Mate Bond

by Jennifer Ashley

  “So,” Kenzie asked, giving Gil a warm smile. “What news do you have for us?”

  Gil turned his body to include both Kenzie and Bowman in the conversation. Wise man. “I looked into Kenzie’s idea that a truck had picked up the . . . whatever it was . . . and drove it out of there. There aren’t any traffic cams in that remote an area, and satellite feed is iffy. But I was able to look at cameras at traffic lights in the towns around there. An eighteen-wheeler rolled through Asheville just after one in the morning, which was twenty minutes after you say the attack was over.”

  Bowman sat forward, adjusting his leg at the last minute so it would not bend too sharply. “You get a plate? Company the truck was from?”

  Kenzie broke in. “Did it say ‘We Move Monsters’ on the side?”

  Gil chuckled; Bowman scowled. “No such luck. I got a partial plate. The truck was black, both container and cab. Hard to see at night, but still distinctive. People remember glossy black eighteen-wheelers. Took me a while, but I think I found it. The owner has a trucking company in Raleigh, but when I contacted them, they said the truck had been stolen about a year ago. They already have the insurance money for it, and didn’t care what happened to it, but they did give me the name of the last driver. I checked him out—he’s dropped out of sight, but he did own property around here. I went up there to check it out. Found the truck, but no monster, as you probably guessed.”

  “Where?” Bowman asked, his eyes changing to white gray.

  “Around Leicester, outside an old farm. Farm’s been abandoned, but some of the buildings are intact.”

  Kenzie came alert as well. She and Bowman exchanged a long look, their earlier bantering over. The old farm near Leicester was where the Shifters of this Shiftertown held their fight club.

  “We need to get up there,” Kenzie said.

  “Damn right.” Bowman came off the sofa and was out the door before Kenzie could catch him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Bowman had to concede to go out to the site in Ramirez’s car. He’d started for his motorcycle, but his stiff leg, and Kenzie pointing out he hadn’t quite finished healing, made him realize he couldn’t drive himself. He turned around and ordered Gil to take them there.

  He had to admit that Gil wasn’t as annoying as most humans, and that fact irritated him. Gil had nodded at Bowman and unlocked his car without fuss or argument.

  No one locked a car in Shiftertown, Bowman grumbled to himself as he climbed inside, hiding a grunt of pain. Did Gil think one of Bowman’s Shifters was going to steal it? But Bowman knew, as he stretched out in the backseat, that he was deliberately finding fault. He didn’t want to like Gil, because Kenzie’s eyes softened whenever she looked at the man.

  Kenzie rode in front beside Gil, talking in her friendly way as they headed out of Shiftertown into twilight. Bowman pretended to doze but kept a sharp eye on Gil.

  He’d alerted Jamie before they left the house as to where they were going, and told him to be on standby. He’d talked to Jamie because Cade hadn’t answered his phone. Bowman couldn’t hear much of what Jamie said over the background noise of music and shouting, but he thought he heard something about “grizzlies tightrope walking.” Fucking bears.

  “Just don’t let Ryan do it,” Bowman had shouted.

  “What?” Jamie had yelled back. “Oh, Ryan. No, he’s fine. I’ll keep him with me until you get back.” Click. The party’s noise had abruptly cut off.

  Bowman let it go. He knew that his Shifters were partying hard tonight because they’d been scared shitless last night. Reaction was setting in, and they were letting off steam in the relative safety of Shiftertown, which was well-guarded—better guarded than humans knew.

  Good thing it wasn’t fight club night, since Gil was taking them up there. Shifters used fighting to let off tension as well, but the schedule for this fight club was rigid: once every two weeks, and that was it. Bowman knew the danger of letting it become a free-for-all, anytime-they-wanted-to-fight scene. Shifters needed boundaries, especially in this Shiftertown, where casual bouts could become clan wars.

  Kenzie kept up pleasant chatter with Gil as they rode through hills and down into valleys where farms filled either side of the road. Gil talked easily, he and Kenzie behaving as though they were old friends. Bowman suppressed his irritation and remained silent.

