“Meg told me she needed to explain to her sister why she needed to move again. She was scared her brother, Scott, would take Lexie away again if she got too upset. She refused to share the burden with Kaitlyn in fear of ruining her wedding. She said she had to talk to Lexie before she lost herself completely to her desire for you.”
Prescott’s cat was momentarily jerked out of its rage at those words. “She desires us?”
“She was fighting it with everything she had. When she talked about you the musk was pouring from her. It was very uncomfortable.” The big bear was actually blushing. “She was in obvious distress. She cried.”
“You let her manipulate you by crying,” Lachlan said. His tone was arctic.
Caleb held his hand up to silence Lachlan. “It’s a little thin as an excuse, Landon. But I respect you for aiding our mate and keeping her confidence.”
“I understood her not wanting to complicate Kaitlyn’s wedding day with our mating,” Lachlan said. “But nothing you’ve told us explains why she’d run from us.” He turned and left the ladies’ room, his anger and hurt leaving a clear scent trail behind him.
“I’m sorry, Caleb, but I think she’s in trouble. I know she’s scared. She didn’t lie about that, and she reeked of fear.” Prescott watched the big man sag. He was nearly seven feet tall, but always seemed even bigger. His normal confidence and humor were gone. He looked troubled. “I’m going after her. Somethings not right. She wouldn’t just walk away from her mates. She wanted you, I know she did.”
“I only know she’s gone,” Prescott said. “She avoided us and then left.” He wanted to believe Landon, but both he and his cat were smarting from her rejection. “Lachlan is right. She ran.”
“I don’t care why she left,” Caleb said. “I’m going to find her and learn the reason from her. My cat will not be happy until he finds her and neither will I.”
“And if she still rejects you?” Prescott said.
“Then I won’t die wondering.”
* * * *
Meg drove straight to her friend Paula’s house. She’d driven the seventeen hours with barely any stops and was totally exhausted. Paula was a good friend from work, but was someone she’d rarely socialized with, so she’d felt certain Nick wouldn’t have thought to look at Paula’s for either her or Lexie. She’d only been gone for two nights and hoped he hadn’t yet realized she’d been gone.
It was only five in the evening but a storm had set in, making the skies dark with rainclouds. She’d phoned an hour ago and asked Paula to have Lexie ready to leave straight away. Lexie had been excited that Meg was nearly home and was looking forward to hearing all about Meg’s mates.
Lexie was only five. Mates were something akin to Prince Charming to her. Although, they sort of felt like that to Meg as well. Her mates were all handsome and strong. She felt the stab of guilt twist her stomach and cried out with the pain. She’d left them.
It had hurt so much to leave them, but she’d done it to keep them safe. She’d drive for another seventeen hours straight if she had to, because she needed to get back to them as soon as she could. The pain had grown worse with each mile she drew away from them. She knew it was all in her head, but she ached just the same. She’d never even let herself touch them. Her cat had roared in frustration at being denied their touch.
“Tomorrow. If they forgive me, then tomorrow we can touch them.” It helped a little. Their mating musk had done its intended job. She wanted them. She wanted them badly. She wanted to rub herself all over them. Somehow she’d achieved the impossible, she’d resisted that urge. Nothing short of wanting to protect them would have made it possible. She just hoped they understood when she got back to them.
She parked the car and dragged herself out, indulging in a slow stretch before walking to Paula’s front door. It was dark and quiet in the small condominium. The hairs on the back of Meg’s neck tickled as they rose.
“Paula, it’s Meg.” She knocked on the door and it swung open. Meg started to shake. The smell of blood wafted out the open door. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket as she walked slowly into the dark house.
She ran to Paula’s side when she saw her friend slumped on the sofa. She had a gash on her head, but Meg could see she was breathing and hear the steady beat of her heart. She also heard nothing else. There were no other heartbeats in the house. Lexie wasn’t here. She scented her, but she was no longer in the house.
