Chapter 35: Talon
An unusual sound echoing faintly in the distance jolted me awake. My hearing was so advanced, so painfully sensitive, that I had to consciously tune out the constant noise around me just to sleep. Even then, I could still pick up everything, from the string of curses pouring out of our neighbor’s mouth as he lost a round of his videogame to the soft ding of the elevator arriving on our floor. If I focused, I could hear even farther: the wail of sirens, blaring car horns, the murmur of countless conversations, the relentless hum of a city that never slept, living loudly just beyond my walls.
In a city steeped in crime and depravity, blood-curdling screams were nothing out of the ordinary. Falcon City thrived in chaos. Muggings, murders, and all manner of violence claimed victims daily, and it wasn’t uncommon to hear someone crying out in the night. What set this scream apart, the one that hadripped me from sleep, was how close it had sounded. Too close. Possibly even on base.
My body shot upright in bed, heart pounding, sleep now a distant memory. I held my breath, straining my sensitive hearing, waiting for another scream to cut through the darkness, but none sounded. Maybe I had dreamt it.
I tried to fall asleep again, but couldn’t shake the eerie dread that rooted inside me when I heard that echo of a scream. My wolf was restless, pacing back and forth, trying to convince me that something wasn’t right. I cracked my knuckles attempting to maintain my control over The Beast. The ritual helped me to anchor myself and contain my wolf, who wanted out.
I tried straining my ears again, shifting through random noises and conversations, hunting for the source of the unnerving sound, but nothing stood out to me.
All was in place, despite the overwhelming instinct that it wasn’t.
Everyone else was asleep, and I heard their labored breathing through the walls. Killian snored particularly loudly, which used to keep me up all night, but after a decade of living together, the sound actually acted like white noise lulling me to sleep.
I suddenly realized that I could hear only the breaths of three people. Why couldn’t I hear my pet? I abruptly threw back my blankets and hurried toward her room, dread tightening in my chest with every step. The closer I got, the more my fears solidified into a terrifying reality. Opening her door confirmed it.
I couldn’t hear Rowan because she was not in her room, not even nearby. Her presence had vanished completely, leaving behind only a faint, stale scent that clung to the air.
Where the fuck was she?
A raw, primal howl tore from my throat as the divide between myself and my beast grew thin. My wolf urged me to shift, but I needed to keep control, at least for the time being. My roar had woken up my packmates, who ran into the living room on high alert. Cade shoved past me, his eyes scanning Rowan’s empty room before a low growl rumbled from his chest.
“Where the hell is Rowan? What happened, Talon?” he questioned.
“I don’t know! I heard a noise; it sounded like a scream, and it woke me up. It was far away but possibly still on base. I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards, so I came in here to check on her. My wolf was pacing and knew something wasn’t right!” I tried to explain quickly, already gathering her sheets and bringing them to my nose. I was going to track her and wanted the freshest source of her scent.
“Shift now. We need to find her. She couldn’t have gotten far. We haven't been asleep long. Plus, she would need a keycard to move around the base,” Cade said as he pulled a shirt over his head and slipped his service weapon into the waistband of his fatigues, readying himself to go search for her.
Killian had grabbed his gun too, and it was slung across his bare, mangled chest. He looked feral, just as he always did before combat. He was wild, on edge, and barely restrained. But this time, there was something different. For the first time, I saw fear flicker across his face. He was worried.
We all were.
A thought suddenly dawned on him, and I watched him slip his hand into his pants pocket, rooting around in search ofsomething. He checked the others before frantically signing to Cade.
“Killian thinks Rowan has his keycard,” Cade told us as he rubbed his temples in frustration.
“Fuck, Cade! She can get through almost any door she wants with that thing! She could be in Falcon City by now!” Ryker said.
“You think I don’t know that!? We need to move now! Talon, track her scent.”
I relinquished control to the beast, and the shift began. My limbs twisted and stretched, rearranging themselves with agonizing precision. Shifting was always painful and frequent transformations hadn’t dulled that; I had simply learned to endure it.
Fur erupted across my skin, my nose elongated into a snout, and where I had once stood, a wolf-like creature emerged. It threw its head back in a howl, then bolted without hesitation, chasing the scent of Rowan.
I couldn’t speak in my wolf form and could only communicate telekinetically with other shifters, so our pack developed a simple communication method during my shifts. They would ask me questions, and in response, a howl meant yes, a growl meant no.
“Do you smell anyone else? Was she alone?” Cade asked, not trusting his own senses, which already told him the truth he didn’t want to admit.
There was no other scent, and he didn’t need my advanced shifter nose to know that. Rowan had left alone, using Killian’s stolen keycard to escape in the night. It was deliberate.
I growlednoin response.
“That brat is going to get the punishment of her life when we find her,” Cade said, eyes darkening with whatever deviant dark punishment had materialized in his mind.
“I call dibs on spanking her!” Ryker joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Let’s just find her first. Then we can all take turns making her beg for forgiveness over and over,” Cade said through clenched teeth, his control slipping.