(What's this? An update?! I decided to give it to you guys since it's my birthday and I'm nice like that.

Enjoy!

-M12)

13

Asher

We searched all over the state of Ohio. There was no sign of Lana. I had this feeling that she wasn't here, but I was afraid to voice my opinion and risk getting my head chewed off. Nyl has been talking with Lana's old Alpha, Cardin. His mate clung to his arm and her eyes were full of worry.

I did a once over of her room and found something that caught my eye. I picked up the lined paper and read over it. My eyes slowly widened at what I read. Lana had been taking notes on flights to Arizona. She's gone back.

I raced out of the room towards Alpha Cardin's office. I didn't knock as I burst in. "She's gone back!" I cried, making everyone in the room jump.

"What are you saying, Asher?" Nyl stood, clearly not happy that I interrupted.

I showed him the paper. "Lana's gone back to Arizona. Possibly back to Mario."

Nyl shook with rage and I backed up a bit. "She might have gone to try and free the other women. Asher, get on the private jet and get back to Arizona as fast as you can. I'm going to keep trying to get through to Lana. Maybe she can give me a hint as to what's going on. Why are you still standing here?!" I raced out of the room, grabbed my bag that I didn't bother unpacking, then ran to get on the jet.

Luckily, the pack house was relatively close to the airport and where the private jet is kept. I quickly told the flight attendant outside the terminal where I needed to go and she ushered me on the jet. Cardin must have told her it was an emergency.

Soon, the jet took off and I was heading back to Arizona. I was jittery and restless. Why would she go back and block Nyl out? What is she trying to hide? If she's gone back to Arizona, it's most likely to help the remaining women; my Reece. Why would she risk her safety and her child's safety? This just doesn't add up.

 Within a couple hours, I landed back in Arizona. I called Rorie to tell him I need a ride back to the hotel. He seemed a bit hesitant, but agreed to come get me. It was another half hour before I was in the car with him and Joel heading towards the hotel.

Rorie stopped the car in the parking lot and sighed heavily. "Asher, I, uh, gotta tell you something. Whatever happens, please don't cause a scene."

This set me on edge. "I'll try..." I slowly got out of the car and cautiously made my way to the hotel doors. I was half expecting to see Reece, half not. I don't want to get my hopes up too high only to have them crushed when I don't see her.

I stepped through the doors and froze in my tracks. There she stood, hand on her hip, which was cocked to the side a bit. She just stared at me, not moving as I stared back. Her gaze held mine and I couldn't look away.

This is why Rorie told me not to make a scene.

Reece's parents are right here in the hotel. Her father stood beside Stacey and wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Asher," He nodded to me. I gulped, not sure how to respond. The last time I saw them, things didn't go over so well.

I gave a hesitant nod towards him. "B-Bennett, Stacey."

Her gaze hardened. "We never said you could-" Bennett cut her off with a cough. She turned her gaze to him, but he seemed unaffected. "Asher. Rorie told us what happened. How you're protecting Reece and trying to get her back. I hope things are going well...?"

I bit my cheek and had to look away. "There was a minor set-back... My Alpha's mate, whom we managed to get back to safety, ran back here to be with the leader of the ones who took the women. We think she's trying to negotiate a deal with him to release the women, including Reece."

"How many are left to be found?" Bennett demanded. "We need to know how many we have to look for before we jump in." He and Stacy paced closer to Rorie, Joel, and I when people walked into the lobby.

Rorie led us to a private room as I spoke. "There are three women left to find; that's including Reece. Luna Ingrid of the Twilight Pack, Female Beta Bennie from the Woods Pack, and my mate, Reece, your daughter." I added, hoping that they wouldn't try to kill me for not adding that last bit.

We entered a conference room and sat at the long table. "So, just the three? It shouldn't be too hard to find them." I opened my bag and pulled out a copy the map of all the packs, abandoned and alive, in Arizona Rorie gave me.

