Barely Winging It (15 page)

“It’s good for him. I’m giving
him small, easy jobs. At the very least, he’s learning basic first aid, but
he’s got a promising future in medicine.”

After Seamus left, Enzo sat down
and tried to finish up paperwork for
Alphy
. It seems
like the alpha shifter had an endless supply of paperwork.
Damn man needs an assistant … well, one he doesn’t want to fuck against
every surface. I don’t know whether to be disgusted or cheer him on.

Enzo didn’t mind helping with the
paperwork. He loved his position in the pack and wanted to show
Alphy
how much he truly appreciated it. He wanted to prove
he wasn’t in the position just because of their friendship.

Enzo didn’t know how much time
had passed when he was interrupted by an urgent knock. “Enter.”

Connie stepped in and wrung her
hands together. She looked upset. Instantly Enzo thought about her mate, Tom,
who was with Ryker. “Connie?”

“Sir, we can’t find Havana. Reese
called her to ask if she would come in and help me with lunch. He told me she
said she was on her way. That was about an hour ago.”

Alarm shook Enzo. He leaped up
and ran outside onto the porch, dialing Havana’s number. As he listened to her
cell ring, Ryker and Tom drove up. Connie raced to Tom and began telling them
what she had just told him.

“Fuck, she’s not answering,” Enzo
told Ryker as the lithe man approached. “Run up to Seamus and see if she’s up
there.”

Ryker ran to the garage as Enzo
dialed
Kace
.

He heard
Kace’s
southern drawl as he answered. “Yeah, boss?”

“Is Havana with you?”

“No, haven’t seen ‘
er
since breakfast.
Whu’s
up?”

Enzo looked up as Ryker yelled
from an upper window. “She’s not here.”

“Fuck! Hold on,
Kace
.” Enzo trotted out to the barn. He noticed the door
was opened “Fuck!”

“What’s going on?”
Kace’s
voice was unusually serious.

Enzo ran into the barn. “Havana?”
he called out.

No answer.

Taking the stairs two at a time,
Enzo raced up to where the gargoyles were roosting. “Havana! Where are you?”

Nothing.

“Call Slate and Matteo, and
Kace
, get the crew back here now!”

“Already on our
way.”
The
line disconnected, and Enzo raced back down the barn stairs. He looked down at
the ground to see if he could spot any tracks. What he saw sent what felt like
cold lead hitting his stomach. He hoped he was reading the tracks wrong, but
unfamiliar scents wafted through his nose.

Enzo dialed Havana’s number
again. He thought he heard a sound, so he stopped and closed his eyes.
It’s coming from over there.
Enzo looked
into the forest that the sound was coming from. The sound in the woods stopped
as Havana’s voicemail came over his cell. He cautiously trotted into the
forest. Just inside the tree line he saw the sun glinting off something.
Havana’s cell!

Enzo shifted, leaving his clothes
where he found her cell. He followed the scent trail, tracking the scent to the
challenge arena. Fresh tire tracks marred the moist dirt. The others caught up
with him as he was still sniffing around the tire tracks. The group tracked
together, following it to the main road. At that point, they couldn’t go
further in their shifted forms, so everyone ran back to the house.

As Slate ordered a search of the
property, in case the kidnappers backtracked somewhere and were hiding on the
property, Enzo grabbed his cell and shut himself in his room.

Telling his best friend, and alpha,
that his sister was kidnapped cut his heart like a razor.
And it happened on my watch, too.
After he hung up with
Alphy
, he ran downstairs and dished out the orders
Alphy
had gave him.

“Got it!”
Ryker shouted. “I found where
Damon and his guys are staying.”

“Text me the
address.
Slate, get your team. We’re moving out.” The men had already geared themselves
up with how best they could be, and headed out to the location. It turned out
to be a house that was empty, on a heavily forested property.

The team used hand signals before
shifting and creeping up to the house. But before they even got close, Enzo
smelt blood.
Fuck, please don’t let that
be Havana’s,
his heart pleaded. Her scent was minute, but it was there.

They were in two teams, one for
the back, and one for the front. Peter and Marek broke down the doors, and the
shifters ran past, into the building. What greeted them was bodies and blood.
What the hell?

Peter entered and examined the
bullet riddled corpses. “This one’s Damon.” Everyone had been sent a picture of
him, so Enzo didn’t doubt the vampire’s word. “Their bodies are still warm.”

Everyone sniffed around and tried
to piece together what had happened.

“Enzo, there’s a dart in here,”
Slate shouted from a room.

Enzo trotted to the room and
sniffed the dart he held. It had Havana’s scent on it. A growl escaped his
lips. He shifted.

“She was here. From the looks of
it, Damon and his thugs were staying here, and I recognized the scent of two of
them as the ones from outside the barn. They took her, but who took her from
them, and why?”

