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Lajos let the soft hotel curtain fall back into place. He’d thought he’d smelled her in the air when he’d gone out to the clothing store a couple of doors down from his hotel. It was her, with just a hint of perfume added to her normal scent. He’d made sure not to glance in her direction and, instead, used the reflection of a window to spot her. She’d been hiding behind a tree, but had poked her head out to peer at him.
What the hell is she doing here? He’d thought he caught a whiff of her at Enterprise too, but with all the perfume and exhaust fumes in the air he couldn’t be sure.
She had followed him.
He mentally kicked himself for not being able to detect that she’d tailed him. Granted, he’d been preoccupied. Andras still hadn’t heard from Kristof, and Lajos had possibly left the most interesting human female that he’d ever met hundreds of miles behind him. All the way to Miami he’d divided his time between thinking about his brother and Meisha.
When he’d found out that the address given to the rental car company was in Miami and not in Jacksonville, he’d had the Enterprise clerk call the number that was on the contract and put the call on speaker. While he’d pushed thoughts to the clerk to act normal and ask the caller how the car was working out for him, Lajos had counted the raucous voices in the background. He had heard two, one of them being Alexei’s.
Lajos had called Andras and told him about the lead. Andras agreed with his assessment that Lajos had no other choice but to head to Miami and get all the information he could on the Shifter Pack.
Lajos kept his hopes up about Kristof. He wasn’t in Miami—Lajos would feel Kristof if he was this close to him—but he was alive, somewhere out there. If Kristof had been taken prisoner, it was just a matter of time before whoever had him contacted Andras with their demands. And when they did, Lajos planned to have all the information about the other Shifters to bring them down and get his brother and Trudy back.
That was when his thoughts had trailed to Meisha. Lajos had never wanted a mate before. He understood that a part of mating meant some compromise and give and take. Mating was, in a sense, like being married, but with a deeper connection. But Lajos wasn’t ready for compromise yet. He wanted to run free—he didn’t need anyone holding him back. Wolf or human. He wasn’t ready to mate and he definitely did not want to mate with a human, as Kristof had done.
There was a reason why there weren’t many Shifter-human bonds. During the imprinting process the life-forces of the pair joined.
Shifters lived up to five hundred or so years and a human mated to them could live up to a few hundred years. While Trudy’s life span would be extended as a result of the bond, she would still die before Kristof. A wolf who lost their mate was little more than a walking corpse. They would lose the will to live and slowly degenerate. Not only would Trudy’s death have a negative impact on Kristof, but her death would also affect the Pack as a collective.
That was a good enough reason to get Meisha out of his head. No, he didn’t want his life tied to a human.
But...
But if he had a choice, he didn’t think Meisha would be such a bad mate. That was if she were a wolf and if he had a choice, but neither was the case.
He couldn’t bring Meisha into his world, exposing her to all the dangers that Shifters faced. While they were busy remaining unnoticed by the humans, Packs were known to fight against each other. Some fights were so brutal that the males of an entire Pack could be wiped out by a rival one. That hadn’t happened in quite some time, but it wasn’t unheard of. And on top of that, he also shared a world with other dangerous paranormal beings. The Werewolves were brutal monsters, Faes were self-centered and egotistical and the soulless Vampires were ruthless and conceited.
But the main reason he couldn’t bring her into his world was because he hadn’t imprinted on her.
His wolf was interested in Meisha, but he’d been interested in others as well. But always, in the end, it remained just him and his wolf. Whenever he thought he was getting close to someone his wolf would send pictures of being in wolf form, running through the woods. He was by himself—always by himself.
Never with another wolf and, of course, never with a human.
Lajos finally left his vigil at the window, went back to the king-sized bed and switched on the television, immediately turning to an international news channel. It was one of the best ways to learn what the paranormal community was up to.
Mass kidnappings meant the Vamps had a rogue group on the hunt for humans. When he’d been younger and still living in Hungary with his mother and father, there had been a rogue Vampire clan that had wiped out an entire village. His father, the Alpha of his home Pack, had led thirty Shifters to hunt the Vampires down. Lajos had been considered a pup at the time and hadn’t gone with the Pack, but he had heard about all the gruesome details. His cousin, Hunter, and Hunter’s younger sister, Erzsebet, had lost their parents to the Vampire clan. The Pack had killed all but two of the Vampires. The surviving Vampires had left Hungary, never to be seen again. Since then, the Vampires had done their best to control rogues, but every now and again Lajos heard about a few wayward clans popping up here and there.
Deadly virus outbreaks meant the Werewolves had accidently infected a human with the disease that the Werewolves carried and it had spread. Unlike the folklore, Werewolves weren’t able to bite someone and turn them into one of them. If they had that kind of power, in hopes of upping their status in the paranormal world, the Werewolves would’ve turned the entire human population a long time ago. The Vamps were the only ones with that kind of power, and they made sure every one of the other paranormals knew it. They didn’t make a lot of new Vamps, mainly because they didn’t think many humans were worthy. But at every turn the Vamps were sure to remind everyone else that within a week their numbers could swell and they could take over the world.
Lajos and his Pack never paid any attention to their bluffs. If the Vamps turned all the humans into Vampires, they would also be getting rid of their main food source.
Lajos tried to focus on the television, but found himself fidgeting with anything he could get his hands on. He couldn’t stay down for too long. He got up to peek out of the window again. Meisha was in the same spot. He had to give it to her. She was a determined little minx. As the sun began to set he knew he had to do something. He couldn’t leave her to sleep outside during the night, even though he really shouldn’t have cared at all. He hadn’t invited her to Miami in the first place.
