Chapter Six
Torren, his Beta Baxter, the pack Enforcer Luke, and three other male wolves scoured the woods for any scent that might lead him to the wolf who attacked Olivia. He’d reached out to Gwen’s father, requesting information on the wolf she’d wanted, but the man had been tight-lipped and claimed he didn’t know of anyone Gwen had been with prior to her mating with Torren. Torren thought that was bullshit, but he kept his mouth shut.For now.
There were smells that didn’t belong in the woods near his home, but nothing that jumped out as something he needed to explore further. A sickly sweet smell confused his nose in certain areas, but it wasn’t something he could place. It was familiar and yet different from the cloying scent that often clung to Gwen. Not like perfume or room spray, just off-putting to a wolf. They’d been searching for three days, while Jaxon and three others took turns sitting with Olivia. He was beginning to worry that they would never locate the male who tried to kill his mate, and he had no doubt it was only a matter of time before the male struck again.
Suddenly, an acrid scent reached his nose and Torren looked at the horizon. Smoke rose above the trees and his heart sped up when he realized it was coming from their village. Torren shifted and took off, with the others following, not caring if their clothes were shredded and left behind. They broke into the clearing and saw the lodge burning. It looked like the entire pack was there, putting out the flames. Torren skidded to a halt, and as he scanned the crowd, he knew that the fire had been a diversion. Not quite the entire pack was present. Olivia wasn’t there, and neither was Rafe, one of the wolves he’d entrusted with his mate’s safety. He tore through the village toward his cabin, hoping Olivia was safe and Rafe had stayed with her.
His cabin was eerily silent as he approached. He shifted when he reached the porch and went inside. “Olivia!”
There wasn’t so much as a whisper or rustle anywhere inside. He went room by room, hoping she was hiding. But as he checked every square inch of their home, he knew that his gut was right. Olivia was missing. Again. And this time Rafe was gone too. Torren hoped that Rafe had seen the smoke and taken Olivia somewhere he’d thought would be safer, but Torren didn’t like his chances.
The hair on his nape lifted and Torren spun, fangs bared, only to draw up short when he saw a pack member hovering just inside the door. Kaito was young, not much older than Jaxon or Olivia, but the wolf never missed any details. The young shifter approached, baring his throat in submission.
“Alpha, you need to hurry if you want to save your mate and Rafe.”
“The person who took Olivia managed to take them both?” Torren asked. Rafe wasn’t an easy wolf to take down, in human or beast form. He couldn’t imagine someone taking off with both his mate and Rafe without losing some limbs.
Kaito hesitated. “Not exactly. The wolf who took Olivia knocked out Rafe with a tranq dart. Then another male approached as the other one left, and he dragged Rafe off into the woods. He hid Rafe’s body in a mound of fallen leaves, and I followed that wolf a little way to try and figure out who he was, but he seemed to be heading into another pack’s territory. I’m strong, but not strong enough to take on a pack. I was going to alert the others, but your mate needs us more. I figured Rafe would wake and take care of himself, but your mate is helpless. She can’t fight off a wolf shifter.”
What the fuck was going on? He’d thought he was dealing with one enemy, but now there were two? And it didn’t even sound like they were working together, or they would have attacked as a pair.
“Show me,” Torren demanded.
Kaito shifted into his gray wolf as Torren leaped off the porch, shifting mid-air, and racing after the younger shifter. When they reached the spot where Olivia had nearly died before, Kaito stopped and looked off in two different directions.
They took different paths?he asked the younger wolf.
Kaito nodded.
Go after Rafe. Make sure he’s safe and the other wolf didn’t come back for him,Torren said to Kaito.I’ll find Olivia and bring her home.
Kaito took off toward the right, and Torren split to the left. That weird, sickly sweet smell filled his nose again, and this time he decided to follow it. Before, he’d thought it an oddity, but he’d been hunting for a shifter smell and had ignored it. Now he realized that had probably been a mistake, and likely the male who had taken Olivia was using it to mask his smell. At the time, he’d been so frantic about his mate, he hadn’t been thinking clearly.
The leaves crunched under his paws as he bounded in the direction the other male had taken Olivia. He could hear water in the distance and the scent was leading him there. Torren hoped like hell he reached his mate in time. He didn’t know why the wolf was going northeast, since nothing lay that way except more woods. Had Gwen’s lover gone rogue and was now living alone in the woods? Torren’s heart raced at the thought, knowing a rogue wolf was too unstable to make any guarantees about Olivia’s life.
As he broke through the trees and the rushing water of the river came into view, he slid to a stop. The male was naked, his claw-tipped fingers pressed to Olivia’s throat. There was a wild look in his eyes, and Torren worried that if the wolf didn’t rip out her throat, he’d toss her into the water. He had no idea if his mate could swim, and even if she could, the currents looked strong. Possibly too strong for a human female.
“Let her go. Olivia didn’t do anything, she has nothing to do with this,” Torren said. “You don’t want to hurt an innocent, pregnant woman.”
“Don’t I?” the wolf asked. “You took Gwen from me. I don’t know how you found out about us, but you could have set her free instead of killing her.”
“I didn’t kill Gwen,” Torren said. “I didn’t even know she was seeing someone else, or pregnant for that matter, until after I found her mangled body. Someone else killed her.”
“Why would anyone else want to hurt my Gwen?” the wolf asked. “She was sweet, kind. I’ve never heard her utter a harsh word to anyone. She couldn’t even tell her father no when the Alpha demanded that she mate with you.”
“I didn’t know that Gwen didn’t want to be with me. When I accepted the mating, I assumed she was willing. It wasn’t until we had intimacy issues that I realized she’d never wanted me. She confessed that she’d loved someone else. It was you she wanted, and she only accepted me when she went into heat and couldn’t handle it on her own.”
The anguish in the other wolf’s eyes made Torren almost sympathetic to him. Almost. There was the small matter of the wolf threatening his mate though, and Torren wasn’t going to tolerate that. Grieving or not, there was no excuse for trying to kill an innocent woman and child.
“If you promise to leave my pack lands and never return, I’ll let you go,” Torren said. “Just release Olivia and we’ll head back home, and you can find a new area.”
“Why should you get to keep your mate when mine is gone? She was taken from me before I could mark her. How is that fair?” the wolf asked. “If she hadn’t been afraid of her father, I’d have marked her our first time together. She’d asked me to wait, and look what happened.”
“It’s not,” Torren said. “But my Olivia would never hurt anyone, especially not someone hurting from a lost love. She’s kindhearted, and she’s been hurt a lot in her short lifetime. Doesn’t she deserve a chance to live and find happiness? Do you think Gwen would want you to kill her?”
The wolf hesitated.
“I’m sorry you lost your mate,” Olivia said. “Torren has never said anything bad about Gwen, and I know that if he could change things, he never would have accepted her. He’d thought he was doing the right thing. You have to believe that he’s an honorable man. The other Alpha never told him Gwen wasn’t willing.”
