Bertha was a doll, and he didn’t just think that because she owned and operated Hello, Dolly, an antique doll boutique set directly across from the Quick Stop. A handsome woman in her early seventies, she didn’t mind when Maddox took up his spot looming right outside her door. After the water, she offered him a slice of pie and stopped for a little conversation before she locked up for the night.
She was as human as they come, from a time before the paranormals had revealed their existence to the whole world. But love was love, she said, and she told him that her dear Harold had worn the same expression as Maddox during their courtship more than fifty years ago. Bertha didn’t recognize Evangeline’s picture, but she fed Maddox, offered him advice, and even stuck her tongue out at the Quick Stop manager whenever she saw him peeking over at them from his window.
Despite having a stretch of territory to stake out, it still felt like he’d taken a step back, another roadblock in the search for his mate. Innate stubbornness kept him from moving further than a block from the shop even if he couldn’t pick up on a single sign that Evangeline had been by in the last month.
Utter exhaustion eventually had him finding shelter in a local inn Bertha recommended for the handful of hours he allowed himself to rest and recover since running back to Colt’s Bumptown was out of the question. Only the thought of how Evangeline would react if she found him exhausted, dirty, and smelling like roadkill enticed him to sleep, shower, and air out the clothes he refused to change.
Her scent was fading fast. Maddox tried not to let that bother him, but it was tough.
He would find her again. He had to.
There was no other choice.
Day three. The weather was still holding out, and Bertha brought him a slightly stale banana nut muffin when she opened her shop that morning. It was the only thing he’d had for hours and, while he was grateful, it was kind of dry.
Maddox didn’t want to offend her. Since he stubbornly took up his post in Grayson, Bertha was one of the few he encountered who didn’t freak when they saw him. Most of the humans crossed to the other side of the street to avoid him. The rare Para making their way through gave him a wide berth, recognizing a bonded shifter on the hunt. Bertha was the only one who treated him like a person instead of a dangerous beast.
Maddox made it about an hour before he couldn’t take it any longer. He hated the idea of leaving the block during daylight hours. It was barely ten o’clock and if Evangeline wanted to make a pit stop at the convenience store before work, this was the prime time.
But, hell, if he choked to death on a muffin because a piece of walnut got stuck in his throat, he’d never see Evangeline again.
His mate was everything. Even with the dry, stale muffin nagging him, his thoughts were only for her.
There was a coffee place a couple of blocks away. Mugs. Bertha would close her store for an hour every afternoon for a cup. She told Maddox they had the best coffee in all of Grayson and he tucked that nugget away, knowing that he’d never go.
There was only one coffee shop that he was fond of. A small, family-owned joint in Woodbridge, it was the place where he first made his move on Evangeline, four years ago. Wolves were nothing if not loyal. When he got her back, he’d take the trip out there just for old times’ sake.
Of course, that wasn’t helping him now. And coffee sounded pretty fucking good right about then. It was hot, he was exhausted, and the muffin was pissing him off.
A couple of minutes. He’d only be gone for a couple of minutes. Five, maybe, depending on how busy the shop was. Run to Mugs, get a cup for him—and maybe one for Bertha—and he could be back at his post before anyone knew it.
Running his hands through his unkempt, shaggy hair before resetting his sunglasses on his nose, Maddox cast his gaze around the calm street. He reached with his shifter senses. No hint of Evangeline on the late summer air.
Go.
He made it to Mugs in less than three minutes. Narrow and long, with dark wood paneling and burnt orange tabletops, it was a bustling hotspot with a mixture of clientele. Mostly human, but there were more Paras inside getting their caffeine fix than he’d met on the street these last few days. He caught a glimpse of a pair of witches in one corner, and a predatory shifter who made a row of booths his immediate territory. A sniff revealed that the male shifter was a tiger, cunning and quick, but less dominant than Maddox’s wolf.
The tiger started to rise. With all the humans surrounding them, Maddox doubted he was about to defend his claim. He was probably conceding it to the Alpha.
No need for that. He met the tiger’s dark eyes, nodded, then pointedly looked away. The tiger sat back down, assured that no one was being challenged.
The Ants milled around Mugs, oblivious to Para politics at play. One or two did pause and stare as Maddox passed by, but he was used to it. Since no one stopped him from ordering his coffee, using Colt’s cash to pay for it, or claiming the furthest corner for himself, it was fine. Better than he expected, actually.
The coffee was piping hot, the air conditioning cranking. He sprawled in his seat, waiting for the coffee to cool enough to swallow without burning the shit out of his tongue. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes—
They snapped open.
A chill coursed up and down his spine as he sat forward, all senses on alert. His wolf perked its ears open.
He didn’t know why. His nose hadn’t caught a whiff of anything beyond the coffee brewing, pastries being heated, and the scents of each individual patron inside of Mugs. But he learned long ago to rely on his gut and, as if his instincts knew something he didn’t, he found himself zeroing in on a tall woman with long, dark hair who was accepting her cup from the barista.
