“No one,” Jett said, his eyes fixed on the wall beyond my bed.
“You wouldn’t betray your own people for no one,” I said. “You’re not only betraying them, though, Jett. You’re betraying your mate, and worse than that, your panther.”
His eyes finally snapped back to mine, fury flashing there. “You’re not my mate,” he growled. “I have no mate. I can’t risk forming a mate bond when at any time, the vampires could come in and take her from me—or me from her.”
My eyes narrowed. I had already learned that my mates had lived very different lives from mine, but I didn’t know much about Jett’s life at all. I knew wolves usually only had one mate—at least they had until me. But maybe panthers had more. “They took your mate?” I asked.
An unexpected pain formed in my chest, not at the thought of Jett having another mate but at the thought of anyone hurting him that way. Even after he’d done this to me, he was still a person, and a person in pain would always tug at my heart. Too bad it didn’t go both ways.
“Not my mate,” Jett said. “My father.”
“What happened?” I whispered, wanting to reach for his hand but unable. My own hands were still bound.
“They took him, that’s what happened,” Jett said, crossing his arms over his chest. “They kidnapped him and held him for ransom, demanding that we cooperate with them in attacking the other clans. They knew his successor wasn’t ready to take over or make decisions like that, and they thought we’d give in right away.”
“And you didn’t?” I whispered.
Jett sank onto the bed at my feet, his back to me and his shoulders slumped. “No,” he said. “I let Cash convince me…” He paused, then shook his head. “No, I chose not to negotiate with them. Cash and I went after them, but we were too late. They found out we were coming for them, and they killed him.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, barely able to swallow.
Jett stiffened. “I know you want to see the best in everyone, Quicksilver, but there are no good vampires.”
“You can’t know that,” I said. “They might think the same about shifters.”
He stood and turned to face me. “And if they had the chance, do you really think they’d hesitate to kill every single one of us, starting with you?”
“I think that if you’re going to eradicate an entire species using an unwilling weapon to do it, they might not be the bad guys.”
Jett’s brows lowered, his eyes darkening. “What are you saying?”
“They’re not the monsters here, Jett,” I said. “You are.”
9
Maximus
I tapped my fingers against the cold glass of beer in my hand, glancing up at the door every time it swung open. My pulse raced with my fingers, and sweat trickled down my spine. I needed to get it together, but every second I spent without Ariana safe was driving me mad.
“Take a breath, Maximus,” Cash said, levelling me a concerned look. “Owen will be here any minute.”
“They didn’t find Ariana,” I said. I watched the condensation drip down my glass and bead on my skin. The cold sent a chill down my spine. We hadn’t found Ariana with Dante, and it seemed Owen and Jett hadn’t found her with the vampires. Anyone could have her.
The chime on the door went off, and Owen strode inside, his gaze sweeping the bar and finding mine. He nodded a quick greeting before he worked his way through the crowded shifter bar and slid into the booth beside Cash.
“Hey,” Cash greeted the bear shifter. “Jett didn’t come with you?”
A frown darkened Owen’s expression as he rubbed his bearded cheek. “No. He took off right after we were kicked out of vampire headquarters.”
“Kicked out?” I raised my eyebrows at the imposing man. He nearly smashed Cash into the wall he took up so much space. I was happy to have him on Ariana’s side—and my side, I realized. Between Cash’s hot head and my urge to rip apart New York until I found my mate, we might have blown the whole search if not for Owen keeping us steady.
“Yeah,” Owen said. “The vamps caught on to us and brought us before…” He broke off, a shudder quaking through his massive frame.
“Before who?” Cash asked.
“The Lamia Queen.”
“What?” I barked. My grip tightened convulsively, and glass shards went flying. I hardly felt it as my mind raced to come up with a reason the Queen of Vampires had come to New York. This couldn’t be good. The vampires had to be gearing up for something big if their queen was in town. With everything else going on, it couldn’t be a coincidence that Ariana had gone missing just as the vamp queen arrived. Could it?
