by Desiree Holt
“You smell like home,” he whispered. He smelled like heaven, but I couldn’t speak. He kept saying the right things, doing the right things, but I was hesitant to believe that he truly loved me like I wanted him to. Like my stupid heart had already done.
Falling in love with him felt dangerous, a traitorous cliff. I stood at the edge moments from tipping over and falling down the rocky edges.
“We have to get moving. I won’t risk another shifter getting a shot at you.” He tugged my hand. I wanted to tell him I felt the same way about him. I hated that he was hurt because of me. More than once too.
We left the facility, and my worry for my sister became overwhelming. As we walked away from the building, I kept looking over my shoulder. What if he was wrong? What if someone did go after her? I would never be able to recover from that.
“I’ll call in a favor.”
“What?” I asked, jolting from the sound of his voice.
“I will call in a favor, and ask an old acquaintance to watch over your sister. He owes me a large favor.”
“Oh you don’t—”
“I want to. It’s done, Mazy.” Lucas held my hand as we walked. Another reassurance. The feeling of safety touched my heart gently. He was doing everything he could to protect me and my sister. But I had also offered to pay him. I couldn’t forget that. But my heart and mongoose told me otherwise. To trust my instincts, to trust in our mating.
* * *
Lucas led us to his motorcycle which he had driven out here. We were on our way back to his apartment which I had already spent a lot of time in. The sight of the building brought a bout of security, and it almost felt like coming home. The sweet calm that settled over me was quickly pushed away with my own worries about how attached I’d become to him, even though I wanted to fight this.
My parents had been an unlikely mating, much as I feel Lucas and I are as well, but they didn’t fight the call of their mate. They took it slow even for shifters. Sakes, they waited almost three weeks before they claimed each other. Since they had caught each other’s scents they had been complete strangers that were just passing by in the streets. My father would always tell me and Mallory that he was in love with her from across the street. Then he would press a kiss to the side of my mother’s head, which in turn would have her craning her neck to kiss him fully on the lips.
Their love had been open, honest, and truly something to strive for. It’s not to say they didn’t fight and that shifters had perfect matings all the time. My parents fought, as all do, but at the end of the day they loved each other. I had too many fears and not enough trust in Lucas yet to fully allow myself to admit that he was my everything.
Lucas pulled into the parking garage across from his small apartment building. There had to be only maybe 5 to 7 tenants. My apartment was huge, and there were a lot of small apartments crammed together.
Lucas took my hand after we dismounted the bike, and we walked back to the apartment very cautiously. He was on a constant alert looking up and down the road, even taking a peek up to the skies. Once he was satisfied, we practically ran over to his building. It didn’t take him long to unlock the door and shut it behind us.
“Do you know when your friend will arrive to the facility?” I asked nervously.
My stomach was in knots just thinking how my sister was unguarded besides the humans that worked there. I was sure the security at the facility could take care of human intruders, but I didn’t think they would know how to deal with shifters. Since shifters came out to humans all those decades ago, there was a tentative peace between us. The younger generations were more willing to accept us and wanted to learn more. The older generations and those born and raised a certain way weren’t as trusting.
Shifters rarely used hospitals, and Mallory was a special case—I kept it under wraps that she was a shifter. All signs in her body would indicate that she was human unless she meets her mate, then the animal could emerge. Whether it was our mother’s, like me, or if it would be our father’s, I wasn’t sure.
“I’ll call him now, cher. Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to her.” Lucas gave me a reassuring smile.
Trust. I had to trust him.
Trust my mate.
Lucas
“Apollo.”
“Bonjour, Apollo.” My voice dropped a couple octaves. It had been a long time since I talked to him, and I wasn’t eager to be calling him. If it wasn’t for the fact that Dominic was trying to get hitched to his human mate, and Quentin on a retreat with his newly mated girl, I would have called one of them.
“The fuck you want Cajun?”
“Is that how you treat an old friend?”
“It’s how I treat everyone. Now, what the fuck do you want?” He snarled into the phone.
“I am cashing in my favor.”
The line went dead silent. I wasn’t convinced he didn’t hang up on me. I pulled my phone away and saw the line was still connected. It had been many, many years since I saved his life. I knew he remembered, and I knew he wouldn’t say no to my favor.
“Give me the name then.”
“Ah, no. This isn’t a kill. I need you to protect someone for some time.”
“A protect mission?”
“My mate’s sister.”
“How unfortunate for you.” He pulled in a deep breath through his nose. “This favor and we are even?”
“Yes.”
“E-mail me the details. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.” Apollo hung up, and I fired off a quick email with the specifics.
“Are you going to explain that to me?” Mazy asked, watching me with a careful look. She looked mildly concerned with the phone call. I couldn’t blame her.
“Apollo is an old … friend. He will protect her with his life.”
Mazy’s lips pursed as she nodded, accepting what I told her. It wasn’t a lie, he would protect her sister with his life. Quite frankly, I was glad her sister was in coma—Apollo didn’t have any type of bedside manner. He was a flat out grouch, with a thorn in his foot that made him even sourer.