She called 911 as she searched the empty home. On the kitchen table was Lexie’s coloring book and crayons. Written in red crayon on the open page of the book was a message for her.
“We’re waiting for you to come home to us.” Nick had taken Lexie and he’d left her an address.
Hating herself for leaving her friend, she took the coloring book with her and without waiting for the ambulance or the police, she ran from the house and got behind the wheel of her car. She couldn’t involve the police, she’d tried that before and Nick had somehow known. He’d said he’d kill Lexie if she tried to go to the police again.
She should have known he’d never let her go. He’d warned her enough times. Living free with Lexie and her mates was a pipe dream. She drove to the address he’d left for her to find, praying the entire time that Lexie was safe. She wouldn’t survive if her own stupidity had killed her sister.
Chapter 3
Lachlan, as sheriff of Pine Falls, had used official channels to find out Meg O’Brien’s address in San Diego. He’d then relayed the address to Caleb and told his brother to go search for his mate. He’d told Caleb that he wanted nothing to do with someone like her.
He’d lasted a whole five minutes before running from the sheriff’s station to find Caleb and Prescott waiting out front for him in Caleb’s truck. Prescott had said he wasn’t going either, but it seemed as though both of their cats were not willing to let her go so easily.
The instinctual drive to mate was one that nature really did make impossible to deny. He’d told his cat in no uncertain terms that he was not going to run after a reluctant mate. But here he was, on the outskirts of San Diego.
He’d kept track of her progress on the journey down through her speeding fines. Her rental car had been easy to identify. There was only one rental company in Pine Falls. The speed at which she’d travelled had caused him the most concern. She really was running scared. He didn’t think they’d given her any cause to be this frightened of them. Perhaps Landon was right? Maybe something else really was scaring her.
It had been a long and silent drive. All of them were worried and angry. Angry at their mate for driving away and worried there really was no other reason. Perhaps she just didn’t want them?
Lachlan knew Caleb had been right. This was the only way. If they were to live the remainder of their long lives without a mate, at least they would know why. They wouldn’t have to go to their graves wondering the reason for it.
By the time they pulled up to her small cottage, night had come early due to a massive thunderstorm. The rain was falling in sheets and lightning lit the sky before thunder shook them to their bones.
“Quite the ominous setting for bad news,” Prescott muttered.
“It may not be bad news,” Caleb said. “I can’t imagine why she ran, but it was important to her. No one drives like that without a very good reason.”
“Even if she has a good reason, I may still put her across my knee for driving so fast.” Lachlan couldn’t believe he’d said that. In the whole eighteen-hour journey he’d never once admitted she may have had a reason for leaving without a word. Damn mating hormones.
He didn’t want to be anything but angry at her and the image of her draped naked across his lap while he spanked her cute round ass was ruining that. His cock stirred and thickened, despite him willing it not to.
When they stepped up to the porch of her cottage Lachlan knew no one was inside. Apart from the lights not being on, there were no heartbeats.
“I’m going inside to wai
t, it’s too wet out here,” Prescott said. He walked to the door and turned the handle. The door opened and all of Lachlan’s senses went on high alert.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t she lock the door if she was going away for a couple of days?” Prescott said. He stepped inside and his roar of rage shattered one of the front windows.
Lachlan and Caleb ran inside behind him, the glass showered over them despite their preternatural pace. The living room looked as though a wild cat had been trapped inside and had torn the place apart in an attempt to escape.
Lachlan could get no sense of what the room would previously have looked like because nothing remained in one piece. The sofa was shattered, the cushions ripped to shreds. A table and bookshelf lay in pieces. They each ran off in a different direction, returning seconds later having completed a search of the tiny cottage.
“The kitchen and bathroom look the same as this,” Caleb said.
“Both bedrooms are in the same state,” Lachlan said. They both looked at Prescott. He was holding something in his hand and staring fixedly at it.
“I know why she ran,” he said. The tone of his voice had ice spreading through Lachlan’s veins. This was going to be bad.
