Her Mortal Mate

Chapter Two: Timeline

Jadea

"I couldn't get a hold of Mrs. Lindsay." Derrick announced. "Her phone went straight to voicemail. I left a message."

The pit in my stomach dropped.

Something wasn't right.

Obviously!

But it seemed odd her phone was off. Over the past year, we called her rather often to check up on her, Adam and the kiddos. It had never been off before.

"We need to send someone over to her house," Garret's suggestion seconded my unease.

"That seems out of character for her," Blade agreed.

"Sargent Moore answered!" Briar said a bit triumphantly. She was the only one so far who had been successful in her endeavors. Thank goodness! "He said he was already at Adam's apartment. Someone called in earlier saying they had heard some strange sounds and the door was left open. The person who reported it thought a robber had broken in while Adam and the kids were out."

"Well, what did he say?" Garret pressed before I could.

"He wasn't able to find anything out of the ordinary other than the door being left wide open. I told him to close the door and to leave everything as it was until we got there to check for wolf activity."

"Call him back," I ordered. "And have him check up on Mrs. Lindsay too. Tell him we will meet him at Mrs. Lindsay's in a half an hour. If he finds anything of significance tell him to call us back immediately."

Everything seemed to be taking too long, even though it wasn't. We weren't even ten minutes in. We were moving rather quickly, to be honest, given that we weren't at all prepared for this. But it felt like an eternity. I wanted to just go on ahead without them. I wanted to leave, to get to Adam's apartment already and at least start the process of assessing the scene.

"Blade and I are on our way down," Garret announced, his presence a little more in my mind than the rest. He reached out quietly and brushed my mind soothingly. He knew how anxious I was to just get going, but I knew that was dangerous. Whoever had taken Adam could very well be looking to do me harm as well. And we didn't know what resources they had. We didn't know what kind of immortals they were. We didn't know how many of them there were. We knew nothing, except the fact they had Adam and were threatening him bodily harm if I didn't back out of the campaign for the Immortal Council position.

Based off of that information alone, I could only assume they had taken him someplace where they could hold him without fear of being found or heard.

"I'll wait for Briar," Derrick said.

I continued to breathe through the panic that wanted to infiltrate my system.

"This almost feels like our first hunt, again," Garret stated, some excitement bleeding into the tone of his voice. "I don't like that it involves Adam and his children, but... I can't deny it's exciting to be back at it again. Doing this."

"I thought you'd said you were happy getting out of the hunting business," Blade chided.

"I am! Truly. But, this was what we specialized in. This was what brought us all together in the first place, was the hunt."

It had made us a family.

"Dude! Do you remember when it was all five of us for the first time?" Derrick asked, a fondness in his tone. I knew what Garret's ploy was at, and it was working. He was trying to distract me.

I smiled to myself. Yes. I did remember. And it was one of those memories I held dear and near. We had been so awkward, unsure of how to work with each other. We had been tense, unable to relax into each other's minds because we were afraid to open up. They all had trust issues we were working through, and being their leader I was learning on the job how to manage them.

Our first hunt hadn't been hard. The immortal had been rather clumsy himself. It should have been easy, but it had taken way longer than it should have because we were all dancing around each other in our minds. Some of us had a hard time listening to orders while others had a hard time relinquishing control. There had been a few run ins. We all ended up with injuries we had inflicted upon ourselves.

"We have come a long way from then," Derrick fondly stated.

"And I'm so proud of all of us for never giving up. For fighting for each other. For working through our past traumas and trust issues," I said softly, a bit emotionally into their minds.

"Don't go getting all sentimental on us, Jay!" Garret ribbed.

"I'm blaming you for this," I teased back. "You brought it up."

"I guess that's fair."

"We are headed down," Briar announced. "Sargent Moore said he would wait for us at Mrs. Lindsay's."

Perfect!

Garret and Blade made it to the little hiding spot I'd chosen. They quickly stripped, placing their clothes into the hole I'd dug. Garret shifted first. His black wolf large, heavy and daunting. And a little odd because of the piercings. That was the thing, the tattoos and piercings didn't just disappear. The tattoos were obviously covered up by the hair, but the piercings...They were there. Just like clothes. We couldn't conjure them up or will them away when we shifted into our wolf or human form.