Owen detailed their meeting while a waitress stopped by with a rag to clean up the glass. I apologized profusely for breaking the glass and dousing the table and floor in beer, but she shrugged it off, saying it happened all the time in a shifter bar.
“And she just let you go?” Cash asked Owen when he finished his story.
“I was suspicious, too,” Owen said. “I thought they must be planning to follow us and let us do all the work of finding her. I noticed a tail following from a safe distance on the way here, so it seems I was right.”
“Then they don’t have her,” I realized aloud. “If they had her, why would they send a tail?”
Cash’s eyes went wide as the realization hit him.
“Right,” Owen rumbled. “They sent a squad of vamps after me, hoping I’d eventually lead them to Ariana.”
A growl ripped from my throat. “If the vamps don’t have her, then who does?”
Cash and Owen exchanged a look.
“I don’t know,” Cash admitted. “I’m fairly certain Dante was telling the truth.”
“If the vamps don’t have her… And Dante doesn’t have her… Then where is she?” Owen asked.
That was the question we all wanted answered. As I looked at the other two faces at the table, I realized they were as distraught as I was. At least, I knew Owen was. His cheeks were haggard and his eyes rimmed with dark circles after two days of fruitless searching. I couldn’t read Cash as well. He’d had a century to master hiding his emotions. For all I knew, he was responsible for Ariana’s disappearance.
I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in my hands. Ariana hadn’t run away this time, like she had that first day at my house. She had three mates now, three men who would die to find her, three men who she loved. At least, she’d said she loved me. Why hadn’t I said it back? What if I never had the chance now?
No. I couldn’t think like that. I would tell her when I saw her next. Because there would be a next time. Despite a bit of awkwardness at Owen’s place, Ariana had seemed happier than I’d ever seen her. And I was going to spend the rest of my life bringing that happiness into her eyes over and over.
I lifted my head. She had been taken against her will by someone who didn’t leave a scent. Who didn’t leave a scent? “We should return to the scene of the crime,” I said.
Cash’s fists curled on top of the table. “You’re right. Maybe we missed something.”
Owen nodded, hope sparking in his eyes. “Good idea.”
“We should call Jett,” Cash added. “We need all of us on this one.”
I exchanged a wary glance with Owen. From the look in the bear alpha’s eyes, he had the same reservations about Jett that I did. But how could we tell Cash, Jett’s childhood friend, that we had a feeling Jett had something to do with our mate’s disappearance?
Before either of us could say a word, Cash pulled out his phone and hit a button. The phone rang a few times before Jett’s voice came through with a turse, “What is it?”
“We’re heading back to Bear Clan territory to check out the area where Ari was kidnapped again, see if we missed anything. Whatever you’re doing, drop it and meet us there. It can’t be as important as our mate,” Cash said in a rush of words.
I heard a faint sigh from the other line before Jett’s voice came through again.
“I can
’t,” Jett said. “I’m busy. Text me if you need anything.”
With that, the line went dead. Cash’s eyebrows furrowed as he lowered the phone from his ear. “That was… abrupt,” he said.
I grunted an affirmative, not quite ready to share my suspicions with Cash, though the phone call had definitely confirmed some of my fears. Jett was avoiding us. It could be something to do with his clan. Maybe there were panther politics at play that he hadn’t shared. But right now, there should be nothing more important than Ariana. She was the Silver Shifter. That was the most pressing clan matter possible. Not to mention that she was his mate, too, even if he refused to claim her.
The thought stopped me up for a second. When had I started thinking of her as ours, not mine? When had I started to believe that even an unclaimed, uncooperative mate was her mate, though he refused to admit it, just because she said so?
Maybe when I’d started to trust Ariana’s wolf as much as my own, as a mate should. Maybe when I’d realized I could lose her, it had stopped mattering how many mates she had. That didn’t change the love that had grown between us—the love that was going to save her.
