Stefan’s POV
When Gwen left, she only took what she had with her when I brought her here. She didn’t take any of her new clothes or the cards I’d given her.
Which means she left with no money. She only has her car, which she cannot refuel. Unless she decides to stay nearby for a while, it’s the only thing she can use to get money.
Hanna, Max, Andreas, and I split up and check the used car dealerships in town and pawnshops. On my third try, I find what I’m looking for.
She indeed pawned her car for cash…but now, I have no idea where to find her. According to the owner, she came by over two hours ago. That’s a lot of time to get far away from here. Without her car, she must have taken a bus. Or a train.
“She asked about the farthest bus route,” the owner provides.
The farthest. I hope that small detail narrows my search.
I contact the others and ask Max to come and get her car back while I head to the bus station.
‘She better still be there,’ Eric growls.
I stay silent and focus on the road. A few minutes later, I’m at the ticket booth asking about the farthest destination. The longest is twelve hours, but the attendant refuses to show me the passenger records. So I pull my little hypnotising trick, and seconds later, she is checking for Gwen’s name. We find her name a while later, on a six-hour bus headed north.
‘Where the hell do you think you are going?’ Eric demands a minute later when I drive the car towards home instead of taking the exit towards the highway leading north.
“I cannot just take a six-hour trip out of nowhere,” I tell him. “I promised Mari I’d be back soon, so I have to go back home first.” I don’t tell him that there’s a chance I might not be able to leave today at all.
‘Every second counts! What if she gets in trouble? What if your enemies go after her? Turn the car around!’
“I’m sure she’ll be okay until we get to her. She’ll likely spend the night at her destination before deciding where to go next. I’ll charter a flight early in the morning. We’ll catch her before she gets anywhere.”
‘You never cared about her, did you?’ he accuses. ‘She was only a replacement to you.’
“That’s not true,” I mutter beneath my breath. At no point did I think she was a replacement. If I did, I would have asked her to leave the moment Mari showed up.
‘What was she, then?’
A mistake.
I get a sour taste in my mouth as that word goes through my brain. It never felt like that. But what else could it be when things have turned out this way? It was all my fault for insisting on mating with her when I knew she wasn’t the one I was looking for.
But the only reason I insisted is because I reacted to her the way only a true mate could. And whose fault is that?
“Maybe if you had said something,” I say, bitterness seeping into my voice, “all of this would never have happened.”
‘You wouldn’t have let me have her if you knew she was mine and not yours.’
“Then stop acting like this is all my doing.” If I could smack him right now, I would.
Until now, I’ve been feeling confused. Now, I feel angry. At me and at him. We ruined her life. I did.
She trusted me wholeheartedly but I betrayed her in the end. Not only that, but I acted like a total asshole.
How could I let her leave on her own? She is a new werewolf. The least I could do was suggest a safe place she could stay among our kind until she figured out her next move.
I could have offered to support her, but I know she wouldn’t have accepted. Why didn’t I think about using someone else to take care of her?
I was willing to send Mari to someone I trust because I knew he would keep her safe, away from werewolf circles. So why did it not occur to me to enlist his help with Gwen?
‘You didn’t because I was deeply unconscious and I’m the one bonded to her. The one who actually cares about her. You had enough sense to look for somewhere safe to send her sister because she is the one you are naturally protective towards.’
“You can hear my thoughts?”
‘I’m in your head. Of course I can.’
Just when I thought this already sucked enough.
***
The flight to Gwen’s destination takes an hour. Once I get into town, I search the bus terminus first, in case she spent the night here.
I’m hoping she didn’t take an early morning bus out of here. That would mean more digging into passenger records and another flight or road trip. The longer I have to go after her, the harder it’ll be to track Theodore.
After that, I search for nearby motels. I catch her scent in the first one we come across. I hurry past the reception and up the stairs. My heart’s thudding in my chest as I go.
Please let her still be here…
I slow down in the hallway as a strong scent of blood hits me. It mingles with her scent. Voices emerging from one of the rooms reach me as I walk farther down. Just as I come to the room where the voices are coming from, someone steps outside. She is carrying a trash bag, so it must be someone who works here.
“Excuse me,” I ask her, showing her a photo of Gwen on my phone. “Have you seen this woman around here?”