"Don't go hating," Garret said, winking at me as Blade secured the little doggy backpack around Garret’s back, snapping it into place around his neck and ribs. "Admit it, you're a little jealous you aren't as cool as the rest of us, with our piercings."

I chuckled. "Not jealous in the slightest, because I know just how painful that s**t is when it gets ripped out of your face."

"I think the nose ring looks pretty cool," Blade backed Garret right before he shifted. Blade's black wolf was smaller and sleeker in form. He was quicker. Lighter. Faster on his feet. His nose ring stood out in the moonlight.

Right before we started this last tour, he'd had his septum pierced with a ring and bars put in his ears. I shook my head, amused. I forced my focus to stay with them, to stay on their off the wall banter and topics.

"Right until someone grabs it," Derrick smirked. "You know it's bound to happen."

"That's going to hurt like a b***h when it does."

"Why are you all saying it's going to happen? No one's grabbed it yet and I'm not planning on it ever happening."

"Well, duh. No one ever wants it to happen."

"How many times have your rings been ripped out of your face?" Blade asked Garret.

"More times than I can count."

"Then why do you keep putting them back in?"

"Because they're cool. And the ladies love them."

"Exactly." Blade's blue eyes sparkled in triumph.

"You look like a damn cow," Briar interjected, teasing her brother.

"And you're now just telling me this?"

"Well, it hasn't been brought up before now."

Briar and Derrick came running onto the beach. They looked so different, and so very cute. Derrick was a huge brute of a man. Brown hair, brown eyes. Daunting disposition and the tattoos and facial piercings didn't help that disposition at all. While Briar was a rather petite woman, black hair, blue eyes just like her twin brother.

I was glad they had found each other, that they had each other.

They quickly stripped and put their clothes in too. Briar shoved her phone into the bag on Garret's back before shifting. While they did that, Blade and I filled in the hole with all our clothes.

Taking one last quick look around to verify there weren't any humans nearby, we slunk through the city and then went full out across the farmlands. We made really good time and made it to Mrs. Lindsay's right on time.

I took the lead, and slunk out of the shadows first, heading to the back porch. Garret was right behind me. We were doing a perimeter check.

Mrs. Lindsay lived on a little two acre plot of land that was on the outskirts of Modesto. She lived in a very cute little ranch style house. It made it a lot less risky for us to sneak onto her property than if we were in the city. It would be very out of character for wolves to be in California in the first place, and to be in residential areas.

The instant I stepped foot on the back porch steps, I smelled them. "Aidan and Anika were here." Their scents were fresh. Not even hours old. "Mrs. Lindsay too."

"Sargent Moore's cruiser is out front," Blade announced. I'd had him, Derrick and Briar circle around to the front, staying hidden in the brush and foliage on the outskirts of Mrs. Lindsay's property. If someone was laying in wait, I didn't want them to know how many of us there were. I wanted to keep the element of surprise on our side.

"I've got other scents too. Werewolf," Garret announced as he moved around the left side of the house.

"I don't have anything on my side," I said as I continued moving around the right side.

"They entered the property from this side," Derrick said. He was on the same side as Garret.

Shoot!

"Blade, Briar, anything?"

"No."

"There's another scent from the front of the property," Blade responded. "There's another set of tire tracks too that don't belong to Mrs. Lindsay's vehicle or Sargent Moore's."

I paused and breathed, trying to keep the destructive scenarios that wanted to infiltrate my imagination from taking over. We still hadn't entered the house. We didn't know where Sargent Moore was at exactly. He could have Mrs. Lindsay and the children safe inside, waiting for us to get here.

"I was wrong. There's four sets of tire tracks," Blade corrected. "Adam was here. From what I can guess by how old the scents are, he dropped off his kids here earlier this afternoon."

Ok. We were starting to get a timeline. That was good. That was useful.

"The set of tires and scents I don't recognize came sometime after."

"And Sargent Moore?"

"He's not in his vehicle. The front door is open."

Garret and I rounded the opposite sides of the house at the same time. "I'll go in first," I said.

"I'm right behind you."

"Blade, Derrick stand by. Briar, watch the back in case if anyone tries to sneak out."

I slowly approached the opened front door, my heart in my throat. I wasn't sure what I would find beyond the threshold, but I prayed long and hard that death hadn't visited tonight.