Chapter Three #3
With a final menacing growl that echoed down the alley, he watched the men disappear around the corner.
Only then did he allow himself to shift back into his human form, his body heaving with exertion and adrenaline.
He stood there, chest rising and falling rapidly, his clothes in tatters, his body marked with the remnants of the fight.
Harper stared up at him from where she lay against the wall, her eyes wide with fear and disbelief.
Her gaze traveled over his torn form, taking in the scene of brutal violence he had wrought.
The horror in her eyes was unmistakable, and it cut through Toby’s frenzy, leaving a cold, sinking feeling in his stomach.
He had wanted to protect her, to keep her from his world a little longer, but now she had seen him, not just as a man, but as a beast.
Toby stood in the alley, the weight of Harper’s horrified stare pressing down on him, a painful reminder of the rift his dual nature had just created between them.
Toby crouched down to the ground in front of Harper, his movements deliberate and gentle, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible.
He knew from his CIA training that the best way to make someone less afraid was to physically get down to their level or lower, and in the process, make himself appear smaller.
He quickly covered his modesty with the tattered remains of his shirt, his eyes locked on hers, searching for any sign of increased fear.
“I mean you no harm, Harper,” he said softly, his voice rough from the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. “I would never hurt you. I was just...trying to protect you.”
To his surprise, her expression softened slightly, her breathing steadying as she processed his words.
When he asked if she was okay, she nodded, but her hand moved to rub her throat, a grimace flickering across her face.
The sight sent a sharp pang through Toby, his coyote side howling internally at her discomfort.
Mate hurt! The animal wailed. Comfort her!
“What are you?” she asked. Her voice was slightly hoarse but still managed to sound curious.
“I’m a shifter,” Toby said, watching her reaction closely. “A coyote shifter to be precise.”
“And those men?” she pressed.
Toby sighed. “They were wolf shifters. I could scent the wolf on them from the mouth of the alley.”
Harper paused, processing this new information. “How did you get here so quickly? Were you following me?”
Toby nodded, deciding honesty was the only path forward now. “Yes, but only for a short distance.”
He braced himself for her to react with fear, to pull away from him, but instead, she continued to surprise him.
“Why?” she asked, her tone not accusatory but genuinely curious. “Why did you follow me?”
“That’s...slightly more complicated,” Toby hedged, a wry smile touching his lips despite the situation.
“More complicated than you turning into an animal?” Harper’s eyebrows rose in skepticism.
Toby couldn’t help but laugh, a short, barking sound that felt oddly relieving. “Yes, only in a different way.”
He glanced toward the street, noting his vulnerability in his current state of undress. “I need to get a change of clothes from my car, but…” he glanced down at himself and one corner of his mouth lifted in a self-deprecating smile. “Walking down the street like this might get me arrested.”
Harper sighed, a mix of frustration and resolve settling over her features. “I’ll get your clothes,” she said, standing up with a determined look. “But when I come back, I want answers.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed, relief washing over him that she hadn’t run away, or rejected him outright. He pointed to where his wallet and car keys lay nearby, surprisingly undamaged from his earlier transformation. “Everything you need is right there.”
He told her the make and model of his car and where she could find it then with a nod, Harper picked up his keys and walked out of the alley, leaving Toby alone with his thoughts.
He settled back against the cool brick wall, the various scents of the alley mingling around him.
He closed his eyes briefly, taking a deep breath, trying to calm the storm inside him.
The complexity of their situation wasn’t lost on him.
He had just revealed a hidden world to Harper, one full of dangers and secrets, and yet she hadn’t turned away from it, and even now after having seen him at his most primal, she was doing something to help him.
There was a thread of hope there, thin and fragile, but it was something he clung to as he waited for her return, trusting that she would come back with his clothes and ready for those answers he owed her.
The anticipation of what was to come filled him with a cautious optimism, mingled with the undeniable fear of the unknown.
Toby sat huddled against the alley wall, his senses sharply tuned to the surrounding city sounds, each minute stretching longer as he waited for Harper.
Anxiety gnawed at him. Had she decided not to return?
Just as doubt began to overtake his thoughts, he saw her rounding the corner at the alley’s entrance. His heart steadied as he watched her.
Harper handed him a bundle of clothes, her eyes briefly tracing the lines of his body as he stood to dress.
Toby noticed her gaze, and tried to hide the smile that threatened to cross his lips.
There was an undeniable thrill in being observed by her, knowing it wasn’t just his imagination and that there might be something reciprocal in their connection.
Once he had finished getting dressed, Harper’s expression turned serious. “Tell me everything,” she demanded, her voice steady but her eyes betraying a swirl of emotions.
Toby nodded, understanding the need for privacy. “Let’s go somewhere more private. What about sitting in my car? As you saw, it’s just across the street from your shop.”
She hesitated, perhaps weighing the wisdom of such privacy, but eventually nodded.
“Okay,” she agreed, her curiosity overcoming her reservation.
They walked together to his car and once inside, the confined space somehow made the ensuing conversation feel even more intense and intimate.
Toby took a deep breath and began to unravel his story, starting with the urgent call from his parents about the missing artifact, the significance of the Cryptex that supposedly contained a map to hidden treasure, and then how her brother’s mention of her and the coffee shop had led him to seek her out.
Harper listened intently, her face a mask of concentration as she absorbed the layers of his revelations. When he had finished his story, she shook her head slowly.
