Page 181 of Claimed

Soleil pulls in breath after breath, and now her eyes are dancing with joy.

“Remove it,” Soleil breathlessly urges. “Set it on that table.”

52

Grey

“See it?” Jase asks. “Sherry’s in there. So’s he.”

“I see,” I tell him. “I also smell.” I smell the faint scents of them both. They may have masked their scents yesterday when he abducted my mate, but that’s wearing off.

Jared’s RV, connected to Boyd’s truck, is parked outside a warehouse. An extension cord attached to the back is fed under the loading bay doors of the warehouse and the trailer is lit up inside, though the shades are all down. It’s still afternoon, but it’s overcast and I easily make out shadows of two forms in there. A male looming over a wolf shape. What the fuck?

“Sherry’s shifted. He’s not,” Jase says.

“Why do I smell your sister and Meadows but not Stacy?” I growl with frustration. “Not only can I not smell her, I can’t smell our baby.”

Jase’s eyes cut from straight ahead to my face and he winces.

They better fucking be okay. They have to be.

The rolling warehouse door slides up and an older woman with long, black hair comes out, dragging a wheeled dolly with a five-gallon water jug on it.

There’s a crash inside Jared’s RV and I can’t see shadows now.

A younger woman with ginger curls rushes out and takes the dolly, saying something to the older woman who gives the younger one a beaming smile. The younger woman has thedistinct scent of a witch. She’s related to Halla Starling! The scent of that stuffed animal is imprinted in my memory.

“A Starling witch,” Jase says.

Suddenly, I’m hit with sensation in my chest. Panic.

I don’t smell my mate, but I feel her. She’s close. And she’s in a state of panic.

Do I suddenly sense her because that door opened? Is she in there? Is it fortified or spelled to mask scents within? I take a deep whiff of the air and it hits me - faint, barely there, but I’m sure of it. The faint scent trail of my child from the RV and truck to those doors. She’s in there.

The old woman steps back inside as the younger witch moves toward the door. The RV entry door is on the opposite side so I can’t see what’s happening there. But I don’t give a fuck. I need to get to Stacy.

I’m reaching for the car door handle.

“Should we mask again?” Jase asks, “Think he smells us from here?”

“I don’t give a flying fuck if he smells me. In fact, I think I’d like it if the last thing this fuckereversmells is me.”

As much as I want to get my hands on Meadows, I want more to know my mate is all right. Not want – need it with a voracious hunger that threatens to send me into a rage ready to rip everything apart.

“I got him, you go get Stacy,” Jase says.

“I want at that fucker,” I remind him.

“I do, too. But I’ll secure and hold. The pack decides.”

“Yeah?” I check.

But Jase is already on the move.

The young woman goes back inside, but she looks over her shoulder and waves at us, gesturing with a ‘come on’ motion.

I hesitate and check my gut. It’s telling me this witch isn’t an enemy. But even if she is, no matter. I need to get to my mate, so I move in toward the building.

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