by Reina Torres
How could she refuse?
“Okay,” she pushed the word out before she could second guess herself. When she had more information about her health, she could talk to Conor about it then.
But she knew, deep down in her heart, that either way, Conor wasn’t one to throw around the word mate. Saying it to her meant something and all her fear wasn’t going to do either of them any good.
Besides, Hollis looked at Willa as she snapped a photo of the ultrasound screen to send to the boys and knew that she’d be okay with adopting if she wasn’t able to have her own.
No, she knew she’d be thrilled to adopt if she couldn’t have cubs born of her own body. She just wanted what Willa had. Unconditional love with Boone and the boys.
Conor would give her that and she would give it back in return. And what more could she ask for?
“Yes. I’ll take the appointment.”
The nurse and Willa made no secret of the approving look on their faces, but all Hollis cared about was finding out more about herself. And this was just another step in the direction of finding a life of her own.
When it came down to it, the appointment with Doctor Kondo left her feeling a little confused. The midwife in her home valley always made everything seem so scary and dire. In contrast, the slight woman with a sharp look in her eyes, put her completely at ease. In no time at all, with hardly a twinge of discomfort, the doctor sat down beside her and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“I wouldn’t worry yourself.” The words sounded foreign in Hollis’ ears. “Everything looks and feels completely normal. Sometimes shifter parents get worried because they don’t even know for themselves what’s normal.”
“But how-”
“Those who have been brought up in places where they were mixed in with a human population rarely ventured into a doctor’s office or even a clinic, worried that they’d be found out. And for the most part, shapeshifters are ridiculously healthy.” A thoughtful look passed across her features. “Have you ever felt that something was wrong? Inside of you?”
“Other than being completely human?” Hollis sighed loudly. “Growing up with just my father, everything felt weird, and the midwife always had this look of borderline horror when she met with me. Going through puberty under her care will give me nightmares for my whole life.”
Laughing softly, Doctor Kondo squeezed her hands. “We’ll take care of you here, Hollis. If you have any questions, just ask. You’ll be fine.”
A soft knock at the door turned both of their heads.
“Enter.”
The door opened and a nurse leaned in. “Doctor, your patient in Exam Three is ready.”
“Thanks, Patty.” The doctor gave Hollis another smile. “I mean it. If you have anything you want to talk about, I’m here.” Doctor Kondo stood and walked to the door. “When you’re ready we can do the full battery of tests, but before that… I would just let nature take its course at first and worry about problems later. The only hiccup in that rule is that if you feel ‘odd’ and something happens that hasn’t before, you call my office right away.”
“So I should just… let things happen and worry about problems when they become a problem?” Hollis stood and smiled at her. “That sounds like more fun than tests.”
The doctor laughed and her shoulders shook. “I sure hope so.”
A moment before she stepped out into the hall, Hollis blurted out a thought in her head. “My father always said foxes were too smart by half.”
“How did you know?” The doctor’s eyes darkened and shifted their shape a fraction of an inch. “No one’s ever guessed this quickly.”
How did she know?
Usually, she was the last to guess anything of the kind. Bears? Sure. But other animals? Not really.
But now?
Everything seemed to be changing.
When she looked back up, the doctor was gone and the door was still slightly open.
Picking up the welcome packet that the doctor had given her, Hollis started to step out into the hallway and nearly ran into the same nurse she’d seen a minute before.
“Oh good, you’re still here.”
Patsy? Patty? Either way she had a big and easy smile on her face.
“You have a surprise.”
A surprise?
Hollis looked back at her with confusion pinching the skin between her eyebrows.
“There’s a grumbling bear waiting for you at the back door.”
“Conor? What’s he doing here?”
The nurse clutched a file to her chest and giggled. “I dunno. He just said he wanted to see you so I told him I’d come and get you.” She pointed down the hall. “He’s waiting out on the back porch.”
Hollis started down the hall and then stopped. She needed to tell Willa where she was going. Turning back around, she looked back at the nurse. “Can you tell my friend that I stepped outside. I don’t want her to worry.”
The nurse shrugged. “Sure. As soon as I check on my patient, I’ll step into the waiting room and let her know.”
“Thanks.” Hollis blew out a relieved breath and turned to walk down the hallway. How wonderful would it be to tell Conor that she’d been worrying over nothing? At least over something that might not even be a problem.
It’s amazing, really. Hearing the same thing said to you over and over your whole life could really work itself into your head.
After talking to the doctor, Hollis couldn’t believe how much lighter she felt. Like she’d had the world on her shoulders and now she’d literally set it down behind her.
The back door stuck a little as she pushed on the bar to open it. Frowning a bit, she gave it a big shove and tripped a bit over the bottom frame of the door. She was barely able to keep herself upright as she came to a stop. The sun was at just the right height to fill the opening of the porch with its blinding golden light, putting everything in shadows before her.
Even when a shadow fell over her face, easing the pain of the bright sunlight on her vision, she knew something was wrong.
Conor was warmth and love.
The shadow that fell over her was cold and filled with fury.
