Chapter Nine
Blake
T he bathroom was empty .
“The fuck did she go?” Gray seethed, shoving his way past me.
“The door wasn’t locked,” I said. My fingers went numb, then my cheeks. “She’s not here.”
But I just checked on her. My entire body ached, the pains increasing with the distance from her. Panic built as I surveyed the empty space that only confirmed what my mind already knew. She’s gone.
But no part of me believed that Lottie had run from us. Sure, we freaked her out a bit. Or she freaked out on us. Either way, that was okay, because I would have sworn when I left her in the bathroom a few minutes before, she was just fine. Fine, fine, fine.
“The hell did you say to her?” Gray’s hand closed around my throat as he shoved me back against the wall.
I didn’t bother to fight him. I needed her back as much as Gray but at least he had their mating mark to tether them together. I had nothing.
Whose fault is that?
“I—nothing.”
Gray’s fingers tightened, constricting my airway. The last time he did this we were playing. This time, his eyes reflected death. Whose was unclear but I was in his sights for messing with our girl.
“I told her about us. All about us,” I croaked, pushing the air out.
If I was going to die by his hand right now for my sins, then he needed to hear what I said so he would know how to track the girl I must have scared.
“I was trying to show her the depth of your love and protection. I didn’t mean for this to scare her.
..” I choked as my vision wavered, though that was from tears at the thought of hurting Lottie, not fear of Gray’s rage.
Distress I hated seeing on the alpha’s face turned my stomach into a writhing nest of unwelcome parasites.
“We have to find her,” he vowed. “Fucking now .”
“Please,” I gasped as his hand opened. I dropped to my knees, sucking in air as he walked away, already shifting. “God, yes.”
Gray’s panther form headed for the fire escape as his human bulk shimmered into a lithe black cat, though no domestic moggie ever looked like him.
Following his lead, I let my beast roam free.
The snarl that twinged my vocal cords too low for my human body to cope with hurt but I didn’t care.
Pain was a small price to suffer for what I’d done if it pushed Lottie away.
I’ll find you, sweetness. I’ll bring you back. I’ll beg you to stay.
Because if she didn't...
I leapt into the daylight, uncaring that we broke all the rules we set ourselves years before, leaping across levels until we scoured the alleys for her scent.
I’ll find you.
****
N ews fucking flash : we didn’t find her.
I padded my street grimed kitty ass back into the apartment eighteen hours later none the wiser of how or where our mate had gone.
She hadn’t left the building at all but her scent lingered around it, though neither of us could understand why for the first hour.
But as time passed it became increasingly clear that both of our original assumptions were wrong.
She hadn’t left alone. Someone stole our mate.
Gray was inconsolable. And by that I meant everyone who crossed the panther’s path met with a flash of claws and teeth before a naked and furious giant of a man accosted them with his fists.
After eighteen hours of hunting and searching and grieving, he followed me back to the apartment, tail low, paws bleeding like mine. Defeated.
Both of us suffered enough minor cuts during our search that not all of them would heal with the shift. Not fast, at least. We were both running on empty. Me more than him, though we both knew why. And neither of us would be able to find Lottie in our condition.
“Sweetness?” I pushed the front door open, scenting for her the moment I walked into the apartment.
But the scent was faint, this morning’s Lottie, no later than that.
“She’s not here.” Gray crossed the threshold and locked the door behind us, his voice flat.
Anyone else might think he’d given up but I knew him better. The longer she stayed away, the worse he’d be until he killed someone. I liked it better when I was the one we worried about.
“Where do you want to try next?” I asked, afraid of his answer.
Gray ran his knuckles through his hair. “I can only think of a few places,” he acknowledged. “We go back to the Gin Room, wait and see if she turns up at her old haunts. Stalk the boyfriend if we can find him, but I don’t think that’s the asshole we need to find. He’s not of this world. Just—”
“An asshole,” I supplied.
“Yeah.” Gray scratched his claw across his scruff. “Or...”
“The NYC Claw,” I finished softly, hating the option. The reliance.
The group might be able to scent what we couldn’t. They might know why someone came into our apartment and took what belonged to us. They might know who would be stupid enough to risk Gray’s wrath. He was right not to trust them.
