His Lost Mate

Chapter 6

Ares

Something feels off as I make my way into my dad’s office. I can’t put my finger on what it is so I brush it off. “Hey dad, you have any good news? It’s all been bad lately,” I tell him and sit down in the chair in front of his desk. I feel a pressure in my chest so I rub my hand over it to soothe it.

“Where’s Freja?” He asks.

“She had to take a shower. She kicked Elijah’s ass today, put him in a choke hold.”

“That’s good, she’s getting better,” he says. He hands me a folder. I open it and see a picture of Derrick’s brother, Theo. The next page is a picture of him and Tasha from the council.

“What’s this?” I ask. I can feel myself getting angry.

“Theo and Tasha are mates. Don’t you think that’s a little coincidental? The council knows she’s alive and they know what’s been going on for the last two decades,” he says through clenched teeth. He as pissed as I am. I go to stand up but I sway a little. “What’s wrong, son?”

I brace myself on his desk and say, “No, something is wrong.” My chest starts to burn. I’ve never had heartburn before but I’m pretty this is not it. “Freja.” I take off out of my dad’s office. I here him calling after me but I can’t stop. I try to mind link her but there’s a block. Something is wrong with Freja, and I have to get to her.

I burst through the doors of the gym. Damon is working out, of course. He looks at me with a confused look. “Where’s Freja?” I ask. “Last I seen her, she was going to take a shower,” he says pointing to the locker room. I walk into the locker room and hear the shower running.

“Freja?” No answer. I make my way to the showers but there’s no one. Just the shower running. I punch the wall and break the tiles, “f**k!” Where the hell is she? My dad comes into the locker room as I’m walking out of the shower area.

“She’s not here,” I say.

“Maybe she went home. Let’s check there,” he says calmly. He doesn’t want to panic but I can see it in his eyes. I’m full on panicking. My wolf is restless and trying to take control. I know my eyes are not my normal blue, but golden.

There’s no sign of her coming home after training. The door wasn’t locked but I never lock it. No one locks their doors here. I check the bedroom and bathroom but find everything in place, the way we left it this morning. How does someone go missing in broad daylight? How did this happen? I shouldn’t have left her to go meet my dad. This is my fault.

My chest tightens and I can’t breathe. I’m having a panic attack. I haven’t had one in years, but I know if I don’t get myself under control I’m going to be useless in finding her. My dad sees that I’m starting to freak out so he puts his hands on my shoulders and says, “Don’t panic, Ares, we will find her. Just breath, my son. It’s going to be okay, Freja is strong. We will get her back.”

All I want to do is break down, but I can’t. Not right now, not when she needs me. My dad puts his arms around me and hugs me tight. “You can have five minutes. Five minutes to freak out, or cry if you need to. Break something. Five minutes, then we start looking for her.”

He leaves my room and shuts the door. I walk over to my dresser and place my hands on top of it. I try to even my breathing out. I count to ten, I doesn’t help. I have five minutes to pull myself out of the dark that’s setting in. I picture Freja in my mind. Her beautiful face, but it’s soon replaced with the image of her back in the forest scared. I dig my claws into my dresser and pull and it comes crashing down. I punch at it, splitting the wood and my knuckles. I bump into the small bench in front of my desk when I back up. I pick it up and throw it across the room. It hits the wall and leaves a hole next to the door. I roar loudly and run my hand through my hair.

My hands are bloody and shaking. I go to clean the off in the bathroom and catch my reflection in the mirror. I look deranged. Pull yourself together. You can’t find her if you lose your mind, I tell myself. I splash some water on my face and put on a clean shirt.

My dad is standing on the back porch. He looks deep in thought. He looks at me when I open the door, “Ready?” I nod. He looks how I feel. Enraged, but also sorrowful. “Let’s get to work. I want everyone that’s on security detail right now in the conference room. I want to know what the hell happened. Someone had to have seen something.”

Once everyone is in the conference room my dad pulls out his laptop and logs into the security feed. He hands it to the twins, Jake and Aiden, and says, “Find her.” They start going through the footage. My dad starts to pace at the head of the conference table. I see who I get that from. “How do you let the one person we are supposed to be protecting go missing? Are you all stupid? Who was not at their post?” No one says anything. I’m not sure if saying anything would help the situation.

