Inevitably Yours

MICHAEL

Could it be Hunter and the packs we cut off after the Haven incident? A relative of Wilkes? Another pack making a move on Stary? Wesley?

“They wouldn’t dare,” Eros flamed. “We will burn their packs to the ground.”

“Then where is she?” I asked in exasperation, the pedal of our car pressed to the floor.

“Wolves wouldn’t be this stupid….”

He was thinking the same thing I was. We’d had no further conflict from Hunter and his allies, and we had good relationships with the surrounding packs. Wesley was human and had no idea what we were. He was just an awful employee who over-extended us, promised things to clients that we couldn’t do, and got us dragged into lawsuits with s**t clients we didn’t want in the first place.

There was only one threat we hadn’t dealt with, and I kept running into dead ends trying to find out anything I could about it. That day we laid Michael Junior on the blessing altar started something we’d never finished, and no matter how careful I was with Quinn’s safety, it was always there in the back of my mind that the Fae would come back. The professor Marshall sent me to was a dead end. I’d been trying for years to talk to her. She wouldn’t speak to me outside of a lecture, and I’d tried everything I could think of beyond overtly telling her what Quinn was. I couldn’t get a reply from her at all. I’d thought of just ambushing her at one of her scheduled events, but Quinn asked me not to. If she didn’t want to talk to us, Quinn refused to force her.

Marshall offered to secretly research the subject through libraries worldwide as he traveled doing lectures of his own at Masonic lodges. He’d found bits and pieces but nothing substantial.

Quinn shouldn’t have left the pack without Andrea, and I was furious with both of them that she had. I loved Andrea as a part of my family, but if Quinn’s safety couldn’t be her primary concern, I would have to revisit who our Gamma was.

Quinn’s phone was going to voicemail immediately now without ringing, but it didn’t stop me from dialing the number over and over, hoping I would get a different result as I blazed down the highway toward the courthouse. If something was going on, I was sure I could find her. If I started where she was earlier, I was positive I could use scent and our bond to find her even if I couldn’t link her.

–

I was nearing the city, and once I got close enough to feel our bond, I was hit with a massive wave of exhaustion. I was relieved that I wasn’t feeling pain from her end, but no matter how much I tried to link Quinn, I couldn’t get her to answer me. I couldn’t feel our mental link in the way I normally could. It was clear something was going wrong.

I changed numbers and called Nic. She answered on the first ring.

“Did you find her?” I could hear the panic in her voice even though she was trying to mask it.

“No,” I answered, trying to keep calm myself. “I’m close enough to feel her, but I can’t link her. Something has happened, but I’m not sure what yet. Are the kids safe?”

With my worst fear being that this was the Fae making good on their promise to abduct Quinn, I was worried they might come after the children. We’d been keeping a secret from everyone except Nic, but I had a suspicion it wouldn’t be kept from them.

“I’m personally with all four, and I have multiple warriors here with blessed weapons,” Nic reassured me. “Even if they know, they’ll have to kill all of us to get to them. I won’t let that happen.”

“You know the fallback plan. You get them out of there. No dying. Do you understand me?” I almost pleaded. The three of us had a contingency; at least one of us would get all the kids out, no questions asked, and escape with new identities and all. Every person I cared about was in play to be hurt right now, and I was separated from all of them. I had to trust that I’d prepared Quinn, Nic, and our warriors to handle themselves.

“I won’t let you down,” she answered, her voice low. “Find Quinn; I have the kids. I love you both; get her back.”

“I will have our Luna back tonight,” I promised. I hung up and tried to keep my mind on Quinn instead of the tuft of blue hair we kept hidden on each of our pups.

QUINN

My head was pounding. I felt something sharp stab into my neck after I was grabbed from behind. I thought it would have knocked me out, but it made Sapphire lose it.

MICHAEL

Could it be Hunter and the packs we cut off after the Haven incident? A relative of Wilkes? Another pack making a move on Stary? Wesley?

“I feel… wrong,” she m****d.

The person behind me pulled me towards the window as I tried to catch my bearing. I saw the pane slide open to reveal a female wolf bigger than me on the other side. If they thought I was going through that window, they would need a new plan. As we got close enough, I brought my knees to my chest and kicked off the window sill. It sent us flying back into a stall, where I heard a hard crack and a grunt from behind me. My attacker’s grip loosened, and I ripped their hands apart, spinning around to face them and regaining my feet.

I found another wolf, a male, behind me. There was b***d all over the cracked tile wall from where he’d hit his head above the toilet, but he was quickly stirring and looked unphased as he started healing. For now, the girl was staying outside, but I knew she wouldn’t wait for long. I stepped back and kicked forward as hard as I could, a sickening crunch following as I felt my foot push into my assailant’s jaw. I heard a growl behind me and knew I only had a few seconds before we had company. I reached into my waistband and flipped open the knife I normally carried for work. The four-inch-fat blade Michael got me as a general-use knife worked just fine to cut his throat open, spraying the stall with b***d as he gasped through his broken mouth and tried to grasp his throat. Luckily, Michael blessed the knife just in case I needed it, so his throat wasn’t healing as fast as it usually would. Just to make sure he finished dying, I plunged the blade into one of his lungs. I left it in him as I felt his partner attack me from behind. I reached behind him, grabbed the ceramic slab on top of the back of the toilet, and turned around to bring it down on her head.

