Slaves of the Night

Chapter 14 - The Faintest Clues

Chapter 14: The Faintest Clues

Alex's Point of View 

  The adrenaline was wearing off the longer we roared down the highway. I had been sitting in the backseat for nearly half an hour and while at the beginning I had been fidgety and anxious, each mile that passed brought my body down from its high. I had woken up early that morning for a run that had never happened, chased down a scent that led to nowhere, got caught in a fight that left my jaw bruised, and lost my last nerve with worry--it was safe to say my day had been taxing. By the time Tristan had returned from his run and told us about Sam’s link, it had already been nearly midnight.

  Now it was practically four in the morning, and almost twenty-four hours had passed since I had seen the soft side of a pillow. Even with my fury fueling my every move, it had worn off into a dull ache that throbbed the longer I sat still in the backseat of Tristan’s Jeep.

  After I had instilled the passion back into my Beta and Wes, we had called Rayne back downstairs so we could discuss strategy. He had come down with weary eyes, mumbling something about getting his mother to sleep, but immediately perked up when he saw Tristan back into lucidity.

  “We know he wouldn’t be west--that would be like running straight back to you,” I stated towards Tristan. His head had been in his hands, fingers splaying across his temples.

  “No,” he growled, “I knew something was wrong before you called, her presence was stretching even thinner. She was taken east.”

  “I’m not--” I struggled to keep a blush from my cheeks, “None of the rest of us are mated so we don’t know the bond, is there any way you can tell distance? Like mileage?”

  He looked around at the three of us as if realizing for the first time that none of us could feel what he was going through, the thought hardening his eyes. “I guess it can work like that. I never bothered to know exact distance but...but I guess she was around a two hundred miles away from the pack.”

  His gaze snapped back at me. Somehow I had wormed my way into the center of it all and had become the anchor that the three strongest men in the pack latched onto. “There are a ton of different possibilities anywhere east from here, it’s such a broad range that it would be pointless.”

  “No. Not pointless, we have a point, we have to find Ian.”

  He clenched his jaw and lowered his hands, “Fine. Then what are we waiting around here for? We have searching to do and I’m not letting the bastard live another second longer than necessary.”

  The rest of us agreed. Grabbing a couple changes of clothes so that we wouldn’t have to come back until we were finished, we packed the essentials that would be easy to carry around. My mom had been worried sick but fell asleep before I came home, so I was able to slip in to pack and get out without stirring anyone. Guilt filled me about leaving her to wonder so I had made sure to leave a note on the fridge to let her know that this was something I needed to do.

  I had always felt that I wasn’t doing enough by sitting back and watching all the guys do the defending of the pack. The fight was in my blood--my father had been the previous head of defense before he retired, relinquishing the position to Wes. But because I was considered a kid and on the slight side I was never given any benefits for being his daughter; I was a girl who would be better placed mated to a worker. Someone who had a normal job and a normal life, but the thrill I got from chasing and fighting was never normal. If I truly belonged in the domesticated life then I wouldn’t long to endlessly hunt in the forest or be the first to protect those in trouble.