Twice Tempted: Between Two Alphas (Mia and Cameron)

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

JACE

“We’re losing him!” the doctor yells.

“Will he make it?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Dr. Lee commences CPR as more medical equipment is wheeled in.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” I demand.

Ashley is across the room on another exam table. She’s near to death. Our best physicians are using

paddles to shock her body. The defibrillator beep, beep, beeps as it charges. “Clear!” Dr. Lee yells.

It’s like a trauma scene from tv.

I have no love for my sister-in-law. I cannot prove it, but there have been a series of security breaches,

and they all began shortly after she became Luna of our pack. Two of our off-shore accounts were

emptied entirely last month. It isn’t just the missing money. We’re a publicly traded company. This kind

of theft–hundreds of millions of dollars–will plummet stocks and have the IRS so far up our asses, it’ll

be a miracle if someone doesn’t end up in jail for it.

“Mia,” my brother whimpers.

Everyone in the room freezes.

My father’s mouth hangs open. Sean, my father’s beta and Mia’s father, sucks in a breath.

We’ve wronged her.

Each of us in this room.

We are her family, and we stood idly by as Cam struck her and cast her out.

No one has spoken her name in years. But she’s always been a part of us. In the traditions she

created. Meals and gifts, house decorations and just our collective pasts.

She’s family.

“Mia,” Cam cries again.

“What is the meaning of this?” my father asks. His attention shifts to Ashley where she lies deathly still

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Dr. Lee shakes his head. “She’s in a coma. But there is something wrong with her blood.” He peels off

his gloves. “I’ll have to run more tests.”

“And my granddaughter?” my father asks.

We all turn to my niece where she rests in a crib. She doesn’t cry or complain much and for an

eighteen-month old baby, she is unable to heal as a healthy wolf her age would.

No one says it, but we all know…something isn’t right.

Dr. Lee sighs. “We can safely assume that the malady of the mother has impacted the child.”

Dad frowns. “But you can save Merilee, right, doctor? And my son?”

Dr. Lee makes no promises.

Cam starts to convulse and we crowd the bed to hold him down.

“Mia!” He thrashes.

“Bring the girl back,” my father decrees.

No one moves. No one speaks.

In Cameron’s decline, the alpha powers for our pack are reverting back to my father. It’s not a good

sign–maybe that’s why my dad is willing to risk bringing Mia home, knowing it’ll start a war with the

Luna. If she wakes, that is. And, at this rate, I don’t think anyone cares about old hurts or words spoken

that shouldn’t have been said. I don’t think anyone really cares about Ashley.

Sean lays a hand on my father’s shoulder. “My daughter is gone.”

Yeah, and he’s a piece of shit for not leaving with her. I’m sure plenty of wolves admired Sean for his

absolute loyalty to the pack. Me…I don’t think I can respect any man that could abandon his child like

that.

Mia is a sister to me. And these motherfuckers may have been fine with banishing her all those years

ago, but that decision never sat well with me.

They don’t know where she is. But I do.

I tracked her, personally.

“Find her!” Father puts the force of his alpha blood behind the command. “Find her. And bring her back!

Whatever it takes! Send our best trackers–”

“We don’t need trackers.”

I bear the heavy weight of each stare. Screw ‘em. This was the problem with the old regime, everything

was about blind obedience. Well, look where that got us.

My brother nearly dead, his daughter suffering, and our pack on the verge of collapse.

“I know where she is.”

“Then leave at once. Round up our troops. Take as many men as you need, the jet, whatever

resources–”

I hold up a hand. It won’t be so simple. “I know how to find her, but that doesn’t mean she’ll agree to

come back.” At least not willingly.

Cam calls out for her again.

“Do whatever it takes, Jace. You come home with Mia Riorsen–or don’t bother coming home at all...”

I leave the pack’s medical wing and step outside. I stand here for a few seconds, breathing in the

familiar scents. Pine and Aspen, Douglas Firs. The soft smell of overturned earth and livestock. But

more, I scent wolves. So many of them. Each scent calling to mind a packmember or distant part of my

family.

This is our home.

And it is under attack.

Do I think Mia is the answer? No.

And I think it’s unfair as fuck to drag her back here. But what other choice do I have? My brother is

dying and I owe it to him as my brother–as my Alpha–to do everything in my power to save him.

I scroll through my cell phone and find Mia’s name. I hit send but the call goes straight to voicemail. I

send a text, but after a few minutes, there is no reply and it doesn’t appear to have been read.

Time is not on my side. “Christian,” I call to one of our Enforcers. “Grab Declan, Michail, Tyler and

Liam. Pack our gear and get the jet ready. I want to be airborne in an hour.”

He nods and runs off.

I check my phone, but still no reply. I dial a number for one of our tech specialists. We use him mainly

for rogues or for keeping tabs on enemy packs, although the pack wars have cooled down dramatically

in recent years. We have bigger threats in the human world and with a seven-year surge approaching

in the vampire community. Those bloodsuckers are like locusts–hideous pests.

“Jacob… I need you to trace a number for me.” I rattle off Mia’s phone number. I tracked her down

when she first went to Cali so I know the general area where she settled, and I insisted she keep my

number. For emergencies.

I texted her plenty of times over the last few years. To see how she was doing. To ask if she needed

anything. To let her know I was thinking about her.

That she wasn’t forgotten.

Mia would acknowledge the texts with a ‘thank you’ but nothing more. Can’t say I blame her. I’m

ashamed of myself for not doing more, for not fighting harder to change Cam’s decree.

“Stay on the line,” Jacob tells me. “I’m pulling up an address from the phone records.” His fingers tap

on a keyboard. “It’s a suburb in Silicon Valley. Looks like she’s working for a tech company.”

Huh. That’s something.

My impression of Mia has always been of a kid sister, following us around and breaking balls. But she’s

grown and has a job and a whole life she’s been living without us.

I mark the address in my GPS when Jacob’s text comes through. “Jacob, we’re heading to the airfield

now. Do me a favor, triangulate the location of the phone itself. And dig up anything you can find on

her. I want everything–any known acquaintances, friends, lovers.”

“Gimme a few.”

“Sure thing. We’ll be in the air for an hour.” I lower my voice. “Do you have any other information about

our pack’s security breach?”

A low whistle. “This isn’t your run-of-the-mill corporate embezzlement. I’m tracking the money wires

through multiple shell companies. Should I switch back to the money trail?” Jacob asks.

“No. Mia Riorsen. She is our number one priority.”

“Copy that.”

I switch off my phone and jog toward the idling SUV.

Christian drives us to the airstrip, and door to door, we’re lifting off in under thirty minutes.

As the jet reaches altitude, I think through my plans. I have to consider that Mia won’t come back. That

she won’t care about the people that abandoned her.

That this mission might get… messy.

I ask myself: just how far am I willing to go to save my family?