“Answer me!” He yells

Jake looks up from the computer at me and says, “We may have found something.” I round the table and look at the screen. Someone wearing black clothes and their face covered, of course. They’re stupid, but not that stupid.

“This was clocked at 5:48 this morning at the northeast point by the lake.” He pulls up another screen of a car parked on a dirt road, “This is just off Ellender Rd. This one was logged at 5:15.”

He presses play and someone get out of the car. They seem to be the same person from the other camera footage. They look around and then directly at the camera and shoot it. The screen goes black. “They didn’t shoot the other camera, so they must not have seen or know about that one. I’m running the license plate on the car now,” Aiden says.

Jake continues to go through footage to find any more clues. I look around at everyone in the room; trying to find any indication that anyone had anything to do with this. I’ve known all of these men and women my whole life. They’ve sworn to protect our pack with their lives. I don’t want to believe any of them had a play in Freja disappearance.

I glance back at the computer and catch something. “Hold up, play that back,” I tell Jake. He looking at footage of the gym. One screen is the front entrance and the other is the back entrance. I point to the screen with the back entrance. He backs up the footage and stops. I press play and see the back door to the gym open and a head pops out for a split second then the footage skips and the door is closed again. I back it up again and pause when the door opens. “Enhance that image. And find out who the hell is tampering with our security!”

When Jake has the image enhanced I tell him to send it to my phone. My blood is boiling as I leave the conference room and the pack house. I go back to the gym and find Damon. He’s talking to one of the other warriors. I pick up a dumbbell and swing it at him, connecting with his arm that he raised to block the blow. “What the f**k, Ares!” He yells.

“Where is she?” I roar at him. I grab him and throw into the wall. The wall almost crumbles on top of his large body. He gets to his feet and he’s livid.

“Where’s who?” He yells back at me.

“Your best friend. She took Freja. Where the f**k is she?” I say through clenched teeth. His face falls, “No she didn’t. She couldn’t have.”

I show him the picture on my phone and he takes it from my hand. He studies it for a minute. “Oh Claire, what the f**k did you do?” He looks me in the eye, “I don’t know anything about this. All I can tell you is she’s has been going into the city a couple times a week. I figured she was seeing someone or visiting her parents. If I had any clue of what she was up to, I would have said something. You know that.”

I turn to walk out but he grabs my arm. I look at his hand and the up to his face. “You’re going to want to let go of me.” Damon may be bigger than me but I am stronger. I can put him down and he knows that. He removes his hand and puts both up in surrender, “Look man, I know I’m probably not your favorite right now. Guilty by association, but let me help you.”

He’s right, he is guilty by association but he is one of our best trackers. “Find out everything you can,” I start to say but then something hits me. She has a daughter. She had a mate four years ago, but he was killed by rogues before Claire gave birth. “Where’s her daughter?”

“She told me she was spending time with her mom. That was about a week or so ago.”

“That’s coincidental, don’t you think?” It’s not really a question I need an answer to. “Search her house and bring me anything that seems out of place,” I tell him. He nods and gathers his stuff to leave.

I return to the conference room and my dad is looking at the security footage with the twins and Tomas. They have a screen pulled up of Claire carrying Freja through the woods near the lake. The same place she was spotted at 5:48 A.M. “How did no one see this? In broad-f*****g-daylight! Where were you?” I yell.

“There was a security breech at the eastern territory line,” my dad says.

“And they all felt it necessary to leave their post?!”

“No, just whoever was covering the northern territory. You know whoever’s closest lends a hand. Claire knows that too. She had this all planned out.” What she didn’t plan for was the cameras she didn’t know about. The only people that know where all the security cameras are is the twins, my dad, and me.

“And I’m going to kill her.”

Freja

Theo stands over my body, trying to show dominance but he’s not an alpha. His brother was the alpha. I’m still scared of him because he is crazy. Like, clinically insane kind of crazy. He’s bipolar and I’m sure he’s got a few personalities floating around in his head.

