Chapter 3

Three days into the search of the Vampire territory, Gemma and Mathias were coming up empty-handed. During two of their searches, they managed to locate a few caves that contained cages and old smells, but they appeared to be abandoned a long time ago.

“So we know they are taking shifters from their packs or covens and temporarily housing them in caves such as the ones we found, Hunter also came up empty on Werewolf pack lands. Should we petition King Caleb to search Alarian land?” Gemma asked in concern.

“There is a meeting here today, we can petition then, let’s gather up the details we have and meet up with Hunter. I want to make sure everything is right before we ask the humans for permission to tear apart their land.” Mathias replied, skeptical over just demanding something from the human king, even though he’s married to his Queen’s sister.

“There’s always the option of them being taken elsewhere outside and not even in any of the three kingdoms,” Patrick added.

“That’s what we are afraid of,” Mathias answered looking at the map. “I’ll call Marcus and get the details from their searches. I’ll see you two at the meeting.”

Gemma and Patrick both left the room and headed back to the nursery to check on Aiden and the twins. She stepped into the room and looked up to notice Tara in the corner sweeping. Tara kept looking over at the babies in contentment.

“Good afternoon,” Gemma said as she started picking up Aiden.

“Good afternoon Miss,” Tara replied, sweeping up her dust and she bowed and left the room.

Gemma took her seat in the rocker and glanced to the other side of the room; she noticed a large pile of dirt in the corner. Thinking it was strange that the cleaning lady missed a huge pile like that one on the floor; she shrugged it off and lowered her shirt to feed Aiden. She adjusted the baby so he could latch and looked up; she couldn’t help but snicker at Patrick who was making funny noises at the twins. “You are such a child,” she laughed as she watched him make funny faces.

“You love me anyway,” he said as he walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek.

“I do huh?” She smirked at him, as she leaned up to kiss him.

“Ewwwww my virgin eyes!” Ravenna exclaimed as she entered the room covering her eyes and smiling at her best friends. She picked up Alejandro, moved over to another rocker, and began to feed him. “Are you ready for the meeting?” She asked Gemma knowing King David and Queen Rosemarie should be there soon.

“I’m ready to find these poor shifters, but I don’t know where else to look. It’s like they just disappeared,” Gemma said frustrated.

“You are doing what you can; we can’t make you do any more than that,” Ravenna remarked as she laid down Alejandro and picked up Allison.

“I know, I just can’t help but feel helpless here,” Gemma replied burping Aiden. “I am going to recommend expanding our search to Alaria because I’m just stuck now.”

“We will figure it out, we should probably be heading to the meeting though.” Once Ravenna goes finished feeding, she laid down Allison and grabbed her half of the monitor. She gave one final look around the room to verify everything was good. She then turned on the nightlight and soother the babies started falling asleep from their milk coma. The girls both smiled and left the room with Patrick in tow. They quietly walked down the hallway to the door of Zane’s office. Once they stepped into the room they were met with the Kings and Queens of Alaria, the Royal Pack. Ravenna and Zane’s parents also attended, and finally the main generals of each kingdom Mathias, Victor, and Marcus.

Ravenna sent everyone a smile and took her seat next to Zane and set the monitor on the table. “Let’s get this started; the kids will be waking up in a few hours.”

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“Gemma you and Hunter tell us your findings,” King Zane asked as he sat down at his chair.

Nodding, Gemma turned to Mathias and Hunter as they pulled out a large map nailing it to the wall. As the room scanned the map they noticed the blue and red circles strategically placed around the map of the Vampire and Werewolf kingdoms.

“Ok so to break it down, we color coated everything. The blue areas were places that we checked which we came up completely empty. As you can see it is unfortunate, but it was almost everything we checked.” Gemma said looking around the room. “However, we did find a few things in the red areas. In those locations, we found cages, cuffs, and signs of people having been housed there at some point in time.”

“Based on these findings, we determined that the shifters are indeed being held prisoner, but they are almost immediately being moved to a different location. We would like to expand our search to the Alarian Border and beyond. Of course, we would need to obtain your permission first Your Majesty.” Hunter stated as he looked at King Caleb and his Captain of the Guard Victor.

“Permission granted, please keep in contact with Victor, we want to help in any way we possibly can to figure out what’s going on, especially if it is happening on Alarian soil.” King Caleb nodded at Hunter and turned to Victor. “Please work with Hunter and Gemma and see what you can find out.”

“Of course Your Majesty,” Victor nodded in agreement at the king. Turning to Hunter and Gemma he looked at their map. “These landmarks you chose to search, what made you choose them?”

“To put it bluntly, space. The latest count of the total people missing that we know of is now up to 45 people between Werewolves and Vampires. Because of that large number, we narrowed our search down to any area out there that they could possibly store 10 people or more,” Gemma explained to him.

Victor nodded in acknowledgment and looked at the board next to them. On the board was a list of the missing people and the information that was gathered about them. “Just off of first glance, most of these missing people are fighters, obviously not the infants but there’s a lot of fighters and medical personnel. Any clue what they all have in common because I’m not noticing a thing to link them besides that.” Victor asked the three in the front.

“Let’s face it; there will never be a 100 percent link between all of these people until recently all species just stayed to themselves.” Hunter turned to the board, “as far as anything narrowing it down further than jobs we haven’t got a clue. There is no link between them whatsoever.”

“Could the kidnap location be a link?” Ravenna asked them.

Turning to look at the pictures Gemma signed deeply, she pointed at the top two pictures of the missing Vampires.

“Andreana Gryffon; she disappeared out of her house in the Shadow Reaper pack,” Gemma stated pointing to the first picture, moving to the second picture the sadness is obvious in her eyes. “This one is Cassius Annesley; he disappeared at the neutral ground park. Hunter?”

“Our first disappearance is Nina Halsey; she was the head trainer at the Midnight Pack and disappeared into thin air after pack training. Our second disappearance was little Holly Keller, she was taken from her crib in the middle of the night from the Blood Moon Pack.” So not unlike the Vampires, there’s no rhyme or reason to the disappearances,” Hunter stated.

The others in the room nodded with a grim expression and looked at the map. It was at that point that the true reality of their situation set in. There is no way to track these missing shifters since there really isn’t a link or connection between them at all. Once the trackers joined them all at the table, the group shifted their focus to brainstorming ideas on where to look for these missing shifters.