  The farm Gil drove to had been abandoned long ago, the owner neither bothering to sell the land nor continuing to farm it. Weeds had taken over the fields; the last crop had dried out and was yielding to fierce choking grasses. Sheds around the fields had fallen in, disintegrating on themselves.

  The fight club had commandeered the larger, dilapidated barn, now just a flat floor with a large roof over it. Shifters had replaced rotting beams and timbers, shoring up the old place. Now, on fight club nights, it was a teeming arena, alive with Shifters, humans coming to watch and wager, adrenaline, laughter, and blood sport.

  This evening, however, it was deserted and derelict. Gil stopped just below the arena, killing his lights.

  Bowman got out, wincing when his leg straightened. Kenzie was beside him almost instantly. She’d ceased her teasing and stood at his shoulder, looking with him toward the ring.

  An eighteen-wheeler was parked under the huge roof, its black paint gleaming in the light of the flashlight lantern Gil carried. Bowman didn’t need a flashlight to see it, and he didn’t need any more evidence to tell him that the monster had been inside it. Its scent came to him loud and clear.

  “Damn,” Kenzie said softly. “That really stinks.”

  The smell triggered Bowman’s memory of fighting the creature. Pain and rage mixed with fear flooded back to him, along with the adrenaline high that had gotten him into Cade’s truck to ram the solid wall of flesh.

  He shuddered, his fight-or-flight reaction too close to the surface. Kenzie put her hand on his arm, but he could feel that her fighting need was as wound up as his.

  Gil stood beside them, his human scent making only a small dent in the monster’s. “Stinks, yeah, but the truck is empty.”

  “I know,” Bowman said. “The scent is strong, but it’s not sharp. It hasn’t been in there for hours.”

  Gil flashed his light around the growing darkness. “The question is, where did it go? I didn’t feel like hunting for it by myself.”

  Smart of him. Bowman had no wish to encounter the thing again, but it was a danger, and he needed to deal with it. “I’ll have to go wolf,” he said.

  “No, let me,” Kenzie said quickly.

  “No.” Bowman turned to face her, catching her golden eyes in the dark. “I need you as backup.”

  Kenzie glared at him, and Bowman gazed steadily back at her, willing her not to argue. Kenzie’s chest, under a tight sweatshirt and fleece-lined jacket, rose with her breath. Her eyes held wicked sparks that he loved, flashing in fear and anger. She was trying to protect him.

  He wanted to kiss her right now. More than kiss her—he wanted to lean her back on the hood of the car and take her mouth, tasting her strength. He wanted this woman with his entire body, and with every thought he had, every day.

  “All right,” Kenzie said, still angry. “But if you break your leg again, don’t come crying to me.”

  “I never cry.”

  Kenzie shrugged, but her body was stiff. “I know. You’re the big, bad alpha. You just bitch and moan until we want to gag you.”

  Bowman let the fantasy of Kenzie tying him down and working a gag between his lips flit through his mind. Then he shoved it aside. He’d never get this problem solved if he didn’t calm down.

  Without another word, Bowman slid off his leather jacket and laid it on the hood of Gil’s car. He didn’t bother to find a place to hide or ask Gil to turn his back; he simply started shedding clothes.

  Kenzie caught the shirt and T-shirt he threw off, making sure they got folded up all nice. She was like that, going domestic in the most incongruous places and making snide remarks ab
out the messiness of males.

  She also looked her fill as Bowman toed off his boots and slid out of his jeans and underwear, the cold air biting his ass. It was getting colder by the minute, but Kenzie’s gaze dropping to his cock made his body roasting hot.

  Gil was pretending to fix something on his flashlight, not looking at the stark-naked male next to him. Kenzie, on the other hand, didn’t have a problem watching, a satisfied gleam in her eyes.

  But enough. Time to finish this.

  Bowman shifted as quickly as he could to wolf and dropped to all fours. The world took on the curves he saw in wolf form—at the same time, outlines were sharp, colors muted. His sense of smell nearly overwhelmed him, especially with leftover monster stink, and his pricked ears heard plenty in the darkness.

