The women all looked at one another and then at me with confusion marring their brows before Loralei spoke up. “Buffy did.”
“What?” I shouted as I fought my panic. Buffy may not be up to anything overly malicious, but she’d already led Soleil to believe she was essentially a club whore. That pissed me off and I nearly lost my shit. I’d had a talk with Buffy, and she hadn’t been overly happy with what I’d had to say.
Jasmine’s infant daughter, Erhia, cried at my outburst, and Loralei’s girl jumped and clung to her. I winced. “Dammit, I’m sorry.”
Jasmine glowered as she lifted Erhia to rest on her shoulder and patted her diapered butt. Hawk leaned over the back of the couch and touched her cheek with a fingertip. “Shh, little one. It’s okay.”
Immediately, Erhia stopped fussing and snuggled into her mom’s neck.
“Where were you last night?” Jasmine asked in exasperation.
“New parents gotta learn to handle their baby first,” Hawk rumbled before he looked my way. “What’s the deal with Buffy?”
I dragged a hand down my face. “I don’t know. She was fucking with Soleil’s head yesterday and made her believe we would all share her. I have no doubt it’s because she’s pissed I told her I’m off the market.”
“The fuck?” Venom said from behind me. The rest of the women made muted sounds of outrage so as not to disturb the kiddos again.
“Which way did they go?” I asked.
“Out back.” Loralei thumbed over her shoulder at one of the side doors on the large building.
“The upside is that there are no vehicles allowed in or out without permission, so they couldn’t have gone far. Maybe she wanted to apologize to her?” Squirrel reasoned as we rushed to the exit Loralei had pointed out.
“I can’t believe Soleil would trust her after the lies Buffy told her,” I muttered. When I slammed outside, there was no sign of them. Voodoo stepped up beside me as I prepared to go racing off and grabbed my arm to hold me in place. He closed his eyes and went still. When he opened them again, he blinked and shook his head.
“I don’t know exactly where she is, but they went over to the hog farm,” he told me.
“They had no reason to go over there,” I grumbled as I took off toward the exit hidden in the bushes at the back of the lot. It cut through the cornfields and led to the back of the farm where our private buildings were. The legitimate employees at the farm believed them to be full of random shit that was being stored for the club. No one had ever messed with them. That had to be where Buffy had taken her. It was the unknown “why” that had my feet moving faster.
I fumbled with the lock, and Voodoo pushed me to the side. “You’re too close to this situation. You’re losing your cool.”
He wasn’t wrong, and I reticently stepped to the side. Right when we burst out of the field, I heard Soleil scream.
“That was from the wild boar side,” Voodoo clarified, and we ran.
As soon as we rounded the domestic pig barn, I could see why she was screaming, and my blood ran cold. My legs pumped faster, and I worried there was no way I could make it in time.
Because Soleil was at the back of the property, in the corner of the pen with one of our massive wild boars staring her down. Frantic, she shook the gate and pulled at the padlock that had been placed on it.
I was running so fast, I hit the fence and bounced off when I arrived. Immediately, I tried to get the lock open. “I need a bolt cutter!” I shouted when none of the usual combinations worked. Upon further inspection, I realized it wasn’t one of our locks.
“Aros!” Her eyes were wide with terror. I curled my fingers over hers where they gripped the chain-link.
“Try to stay calm. If you keep screaming, you’re going to make him feel threatened,” I explained, then I started to climb, but the toes of my boots were too big to get much of a hold in the holes of the fence.
“Me threatenhim?” she shouted as her knuckles went white where she gripped the fence. I could see the rapid pulse in her neck when she looked over her shoulder again.
“Can you climb?” I asked, since her feet were smaller.
She shook her head. “Afraid of heights.”
I snorted at the irony. Of all the things that she could’ve carried from her past.
Squirrel was still running full tilt at the pen. Right before he would’ve slammed into it harder than I did, he disappeared in a puff of black smoke, then reappeared on the other side. He threw himself in front of her when the nearly 400-pound feral hog snorted and squealed in anger at having someone unusual in his territory.
“Uhh, you guys might want to pick up the pace with that bolt cutter!” he shouted. The ugly beast suddenly ran at them, and my heart stopped. I’d seen what one of those did to a body.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I chanted as Blade worked the bolt cutter the best he could. Finally, the lock fell to the ground, and I rushed in through the narrow opening. We couldn’t fully open the gate and risk that the beast would get loose.