Gabriel’s POV
I kept my hand on Nick’s shoulder, trying to convince him and myself that we would find her, that she would be okay.
I was in as much pain as he was, but I needed to keep myself calm. We wouldn’t be able to find her if both of us freaked out and lost it.
“Where the fuck is Blake?” Nick growled, his nostrils flaring.
“Downstairs with a broken nose,” Jacob said.
Nick’s eyes widened. “Who broke his nose?”
“Jacob did,” I said. “I wanted to do it myself, but he beat me to it.”
Nick looked at Jacob and raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “You did it?”
“Yes,” Jacob nodded. “He took her from me. He let her go. He had to pay for what he did.”
Nick’s fists clenched when Jacob said that Blake had taken Aria from him. I rolled my eyes and sighed. Jacob really had a death wish.
“He took her from all of us,” I said and grabbed Nick’s arm. “But we are done fighting. We have to find her. We can’t waste time hitting each other.”
Nick growled. “I am beating the shit out of him once she is back.”
“You know she won’t let you,” Jacob smiled.
Nick sighed and nodded.
“Let’s go downstairs,” I said. “We have some planning to do.”
The three of us walked to the living room. Blake was sitting on a couch with a map in front of him. Cassie surrounded herself with books.
Nick growled when he saw Blake. He clenched his fists and glared at him.
“Nick,” I said with a warning tone.
“I know,” he growled. “I won’t do anything. But that doesn’t mean I can’t look at him like I will.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Nick,” Blake said as he stood up. “If I could go back and stop her, I would. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was afraid he would hurt Cassie and everything Aria said made sense at that moment. I am sorry I let her go. I will do everything I can to bring her back.”
“You have to,” Nick growled. “You need to bring her back because she is the only one who can stop me from killing you.”
Blake gulped and nodded.
“I called Annie,” Cassie said, changing the subject.
“Did you tell her what happened?” I asked and walked over to her.
Cassie nodded. “They are coming back as soon as they can. We need Mike and Jack. They are excellent trackers.”
“Maybe they could pick up her scent,” Jacob said and sat down next to his sister.
“I couldn’t and she is my mate,” Nick sighed as he sat down on the couch.
“They are vampires,” Jacob said. “Their sense of smell is strong. Maybe even stronger than yours.”
“We have been circling possible locations on the map,” Blake said and pointed to the map on the table. “If we could get just a hint of the direction they went to, we could start searching those places.”
“How did you narrow it down?” I asked as I leaned in to look at the map.
“Cassie has been reading about him for a while,” Blake explained.
Cassie nodded. “I did. I learned a lot. The last time he tried to rise to power, he always used large, abandoned warehouses as his base. There was a rumor that he was building an underground structure, but nobody knows where he was building it exactly. There are seven large warehouses in our proximity. Three of them are north of our location and four are south.”
“Is there a possible location for that underground structure?” Jacob asked as he looked over the map.
“Well, if I were Victor, I would build it in a forest,” Blake said. “That way, he could hide the entrance pretty well.”
I looked at the map and saw that there were acres and acres of forest around us. That structure could be anywhere.
“The forest is huge,” Jacob sighed. “It could be anywhere.”
“That’s why we need to know in which direction they went,” Cassie said. “We would be able to narrow it down significantly.”
“Mike and Jack need to sniff the area the best they can,” I said. “They need to get there as soon as possible. The scent won’t linger for long.”
“Did Annie say when they would be back?” Nick asked.
“She said they were close,” Cassie responded.
Nick sighed and ran his hand through his hair. I really admired how he managed to get back in control after his breakdown earlier. I was sure he was freaking out inside. I know I was.
“I want to start checking the warehouses,” Nick growled.
“That would be a waste of time,” Cassie said.
Nick growled and narrowed his eyes at her.
“Don’t growl at my sister,” Jacob said through his teeth.
“She is telling me that searching for my mate is a waste of time!” Nick shouted at Jacob.
I needed to stop this before he lost control again.
“Nick, enough,” I interrupted him. “She is not saying that.”
“Look at the map, Nick,” Cassie said as she pointed to the circled warehouses. “It would take us days to travel and search for each one. There is no guarantee she is even there, and we would be exhausted by the time we finished searching. We need to narrow the area down first, come up with a plan, and then attack. We have time.”
“We don’t!” Nick growled. “He has her and he is doing Goddess knows what to her! I saw her tied to a bed! I saw her dead, lying in a pool of her own blood!”
What the fuck was he talking about? My heart clenched painfully.
I heard Jacob and Blake gasp.
“When did you see that?” Cassie asked him as calmly as she could.
Nick stood up and started pacing around the living room. He ran his hand through his messy hair.
“When I was asleep,” he growled quietly.
“That was your fear talking, Nick,” Cassie said. “He won’t kill her. He needs her power.”
