Mate Bond

by Jennifer Ashley

  That same dirt fell over a cliff into the river canyon this hill had been rising toward. Kenzie couldn’t make out the bottom in the dark, but the stink that blasted from it sent her back on her haunches. She snorted and shook her head, trying to get the smell out of her nostrils.

  She couldn’t. Kenzie shifted back to human so fast her muscles protested, and she made a muffled noise of pain as she straightened to her full height. But at least now she could clap her hand over her nose.

  How Bowman could simply sit there in that wave of smell, she couldn’t fathom. He stared downward, unmoving. There was no moon tonight, clouds blotting out all light, but Gil’s lantern glistened on Bowman’s fur, ruffled by the rising wind.

  Gil came up next to Kenzie, carefully not looking at her nakedness. “Holy—” He broke off and coughed. “Holy shit.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Kenzie said, still holding her nose. Ryan would have laughed at the nasally sound of her words.

  “Is that thing dead down there?”

  Kenzie glanced at Bowman. He never looked at her as he crouched low on his limbs and started climbing down the side of the ravine.

  Kenzie breathed through her mouth as she lowered her hand. “Crap, I do not want to do this.”

  “Then don’t,” Gil said quickly. “Stay up here, and he’ll tell us what he finds.”

  “Can’t,” she said, still sounding as though she had a bad cold. “He might need backup.”

  Gil glanced over the edge, then back at Kenzie, again keeping his gaze on her face. “You’re one brave woman, Kenzie O’Donnell.”

  “That’s what Bowman says. Well, when he’s not saying, What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She touched Gil’s arm, first to send him gratitude and second to see if she could sense whether he was up to something. She couldn’t tell. “Stay here. If I howl, you dial that cell phone.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gil said.

  Kenzie shifted, more slowly this time. She embraced the fur that warmed her body, but gagged on the punch of smell, which came to her with renewed strength.

  Heaving a wolf sigh, she started downward, following her mate, using the footprints Bowman had left to guide her.

  * * *

  It was dead all right. Bowman shifted back to human and waited for Kenzie to catch up. She stayed wolf, but sat on her haunches and let out a whine.

  The beast that had attacked the roadhouse sprawled on the only flat stretch of ground next to the cold, rushing river. In the darkness it was difficult to say exactly what it was even now.

  Bowman’s wolf sight had shown him fur, with enormous bearlike paws, but there was definitely something snakelike about its body, and that might be the stump of a wing. Bowman hadn’t seen any wings when he’d been fighting it at the roadhouse, but he’d been busy, there hadn’t been much light, and a stumpy wing didn’t mean the monster could fly.

  Bowman put his hand on Kenzie’s head, drawing comfort from her presence. She always came to his side. Always.

  The crashing and banging behind them meant Gil was coming down. His lantern flashed, showing that the wing stump had some feathering on it. Gil stopped, breathing hard, next to Bowman.

  “Damn.” The man shone the flashlight around, its thick beam cutting the darkness. “That is one ugly, stinking mo fo. You sure it’s dead?”

  “Looks dead. Smells dead.” Bowman nudged the hairy paw with his bare foot. “Yep. Dead.”

  “What the hell is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Bowman said. He didn’t like not knowing. All kinds of dangerous shit happened from not knowing.

  “Did you kill it?” Gil asked. “When you hit it with the truck, I mean. Injure it beyond recovery?”

  “I don’t think so.” Bowman remembered the beast crashing into the windshield, and the truck’s roof coming down on him. “It ran off, but it wasn’t that hurt. Something else happened.”

  “The truck’s driver maybe,” Gil said. “Or whoever hired him. Its work was done, so they finished it off?”

  Bowman shook his head. “Why bother to create, or find and trap, a huge, terrifying creature only to kill it? I’d doctor its injuries and keep it to fight another day.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Gil said. “I’d love to know what it is and what killed it, though. I’d call my local medical examiner, but I think the guy would have a coronary if he came out here and saw this.”

  “We need to study it,” Bowman said. “Find out everything we can. If not a human coroner, how about a veterinarian?”

  “Hmm.” Gil pursed his lips. “You know one with a strong stomach?”

  “I have one in mind,” Bowman said. “Let’s get up the hill, and I’ll give her a call.”

