Gwen Burnett urged Molly into a jog. She wanted to get them out of sight as soon as possible. Lena had said not to worry, but Gwen did. Nothing would stop her big sister from fulfilling a promise unless she physically couldn’t, which meant Lena had been captured. If she had, how had she been able to use her phone to text?
Unless she hadn’t. And someone else had.
Gwen tugged on Molly’s arm to stop her and pressed a forefinger to her lips. She glanced around the hotel parking lot but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
What if they were walking into a trap? Although she’d known about shifters ever since her stepdad started working with Shifter Affairs, she could never tell the nonhuman members of his unit apart from the human ones.
Maybe if she’d spent more time with them, she’d be able to guess, but there was no telltale sign of their species’ difference. Clues, sure. Only, lots of guys wore that dark, mysterious cloak and lots of men were tall, built, and oozed sexuality. Unless they shifted, she’d have about as much luck picking them out by playing eenie-meenie-miney-moe.
Any of the huge men prowling around could be one. She hadn’t even known Vader, the man who’d helped rescue Molly from the medical facility where she’d been experimented on, was a wolf shifter until her stepdad had told her.
Her pulse sped up. She swept her gaze over the lot, darting from man to man and trying to pick out who was human and who wasn’t. One guy started walking toward them. She froze and glanced between Molly, who stared straight ahead, and the approaching man.
“Molly?” Gwen dropped to her knees. “Can you scent other shifters?”
Molly didn’t answer or move.
Gwen squeezed her sister’s hand, hoping to get through to the little girl. “Honey, please, I know you’re scared, but this is important. Do you smell any other shifters?”
Molly didn’t look at her, but she shook her head.
Gwen nibbled her lip. What was she supposed to do?
The man’s brows furrowed. He quickened his pace, and Gwen trembled, uncertainty twisting her gut. Lena’s voice came back to her.
“You can do this, Gwen. I’ll lead the shifters away. You get our little sister to safety. We promised we’d do anything to keep Molly safe. That means from the scientists who want her back and from those lions who want to steal her future.”
Gwen blew out a rough breath. She’d have to trust Molly and herself. They’d get out of this mess.
She stood and plastered a smile on her face for the guy who stepped up to them.
“Everything okay?”
She nodded and widened her smile. “Absolutely, I was just waiting for my husband to meet us, but he’s probably running late.”
His expression fell. “Oh well, if you—”
“Thanks, got to go,” Gwen stammered.
She grabbed the small bag with the supply of chemicals that would mask Molly’s scent. Trust herself. Okay, she would, and her first decision was to modify Plan B. She hurried with her sister’s hand clasped in hers back to the car. She had a better place to hide. She only prayed Lena would call her soon. If she didn’t… Yeah, Gwen didn’t want to think about that.
Devin paced the hallway of the small house. The scents of lemon, lavender, and clove drifted to him, the comforting smells doing little to cover up the stench of pain and blood hanging in the air. Lena’s suffering pressed in on him. His chest hurt with the weight of guilt, and every whimper from his little mate tightened the noose around him.
She had him twisted in knots. Less than a day had passed since their paths crossed but the woman had become the center of his world. He no longer cared what she might’ve done before him. Whatever it had been was in an effort to protect Molly. Of that he was certain. The child obviously meant a lot to her.
If something happened to Lena, how would he explain to Molly that he’d allowed her big sister to die? How would he survive without the brave, if not foolish, woman he’d taken as a mate?
He glanced at the door separating them. Why hadn’t the witch come out yet? She was supposed to apply some bandages and chant or something. How long did that take?
Unless there was a problem. Lena might be dying.
He took a step forward, then locked his knees. No. Verna had said she’d yell if she needed help. He had to be patient. Hard to do when his sanity was slipping into the abyss with each minute that passed.
“And what are you going to feel once the female dies?” Kade’s question from the day before repeated in Devin’s mind.
He wasn’t certain what he’d feel. He only knew he didn’t want Lena to die.