A few hours later, we arrived back at Owen’s sister’s house. We said a quick hello to his sister and her kids before inspecting the kitchen and coming up empty. There was no new smell. No new clue to lead us to Ariana. I had the most sensitive nose for scenting, and even I couldn’t find a trace of anything. Jett had definitely not been there.
I trudged out of the back door and went straight for the woods.
“Maximus, we already tried tracking them through the woods,” Cash called from the house.
“This is what we’re here for, isn’t it?” I yelled over my shoulder. If we were going to play detective we had to search the entire area, including the tracks in the woods. It might lead us nowhere, but I had to try. This was the only thing we could do. After this, there were no more options. We’d have exhausted all of our ideas, and Ariana would remain missing.
We had to find something. We would find something.
I held onto that thought as I followed the path into the woods. After a minute, the thud of Cash and Owen’s footsteps followed, and soon we were walking side by side into the small clearing where tire tracks marred the earth.
Before anyone could stop me, I was stripping off my clothes and tossing them onto a nearby bush.
“What are you doing?” Cash asked.
I barely shot him a look before I reached inside me for my wolf. He was growling and ready to be unleashed, clawing at my skin for freedom. He wanted to find Ariana just as badly as I did.
“I’ll inspect the area,” I said, my words garbled as I unleashed the beast.
When I blinked, I was on all fours, my senses heightened and the world around me sharp. I shook, my fur rustling slightly as my wolf settled around me.
New smells and sights opened before my eyes. I lowered my nose closer to the ground and breathed in deeply. I could smell the burn of rubber tires and the acrid stench of asphalt stuck in the wheels. There was also the earthy smell of forest and a metallic scent I couldn’t quite place.
I did a sweep of the clearing, searching for any clue to Ariana’s whereabouts. But besides her sweet rain scent, and that of the vehicle, I couldn’t make out the smell of her assailants. I paused near one of the deeper tire tracks, kneading anxiously at the ground with my massive paws.
This wasn’t right. How could someone hide their scent so completely? It didn’t make any sense.
“Have you found anything, Max?” Owen asked, a hopeful edge to his voice.
A whine crept from my throat before I could stop it. Sadness split Owen’s hopeful gaze, and he nodded solemnly.
With nothing else to search, I shifted back and quickly slipped my clothes on. My wolf rumbled inside me, unhappy at being caged so soon. I tried to remember when was the last time I’d shifted for a hunt, or even a run in the woods, but since Ariana appeared in my life, I had been so consumed with taking care of her and protecting her from these attacks that I hadn’t had time to care for my wolf properly. I silently promised him a real hunt as soon as we had our mate back.
“Let’s follow the tracks,” Owen said.
Cash gave Owen a pitying look. He thought Ariana was gone. He thought we’d never find her. I clenched my fists and glared at him. From the way he was acting, maybe he and Jett were both in on it. Turning my back, I followed the tracks in silent fury. I wasn’t ready to give up even if Cash was, even if he was responsible for this and didn’t want us to find her. I would find her if I had to walk around the entire fucking globe to do it.
My fellow alphas followed in silence until we reached the road. It was a small backwoods highway with only one lane on either side of the road. The pavement was rough and cracked, and several potholes had lost their filling all across the asphalt. I took a deep breath and found the same smell of the tires, along with the metallic scent that was unfamiliar to me.
There was nothing else here. I’d hoped beyond hope that maybe Ariana had had the chance to drop something, or leave us some kind of message. But all hope was lost. My mate was gone.
My wolf howled inside me—a mournful, desolate sound that sent an ache spiraling into my bones. I wanted to curl up and comfort my hurting wolf, to never see the sun again. What was life without my mate? I’d waited so long for her. I’d only found her for a brief moment in time. And now she was gone.
“Owen, where are you going?” Cash shouted.