  He felt Kenzie move, and looked down to see her glaring up at him. He hid his amusement. He liked that Kenzie grew jealous sometimes, because it meant she wanted him around. Indifference would have been much harder to bear.

  Didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her about it, though. Teasing Kenzie was just too damn much fun.

  * * *

  “Oh my God,” Dr. Pat said. She had her hands over her nose, her eyes watering, as she looked at the body in the narrow canyon.

  It was the next morning, the sun was high enough to filter down to the river bottom, and everyone at the site was dressed. Dr. Pat had agreed, when Bowman had called her, to come out and take a look at the dead animal, but said she couldn’t possibly get there until morning. Therefore Kenzie, Bowman, and Gil had spent an uncomfortable night in Gil’s car, pulled up close enough to the ravine so they could watch to see if anyone came for the creature.

  At least, Kenzie had been uncomfortable, and now her eyes felt sandy, her muscles aching. Bowman, stretched out in the backseat because of his healing injury, had dropped off into peaceful sleep. Or at least, he’d pretended to.

  Bowman hadn’t even suggested that Kenzie go home to a soft bed. She wouldn’t leave him, not when he was still hurt, and he knew it, not even if they summoned Cade or Jamie to reprieve her. And neither of them fully trusted Gil yet. So Kenzie stayed.

  She called Ryan before they settled in and told him to stay with Cade, which Ryan had no problem with. He was getting to be of an age when having friends and fun was more important than clinging to his parents. He’d sounded worried though—about them, not himself. Ryan was also old enough to realize that his mom and dad did a dangerous job.

  Gil proved to be a good conversationalist as the night lengthened. He was well-read and intelligent, and knew many things. Not from education, he said. He’d never been to college. He just liked to read . . . everything. He wrote a little too, he said modestly. Nothing anyone would know.

  He had way too good of an attitude, Kenzie thought. Sitting up all night babysitting an oversized corpse, waiting for the vet or maybe a villain to show up, didn’t faze him. Gil had plenty of topics at the ready to discuss, but he knew when to let Kenzie doze. She awoke in the morning to find him humming a tune in his throat, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He couldn’t have slept much, but he looked refreshed.

  Bowman also looked rested and energetic. He swung himself out of the car at dawn as though he were healed and as supple as ever. Kenzie felt hungover and exhausted, her eyes aching, and she could murder for some coffee.

  Dr. Pat arrived shortly after daybreak in a trim white SUV that went with her chirpy personality. Kenzie softened toward the woman a little when Dr. Pat leaned into the passenger side and withdrew a cardboard carrier holding four cups of steaming coffee. Good, expensive coffee, a rich roast whose scent tickled Kenzie’s nose and promised wonderful things.

  The smell and taste of the coffee as Kenzie drank almost blotted out the decaying smell of the creature. But not quite. Nothing would wipe that out except time.

  After they fortified themselves with coffee, the four climbed down the hill to where the creature lay. Kenzie held her breath against the stench; Dr. Pat’s eyes were streaming. The males of the group pretended to be able to stomac
h it, but Kenzie knew better.

  “What the hell is it?” Dr. Pat asked.

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Bowman said. “Take your time; I know it’s bad. If you need to go back up, that’s fine.”

  Dr. Pat shook her head, and Kenzie’s estimation of her rose some more. She wasn’t a wuss, that was for sure.

  When Dr. Pat took another step toward the body, her foot slipped. Two male hands quickly caught her, steadying her on the muddy ground. Dr. Pat gave both Gil and Bowman a pretty and grateful smile.

  Kenzie rolled her eyes. Dear Goddess, save me from all this testosterone.

  She folded her arms while Bowman and Gil helped Dr. Pat move on the slippery ground toward the creature. The woman stopped a few feet from the thing, wiped her eyes, and looked it over.

  Its lower body was definitely lion, or at least Feline, but the rest was like nothing Kenzie had ever seen. The big cat body changed abruptly in the middle to something reptilian, and what looked like the remains of a feathery wing poked out of its back.

  Then came the head, a mishmash of lion, wolf, and something eagle-like. Its open mouth showed rows of giant, very sharp teeth. The wide, staring eyes had filmed over, but they were protruding and red.

