Mia
I sank to my knees beside Quinn and wrapped my hand around him. I hated to see him that way. It broke my heart to see him that way. He looked ragged with pain and my heart constricted with more pain at the sight of him, even though I had my own problems to deal with. I was annoyed and enraged at the abduction of the statue of their father as the boys were and I wondered who could have taken him.
Quinn’s emotional outburst was making it hard on us all and I didn’t know what I was going to do about it. I didn’t know how I was going to help him. I sat there though, wrapping my hands around his shoulder as I laid my head on his back and hoped that was going to be enough for him.
I thought of who could have taken Albert so we could know how to find him. It couldn’t have been the dark wizard as he had been injured and couldn’t morph into his physical form. The only apprentice that I knew with him was Sasha and she was dead. I had been there when she was buried so there could be no doubt about that. I was convinced that she was dead. I didn’t think that the dark wizard had had the time to form a relationship or an alliance with another person who could be his apprentice who could do his dirty work before he was struck with the reversal of his spell and rendered weak.
I didn’t think that Albert had any other enemy who could have wanted his demise or come so boldly to disorganize his house.
I wasn’t sure of that but I had to confirm.
“Do you know who could have done this asides the dark wizard?” I asked.
Quinn raised his head to stare at me and my heart skipped a beat at the sight of his bloodshot eyes. He was in so much pain that I pitied whoever took Albert if Quinn found him.
He shook his head. “None that we know of. Dad doesn’t have a habit of making enemies. You know how he is.”
I nodded. I actually did. He was every bit the opposite of his sons, which was what endeared him to me immediately.
“What of enemies from other packs? Could this be a territory war?”
“Not at all.” John shook his head. “It couldn’t have been. Wolves don’t stay together to avoid territory disputes. We are the only wolf clan in this vicinity. The other wolves from our pack are not here though somewhere not far from where we were and we are at peace with wolves from the other packs so it couldn’t have been them.”
John was convinced of what he said and that made me more confused. I had gone into detective mode. I bit my lip as I thought of all the possibilities that I could think of. I needed to find out who could have done this so we could rescue Albert. We couldn’t go on to find and fight the dark wizard when we didn’t know where Albert was. Not knowing where he was was going to be a nagging feeling in our minds and cause us despair. I doubted that the boys would be in the right frame of mind to fight the dark wizard even if they see him now. The abduction of their father was certainly going to be a huge distraction, and they didn’t need it.
I wondered if it was possible that one of the servants had betrayed them to an enemy and the others had run away from the house when they had noticed that to avoid the wrath of the boys. I sighed. That was possible. I wouldn’t put it past the boys to have made a lot of enemies and that was what affected their father.
“What of you?” I asked them.
“What of us?” They asked me, looking at me with puzzlement.
“Is it possible that this happened because of you and not your dad? Is there anyone that you know who could be your enemies? Anyone ring a bell? Is there anyone who could have hated you enough to pull this off?”
Their expression had turned into amusement since I started talking and they started chuckling when I was done. Even Quinn had gotten up on his feet and laughed with his brothers, his eyes sparkling with amusement instead of anguish and tears as it had been moments ago.
“I’m not kidding.” I sighed and rolled my eyes at them. “Guys!” I groaned with exasperation when they wouldn’t stop laughing.
“We know you are not.” Jack grinned. “We are not as well. No, we don’t have any enemy that we can think of.”
“I think you should think. There might be someone.” I urged them.
Jack placed his hand on his chin, pretending to be deep in thought. He smiled at me and nodded. “Yes, there is someone.”
I nodded. Good. It was finally going to be resolved. We were finally going to find the person who did this.
“Who do you think did this?” I asked him.
“You.” Jack said.
“Me?” I was shocked. “That wasn’t funny.” I scoffed at him.
He chuckled. “It wasn’t meant to be funny.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He laughed. “Contrary to what you think, we don’t go about making enemies for ourselves. You are the only person that I know hated us with passion but I know you couldn’t have done this. We were together, you are our mate and you like dad so that ruled you out. That was why we said that we don’t know of any enemy that we have.”