Nick’s POV
My head snapped toward Cassie. “Do we know anything about the way he is trying to get her powers?”
“He is going to use an ancient spell,” Gabriel said.
I looked at him and sat back down on the couch.
“I don’t know much about it,” he continued. “I know it takes a while for the power to be transferred from one person to another.”
“How much time?” I asked nervously.
“Depends on the amount of power that person has,” he sighed. “It will take him a long time to take Aria’s powers away from her. Weeks probably.”
“What happens when the power is taken away?” Cassie asked silently.
Gabriel’s eyes blackened, and he clenched his jaw.
“What would happen to her?” I growled at him.
“She would die,” Gabriel said quietly.
A loud growl escaped me. I felt Nate clawing his way out.
No.
No fucking way!
She was not dying!
I pushed Nate back and tried to control myself. As much as I wanted to punch, scream, and tear the whole fucking world apart, I couldn’t. Gabriel was right. We didn’t have time for that.
“We won’t let that happen,” Jacob said sternly. “We will find her and get her back.”
“Yes,” Cassie nodded. “We have time until her power gets taken away completely.”
Gabriel leaned back and sighed. He buried his face in his hands.
“But we don’t know if he is hurting her,” he whined. “He can’t kill her because he needs her, but he can hurt her. I keep seeing her getting tortured. I keep seeing her beaten and broken.”
Nate whined loudly, and I clenched my fists, trying to stop my claws from coming out.
“We can’t think about that,” Cassie sighed. “We have to focus on finding her.”
“Cassie is right,” Jacob added. “She is one of the strongest people I know. Whatever they are doing to her, she will survive and wait for us to find her. She will be okay.”
The words he was saying didn’t match his expression. He was pale, he had a painful expression on his face, and his eyes were staring off into the distance. He was saying that to comfort the rest of us, but he looked like he didn’t believe it himself.
I moved my gaze away from him because I couldn’t handle more pain. I was wallowing on my own. I didn’t need to see the pain in others as well.
Gabriel stared at his hands, and I could see him shaking. I knew that he was going to find a way to blame himself for what happened to her.
“I know that none of us will be able to sleep, but maybe we should try and rest for a bit,” Cassie said quietly. “We have to wait for Mike and Jack anyway. There is nothing we can do until they return.”
None of us spoke. There was no fucking way I will be able to sleep without her. I didn’t know if I wanted to be inside our room right now. Her scent in our room was soothing, but as it faded, it reminded me that she was no longer here.
?
I looked at the time on my phone and saw that it was 4 am.
“I don’t want to go back up there and be alone in my room,” Gabriel mumbled. “I will break something if I do.”
“Same,” Jacob added. “I feel more useful here even if we are just staring at this map right now.”
I closed my eyes and pictured her face in front of me. She was perfect. Her cheeks were flushed in my memory. Her green eyes sparkled and stared at me. It felt like she could see into my soul. Her plump lips stretched into a big smile. Her long, silky hair was sprawled all around her face.
I realized that I remembered her face from the first time we had sex. I remembered how her body felt under me. She was so warm and soft. She fit perfectly next to my large frame. Every curve of her body was made for me. She was mine.
My tortured mind changed that perfect, happy memory into something that made my soul burn.
Calvin ripped her away from me. His hands wrapped around her small body and dragged her away. She was screaming, crying, and begging me to help her. But I couldn’t move. I was screaming, but no sound came out. I couldn’t do a fucking thing to help her.
I forced myself to open my eyes. My body was covered in cold sweat. My hands were shaking and my whole body vibrated from the growls coming off of Nate.
I looked around the room and saw that everybody was sitting in the same position as before. All of them were in deep thought.
Gabriel looked like somebody was ripping him apart. If I had to guess, his mind too created the same images as mine did.
I grabbed his arm and his eyes snapped up at me.
“Don’t think about that,” I said quietly.
He looked up at me and took a deep breath.
“How did you know?” he asked me.
“Because my mind went there a minute ago as well,” I sighed, letting go of his arm. “We can’t do that to ourselves.”
“It’s hard,” he said. “I am so afraid. I just want to hold her.”
“I know, man,” I said as I ran my hand through my hair. “I do too.”
Our conversation was cut short when we heard a loud knock on the front door.
Cassie stood up and ran from the living room.
A few moments later, Annie came running inside. Her eyes were wide and filled with unshed tears.
She grabbed Gabriel with one hand and me with the other and pulled us into a hug.
“I am so sorry,” she sobbed. “We will find her. She will be okay.”
She let go of us and wiped the tears from her face.
“How the hell did he get to her?” Mike asked. “How did he break your shield, Gabriel?”
“He didn’t,” Gabriel said. “She went to him by herself.”
Annie gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Why would she do that?” Jack asked, shock written all over his face.
I looked at Blake, who had a guilty expression on his face. He ran a hand through his hair and started talking.
