Midnight Wolves

Chapter Forty One: Shadows

KENNEDY

"Caleb! Have you seen Callie? Something's wrong!" The entire room fell into silence as she spoke. She'd interrupted their dinner, most of the pack sat at the long table. Caleb's growl slid across her skin and she squirmed beneath the waves of emotion he was giving off.

His anger burned at her skin like thousands of sharp teeth gnawing at her skin. Her chest was tight, his worry sitting on her shoulders, heavy and insistent.

"What do you mean?" His voice was tight, deadly. Kennedy shivered.

"She's in danger. Vik can sense it but he can't find her."

The room burst into life around her as wolves began making plans of where to search. Caleb was silent, watching them work around him. His mate was saying something to him, but he wasn't listening, his focus on Kennedy alone.

She could seem him fighting for control of his wolf, worry creasing his face.

"It's just like last time," a woman wailed beside her. "Gone without a trace again!"

Kennedy ignored her, watching as others began piling out of the room to fetch reinforcements.

"Where did you last see her?" Heather asked when Caleb still hadn't moved.

Kennedy shrugged. "At the lake, Vik hasn't seen her since either."

"She was fine when she left me," Grace said, her shoulders squaring defensively.

"That was hours ago, no one's seen her since then?" Heather asked.

Kennedy shook her head.

The door slammed open behind them and Kennedy knew it was Vik without looking. The fear and violence that rolled off of him made her wolf quake. Even those without her powers could sense how close he was to losing control of his wolf.

"Have they seen her?" he growled.

Kennedy shook her head, not trusting herself to say anything more.

Vik's growl was deadly and a number of the wolves left in the room took a step back in fear.

"Do you think she's run away?" someone asked, stupidly, in Kennedy's opinion.

A chair flew through the air towards them, a slight change in Vik's breathing the only sign that he'd moved.

"That's enough," Heather admonished, trying to calm the situation but to no avail. There would be no calming Vik until he found Callie.

"You're mated. Use your packlink," Caleb said to Vik, his voice laced with anger, accusation – with jealously, Kennedy knew. She had a feeling his mate knew it too.

Vik cricked his neck, his wolf angered by the look and tone from Caleb. "I can't," he snarled, "there's something wrong with the link between us."

Caleb's scoff nearly cost him his life.

Kennedy dove in front of Vik as did a few other, braver, wolves. Heather went to Caleb's side and began begging him to look at her and not Vik.

This was not helping.

"Can you sense anything from her?" Kennedy asked quietly, trying to distract Vik who was currently locked in a staring contest with Caleb.

He gritted his jaw and his eyes flashed to her and back to Caleb. "No, nothing more than fear, anger I think."

Kennedy sighed. "Can you use the link at all? To scent her or trace her or anything." Vik focused back on her and his eyes glazed slightly as he tried.

"I-I can't," he said in frustration, his eyes sliding closed. "I think, she's scared. Darkness. Damp. I don't know what's memory and what's happening now. It's all confused. I-a tunnel. Is there a tunnel nearby? Underground anything?"

Kennedy turned to the alphas in question, they glanced at each other, shaking their heads.

"Damn it!" Vik roared, as he paced back and forth in front of her.

"There is one tunnel," a voice said from the back – Felicity. "The old sewer access. It's right on the edge of the pack territory, right by-oh." All colour drained from her face. Everyone turned to her in confusion.

Her head snapped to Caleb. "Right where her mother was murdered, in that little house she'd picked out for her and-" her head turned back to Vik, eyebrows raised in surprise. Kennedy frowned, glancing between the two. Vik seemed to understand what she was implying because a fractured howl tore from him. He paced away again.

"Where does the tunnel lead?" Heather asked.

Felicity shrugged. "I don't know, not really. But we could follow it-" she'd barely finished before Vik tore out of the building, Caleb at his side and other wolves pouring forwards like a rising wave.

Kennedy tore after them, watching as a little house came into view. Weeds encased it but someone had been in there recently. Kennedy went straight inside as the others went around the house to look for the tunnel. She prepared herself for the worst, even though she knew they'd have scented blood if there had been any. But it was empty, eerily silent. Someone had been here though, she could feel it. And they'd been scared.

A shout and grating of metal indicated they'd found the tunnel, Kennedy jogged outside just as they began to disappear into the shadowy stench below. She followed, swept up in the ocean of panic and anger that surrounded her. Callie may not belong to the Magnum pack or its alpha, but that didn't mean they cared any less. Perhaps it was what they owed her for not being able to save her all those years ago.

They ran on and on, the smell putrid and making Kennedy's eyes sting. When light appeared up ahead and with it the scent of fresh air, Kennedy nearly yipped in delight. They all stumbled out of the tunnel and paused on the edge of the rockface. A river that had no doubt once been raging, trickled below them, taking on a silvery edge from the moon overhead.

"What now?" Heather shouted over the sound of the wind as it whipped around them.

"Now," Vik said, his voice near-silent, "I found my mate."

Before their very eyes, Vik melted into the shadows of the night.

"What the hell just happened?" someone said, echoing Kennedy's thoughts.