  Kenzie’s scent came to him even over the stronger smell, pure female goodness. Gil Ramirez contained the too-salty scent of human, overlaid with a subtler scent Bowman couldn’t place.

  Hmm. He didn’t have time at the moment to find out what was up with that, but he realized that Gil was more than he seemed.

  Scents of the night—air, cold, coming snow, small sleeping animals—were hideously tainted by whatever had been in that truck. Bowman’s nose wrinkled, and he couldn’t stop his growl.

  “I know.” Kenzie’s voice, though she spoke softly, was loud to his sensitive ears. “It’s awful.”

  Everything inside Bowman didn’t want to approach the truck, but he knew he had to hunt this threat. Noiselessly, he padded toward the eighteen-wheeler, leaving the light and Kenzie behind.

  The truck waited, inert, its polished black glinting where Gil’s flashlight brushed it. The truck was an inanimate object, Bowman knew, but it seemed to crouch in the shadows as though lying in wait.

  Bowman heard Kenzie coming behind him, ignoring Gil’s admonition to be careful. Kenzie knew what she was doing. He padded into the arena, pausing at the edge to listen, sniff, assess.

  No one was in or around the truck. His nose told him that. Whoever the human driver or drivers had been, they were long gone. The beast wasn’t in it either. So why was Bowman so reluctant to go any closer?

  He shut off every human thought running through his head and let himself be guided by instinct alone. That didn’t work well, though, because every instinct of his wolf told him to leave that truck the hell alone. Take Kenzie, take Ryan, leave the area, and hole up in a wild place with them, and to hell with the human world.

  The weight of his Collar around his neck stopped him. There were no wild spaces for them anymore. They had to try to make it in captivity, to build strength until the time was right for them to be free again. That was the whole point of agreeing to move to Shiftertowns.

  The Collar, however, sparked once as Bowman forced his wolf feet forward. It sensed his rising need to fight.

  The truck loomed. Bowman made himself sniff its perimeter, but that told him nothing new.

  He sat down, waiting for the other two, and looked up at Kenzie when she stopped beside him, her hip pressing his flank. The intimacy and peace of simply touching her flowed into him, quieting the sparks in his Collar, the jangle of his nerves. She stroked the top of Bowman’s head, giving him a nod of understanding.

  When they’d first become mated, Bowman had told Kenzie never to pet him when he was in wolf form. He wasn’t a frigging dog.

  So Kenzie, of course, made sure to pet his head at least once every time he went wolf. She did it again now, smoothing between his ears, scratching behind them. He’d never, ever tell her how much he liked that.

  “We need to open it up,” Kenzie said to Gil.

  She stroked Bowman’s head one more time before she joined Gil, who had thoughtfully brought along a large set of bolt cutters.

  Gil, who had the advantage of a weaker sense of smell, went right up to the truck. Bowman knew he could smell just fine, though, because he said, “Sheew,” as he broke open the door.

  The stench that wafted out made all three of them back up rapidly. The monster wasn’t inside, but there was no doubt it had been confined in the truck for some time. It had done what all animals do, judging from the wetness on the floor—repeatedly.

  “Wait,” Kenzie said. She put her hand on Gil’s arm, a familiar gesture that any other time might have made Bowman slam Gil into the nearest wall. “Flash the light in the corner again.”

  Gil, happy to oblige, did. “Is that blood?”

  “Sure is,” Kenzie said. “Kind of a lot of it.”

  “Did it kill someone?” Gil asked. His dark face had gone a shade lighter, and the lantern swayed.

  “I don’t think so,” Kenzie answered. “I’m willing to bet that blood belongs to the monster. Bowman must have hurt it more than he thought.”

  Bowman caught the scent, distinct from the other disgusting odors. Blood, sharp and acrid. Bowman turned his head, a new breeze bringing the exact same scent from a point beyond the arena.

  Bowman growled to Kenzie, came to his feet already moving, and loped out into the cold darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kenzie followed Bowman at a rapid pace, Gil’s light bobbing along behind her. She knew Bowman was following a new scent, but her human senses weren’t honed enough to catch it.