Her eyes bulge as she takes a look at the photo. She points towards the open doorway. “She was staying in that room. She was bleeding and we called an ambulance but she disappeared!”
“What?”
She beckons to me and walks back into the room. There are two other people, a man and a woman. The man is wearing a doctor’s coat.
“Someone came looking for her,” she tells them.
‘She was here.’
My thudding heart drops to my stomach as I take everything in. It looks like they are in the middle of cleaning the room. The bed is stripped bare, but there’s blood on the floor and towards the bathroom.
My stomach roils.
It’s Gwen’s blood.
Panic and fear grips me.
I turn to the man, who seems to be saying something to me, none of which I can hear. “Where did she go?”
He shakes his head. “I have no idea. She came down to my clinic but didn’t want to go to the ER. I called an ambulance anyway. When the paramedics got here, she was gone. Nobody saw her leave the motel.”
“I was standing in the hallway,” the woman with the trash says. “I would have seen her leave.”
“That’s impossible!” I snap. How can someone bleeding so heavily leave without anyone noticing? How was she even able to walk? There’s too much blood.
‘Stefan.’
It’s the first time he calls me by name, so I pay attention.
“What?”
‘There’s another scent. A vampire’s.’
He is right. I was too focused on her scent and terrified by all the blood to register the third scent in the room.
A vampire. My blood runs cold.
‘He is the one who took her away.’
Why? Why would a vampire… Oh no. I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. That scent is familiar. It’s Theodore’s vampire!
I leave the room to get away from the humans and their voices.
‘That’s so unlike him, working with a werewolf.’
Eric’s words and his tone of voice sound weird for a reason and by the time I figure out why, I’m outside the motel.
“What do you mean him? Do you know who he is?”
‘His name is Alexander. He must be almost a millennium old by now. The good news is that he would never hurt her.’
What? “How do you know him? How do you know that? He is working for Theodore, and he took her. That could only mean one thing.”
‘I don’t think he took her to deliver her to Theodore. She was bleeding. If he still remembers her scent, that’s how he found her.’
“Let me guess, you knew him from five hundred years ago?”
‘Bingo.’
“You don’t sound too worried!” I snap.
‘There’s nothing we can do right now. You know how fast vampires travel. They could be anywhere in the world by now.’
“So what, we just let it go?”
He is quiet. For five seconds. ‘If we had come right away last night, this wouldn’t have happened.’
He is right. It’s my fault.
I get into the rental car I got at the airstrip and drive back. I need to go back home. I need to find Theodore. It’s the only way to find that vampire. Eric must approve of my plan because he doesn’t say anything.
‘You know…’ he begins after about ten minutes of total silence.
“What?”
‘What you are feeling right now…those are your feelings, not mine.’
“What?” I can hardly keep the annoyance out of my voice.
‘You’ve been acting like you don’t care what happens to her. But the moment you realised she was in real danger, your true feelings broke to the surface.’
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
‘You are terrified. Your heart was speeding at the thought of seeing her again, and then it sunk when you realised she is in danger. Right now, a crazy amount of adrenaline is pumping in your veins, and it’s all because you are scared for her.’
“What are you trying to say?”
‘I’m trying to say that I might be the only one bonded to her, but I’m not the only one with feelings for her.’
My fingers grip the steering wheel. “If that’s so, why would I be so cold to her? Why would I let her leave without giving a shit what happened to her?”
‘Have you never heard that romance is nothing compared to the mate pull? Without my bond to her influencing you and with Mari next to you, your feelings for Gwen would never have stood a chance. If you mated with Mari right now and bonded with her…those feelings would never surface again.’
“Why are you telling me this?” It sounds like he is helping me figure out my feelings for Gwen. Shouldn’t he be doing the opposite, marking his territory?
‘I don’t have the luxury of jealousy. I can only protect her through you, and I’m already running out of time.’
“You said the vampire wouldn’t hurt her.”
‘He won’t. Like me, he would give his life to protect her.’
“Then what do you mean you are running out of time?”
He doesn’t answer. My phone rings just as I get to the airstrip.
It’s Hanna, and she talks excitedly the moment I pick up. “We found him. I mean…we have an idea of where he could be. Mari knows about a property he could be hiding at!”
Thank fuck.
“I’ll be back in an hour. Get ready.”
An hour has never felt so long.