The Chase

12 Luca

I awoke with a start. My heart racing, fear strongly scenting the air. All my own. Evie's scent stale around me. Evie wasn't in bed, the bed was cold where she should be sleeping. I sought our fresh bond, finding her quiet like she was asleep. I never woke up well, my brain flailing to piece together what had woken me up, while trying to figure out where Evie could be. Why she felt so far away.

My stupor was interrupted as the phone in the hotel suite rang. I answered it, my voice sounding gruff from the sleep I was still trying to shake off. "Luca!? Thank fuck, please tell me Evie is with you?" it was one of the triplets, impossible for me to even guess which one by just her voice.

"I just woke up, she isn't here." The fear I had woken up with returning. My wolf on edge, telling me something felt wrong through the bond.

I heard the triplet swear, loudly, with wildly creative flare before the voice returned. "Sara came back to our bar, drunk, high and reeking of so many people I can't even count. Fuck, Luca did you mark Evie? Can you find her?" I could hear the fear in her voice. Only setting my wolf even more on edge.

"I did, it feels like she is far away and asleep..." I was cut off as I heard the triplet yell fuck one more time.

"Sara you stupid fucking spoiled whore wake the fuck up and tell me you didn't actually tell Rocket where Evie is?" The phone on their end was far away from the voice, a different, much more angry triplet yelling at Sara who slurred something incoherent to my ears over the line.

I heard the sound of people shifting and moving around, another slightly different voice on the line. "Luca, it's Alicia now, I need to tell you about Evie's past and then you need to find her as fast as you fucking can." Her voice desperate and rushed.

I held the cordless phone against my ear with my shoulder, trying to get dressed as quickly as possible while Alicia told me all they knew about Evie's past. All the while I could hear the other two sisters beating the shit out of a still slurring Sara.

The last thing I heard before I was about to hang up was Sara, laughing like a maniac, "I just put the whore back where she belongs." Before more unhinged laughing.

"I invoke the Treaty!" I roared into the phone. Loud enough that the windows in the room shook. "Put her in a Goddess damn cell until Alpha Elijah comes to collect her for interfering with a fated mate." slamming the phone down. If Sara vanished trying to escape justice it would be an act of war, her whole family would be put at risk. I had to hope the threat was enough for no one to try anything else. I had a pretty good idea this apple hadn't fallen far from the tree. Elijah was going to kill me for invoking on my own.

I was just walking out into the night when a bike pulled up in front of the hotel's main entrance. A tall lithe cat shifter got off the bike, leaving it running as he tossed a spare helmet towards me. "Michi sent me with the bike, I won't let Sara escape punishment this time." A look in his eyes was a fire I recognised. Sara had done something to him or his, and he was going to make sure justice stuck this time.

I muttered a thanks, pulling the helmet on. Trying to actually trust that she wouldn't get some help from that prick daddy of hers. Trying to will all my strength into mind linking with Elijah so I could drive and fill him in at the same time. Roaring the bike too fast down city streets, trusting in my bond to lead me to Evie along the fastest route possible.

I wasn't able to make contact with Elijah until I was nearly to the border. Rushing everything out, that I had found her, claimed her and lost her again because the cat shifter sold her out to a biker gang. All I had was some road names from the shifters. "Elijah, I had to invoke the Treaty." I admitted. Bracing for his reaction.

I almost lost control of the bike as his reaction hit me. "Fuck off with that and listen to me, Evie has noone but that cunt pussy cat. No one, Sara found Evie starving and abused in a biker bar, married to the club president who is at least thirty years older than her, maybe more." Rage filling me as I tried to remember everything Alicia had told me. " Evie or Evangalina aren't even her real name. Elijah, shes never felt safe and I fucked everything up. I should have just told her she was my soul mate the moment I saw her. Make her believe it." Sara pulled the trigger, but I loaded this gun. Evie felt like she had to go and make things right with her friend, because Sara was it for Evie, there had never been anyone else.

I could almost see the stressed exasperated face Elijah was making. I knew that look well. We rarely saw things the same way, we worked well together, it had been good for the pack. I felt him try and figure out how to respond to the mess I was dropping in his lap in the middle of the night. "This isn't your fault. You've known Evie existed for less than forty eight hours. You claimed her, you were going to tell her?" He asked. Making me ashamed that he felt he had to.

"My wolf took control. I didn't want to mark her until after I had told her." Silently immensely grateful. Even when all I could feel was that she was in physical pain, it was so reassuring to know she was alive.

"She doesn't know? You bit her and let her walk out without knowing anything?" Exasperated. Always assuming I didn't think. That I didn't make the best choice. That he could have done better in my place.

"Wolf took over control. He bit her, she passed out. I cleaned her up, got her everything she would need, ready to tell her everything while making her eat a real breakfast with me in bed." I paused the mindlink. He hadn't met her, hadn't seen her. She must have been training with Sara the entire time they had lived together. To be as fit as she was. Everything she had lived through making her great at escapes, at trying to keep herself safe. "You'll understand when you meet her, I think she could slip away from our best trackers, especially if she knew she was being followed." The way Evie moved was like water, she flowed where she needed to. "She was in fucking bed with me and my wolf didn't notice her leaving." Smiling inside the helmet to myself. Proud of my mate. She was wiley.

"I'll get going to Vancouver to get our prisoner then, and ask Lark to call her family, they have a cyber team that has handled a few mate kidnappings already with her sister in law." Lark's family was well connected in Seattle, everyone knew they had a lock on control for a wide area. Getting their help would be amazing. Anything to get to Evie before anything else happened.

"Thank you Elijah." Sincerely grateful

"Don't thank me, I've already sent the Rovers in your direction. Say hi to Ike for me." Then I felt him go dark to me as he needed to focus his energy more broadly to coordinate everything that had been set in motion. I was making up ground. My dangerous pace was slowly overtaking the distance between us.

The miles burned away under the tires of my borrowed bike. Every second brings me closer to her. Evie was finally starting to feel more awake. My wolf whimpered. It felt like she had a concussion. Someone had struck her and I would tear the arms off of whoever it was. Last I felt her fear and utter confusion as she touched my mark on her throat.