“I don’t know, but none of
Damon’s men have guns. They’re all shifters. But whoever did this
had
to be human. It’s a bit hard to tell with the smell of
blood and gunpowder so strong, but if you smell outside, you can sometimes
catch a whiff of it.”

Enzo growled again. “I hate
mysteries.”

He caught Slate briefly raise a
brow at him before schooling his features and heading out of the room.
Smart lion.
Now’s not the time to bring up my secret
admirer.

Everyone headed back to the alpha
house as fast as they could. Enzo called Ryker and relayed the information
along the way.

The house was busy with pack
members since everyone was called in to count and be kept safe. He headed
straight for the office. “Ryker, have you found anything?”

“I’m searching for anything that
matches Havana’s description. There’s one that sounds really creepy. An
emergency flight plan was just put in from the little local airstrip. They
claim to have a sick girl that sounds exactly like Havana. But I can’t be
sure.”

“Where are they taking her?”
Matteo asked.

Ryker looked down at his monitor.
“It’s an airport in Toronto. Hold on.” Ryker clicked on his mouse and typed on
his keyboard. After a few moments, Enzo could see his brows scrunch. “That’s so
weird. That pride alpha, Tony Smith, just booked a private flight out from that
same airport. It’s scheduled to leave in like ten minutes after the one from
here lands.”

Ryker continued to tap and click.
Slate, Enzo, and Matteo all looked at each other. “That’s too big of a coincidence,”
Enzo coldly stated.

“Uh, guys, I just looked up the
guys on that the local plane. It was weird that I couldn’t find them originally,
but after digging, I found them.” He turned the laptop, and everyone looked at
the monitor.

“Oh fuck!” Enzo, Slate, and
Matteo all said in unison.

“Matteo, take a team, now!” Enzo shouted
as he called
Alphy
.

“Yeah, Enzo, what
d’ya
got?”

Enzo could hear the plane’s
engines. “Fuck, I hope you’re close. Long story short, we are pretty certain
she’s being smuggled on a craft scheduled for takeoff at the local airstrip. I
have guys speeding over there, but I don’t think they’ll make it in time. Ryker
wants me to relay the strip’s position.” He continued to tell them everything
they had learned.

“Oh fuck! That’s
a whole
lotta
different kinds of
bad if it’s true.”
Alphy’s
voice betrayed his alarm.

In the background, he heard
Bronya’s
voice. “There it is.”

Alphy’s
voice was urgent. “Force them
down! They have Havana!”

Everyone in the room listened as
Bronya
taunted the other pilot. A crashing sound drowned
out most of the sounds, but Enzo could easily make out
Alphy’s
order to Nix and Gale’s whimpers.

The roaring sound of wind added
to the loud banging and cracking and the plane’s engines made it impossible to
hear anything. “W—e—c—n—they—
dow
—
s—f—d—” The words that filtered through the phone were
broken. Then they heard screaming and unintelligible yelling, followed by a
loud crashing, then silence.

“Hello?”

Beep
beep
beep
.

Enzo looked down at his cell and
saw the connection was lost.

Chapter Ten

Dultyn
wasn’t finished waking from his roost when he smelled her. She had been to see
him again. But as he opened his eyes, he was disappointed that she wasn’t still
there. Still, her scent was rubbed all over his body, and he could tell she had
placed herself in his arms as he had hoped. What did she think when she looked
up into his face that he hoped portrayed his love for her? He desperately
wished he could have seen it.

“Hey, ‘
grats
, man. She came
back. So you
gonna
mate her tonight?” Bogdan asked.

“Hope so. To tell you the truth, I was hoping she
would be here when I woke up. Something must have come up.” He pushed back his
feeling of disappointment and tried to think of a reason she wasn’t there.

“Huh, she left her stuff here, so maybe she was
planning on coming back,” Stelios said.

Looking to where he indicated, sure enough,
Dultyn
saw her new laptop and her drawing things. That
would have normally made him feel much better, but something felt off. He felt
anxious. “Let’s head in—”

“
Dultyn
?”

Dultyn
recognized
Rushod’s
voice coming from down below. The
creak in the boards indicated he was climbing the stairs. “You guys awake?”

“Yes.” The three headed to the stairs to meet their
packmate
.

“I’ve been waiting down below on guard. I was told to
tell you when you woke up that
there’s
been an
emergency. You need to report right away to Enzo. He’s in the house.”

Dultyn
moved swiftly down the stairs and out of the barn without asking for more
information or even to check to see if his buddies were following. They were
really
family
to him, so he knew them well enough to
know they were there.