I looked up to find Owen racing down the side of the highway. My eyebrows furrowed as I watched him go. With every step his speed increased until he was nearly a blur.
“Did he find something?” I asked. My heart pounded hard, daring to hope that maybe not all was lost.
“I don’t know,” Cash said.
Together we jogged to catch up with the bear alpha until I caught sight of what Owen must have seen. Traffic lights.
Far down the road were a set of traffic lights. They shone green, a beacon of hope that had my legs pumping and my pulse racing. If there were traffic lights, there was a good chance there were also traffic cams. We might be able to figure out who took Ariana yet.
I skidded to a halt next to Owen. He grinned as he motioned at the traffic cameras mounted to the metal polls hoisting the lights over the intersection.
Cash pushed past me and grabbed Owen’s face in his hands before planting a kiss on his cheek. “You brilliant bastard!”
Owen stared at the dragon alpha. “Thank… you?”
Hope swelled inside of me until I couldn’t help but smile for what felt like the first time in my life. Cash and Owen grinned with me, bouncing excitedly from foot to foot. “We’re going to find her,” I said.
“Damn right we are,” Cash agreed.
“Text that asshole panther,” I said. “We need that footage.”
Cash nodded, his phone already in hand. He typed out a quick message before we began the trek back to the house. It seemed like it took forever, but with excitement pounding in my veins, I had to stop myself from running the whole way.
The dragon alpha’s phone dinged the second we stepped into Owen’s kitchen. “He sent it.”
I crowded Cash on one side while Owen took the other. We both squeezed in to get a look at the footage Jett had sent us on Cash’s small phone screen. Cash hit the play button and after a few minutes of fast forwarding, we found it.
From a distance, we could just make out a van speeding out of the sideroad onto the main highway. It skidded into the far lane before shifting back onto the road and tearing through the intersection. My heart raced as we watched.
“Go back,” Owen said.
Cash reversed the clip, then stopped to play it again, and then again. On the third watch, he paused as the van sped through the intersection, giving us a good look at two figures sitting in the front seats in full black military gear.
“The license plate.” Owen pointed at it, and I had to restrain myself fro
m yanking the phone out of Cash’s hands.
“A friend on the NYC police force owes me a favor,” Cash said. He screenshotted the license plate and texted it to his cop friend.
A few seconds later, his phone chimed again.
“He’s running the plates now, but it might take a while to get back to us,” Cash said.
My skin buzzed with nerves, and I had to squeeze my fists to keep from grabbing something and hurling it in frustration. I was suddenly full of energy, ready to go, and we had to wait. I asked Owen if I could take a quick run in his valley to appease my wolf, though I wouldn’t disrespect the bears by hunting on their grounds. A run would comfort my wolf and use some of my energy, calming me and getting me centered for the big challenge. We would get our mate back. I was ready to tear anyone apart who stood in my way. No one could stop me once I’d found her. My mate would be back in my arms soon, and this time, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell her exactly how I felt.
10
Ariana
After my tirade, Jett left the room without another word. I heard some yelling in the hall that consisted of some very choice words, and a few minutes later, the doctor appeared escorted by two hulking guards.
“It seems you’d be more comfortable if you weren’t restrained,” Muriel said.
“You think?” I grumbled. I had a moment of feeling grateful that Jett had torn her a new one for chaining me up like a criminal, but it was quickly snuffed out by the reminder that Jett was actually responsible for my being here.
“We may have been overly cautious about our own safety,” Muriel said as the guards removed the straps holding my feet. “But the important thing is that you’re safe.”
Safe, but too weak to do anything but lie on the bed like an invalid.
“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “I think I’m getting the whole picture now. Jett told you people about my blood curing those vamps, and you decided I was the magical cure you’d been looking for. Jett had his human henchmen kidnap me so you can experiment on me and try to replicate my blood and wipe out vampires.”
Her Bear: An Urban Fantasy Romance (Silver Shifter Book 3) Page 6