“I’ve just seen you change into an animal and all but tear two men apart. Why aren’t I afraid of you?” she asked, her voice filled with wonder rather than fear. “It doesn’t make any sense. I must be crazy.”
Toby swallowed hard, knowing what he had to say next was perhaps the most significant revelation.
“There’s something else, and this is the hardest part for me to explain,” he began, his voice lowering.
“When I walked into the coffee shop yesterday, and saw you for the first time, when I…scented you for the first time, I knew at once. You’re my mate. ”
“What does that mean? I don’t understand.”
She gnawed her lip in frustration, and he had the sudden urge to work the lip from between her teeth with his thumb. He thrust his hands down. Just because she hadn’t run away screaming yet didn’t mean she wouldn’t.
“Of course you don’t. That’s my fault. I got ahead of myself. For shifters, there’s one person for us in all the world, one perfect match, romantically. We recognize them on sight, or the first time we catch their scent.”
“Like a…a soul mate?”
“Yes. And you’re mine,” he told her, his voice a mix of certainty and vulnerability.
“You’re sure? But how do you know?”
“There’s no mistaking it,” he told her. “It’s instinctual. I know it as surely as I know my own name.”
“I... I don’t know how to react to that,” she admitted, her voice soft. “I’m sorry, I’m going to need some time to process all of this.”
Toby nodded, the intensity of his gaze softening.
“Of course. I understand perfectly,” he said gently.
“Shifters grow up with the knowledge of mates. Most of us anticipate meeting them. But we know that it’s different for humans.
Take all the time you need. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere, not unless you tell me to leave. ”
Even the thought of her ordering him to leave made Toby’s stomach clench painfully. He wasn’t sure what he would have done under those circumstances because the fact was, he couldn’t leave, not now. There was a threat against her life now, something he simply had to protect her from.
They sat in silence for a few moments, the weight of everything that had been said hanging between them.
Harper looked out the car window, lost in thought, and Toby watched her, hope and fear simmering inside him.
He knew this was only the beginning, and whatever came next, he was irrevocably tied to her.
He honestly didn’t think he would have had it any other way.
Toby sensed the gravity of the silence hanging between them in the car, heavy with revelations and the decisions that Harper now faced. Breaking the quiet, he leaned forward slightly, his voice low and concerned.
“What did the wolves say to you in the alley?”
Harper’s eyes flicked to his, a flash of fear passing through them before she answered.
“They said they’re looking for Jack. He has something they want.
Some kind of artifact.” Her voice faltered as she spoke, the reality of the danger she was in becoming palpable.
“It’s the same one, isn’t it? The one he stole from your parents. ”
Toby nodded solemnly, understanding the urgency of the situation. “I can only imagine it is. It’s very old and while its value is purely historical and sentimental to my parents, to others it would hold a monetary significance.”
She looked away, staring down at her hands, and he continued gently.
“Look Harper, even though I will of course give you all the time you need to wrap your head around the concepts of shifters and mate bonds, we can’t delay dealing with the situation of the stolen Cryptex.
It’s clear I’m not the only one looking for it.
I don’t know how, but I can only imagine that your brother has been making a noise about it, either looking for a potential buyer or some sort of financial backer to fund a treasure hunt. ”
He wondered how much to tell her. He didn’t want to scare her, but holding things back didn’t seem right. She deserved the truth, from him of all people. He carried on carefully.
“These kinds of things, and their potential for a very large pay day, well, they can entice any number of dangerous people out of the woodwork. Your brother has put you in a very precarious position.”
Harper’s annoyance was evident as she sighed deeply.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that my idiot brother has run his mouth off about this Cryptex,” she said hotly.
“This is simply the last in a long line of idiotic plans and get rich quick schemes he has come up with in the last few years, and honestly, I’m tired of it, and tired of him.
I keep bailing him out, but his harebrained schemes are getting more and more dangerous.
I’ve been worried for months that he is going to get himself killed, but he just won’t listen to reason. ”
Toby’s expression grew serious. “If you know where Jack is, you need to tell me. The sooner we get this sorted out, the better. Your life is in danger now, Harper. Wolf shifters are tenacious. They’ll come back, and they’ll try again and again until they get what they want from you.”
The fear in Harper’s eyes deepened, and she hesitated, her hands wringing in her lap before she finally spoke.
“Jack is in Peru,” she revealed, her voice barely above a whisper.
She glared out at the street, her frustration and exasperation evident.
“He said he’s onto a lead that could make us rich. ”
She shook her head, and her expression became wistful. “I’ve heard it all so many times before, of course. I figured it was just another one of his reckless, half-baked schemes. I had no idea that what he’d actually got involved in was this dangerous.”
“You’d be surprised at the lengths people will go to for money. Even if Jack has his limits, others will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Something you found out earlier from those wolf shifters.”
“I don’t think he’ll ever learn,” she said quietly. “He said he’s planning to head into the rainforest soon and he’ll email me the details of where he’s staying so that we can keep in touch.”
Toby processed the information, his mind racing with the logistics of what they needed to do next.
The situation had escalated beyond simple familial troubles or the challenges of a newfound mate bond, and it was more than just a race against time to retrieve what was lost. Now, not only Jack’s, but Harper’s life hung in the balance.
The wolf shifters would come back so there was only one way that Toby could ensure his mate’s safety.
“Do you have a passport?” he asked abruptly.
“Yes,” Harper responded hesitantly, confusion lacing her voice.
“Then let’s go and get it,” Toby said decisively. “Because we’re going to Peru.”