Over the years, I’ve seen him many different moods. He can be nice but he can also be vicious. On one occasion he cut my wrists and watched as my blood flowed to the floor. I could not heal because of the wolf’s bane. He just sat and watch as my life was fading. Then like a switch was flipped, he started freaking out because I was dying. He bandaged my wrists and wouldn’t let anyone else torture me for the day.

Today, he has crazy eyes. I know he’s going to do something bad. With my hands still cuffed to the chair, he grabs me by the hair and drags me out of the room. I still have no clue where I am. I spot Claire in the corner of my eye. Her face is written with regret. She doesn’t want to do this, but why is she doing it.

Theo drags me into a room with a table, and next to the table is a stand with a bunch of needles on it. I try to get out of his hold but the chair is making that difficult. He pulls my hair harder and I scream. “Stop trying to get away, you won’t this time,” he says in a menacing voice. Oh yeah, full on crazy pants today.

He kicks the chair legs. They break away and my hands are somewhat free. I try to swing my fist at him but he swats it away. He straps me to the table and cuffs my hands above my head to a hook on the wall.

“Please, Theo, don’t do this,” I beg him. He laughs manically. “Why not, dear Freja, it’s so much fun watching you fight for your life.” He’s a sick bastard, just like his brother was. His whole family is nuts. Their father forced their mother to mate him. As soon as she had Derrick and Theo, he cast her out as a rogue. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. Some part of me hopes she was able to find another pack to take her in but I also have no sympathy for this family. Their father, Mateo, died about ten years ago. He was attacked by rogues, or that’s what I heard. Not sure how much of anything that was told to me was true.

Theo grabs a syringe and places it at my neck, “Now be a good girl, Freja. You know I hate it when you fight me.” I try to get out of the cuffs and the straps but it’s no use, I’m stuck. He backhands me across my cheek and let out small whimper. Claire comes over and holds my head to the side so that I’m looking at her and giving Theo better access to my neck. I glare at her, but she has tears in her eyes. She mouths I’m sorry and rubs her thumb across my cheek.

Theo sticks the needle into my neck and I feel the liquid going into my vein. It’s warm at first but then turns to fire. I scream and thrash on the table. I swear if I make it out of this alive, I am going to rip his throat out. “I’m going to kill you,” I say and he laughs.

“Oh you can try, my dear, but you will not succeed. Past experience should prove that.” He’s mixing up his memories; I’ve never tried to kill him. But he has tried killing me several times. Maybe he dissociates reality. I’ve read about dissociative disorders. I stole a book from the library that mentioned it. It would make sense. I can’t help but wonder what happened to him to make him this way. Is it genetic? And Derrick, he was crazy too, just not the same kind of crazy Theo is.

I feel my body growing weak and my vision getting darker. Before I completely pass out, I hear Theo say, “When she wakes, I want her in the rec room.”

Ares

It’s been two days since Freja went missing. And we are not much closer to finding her than we were two days ago. Jake and Aiden were able to trace the IP address that hacked into our security feed to a computer in Port Clarence, Alaska. The license plate came back as a stolen vehicle belonging to an old lady in Utah. Damon is checking on the address we got for the hacker. He flew out to Nome yesterday, and from there, he travels to Port Clarence.

“You have to sleep, Ares,” my mom begs me as I scroll through footage looking for any other clues we may have missed. “I can’t sleep, mom, not until I find her,” I tell her.

“I know. I hate this for you,” she kisses my head and leaves my dad’s office. I look at the time. It’s after one o’clock in the morning. My phone dings and I look at it. It’s a private number and the message says: 70.268790, -148.838346. It’s coordinates. I pull it up on the computer and it’s a warehouse in Prudhoe Bay.

“Dad, we have to go, now. Call the pilot,” I mind link my dad.

“You found her?” He responds.

“I hope so,” I tell him.

I try to mind link Tomas but his block is up. So I go to his house and bang on the door, “Stop f*****g my sister, we have to go!” After a few minutes he opens the door with his duffel bag. Elena is following behind him. I put my hand up to stop her, “Hell no, you’re not coming. It’s too dangerous.”

“The f**k I’m not coming! I’ll tell dad who really wrecked the Chevelle.” She crosses her arms.

“f**k, Elena! This isn’t a joke,” I say.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” She retorts.

“Fine, but you do everything we tell you.”

