Van, Becca - Mate for Three [Pack Law 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Talia was pulling weeds from the vegetable garden when she saw a shadow looming over her. She turned her head and rolled her eyes mentally when she saw James standing nearby.

Talia had been living with her mates for a few weeks now, and no one else had attempted to hurt her or get to her. Not that they’d had much of a chance. At least one of her mates was with her nearly all the time, and even though she appreciated their vigilance, she was becoming sick and tired of not being able to make a cup of coffee without getting the third degree. Michelle and Keira were just as annoyed as she was. Talia had become bored, and she had started working in the garden every day. She knew it wasn’t necessary, but she needed to do something from keeping herself from going stir-crazy.

“You do know you don’t have to do that, don’t ya, sugar? Jonah employs someone to come and take care of the gardens,” James stated.

“I know, but I’ve never been one to sit around on my ass doing nothing. At least I’m keeping myself occupied,” Talia replied.

“What do you want to do with your time, sugar? We want you to be happy,” James said.

“Well, actually, I’m enjoying what I’m doing now. Jonah doesn’t need to hire someone to look after the gardens. I like gardening,” Talia stated.

“You can’t do all of it by yourself, Talia. The gardens are too much for one person.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Why don’t you give me a hand?” she suggested.

“Um, gardening is not really my thing, sugar,” James replied. Talia had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at the pained look on James’s face.

“Gee, really? I would never have guessed,” she replied facetiously and burst out laughing.

“You’re such a smart-ass. I love it when you’re sassy,” James said and gave her a heated look.

“Don’t even think about it, buster. I have too much I want to get done here. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yeah, always. I just wanted to check on you.”

“You don’t need to, you know. I’m perfectly safe. No one can get in without anybody knowing, so you don’t have to keep checking on me.”

“I know, but we like to make sure you’re all right.”

“You guys are so sweet to be concerned for me. I never had that before.”

“That’s ’cos you weren’t mated before,” James replied and he walked toward her. He leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips and straightened again. He gave her a wink and tapped her on the ass and walked back toward the house.

Talia sighed as she watched James disappear inside. She felt so loved and cherished by Chris, Blayk, and James. She’d never known that sort of respect before. She was already half in love with them. They had crept in beneath her skin and into her heart when she hadn’t been looking. She didn’t know what to make of all the mated men in the pack. They were all so courteous and solicitous to their women.

When she had lived with the Rogan Pack, all the males had treated the women like dirt. They were told what to do all they time and had no say in what went on in the pack. She’d often wondered why the females had put up with that. But she knew they had been too scared to make a stand or to leave. The men of Rogan Pack were such assholes. She shivered and hoped she never had to deal with any of them again.

Talia pushed her thoughts aside and got back to work. Once she’d finished weeding the vegetable garden, she was going to work on the flower beds, and they were vast. The garden surrounded the whole house and the grounds. She was so intent on what she was doing that the sound of footsteps behind her didn’t register. She was kneeling on the grass beside a flower bed when she noticed a shadow over her. She half turned, but she wasn’t quick enough. She felt a prick in the side of her neck, and then her world began to get blurry. She tried to call out, but a large hand clamped down over her mouth, muffling the sound. She tried to hold on to consciousness, but she knew she had been drugged and couldn’t fight off the effect on her system. Her eyelids slid closed as she felt herself being lifted from the ground, and then she knew no more.

* * * *

Blayk couldn’t find Talia anywhere. He had been searching for ten minutes, and there was no sign of her in the gardens. He sniffed where her scent was the most prominent near one of the flower gardens, fifty yards from the house, and he caught the scent of a human male.

“Talia’s not out here. She’s missing. Check the house. I’m going to change forms and see if I can find her,”
Blayk explained to his brothers mentally. He removed his clothes and called on his wolf, and felt his human pull back. He landed on his hands and knees as his muscles and bones began to reshape and contort. The familiar sound of his bones cracking and his joints popping as his wolf formed comforted him. He bent his head to the ground and sniffed as his wolf took over and followed his mate’s scent.

“I only checked on her a little while ago. Where the hell could she be?”
James asked.

“I don’t know, bro. But I don’t like this. I have a bad feeling,”
Blayk replied.

“She’s not in the house. Have you found her trail?”
Chris asked.

“Fuck. The back perimeter has been breached. It looks like someone has tampered with the camera and we’re getting a continuous loop feed. Shit. Get the others to make sure their mates are safe. The lock on the far gate has been cut and the alarm has been disabled. Whoever it is knows what they were doing,”
Blayk said. He could smell the scent of another werewolf on the ground near the camera. The wires to the camera had been cut and were being fed by another close to the ground.

“We’ll be there in a minute. All the other females are safe. Can you pick up on who it was that took her?”
Chris asked.

“Only that it was a werewolf male in human form. Whoever it was had a large car or truck waiting for them. This was planned. How the hell, are we supposed to find her if we don’t know who we’re looking for?”
Blayk snarled his question.