Dultyn
thought it looked like the entire pack was congregated at the house. The yard
around the garage was crowded with cars. Inside was busy with people, and the
atmosphere brought back unpleasant memories of his days during the war.
Everyone gave him a wide berth as he charged past. He didn’t need to go far.
Enzo was in the living room shouting off orders to someone over the phone.
Seeing him enter, Enzo disconnected the call and faced him.

“
Dultyn
, we need you three
to help in a search and rescue. Prepare yourself for what I’m about to tell you
and wait until I’m done before saying anything.”
Dultyn
could feel the tension from the severity of whatever the situation was. He felt
the heat from his two brethren behind him as he listened. “Havana was abducted
today,
but
the shifters who took her
were killed by another group who then stole her from them.”

Enzo’s voice kept him focused. It was all
Dultyn
had to keep him from going crazy, and he knew
whatever the shifter had to say was important, and could possibly lead to the
safe return of his mate. He didn’t want to waste time on useless emotions like
panic.

Enzo continued. “They tried flying her out, but
Alphy
had
Bronya
fly them back
instead of driving. They came across the plane just as it was taking off and
followed it, forcing it down. Both planes crashed, but we don’t have any wings.
Everyone here is land bound. Fuck!” Enzo paused to take a breath. “There’s so
much territory to cover. All I can say is it was about a fifteen minute
flight,
give or take, and the starting point was the small
airstrip here in Bancroft. They started on a northern ascent but turned south
southwest. I need you three to fly over the area.”

Dultyn
guessed if
Bronya
was with
Alphy
,
then they must have gone to Toronto about the deal with a plane.

“
Dultyn
,” Enzo added. “Gale
was in the plane, too. Nix shifted and flew out, but we haven’t heard from him.
No doubt he won’t leave his mate if she’s hurt. We don’t know how many for sure
were in the other plane, but they filed four total. I want each of you to take
a cell. Ryker rigged them with tracking, so wherever you are when you find the
planes, just call Slate or Matteo and we can hone in on the location without
wasting any more time.”

Clipping the device to the belt of his loincloth,
Dultyn
turned and headed to the door. Before he exited the
house, something accrued to him.
Looking around and not
seeing what he wanted,
Dultyn
turned and darted up
the stairs and made his way into Havana’s room.
Opening the door, he
paused and looked at the picture hanging on her wall.
She took the time to hang it
.

The warmth in his chest turned to a grieving ache.
Grabbing the blanket off the top of the bed,
Dultyn
quickly headed back down the stairs and outside, spreading his wings and taking
flight without stopping. Hearing the alert on the cell he received, he looked
at the message. They were the directions to the airstrip. Clipping back onto
his waist, he angled his wings and beat them through the air at his fastest
speed.

Dultyn
and his brethren couldn’t fly much in the city when they lived with the
vampires, but since they moved here, they flew every night on patrol. His wings
easily carried him to where the small airstrip was located. The other two had
waited for him before taking flight, so they reached the location together, but
once there, they split up, heading in three different directions.

Avoiding homes wasn’t too much of a problem, but as
much as he wanted to find his mate as quickly as possible, he needed to slow
enough to avoid being spotted. If he was discovered, it could directly affect
Havana, too. Nothing was more important to him than she was.

Clouds were gathered heavily and began to lightly
rain. The water collected and rushed off his wings as they moved him through
the weather. He held the blanket closer to the underside of his body, keeping
it as dry as he possibly could. Her scent wafted around him, soothing him in
the search that threatened to ground him sick with fear and grief.
Or worse.
He was barely holding on to his control over his
rage at her abductors.

Dultyn’s
eyes were designed to see in the dark, even in dark heavy weather. He didn’t
struggle to see many details as he flew over the trees, lakes, rivers, and
swamps. Suddenly
Dultyns
stomach lurched with the
thought that maybe they landed in the water.

No!

He wouldn’t think like that. Still,
Dultyn
flew closer over the water and breathed in the air.
He couldn’t scent anything unusual, and he didn’t see any kind of wreckage, so
on he flew.

Dultyn’s
wings remained strong as he flew. He stopped with every movement, to identify
the cause. Every one of them was one animal or another, but none them were bear
or falcon.

After forty-five minutes,
Dultyn
spotted the tips of trees broken off. His heart leaped into his throat in hope.
Giving his wings another heavy beat to speed his momentum he didn’t take long
before coming across a plane. The wings were torn apart, and the propellers on
the nose of the craft were gnarled and bent.

Dultyn
drew his wings and angled his body, diving down to the scene. Ten feet from the
ground,
Dultyn
flicked out his wings and flapped them
hard, coming to a controlled landing eight feet from the plane in the rut in
the earth the plane’s fixed wheels created. Sniffing the air, he cautioned his
steps as he approached. The scent of his mate was here, but wasn’t lingering,
like she had been here but wasn’t now.