His pulse kicked up, the first signs of a breakdown surfacing. Dizziness made the floor feel as if it were undulating, and the walls closed in on him. Black dots danced over his vision. He stumbled toward the door and pressed his nose to the doorjamb.
Although laced with agony, the calming scent he was fast becoming addicted to seeped into his lungs. The fog cleared. Sanity returned. He dragged in a few more deep breaths of Lena’s fragrance, then pushed away from the door.
Molly. He had to focus on Molly.
They still had no clue where the child was being kept. Kade and Xander had scoured the town but couldn’t pick up her scent anywhere.
He quickened his strides. Nothing was working out as expected. Their trip to Delaware was supposed to have been a quick retrieval. Instead, he’d lost an innocent and nearly killed a beautiful human.
Lena had slipped back into his thoughts. He stopped his frantic pacing and stared out the window at the end of the hall. Focusing on the red and white flowers lining the driveway, he forced himself to think of something besides the gorgeous female he’d mated.
The house belonged to one of the human witches in Verna’s coven, which meant it came with a nifty spell hiding it from passersby. If someone looked straight at it, they’d see it and always remember it being here. Most of the harried travelers driving past would never notice the white clapboard home with its big front porch or the witches living inside. It made it an ideal place to bring an injured human when hospitals weren’t an option. The only problem—Verna wasn’t a doctor. Lena needed one. There was only so much natural remedies and chants could do.
He spun at the sound of approaching footsteps, took in Kade’s straight back and the tic on his jaw, and tensed. “Did you find out anything?”
Kade leaned one shoulder against the wall on the other side of the window—an attempt to look relaxed, but the white-knuckled fists at his sides destroyed the pose.
“Not much. I tried getting hold of our contact at Shifter Affairs, but it went straight to voicemail. Same with Ella. So I called the main number. Once I dropped Lena’s name, the agent clammed up. She told me to go back to Virginia, and they’d send trained task force members in to handle the situation. That this wasn’t a case for civilian liaisons, and we should never have been called in the first place.”
“Since when did they start refusing us information? Any time a shifter child is found, the humans alert the local pride, even if they don’t allow us to participate in the retrieval. That’s common practice.”
“That’s what I said, and they told me I could file a complaint.”
“Great.” Devin sighed. “So we’re on our own.”
“Maybe not. I left a message for Ella and told Zach he needed to go out to her office.”
Zach had made Ella, a Shifter Affairs agent he’d crossed paths with a year ago, his beloved human, but he hadn’t spoken to her since. Nobody knew why, but whatever happened had left Zach angry.
Devin shook his head. “And how did that order go over?”
“He said he would, but the last time I ordered him to go to Ella, he sent Evan instead.” Kade pinched his brow. “At this point, I don’t care who goes as long as we get the information we need, but we’re also going to have to figure out what to do about Lena. If we report her injuries to Shifter Affairs—”
“No!” Devin snapped. Silence stretched while he reined in his cats. The thought of losing Lena to anything or anyone pushed him to the limit of his control. “They’ll take her away from…us. I…” He blew out a rough breath. “We won’t be able to protect her if she isn’t with us.”
“They won’t take your mate from you. Relax.”
Devin focused on her bedroom door. “She doesn’t know she’s my mate, remember? And after the way she reacted in the hotel to the idea of me staying close to her, I’m not sure the knowledge would be welcome.”
“Figure out a way to convince her. You need to soul-bond to her, Devin. You won’t survive her death.”
Devin tore his gaze from the slab of wood separating him from Lena. “I won’t take the choice out of her hands.”
Kade muttered under his breath about stubborn cats. “Okay, but you need to at least tell her that you’re mates. She has a right to know.”
“I will once she’s not fighting for her life. I don’t want to upset her.”
Kade stared at him for a long moment then inclined his head slightly. “So be it, but if turning to Shifter Affairs is the only way to save her life, we do it. I won’t risk losing you to grief.”
Devin turned away to hide his expression, unsure whether relief or uncertainty would show. Time to change the subject. “Did you find out anything about the humans Xander found murdered inside the home?”