Every instinct agreed with him. Shifters weren’t meant for city life, especially not our kind.
I ached to swim in cold water, submerged to the neck with Lottie’s arms around me as I towed her around.
Put her up on the jetty to a bayou cottage, watch her dry her naked body in the sun, my mark on her delicate skin as I paddled around like a total dick and showed off for her.
Brought her something fresh I killed for dinner. Loved her until she could barely keep her eyes open that night under a star-filled sky so bright she could read under its light if she chose, well away from civilization. Wake her every time she drifted off and love her some more with Gray.
Fuck, I needed her back so damn bad.
The player in me died the moment I set eyes on her.
“Fuck,” Gray muttered, reappearing by my side. I zoned in my daydream. I hadn't realized he had left me alone in the entrance hall. “Eight missed calls.” He listened to voicemail after voicemail, holding up a hand to silence me until he was done.
I shifted on my feet, too impatient, though my exhaustion slammed into me as I leaned against the wall.
Gray’s frown annoyed me but he had plenty of energy. Lottie wore his mark and they bolstered each other regardless of the distance between them. I didn’t have that luxury, wouldn’t until she let me give her my mark.
If we ever fucking well found her again.
It was like finding her for the first time set off a ticking clock in me.
Losing her already? It was a fast lane to a useless panther who couldn’t protect the man I used to call brother, who had been my lover for the last years as we traveled together, pretending we weren’t looking for the one impossible creature who evaded us as they did almost every panther shifter.
Our mate.
And now we had lost her.
“She’s with the claw.” Gray’s crisp voice snapped me out of my daze. He flipped his phone over in his hand, a black rage suffusing his face.
“She ... why? What’s she doing with them? Lottie isn’t a shifter, is she?” I stared at him, rubbing a hand over my face as his blurred. Wake the fuck up. But I could barely stand. We’d run all day and my energy reserves were empty.
“Lionel took her. She was a test subject for the fucking drug of his. Vapor .” Gray sneered.
The phone creaked in his hand. “Fuck. I should have asked more when I was there. I knew something wasn’t right with him.
That little weasel—no offense to weasel shifters—thought this was a good way to get one of us to breed with their females.
They needed to find mates. Willing or unwilling, apparently it doesn’t matter.
He was worried about the breeding potential of the claw.
Instead of building small family units like regular shifters, he intends to build a breeding cell . ”
“Starting with Lottie.” I pushed up off the wall, swaying where I stood.
“And us.” Gray surveyed me with a closed expression I hated.
“Okay. Let’s go.” The world moved with me. My stomach rose to my throat.
Gray's hard expression softened. “Go to sleep, Blake. I pushed you too hard.”
“Shut up. She’s my fucking mate too.” I put a hand on the wall, missed the judgment of depth by a mile, and stumbled. “Fuck.”
Gray caught me, his shoulder lodged beneath mine. “Stop, Blake,” he murmured. “I’ll get her, bring her home to you. You can give her your mark. Then we can all be together.”
“Only if she wants it,” I slurred as he guided me to the bed we had shared last night. “I won’t force her.”
His crooked smile left me warm as well as drowsy.
“Sure thing. I’ll just go get her, okay?
” His mouth settled over mine in a gentle kiss, though after a moment his tongue swept along my bottom lip.
I sighed and let him in, stroking his tongue with mine for a moment before he withdrew all too soon, though from the promise in his eyes I knew he wouldn’t forget me.
“Come back, all right?” I whispered, exhaustion slamming into me as I dropped back onto the bed. My fingers flexed, needing to pull him closer, but I couldn't.
“Hell, no, I won’t forget you.” His hand squeezed my shoulder.
My eyes dropped shut, though not before I registered in some dim corner of my mind the concern etched across his carved face, and the determination there. I wondered if I would survive should Lottie refuse my mark again.
It will be worth it to see her face again.
I wondered if tonight I might lose them both when I couldn’t be there to protect those I loved most. Please, let them be safe. My chest ached with love though as the world faded, so did the pain, and my fear.
And as I drifted into a sleep I wasn’t sure I’d wake from, I wondered if any of it mattered at all.