Ava's Mate (11 page)

Sandra had left her phone on for them, so they could be tracked. That also meant they could hear almost everything that was going on with the women.

Logan held onto the side of the car as they heard Kirby yell, “Noooo. We can’t leave them.”

Faith screamed over the commotion. “We have to. Make them fly now. Now, Kirby.”

The screams and sirens kept going in the background. Rane growled and swerved to avoid a car. “Little red, who’d you leave?” he yelled into the phone. No one answered, and Rane smashed his hand against the dashboard. Logan watched as it cracked.

“Fuck! When we get closer to the destination on the phone you need to look out for them, and it will be something weird. I never know what to expect from your sister.”

They drove for a good twenty minutes, and the whole time all Logan could think about was Ava. Since she’d given him a chance he’d never been happier. Since they’d been together he’d stopped thinking of her as supernatural or a werewolf. It was only now as he worried about her that he thanked God she was a werewolf and stronger than humans. He didn’t want to live without her.

Since being with Ava he’d never been so relaxed and satisfied. She made sure he was looked after. He remembered back to the other day when she’d got her own little revenge on the guys who’d kicked him out of the barracks for being supernatural. She looked after the people she loved, and he knew she loved him just like he loved her.

He froze as he realized what he’d just thought. Why had it taken him so long to figure out that he loved Ava, and she was the only one for him? Logan couldn’t imagine his life without her. She was probably the only woman who would put up with him. She listened to him when he told her about work, and stuck up for him against anyone. He woke up every morning to her cuddling him, and then she would show him how much she loved him by making love, a big breakfast, or just kissing him good morning. He was the luckiest man in the world.

A gorgeous black wolf ran in front of them. Rane slammed on his brakes and the wolf jumped on the car, howling. Logan got out of the car before it had fully come to a stop, getting a bad feeling when he got closer to the wolf that looked so much like Ava but had green eyes and didn’t feel like her either.

Rane shot him a glace before turning back to the wolf yelling, “Change back now.”

As the magic swirled around the werewolf, he growled, “Where are they? Where’s my Ava?”

When the wolf finished shifting, Eve lay on the hood of the car. “They took them. They took her. I have to follow them. Tell everyone I have them, I have a scent to follow.” Tears slid down Eve’s face. “Kirby is…” She pointed up. “Look up.” Eve changed back to her wolf form.

Kane came over to them. He’d parked on the side of the road behind them. Kane passed a device to Rane, who leaned down and taped the device on Eve. “The tracking device is on so we can follow.”

The others joined them and Kane took over as Rane watched the skies. “Jamie’s going to stay here for the girls who hopefully are about to land. The rest of us are going to follow Eve. Don’t go inside, wait for all of us before you try and save the day.”

As Kane finished, Kirby and a couple of the girls flew in on minions. His sister looked worn out, her eyes were bloodshot, her skin white, and she could barely hold herself up as the minions dropped the girls on the ground, hovering just above them. The men killed the minions as Kirby collapsed to the ground.

Logan ran to his sister to help her, Stacy, Faith, and Sara. Duke looked around and roared, “Where’s Lexie?”

Hayden went white. “Where’s Sandra?”

The worst reaction of all was Arden. He pushed Logan out of the way and yelled at Kirby, “Where’s Remy? Why didn’t you help her?” Arden went to grab her, but Logan and Rane snatched him.

Rane snarled, “Keep it together, Arden. Touch my mate and I will kill you.”

Tears ran down Kirby’s face as she sobbed out, “I tried to get her, but there were too many. Two demons held her even though they were on fire, screaming in agony. We were overrun, and the humans kept shooting them, which only made them grow bigger and get faster.”

Kane moaned when Faith let out a scream and pushed at him. “We need to leave now. The demons are going to move them to a different location soon. They’re using portals. Quick, you guys need to go. We’ll wait with Jamie for the van. Whatever you do don’t let them open a portal.” Faith turned to Logan and his brother. “Logan, Hayden, you need to channel Lexie’s earth power. Move walls on them, to get to them. They’re in two rooms.”

Faith then walked over to Griffen and hugged him, and he barely caught what she said. “I hope fate doesn’t change something. I don’t think she can live through any more. Be patient with her. She’s sorry.”

