Chapter 192

Charles

“Grace!”

An icy dread struck me. My heart slammed against my ribs. The image of her wolf form, a magnificent brown streak against the shadows, was branded into my mind. We were on the third floor she never shifted before. That fall could injure her easily if she didn’t have enough control. And didn't land properly. And her hide and emotional state I couldn't be sure that that would happen. I ran to the window. She landed in a tree before bouncing to the ground and stumbling a bit. I leaped out of the window, cushioning my fall. The scent of pine and damp earth filled my nostrils. But Grace, she was gone. One fleeting glimpse, a flash of brown tearing through the shadows with a snarl, and then she vanished into the whispering embrace of the woods.

“Well, I'll be damned…”

That had to be the Stormclaw blood. I can only imagine what Eason was like the first time he shifted. I took off after her on two legs, hoping to catch her. I could shift, but I didn’t know what kind of state she was in mentally if she would even be coherent enough for that to help. She didn't even seem to notice that I was following her. As soon as she hit more even terrain, she picked up speed cutting through the forest, heading towards the city. Shit.

I got on the call with the enforcers that were stationed around the house just as I heard their jeeps heading towards me.

“Your Majesty?”

"She's heading towards the city,” I growled, jumping on the back of the jeep. “Go after her.”

“Wouldn't it be faster on four legs? Especially for you?”

“I can't risk scaring her and sending her into a spiral. She's not in her right mind, and I don't think we have the time to engage and into any sort of fight.”

“Where is she headed?”

“I don't know. Instinct is probably guiding her, so she'll probably have a better sense of where we're going than we do.”

And it probably wasn't the abandoned warehouses. now a smart kidnapper wouldn't take the kidnapped person to the drop point until the last possible minute. They were taking Cecil somewhere else to hold for most of the time limit. It was likely that there were people watching the area, and hopefully, the Enforcers I sent to find where the drop point should be would catch them and start pumping them from information soon. ultimately it was a Time game.

“You spoke to the kidnappers?”

“Grace did. Sort of. They called he was using a scrambler of some kind and likely has some sort of grudge against Devin.”

“Ransom, huh? About the grudge? Gambling, maybe?”

“Maybe, but maybe just someone he borrowed money from probably and used part of Mooncrest as collateral.”

Though this could just as easily be orchestrated by the Elders. My head hurt just thinking about it. Three million dollars was a large sum, but it seemed oddly specific too. It was just enough money to bankrupt Wolf Medical prior to the investment I made, and it still may have if Grace had been making such great strides toward pulling Wolf Medical out of debt. At least, it meant that whoever this was wasn't getting insider information. That didn't mean they were working alone, it just meant that it was likely that this debt was real. What the hell could Devin have needed to take out a loan with these kinds of people while he was Alpha of Mooncrest? He could have been using it to pay someone else back, but that seemed unlikely. I'd have to add this to a long list of things to try him for and ask about.

The question of who he could have borrowed this money from lingered in my mind? I wracked my brain to think. this methodology felt familiar. ruthless. cunning. they were taking action at the most opportune time, but why wait until now? how much did they know about Devin's relationship with the kids? how much did they know about Grace? What tipped the hands of these people says that they had to go through this to make it happen. did they desperately need the money now? was it possible that we could come to some sort of agreement after the fact? were they an enemy that we could make an ally?

All of these questions could probably tell me who he borrowed money from if answered, but they were all questions that would have to wait to be answered.

I grabbed the radio. “Enforcer units stationed at Mooncrest, this is your king. Your orders are as follows: secure every alley, every rooftop, every shadow. Your main priority is to find and locate Cecil Wolfe. 4-year-old, dark hair, currently in the custody of kidnappers. Keep your eye out for Alpha Wolfe. Shifted, heightened emotional state, brown wolf, mid-sized, and should be making her way into the city within the next half hour. If possible, do not engage.”

“You think she'll be able to run that long?” One of the men asked. “It's unusual…”

“She's got quite the lineage behind her. I think she'll be just fine. She shifted in a very emotional state I don't even think she realizes that she has shifted.”

“Do you think she'll pull out of it like her brother did?”

“ I do. When I don't know.”

And I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. the shift had a way of changing some people, Alphas especially. Would she get worse in terms of her personality? Her decision-making? I bit my lip, looking back. Major personality shifts happened after the first shift. Grace didn’t seem to think Eason was any different, so maybe she wouldn’t change much, either. But would it be so traumatic that she might never shift again? I wasn't even sure if Eason was learning to shift alongside controlling his magic. George probably had it on the docket if he wasn’t stable enough to do it yet, but I made a note to check. I lifted the radio back to my mouth.

“Enforcer Team Alpha, keep me informed of your progress. Relay your information to the rest of the units as well as your investigation into the mall situation. Interface with the Mooncrest police as usual. I want to know what exactly they used so we can prepare for it further. Whoever the closest magical analyst is to the mall and the path the kidnappers took away from the mall, get me a threadbare assessment of how they shook the tail and made the opportunity. Make it quick we're working on a deadline: your three hours started about half an hour ago.”

I turned off the radio and racked my mind. The city lights streamed past like a kaleidoscope of neon and concrete, blurring as we drove along the edge of the city, searching for where Grace would come out of the forest.

Rain began to fall. Lightning twisted through the sky, and I cursed. The rain would make tracking her even harder, let alone Cecil.

“It wasn't forecasted to rain today…”

The magical disruption over Mooncrest was probably playing hell on weather forecasting. I needed to get Grace onboard with working with the Noir coven soon, or she was going to have a climate issue that she couldn’t ignore very soon. What bad timing. My fingers tightened on the edge of the rail, knuckles white against the metal.

“Any thoughts?”

“Underhanded. Ruthless, but not necessarily malicious. They could be another branch of Blood Moon., but I’m not sure.”

“Do werewolves have the mob or something like humans do?”

I went still. It had never dawned on me to even consider humans as a source of a loan for Devin, but it was as simple and as complete of an answer as possible if it was the truth.

Devin was an elitist bar none. I remembered how many times he complained about doing anything that involved any species other than lycans or witches. The fact that he ended up marrying a werewolf and having kids still surprised me sometimes, but in the face of his greed, that wouldn’t matter. He was also a supreme opportunist. I figured out quickly that his attraction to Grace was born of his selfishness and greed, but also because he felt superior to her, he could have power over her, and he had. He’d taken everything she had to give and used it as he saw fit. When Wolfe Medical and Mooncrest stopped being able to give him the amount of money he wanted as quickly as he wanted, it was very likely that he went somewhere else. Had he gone to Isolde first or to this person after he’d ruined any credibility with the banks of the States?

Having been at my side for his entire life, I had no doubt that he knew enough to navigate the politics required to get in touch with the human world and borrow money either legitimately or illegitimately.

“For fuck’s sake…”