CHAPTER 69

Shana heard the loud thud but her only response was a low moan at the disturbance. She felt really tired, like she was under the influence. The sleep had dragged her under immediately her head hit the pillows. Now, not even the dead knocking on her head and pulling her guts apart could make her leave the bed, not to talk of opening her eyes.
She was lulled into a dream. In it, Asher was racing to her where she stood in his clearing in the forest. He was injured and tired but still as gorgeous as ever. She smiled as he continued to run as fast as he could to get to her. Then her smile faded when he got to her and she realized he was much more injured than she had seen from the distance.
His wounds were gashing and oozing frank blood, his head lolling to the side like it was too heavy for his neck.
"Who did this to you?," she asked with hot tears running down her cheeks, her hands trailing over the deep cuts helplessly. She wrapped her arms around him and cradled his head to her breasts.
"I was in a fight," he answered weakly.
"With who? Did the person do this to you?," she asked urgently, her anger directed at whoever had harmed her mate.
"You," he said with his blue eyes gazing sadly into hers. "You hurt me Shana, more than you can imagine," he added.
She was brought out of her dream when she heard the door open opening silently and Shana moaned again in exasperation. Rose was getting really good at invading her space and doing whatsoever she liked. Shana wanted to tell her to leave her to her sleep but she could not talk.
"Goodness! Why do I feel so tired?," she asked herself. It was no ordinary episode of her morning sickness or tiredness. This time, she realized she was more tired and weak than sleepy. She was partially conscious of everything happening but she was supposedly asleep.
She expected Rose to start talking but no words came from her.
"That is weird," Shana thought to herself. These days, Rose was an annoying chatterbox when she was not busy smothering Shana with her concerns. It was a side of her Shana never got to see until they found out about the baby.
"Rose?," she managed to call out weakly from the bed. Shana got no response and her heart started racing wildly.
Someone was in the room with her but it difinitely was not Rose. She tried to rise from the bed but her muscles would not even move the slightest inch. It felt like she was under a contraption of some kind that was restricting her movement. Something was wrong with her body that had nothing to do with her pregnancy.
A panicky cry began to rise in her throat when she felt a gag rammed into her mouth, just before a bag went over her head.
Shana finally understood what it felt like to be so afraid to the point of wanting to pee in your pants. Her heart was racing and her body shook involuntarily as she was hoisted out of bed and carried carelessly over her captor's shoulder from the room.
She was being kidnapped, again. And this time, she predicted it was not going to end well like it did the last time.
"Asher!" her heart cried out to him, opening up and using their bond to communicate to him. She prayed to his goddess for him to hear her.
★★★★★★★★★★
Asher ran out of the car before it stopped in front his home. Then he was running into the house like the hounds of hell were on his heels.
"Shana?," he called as he moved through the house, greatly disturbed by the silence in the house. Elise was not coming out to welcome him and none of the guards were in sight.
Something was wrong.
He raced up the stairs, calling and shouting her name but there was nothing. When he opened the door to their room, her scent wafted into his nostrils, mixed with that of someone else.
It was a wolf, he knew as he sniffed the air. It was not just any wolf, it was the one he had seen at the door of his study the last time he came home.
What was he doing in the room he shared with his mate? As Asher asked himself the question,his heart started pounding hard in fear, noting for the first time the way the sheets were trailing on the floor like they had been dragged across the room. Shana never did that. She was never messy.
"No. No. No," he repeated to himself as he rushed out of the room and raced back down the stairs in panic, following her scent all the way to the front door. Then there was nothing, just the windy air and the scent of the flowers from the garden.
"Armando!" He called his bodygaurd sharply, confused about where to find his mate or what to do next.
"My Alpha," Armando answered as he materialized from behind the house.
"Something is wrong. She's not here," he said urgently.
Armando did not need to ask who he was talking about but the hulking man had something else on his mind. "I think you need to come and see this," he said slowly, his eyes hard and angry.
Asher followed,scared of whatever awaited him behind his own house. He smelled the blood before he got to the scene where nine wolf were slit in the throat and lying in their own pool of blood.
Asher swore savagely at the horror of the scene before him.
"Who did this?" His voice was calm and clear, betraying the fear that multiplied ten folds in his heart.
"Nine dead men are here," Armando answered quietly.
"One is alive and on the run," Asher finished for him.
"But I don't think he did this alone," Armando said as his gaze surveyed the dead wolves before him. There were obviously no signs of struggle. If his guess was right, the wolves had been murdered when they were at their weakest. That only happened when a wolf was about to shift and it was not possible for all nine wolves to try shifting at the same time, unless they had perceived a threat and even at that, one wolf could not have taken all of them down at once.
His other guess was that the wolves had been drugged before they were killed. He growled angrily at the cold-blooded way they had all died. Some of them were men he had known and worked with over the years but they were slaughtered like chickens.
His fists clenched at his sides in anger. He was going to find the bastard who did it and make him and everyone involved pay.
"What do you know about the wolf? I think he has my mate," Asher said as he strode back into the house, his heart racing with different scenarios. What he did not say was, "He has my mate and she could be dead already."
The thought scared him so much, he felt his hands shaking. She could not be dead. She was not dead. He would know if she was because he would feel it.
Asher started praying under his breath like never before.
"I know his name and his address. But I wouldn't be surprised if they were all faked. I did a thorough background check on everyone I hired and they all came back clean. But I know that's no excuse. I would gladly accept any punishment, after I hunt down this murderer and make him pay," Armando answered tightly.
Asher wanted to blame the other wolf. He desperately wanted someone to suffer for the pain his mate was probably going through at that moment but that person was not Armando. The wolf had been fooled and Asher knew deep down it could have happened to anyone.
"Search the house. I can't find Elise," he said in reply.
"On it," Armando answered as he started sniffing around and opening doors.
Asher went to the kitchen. Everything in there looked and smelled normal, except....
"Rose," Asher gave a terrified groan.
She had been there, and it was not too long ago.
"Oh God," he muttered. If Rose had been there, if she had walked right into the middle of all these, he could not begin to imagine what could have happened.
He teared through the house, opening and slamming doors as he called his wife's name and that of his grandmother. He could not smell the air because of his panic.
If anything happened to them..........
No. Nothing happened to them.
If anything did happen to them,he would never forgive himself. He had been a rude, ungrateful and presumptous child the last time he saw Rose. They had not been on talking terms ever since and his last memories of her were never going to be her calling him to come back and listen to her.
Never.
She had to be ok, he told himself.
He flung open the door to his study. His knees went weak when he saw her lying there in a pool of blood and unmoving.
"Rose," he called urgently as he moved to her. "Rose. Please talk to me," he urged desperately.
He wished for nothing more than to hear the deathly pale woman in his arms wake up to scold him for being a baby. But she was as still as death as he took her head and placed it on his lap.
Asher knew it but he did not want to accept it. So despite not hearing her heartbeat, he still took her hand to check for a pulse.
He let out a blood curdling scream when his fingers felt nothing.
Just the cold stillness of her once warm, wrinkly hand.