“Okay, lead the way big brother,” she says. She knows I hate it when she calls me that. She just trying to piss me off.

The drive to the airstrip is silent. I’m all fairness, though, I have not been the best conversationalist lately. I just about bitten everyone’s head off. Tomas tried to talk to me yesterday; tried to talk me into getting some sleep. I nearly threw him out of the window.

Finally Tomas breaks the silence, “What’s the plan?”

“I haven’t come up with anything past fly into Deadhorse and find the warehouse. We’ll talk about it on the plane,” I say.

When we get to the airstrip my dad’s on the phone with Damon. He’s telling him to go to Prudhoe Bay and we’ll meet him there. My mom kisses him before he boards the plane. She hugs me and says, “Don’t come back without her.”

“I don’t plan to,” I tell her. She kisses my cheek and hugs Elena and Tomas. We all board and take off. The flight will take about six hours, so we have plenty of time to come up with a plan. We have to get in touch with the pack up there before we can step foot on their territory. I don’t that being an issue because they are not an enemy pack.

Tomas brings up a map of the area surrounding the warehouse on his laptop. We scout out an spot that we can stakeout the place. When we get there we will have to figure out if they have some sort of security or routine. Surely they will have guards at all entrances. We hash out the best plan we can come up with in six hours. It has to work because I will not leave Alaska without my mate.

Freja

Claire shakes me awake. I struggle to get her hands off me. “Freja, stop fighting me,” she whisper yells. “Look, I’m sorry I had to do this to you. I really am, but I had no other choice. He has my daughter. He said he was going to kill her if I didn’t bring you to him. I’m sorry.” She’s crying. She’s has to be telling me the truth, but I can’t believe her.

“You just have to hold on for a little while longer,” she says.

“I can’t, just kill me. I can’t do this again Claire, please kill me,” I beg her. I would rather die than go through the torture and drugging again.

“I can’t or Ares will never forgive me. He may not forgive me anyway. He’ll likely kill me when he gets here.” When he gets here? I look at her and she smiles slightly. “I may have sent him a tip. But before he gets here I need to know my daughter is safe. I sent Damon a tip as well.”

My head is spinning, either from the drugs or from what she’s telling me. She’s lying, no one is coming for you. This is where you die. I try to quiet my mind. I start to drift off back into the darkness. When I’m awaken again. It’s Derrick. He drags me off the table and out of the room. The room he brings me too has chains hanging from the ceiling. He hooks the cuffs to them. The silver has made my wrists and hands completely raw.

Once he has me hooked to the chains he pulls a lever and the chains start to pull me up. They stops just as my toes can barely touch the ground. He takes a syringe out of his pocket. “Oh I think you’ll like this one, Freja,” he says. His voice deeper than usual. He sticks the needle to my neck and I try to wiggle away from him but he grabs my throat and shoves it in. I spit in his face. He wipes the spit and laughs, “I think you’re going to like my next guest.”

Someone walks in the room. It’s a women. I can’t quite make out her face because the drug it taking it’s affect. I start to see spots and my vision tunnels. I hear her say, “Ah, Freja, you don’t look so good. And here I thought you were supposed to be some super powerful wolf. You’re pathetic.” I feel pain in my ribs and realize she punched me. I can barely make a sound. I’m in and out of consciousness but all I can think of is that I just want this all to be over. And Ares. His face in my mind is the last thing I see before I pass out.

Ares

We’ve been sitting a block away from the warehouse for hours. Watching who goes in and out. The sun is starting to set, and then we can put our plan in motion. We have yet to see Theo, but Tasha made an appearance a few hours ago. I had one of our men tail her and report what he finds out.

My dad talked to the alpha of this territory this morning. He told him what was going on, and he was not happy. This pack is a relatively peaceful pack. Apparently Theo did not divulge what he would be doing while he was in town. Just said he needed the warehouse for some logistical reasons. The alpha told my dad if we needed any help getting rid of Theo and his men, his pack would be ready.

So far I’ve counted twenty men, and two guards are posted at every entrance. They all have guns. Luckily, we have guns too, thanks to Tomas. His duffel bag has an arsenal in it. I typically don’t like to use guns, but I’ll do anything to get my mate back.