"There are thousands of abandoned pack houses here in Arizona." I pushed it towards them. "We've barely made a dent in covering all of them. We have a feeling that Reece and the others are somewhere in the southern half of the major packs, but their leader, Mario, changes his location every day, sometimes more. One day he could be here, then next, here." I pointed at two spots on the map, each at the other end of the land.

Stacey placed a finger on her lips. "Can you show me a path of where Mario has already been?" Rorie pulled the map to him and produced a pencil.

"We first caught wind of him here." He circled a town on the map. "We lost our team here. We weren't expecting to be so many. After several days, we found him here." He drew a perfectly straight line to another town. "After several days of following him and his group in stealth mode, we found him here, here, here, here, here..." In total, he drew lines to another ten places before setting the pencil down.

I glanced up and saw a small smirk in Stacey's lips. It reminded me of Reece when she had a trick forming in her mind. "Bennett, do you see what I see?"

He scanned over the paper, the same grin appearing. "Yes. I see it clear as day."

"See what?" I demanded. "What do you see?"

Stacey glared at me, but turned the map so it was facing me. "See this town? The starting town? Follow my finger." So I did. I watched it as she traced it over the page. North, south, east, west, north east, south east, north west, north east. And repeat.

My eyes bugged wide. "No way... That little fucker has a pattern."

"Watch your mouth!" I flinched back when Stacey snapped. "But yes, you're right. He has a pattern. So, judging by what this map says..." She reached into Bennett's coat pocket and pulled out a blue pen. "His next place he'll be staying at will be... Here." She brought the pen in a north western path to a small place outside of Casa Grande.

"After here, he'll go here." Bennett grabbed the pen and drew a line directly north to another out-of-the-way pack house.

"But wait," Joel stepped up. "But directly south of there is Casa Grande again. They don't go to the same place twice. How do we know this pattern is credible?"

"Because," Bennett drew a line down through Casa Grande to another place beyond that. "They will go here. By taking high ways, they throw off their pattern. But looking at it from a bird's eye perspective, we see that it's all cut and dry; plain as the nose on your face."

"Then let's map out their entire route." Rorie took the pen and found a ruler. "We'll cut them off and maybe see if we can find where they first met up. They chose this for a reason, meaning they have a place where they first started." He then spent the next ten minutes with us watching as he drew out their entire path of hiding places.

In the end, we connected all but fifteen pack houses. We concluded that Mesa was their initial starting place, since our path ended there and began to repeat with other places we already marked.

"But what about these places?" I pointed to the fifteen houses that didn't have any marks through them at all. "Why did the path never cross there?"

We jumped as Joel slammed his hands on the table. "One of those places is holding the girls!"

"What?" Rorie questioned. "How do you figure that?"

"Look!" He reached under one of the seats and pulled out a red pen and circled the abandoned pack houses that weren't touched. "We thought the girls were here when Esther said she escaped." He crossed it out. "Which leaves these places. We know the known lesser packs won't be touched," He crossed them out, a total seven.

"Therefore," He tapped the other seven remaining. "The girls are in one of these seven abandoned pack houses. We already got this place- someone have a different color pen? Ah, thank you- let's do the same pattern, but backwards." He took the green pen from Bennett and instead of going north from the place we thought the girls were, he went north east and followed the path backwards from there.

The rest of the abandoned pack houses matched up.

"No way..." I just barely whispered. "They all connect... My guess is, just in case we came for them, they have another place to take them with a different pattern to throw us off. They knew we'd come and search for the girls, so they took extra measures to make sure we never find them."

"So," Stacey took the pencil and tapped our destinations with the eraser. "Mario will be here tomorrow, and the girls are here right now. How soon do you want to send out a party?" She directed the question to Rorie.

He shook his head. "We can't send them out immediately after this discovery." He took the pencil and followed Mario's path twice. "We'll have some of the wolves and Hunters stationed here for lookout to see if we're correct with our deductions. If we are, we attack him here. If not, we scrap the whole thing and try again."

