Stronger Together

Chapter 2

Ezekial’s POV

Here we go again. Back in the werecat territory; hiding in the shadows. Every time we get close to where Julius and Gypsy have taken the rogues, Gemma, Indyleigh and Joslyn; they move to a new kingdom. So far, we have been to the werecat kingdom 5 times.

Although most of the kingdoms hate me, they do love my son like family. Him, Oliver, the fairy King and Cornelius’ brother and Kyle asked for their help in finding where they would be. Each clan, coven, pride and pack were asked to be on the lookout for rogue activity. If any were found; Lionel would go scout it out from the shadows with the help of Cornelius and Scott. He isn’t a shadow bender like I am, he manipulates the light around the shadows to hide himself. Julius could never find him as a child, and he still can’t find him today.

We are in the shadows now, and I wish I could get closer to their camp than where we were. I don’t want to alert those around us, we are nearby until we can get to the girls. If I can get closer to them, Gemma can hear my thoughts. Kyle told me, she knew I was coming into the shadows to watch her and would talk to me as though I wasn’t there. I had to admit to him, I wanted her to know I was there and dropped the block for her to listen. I would tell her I wish I could show myself to her again.

I glance over in the distance at my mate; chained like a dog to a tree when a rogue stumbles over to her. The asshole did come back. I could see his boner from here, and I suppressed a growl, so I didn’t give away my position before I could get to her. I know what he wants to do, and I am going to make sure he loses his d**k. I may or may not kill him. We will see.

He leans in and whispers something in her ear. Our speed will get me there before anything can happen. However, I’m too far away to hear what he is saying. She rolls her gorgeous green eyes at the rogue, moving her hand in front of her. “Ah, ah, ah; none of that now” he snarls, grabbing her wrists and pushing her against the tree. Two more rogues push the other two girls at the same time.

I’ve decided; someone is going to die today. I inch myself forward as Brett grabs my arm. Gemma shakes her head before kneeing the rogue in the groin and pushing all three of them away with magic. Someone has gotten stronger, I smile inwardly. “f**k OFF DIPSTICK” she yells. That’s not her voice? “It’s her wolf’s voice” Brett leans in to whisper, reminding me what Lionel told us. The girls don’t speak much and when they do, it’s normally their wolves.

“Why don’t your wolves come out to play? That’s right they can’t” the rogue chuckled, before all three shifted. I couldn’t stop myself, even if I tried. I let out a growl as the girls flick their hands and the rogues go hurtling into the sky, dangling by an invisible string connected to their back legs. That’s my girl.

Lionel starts running towards Gemma. I just gave us away. f**k! Within a second, Julius and Gypsy appear and pull the chains they were on and through a portal, having it close behind them.

I ran to the rogues who had just shifted back when they dropped from the sky. I lifted the one touching my mate by the hand, bending it backwards, causing his wrist to break. “You think you can touch my mate. You can bear the consequences” I snarled, grabbing hold of his d**k, and pulling it away from his body before throwing the rogue to the ground.

I glared at the other two rogues who ran in the opposite direction; “Was that necessary?” Brett asked, listening to the screams of the rogue clutching his middle region.

“If it were Anna, would you have let him get away with that?” I asked back, and he shook his head at me. “Sorry, I gave away our position.”

“Under the circu…” “The f*****g asshole” I screamed, taking off towards the werecat palace with Brett and Lionel following behind me, shouting at me to stop. “He’s at the facility.”

My facility is an old oil rig in the Atlantic Ocean. It was nicknamed the bunker by the maidens; probably because they said it was a bunker-style facility. In a previous life, I had kidnapped ladies to produce babies for elite members of my organization, the fundamentalists. That was until werewolf King Kyle Jackman and his mate Elizabeth stopped me. It’s a long story and since then I have been chasing the real culprit for all the terrors that happened by the Fundamentalists, Julius. A childhood best friend of my brother Lionel and I.

“How do you know?” I stopped running, glaring at my son. My own flesh and blood can’t be that stupid, can he?

“How do you know when someone steps in your coven without permission?” I asked him and the light bulb came on in his eyes. “I know it’s Julius because I made sure I knew when he stepped foot in my office when I wasn’t there.”

I took off running again with Lionel and Brett behind me. Our speed allows us to move quickly over vast distances, and it wasn’t long before we got back to the werecat palace. Helen, as per normal, started crying when she didn’t see Gemma with us. It breaks my heart knowing we have gotten so close, and we can’t bring back her baby girl. “They dragged them to my facility”, I tell everyone as Kyle runs up the stairs.

“Wait” I called out to him as he growled, turning to glare at me. “The difference from the last time you went, they have someone who will know if you use astral projection. We must be careful. If anything, they will most likely be in the isolation pit. I used it mainly for insubordinate guards rather than the maidens.” He knows Elizabeth's grandmother was placed there when she first got to the facility. She would go back on her own when she wanted to be left alone. I found out later, it was so she could astral project herself.

