she left?”

“Mommy is missing.” Sydney rested her cheek on the top of my head. “Daddy, we have to go find her.”

“This is bad. This is so, so bad,” I muttered while sliding Sydney down from my shoulders. I cradled her over my shoulder so she could rest. It was getting late, and she must have been tuckered out by now. “Faye, Hector—don’t alarm anyone. I need you to collect Sonya, Larry, and give Adrian a call. See if he can get up here on the next flight.”

Faye directed her attention to the woods. “Cliff, can you trace her scent?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” I tried to set Sydney on the ground only to find out how hard she could squeeze my neck and scream in my ear. I squeezed my eyes shut as I bore through the pain of a toddler’s fury. “Shoot, hey, Sydney—”

My sister passed Sierra off to Hector and then held out her arms to me. “Let me try to get her calm. You shift and track her mother.”

“Are you sure? I just—”

“Cliff, it’s okay. She’ll be safe with me.”

I smiled uneasily, holding out the only spawn I had ever created. I was reluctant to let her stay in someone else’s care when her mother had just disappeared. I couldn’t lose them both. Not now.

Not when I had just gotten them back.

Faye placed a hand on my shoulder. “You go ahead. I’ll get the others.”

“We’ll need your magic, Faye.”

“How do you know?”

My stomach wound up. “I just have a feeling, okay?”

Her lips tightened into a line. “When does my goofy, perfectly normal wolf brother ever get a feeling about anything?”

“Ever since he started loving that girl.”

She gasped with a look of astonished glee. “I hope you mean that.”

“I do, too.”

She pointed to the woods. “Enough talking. More saving.”

I wasn’t about to argue with her there, and I didn’t need a ton of research to know which way to go. The black licorice and pepper scent tickled my nostrils as soon as I broke away from the crowd. At the tree line, I noticed the scent broke off in a couple of different directions—that must have been leftover tracks from the ritual.

I gritted my teeth as I tried to discern which was the freshest scent. I caught the tail-end of one that followed a similar track from the completion of our ritual. Ahead, the remaining sensation of electrifying lust marked the air. This was where we had made love, and I had opened my mighty jaws to mark her with my bite.

My irritation tripled as I skipped past a fallen trunk and darted after a thicker scent, one that entwined with my mate’s delicious, spiced candy. Though I couldn’t put words to the description, I knew it to be putrid, like an animalistic musk used to mark territory. I must be getting closer to where they are.

Once I exited the woods, I found myself in the cul-de-sac. Before me stood the structure of Bill’s home that looked so bare bones without any lights inside. The front door stood ajar, wheezing on its hinges and smacking the foyer’s wall whenever the wind blew hard enough. Brisk air circled my body as I walked purposefully to the porch, where I hugged my jacket tighter around my shoulders.

“Robyn?” My voice sounded hollow on the porch. “Princess?”

The wind died, revealing a cracked whimper and a feeble sob.

I raced inside without a second thought, sniffing around the still-furnished living room that no one had taken apart just yet. Hector had advised leaving it up for a while as it might rock the boat too much to dispose of the previous Alpha’s items without allowing the pack to mourn.

Even if the guy was possessed and long gone.

I stepped quietly around the couch, shuffled past the coffee table full of protein-bar wrappers, and eased into the dark dining room. Antique lamps sat in the corners, winking whatever light shed from the streetlights. I tugged on one of the chains, hissing when light blanketed the room. In the corner, a curio cabinet gathered dust. The inside was empty, but I could see where plates had once been displayed.

Many of the bookshelves were bare. The wallpaper was ripped in some places. Otherwise, it was a refined, rich green, hosting a gold foil floral design that ran the length of the wall. Beneath my feet was a decadent carpet, beige, fluffy, fresh. I could see the impressions of shoe prints, some scuffs on the tile leading into the kitchen, and then the backdoor ajar to reveal a minor spatter of blood on the frame.

I sniffed the air. That was too much copper for such a small splash of blood. Enraged by my discovery, I barreled onto the porch, hopped down the steps, and roared into the yard. Dozens of nocturnal critters scattered away from the edge of the yard—and that was probably a good thing considering what would happen if I didn’t find my mate soon.

“Where is she?” I boomed at the yard. “Show yourself, now !”

“So touchy,” came a teasing voice, “but I’m afraid I must do what most of your people believe is fair.”

Out of the darkness came a woman slightly taller than Robyn with leather black hair, khaki beige skin, and honey eyes. She wore an evergreen robe like Robyn and an expression of disdain.

She sneered while holding her elongated nails to Robyn’s throat—right on the spot where I marked her. “An eye for an eye.”

“What the hell did I take from you?”

“Not me,” she taunted with a whimsical laugh. She blinked, turning her eyes black in an instant. “ Me .”

I growled as I bowed into an attack position.

She flicked her wrist, drawing a tiny line of blood from my mate. Robyn was void of emotion for the moment. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t look good. Her usually golden tawny skin was rice paper white and appeared to host a sheen of sweat. The way she grabbed the woman’s wrists to keep the claws away from her neck was rigid and determined.

But weak.

I held out a hand. “Don’t hurt her.”

“I can’t guarantee my nail won’t slip.”

“What do you want?”

She bared her teeth, snarled, and then licked her lips, standing tall like a model. “The inheritance. You took Sostreth from us. We can’t continue without his blessing. You ruined us. You ruined this .” She dragged another nail across Robyn’s throat, prompting a squeal.