“She’s married.” Lachlan voiced the fear he’d kept deep inside him since Meg had first run from them that Friday night in the Outpost.
Prescott growled, the sound long and low as it rumbled through him. “Worse. She’s being stalked.” He handed the crumpled piece of paper to Caleb, who then echoed the growl.
Lachlan stepped forward to look at the paper in Caleb’s hand. As his mind tried to make sense of the images his cat had already done it, and he felt his eyes heat with his cat’s rage, his claws erupting from his fingertips. The paper was a photo of Meg and a small blonde-haired girl. The girl was on a swing with Meg standing behind her. They were both smiling. The little girl’s face was circled in red ink, the circles growing smaller and smaller. A target.
Written under the image in neat lettering were the words, “You’re mine. Try and go to the police again and she dies.”
Lachlan wanted to kill this person, but he also felt ashamed. He’d wanted to let her run. He’d been too proud to think past his hurt feelings when she hadn’t fallen at his feet. He hadn’t considered she had a life and problems of her own. Big problems, as it turned out. He was already a terrible mate.
“There’s more like this,” Prescott said. “They’re in the trash.”
Lachlan ran out to retrieve the evidence, his investigative skills as a sheriff overruling his cat’s blind rage. He returned with a few more crumpled photos. Some had threats penned underneath. There were photos of Meg at her work and of Lexie at school, as well as a collage of them together while shopping or playing in the park.
The threats were all similar. They said she was his and that he’d kill her sister if she touched another man. Lachlan didn’t know if this was an ex-boyfriend or a stranger, but whoever they were they were going to die if they’d hurt his mate.
“She’s not here,” Lachlan said softly. “Do you think he has her? Has both of them?”
“I hope not,” Caleb said. “I fear they’ll both be dead by now if he has. We need help.”
“I’ll call a detective I know,” Lachlan said. He reached for his phone and mentally reached out and begged the Fates to forgive him and allow him another chance with his mate. This time he would not fail her.
* * * *
Meg drew up to an abandoned building down near the docks. She could scent Lexie’s fear, but still couldn’t scent Nick. It was what had always made her uneasy around the man. He carried no scent.
Walking straight to the gap in the doors, she followed the scent of Lexie’s fear into the old building. She didn’t know how one dinner date had gone so horribly wrong. Nick was a lawyer at the council building where she worked as a secretary. After Kaitlyn left, she’d felt sad and a little lonely, so she accepted Nick’s offer to go out for a steak and beer one Friday night. Then everything had gone to hell.
“Nick, I’m here,” she said softly, walking deeper into the empty warehouse. The space inside smelled of rusty metal. A small candle flickered next to Lexie as she sat tied to a chair, Nick stood next to her, his hand around her neck.
“Meg. The lovely Meg is here at last, Lexie. I told you she’d come.” Nick was stroking his hand down Lexie’s arm and Lexie was staring ahead, her eyes wide, tears dribbling down her cheeks and off her chin.
“I’m here, pumpkin. I won’t leave you now,” Meg hoped she was telling her sister the truth. She didn’t want to leave Lexie, but she’d die if that’s what it took to make her safe again.
Nick was a tall man, about six feet, maybe not tall compared to her mate, Prescott, who was over six and a half feet tall, but Meg was only five feet one, and so he towered over her. He had jet black hair that he wore combed straight back off his handsome face. He had eyes as black as coal that contrasted with his pale complexion, making him look intelligent and handsome.
Meg had been like all the secretaries, in awe of the man’s compelling beauty and confidence, so she’d been honored when he’d asked her out. Accepting in a moment of loneliness had been the biggest mistake of her life. He’d been kind and courteous on their date, but had become pushy and crude when she’d declined his offer to go back to his place for coffee.
He’d been so shocked that she’d declined his offer to go to bed with him that she wondered at the number of women who’d probably accepted. When he’d struck her, she knew she’d made the right decision. He was a creep. She couldn’t shift and reveal herself to him, and she had been lucky to get away from him.