“So what’s next then?”
“We go to my office and see what my programs that have been running all night have figured out.” It would be easy to connect my computer’s information to my phone and have it monitoring all night, but paranoia ran deeply in my blood. If I did that it would be far too easy for people to get too much information from me if they got my phone. My phone had the bare minimal things on it. Most phone numbers either I had memorized or I would search for them.
Apollo’s number was one of the numbers I had memorized, and I was glad that he never changed his number. Dominic and Quentin changed their numbers a lot, but for me it was never much of a challenge to get ahold of them.
Mazy stood in the lobby of my building looking uncomfortable, she kept looking up the stairs as though she expected someone else to come down.
“Shouldn’t you have waited to make that phone call in the privacy of your own apartment?”
“I own the building. No one else is here but us,” I answered waiting for her reaction. I was expecting awe or maybe even happiness. I did not expect her anger. Her features darkened with a shadow across her face.
“Then why the hell did I have to stay in your apartment the last time I came here?”
“I thought that was pretty obvious. You’re my mate, Mazy. There is nothing in this world that would change that. And there is nothing in this world that would take me away from you. The only peace I had was you in the same apartment with me. I didn’t even want that. I wanted you in my arms. I wanted you in my arms for the past couple of months. Merde! I’ve wanted you the moment I walked into Lucky’s when I saw you.”
Mazy’s chest hitched with a caught breath and she looked down.
“Then why all the other women?”
“There were no others since I met you.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Mazy lifted her chin, baring her teeth at me in a snarl. Her animal showed
through her eyes. Her normally copper eyes burned redder.
“I strutted around with other women in front of you to get your attention. To fight this. But merde … I don’t want to fight you. My bear knew, he always just wanted you.”
Mazy shut down. I watched it spread across her face like a disease. The fire that burned her in her eyes washed away, becoming dull, vacant. Her lips that had been pulled back in anger now settled loosely, unfeeling.
“We need to find out who is hunting me. It’s what I hired you for.”
What I wouldn’t give to know what she was thinking. I needed to know how to fix this. I messed up. Badly. But before, fear had kept me from her, taunting her and daring her to make the move. The bear had been against the idea, but I didn’t date. The world was new to me. My parents had been taken from me at a young age, and ma mere, a wonderful woman who still lived out in the Bayou, didn’t teach me much in the ways of love. Only in the respect of women. I had disrespected the most important one in my life. My mate.
If Mazy wanted to focus on figuring out the mystery behind her bounty then we would do that. I would rather have that not hanging over our heads anymore. Her comment about hiring me though had stung. It was a punch to the gut. She might not see this any more than a simple contract. I would never take her money. I did this because she was my mate. I would protect her above all else.
“This way.”
I lead her to the basement. The stairs descending to my office were dark, and I hadn’t thought about needing lights because my eyes easily adjusted. I waited for Mazy at the top of the stairs, ready to walk down with her if need be, but she stared ahead and walked on without me.
I scrubbed the back of my head. Following her lead down the stairs, I hoped that I hadn’t messed up too badly. We needed to figure out who was after her, and once that problem was dealt with, we would be able to talk about our mating. There was no doubt in my mind that Mazy would be surviving. I would kill any person that tried to steal her away from me.
Mazy made it to the bottom of the stairs before me. I had renovated the basement when I first moved in. It was my all-purpose office. The open area had a small gym to the left, tucked away were weights, boxing bags, and a treadmill that I rarely used. If I was going to run, it was going to be outside. Most of the space was taken up by three monitors and the multiple computer towers. All the screens were hard at work.
The dark gray walls and concrete floors made it more dungeon like, but for my bear it was comforting. It was the place I would retreat on the days when he was feeling particularly dominant. There was a cocoon of pillows tucked in the other corner of the room. At times I would shift and go over there to sleep. This had been my most personal space, and now Mazy stood inside of it, taking it all in.
“The program finished. It should be able to tell me the name and location of the person who put the hit on you. I had another one running that took down your hit, along with mine, too.”
“You had a hit on you?” Mazy’s voice filled with worry.
“Always.”
“Lucas …”
“Do not worry, mon cher. I have a constant program taking them down. Quentin, Dominic, and I don’t make friends in our line of work.”
Mazy became quiet after that. I hoped that she wouldn’t worry unnecessarily. She had a hit up on her for only a couple hours and two attacks; I had none. There was a point to that. She didn’t have a reputation; she wasn’t feared by others. Soon they would know, if they fuck with her, they fuck with me. My Mazy, though, could protect herself, too. I smiled at the memory of her hasty actions on the rooftop. Though my beast was sick with worry and that resulted in anger, she had done well. She used her advantages, advantages I didn’t have.
The program was waiting for me. I opened it and immediately started to scan the information it gathered. Whoever had sent out the hit was smart about it at the very least. There were a lot of fake addresses that the system had to sift through. It still picked up on them, bouncing from one to the other, recording everything.