“Nightfall will be here soon. Is everyone in position?” My dad asks through the pack link.

“Yes alpha, we ready to go,” Tomas answers. He’s posted at the back of the warehouse. Damon and Jake are on the east side and Elijah, Elena, and Aiden are on the west. We have more warriors surrounding the warehouse. We should be able take down the guards with ease.

When the sun sets I take my rifle out and set it up on the ground. I get into position and set my sights on the guard at the front entrance. Tomas has his set on the other guard. “It’s go time,” I say the the pack link. Tomas shoots the first guard and follow suite with the second one. I hear shots around the warehouse. Me and Tomas start moving in as two more guards run out of the front entrance. We take them down with our pistols. I see my dad moving in as well.

I should mention that Damon did a stint in the military and has a hookup with a guy, so we have enough gear to take down everyone in this warehouse. When I get to the front entrance I open the door and throw a flash-bang in and shut the door. Two guys run out disoriented and we take them down. Tomas checks to make sure it’s clear and we make our way into the building.

There a long hall with rooms one each side. It almost looks like an office complex, just rundown and dirty. We sweep the first few rooms before someone comes running down the hall shooting. Tomas shoots his legs and the man falls and screams. I walk to him and kick his gun from his hand. I put my foot on his neck, “Where is my mate?”

“Dead,” he says and I know he’s lying. Tomas shoots him in the chest. “We’re coming in through the back now,” Damon says. Right on schedule. We turn down another hall and check the rooms. I come to one room that has a table with straps and syringes. “Elena, where are you?”

“Coming in with Elijah and Aiden, west entrance,” she says.

“Meet me in room 115, left corridor from the front entrance.”

She gets here quick, but I hear shots and fighting outside the room. “What is this stuff?” She asks me. “You tell me. You’re the chemist or whatever.” I hand her a couple bottles I found lying on the floor. She looks them over and grabs a couple more.

“Tranquilizers, hallucinogenics, wolf’s bane, and sedatives. All empty,” she says and drops them to the ground. She looks at me apologetic and runs out of the room. I follow after her. We turn a corner and Theo comes running down the hall. Just the bastard I wanted to kill. Elena points her gun at him but I push it down, “No, he’s mine.”

I drop my gun and shift into my wolf. Theo shifts as well. He leaps at me but I duck and roll, slicing my claws down his underbelly. He lets out at roar and blood covers me. He lands with a thud and tries to get up. I pounce on his back and sink my canines into his neck. He tries to shake me off but I’m not going anywhere. I thrust my claws into his claws and sink my teeth further into him. His blood flows into my mouth. His struggles become weaker. His heartbeat slows. Not wanting to prolonged this anymore, I rip his throat out. He goes limp and take my claws out of him.

I stay in wolf form as I continue my search for Freja. She’s hear, I know she is. “Ares, I found her,” Elijah says through the pack link. “Room 147.” I sprint through the building, dodging bullets as best I can. I grazes my back leg but I don’t slow down. I side around a corner and find room 147. I walk in and Elijah is trying to unhook her from chains. I shift and grab a chain and yank it from the ceiling. Elijah gets the other one down and she slumps into me. She’s not conscious, but I can hear her heartbeat. It’s faint but it’s there.

We meet up with Damon at the east entrance. “Get the car,” I tell him. He opens the door and comes face to face with Claire. He grabs her by the throat and walks out of the building. “Don’t kill jet just yet, Damon. I need to know why she did this.”

“Is she safe? Is Lexi safe? Damon, please tell me you got her!” She cries.

“Lexi? What the f**k does Lexi have to do with this?” I ask. Freja jerks in my arms. She opens her eyes and she starts to struggle out of my arms. “Freja, shh, it’s me. It’s Ares. I’m here.”

She thrashes and kicks. An elbow clocks me straight in the face and she gets free. She tries to run outside but a cars pulls and almost hits her. My dad flings open the door and grab her and push her into the backseat. I tell Damon to get to the safe house. Elena comes running out of the building and jumps in the front seat. I get in the back and find a pair of sweatpants and put them on. Freja tries to open the door but I wrap my arms around her and pull her to my chest.

“Let me go, Theo!” She yells, then slumps into me and passes out.