Griffen’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment before he shook his head and ran back to the car.

Logan watched as Kane hugged the very pregnant Faith and froze.

“Fuck! Faith, how long have you been having these?”

She winced and her whole body vibrated. “Not long.”

Kane growled, “Jamie, you go with them. I have to stay with Faith and try and stop her contractions. It’s too early for the baby to come. Sara, get over here and breathe with her.”

Four of the six cars were already revving, just waiting for Rane to lead, who was looking longingly at Kirby. “I want to hold you so bad, little red. But if I do, I won’t let go. Stay safe, and stay with Kane.”

Kirby nodded. “Good luck, and I love you.” She shot a glance at Logan and whispered, “Be careful.”

They got back in the Ferrari and took off. Rane sped around corners and shot down a rocky road. The Ferrari struggled on the rough road. Finally Eve stopped, the flashed blip still in the one spot.

“How did she find them so easily? If she can find them why haven’t you found the other demon hideouts?”

Rane’s knuckles were white and he didn’t answer him at first, then he seemed to grit out between clenched teeth. “You know I didn’t want to leave Kirby, but my sister…your mate…” He let out a big breath. “Eve’s very good at what she does, she’s one of our best trackers. It helps that her and Ava are twins, they’ve always seemed to have a certain bond. They tend to know when the other was hurt, or sad. And demons leave a trail behind them—the sulphur smell. We’ve never really had to track them before, because we kill them all and none escape, but we can track them in our wolf form if the trail is fresh, like a couple of hours old.”

Logan nodded and tried to calm his racing heart. He prayed they got to the hideout in time. “We’re going to have to find Lexie first. I can’t hold other people’s powers for long without them being in arm’s reach, touching me or Hayden.”

Rane swerved and went down a long, winding track on the opposite side of the road. “Hold on, human. This is the quickest way.”

Logan gripped the seat and wished they could fly. “Why don’t you have a helicopter or some sort of plane? This is taking forever. Faith said we haven’t got long.”

Rane snarled at him, “They will be fine. They have to be fine. I’m driving as fast as I can. We don’t have an airplane because werewolves do not do good off the ground. Eve is the only werewolf I know who can stand it. When we have to fly, we take stuff to calm us and we usually hire our own private jet, but we very rarely travel. Water’s the same, although we can stand that better and like swimming but that’s more our human side.” Rane swerved around more cars and got back on the right side of the road for a moment, then turned down another gravel road. The blip on the tracking system was close now.

They arrived in a large field with a big barn on one side and an old rickety house close by. Eve sat in wolf mode, then changed to her werewolf form as they parked. He and Rane got out of the car and walked around the area, he pushed out his senses, searching for Lexie, and stilled when he felt several different elements. “Guys, there’s a lot of supernatural people down there. I can feel animal, water, air, there are two fire elements and two earth elements. Hayden, get over here, I’m going to channel both earth elements. I’m hoping the strongest will be Lexie as she already knows the feeling of my pull on her powers.” His brother touched his shoulder and he concentrated on only moving the earth in front of him.

The ground shook before him and opened up, screams got louder the bigger the hole got. Then they heard Lexie and Remy. Lexie grumbled, “Get them to shut up, Remy. It’s Logan, I know his pull.”

At the sound of Lexie’s voice, Duke jumped down the hole, Arden going after him.

They heard Remy say, “Oh for Christ’s sake, women, shut up. They’re the good guys, and if you keep your whining up I’m going to fucking knock you out.”

Logan stopped when the hole was big enough for two people to jump down comfortably. He looked down at the hole and back at Rane. “Hayden and I can’t make that drop without a rope.”

Rane grinned at him before he pushed him down, yelling, “Well, be happy you mated one of us because you can now.”

Logan landed with a jarring thud on the ground, Hayden landed next to him on a groan. He looked around to see a dirt room with a door on one side and women chained to the ground.

Arden held Remy who pushed at his chest. “Yeah, yeah, you missed me. Go get something to break the chains so we can get out of here.”

Logan watched as Arden tried unsuccessfully to break the chain. He saw Duke trying to do the same to no effect.