His wolf sent him a picture of Meisha huddled and shivering on the sidewalk in the dark.
“Don’t try to make me feel bad,” Lajos said.
Another picture was sent. This time of a man standing over Meisha and her cowering away from him, bloody and bruised.
That was enough to make him react.
Lajos turned off the television and headed out of his door. There was no need to wait for an elevator. His room was on the second floor. He took the stairs and strode through the lobby. There was a high-end boutique nestled in the corner. The lobby also had a bar and a lounge area where all the furniture was stark white and the tables were made of glass.
When he got to the front door, the doorman opened it for him. “Will you need your motorcycle, Mr. Farkas?”
“Not now, but I will in an hour or so. I’ll have another bike for valet momentarily. Can you make sure someone who knows how to ride is available to park it?”
“Yes, sir.”
He knew he wouldn’t have a lot of time to get to Meisha before she tried to hide. He bounded down the front steps and didn’t bother going to a crosswalk. He crossed the street and dodged some cars. When she spotted him she rounded the bench she’d been sitting on and hid behind it.
Lajos chuckled under his breath and went straight for her motorcycle. “Nice bike,” he said, stopping in front of it. “I know someone who has one just like this. Maybe I’ll steal it and keep it for myself.” He kicked up the stand.
“Take my bike and I’ll break your legs,” she threatened.
He glanced up to see her coming from behind the bench. She looked tired. They’d had a long drive and he wasn’t sure if she’d gotten anything to eat. She held her leather jacket in her hand and wore a tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans. There was nothing about her appearance that should’ve turned him on. Her clothes were dirty and sticking to her, she was glaring daggers at him and her hair was wild all around her.
But she still looked good—damn good.
His wolf became attentive, watching her as Lajos was.
“You heard me,” she said, when he hadn’t responded.
He opened his eyes wide, feigning surprise. “Meisha? Is that you? What a surprise seeing you here.”
She rolled her eyes and stomped toward him. She tried to smooth her hair back into place. “How did you know I was here?”
“It’s not hard to notice a crazy chick sitting at the bus stop and not getting on any of the buses that come by.”
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m determined.”
“To get killed? I thought I left you in Jacksonville where you belong. You shouldn’t have come. I’m trying to find out more about the Russian mafia, and if they notice you here, they’ll kill you for what you did to one of their men.”
She put her hands on her hips and leaned to one side. “Russian mafia? For real? Are you going to keep that story up?”
He frowned. Why hadn’t his push worked on her? He’d repeated his words three or four times just to make sure what he’d told her stuck. He eyed her carefully. “What are you getting at?”
She looked from left to right, making sure no one was in earshot, then leaned closer to him. “I know what you are. You’re a Wolf-Shifter,” she whispered. “And that guy I killed, he wasn’t from the Russian mafia. He was like you.”
Shit.
“Meisha, I don—”
She threw up a hand, silencing him. “But what I don’t understand is how you planted a different memory in my head. What did you do to me?”
“I-I didn’t do anything.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Lajos, if you don’t tell me the truth, I will drop-kick you where you stand. And you thought me taking you tied up to my courtyard was going to be bad, imagine what I can do to you in Miami.”
He could push another thought to her now, but if it wasn’t working it wouldn’t do any good. She would just regain her memory and come after him again, but the next time he could bet it would be feet-first. “Okay, I pushed some thoughts into your head,” he said reluctantly.
She immediately put a hand on her head. “What do you mean by ‘pushed’?”
“I used my mind to persuade you about some things.” Her eyes opened wide. He put up his hands. “Don’t be alarmed. It won’t damage your brain and I didn’t have you do anything that you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place—going home and forgetting all about this mess. I’ve heard of it not working on some humans, but it works on most.” He shook his head. “Just my luck that it doesn’t work on you.”
“So you went into my mind and told me to do things?” she said, almost as a threat.
“I didn’t go into your head. Only Pack members and mated pairs can read each other’s thoughts. All I did was tell you something and persuaded you to do it. I couldn’t read what you were thinking.”
She clenched her jaw and balled her fist. “I swear to Oprah, if you do that shit again I will smack you sideways.”
He chuckled at her ridiculous statement. “I’m almost afraid to ask. Why are you swearing to Oprah?”
She waved a hand through the air. “My mom doesn’t like me swearing to God. She said it’s bad. So I swear to the next best thing—Oprah.”
He burst out laughing. “And you don’t think you’re crazy?” He pinched his fingers together. “Not even just a little bit?”
“I am not crazy,” she ground out.
“You’re willingly heading into danger with paranormal beings that wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. I call that cuckoo.” He twirled a finger by his ear and rolled his eyes upward.
She slapped his hand down. “Don’t be an ass.” She grabbed her bike from his grasp and began walking it across the street.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“To your room, I have to use the bathroom,” she hollered over her shoulder.
He trotted after her. “I was about to get room service. I figure we can go by the address where the Shifters are hiding. The Enterprise clerk gave it to me. We can take a look in a couple of hours.”
She maneuvered her bike onto the sidewalk and turned around. “You’re going to let me go with you?”
What harm could come with letting her tag along? It wasn’t as if he planned to raid their house and engage them in a fight tonight. All he planned to do was sit back and do some reconnaissance then return to the hotel.
He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Do I have a choice?”
She smiled at him and his wolf grumbled contently.