I jumped forward with both hands raised in surrender. “Come on, there’s gotta be something I can get for you, right? Something you can’t get in your dimension, eh? You have needs and desires, too. You’re a unique demon.”

Her grip loosened. “Can you get me the Biltmore?”

“You want an estate?” I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“No, you fool. It’s in the estate. A Bi—” Her tongue lengthened and drooped, then tugged taut like it was being pulled by an invisible hand.

My ear tingled. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as a drop of rain dabbed my forehead. Another one fell. And then another. Thunder rolled in from the east.

I smiled. “I may not know your name yet, Demon. But I will. And my sister will help with that.”

The demon woman screeched as her head snapped back, and her mouth widened like a snake unhinging its jaw. Cries of terror resonated from her throat that glowed a heavenly white. To my left, Faye approached with her hands raised, shouting in Latin as her eyes went white.

Hurricane Faye had just landed.

Hell yeah .

Faye clapped her hands together. “Let her go .”

“Tell me what to do!” I shouted over the growing storm overhead. Lightning struck the yard, kicking dirt and rocks up from it carved a crater into the ground. I shielded my eyes against the water and debris. “ Faye! ”

“Grab Robyn!”

My heart urged me to stand still. “Faye, don’t.”

She didn’t look at me, but I could see the tears streaming down her face as she held her palms open, locked down her stance, and bent furiously toward the demon woman holding my mate hostage. “Just…grab…Robyn…”

Thunder crackled above our heads. The sound prodded me to pounce on the demon woman and wrestle Robyn away as Faye continued to work her magic. As solid of a plan as it was on paper, I knew that, in practice, something had gone wrong. Faye wasn’t holding up her hands as steadily as usual. The storm was turning into a frenzied hurricane.

My sister was losing control.

With Robyn tucked under my right arm, I staved off the demon woman with a kangaroo-like kick and sent her reeling back into the magical whirlwind. She shrieked with her claws raised and then weakly collapsed in a coiled position on the ground. The wind began to die down as the demon covered her head. A thin, silky curtain of lime green billowed around the demon.

Faye shakily stepped forward. “I’ve got her now.”

Heavy footsteps slammed the ground behind us. Seconds later, Larry and Hector arrived with three burly men from the pack as backup. Two of the men secured the possessed woman using a set of handcuffs that Faye tapped once they were in place.

“That should keep her from doing any tricks,” Faye explained, “and it’ll act as a magical locator. I have those pinged to a map that can show me wherever she might go.”

“Good. Let’s get her somewhere she can’t bother anyone.”

Faye observed the dark house behind us. “What about in there?”

I sighed. “It’s as good a place as any.”

While Larry delegated the muscle, Faye assisted me with Robyn. My mate was staring blankly at the forest as her lips trembled. Her eyes were pale, sunken in, and the lids were puffy.

I touched her cheek. “Robby?”

Her pupils blew out when she looked up at me. “She forced me to drink Wolfsbane.”

I gaped at her. “Baby, no.”

Faye rushed us toward the house. “No time to react. Get her inside. Horizontal. Now .” She grabbed Larry. “I need you to get a bowl of hot water and an IV drip going.”

Robyn slumped against me. Her skin was getting worse, thinner. I could see her veins and feared that soon I might see the bones and organs beneath. Her fingers clawed at my chest as she wheezed. Dry lips parted with obvious strain. “I…I need to…”

“Don’t talk, Baby. You’ll hurt yourself.” My voice sounded controlled while inside I felt like the hurricane raged on. “Lay down here.” I set her on the couch as the world proceeded to move around us.

She reached out to me. “I love you, too.”

I grabbed her hand, falling to my knees in front of her as I held her palm to my cheek. There was only one reason she was saying that.

I smiled at her. “You’re not dying tonight, Princess.”

“What if I…?”

“You’re not dying.” I touched her bite mark. “Not on my watch.”

She grinned wistfully as Faye gently lifted her free arm and started applying an IV. Once the drip was set, she reclined into the cushions and got comfortable as my sister did what she did best.

Moments later, Robyn was fast asleep. There was some commotion outside, but I ignored it to keep my eyes on my mate. I wasn’t leaving her side—and no one could make me leave her side.

The door popped open. “You get your hands off my daughter at once .”

I remained still. “Hello, Valerie.”

“Don’t use that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

Her frail hands fixed her long auburn hair with salty strands into a loose bun and then adjusted her robe over her tunic dress. The colors she wore clashed enough to give me a headache.

Concern came over her as she floated toward her daughter. “Is she…?”

“She’s just sleeping,” Faye said calmly, “but she’ll be in pain when she wakes up. Wolfsbane poisoning is a nasty business.”

Valerie touched her lips, which were usually filled with some kind of ruby-red lipstick. Without it, she looked pale. “Will she survive?”

“Yes, it’s just a matter of getting her the antidote. Then, a fresh batch of blood. Would you happen to know who’s her match?”

She settled into the couch next to her daughter, carefully reaching out to adjust the pillows, get a blanket, and generally mother her sleeping child. “Her father, but he’s…away. On holiday. Somewhere.”

“Cliff?”

I looked at my sister.

“Are the medical records digitalized yet?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I can boot up the laptop and log into the cloud.”

“That’ll be great. Thank you.”

“You got it, Nurse Faye.”

She smiled warmly and touched my shoulder. “She’ll be okay. You’ll both be okay.”

If that was true, then why didn’t I believe her?