The women around them were sobbing and begging to be let go. Logan looked up and yelled to Rane. “We need something, the chains aren’t breaking.”

Griffen jumped down with bolt cutters and other tools.

Logan walked slowly over to help the girls with the chains not wanting to scare them further. Once the women were free he and Griffen started passing the women up to Rane, Tray, and Jamie. When all the girls were out of the room Griffen boosted him and Hayden back up.

Rane walked over to him. “As much as I want to kill all the demons I know are down there, I think we need to wait for back up. Even then I fear there won’t be enough of us. Right now we need to focus on finding everyone else, so we need you to use your senses, your supernatural power.”

Logan nodded. He wasn’t stupid, he knew they were outnumbered and needed to keep a low profile, and finding Ava was more important than killing demons. “Fine. But the problem with that is they are going to eventually know and feel the vibrations. We got lucky this time. I already feel drained from opening that hole only moving the earth around it.” He looked over at Eve who was back in wolf form. “You need to find my girl.”

She nodded and walked around with her nose to the ground and sat at the very end of the field. Logan prayed he could make it and that their luck held. He debated for a moment if he should use the two earth elements he’d just found, but he didn’t want to scare or exhaust them more, especially after what they’d gone through.

Slowly, he strolled over to her, pausing and looking at Hayden and Lexie, who was held in Duke’s arms. The three of them did four more holes, and rescued a good thirty more women and ten men. The hole before he reached where Eve sat broke his heart. He came upon a room full of fifteen grubby children of various ages, huddled together. They cried and were the hardest to keep quiet. Some of the rescued people ran to the children to claim them as their own. But there were many left that continued to cry. The children’s distress brought the attention of the demons.

Two demons came in the door as they lifted the last of the children out. Griffen and Jamie attacked them. A small demon around eight feet tall came running in and went straight for Hayden. Duke let go of Lexie and attacked the demon so he could move on to the last hole, the most important one. Logan needed to get Ava.

* * * *

“They’re here!”

Pet’s squeal of joy shocked Ava out of her dozing state, and she stood up, testing the chains again.

Pet skipped over to her. “Hold my chain and me, so you could break my neck.”

Ava looked at the crazy woman. “Ah no, I’m not going to hur—”

“I know that, but the demons don’t, and they will come in here and get me. The demons won’t have time to get me if they have to fight you. The demons are running scared because they don’t know your numbers outside.”

Three large demons burst into the room. “Give us the pet.”

Together the three charged at Ava just as the roof started to open above them. Jamie, Griffen, and Duke jumped in first. Ava sighed in relief when Hayden and then her Logan jumped down soon after. The men went straight for the demons. Devlin jumped down with Eve to help finish the demons off.

Griffen was the first to come over to her only to freeze, take a deep breath, and snarl, “Ava, let go of my mate. You better not have hurt her.”

She dropped the chain she forgot she’d been holding.

Pet came out from behind her and gave a weak smile at Griffen. “Hi, Griffen. I’ve been holding on for you to come and save me. What took you so long?”

Ava watched as Pet took two steps toward Griffen, her arms open, only to fall as three demons came out of nowhere, one ramming his horn right through Pet’s left shoulder, knocking her to the ground. The larger of the three went to go again at Pet, when Griffen transformed and jumped on him in a feral rage.

Ava looked around her, tugging at her chain which was still attached to the floor. She was completely helpless as the demons attacked her loved ones.

Rane jumped down with Blake and Tristan. They came to her with cutters and lasers, cutting her chains.

As soon as Ava was free she ran to help Pet, ripped off her shirt and covered the hole on Pet’s shoulder. Pet slowly reached up with her right hand and caressed her face and croaked out, “I really wanted to see your triplets in person.”

Ava blinked her eyes, fighting the tears, trying to be strong.

“Don’t cry for me. I’m happy Griffen finally came for me.” Pet choked on a breath.

Ava screamed for Griffen who rushed over to her. “Bit her other shoulder. Do it now.”

He howled as he looked down at her. “Ava, I can’t do it. She’s dead,” he sobbed.

Ava slapped her brother. “She’s not dead. She’s a fighter and has waited her whole life for you. So fucking do it now.” Ava pushed her brother’s head down and sighed when she heard him break the skin.