Sadie didn't answer.
I tried Lillian instead. No answer.
I called the restaurant and sighed, relieved, when the phone was picked up. The background sounded perfectly normal, a quiet evening dinner for the upper-class set. Soft music tinkled through the drone of voices, never quite so loud as a Macaroni Grill or an Olive Garden, but loud enough to reassure me. It was a stage set for casual disappointment at ridiculous prices.
Perfect for people with too much to spend and too little experience with the world.
"Excuse me," I said. "I don't suppose a Sadie Adelaine is present at your establishment tonight?"
I gave him a quick description of our lover, to which he asked me to wait. The line was left open, a sign of glaring mismanagement. Had I been attempting to run a facade of that stature, that slip alone would have cost him his job. Thankfully for him, I'd never had an interest in becoming a restauranteur.
He returned quickly enough, had my mate not been in danger. As it was, there was a distinct struggle in controlling myself as he spoke to me. "Yeah, she was with some other lady. Ran out of the restaurant a little while ago, freaking out. Maybe they had a breakup or something. The other broad is still here, enjoying some wine. You want me to tell her anything?"
"No." I wanted him to spike her drink with a few shards of silver, let Lillian get a taste of what it meant to hurt like I was. Again, I composed myself. It was a near thing. "I thank you for your time. Have a good evening."
I hung up on him and walked out to join Gabe. Together, we dug at the car and the drive, working until our clothes were freezing our sweat to us. At some point, Xavion and Leo had joined in to help. Tommy, thankfully, was fast asleep. I only hoped he wouldn't suffer through what we had.
The group of us piled into the car and I hoped it would be able to skirt along the crust of the snow. It was such a lightweight, tiny thing compared to the Hummer; and the snow hadn't completely filled my beast's tracks yet. We might make it there. If not, I'd call in a helicopter to lift us back to the house before Tommy knew we'd left. The boy would be fine left alone for a few hours. He'd...
...God, the first time I'd left him alone had led to all this. What if the pesky neighbors came over to check on us? What if they found a kid left alone in the house and he munched on them, next? No, no we had to go help Sadie. Her life was on the line. We could pay off the neighbors again if we had to.
I turned the key in the car and was met by nothing but silence.
"Oh, for fuck's sakes," Xavion snarled.
He flung himself out of the car and smacked the hood. I pulled the little lever next to my feet. Xav spent a minute or two under the hood and came back cursing at the top of his lungs. He yanked open the door and growled. "The wires to the battery have been gnawed. They're too short and there's no replacements in the house; Sadie doesn't have a damn thing to fix this car besides a jump box. That isn't going to do it."
"So, we just sit here and hope she pops up?" Leo said, incredulous.
Xav's shoulders slumped. "There's nothing else we can do. A chopper takes time and-"
My phone rang and I eyed it. The name displayed across the front was the one person I wanted to speak to the least.
"Hudson, I'm afraid your new pet has run off into the night. She may be just a little insane," Lillian said without waiting for me to answer.
I stifled a snarl of my own. "And how did you know I was asking?"
"Do you think that I don't have ears everywhere? You called the kitchen. They came out to ask me about her. It wasn't particularly difficult to put together. Now, maybe for someone like you-"
"What did you do?" I grated.
She met me with a cascade of laughter, the sort of sinister shit you'd have expected from a cartoon supervillain on Saturday mornings. I clenched my teeth and tried not to smash my phone. Eventually, she answered. "I gave her a drink a friend of mine found out about in Asia. He'd gotten too close to the humans during the Moon and, oopsie. Rather than relying on the justice of the local supernatural order, he found some old fae mage in the hills and they created the recipe together. Thankfully, the ingredients are easy to find. You'll never have her again."
"Where is she?"
"Does it matter? She's just some stupid little human now. You've never cared for them before, why would you now?" Lillian paused, then purred at me. "Do you love her, Hudson? Did you want to spend the rest of eternity with her in your pack, hunting stupid, defenseless sheep until you both got shot?"
The rage left me in a terrible swoop. Tears touched my cheeks. "Did you hurt her?"
"Oh, goodness. Are you crying?" She sounded delighted. "I should have set her on fire, rolled her corpse out into traffic, and sent you the pictures. She ran away from me before I could do that. You should have seen her face when she realized she couldn't feel any of you anymore."
The growls of my pack mates echoed throughout the tiny car. I hung up on the hateful old bitch and tried Sadie's phone again; once, twice, three times.
Gabe jerked his head around as headlights poured onto the house from around the corner.
