JASMINE’S P. O. V.
I swear if this little boy throws one more egg at me, I am going to lose it. “David, you need to stop throwing your breakfast at mommy.” He just laughs and throws another egg. “Alright you are done.” I take the plate away and get him out of his booster seat. “Go play.” He laughs and runs off.
He bumps into Jace on his way out. “Hey, mom, have you seen Lila this morning?” He looks concerned.
“No, I figured she was still sleeping.”
He points back to her room. “She isn’t in there.”
“What?” I don’t know if I should be panicked or angry.
Gabe comes into the dining room. “Who isn’t where?”
I look at him. I know he is going to be upset, but if she is missing then we need to find her. “Lila, she isn’t in her room. Have you seen her?”
“Not since last night. Have you called Hunter to see if she is with him?” He doesn’t seem too worried. Maybe he just expects her to be around.
I pick up my phone. He picks up after the first ring. “What do I owe for the pleasure of this call baby?”
I roll my eyes. “Have you seen Lila this morning?”
“No, I saw her sneaking out last night, but I figured you knew about it, or she wouldn’t have made it as far as she did.”
“I did, but she isn’t here this morning.”
“You didn’t send Jay after her.”
“NO, Now stop with the shit and help me find her.”
“I’ll be there in five.” He ends the call.
Gabe is looking at me with concern. “He hasn’t seen her.”
“No, he hasn’t. Jace, you go ask her friends.” I stand and head to my office, well mine and Gabe’s office. Jace runs out the front door. “I am calling that club, I want to know if she went there last night. If they have security cameras.”
He stops me and pulls me into his arms. “We are going to find her. I know she is a big girl.”
“You don’t get it, this is my fault. I knew she was sneaking out last night. I let her. If something happens to her, it is my fault.” I start crying. My baby is missing.
“Mine too. I knew what she was doing last night. I am not as blind as you all think I am.” He holds me tighter. “I want to find our princess as soon as possible.”
I link Jay to get him here. “Let’s call this place and see what we can find out.”
I called the club and got the manager after several minutes. “Hello, my name is Jasmine. I am looking for my daughter. I have reason to believe that she was at your club last night. She hasn’t come home. I need to see the security footage to see if she left there safe and sound.” I am hoping that this works. He doesn’t really know me or the authority that I have. To him I am just a concerned mom.
“Well, I don’t mind, I try to make my club as safe and secure as possible. If someone disappeared from here, I want to know about it. Come on down and we can look at it together.” Oh, thank the goddess.
“Thank you so much. I will be down shortly.” I hang up the phone and look at Gabe. “They are going to let me look at the footage. I’ll have Jay drive down with me.”
Gabe shakes his head. “I am going with you.”
Hunter runs into the office. “Have you found out anything?” Sometimes seeing him sends anger flooding through my body. Sometimes I remember our time together and the love that we shared. Right now though I just feel the loss of my little girl.
“The club is going to let me look at the security footage. Jace is collecting her friends right now. That is all that we have.”
He nods. “Well, the good news is, if it was ransom or revenge then someone would have called already or sent some message. Chances are that she is safe.”
“Then why the hell did they take her?” Gabe growls.
Hunter growls back. “I know as much as you do.”
“You guys are not helping. I don’t need you two fighting right now.” I put my fingers to my temples.
Jay comes running in. “I can’t get her scent, it’s been too long. The patrols are mixed in with her scent.”
“You are going to the club with us, I want you to check the scents around there. We need to see if we can pick one up. Plus you can smell if there is any blood.” I start to stand. I link Jay to get the car ready, he knows what we need. He leaves when my thoughts are running a mile a minute. Anna, my nanny is going to have to help out with the boys. I start to leave the office when I realize that I need to wait for Jace to get back with the girls. “Crap, Gabe, make sure that Anna knows that we are leaving and she is in charge of the boys. Hunter, you said you saw her last night, do you know how many friends she had with her?”
Gabe leaves the office but Hunter still stands there. “There were four other girls in the car. I am assuming the girls she is always with. They looked like it. But I only had light for a minute. The windows were tinted.”
