He growls.
She will feel our worry, fear and anger through the mate bond. It’s not going to help her. Let’s focus on finding her!
All right,he hisses.But I want to kill someone tonight!
We will!
With Fenris being in charge of my emotions, I can finally look around. Something feels weird here… just what… Something feels off. I pick up a small object from the ground, shifting it between my fingers. “Bullets,” I say. That’s why the doctor needed to perform surgery so fast on Nox. He probably still has one of these inside him.
There is blood sticking to them.
Ari and Annalise were hit once. I would feel Annalise’s pain much more intensely had she had silver in her body. And Ari was still able to crawl when we found her.
My father turns to look at me in surprise. “Bullets? Who is using bullets!? We are wolves!”
“Humans,” I conclude. “There are no traces of wolves. Maybe the whole group consisted of humans. That’s why they were able to spy on Annalise all this time.”
I hand the bullet to Calvin, having him check on it. He confirms my suspicion. “Normal bullets,” he states calmly. He is always calm and never shows any emotions in general, not even worry. It’s sometimes enraging, but that’s who he is.
“Why no silver?” My father demands.
Calvin frowns a bit. “They didn’t want to accidentally kill their prey. But this is just my assumption.”
I have to hold Fenris back from lunging at him for calling my mate prey.
I feel my stomach churning. “We were extremely lucky,” I whisper.
My father nods, his eyes darkening in anger. “Aryanna, Aurelia, and Noctis would have been dead otherwise.” He grows. “Once we find Annalise, I want all our warriors on extra training! It’s an embarrassment to have this happen! I was too lax… I will make sure to whip everyone in shape. No one is ever passing these pack borders without our knowledge again!”
For a moment, all of us are quiet.
“A human wouldn’t be suspicious,” Dante muses suddenly, disbelief in his voice. “These are broad forests here, and of course, we can’t always prevent humans from walking through them. But why… that doesn’t make sense… Why would mere humans endanger their lives by attacking us? They covered their tracks now, but it will be easier to track them down now that we know what we are looking for.”
I hand Dante the syringe. “Have someone check on this fast. I need to know what they injected her with. I smell wolfsbane in it, but there is also something else… Maybe we can find out where they got it from.”
“Probably a mixture of drugs,” Dante nods. “I will have someone take a look at it.”
Before he can leave, our pack warriors return. They're dragging along one human they've captured. “The others are dead,” one of the men tells us. “They were shot before we arrived. There is no hint of any further footprints or scents around.”
“Unbelievable,” Dante mutters. “They shot their own men. Collateral damage indeed.”
“That was the plan all along,” I assume. “This is big.”
“With the help of a witch?” Dante asks.
“Possible.”
“And this one?” My father kicks the human guy.
“He is wounded but alive,” our warrior states.
My father nods grimly. “Good enough.”
*ANNALISE*
I slowly come to my senses. My body…Goddess… My head hurts so much. I don’t know what they injected me with, but it makes me feel dizzy. And they did something to my scent, I smell… foreign, for lack of a better word. I carefully call out for Leah, but she is weak. My memory is foggy, but I remember how they dragged me into this house. There were a few men shuffling around, looking scared and nervous when they saw me. They were whispering weird things, how they would rather prefer to be dead than live like this.
Like what?