“Who are you?”
When he took a step closer, she scrambled back toward the door, desperate to get back inside or call for help, but he was too big… too fast. His hand reached the door before she did and slammed it shut so hard, she could feel the wall shaking behind her.
“Let me go.”
“No.” He leaned in and took a deep indrawn breath of her scent. “You’re coming with me.”
He grabbed her arm and she pulled away, smacking her elbow into the heavy wooden door, sending pain lancing through her arm.
“I’m not going with you. I’m staying here-”
“Like you have a choice, girl.” His breath had a slightly fetid smell when he breathed directly into her face. “I’ve come to take you home.”
Chapter Ten
When the call came into the gym phone it took a moment for someone to hustle to the desk and pick it up. Francis jogged over after she set her jump rope down.
“Hell-o!” Her voice was bright with exertion and a little breathless. “This is Primal Fitness, how may I-” She stopped short and clutched the handset with both hands. “Conor!”
From his place across the gym, he dashed over to her side and set the barbell in his hand down on the desk. “What’s wrong?”
The teen took in a huge gasping breath and held the phone out to him. “It’s Willa. Hollis is gone!”
The floor could have opened up and swallowed him whole and he wouldn’t have felt it.
Holding the phone to his ear, he fought his bear down, needing a clear head. “Willa?”
“She’s gone, Conor! She saw the doctor and asked me to wait in the waiting room for her. When I asked the nurse if something was wrong, she said no, that her mate had come to get her.”
Pain lanced through his middle as he struggled to keep himself under cont
rol. He wanted to yell and scream his frustration, but that would only scare Willa more than she already was and a pregnant mate was always treated with care. But it wasn’t just his agony tearing him up inside. His bear wanted out. His bear wanted blood.
Mate. Ours.
Yes, he agreed with him. And we’re going to get her back, he promised his bear.
Someone stepped up beside him and pressed the speaker button.
“Willa? This is Dom. Where are you?”
Conor could only stare in confusion as the normally surly wolf listened intently to Willa and asked her a few questions all the while appropriating the desk computer at the Gym.
He opened a screen, keyed in user information and then had to wait while it loaded.
“Damn it. Someone tell Cage he’s got to seriously upgrade his WiFi connection.”
It likely only took a minute or two, but that little bit of time felt like an eternity.
The screen shifted and another program opened. The window was divided into half a dozen smaller screens, each of them held a different vantage point of the city.
Dom selected one and then another when the first had him swearing, not quite under his breath.
“Willa, what time did the two of you arrive?”
“Arrive?”
Conor could hear Willa’s voice tighten with frustration.
“I don’t remember!”
Another voice piped in and gave Dom the answer, and then, “Mrs. Wayland, you need to calm down.”
“I let my friend get kidnapped!” They all heard Willa’s breathing speed up.
“You have to calm down, Willa. Please.” Conor needed her to be okay. “If you hurt yourself or the cubs, Hollis would be inconsolable.” He knew his words to be true and so did Willa. They heard her drawing in slower and slower breaths at the encouraging count of a nurse.
“Okay, looks like we have them here.”
Dom turned the monitor a little, but Conor still had to lean closer to see it.
On the screen he saw Willa and Hollis walking up to the door at the doctor’s office.
Oh, how Conor wanted to scream at Dom that they needed to move things along, but that was just his fear talking.
“Is that Hollis?”
“Yeah,” Conor felt his heart stop for a moment. “That’s her.”
Another window opened and Dom muttered to himself as he worked.
On any other day, Conor would have made some kind of remark about the crass wolf’s skill at typing, but this wasn’t the time.
“How are you doing this?”
Dom spared him a glance. “Over the years I’ve learned to do a few things to help with my undercover work.” He nodded at the screen. “Tapping into Homeland Security’s CCTV footage is a piece of cake.”
“Is this going to get you in trouble?” Francis’ voice was quiet and deceptively calm.
Dom shrugged. “I’ve been in worse trouble before. I’m still in one piece.”
A burst of laughter escaped her lips. “But you heal crazy fast.”
“Severed limbs not so much. But I’ve never been that bad off.”
Conor could hardly believe what he was hearing. The asshole apparently had a heart and a decent sense of humor. Well, if Dom helped him get Hollis back, he’d likely do something crazy like avoid the temptation to lower himself into a battle of insults with the wolf, or better yet, give the man a hug.
As his bear.
“When did the doctor finish with Hollis?”
The nurse stumbled over her words for a moment and then gave the approximate time.
“Okay… okay.” He moved the cursor on the screen and the footage sped forward. He shook his head and rewound a bit of the footage. “I don’t see her leaving. Is there a side door?”
“No.”
The nurse sounded miserable at the admission, and Conor wanted to put a fist through the desk.
“But we have a back door!”
“Fuck yes!” Dom had already switched to the street at the back of the renovated Victorian building and he went back through the footage, stopping and rewinding when he saw movement in the back porch. “Is that her, Conor?”
Conor leaned on the desk and stared at the screen, shoving his bear back when his vision faltered.