"We'll also send a rescue party to the girls that same day to confuse them." Rorie met my gaze. "Just like they did to the packs. They sent the masses out at the same time to all the pack houses at the same time to instill chaos and fear. If we do the same, they won't be expecting this. They believe packs work as one in a set area, thus the disorganized, yet strategically planned, attacks on the houses."

It clicked. "So if we use their own strategy against them, they won't know what to do!"

Rorie stood, a confident grin in place. "Precisely. So, I'll copy this for all the divisions and make a note that this will all happen two days from now." Bennett handed him a sharpie pen and Rorie made the notes.

"If you'll excuse me," With that, he and Joel left to make the copies.

Leaving Reece's parents and I alone.

I swear I can hear a cricket chirping in the silence.

"So..." I met Stacy's gaze. "Which party will you join?"

I knew what she meant. If I join the rescue mission, they'll think I'm a chicken and won't want to fight. But on the other hand, if I choose to fight instead of going for Reece, they'll think that I don't care for her and would rather have her in the hands of someone else, when they both know that she'll be expecting me.

I have to choose my words wisely. "I am going to join the attacking party." They began to open their mouths. "I'm doing this because the man who is behind all the kidnappings is there. If I can take him out, or at least aid in taking him and his army down, there is less likely of a chance of him doing it again, and there is less of a chance he can try it again."

"If I went to rescue Reece," I continued, making sure to keep eye contact with them. "I'll be distracted that I had finally found her and if there was a surprise attack, then I wouldn't know because Reece would be the only thing on my mind. I'd rather have Rorie go and get her because I trust him to protect her and get her out of there safely. As much as I'd love to be the one to get her, I don't want to risk her safety because I was too blind to see any danger that might be present."

They blinked slowly at my words and exchanged a look. "Alright," Bennett addressed me. "We'll join you on the frontal attack on Mario. We'll leave the rescue to Rorie. We trust him, too. Him and his family. We know they'll be able to get her safely and bring her back."

As he finished speaking, Rorie came back. "I'm giving you two a copy of the map, and Asher, I'm giving you some to give to Alpha Krivix and a few other people in the party. We're all going to meet up in one of the larger meeting rooms the hotel is providing us in two hours. We'll discuss game plans and where everyone will be sorted." We nodded and parted ways.

I got to the room I was sharing with Krivix and found him hunched over a desk, growling softly. I placed one of the maps before him over the old one without a word and  sat on my bed.

"What's this?" He asked as he picked it up to examine it.

"The new map." I said as I set the others beside me and turned the tv on. "We're going to meet up together in a meeting room and discuss how we're getting the rest of the girls back."

"You've found them?" He turned to face me and I turned my head a bit.

I looked over to him. "If our predictions are correct, then yes. We've found them. We need to be ready for the meeting in two hours. We're planning the rescue and the attack out."

I looked back to the tv, but wasn't watching it. A huge, giddy smile spread across my lips.

"We're getting them back."

-------------

Lana

I sat isolated in the room Mario had provided for me. I refused to come out except for meals. Since I got here, Mario has been trying to replace Nyl's mark for his. I made a huge mistake. I shouldn't have come here. I should have just stayed in Ohio. I should have known that the rescue party would do everything in their power to get the rest of the girls.

I shouldn't have thought that I could do this alone. I should have brought Nyl or someone with me. Why didn't I listen to reason? Why didn't I try to stop myself? Here I am, almost nine months pregnant, unable to shift to protect myself, and I'm acting as if I have to save the world with my foolishness. All while trying to save my Connection to Nyl at the same time!

I've tried contacting Nyl after Mario took me into the pack house, but I can't reach him. It's just like when I had the silver over the mark, only now the mark is open. Maybe there's something in the house that's doing this?

