Page 75 of Been There Dragon That
He rushed the last few yards to the door and shoved it open. “Rylee?”
The lights were on. But she wasn’t here. A closet door was open across the room, and he could hear water running.
He ran toward the closet.
“Rylee.” His voice took on a deeper worried tone. Panic crept into his heart like rivers of poison.
He got to the door. The mop bucket was under the faucet. The water had overflowed the bucket and the excess circled the drain right below, disappearing.
She’d been in the closet. She’d touched things here recently. He could smell her fresh scent.
But someone else had been here too. A male.
He ran for the back door and shoved against it, yanking it open so hard it slammed into the wall. “Rylee.” He shouted her name into the parking lot behind the community center.
That’s when he scented it.
Her blood.
Terror sliced through his heart like someone had run him through with a sword. Wrath couldn’t contain his roar of anger and pain. He’d lost her. He’d failed her. He’d promised her she was safe, and someone had taken her.
How had that man gotten past them? Who was it? Where would he take Rylee? Back to where she’d come from? Texas?
“Wrath?” Penny’s voice called from the broken back door he’d crashed through. “Where is she?”
He turned and looked at Kann’s mate and roared again. He wasn’t mad at Penny, but everything inside him had reverted to his predator brain. All the anger. All the frustration. All the pain and fear.
His failure as a mate echoed in his mind again.
He’d told her she was safe, and it’d been a lie.
She’d trusted him.
Penny disappeared from the doorway, but Wrath couldn’t move. He didn’t know which way to go. Rylee’s trail ended there. The smell of gasoline and tire tracks in the crusty ice showed him plainly that she’d been put into a vehicle.
He looked up at the sky and screamed, a sound filled with torment and despair and remorse and outrage. He should be able to fly. He would be able to find her if he could be afuckingdragon. If he could justbewhat he was.
She wasn’t that far. The women hadn’t even missed her yet. She couldn’t be far. He could find her from the air.
He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t let that monster of a man stalking her succeed in stealing her away. But he couldn’t betray his tribe either. And flying in broad daylight where anyone could see him.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t break their trust like that. He couldn’t endanger their lives. The lives of the young children.
“Wrath!” Naomi called his name this time.
He looked back at the doorway. The small but mighty alpha’s mate was beckoning him closer. She held a phone in her hand. “It’s Callum.”
Callum. This was Callum’s fault. He’d let the threat slip away.Wrath curled his lip and snarled, a very inhuman very dragon sound.
“Put it on speaker,shuarra,” Col said, standing behind Naomi. “Control yourself, Wrath. That’s an order.”
Wrath swallowed his anger, but barely.
She touched the screen a couple of times, and the cowardly crying of a man filtered through. He was begging for his life. Begging them not to kill him.
“This male, how did he get here? Is it Jeff?” Wrath asked, bellowing toward Naomi’s phone.
Callum’s voice crackled through the speaker. “This man was a distraction. The one called Jeff, he drove into Mystery last night. He’s got a plane meeting him at the airport to fly them out,” Callum’s tone was sharp and deadly and full of disgust. “Anything else you need from this worthless human? May we end his torment, alpha?”
