Forever Taken

Chapter Five

                  

I awoke the next morning unsure of how I had even fallen asleep. A little moving around showed me that not only was I tucked into bed, but my shirt and shoes had been removed. I wasn't responsible for either.

Sitting upright, I saw Mirabelle's blonde hair peeking out of a blanket on the couch opposite the bed. She was wrapped up in the blanket completely, only her hair visible. A little thought of "how adorable" ran through my head before I could stop it. She must be the one that tucked me in and undressed me.

Thankful for my natural confidence, I started redressing myself. I wished I had clean clothes. And breakfast. And I wished I was at home with Ezra. I even wished I was sitting at the station, bored as ever.

Where was Ezra? And Chief Donovan? Why did it feel like no one was looking for me?

I wished I had a phone. Moving on instinct, I snuck to the door and listened to see if there were any guards. When everything was silent, I slowly opened the door and eased out into the hall.

Not sure of where to look, I went downstairs. There was an opening that I could see was a kitchen, then another opening across from it that looked like a den. There were quite a few doors, but only one of them pulled at my insides to open the door. Following my gut, I opened it and went inside.

It was obviously an office. Probably Mirabelle's by the resemblance of the office to her bedroom. I ran over to the desk, looking for a phone of any kind. She had to have one.

Yet there was no phone. There was a computer, however. I wiggled the mouse to light up the screen, sighing with relief that I didn't need a passcode. Wasting no time, I pulled up my email and sent an email to Ezra. I knew he always checked his email, so it was just as good as a phone call.

The email was brief thanks to my constant looking toward the door, expecting Mirabelle to catch me. I sent it, hoping they'd find me quickly.

Thinking over my thoughts last night, I decided to use the time I had with a computer to look up what a Luna was. I typed it into the search engine and read the first definition it pulled up. It was something about a moon goddess. I tried to phrase it in a different way, typing in, "what is a luna". Still, it only brought up stuff about a moon goddess.

What was I missing? I knew that I wasn't doing something right. I decided to look up what a luna was in a gang. I only typed in "what is a luna in a" and the search engine auto-filled "wolf pack" after it.

I pressed enter, and almost jumped out of the seat as the door flew open, revealing an angry Mirabelle.

"What are you doing in here?" Mirabelle almost yelled.

I closed the search engine before she could look, unfortunately without seeing what my search had pulled up.

"What are you hiding?" she whisper-yelled, grabbing my hand from the mouse. Tingles went up my arm but I shook them off, smirking.

She growled when she realized she was too late.

"Hi, Mirabelle," I grinned. "How are you this morning?"

"Don't be smart with me!"

"So you like 'em dumb?" I teased. I had got my email sent. I couldn't help but let a little ego shine through.

"What were you doing?" she steamed. "Sending for help?"

I just kept grinning at her, refusing to answer.

A cell phone appeared in her hand, and she was dialing, walking away from me.

"Donovan," she started, her tone stronger than I'd heard before. I felt my eyes get wide. She was talking to Chief! What was she doing?

"I took your messenger home with me," she continued. "He is staying here. I need you to cover for it."

She was silent while he spoke.

"It doesn't matter. He will be staying. If anyone tries to get to him, I will see it as a failure on your part."

Then she hung up and turned to smile at me. I was officially scared.

"What was that?" was all I could get out.

"That was me fixing whatever you just did."

I had to laugh at that. "You act like I'm the one in the wrong here."

"You are!" she combatted.

I just rolled my eyes and sat back down.

"How do you know Chief?" I wondered. Now was as good a time as any to get answers.

"Why should I answer your questions now?" She had me there.

"I don't know," I responded honestly. "If you want me to trust you, giving me answers would be a good place to start."

She thought about it, and walked over to lean against the desk, facing me.

"Your Chief works for me," she finally answered.

"Did he send me to you so that you could kidnap me?"

"No," she answered. I could tell she wasn't lying.

"Then why am I here?"

"Because..." she started, only to stop suddenly. "Ask your other questions first."

I sighed, remembering last night when she ran off to do something without answering me.

"Then promise me that you'll stay in here until I get all my answers," I bartered. "Promise that you're not gonna run off."

"I can't promise that. I don't know when others will need me."

It pissed me off. "So you find me important enough to kidnap me, but not important enough to answer my questions. That makes a lot of sense."

She considered what I said, frowning. Finally she nodded.

"Okay," she finally agreed.

"So," I hid a smile. "What is a Luna?"

"A Luna is the title given to a female Alpha."

So many more questions popped into my head.

"What's an Alpha?"

"The leader of the pack. The strongest in the pack."

"What's a pack?"

Before she could answer, the search engine popped back into my mind. Wolf pack....

"Wolves...?" What was I even thinking? That sounded ridiculous.

I looked at her, waiting for her to laugh at me, but she didn't. Feeling stupid, I moved on.

"You know, forget I said that. Is 'pack' code for 'gang'?"

"You had it right the first time," came the blunt response.

Before the words could settle in, she was in front of the door, as if scared I would run again.

"I know it sounds crazy," she started, and her words sunk in. "But it's true."

She was a wolf.... I was sure it meant that she could turn into one. But how was that real? As a detective, I'd heard about groups of people that believed that they could morph into animals. This sounded like a case of it. Poor girl was confused.

"Darlin'," I started, trying to sound as sweet as I could. "I have to tell you that you are confused. No one has the ability to turn into an animal. Whoever got you to believe this was lying to you. But it's okay. If you'll let me go, I'll get you some help, and everything will be fine."

She huffed and shook her head at me. The next thing I knew she was unzipping her pants and kicking off her shoes.

"Whoa!" I held up my hands, trying to stop her. "Stop that!"

She totally ignored me, taking off her shirt next. She was completely in her underwear. I immediately covered my eyes, knowing that since I really wanted to look, I really shouldn't let myself.

"I'll leave on my underwear if you'll watch me," she said, sounding less like a barter and more like an order.

I slowly uncovered my eyes, and watched as she morphedfrom a beautiful woman to a huge white wolf.