  “Huh,” Gil said. “Don’t tell me we’ve taken down Godzilla.”

  “No.” Dr. Pat lifted her hands from her mouth. She looked green and sick, but her eyes were alight with interest. “It’s not from the movies; it’s from mythology. I think this is a griffin.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Bowman stared at Dr. Pat, then at the animal, then up at Kenzie, as though she would have the answer. “What the hell’s a griffin?”

  Kenzie answered him, proving she did know. “A griffin is half lion, half eagle. A mythical beast with origin stories from Persia, Turkey, and Greece. Used in heraldry in Europe beginning in the middle ages.” She frowned as she studied it again. “This thing doesn’t look exactly like the pictures I’ve seen. It’s as though someone threw in a dragon on top of it.”

  Dr. Pat nodded gravely. “True, but I’ve never met a mythical beast before, so I’m not going to argue with it.”

  Bowman fixed Kenzie with a sharp look. “How the hell do you know all that?”

  “Books,” Kenzie said without inflection. “Ryan likes fantasy.”

  His brows slammed together. “Ryan reads about fantasies?”

  “Fantasy,” Kenzie said, pronouncing it carefully. “As in Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia. Ryan liked Narnia a lot when he was younger. Now he’s into the Dresden Files and the Iron Druid Chronicles.”

  Bowman kept scowling as he processed the information. Kenzie raised her brows at Bowman until he turned away and resumed his study of the animal.

  Gil had taken out his cell phone to snap pictures. “Cool. A real live mythological beast that shouldn’t exist.”

  “But it does exist,” Bowman said, his voice going quiet. “The questions are how? And why?”

  “And who created it?” Kenzie asked, her voice also controlled. “This didn’t spring up naturally.”

  Bowman put his hands on his hips, closed his eyes, and took a long sniff. Dr. Pat and Gil both stared at him, amazed that he’d want a deeper smell of the thing, but Kenzie knew what he was doing.

  After a time, Bowman opened his eyes, glanced at Kenzie, and shook his head.

  No smell of Faerie, he meant. The beast had been born here, in this world. Interesting.

  “Now what?” Gil asked.

  “Now you send me copies of the pictures you took,” Bowman said. “And we burn the body.”

  Gil stared. “You’re kidding, right? That could take days.”

  “Then it takes days. If someone did breed this thing, I don’t want them coming back for it. Harvesting DNA and whatever.”

  “They might have already,” Kenzie pointed out.

  “I’d like to,” Dr. Pat said. “Take some tissue samples, I mean; do as much of a postmortem here as I can. I might be able to find out its origin.” She reached into her pocket and slid out test tubes and latex gloves. “But you guys might have to do a few things for me. I’m not sure how much more of this I can stand.” She beamed a wide smile at Gil, and then Bowman.

  Gil said, “Sure,” very quickly and grabbed a test tube. Bowman took a second one and gave Pat a reassuring nod.

  Oh, for the Goddess’s sake. The two men moved to do as Dr. Pat dictated, while the woman gave orders like a head surgeon, or a little queen. All three were oblivious to Kenzie’s scrutiny.

  At least she brought coffee, Kenzie thought. Otherwise, I’d have to kill her.

  * * *

  “A griffin,” Cade said, heavily skeptical.

  “Seriously?” Ryan asked. “Awesome.”

  They sat around the kitchen table at home, Cade’s elbows on the table while he sipped coffee. Bowman lounged in a chair next to Cade’s, looking relaxed while keeping an eye on everyone in the house.

  Gil and Dr. Pat both had to return to their day jobs, each disappointed they couldn’t stay for the discussion. Gil had placed a friendly hand on Kenzie’s shoulder before he left, smiling into her eyes. He made Kenzie feel warm, safe—an odd sensation from a human.

  Bowman had observed all, eyes glittering. Kenzie thought he’d retaliate by kissing Dr. Pat on the cheek or something, but Bowman only told her good-bye and thanked her for her help.

  Anyone would think he’d kissed her, though, from Dr. Pat’s flush and little smile. She’d go all groupie on him any moment now.

  Bowman caught Kenzie’s eye as she sat down with more coffee, the heat in his glance unmistakable. Kenzie pretended to ignore him.

