Page 6 of Their Crowned Mate
"What do you mean, you haven't heard from her?" I heard the vampire hiss through the speakers.
"What?" Marcus said. "Just what I said. I don't know where the fuck you've been."
"I've been with her," Alexander answered. "You think I was just going to let her go back to her pack on her own?"
There was no room to doubt the pointedness in his tone, but I really wasn't in the mood for his bullshit. I walked over and grabbed the phone. "Okay, if you're there, then where is Lavinia? Put her on."
"She's not here."
"What the fuck do you mean she's not there?" I cried. "Are you with her or not?"
"I was," he said, his voice laced with a growl of frustration. That was how he usually sounded when he was around me, to be fair, but he sounded even more on edge, which wasn't helping put me at ease any where Lavinia's whereabouts were concerned.
"What do you mean youwere?" I hissed.
"I had to take care of something," he shot back, not bothering to mask his irritation. I fucking hated vampires. They always treated shifters like idiots.
"What the hell's more important than her?" Marcus demanded before I had a chance to say the same damn thing.
"Don't start with me when you idiots are the ones who let her go in the first place," Alexander snarled, not just growling at us anymore. Did he really think that was a threat? What was he supposed to do through the phone?
I chose to ignore that, mostly because I was already kicking myself for the same damn thing. "Okay, enough," I muttered. "We can be at each other's throats later. Where are you and when was the last time you saw Lavinia?"
"She was on stage with the red-haired wolf for the ceremony," he answered. "He and the others led her off after... look, it's a long story. I'm going back."
"Back from where?" I pressed. "What are you doing?"
"Like I said, it's a long story, but suffice it to say, the ceremony didn't go as planned," Alexander answered. "Her father was there, and I don't trust him, so I was keeping an eye on him."
"Well, I don't trust the other assholes," Marcus said, already reaching for his jacket and keys. "I'm going to find her."
Before I could respond, Alexander hung up.
Son of a bitch. He was going to have to get used to working on a team, whether he liked it or not. It wasn't like I was exactly thrilled myself.
"Wait for me," I muttered, stalking out of the apartment after Marcus.
"I'm taking my bike so I don't get hung up in traffic," he announced, already heading toward the lot.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?"
Marcus shrugged. "Take your fancy sports car. Or run. Coyotes are supposed to be pretty quick, right?"
I gritted my teeth as he started up his bike, and I glanced at my car in the lot before deciding it was still a better bet than running in my shifted form. But when traffic proved to be a bitch halfway there, I abandoned my car in the woods and traded my wheels for four paws.
The moment I got ahold of my mate, I was putting a damn tracking chip in her.
CHAPTER4
AURELIUS
Igroaned as I came to gradually, disoriented and nauseous from whatever they'd done to me. I didn't remember what had happened, but I knew it had to be those two sons of bitches.
I was laying flat on my back in some sort of underground chamber, the light dim and flickering. At first, I didn't recognize the place I'd ended up until I realized it was the basement storage of one of the pack's outbuildings. I recognized the red crates used to store first aid supplies.
The memories were coming back to me in spurts. I had left the guest room to wait for Lavinia when Jax announced there was some emergency that only I could handle for some fucking reason. I'd gone out to the barn where one of our betas was supposed to meet me, when out of nowhere, I'd smelled a strange scent and had a rag being pressed to my face. I'd barely registered myself thumping against the ground.
They had drugged me. Tranquilizing me with one of the pack's many potent herb mixtures would've been smarter, but if Jax was involved, it made sense they'd go with a stupid method that could've failed like a rag. I was sure Damon was involved, too. I doubted Jax would act alone.
