The Alpha’s Desire 5(31)

 

 

 

“Yes. I know the necklace. It belongs to my best friend Chloe,” I managed to answer back through my sobs, choking on my own tears, though my voice hissed with my rage. “What could they have done to her? What if they took her to that warehouse? What if they tied her up in magical chains and are cutting and torturing her as they did Lex? She’s not as strong as he is. She’s just a human, and she knows nothing about this world. She thinks werewolves and vampires are fiction, and she doesn’t even like them that much in books or in the movies. She only tolerates them for my sake. She can’t handle this, any of it. I can’t handle this. What if she’s already dead? It would be a blessing though…” I left off, the thought of Chloe being gone ending my psychotic rambling.

 

 

 

I couldn’t continue talking as my body tightened up to the point of pain and nausea. The wine I’d sipped and crackers that I’d nibbled on earlier threatened to rise up. Images of my friend, memories, mixed from my smiling face to the way I looked when I cried. Flashes of her body frail and injured were created by my tired imagination, which fused right into images of Daniel’s body with his neck broken as I had done to him tonight. It all went through my brain, becoming a surrealism painting of the worst of my past, the worst of the possibilities of my future, until my entire body quivered, trembled violently against Lex witnessing what my mind dished out. Violence had begotten violence, and I had no one to blame but myself. At least, at this moment, it was the only place my brain put the blame.

 

 

 

Nira had taken to rubbing her hands up and down my arms, now sitting behind me, trying to quiet me, trying to say soothing words that didn’t register, didn’t work, though I heard them. All I could think was that Chloe was in trouble, and that my friend was in trouble because of me. All I’d done these past seven months had been to abandon and then lie to Chloe. And this was what my friend got for being loyal and caring.

 

 

 

“We have to find her,” I pleaded to Lex, then turning to Nira. “We have to find her as soon as possible.”

 

 

 

“We will,” both Nira and Lex said at the same time, although the stereo of their two voices in my ears seem to buzz, make me dizzy.

 

 

 

I clutched at my stomach and curled into a fetal position just to hold it together.

 

 

 

“That means we have to find them,” I cried out. “We can’t just wait here to find out where their next attack is going to be this time. I can’t just sit here and wait to find out if they’ve killed her. I can’t let her be tortured another minute if that’s what is happening.”

 

 

 

“We won’t,” Nira said. “Just give me a minute to consider our options, to think about what we should do.” She turned to the room then, and continued in a harsh tone at a hurried pace, basically yelling the command, “If anyone has any ideas please say so now.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

 

 

Without a plan established, in minutes, the group headed back out to the SUVs. Josh and Nira took the lead vehicle putting Lex and I in with them. The best trackers of the vampires and werewolves had smelled the necklace, getting just enough of Chloe’s scent from the rope that the charm hung from to start looking around the city for her. They’d also picked up a scent of the true werewolves from the box, not that anyone there didn’t know that it had come from them. A few had gone on foot, a few vampires paired with the best of the Royal werewolf trackers. Each one had a phone to contact Nira.

 

 

 

It didn’t take long, thankfully, for her phone to ring as we were headed out of the city and back towards the cabins again. Nira had been taking the turns of the old backroads fast, forcing me to hold onto the seat in front of me not to be thrown on the floor, though I appreciated with all my heart my friend’s driving abilities and earnest efforts. Buildings and trees, other cars, they all blurred together into a nondescript background, like a green screen, for me to see images of Chloe on. Like my life flashing before my eyes, I witnessed our life together one memory at a time.

 

 

 

They didn’t come in any order. I watched us laughing in a dressing room as Chloe tried on dresses for prom, ones her mother would never let her wear out in public, would have died if she had even come out of a dressing room in one of them. Yet, she had the body for the low cut bodices and high cut slits. I had to look as if I were losing my mind as I smiled through my tears, then grimaced as another moment in time played out. This time Chloe had been my fierce protector, literally punching a bully in the mouth who had dared to mention my weight. I owed her. God, did I ever owe her.