  Jamie was cooking a mess of eggs, bacon, potatoes, and some kind of sauce, all mixed together. Kenzie hadn’t had any yet, but it smelled wonderful. She was enjoying the clean scents of food, coffee, her home, and her mate and cub, all the more precious after the horrible stench of the creature.

  “The problem is,” Cade said, his huge hands around his coffee mug, “griffins don’t exist.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me,” Bowman said.

  “Do we have to burn it?” Ryan asked. “Can I see it?”

  “No!” Kenzie and Bowman said at the same time.

  Ryan gave a small wolf growl, but he subsided.

  Bowman had left trusted Shifters to guard the fallen creature and start piling fuel around it, and then summoned Cade and Jamie to this meeting. Ryan had insisted on joining in, and Kenzie hadn’t stopped him. Ryan had a right to know what was going on. That didn’t mean she wanted Ryan standing next to the creature from hell and sucking in its sickening odor.

  Jamie shoveled things onto plates and carried two over. Bowman got served first, because he was leader. Instead of eating, Bowman picked up the plate Jamie gave him and passed it to Kenzie. He lifted the second one Jamie put in front of him and slid it to his son.

  Ryan, used to the ritual, grabbed his fork and dug in.

  Jamie brought more plates, putting yet another one in front of Bowman. It was Bowman’s choice, in his house, who got the food first. Bowman handed the plate to Cade, and finally took one for himself.

  “I take it you think that thing wasn’t natural-born?” Jamie asked, returning to the stove for his share.

  “How could it be?” Kenzie asked. She forked up a mouthful of Jamie’s cooking, savoring the myriad flavors. “What would naturally be a mishmash of three and more animals? All of them giant-sized?”

  “Shifter,” Cade said in his rumbling voice. “A screwed-up one.”

  Bowman swallowed the large amount of food he’d shoved into his mouth. “The knowledge of how to make Shifters is a secret known only to the Fae. The humans tried it, remember? They came up with Tiger, but it didn’t work right. Besides, all that research got blown up.”

  “And Tiger’s a little different from most Shifters,” Kenzie said. “When he’s on rescue missions, he can sometimes see numbers in front of his eyes, coordinates t
hat tell him where to go. Somehow.”

  Bowman fixed her with a look. “How the hell do you know that?”

  Kenzie shrugged, lifting her coffee. “I talk to people. They tell me things.”

  Bowman growled softly, but let it go. “This thing wasn’t anything like Tiger. Whoever came up with it wasn’t trying to create a Shifter; they were creating something to destroy Shifters.”

  “Because it attacked us?” Kenzie traced the letters on her coffee mug—“World’s Greatest Mom.” “How do you know it was targeting Shifters, in particular? There were plenty of humans at the roadhouse that night.”

  Cade broke in. “But half of Shiftertown was there too. Everyone knows we like the place. And they took the thing back to where we hold the fight club.”

  “True,” Kenzie said thoughtfully. “Or maybe it was a test run, to see if it could stand against Shifters.”

  “Or if Shifters could stand against it,” Bowman finished. “Notice which residents of Shiftertown weren’t there that night?”

  “Dimitru pack,” Jamie said at once. “Bastards. No offense, Kenzie.”

  “None taken,” Kenzie said mildly. As she’d told Uncle Cristian, she didn’t consider herself Dimitru pack anymore. Bowman and Ryan were her pack now, all she wanted.

  Jamie finally sat down and started eating. “So, Bowman, are you thinking Kenzie’s uncle Cristian found a way to breed a crazy animal strong enough to kill off half the Shifters? Would he do that?”

  “Are you kidding?” Kenzie asked. “He would totally do that. The question isn’t would he, but could he?”

  “One way to find out,” Bowman said, pushing aside his empty plate and rising.

  Kenzie jumped up in alarm and went to him. “Don’t even think about charging over to Uncle Cristian’s and challenging him this morning.”

  Bowman turned a cold gaze on her. “I’m not going to think about it. I’m just going to do it.”

  Kenzie put herself in front of him as he started for the door. “You don’t have any evidence. If you take him out without proof he did anything, you violate pack law. The others won’t let you get away with that.”