“The remains of the older humans were Lena’s parents, but Shifter Affairs didn’t offer anything useful on them. Just the basics—age, address, phone number. That got me nothing on a web search, and Xander was ordered off the property before he’d gotten the chance to snoop.”
While Devin hadn’t seen the remains, Xander had described their mutilated bodies. Devin’s assessment of the lion shifters had been right. They were sick, exactly as Edmund had been, and were probably part of the growing number of single shifters who’d begun to view humans as their playthings. Besides being cruel, their games threatened to expose all shifters, an inevitable event the shifter community and human government was trying desperately to postpone.
“What about Lena? Any info?”
“She’s single, works at the state museum, and has one sister, Gwendolyn, but I can’t find anything on Molly. No adoption records. I called in a few favors outside Shifter Affairs. Hopefully, we’ll come up with more.”
Before Devin could ask anything else, the door to Lena’s bedroom opened. He pivoted to face the human witch, or as she preferred to be called, Wiccan.
“Is Lena okay?”
Verna closed the door behind her with a soft click. “That young woman should be dead, but she’s got a strong will to survive. If she makes it through the night, I think she’ll be fine.”
Devin advanced on her. “What do you mean, if she makes it? She has to live.”
Verna crossed her arms and raised one slender black brow. “If she’s that important, why did you bring her to me? I’m not a doctor, you know. Tend to her wounds with the gifts the goddesses gave you then take your mate and get out of my house.”
Devin tensed. “You know?”
“Of course. I can see your dark aura twined with hers.”
His dark aura. That confirmed what he’d always suspected about himself—he was a breath away from turning feral.
“Is it hurting her? Staining her?” He stepped forward. “Is that why she’s so sick?”
He’d kill himself. No way did he want his hell to become hers. Yeah? Then why am I thinking about soul-bonding to her?
“She’s sick because your tie to her stopped her from dying. Do you understand?” Verna motioned behind her. “Death tasted her, and now it’s hungry. It will fight you for her. That is why her infection has spread so quickly. Death wants to claim her life while it still can.”
Death. Verna talked about the phenomenon as if it was a real entity, but Devin didn’t bother arguing. The witches believed many things shifters didn’t. To Verna and her sisters, everything was a balancing act—good and bad, darkness and light, heaven and hell.
So what if he cheated death by saving Lena? She didn’t deserve to die, wouldn’t either, not if he could help it.
“What about the piece of my soul she holds? Am I corrupting my mate?” He’d be more likely to believe that than some nonsense about Death wanting to feast on Lena.
“Well”—Verna gentled her voice—“you’re a part of her. Of course it’s going to affect her.”
Devin pivoted on his heel and paced from one end of the hall to the other. His low growl matched the ones echoing in his head. He hurt Lena by mating her. Contaminated her. What the kind of male was he?
He stopped in front of Verna. “How do I cut myself out of her?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
Devin motioned to Lena’s door. “Because I’m hurting her. Staining her with my messed-up soul.”
“Then take a piece of hers. She’ll balance you. At least somewhat.”
“Are you saying she can heal me?”
Verna tilted her head. Sympathy softened her features. “Not heal, exactly. Soothe. But that’s not going to happen with the fragile bond you share.”
“She’ll always be exposed to my craziness if I soul-bond to her. She won’t be able to escape it.”
Verna frowned. “No. She won’t, but obviously she loves you enough that she’s willing to accept a piece of your damaged soul. Why wouldn’t she want to help you shoulder your pain for eternity?”
His shoulders slumped, and his gut knotted. He was a jerk. Worse than that. A lowlife that didn’t deserve to live.
He dirtied his mate.
Devin scrubbed a hand down his face. “Answer me, Verna. Can I cut myself out of her or not?”
“I suppose. Just do the opposite of what you did to mate her, but you need to realize the shock of losing you will hurt her more than anything she might experience because she’s your mate. Without you, she won’t be whole.” Verna pursed her lips, then laid her hand over her heart. “You’ll be leaving her with a hole in her soul. You might even shatter hers completely when you yank your piece back, and that kind of trauma will kill her. She’s only human, you know.”