Dultyn
could hear a heartbeat and see a shape slumped against the door. Growling low,
he stepped forward and peered through broken glass, to see inside the plane.
Aside from the one male unconscious in the front, the rest of the plane was
empty.

Unclipping the cell, he called Matteo. “I found the
plane Havana was in, but she’s gone. There’s one human unconscious in the
front, but the rest of the plane is empty.”

“It’s a huge start. Ryker is pulling up the location.
Got it.
I got a team just minutes from you. We were close.
I’m having Bogdan and Stelios contacted. Can you scent which direction Havana
and the others went?”

Dultyn
made his way around the craft to the other side. His species was best for their
strength, toughness, and sight in darkness, so though his scent was far better
than a human’s, it wasn’t enough to follow the scent trail too well.
At least not in the pouring rain.
“I’m not sure.” He hated
having to admit that. He hated anything that was a weakness keeping him from
helping his mate.

“It’s all right, we’ll find them. Hold tight, I don’t
want you to let that human have a chance to get away.”

Dultyn
growled his irritation. He knew Matteo’s logic was sound, but without knowing
where his mate was, he had no patience. His adrenaline pumped heavily in his
system.

“Easy,
Dultyn
, we’re going
as fast as we can. We’re trying to beat the humans. They started searching for
them about the time you left. We’ve managed to find a way to slow them down,
but it won’t last long.”

The sound of wings flapping caught his attention. He turned
to see Nix land several feet from him and begin his shift. The cold heavy rain
wash down his dark skin as Nix stood before him.
Dultyn
reported. “
Enzo,
Nix is here.”
Dultyn
wordlessly handed him the phone, which Nix quickly took.

“Enzo, this is Nix. The girls are hurt but they should
be all right, but
Alphy
shielded them during the
crash and is hurt pretty bad.”

Dultyn’s
heart hurt for his friends as he continued to listen. He could still hear the
beta on the other side of the line.

“Fuck! All right, how far away are they from
Dultyn’s
position?”

“Maybe a quarter mile south southwest.”

“All right, keep the phone with you, and we’ll track
it to your position. We’re sending instructions to the other two gargoyles.
Help is on the way, so head back and guard over them. The enemy is still out
there, and they still have Havana.”

“Understood.”
After Nix shifted back into his avian form,
Dultyn
held the cell for him to clasp in his talons, then
leaned away as Nix took flight.

Waiting was nerve-racking. Time felt like it was going
too slow as he waited for help. Every minute he waited, was that much longer
his mate was being taken away from him. Finally, soggy clops of hooves
clattered towards him just as the flapping of wet wings sprayed their wetness
on the plane as Bogdan landed.

Behind Bogdan, he spotted two elks bounding towards
him. One had a waterproof pack strapped on his back. The other elk shifted when
he was close enough. He recognized Henry, Katie’s dad.

“Good work,
Dultyn
.” Henry
grabbed some rope from the pack and tied the human’s hands. He also put a neck
brace on him and ordered the other shifter to guard him until others arrive.
Then he started sniffing for the scent trail.

Grabbing a phone from the pack, Henry called Enzo.
“Ok, the scent trail is heading southeast. I have the human tied up and in a
neck brace, as per Seamus’s orders, and Gus is watching him until
reinforcements arrive. What are your orders?”

“Go after them. Get Havana back at any cost.”

After hanging up, Henry put the cell in Gus’s pack
then turned to the two gargoyles. “Stelios is with Nix, helping with the alpha
and the girls. We’ll use Bogdan’s cell. I’ll shift and follow the trail, and
you two fly and follow me. Keep an eye out for dangers.”

Henry’s shift didn’t take long, and soon
Dultyn
and Bogdan were flying above the forest, looking
down into the dark surroundings, watching the graceful elk bound through the brush.
Every now and then he would stop and sniff around before bounding on again.

Dultyn
flew ahead slightly, scanning around for any signs of anyone. After fifteen
long agonizing minutes, he spotted movements. Signaling the others, he flew
closer to investigate. Two humans were hiking through the brush, and one of
them had someone slung over his shoulder. With his enhanced vision,
Dultyn
easily recognized Havana’s form. He growled and
narrowed his eyes. He could see her dark hair pouring down towards the ground,
drenched from the cold rain. Her soaked, limp form jostled as the male
manhandled her. Growling,
Dultyn
was unable to wait
any longer. He dove into the trees, landing with a heavy thunder that vibrated
through the ground.

Both men jumped in surprise.
Dultyn
could see the fear on their faces. Taking a deep breath in, drawing in the
smell of his mate, he roared out and lashed with his claws, slicing through the
hand of one of the abductors who tried pointing a gun at him. The man’s cry of
pain wasn’t heard over the roar in
Dultyn’s
ears.