A large man, clearly a shifter by his size and unmistakable brawn under his clothes, was moving away from the shadows and walking down the handful of stairs. On the far side of his body, Conor could see movement, but it wasn’t until the other figure stumbled forward and the man yanked her back by the neck that he could see enough to make out her features. “Hollis.”
His vision went red and he allowed his bear to rush through his body like the tide, only stopping him just short of the shift.
His bear was all tooth, claw, and murderous instinct at the moment and Conor needed his human mind to help bring her home.
“Conor?”
Willa’s voice was stronger. Her tone cool steel. “Do you think they found her because of the picture in the paper?”
He nodded, more for his own benefit and the need to take a steadying breath.
“Then he’s taking her to her father. He won’t hurt her.”
“Oh, goodness,” Willa’s voice wavered a little, “I hope so.”
Conor turned to the screen again and they all watched as the man struggled to put her in the passenger seat of his vehicle. It looked like a modified Army Jeep from more than twenty years in the past.
Hollis grabbed onto the frame of the car and held tight as the man pushed her head into the vehicle.
“He better get his hand off of her.”
If he could have crawled through the monitor, he would have. As it was, he had to flex his hands to retract the claws that were splitting through his fingertips.
“He better- No!”
The man on the screen slammed her head into the frame of the door. As she started to collapse, he shoved her in the passenger seat and slammed the door behind her.
Someone had their hands on him, but it wasn’t enough. He nearly tore apart a treadmill, sending it flying into a dumbbell rack and the mirror behind it.
The shower of glass sent sparks off in his mind. He was burning from the inside out.
“Conor, stop it!”
He felt someone smack him across the cheek and he sat bolt upright, his hands closing over shoulders, wrestling for control.
His bear was at the forefront, blood in his nose, a hunger in his belly.
“Conor-”
He paused, mid-swipe.
His paw was nearly twice the size of her face.
Francis.
Even though she bore the sapphire blue eyes of her lion, he recognized her and held himself back.
“Francis.”
The young woman eased off him, sliding down off his chest as he changed back to his human form.
Her hair, finally the bright green of her choice again, was a tousled halo around her face.
“Get up. Get going. Dom has eyes on the car.”
Lurching to his feet, he felt focused again… purposeful.
“Here!”
Conor turned his head and saw Graham Keith sprinting toward him. The lion was a relatively new member of the gym, having moved his pride to Sylvan City.
“We’ll take my car.” Graham tossed a bunch of fabric at him. Catching it one-handed, he knew it was a tank and shorts.
As they cleared the back door a whistle turned Graham’s head back to the open roll-top door.
Francis tossed a phone at them, easily reaching Graham’s hand.
“Don’t argue about the clothes, bear. There are still parts of this town that might not know what to make of a naked man running through the streets.”
Conor didn’t want to argue. He wanted… no, he needed his mate.
He yanked on the loose shorts and slipped into the passenger side of the Lexus SUV.
Graham threw the vehicle into reverse and pulled out onto the street with the wheels screaming
on the asphalt.
Conor leaned forward, setting it on the dashboard so they could both hear Dom’s instructions.
Graham looked over at him with a wince. “Any chance you’re going to put on your seat belt?”
“Only if you want me to rip through it when we catch up to them.”
Graham nodded. “Okay, then.”
#
Patrick knew he’d made a mistake. Amos would see the bruise on her head. Hell, no one could mistake what it was.
It had developed into a knot almost immediately and turned purple before they’d gone more than a dozen blocks.
And she was sweating, her skin covered in a thick sheen of moisture, her breathing fast and irregular.
He was a man in need of power and status, but he wasn’t used to taking things like this.
He could still hear her pleading. Hear her begging him, as if she was awake, tugging on his arm.
Tugging on his soul.
“Please! Please don’t take me back!”
He’d shut his ears to her pleas. Ignored the way her nails dug into his skin as they stood on the porch of that medical clinic.
“Let me go! I don’t want to leave.”
“It’s not about what you want anymore, girl. Your father gave you to me. All I have to do is bring you back and you’re mine.”
“I’m Conor’s! He’s my mate!”
Oh, he’d seen red then… and a whole bunch of other colors. “Did he mark you?”
She’d stood there and glared at him in the half dark of the porch and he’d felt his dreams slipping through his paws.
“Did he?”
When she’d met his fury-filled gaze with a look of triumph, he’d lost hold of himself for a moment. Grabbing the back of her neck to keep her immobile, he rent the seam of her blouse at the shoulder and shoved the fabric from her neck so he could see her flesh.
One side of her neck was perfect and whole and a quick change of hands gave him the chance to move the fabric so that it hung off her other shoulder. She bore no mark.
“That will change as soon as we get you back to your father,” he saw the look of open defiance in her eyes and leaned closer until he could clearly scent her. “You’re not afraid of me,” the truth was a slap in the face. He could still inspire fear in his son after all of these years, why not a woman? “Well, you will be.” He made the promise even though he tasted the bile on the back of his tongue. “Maybe I won’t wait until I get you home.”