The voices coming from downstairs woke me up. The room was pitch black, so it took me a second to realise that I was at my place. I had to admit that it was the first time since I was a kid that I slept so peacefully and I wondered if it was because I was home. I looked at my phone and saw that it was time to get up because we needed to get Natalia back.

I felt someone stir next to me. My whole body stiffened and dread filled my stomach as I tried to remember whether I had accidentally let one of the boys sleep in my bed.

"Oh, Callum." I heard the sleepyhead next to me say in a seductive, drowsy voice.

Yes, that was most definitely Scarlett. Was she having dreams about him? It didn't really surprise me as she couldn't take her eyes off him last night and apparently neither could he. It was the first time that I had seen Scar focused solely on one man when there were other hot guys present in the room. In a way, I was relieved as I feared that I would have done or said something stupid if she had tried to flirt with Aiden or Rafe, my supposed mates.

This whole thing confused me so much because I knew in my head that I did not want them. I was better on my own. A lone wolf, as far as relationships were concerned. Ha, lone wolf- the irony of that. Contrary to what my head was saying though, my heart and my soul were drawn to both of them, as absurd as it sounded, especially when thinking that one of them was the cocky prick Rafe Macalister.

The voices downstairs were getting louder, so I got dressed and quietly exited the room. Luckily Scar was a heavy sleeper, meaning that I didn't have to worry about us waking her up as we got ready to leave. As I neared the living room, I realised that there were two other people in there, aside from Aiden, Rafe and Callum in there. I immediately recognised their voices though.

"James! What are you doing here?" I exclaimed with surprise at seeing the fox Alpha in my house.

I turned around to my right and I saw another familiar face. "Connor!" I said and I wrapped my arms around my brother's Beta, giving him a kiss on the cheek. It was nice to him, as we had become good friends over the past weeks. Sure, I only left Scotland the day before but it was still lovely to see him.

"Hey, trouble. Missed me?"

"Of course. Whose messes would I have to clean up without you around?" There was always a lot of playful banter between us. Unfortunately, I seemed to have forgotten what had happened the night before because my warm greeting had both Rafe and Aiden ready to jump out of their seats, growling rather unfriendly at Connor.

"Woah. Easy there, you two. What's your problem? Not like Riley is your mate or something."

Crap: Did he really have to say that out loud? I knew he thought that he made a joke but I couldn't look at him straight so I averted his gaze and moved away from him. Rafe and Aiden continued to glare at Connor like they were ready to fight him if he put his arms around me again. "Wait...are they your mates? THE mates?"

Everyone was now looking at me, waiting for my answer. Callum and James were both clearly surprised, while Aiden and Rafe were being ridiculous. I wouldn't have been in this awkward situation now if they had not overreacted. Was this how they were always going to be whenever I had a guy near me?

"I...erm..." I really didn't know what to say. Connor was finding the situation hilarious though because he burst out laughing.

"Oh goddess, Lucien is in for a shock when we get back." He was grinning from ear to ear, enjoying this a bit too much. "I knew you would keep your brother on his toes," he chuckled.

"You better quit this before I kick your arse like you know I can." Gone was the playfulness in my voice as I was being dead serious. I didn't want a room full of guys to be discussing my love life - or whatever this mating business was - especially not when I was completely confused about the whole thing. "Now stop messing around and tell me what the hell the two of you are doing here;"

"Alright, alright. Wow, you three have no sense of humour. No wonder the Goddesses put you together." I punched him in the shoulder and gave him a mean glare. "Fine! Lucien asked us to come and reinforce your rescue mission. That place is probably full of magic and security forces, so you will need all the help that you can get. And seeing as this mission is kind of sensitive, we decided to keep it known only amongst the Council members, which is why James is here. I am replacing your brother as he can't leave our pregnant Luna on her own."

Well, that kind of made sense. Meanwhile I saw Aiden and Rafe relax as I moved further away from Connor.

Rafe cleared his throat, looking sheepishly by now. "I'm sorry...for earlier. And thank you- I do appreciate you all coming to help save my sister."

I was speechless- did Rafe Macalister just apologise to someone? I had to blink a few times to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. But the gratitude towards the other shifters for joining the rescue mission was evident in his eyes, despite his best efforts to look all tough and manly. Maybe Aiden was right after all- he did need the right movie.

"No worries, Rafe. I understand that the mate bond can make mates quite....protective," Connor smiled," and besides, we all like Natalia."

The moment was starting to feel rather cute, which was the last thing you would expect in a room full of dominant male shifters.

"Right, shall we get going then?" I said, breaking the silence that had settled in. " My contacts left us as an untraceable van with everything we need two streets down, so let's make a move. It will take us 30mins to get to the location."

Everyone nodded and started making their way out, while I wrote Scarlett a note to apologise for our sudden departure. I walked over to the front door, which Callum was holding for me.

"Do you think your friend will be okay?... Here on her own, I mean." It was sweet that he was concerned about Scar.

"She will be fine, don't worry- she nearly took you out with my vase, remember?"

Callum chuckled at the memory. "She really is something, your friend."

"Yes, she is," I smiled, thinking how lucky I was to have her in my life.

As we got to the van, I checked the equipment that my guys had left me. Everyone else in our little rescue team might be a shifter, but I was going to be prepared for whatever was coming our way this time. Assault rifles, handguns, night vision goggles, radios, knives. My work team knew me well.