Devin inhaled slowly in an attempt to remain calm. Lena’s scent filled his lungs, and a sense of rightness swept over him. He focused on that and turned his back on Verna. He had nothing else to say to the witch who’d exposed the depths of his sin.
He flung open the door, and his throat squeezed at the sight Lena made. Pasty skin had replaced the healthy glow she’d had earlier in the morning. Cracked lips were parted slightly as she panted. Dark circles had spread under her spiky lashes, and the rapid movement of her eyes betrayed the unease of her rest. But it was the tiny lines by the mouth he’d kissed and the eyes he’d watched haze with desire hours ago that hurt the most.
She was in pain, and it was his fault.
“Tell Mira we’ve been delayed, and I’ll call her when I can.” He reached for the blanket’s edge, then stilled with his fingers fisted around the satiny trim. “Do not mention anything about Lena.”
Kade stepped into the room. Devin bared his fangs. No way would he allow another male, leader or not, near his mate while she slept.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Kade stopped. “If you don’t tell Mira about Lena until later, she’ll be upset.”
Devin slipped under the covers, careful to keep Lena’s body hidden from Kade’s view, and wrapped his arms around her. She sighed but didn’t wake. He took a moment to ponder how small the female he held was and how nicely she fit into the shelter of his larger frame. It left him with the impression he could protect her from everything, a tempting notion for a male who constantly let down everyone in his life, including the woman in his arms.
“Mira has never cared who I took as a lover. Why would she care about Lena?”
“Because Lena is not a random one-night stand. She’s your mate, and you’re in that bed with her because you care about her.”
Devin slid his hand over the bandage on her belly. “Being my mate isn’t a role she chose, so I’m not going to introduce her as such, and of course, I care. I’m the one who injured her in the first place.”
“But you saved her.” Kade pressed the heel of his hands to his temples. “It’s not your fault that your mind is fragmented. Blame Mira’s rapist and the prison where you were held for that.”
Devin rubbed his chin over Lena’s head. The soft brush of her hair against his skin tickled, giving him something to focus on besides his many failures. “My past doesn’t excuse my actions. I shouldn’t have hurt her. I allowed my rage to rule and blacked out. Lena called me on it too. I didn’t even know I’d clawed her. She could’ve died before I even realized what I’d done.”
“Fine. Feel guilty all you want, but every minute you spend with her will intensify your possessiveness.” Kade narrowed his eyes, the warning clear. “You need to focus on earning her trust and acceptance, not regretting the past. You heard Verna. Lena might die if you break your bond.”
“I have no intentions of cutting myself out of her. I refuse to hurt her any more than I already have.”
Kade breathed a sigh. “Good, then work on winning her over. Seduce her. Wine and dine her. Grovel. I don’t care how you do it, but you will earn your mate’s love and tie her completely to you.”
“I’ll talk to Lena.” Not a lie. He would talk to her. It simply wouldn’t be about soul-bonding.
Kade pulled the door shut. Before it blocked him completely, he muttered, “An aversion is as bad as a lie. I’m letting it go for Lena’s sake. She needs your comfort, not to listen to me lecture.”
Devin didn’t need it either. He knew exactly what was at stake. Lena.
After she woke, he’d get to know her before deciding on whether he was even going to bring up their bond or let her walk away, no strings attached.
If she woke.
His chest squeezed. He sat up and pressed his balled fist against the pain. Hoping to chase the disturbing response away, he lifted a lock of Lena’s hair to his nose and inhaled. The viselike grip eased. His rapid breaths slowed. He let the strands sift through his fingers and turned his attention to Lena, where it belonged.
The concoction of herbs the witch had given Lena left her in a relaxed state, easing her pain. It had helped some, but not enough. A fever still ravaged her body, leaving her weak and in misery.
He lifted her loose shirt and traced the edge of her bandage. Carefully, he peeled the gauze back, exposing the wound. Red and swollen, an infection puffed the skin around the scabs.