“So we get our second date at last, little Meg. I am going to have to punish you for keeping me waiting though.” He shook his head and walked toward her.
She looked at Lexie and saw she had tape over her mouth, which explained why she wasn’t screaming for her. Lexie looked terrified and she was shaking as hard as Meg was.
“I’ll take Lexie home, Nick. I won’t tell anyone what you did. Please. Just let me take her home now.”
“No!” Nick screamed the word at her as he picked her up by her forearms and threw her across the warehouse. She flew faster than she could even run. Her arms and legs flailed as she tried uselessly to slow herself.
She didn’t stop until she hit the rusted corrugated steel siding of the warehouse. Her whole body screamed in pain. She felt the crunch of broken ribs as she breathed. What is he? She shook her head and tried to clear it. Her vision swam as he suddenly appeared right in front of her.
“Meg, see what you made me do?” He grasped both her ankles and dragged her from the dent she’d made in the steel wall. Her broken ribs stabbed her as he bumped and dragged her back into the ring of candlelight beside Lexie. Her whole body hurt. Her head throbbed so badly she wondered if her skull was fractured.
“Please.” She stopped speaking to spit out a mouthful of blood. Her tongue felt swollen and sore where she’d bitten into it when she’d hit the wall.
“Please, will do you no good now, Meg. Where did you go? I looked for you for two whole days.” He leaned down and inhaled deeply. “Good, you remain untouched. I would have been very upset if you’d let another man have what is mine.”
She opened her mouth to say something but he slapped her across the face. It sent her sliding a few feet across the floor. She screamed as her broken ribs stabbed into her as she travelled across the uneven floor.
She lay in agony, wondering how to rescue Lexie when a cell phone rang. Hers was in the rental car with her purse, so it must have been his. She tried to sit up and see what he was doing, but she couldn’t move. Her chest burned with just the effort to breathe.
“I’ll come now then. But I can’t spare you much time. I have a hot date and I don’t want to keep her waiting now I’ve got her all warmed up.” She heard Nick laugh at his own joke, and her involuntary shudder of fear and disgust made her scream with pain. “Yes, that’s h
er. Told you I had her all warmed up.”
Chapter 4
Caleb and his brothers had searched the house and the only scent trail had been Meg and Lexie’s. Lachlan’s friend from San Diego PD had put out a BOLO—Be On the Look Out—for Meg’s rental car, and they had all been pacing the small cottage while they waited for him to call.
When Lachlan’s cell finally rang an hour later, they all jumped. “Thanks Paul, that’s great. Can you get them to wait for us? If she’s shifted we can’t have the uniforms shooting our little leopard.”
They were all running to the truck before Lachlan had ended the call. “She’s at the waterfront, I’ll program the GPS.”
“Will they wait for us?” Caleb said. Lachlan was right, if she’d somehow shifted to protect herself the local police may shoot at what they thought was a trapped leopard.
“Paul has told them to wait for him. They’ll wait.”
Caleb was so thankful that Lachlan had known a wolf shifter down here. They would have been driving around the city aimlessly looking for her otherwise. He longed to see Meg’s shifted form, but not after someone had put a bullet in her.
Meg’s sweet honey and pine scent had made his cat wild for her. He’d bet she was a small leopard. She was a tiny woman, he just hoped he’d get to see her cat at all. If this stalker had hurt her, he may find himself killing his first human.
When they arrived at the warehouse, Lachlan’s friend Paul was waiting for them. The big wolf shifter looked anxiously at them when they exited the car. Caleb knew why after he’d taken his first breath of the rain filled air at the dock. Blood.
“Fuck. I can smell her fear and her blood,” Prescott said. Caleb saw his eyes begin to glow. He growled softly at his brother, but Paul turned and sent the uniformed officers to the rear of the deserted building.
Fighting Heaven for Love [Pine Falls 2] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) Page 2