There was no reason why she should have captured his interest so suddenly like that. It was the weirdest thing. From behind, there was nothing about her that set her apart from anyone else in Mugs except for her height. He took a deep breath, searching for that familiar scent ingrained in his soul. Rich vanilla and something that was uniquely Evangeline.
Even with his nose clamped shut and a thousand different scents to process, he could’ve picked his mate’s out in a heartbeat. It wasn’t there.
The woman was intriguing, but that’s all she could be.
Her back was to Maddox. She murmured something, then turned.
Maddox got his first look at her face. She was beautiful, from the pout of her lips to the elegant slope of her freckle-covered nose. Drawn to her like a magnet, he met her gaze through the shield of his sunglasses.
He froze on the edge of his seat.
“Holy shit,” he breathed out.
Her eyes were green. Forest green, dark and wild and full of life. So what if they were shadowed, her lips turned up slightly in the smallest of haunted smiles? He would know those eyes anywhere.
His cock punched to life so fast, he swore there would be zipper treads burned into the length by the time his erection finally went down again. If it ever went down again.
Evangeline.
By the time he got over the shock of seeing his mate in the flesh for the first time in years, she was halfway out of Mugs. So stunned, he didn’t even realize it when she looked away from him or when she started to leave him behind. But as the soft tinkle of the bell over the door rang and he caught a glimpse of her long legs as she walked away from him, Maddox’s predatory instincts awakened.
He was a beast, his beauty the prey.
The chase was on.
Abandoning his own cup, Maddox trailed behind Evangeline. It went against every instinct he had not to simply swoop her up in his arms and run off. It was her. His mate. He was absolutely certain it was. Only… her scent. He couldn’t get over how her scent had changed.
No. Not changed.
Disappeared.
The warm vanilla scent he adored simply wasn’t there.
It was gone.
He breathed again, his wolf whining with confusion. Maddox saw her. That was u
ndeniably his Angie. His sudden hard-on, his first one in more than three years, was proof enough.
But what the hell happened to her scent?
No wonder Colt couldn’t track her down. Except for the slightest hint of a sickly sweet scent that made his nose twitch, Evangeline left no scent trail. Once she stepped outside, the stronger odors of car exhaust, asphalt, and trash drowned out her meager scent.
His nose was out. Maddox had to rely on his keen animal sight to track her as she walked about a block ahead of him.
He followed her to an apartment building two blocks away from the coffee shop. Pretending he was interested in the bakery across the street from the building, he watched her reflection as he looked past the scones in the window. When he was certain that she was going inside this particular building, he struggled to wait another few minutes before heading straight toward the front door.
That was as far as he got.
The instant his hand closed on the handle, he was zapped. It was a mild jolt, a quick sting that warned him against touching the door again. Maddox ignored the warning. After shaking the sting out of his hand, he grabbed the handle and yanked, pulling the door open. He felt the pulse of magic as it traveled up his arm, the ache causing his entire right side to go numb before he tore his hand away.
Snarling under his breath, he folded his injured hand and tried to force his way inside. His boot kicked up against resistance; it felt like he walked into a brick wall. Maddox pressed his good palm against the patch of space in front of him and pushed. No go. He shoved and punched and growled and didn’t even move an inch inside of the entryway. His brute strength might have been enough to open the door, but even his shifter abilities were no match against Para-proof enchantments.
And that’s when he realized he was in bigger trouble than he first thought. Because Evangeline’s apartment? It was warded and there was no way he could get any closer to her.
Evangeline kept her drink in one hand, her cell phone in the other. She tried to keep her pace leisurely, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world as she strolled down Main Street. Inside, she felt like her heart was doing the mambo against her rib cage.
With only the tiniest of peeks over her shoulder, she glimpsed a big, dark figure loping quietly not more than a block behind her. Black shirt. Dark jeans. Sunglasses. It was the man from the coffee shop. She was almost positive. He was built like a linebacker, but moved like a freaking cat.
And he was following her.
Okay, she couldn’t say for sure that he was following her. There were probably thousands of reasons why he had appeared behind her as soon as she made her escape, her iced caramel macchiato in hand. They’d locked eyes for two, maybe three seconds when she was heading out of the coffee shop—and that was assuming he could even see her through the thick, dark shades he had on.
Evangeline wanted to think it was the sunglasses that caught her attention. Who wore sunglasses inside unless they had something to hide, right? Of course she was curious.
In fact, for one terrible moment, she had to wonder if he was a Nightwalker before she chided herself for jumping to conclusions. The human-turned-vampires wore sunglasses around the clock, the shades a trademark for that dangerous type of Para—but that didn’t make her dark stranger a vampire. He couldn’t be. Nightwalkers were dust if they stepped into the sun and that guy? He had no problem following her home. Plus, his skin was a delicious golden color; Nightwalkers, no matter what they looked like when they were still alive, all paled considerably after their death.
So… not a Nightwalker. Did that make him human?
Evangeline didn’t know.
And then there was his size. Freaking hell, he was huge. This was a man who could make her actually feel petite.