“I am really hoping that we see her at this club. I need to know if they went anywhere else.” I start to pace the office.
“Baby, we are going to find her.”
“Don’t call me that Hunter. I am not in the mood.”
“Look, I am worried as fuck right now, If I need to call you baby to ease some of my tension then that is what I am going to do. Your husband is just going to have to deal.”
I glare at him. “Really, you want to do this right now. You are the one that fucked up Hunter. The rest of us don’t need to suffer from your mistakes.”
“Don’t you think I know that? For the last eighteen years all I have done is dwell on the shit I did wrong. I have to watch my mate have children with someone else. I have to watch my mate kiss someone else. I have to watch my mate happy with someone else’s arms wrapped around them. I know what the fuck I did. I don’t need you pointing it out. And now my only reason for even existing is missing.” He starts crying. I haven’t seen Hunter cry since I rejected him.
I hugged him. Again, nothing I have done in a long time. He clings to me like I am a lifeline. “Baby, if something happens to her I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I know.” I just patted his back. I hate seeing him this vulnerable.
Jace comes rushing into the room. “I brought her friends.” Then he stops. “What is going on here?”
“Relax Jace. We are just worried about Lila.” I moved away from Hunter.
Her friends come into the office. Jace keeps watching Hunter. The friends all look like they are headed to the guillotine. “Now, I already know that Lila was with you last night, I want to know why you all didn’t come home together.” I glare at each girl. I know they didn’t do it on purpose, but they were the last ones with her.
Makayla answers for the group. “We thought her dad came and got her. We saw him last night when we were leaving. Even Lila said something about him dragging her out of there. So when we couldn’t find her, that’s what we thought. We couldn’t text her because she left her phone in my car. She wasn’t linking either, we thought she just went to bed when she got home.”
The rest of the girls nod. “Who was the last one of you to see her?”
Sydney answers. “I am pretty sure it was me. We were dancing. A bunch of human guys joined us. Then a wolf joined Lila. She didn’t seem to mind. After a while she got some water and was sitting at a table with him. She didn’t seem stressed about it. So, I just let her be.”
“Describe this wolf.”
“He was tall, really dark. Like dark hair and dark eyes. I didn’t get a really good look at him, but if I saw him again I could identify him.”
“So you have never seen him before?”
“No, he was definitely not from this pack. I would have remembered. He was very attractive.” Sounds like she got a better look than she is letting on.
I narrow my eyes on her. “The rest of you, did you see this wolf?”
They all shuffle their feet. Emma answers. “Pretty much the same thing. We saw him but didn’t really see him. I remember him being hot, but that was it. It’s like there is a block there. I can’t remember his face clearly.”
“Is it possible he was a high ranking wolf?”
Again they shuffle. Hannah answers. “I remember that he smelled like a wolf but that’s it.” The rest nod. “He seemed to really zone in on Lila. He didn’t pay the rest of us any attention. I thought maybe he was, you know, her mate.”
Gabe comes into the room at that last part. He growls. “She was taken by her mate.”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “We don’t know that. All we know is that she was talking with a wolf who seemed interested in her. They can’t seem to remember what he looked or smelled like.”
Hunter growls. “I don’t like it. It sounds like witchcraft. Some higher ranking wolves use spells to make themselves blend in. It keeps them from being recognized or tracked.”
Gabe glares at him. “How would you know about that?”
He rolls his eyes. “Because after Allison, I made it a point to know all about spells. I was not going to be caught in one again.”
I return my focus to the girls. “I want all of you to let me know immediately if you hear from her. Any little thing. I don’t care if it is a message by a carrier pigeon. You tell me.” All four girls nod to me.
“You are dismissed.” They rush out of the room. They do not want to be sent to the cells. “Alright, let’s go see this footage, hopefully we can get a face to go with the story.”
Everyone follows me to the SUV. Including Jace. His sister is the closest person to him. He wants to find her just as much as the rest of us. Jay and Jace take the front and I am stuck in the middle of Hunter and Gabe. Yay, me.
