Chapter 7
ROY
My cell woke me. It rang, then stopped, then rang again. I growled, reaching my arm out to shut it off. Instead of the bedside table I expected to be there, there was nothing. My arm dropped, and my hand slapped soft carpeting.
I bolted upright. “What the–”
Hotel. Couch. Naked. Mate.
“Brooke!” I called as my cell rang once again.
The shrill noise came from across the room, so I stood up and stomped over to it. I grabbed it and snarled, “What?” as I went into the bedroom to look for Brooke. Maybe she was in the bathroom.
Her caramel scent was everywhere in the suite. On my fingers. My skin. I tasted her on my tongue.
“Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with the two dead guys in your hotel.” It was Boone, and he sounded alarmed.
Fuck.
I scrubbed a hand across my jaw. “Yeah, it was me.” I walked to the other bedroom. She wasn’t here. I spun in a circle.
Brooke wasn’t in the penthouse.
“Are you serious? Do you want to go back to a jail cell? What the fuck happened?” Boone barked.
Yeah, those two fuckers weren’t the first guys I’d killed.
But, like the last time when I was in the military and had killed a senior officer who was raping a local woman, there was no question in my mind that it had to be done.
I was a trained killer and a natural predator, and the men in the parking garage were trying to kill my mate.
It’d been a quick snap of the neck for one, and a little hand-to-hand combat fighting before I finished the other guy off, too. They’d stood no chance. No Shifter Council member would convict me of murder when I was protecting my mate.
Fuck! I froze in the bathroom when I realized her clothes weren’t all over the floor. I hadn’t wanted her to get redressed after our shower; instead, she’d put on the hotel robe. Which I’d taken off her once we’d finished dinner.
Which meant she was gone. My wolf was pissed.
So was I. The walls were starting to close in on me, and I began to pace.
I was stuck in this fucking building while my mate was out there somewhere, probably in danger.
I needed to run. To follow her scent. To hunt her down.
To save her. Protect her. All the things that–
“It had to be done,” I told Boone.
“ What happened , Roy? And Rob’s here with me, so make it good.”
“Tell us what’s going on.” Rob Wolf’s deep voice had me coming to a stop in the middle of the room and baring my throat even though I was seven hundred miles away, and he couldn’t see me.
Thankfully so, since I was buck ass naked.
Nudity wasn’t an issue for shifters since we were bare before and after shifting–and back–for our full moon runs.
But talking to my alpha without clothes felt a tad disrespectful.
Right now, I didn’t give a shit because Brooke was gone.
“Roy, you’re well aware we don’t need any attention brought to our kind, and you certainly don’t need any chance of being put away again.”
He knew my story with the military. The superior officer.
The assaults. Me being accused instead and put in jail until trial.
He’d put Selena Jenkins, a pack lawyer, on the case, even though she wasn’t a Military JAG Lawyer.
She’d put together enough evidence of my innocence plus a hell of a lot of pressure to get my charges dropped and me out of a jail cell quickly.
Nobody wanted ?the story of a serial rapist and murderer who was an officer in the military to get out to the public.
And I’d needed out. Being confined to the tiny cell during a full moon had broken me.
I couldn’t handle small spaces ever again.
That was why I couldn’t handle elevators and was staying in the penthouse suite Boone had reserved for me.
I hadn’t really wanted to go to a home show, let alone in a big city in a different state. My work was taking off though, and I was the one people wanted to meet. Boone and Ace, my other brother, couldn’t represent me. Now I was glad because I came to the big city and found my fucking mate.
“No, Alpha,” I replied. He had to be concerned if he was calling me with Boone. “No one saw me, and I didn’t use my claws or teeth. It was clean.” The bastards had positioned their attack on Brooke where the parking garage cameras were blind. I’d offed them in the same place.
“Why, Roy?” Rob demanded. “What happened?”
“They were shooting at my mate.”
There were a few seconds of silence.
“Your mate ?” Rob asked.
I heard the sound of a scuffle and then Boone. “Sorry, Alpha. Roy, you found your mate?” He must’ve grabbed the phone from Rob.
His voice had changed from tight to buoyant.
“Yeah.”
“Why were two men shooting at your mate in the hotel’s parking garage?” Rob asked. I could only imagine the look he gave Boone as he handed the phone back.
I ran a hand through my messy hair. “It’s a long story, Alpha, and I will share it with you. Later. Right now, I need to find my mate.”
“You lost her?”
“She left my suite while I was sleeping.”
I glanced down at the gauze pad over my wound and ripped the tape off.
The bullet hole was completely closed, looking a month old rather than a day.
I ripped at the dressing Brooke had applied to the back of my biceps next.
“I got shot instead of Brooke, and while I healed quickly, I slept hard after to recover.”
Quick healing came with a deep sleep, a shifter’s body needing time to recharge after all the energy was used up.
“We didn’t get much sleep last night.” My dick pulsed, eager to fill our mate again. “She must’ve slipped out when I was out. I only woke up because you called multiple times.”
“Is she in danger?”
“Yes, and I need to find her before anyone else from the mob gets to her.”
“The mob ?” Rob asked. “Fucking hell, can’t we find mates who don’t come with so much trouble?”
I didn’t know if it was the mob or not, but that was what Brooke had guessed. Regardless, mob or not, Brooke was still in danger.
“I’m not sorry, Alpha. I had to do what was needed to protect my mate.”
“I understand. What can we do to help from here?” he wondered.
I sighed, relieved to know he wasn’t calling me home. It was almost impossible to ignore an alpha’s order, except when it came to a mate.
“Get Levi to do a search for me–fast.” Levi was Cooper Valley’s sheriff and also a shifter.
He’d be able to use his network of law enforcement database resources to help.
“Brooke Van Druzen. Or Van Drusen. Not sure how it’s spelled.
From Denver. Works at an accounting firm called Marks and Fields.
” I remembered more than her sweet scent and taste.
I also memorized everything she told me.
“I need to know where she lives because she snuck out on me. I’m sure she went home, and if I can get her address, these fuckers who want her dead could get it, too. ”