30mins later we parked close to the mansion that we were going to break into. It was located on huge private grounds but with very little sophisticated security- my guess was that the people inside were not counting on any attacks and probably were going to rely on magic rather than traditional security measures. It didn't take long for my hunch to be proven right as Rafe stupidly decided to shift and rush ahead before the rest of us were ready.

Damn wolf, always acting impulsively.

He didn't get far though as a protective forcefield seemed to be in place around the estate, keeping shifters in their animal form out. It was quite a genius move on the part of our enemy as shifters were more vulnerable in their human forms.

Begrudgingly, Rafe shifted back to his human form, standing butt naked in front of all of us. The nakedness of shifters was no longer an issue for me as I had grown used to it after spending time with my brother's pack but seeing this man who was supposedly my mate completely naked in front of me had me transfixed. I ran my eyes all over his perfectly sculpted body, subtly inspecting every inch of him. My eyes widened a little as my gaze froze in between his legs. He was perfect everywhere which made him more infuriating. Thank goodness that someone eventually threw him some clothes so that I could get back to my senses.

"For fuck sake, Rafe," I barked, trying to hide what I was doing moments before, "for a warrior you really have zero strategic thinking. If you want to save Natalia, we have to work together, so stop rushing ahead of all of us."

He muttered something under his nose but didn't say anything back to me.

"Good. Now, thank you for confirming that there are some security measures in place. None of you would be able to get through in your animal form by the looks of it and either way, having a bear or a dragon charge forward would not really be a subtle move. So here is what we are going to do- you will each grab a weapon, in the event that you are not able to shift inside. Everyone gets a radio too so that we can communicate." It felt natural for me to lead the team but it also was a bit strange to think that a bunch of Alpha males were letting me give them orders. None of them argued though so, clearly, they recognised my authority, shifter or not.

"We don't need radios- our Alpha blood allows us to mind-link." Ugh. There was always one....surprise surprise, the words came from Rafe.

"Well, good for you. But unless you want me to send you smoke signals, you will use the bloody radio, are we clear?" I gave him the fakest smile that I could come up with but eventually, he accepted what I said, despite the huffing and puffing on his side. " Remember, the priority is to find Natalia and get her the hell out of there; We don't know the layout inside, nor where she is held so be careful and communicate regularly. Let's go."

The moon was covered by a thick blanket of clouds, while the trees around the mansion were swaying from the strong wind as we advanced towards the building. Yet, the weather was in our favour because it made it more difficult for whoever was inside to spot or hear our movements.

We quickly eliminated the guards that were patrolling outside the mansion. I was surprised and perplexed to realise that they were all human. They stood no chance against the boys' fast reaction and superhuman senses, and my skills and experience. But why would the people who were behind this, who clearly had magic, use humans instead of magic protection? The only logical explanation was that this place was not the headquarter but some lower-level operations base.

I didn't have time to think about this further though as we entered the mansion through the balcony above the ground floor. We checked each room to look for Natalia but we found no one. As we continued searching, I stumbled across what seemed to be an office. This was not an intelligence-gathering mission but I couldn't help to check it out in case we could get clues as to who was behind all of this and what they wanted.

The office looked rather ordinary, with a luxurious wooden desk, a fireplace and bookshelves full of books. There were no papers anywhere, which was odd, and no computer either. It was evident that a lot of time was spent in the room though as I could notice the wear and tear marks across the floor and furniture. But why would they use so much a seemingly empty room? I had my doubts that they were huge book lovers. Then it hit me- they had their things hidden somewhere.

"Everything okay, Riley?" I heard Aiden say from the door behind me.

"Yeah. I think that there is a hidden door or compartment in this room but I cannot find it," I let him know as I was trying to find the hidden mechanism in the room. "It might have information on the people behind all of this."

I saw Aiden's eyes immediately flash with an understanding of what I was trying to do here, so he entered the room further to give me a hand. We didn't have much time so we both searched the office to our best abilities, while the rest continued to check the remaining rooms on the floor.

"Riley," he turned around to me, "I sense many different human scents around here. Some traces of magic too." He pointed towards a particular section of the bookshelves. "Here. This book has a lot of scents on it."

He took the book out and passed it over to me. It was an old but beautifully bound copy of Dostoevsky's Demons. When I opened it though, the pages were cut out and a small red button was visible instead. Without thinking too much, I pressed it- a move that I realised was rather risky but my instincts were stronger than my strategic thinking at times. Fortunately, the button triggered a retractable part of the wall which revealed a small communications centre with a laptop and various documents.

The papers didn't have much useful information but I had a feeling that the laptop could. Thankfully, my contacts had provided me with the code-breaking device that could be used for anything from alarms to laptop passwords and in 60 seconds the computer in front of me was unlocked without any issues. Whoever was behind all of this could have really made use of the services that my boss was providing- we were certainly classes above these amateurs. Focus, Riley- you don't really want to be working with the bad guys. As soon as I was in I checked the email inbox and it was full of incoming messages from a Mr X.

"Things are moving according to plan- a bit more time and nothing will stand in our way."

"Get the Macalister girl whatever it costs you. Her father needs to be taught a lesson again."

"I'll be away for a few weeks- have to take care of some business in the States. The Shifters Council gala would be a perfect cover-up to meet with our American branch and grow the operations."

Who was this guy? He sounded like some deranged cult leader. Evidently he was calling the shots but his alias didn't give any clue about who or what he was. I kept reading but nothing could have prepared me for the last email that I came across though.

"A few more months and we will enter the final stage of the plan. Keep extracting shifters' animals- we need their lifeforce. Soon enough shifters they will be nothing but a memory."