Mazy stepped a little closer, her scent perfuming the immediate air around me. The sound of her light footfalls. I had made her put her flip-flops back on when we left the facility. Though she was a shifter like me and healed the same way, I still didn’t want to put her in the position where she would need to be. The brawler inside of me was quietly content. Others in his den had always made him antsy. Rarely could I sit still with another in my den, but with her here, he was happy.
It took a couple minutes of looking through useless information until we started to hit better information. My dormant anger started to flare up again, my hand clutching the armrest as the other scrolled through. The bastard was leaving me a trail now. First the warehouse where Quentin’s mate was auctioned off, because she was a rare shifter. Second, to the house that her crazy ex who actually bought her at the auction took her.
“Merde.” I growled.
“What? What is it?” Mazy stepped a little closer, her hip brushed against my arm that held the mouse. Her unintentional touch brought the bear’s rage down just a notch. She was here. Safe.
“McCullen.”
“McCullen? As in Winnie’s crazy ex’s family? The powerful wolf shifter family?” Mazy squeaked, her hand gripping my arm.
“Yes. It’s one of them. Quentin killed Terrance. It seems his father is trying to get his own revenge.”
“But why me?”
I wish I had the answer for her. I didn’t know how to respond because my only guess was that Terrance’s father was too scared to go after Quentin’s mate, and Mazy was with Winnie. There was also a chance that he might have gotten her name and was cutting all loose ties when it came to what had happened to his son. There were too many reasons. But going after him wouldn’t be an easy pop in and kill. He held power.
“Wait.” Mazy leaned forward her breast brushing against my shoulder. I shifted in my seat, my cock suddenly very aware of her presence. Her brows pinched and her lips parted. “There is another trail.”
“What?” Refocusing on the task at hand I scooted forward to the line of data she was pointing at. There was a trail that looked like it led to a dead-end ghost IP-address. Instead, it had latched onto an active building. All the others had been inactive.
I rolled my chair to the monitor to the left, I had another keyboard connected to that one and quickly typed in the address. It was a residential area, very rural and out of the way. The house was listed to a man I never heard of. I opened another tab and started to research the mysterious house owner. Most that I ran into had been abandoned homes, businesses, or nonexistent places.
“Howard Lester?” Mazy mused. It sounded like she was testing the name, trying to feel the familiarity of it. “I know that name …”
My search was still running as she quietly pondered the mysterious Howard Lester. Why, out of all the fake addresses or abandon ones, would McCullen use this house?
“Ward!”
Mazy
“Ward?” Lucas echoed.
Ward Lester was a frequent visitor to the club. He had a greasy vibe to him that made my skin crawl. Ward was a shifter and always set my mongoose on edge, but I didn’t know what kind he was. Mostly he sat in my section, and when he was around, Derek would pay close attention to him. I’d let Derek take care of him, mostly. I’d thought Derek was being a good friend and manager, but now I realized how wrong I was.
“He used to come into Lucky’s. I haven’t seen him since …” Since the night Winnie disappeared. My blood ran cold. Dominic had been looking for other workers that might have been a part of the ring with Derek, but what if there had been patrons.
“Since when?”
“Since Winnie went missing. I kinda made a big deal about it when she went to get the trash and never came back. I went out to the back alley to look for her. I had smelled a lot of different scents, and that’s why I thought maybe her ex-boyfriend had come for her. Derek came out there looking for me … with Ward.�
�
The muscle in Lucas’s jaw started to twitch, and he gripped the armrest tightly until his knuckles were white. Worry swirled in my stomach. The black-haired shifter who used to come in, he had always watched people with a careful eye. He was quiet and never came with anyone else. He was odd because he was so unnoticeable. Ward could easily slip into any situation and go unnoticed. He was rather plain, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge just thinking about him.
“I think we might pay a visit to this, Howard Lester.” Lucas pushed himself out of his chair, a determined glint in his eye. My head raced. Moments ago we thought it was McCullen’s family who had put the hit out. What if we were barking up the wrong tree? My hands twisted together as I thought.
“Wait. The bounty said dead or alive, right?”
Lucas turned to me violently. I could see the anger rising in his eyes as they started to shine with the eerie glow of his bear. The color had me melting only hours ago, but having his anger turned on me, it chilled me to my very bones.
“Why?”
“How do you know who to take the bounty to?”
“I don’t like where your thoughts are going, cher.”
“It’s the best plan.”
“No, cher.”
“You have to pretend that you are trading me in for cash. We don’t know if it is Ward or if it is the McCullens,” I argued.
“I will not put you in danger!” Lucas roared. The veins in his neck bulged. He breathed hard and shook his head. He stepped away from me and started to pace in his room. He refused to look at me. I allowed him the quiet time he might need in order to work through his thoughts. It was the only plan. I didn’t know how it would work, but it was the best plan. If Lucas and I attacked a well-known family like the McCullens, we would be sentencing ourselves to very short lives. And I had no doubts that Lucas would eliminate the threat against me.
I wouldn’t risk him losing his life. If it was Ward, we might be able to fight our way out, but if it was the McCullens, I would allow him to turn me over. My heart sunk at the thought of losing him. In any aspect. No. I would make sure he and my sister lived.