  Was the monster out there? Waiting? Was its blood and piss in the truck bait for Bowman to follow? Pretending to be hurt so he’d walk right into it?

  Kenzie shivered, from both dread and the drop in temperature. The night was growing rapidly colder.

  She couldn’t see Bowman anymore, and a quiet call to him produced nothing. He’d disappeared, keeping silent to better hunt.

  Kenzie stopped so quickly that Gil almost ran into her.

  “You all right?” he asked, his warm eyes holding concern. Gil wasn’t very tall, even for a human, being an inch shorter than Kenzie. But his body held strength, his shoulders wide, muscles as powerful as any Shifter’s.

  “I’m going to have to go wolf.” Kenzie dug cold fingers into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, scrolling through it. “If anything goes wrong, if we have to fight, call this number. This is Jamie, Bowman’s top tracker.” Her cell phone was a few years old and refurbished—Shifters were not allowed the latest state-of-the-art smartphones. Phone technology changed so rapidly, though, that a phone from even a few years ago had more bells and whistles than Kenzie ever used.

  “Are you sure?” Gil said, taking the phone. “About shifting, I mean.”

  “I need to be able to help Bowman at a second’s notice. Don’t call Jamie unless we’re really in trouble, though. I don’t want all of Shiftertown out here because Bowman spotted a rabbit.”

  The fact that no snarl came out of the darkness at that remark worried her. Bowman was either keeping quiet because he was sneaking up on something, or something had happened to him.

  “Do you have a gun?” Kenzie asked, sliding off her boots. The ground was burning cold beneath her stocking feet.

  “Yes,” Gil said without reaching for it. “But do you think a pistol will do any good against something that can fill a semitruck?”

  Kenzie shot him a smile. “Can’t hurt.”

  Gil returned her grin, the expression lighting his face. “Glad I met you, Shifter woman.”

  “Same here, human cop.” She put her hands on her hips. “Will you turn your back, please? Bowman’s happy to strip in front of the Goddess and everyone, but I’m a little more modest.”

  Gil’s smile widened, but he turned around, presenting a strong back under a leather coat. “You know I won’t peek. Your mate would tear out my throat if I did. I picked that up from him. He wouldn’t even stop to ask questions.”

  “Probably,” Kenzie said in all seriousness. She slid out of her clothes, moving quickly so she had to shiver only a few seconds before her warm fur hugged her, and she shook herself out.

  Her growl had Gil turning around again, flashing the light in her face. She winced and blinked, sending him a snarl.

/>   “Oh, sorry. Hey, you look good.”

  Gil gave her an admiring glance, taking in her wolf. Kenzie’s fur was dark, streaked with a tawny brown, her eyes bright gold in contrast to the gray eyes of Bowman and his clan. She was larger than but strongly resembled the wild wolves that had traversed Romania and the Transylvanian mountains where she’d lived as a cub. Kenzie always suspected that the Fae had used Transylvanian wolves as breeding stock for the first Lupines.

  She’d also long suspected that Romanian Shifters had inspired the story of the shape-shifting, bloodsucking Vlad Dracul. Likely Uncle Cristian had inspired the tales specifically. He’d been around when the first vampire stories had started gaining popularity.

  Kenzie gave Gil another low growl, trying to convey that he should stay close but quiet, and trotted in the direction Bowman had taken. She put enough distance between herself and Gil that his lantern wouldn’t night-blind her, but went slowly enough that he wouldn’t lose her.

  The stink of the creature blanketed the land, but she found Bowman’s trail winding like a warm ribbon through it. She inhaled the scent of his passing, trying to blot out the sickening stench that overlaid it. Find Bowman, she told herself. Focus only on him.

  Kenzie made her way up a steeper hill and back into deep woods, leaving the farmlands behind. It was harder going up here, and she heard Gil panting behind her.

  The stench grew until it finally erased all scent of Bowman. Didn’t matter—Bowman was tracking that smell, and all Kenzie had to do was follow it.

  She came across Bowman so suddenly she almost ran into him. Kenzie swerved at the last minute and halted next to him, her paws skidding on the cold, loose dirt.