My weapon shattered over her head, and she dropped heavily to the ground, not getting back up again as b***d slowly leaked from a wound on the back of her head. I needed to get out; she wasn’t going to stay down long. I could see her scalp knitting itself back together as I watched. I quickly grabbed my knife from where I’d left it, wiping it on the now-dead wolf’s shirt, and lunged for my bag.

Peaking out the window carefully, it looked like the coast was clear. I was covered in b***d, and there was a dead body in the bathroom. I couldn’t leave the normal way.

“Saph, are you okay?” I asked, remembering my head splitting apart had some connection to her. I rubbed the place on my neck where he’d injected me; it was sore.

“No,” she said, her voice both quiet and almost distant. “I don’t know what they did, but I’m….” Her voice faded away, and although I could feel that she was still there, I couldn’t communicate with her.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket to try calling Michael, but it was shattered beyond repair. I was on my own.

Not having time to dwell on it, I stepped through the window onto a fire escape platform. As I emerged, someone poked their head into the alley. They looked at me with a surprised expression.

“She’s getting away!” he yelled, pointing and talking to someone out of view.

That meant going down was out, so I made my way up. As my head crested the roof’s ledge, I realized both directions were a bust. Four wolves were on the top waiting, and I could hear more coming up the fire escape.

“You’re not going anywhere,” one of them said, stepping forward of the others as he laughed and cracked his knuckles.

I was done. All I wanted to do was go to the bathroom before the hearing, and now I had a small pack trying to abduct me. I still didn’t even know why. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, reaching into my bag as I talked.

“We were paid to bring you back,” another one replied.

“By who?” I needed information, and luckily, they thought I was harmless enough to tell me.

“The f*****g fairies,” the first one growled. He didn’t look very fond of his employer.

“You mean the Fae?” This was bad.

“Same s**t,” he spat. “Something about not wanting to touch a dirty hybrid with his pure hands or some bullshit? I don’t know; he just gave us a suitcase full of cash and said to get you.”

“Are you sure that money is worth what’s about to happen?” I asked as I gripped the handle of my sai in my bag. Like my knife, the blessed metal didn’t set off metal detectors, so I was able to bring them into the courthouse. A Velcro compartment kept them hidden in my bag even when searched.

“You mean you getting dragged out of here, even if it kills you? He wanted you alive, but I’m sure he’d be fine getting a body instead,” the first guy gloated. I needed to get out of this as quickly as possible and contact Michael. If they were coming for me, they might know about the kids. I dropped the bag and transferred my second sai to my other hand. I was starting to feel pretty stabby.

“Come find out,” I taunted him. I wanted them to come to me, and luckily for me, it worked.

–

Exhaustion. I could barely raise my arms anymore, but the roof was littered with the dead bodies of the Fae’s lackeys. B***d covered the ground, dripped from my blades, and it covered me as it soaked through my clothes. I’d never fought anyone in real life, and now I was thankful for everything M had put me through in training, even if I hated it at the time.

Michael, I needed to get to him. I needed to make sure my babies were okay. I’d been trying to keep it hidden, but when Belle started growing hair after almost two years of baldness, I panicked at the blue streak that formed. I kept her in hats and covered it with bows as much as possible. Then, I found it in Junior’s hair after years of not being there. It was immediate with Daniel and Rowan. They all carried my Fae b***d, and from what we knew, that’s never happened before. I’d done everything I could to keep the blue in their hair a secret, but now I was terrified there was a chance they’d try to take my pups along with me.

I needed to know they were safe. If I could get to our office, I could call M and tell him I was okay and check on the babies. The whole ordeal had taken so long; I couldn’t believe they hadn’t raised the alarm for the bodies downstairs yet. From the number of people filing out of the courthouse below, it looked like they were closing for the day. I looked around and realized the buildings were close enough to travel across the roofs for the foreseeable distance. I decided that was preferable to seeing if anyone was waiting for me at the street level, so I took off and jumped to the next roof. It was only a few miles to our office, and I hoped I would make it. I couldn’t shake the awful migraine, and I was so tired that it felt like I was walking through pudding. Nothing prepared me for the adrenaline dump or how much energy it would take to fight so many people. I hoped Sapphire would be back soon; I was getting more worried as time went by.

–

So many roofs passed by in my delirious stupor. All that kept me going was the thought of M and the kids. My eyes wanted to close so badly, and I felt like I’d lose consciousness at any moment. Then I saw our building’s sign calling to me from across the street.

I climbed down another fire escape and drug myself across the road. I was glad I still had my key card on me, and it was late enough that the lobby was closed unless you had access. So, no one was around to see me come into the building covered in drying b***d, carrying sai as I tracked red across the floor. The elevator dinged, and I leaned most of my weight against the back of it as I rode toward our floor. Looking at myself in the mirror, I was a mess.

As soon as the doors opened up, I could hear M’s voice. I was drawn toward it, and I felt Sapphire stirring in my head.

“Mate,” she called out.

I opened the office door to the astonished expression of our supervisors but most of all Michael. He crossed the room in the blink of an eye and caught me as I fell into his arms.

“Baby, what happened?” he pleaded, his eyes moving like he was trying to inspect every inch of me.

“Are the kids okay?” I countered. I needed to know.

“They’re safe,” he assured me, rubbing my face, despite how bloody I was.

“Thank Goddess,” I exhaled.

“Who did this to you?” he pressed.

“Fae,” I got out as my vision started darkening. “Sleep now; talk later.”

“Rest as long as you want,” I heard before I was gone into the black hole, sucking me down. “I’m coming home to stay. I won’t leave you again.”