“Do you have the blueprints of the bunker?” Scott says and I nod my head. They are in a storage locker in the vampire kingdom. I cleared out the facility after I tried to attack Kyle. I left the cave to clear everything out a few weeks later. I didn’t want anyone to know where I kept everything in case someone found or used the facility for their own agenda.

“Would anyone else know where the storage unit is?” Kyle questioned and I shook my head. I was alone, and the owners thought I was Lionel because I used his name. “You walked into a storage facility and pretended to be the king?”

Lionel turned to glare at me. “I did what I needed to do. You would have done the same thing if you were in my shoes. I was presumed dead at the time; I couldn’t use my name. I’m paying for the unit. What’s the big deal?”

“There isn’t one”, Kyle says as Elizabeth, Helen and Hunter come up to us. “Where is the storage unit? We will go get the blueprints and meet everyone back at the castle.”

“The storage unit is called Al’s storage in the Resurrect Coven”, I tell him as he produces a portal and I step through after him, Scott and Cornelius. “There are three combination locks on the door. I also suggest you stand to the side of the doorway in case I put the combination in wrong.” All three of them stare at me; “What? I was being thorough. I didn’t want anyone getting their hands on it.”

The first one was mine and Lionel’s birthday. The second was Callie’s, my first mate. Lionel and I shared a mate and Callie rejected me after a misunderstanding. We have reconciled since, but we can never be mates again; that’s where Gemma comes into it. The last combination was random numbers I always used that I never gave out to anyone, not even Julius. 0524; ‘you know that’s Gemma’s birth month and date?’ Kyle says to me. I did know after I met her, I didn’t when I started using the numbers.

“Someone’s tried to get in there. Look at the door on the storage unit?” Scott said as I opened the rolling door. Scott is Indyleigh’s mate and the head warrior of the Silver Falls Pack. They assumed he was a bunker baby; one of the babies produced in my facility. It wasn’t the case. Alpha Keiren had an affair and, as a result, his Luna found out the mistress had a baby and killed his mother and took Scott to be a slave. We are still trying to find who she was.

“The owner said they have issues with break-ins occasionally. That’s why I set up the traps. If anyone tries to key in the wrong combinations or cut the locks, an electrical surge hits everyone standing in front of the door.” I explain as all of us step inside the unit. “They should be in the bottom draw of my filing cabinet.”

“What do you think happened this time?” Kyle says, and I glance between Scott and Cornelius.

“It was me. I gave away our position”, I explained.

“It wasn’t your fault” Kyle says instantly, putting his hand on my shoulder. He already knew what had happened. “Yes, and I would have done the same thing if it had been Elizabeth pushed up against the tree.”

Corneilius pulls out the blueprints from the filing cabinet; “Let’s focus on what we do know and what we don’t. See if we can come up with a different strategy. We know they have an invisible barrier around whatever area they are in.”

“Yes, and if we penetrate the barrier, Gypsy and Julius drag them through a portal quicker than we can sneeze” I explained as they all nodded.

“And they have felt myself and Enid astral project ourselves to their location and done the same thing”, Kyle explains. That’s why I told him to wait before he went there. “I know. We tried to do a portal where they were to grab them; they got to them first. Did you see him in the shadows?”

“We’ve been over this. No; they aren’t hiding like a stalker. They know your magic is stronger…” “We haven’t tried a porthole”, Kyle says, and I look at him curiously. “It’s a small portal you can put your hand through” he explains as the realization hits me. One of them must have done a porthole for the dragon kings before they did the charm. It was the same charm I used with a group of friends to stop the great war. “Yes, Hunter did it so Daniil and Boris could kill your dragon friend.”

He wasn’t my friend; it was just business. “Keep telling yourself that. We will have to try a few things first. It may be different being in the bunker; they may have something in place for a portal, given Elizabeth opened one up. A porthole is the same sort of thing, only smaller”, Kyle snarls at me.

Elizabeth opened a portal to leave and Enid couldn’t, she could only open one between the cells. I allowed portals to open and close on the main floor of the facility because they were above water. That’s how we got in and out of it. I had a warlock who would do that for us. “Where are you going with this?” Kyle asks me.

“The girls need to be under the water. They may be able to feel the portals opening, but Gypsy can’t get her out of the facility unless she is above water, where the office and our rooms were. The maidens and isolation pit were underwater. If they are where I think they are, we can get to them, or we can stop Gypsy from taking her in an instant”, I explain as the cogs tick in Cornelius and Scott’s mind.

“We have a plan. Let’s share it with everyone else”, Kyle states, opening a portal and we step through to his kingdom.