But I sometimes see the others linking each other. Is it set-up so that only the Rogues can do it and those in a pack can't? There has to be more than just Werewolves working in this. They must have contacted a Witch or something. It's the only explanation.

A knock at my door made me jump. "Lana, darling." My blood ran cold at his voice. "I'm coming in, sweetie." The door opened and he stepped in. "Why are you in the corner, Lana?"

I swallowed hard. "I thought I had a chance..." I muttered.

"A chance?" He shut the door. "A chance at what, honey?" He walked over to me and took up one of my hands.

I felt the tears pricking at my eyes. I looked up to see his concerned gaze. "Is it the baby?"

I shook my head. "No." My throat was nearly shut tight with unshed tears. "It's not the baby. I made a mistake..."

"Yes, you did." He sat before me and lightly traced his thumb over my hand. "You made the mistake of going with Nyl all those years ago. If you had stayed with me, none of this would have happened."

"No." I said a little more forcefully. "It's not that. That wasn't my mistake."

 I met his gaze steadily and took a deep breath. No going back now... "I made the mistake of coming here." His eyes widened. "I should have known that I wasn't fit enough to come here and try to persuade you to let the others go. I should have known this was going to happen. But no! I made the mistake of thinking I could trick you into giving me what I wanted! I thought that if you saw me, you would stop this fucking madness and attacks and shit and leave us be!"

"I should have left the rescue to the team!" I shouted at him, hot tears gushing out of my eyes at my heated words. "I should have just stayed back at my hiding place and not left! I shouldn't have gave in to my blind stupidity and think I could save them all! The rescue party has everything under control! They'll take you down without a moments notice then go and save my friends! It wasn't worth coming here! Everything was going to get done."

Mario was stunned. I gave a dry chuckle. "I bet they're looking for me right now. I might have sped up the process of them finding everyone. Now they'll be doing everything they can to make sure I'm rescued again, as well as saving the others."

"And just so everything is clear," I sat up onto my knees and got in right close to Mario's ear. "I never loved you like I love my Nyl. Him and I will be forever. You and I... there was no us. I only thought of you as my friend."

A ferocious snarl ripped through the air and I was suddenly gripped by my throat. I gasped and clawed at Mario's arm as he lifted me into the air.

"How dare you try to trick me!" He growled threateningly. I grunted loudly as I was suddenly slammed into the wall. "I will make you pay for thinking I was such a fool! I don't care about the Rogue Code anymore!" With another growl, he began ripping my clothes from my body.

"I will replace Nyl's mark for mine and you and I will be forever!" He snarled. My eyes widened and I tried to scream, but his hand only tightened over my neck. I tried to fight back; I really did.

"You will forget Nyl and will only want me!" I heard his pants ripping and knew it was only a matter of time before I would lose my Connection to Nyl.

His hands moved from my neck to my shoulders as he held me against the wall and positioned himself to me. I finally drew in enough air to let out an adequate scream. He simply pressed harder against me and placed his teeth over the mark.

"Mario!" The door suddenly flew open and I was dropped to the ground.

"What?!" He roared as he spun around.

"We're under attack!" My hopes soared. "Wolves and Hunters are storming the house! They found us!"

With another growl, Mario stormed off. Within a few seconds, clothes were thrown at me. "Get dressed." He commanded. "It's time we make our appearance."

Once I was dressed, he slipped on his own bottoms then hoisted me to my feet by my hair then forcefully drug me from the room.

He tugged me through the front door and out onto the porch by my upper arm. My mouth fell open at the sight before me. Mario's men were heavily outnumbered by all the Hunters and the Wolves from the local pack, as well as warriors from the four packs back in Oregon. I was even surprised to see members from the lesser packs.

I almost lost my footing as Mario began dragging me off the porch and into plain sight on the edge of the battle field. There was a soft click, then cool metal was placed against my neck.

I froze at his next words as my heart seemed to stop in my chest. "Make one move towards me, and Lana and the baby die!"

All activity froze as all eyes trained on us.