She wanted to think all of that. The shades. How difficult it was tell if he was Para or human. His size. Yet, even as she worried about him stalking only a few steps behind her, she knew she was absolutely full of shit.
She couldn’t explain it—didn’t even begin to understand it—but in the few seconds when she looked right at this dark stranger, she felt as if she knew him. Almost like an invisible thread stretched between them, tying them to each other as if no one else in the coffee shop existed. And that… that’s what made her want to run. She’d never felt such a strong attraction in such a short period of time before and that scared her so bad she had to get out of there before she did something she would regret.
Somehow, she didn’t think Adam would like it if she flung herself into another man’s arms. And before she scurried out the door? That was something she actually thought about doing.
He wasn’t supposed to come after her.
Another peek. She gulped, her hands shaking. Her coffee splashed on the sidewalk.
He’d closed the gap considerably.
Just get home, she told herself. The second she entered her apartment building, the wards would protect her. Hers were strong enough to keep this big guy out, and even if her neighbors’ weren’t and he made it inside, no one was getting on the sixth floor unless she let them.
When there were maybe ten feet separating Evangeline from the front door to her building, she abandoned all pretense of keeping it cool. Her leisurely pace turned into a sprint as she bolted inside.
Her heart was racing as she dashed up the stairs, so frazzled that she forgot all about the elevator. By the time she made it up the five flights, she figured she had made a close escape.
But, she wondered, escape from what?
Evangeline was still shaky. It took three tries before she got her key into her apartment door, slipping inside as if that one barrier had the power to keep the dark stranger out.
She locked the door behind her, placed her drink on her mantle, then ran to the window in her living room that overlooked the street below. Kneeling on her sofa, she moved the curtain aside with her free hand and pressed her forehead against the glass.
There was no one standing in front of the bakery.
He was gone.
Evangeline exhaled, twisting her body as she sank against the arm of the sofa. He was gone, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Glancing at the phone she was still gripping tightly, she wondered why she hadn’t called anyone when she feared that she was being followed. Safe in her apartment, she had to admit that it might have been concern that made her leave the shop, but she hadn’t been afraid as he stalked behind her.
No, that hadn’t been fear. She was almost… exhilarated. And what did that say about her?
It took her ten minutes before she remembered the reason she was still clutching her cell phone. By the time she was finally dialing Adam, she decided not to tell him anything about the man from the coffee shop. She had just about convinced herself that she had overreacted—that it was all one big coincidence. Just because he got up and left the shop shortly after she did didn’t actually mean he was following her home.
Maybe he was done with his coffee. Maybe his path had taken him this way. It didn’t matter. He was gone now, and if he had somehow felt the strange connection that Evangeline had, there was no way she would ever know.
She didn’t know how she felt about that, either.
10
Maddox burst into the front door of Colton’s home like a tornado. A six foot four, bulky tornado with glowing gold eyes and a face sharpened from the vestiges of his last shift. Claws curled from a mangled mix of hand and paw, stretched arms hanging down past his hips as he stood hunched in the doorway. And then there was his constant erection, mocking him. Weeping from the tip, the head a deep purple, the damn thing pointed due north without any sign that it was going down anytime soon.
The door swung off its hinges, the knob punching a hole in the wall as it connected and stuck. Colt glanced up from the laptop in front of him, got one look at his brother’s monstrous half form, then raised his eyes to the ceiling as if asking some higher power for help.
As if praying would
help either of them.
Maddox spent three hours prowling outside of Evangeline’s apartment before he gave up, shifted to his beast shape, and ran the entire way to Colt’s Bumptown. At least he knew where she lived and, while the wards kept him from entering, he knew what route she took for her coffee. He would be able to find her again, no doubt.
But what good would it do when she didn’t recognize him?
Because she hadn’t. During his long run when he pushed himself as much as he punished himself, he couldn’t stop remembering how she glanced at him, almost unseeing, then took off.
She ran from him.
Fucking ran.
His mate never would’ve run from him.
No doubt that was Evangeline. But without her scent, without her forest green eyes lighting up with love whenever she looked at him, Maddox was forced to accept the truth.
That was Evangeline, but she wasn’t his mate.
Not anymore.
As Maddox continued to stand in Colt’s doorway, eerily silent and obviously livid and way too naked, Colt sighed, closed up his laptop, and set it on the coffee table. Then, because his brother’s cock glaring at him was all the proof he needed, he said wryly, “I'd ask if you found her, but something tells me you did.”
Considering Maddox’s state, Colt knew it wasn't fair of him to take his rotten mood out on his brother. Then again, Maddox had just broken down his front door. Any other day, Colt would have been all for giving him a hard time. But then he thought about the hard-on Maddox was sporting and he felt a little guilty for not being all that sympathetic.
Not having control of their dicks… that was the true curse of the werewolf. Forget silver—the biological need to produce a generation of cubs that would survive meant that a shifter could only procreate with their fated mate. Foolish romantics, some Ants had gotten it in their heads that shifters mated for life because they wanted to.
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