His pulse quickened. The glands associated with his cats filled his mouth with saliva. Their possessive demands mixed with the man’s need to care for his mate. He resisted, shoving hard against their forceful wills and reminding them who was boss. The consequence of licking her wounds was too great—emotionally and physically.
His compulsion to stay close to her would be difficult to resist, and she’d be drawn to him without understanding that it was his scent luring her close. Besides, Verna had said she thought Lena would be fine. There was no reason to intervene, not yet at least. He would not take the choice out of Lena’s hands. If she didn’t want him, he’d walk. She’d be stuck with a piece of him, but that would beat being stuck with all of him.
He reached for the ointment and fresh gauze on the nightstand to cover the wound again. The locket he wore swung with the movement. He left the supplies where they were and slipped the chain over his head.
Sisters. He traced the word with his thumb.
“I love Molly, and I’ll protect her with my life if I have to.”
She’d turned herself into bait. That was why she’d stayed. To lead the threat away from her sisters. She’d been willing to face death to protect them, just as he had done for Mira.
He looked over Lena’s small body and couldn’t get rid of the memory of her clutching the tiny rock. She’d refused to give up then, but nothing she did now would help her. He could, though. All it would take was a little saliva and some more blood—his gods-given gifts, meant for those humans important to him, and Lena’s significance grew with every moment he spent with her. Not simply as a mate but as a female he respected.
“Devin.”
His name breathed in a pained voice tightened the noose around his chest. Worse than last time. It felt like his heart might burst. He ignored his discomfort and laid his palm over her forehead. Her skin burned hotter than it had been in the car. His gut churned.
“I’m here.”
She blinked several times before focusing on him. “Everything hurts.”
He pressed kisses to her face, hoping to ease her. She sighed and rested a trembling hand against his chest.
“I know. You’ll be better soon.”
Her chocolate-colored eyes locked on to his. The wave of awareness he’d experienced the first time he’d looked into them washed over him. His heart skipped a beat before pounding hard.
“I see the lie in your eyes.” She fisted his shirt. “Tell me the truth. Am I dying?”
His body jerked from the force of his cats trying to claw their way out. He tuned out their roaring and focused on the small, brave woman waiting for his answer.
“No, my sweet Lena, I won’t allow that to happen.”
He kissed her softly, and she opened to him. Even sick and knowing he’d been the cause of her discomfort, she welcomed his touch. The rightness she brought rolled through him, filling him with peace.
“Obviously she loves you enough that she’s willing to accept a piece of your damaged soul. Why wouldn’t she want to help you shoulder your pain for eternity?”
Verna’s words repeated in his head. Lena didn’t love him, but there was something between them. He’d felt it even before he’d mated her. A connection.
All shifters were promised peace in the form of a true mate. Did that apply to damaged males? He didn’t know, but with Lena’s small hands on him, he couldn’t help but think it did.
If he were going to be blessed with a mate, she’d have to be strong and brave. She’d have to be tough enough to stand up to him. She’d have to tame him. Be the center of his world.
He pulled back and captured Lena’s gaze. Strength emanated from her despite her pain. He wanted to get lost in her. Protect her. Please her.
“Work on winning her over. Seduce her. Wine and dine her. Grovel. I don’t care how you do it, but you will earn your mate’s love.” Kade’s order skipped through Devin’s mind.
Yes, he wanted to win Lena’s love. He wanted her to willingly walk through time at his side. It was a selfish thing to desire. That didn’t stop him from yearning for it or her. He also didn’t have any idea how he’d prove he was worthy when he wasn’t, but he had to at least try.
“You’re not going to die. Do you believe me?”
She nodded.
“Good. Close your eyes. I’ll take care of you.”
She did, sighing softly, and he extended one clawed nail. He slit the shirt she wore to give him better access and wiped the remainder of the ointment away with the soft towel he found folded neatly on the nightstand. With that done, he lowered his mouth to her belly and licked.
As he tended her wounds, he accepted he was sealing more than just his scent in her body with the intimate act. He only hoped Lena would find something about him to love.