I sighed. This just got complicated. I was back to the root point, not knowing who could have done this.
“I need a breather.” Quinn sighed. “Let’s walk round the house. It’s possible we find out who had done this. They could have dropped something that would make us identify who had done this.”
We moved round the interior of the house but couldn’t find anything. We decided to move outside and check the environment. We stopped in our tracks, our eyes widening in shock as we got to the garden.
We hadn’t been expecting to see anyone but there the butler was, looking stressed out but healthy and staring at us in disbelief.
He ran towards us as soon as he saw us, crying with his tears flowing down his face. “Young masters! My little mistress!”
We stood in shock and stared as he got to us and fell flat on his face, crying and his body shaking as he did.
“I thought I was going to be the only one here. I didn’t think I was going to see you again. I was so scared. I thought I heard footsteps and decided to come out to check if they were back for me and saw you. I’m so happy to see you.” He rushed out, his words lapping over one another.
“What happened here? Who are the they?” Quinn asked.
“Vampires.”
“Vampires?” Quinn asked in surprise.
I was more surprised than they were. I didn’t think that I was ever going to meet vampires in my lifetime but it seemed like I had no choice but to now.
The butler nodded. “Yes. Vampires, young master. I was as surprised as you are to see them. I knew you didn’t have any relationship with anyone of them but this ones acted as if you have been fighting with them for years. They moved straight into the house, tossing away anyone that was in their way. You know we are humans and couldn’t fight much against them. I’m sorry that there was nothing we could do, sir.”
Quinn waved his apology away. “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have expected you all to fight against anyone, much more vampires. That would be foolishly risking your lives. Tell me more of what happened here in our absence.”
The butler nodded and continued. “They started checking all of the rooms. It seemed like they were looking for something but we didn’t know what it was. They seemed disappointed that you were not around because their expressions went sour when they asked of where you are and we told them that we didn’t know where you have traveled to. The house helps who tried to stop them got injured when they were roughly pushed away and no one else tried to stop them afterwards.”
I frowned. Vampires? What could they have been thinking when they had invaded the house? I could tell that the boys were as confused as I was and didn’t know what to make of that as well.
It was no doubt that the vampires had taken the statue of Albert but I needed to confirm. We had to know if they were the ones who had done that atrocity or someone else had gotten in after the vampires had, using the distraction of their attack to do what they wanted to do.
I didn’t know anyone else who could have come in after the vampires as the boys had said they didn’t have any enemies they could of but I couldn’t ignore the idea. A lot of ideas about what could have happened were coming into my head that I wondered if I was a detective in my past life.
I turned to the butler. “Did you see them take anything with them? You said the vampires seemed like they were searching for something.”
The butler sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss. I have no idea about that. I panicked when I saw people getting injured and ran here to hide.” He shivered, wrapping his hands around his body. “I don’t want to die.”
“And you won’t.” John said, reaching out a hand to comfort him. “You should go home and rest. Pack your stuff and take a vacation. We will reach out to you to come back when we have resolved everything.”
“But,” he frowned. “What do you do if no one is around here? I should be around to oversee your feeding and other needs, sirs.”
“Don’t worry about that. We will be fine.” Quinn added. “We want you safe so go home where you can. We will call you when sanity has been restored here.
“Okay.” He nodded in agreement and bowed as he left. “Thank you, sir.”
The boys looked at one another once the butler was out of hearing range.
“Why would the vampires be interested in us?” Quinn frowned.
“Exactly. We have never met them and we have no political enemies in the pack that could have asked them to attack us on their behalf.” Jack shook his head.
“We wouldn’t know of this until we find the vampires and ask them these questions.” John sighed.
“Let’s check dad’s study if we can find anything that would guide us to them. It’s possible that he had made research on them and have some notes on them.” Quinn said.
“It would be nice if we can get a map that would lead us directly to them.” Jack sighed. “I don’t want to read notes on them.”
“Hopefully, we would find a map that would lead to those bastards who had dared to infiltrate our territories.”
I sighed as I walked after the boys. It was time for another risky adventure and I was more than ready for it.