Gabe pulls me up into his lap. “We are going to find her.”
“That is all I can hope for. I just pray to the goddess that wherever she is she is safe.” We are all quiet and tense in the car on the way to the club. We all just want some sign of where Lila is. I have been trying to link her, but either she is unconscious or she is too far away.
We pull in front of the club and are met with an employee. “Are you the family looking for their daughter?” He asks as we approach.
“Yes.” I answer. I am in charge of this group. Hell, I think I always have been.
He nods. “Boss said to bring you on back.”
I turn to Jay. “I want you to look around for any sign of her. Jace you go with him.”
They both nod and start walking around the club. The rest of us follow the employee. There is a back office and a man is already sitting behind a computer. He looks up at us with a completely serious face. “Do you have a picture of her or an estimated time when she would have arrived? That way we know when to start.”
I link the girls for a time. Emma answers. “It was around eleven.”
I relate this information to the man behind the desk. He motions for us to come around the desk to see the screen as well. Hunter is the one to spot her first. He points her out on one of the six screens displayed. “There she is. That’s her with her friends. They said they were dancing.”
We watch her move around the screen, then she is joined by some guy, but his face is blurred. We can’t make it out at all. We continue to watch as they sit at the table, then he feels her head. Like she is sick or something. Then he leads her back to the bathrooms. They exit the back door, and they don’t come back.
The guy leans back in his seat. “Well, it looks like I am going to have to put security there as well. I am sorry about your daughter, I don’t have anything on that side of the club. I don’t know if he took her, but that was the last time she was seen. I don’t know why his face is blurred, as you can see it isn’t that way with anyone else. I get the best cameras on the market. This hasn’t happened before.”
Hunter claps him on the back. “This was a big help. At least we know this is where she was last. Now we can track from here.”
“Am I going to expect the police to come by and look as well?”
Gabe takes this one. “We are a very private family. We will find her on our own. You have no worries about the police.”
“I wasn’t worried, I just wanted to be prepared.” The guy seems very confident. He must really go above and beyond for his customers. “My bartender is out right now, but he was the one that served them drinks. He might be able to give a description.”
Hunter just shakes his head. “That won’t be necessary. Thank you for your help, if we change our minds we will contact you.”
He’s right, if the girls couldn’t describe him. The camera couldn’t catch his image, he is cloaked, the bartender isn’t going to be able to describe him either. We leave the office and find Jace and Jay. They both shake their heads. “There are too many scents to pick hers out.” Jay answers.
I nod towards the back of the club. “She was taken out the back door. Check out there and see what you can find.”
They both leave that way. I turn to the guys. “What next?”
Gabe answers. “We know it was a wolf. So I suggest we start contacting other packs. He isn’t from ours, that much we know. We start with the local packs and move out.”
Hunter nods. “What about Moonridge? They are close enough, do you think it could have been them.” They are the most ruthless pack in the area.
I shake my head. “Not likely, they would have left her for dead. They wouldn’t have taken her. Unless they wanted something. Then they would have called for ransom or something. Unless they are interrogating her. If that is the case then they aren’t going to tell us that they have her. Their Alpha is the most reclusive. He almost never has a meeting at his pack. He always travels to theirs, if he has a meeting. Not that we have ever asked him for anything.”
Gabe nods. “I agree, she probably isn’t there. She also probably isn’t at Shatter Rock.”
I nod with him. “Yeah, Chrisitan would have noticed if she was there. Like we said it is a higher ranking wolf. That is going to make it more difficult. We are probably going to need to send a party to each pack to see if they pick up her scent.”
Jace and Jay return. “Her scent is out there, but it disappears pretty quickly.” Jace says.
Jay nods. “It is obvious she was put in a vehicle of some kind. They were waiting back there for her. I can pick up another wolf but only one, it had to have taken at least two.”
“We are pretty sure that the one who took her is cloaking himself. There is no way that he could have even known that Lila would have been here last night. He must have just struck as opportunity presented itself.” I head to the door, knowing that they are all following me. “All we can do is call all the packs and send out the search parties.”