“We’re going to need help on this. James, get Greg, Jake, and Devon to see what they can find. We need to search through Talia’s things and see if we can find out anything about that Rogan Pack. It has to be them. Every other wolf within a hundred-mile radius has better sense than to trespass here. Blayk, get your ass back to the house. I’m going to need your help going through her stuff,”
Chris commanded.

Blayk was back at the house five minutes later. He stopped to pull his clothes back on, and then he bounded up the stairs. He found Chris in the spare bedroom going through Talia’s things thoroughly. He walked over to the chest of drawers and began to pull her things out.

“Don’t bother with the new stuff, but look over everything she brought with her. I have a gut feeling we will find what we’re looking for in her things. Make sure you examine all her clothes as well as any makeup containers,” Chris explained.

“What do you think we’re looking for?” Blayk asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just a hunch I’m going on, but wolves like Talia’s ex like to mark their women. They’re no better than property to those men. But we may not find anything,” Chris replied.

Blayk got to work. He pushed aside Talia’s new things and concentrated on what she had brought with her. He looked in books and book covers. He pulled makeup compacts and eye-shadow containers apart. He ran his finger over the seams of her clothes and dug into pockets. He found nothing. He picked her purse up from the top of the dresser and tipped out the contents. He pulled her lipstick apart, and emptied her wallet and ran his fingers over the material. He picked up her license, and his finger caught on a small bulge. He turned it over and saw where it had been cut. Something had been inserted into the plastic.

“I think I just found your hunch,” Blayk told Chris. “Her license has been tampered with.”

“Bring it down to the office and let’s see what we’ve got,” Chris said.

Blayk led the way down the stairs and into the back room he and his brothers used as an office. He sat down at his desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out a small penknife. He carefully cut around the bulge beneath the plastic of Talia’s license and peeled the plastic away. There was a small circuit sitting on the lower sheet of plastic. He recognized what it was and retrieved a card from the desk drawer. The card slotted into the smart card reader on his laptop.

He opened the file, and what he found on the screen in front of him blew his mind. If anyone ever got ahold of the information he had, the lives of werewolves as they knew them would be changed forever.

“Holy shit. Jonah,” Blayk called out, knowing his Alpha would hear him due to the wolves’ enhanced hearing abilities. “You’d better get in here and see this.”

“What have you got?” Jonah asked when he entered the room.

Blayk was glad to see Jonah’s brothers, Mikhail and Brock, as well as their cousins Greg, Jake, and Devon following Jonah.

“I found a circuit between two layers of plastic on Talia’s license. What we have here is a formula on how to create the DNA strand of a werewolf. I’ll bet whoever created this,” Blayk said, indicating the computer monitor, “has our mate.”

“Fuck. This could be disastrous if it got out. We could have werewolves running around creating havoc everywhere,” Jonah growled out.

“Or even worse, I can just see it now. We’d have humans trying to kill all of our kind and scientists wanting to dissect us, in the name of science of course,” Blayk said with a sigh of frustration.

“Do you think you can find out where this came from?” Jonah asked him.

“Well, I’m definitely going to try. Our mate’s life depends on it,” Blayk said with steely determination. He was going to find the bastard who had taken their mate if it was the last thing he did.

“Let me know when you find something,” Jonah stated. “No one is to enter or leave the grounds. As of now we are in lockdown.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Blayk replied at the same time his brothers did. He planned to work all through the night with his brothers’ help. There had to be something on this chip to indicate who had put the data here, and Blayk had every reason to think that person was Talia’s ex. Finding more about the chip’s maker would help them find her.

Blayk was thankful for the pot of coffee and the fact he was a werewolf with enhanced strength and stamina, as he and his brothers worked well into the early hours of the morning. He knew they were close to finding out who had made the werewolf DNA program and was eager to find the source. He had another of his security programs searching for any information he could find. He had used two others before and hadn’t found anything. He was tired, frustrated, and worried about Talia. He wanted to change into his beast form and kill the bastard who had taken her, but he knew he had to be patient. Besides, he had no idea where to start looking just yet.

He walked out of the office intending to brew another pot of coffee, but the sound of his brother’s voice called him back.

“We’ve got him, Blayk,” Chris called. “It’s that bastard ex of hers, all right. Check out the screen.”

Blayk hurried over to the desk and looked. It seemed Paul Rogan was in deep with the mob. The screen showed information from his Swiss bank account indicating he had been taking payment from the leader of one of the largest drug cartels in the country, Tony Picotti.

The American Media had been rife with reports of Picotti’s involvement in murder, kidnapping, rape, and countless other horrific offenses, but law enforcement hadn’t been able to pin any proof on the evil bastard. If he got hold of the formula for werewolf DNA, then their kind could end up in deep shit.. Blayk felt chilled to the bone as he read the screen. Paul must have decided to do a little investigating himself, because there was a detailed itinerary of drug shipments as well as names and address of those involved in the drug trade.