Blindsided: Book 2 of the Bound Trilogy

~Emily’s POV~

Everything was white.

A blanket of snow covered the ground and trees that surrounded me.

I was startled to realize that I was actually able to see the trees and winter shrubs before me. It was then I realized I was in wolf form. A sharp glimmer in the distance caught my eye, giving me reason to believe a river or lake was near by.

I might be able to catch a glimpse of myself and maybe recognize some of this dreamscape.

Ambling in the direction I had seen the flash of light, I kept my eyes and ears open for anything that could tell me why I am having this dream.

The closer I came to where I thought to flash of light came from the more I filled with anticipation to see what I looked like. I knew that I was a white wolf and that I would have marks across my eyes from my scars, but I wanted to see what I looked like for myself.

I hurried my steps in hopes of seeing my reflection sooner.

A twig snapping behind me stopped me in my tracks.

There were no sounds around me other than the deep pants coming from my snout.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I turned and was faced with...

Nothing.

I went to turn around when there was a whine from closer to the ground.

I looked down, and there was an adorable little white wolf cub with light brown patches on her ears and tail.

“Momma,” her soft happy voice whispered into my mind.

I slowly stepped towards this little bundle of fur and...

“Wake up...” a voice whispered in my ear.

I shivered as reality came crashing in around me.

I wasn’t able to see, I was captured by Goddess knows who, and I was still pregnant. I wanted to ignore the voice cajoling me awake and curl into a ball and burst into tears.

After having sat on the floor for, I don’t know how long, I finally got up and had made my way to the flat mattress these bastards called a bed. Being pregnant made falling asleep in a good bed uncomfortable as it was, but this thing was pure torture. After what seemed like hours, I finally had fallen asleep from exhaustion and now someone was waking me up from a dream where I didn’t want to wake.

In my dream, I was free. I could see. I was sure I was about to meet my daughter, and there was that small possibility of being with Jack again. Why couldn’t they just let me be?

Deciding to ignore the person next to me, I pulled the sorry excuse for a blanket around my shoulders and tried to go back to the snow covered forest. I wanted to see my daughter.

“Oh no you don’t. Please, you have to wake up!” the voice insisted. “If you don’t then they will come in here and do it themselves. Please Emily! I don’t want them to hurt you or your baby! Just wake up!”

At that I rolled towards the voice and asked, “Why?”

“Finally,” it said, “They are moving all of the patients in this facility. I need to help you get up and going. If I don’t help you, then you will have one of the guards in here and they are not as nice as me. So please, just let me help you.”

“Why should I trust you?” I asked as I rolled out of the bed and my bare feet hit the freezing concrete floor.

“Because I know what it is like to be pregnant by a were and I don’t want them to take your baby, anymore than I want them to take mine if they find out. So I am going to help you as much as I can. I will get in touch with my brother and see if there is some way he can help get you out of here. For now, we just need to do what they say and you will be fine.”

I paused in the act of walking to what I assume was the door. Was this girl for real? Was she really going to help me get out of this place? I hope I could trust her, but so far my trust in people has just about run out.

“You don’t have to trust me right now,” she said, practically reading my thoughts, “But I do want you to know that I am going to help you any way I can. Right now, I am going to help you by staying by your side during the transfer so none of the guards hurt you. They can get a little rough with some of the female patients.” She said the last part in an undertone I’m not sure I was supposed to hear.

“So what’s your name?” I finally asked her. It seemed silly that she was going to be by my side this whole time and I didn’t know who she was.

“Oh, how silly of me,” I felt her grab my right hand and shake it, “My name is Kayla, Kayla Bennett.”

“Nice to meet you Kaya.”

“Hey! No chit chat with the patients! We need to get them all loaded into the vans and moved out to the new location. Get moving! Now!” A loud male voice yelled from what seemed like right next to us.

Oh well, looks like female bonding will have to wait.

~Jack’s POV~

We were too late.

Leah’s idea to track Emily had worked to a point. We were able to track her to a warehouse five hours from the pack house, but the place was empty. There were traces of the people that had been there, but they were long gone.

I wanted to rip my hair out.

I wanted to tear the place apart, brick by brick.

I wanted to fall to my knees and cry.

I didn’t do any of those things. I just stood there, numb, unable to move, speak, I couldn’t even blink for fear I would miss something important.

I could smell my Em. She had been here, but it had been hours ago. We had missed them by mere hours. It was that realization that caused my knees to buckle and the ground to come rushing to meet me.

I didn’t care. Nothing mattered. I didn’t matter. She was gone.

Slim arms caught me before I could hit the ground and rocked me back and forth. It was then I noticed tears rolling down my face.

It didn’t matter that I looked like a pussy, even my wolf was whimpering in pain inside of me. We needed out mate to feel whole, to feel like a real wolf, a real man again. We just plain needed her.

‘It’s all right Jack, we’ll find her,’ Leah’s sweet voice floated to me. I knew she was trying to reassure me, but it was hard to listen when the evidence of Emily’s captivity was evident before me.

I could see where they had held her in a small room with barely enough space to walk. The bed looked hard and the blanket looked thin and dirty. The whole place was freezing and with Emily being pregnant and still human she had to be scared, cold, and tired. I didn’t want her to be that way. I wanted her to be happy, warm and full of life.

With that in mind I pulled myself together and tried to think like a cop. These people either had to know we were coming or this was part of their M.O. It couldn’t have been possible for them to know we were coming as it was only five of us that knew the plan, and not one of us would betray the other this way.

“Cameron!” I called out. He had been examining one of the other rooms looking for clues. He came running out with his gun ready, looking for where the danger was.

When he saw the coast was clear he came to me holstering his weapon, “What’s up Jack?”

“You told Devin that you’ve seen how these guys act before. Is it part of their M.O. to move locations once they get a new victim? Or do they usually stay for a while?”

Cameron scratched his head and looked around thinking his answer over. Eventually, he turned to look back at me, “This place looks like it’s been here for a while so I would say it was a spur of the moment thing. I would think they moved only because they took Emily from a pack house and not on her own like they normally would.”

I furrowed my brows, “What do you mean?”

He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Well, when I was part of the group as a spy, they would normally single out a were or human who was mated to a were. They would only pick them up when they were on their own. The trouble with that is once someone is mated they are usually with their mate. So there was a lot of killing the mate and taking the other, or capturing both.” He held his hands up before all of us as he could tell we were getting upset with what he was saying.

“I’m not saying that I did any of that, I stayed in the background and just reported to the Council. They knew everything that was going on. I couldn’t do anything to stop them, but I did try to help the ones I could. There were several I helped to set free. That was all I could do without getting caught and killed myself. I just wish there was more I could have done for the others.”

His eyes went dull with memories that were probably painful and best left buried.