133
Matt
I tried not to show how reluctant I was to start this chase as the car shrieked to a halt.
Our beta looked at us through the rearview mirror. Our gazes locked for a moment before he looked away. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I bet that meant that he’d smelled her too. I had smelled her even before we walked into the coven building. It had been just a lingering scent. I had hoped that we weren’t driving closer to wherever she was in the city. It must be bad luck that she was still close enough to smell Tony despite his restricted powers.
I glanced at Tony. "Are you sure?"
He nodded; his focus fixed on the direction the scent was coming from. "Positive. We need to find her now, while we have the chance. "
“Tony, do you think this is a good idea?”
He turned on me. His eyes glinted and his expression pinched tight. I swallowed back the feeling of fear and met his gaze. It was just like dealing with our father when he was in one of his moods.
“If we have any chance of getting the witches to take this curse off, we can’t go making a scene in their capital city.”
His eyes twitched. “She’s our mate, Matt. She wants to be with us.”
“She could be being watched.”
“I’ll kill them.”
“You can’t even shift,” Matt said. “What if they have wolfsbane? Do you want to endanger Lucy like that?”
He growled again, low and frustrated, but I could see his mind working. The anger wasn’t taking over yet.
“If,” I said, stressing the word. “If we’re going to follow her scent, we can’t cause a scene. We can’t draw attention to ourselves, okay?”
He narrowed his eyes but nodded stiffly and told our beta to drive on.
“She’s with David,” he growled. “That fucker…”
I winced. I’d smelled him too. I hoped they weren’t together when we found her, knowing that it would just make Tony even more irrational.
“Head left.”
Our beta threw the car into gear and turned down the street. Tony kept giving directions according to the strength of Lucy’s scent. The wind carried it through the open windows, guiding us closer to her location. With each passing block, I felt myself growing more and more unsettled. Finally, we came to a stop at a red light, Tony was practically leaning out of the window. I wouldn’t even be surprised if his eyes were glowing red. We were getting closer, but we still weren’t within a block of where she was.
I pulled him back inside. “Tony, watch it. Your eyes…”
His eyes were filled with light. He looked a little crazy the way Dad used to when he was being controlled by his instincts. I could feel his eagerness, his desperation bleeding through our bond and tugging on me, trying to get me to go along, but it was weaker than usual since he was still under full restraint and I wasn’t.
"She's here," he said almost dreamily. “I can smell her. She’s closer now. She’s not moving. Go right.”
I pulled up a map on my phone and tried to figure out where he could be leading us. There was nothing in particular in this direction. With any luck, she was somewhere surrounded by a lot of people and Tony would be calm enough not to cause a scene
As the light turned green, Tony kept giving directions, sometimes doubling back when the scent started to fade. Amid all the scents of the city, it was a bit hard to navigate, but every time he lost and found the scent again, the anxiety in me started to build.
Tony didn’t believe anything that anyone said about Lucy, including me, but I knew better. We weren’t mates, and Lucy wasn’t kidnapped from that party. She left. Tony hadn’t looked at any of the documents from the mediation, too furious from how it didn’t go our way and what David said, but I had.
There were lines in her statements that dredged up memories I didn’t want to think about and made my stomach churn. Part of me hoped that we never saw Lucy again and Tony would find his actual mate and calm down, but another part of me, a terrible part of me, just wanted my brother to be happy, and if having Lucy did it, I wanted that for him.
“This curse is making it so much fucking harder,” Tony growled. “Matt, do you smell anything?”
I rolled down the window, searching for words that weren’t a lie but weren’t the truth either.
“A lot of witch.”
He growled. “I have half a mind to go back there and make them remove it by force.”
“I think that would only make our relationship with them worse.”
Our beta turned down another street. The scent was getting weaker again.
“Turn around,” Tony growled. “Take the left instead.”
He did so and we drove a little more. Her scent grew unmistakably stronger, mixed with the scent of fresh earth and a lot of humans. David’s scent was strong too along with some other male werewolf I didn’t recognize.
As we approached a red light, I caught a faint yet distinct scent carried by the wind. My heart skipped a beat as I recognized it. "Stop the car, now!" I commanded our beta, my voice urgent and filled with anticipation.
“There, that parking lot,” Tony growled. “What the hell is Helping Hands?”
I braced myself for the worst as we drove into the uneven parking lot. I saw David near the front of the ugly building, but through the chain link fence, I saw her. I heard Tony getting out of the car as I stared, amazed and shocked as she looked up at an unfamiliar young man. She threw her head back and laughed at something he said.
I realized then. It was the first time I had ever seen her laugh. I could hear her too. She was speaking with someone else, happily. David walked over to her and the young man before saying something in a hushed tone. Something about Lucy's joy, the way she interacted with her friends, struck a chord within me. It was as if all of a sudden, the blinders had come off, and she wasn’t just the girl we thought was our mate, but a teenager just starting to enter the world. I wanted to protect her, but it wasn’t the same sort of urge I had before. I didn’t want to possess her. I just wanted her to be all right.
My lips twitched as I watched her for a few moments. Maybe I was wrong and she was better suited with short hair. It suited her and made her look her age with the way all the curls seemed to stick up. She looked young and innocent.
My gut felt like it was full of lead with guilt.
Then, she turned to face us. All the warmth and color drained from her face. She looked stricken with terror. My gut turned as all of my beliefs about how she felt about being with us were confirmed.
Then, I saw Tony marching around the car.
Lucy stumbled back, shaking into the arms of the other young man. David turned his head.
“Take her to the greenhouse, now.”
The young man pulled her away quickly. Tony rushed towards the open way in the fence. He was pushed back from the area hard. David stood just inside of the invisible barrier, glaring at Tony. There was the faintest glint of red in his eyes.
“I’ve already notified Hecate’s patrol,” David said. “Leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere without her,” Tony growled. “And if you think the Council won’t be on my side when you’re interfering with a bond, you’ve got another thing coming.”
David stepped a little closer. His eyes turned hard a furious. For a moment, I thought of his father and the way he and our father would get into these standoffs. For a moment, David seemed… bigger somehow, like he was looming over Tony though they were about the same height and Tony was a bit broader.
I remembered seeing our fathers in basically the same position, though I couldn’t remember why. I got out of the car. Our fathers had never come to blows. I never knew why since David’s father always looked a few seconds away from punching our father at every event, but I knew that Blue Moon couldn’t afford an incident in the Hecate Coven’s capital.
I reached Tony. “Back off. We know she’s here in the city. That’s enough for now. Alright?”
Tony growled at David. He didn’t back down. Then, I heard the sound of other cars coming and he shrugged me off.
“This isn’t over,” Tony growled. “You won’t keep our mate from us.”
David met his gaze. “One day, I’m going punch your fucking lights out.”
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