When they stepped up to the porch of her cottage Lachlan knew no one was inside. Apart from the lights not being on, there were no heartbeats.
“I’m going inside to wait, it’s too wet out here,” Prescott said. He walked to the door and turned the handle. The door opened and all of Lachlan’s senses went on high alert.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t she lock the door if she was going away for a couple of days?” Prescott said. He stepped inside and his roar of rage shattered one of the front windows.
Lachlan and Caleb ran inside behind him, the glass showered over them despite their preternatural pace. The living room looked as though a wild cat had been trapped inside and had torn the place apart in an attempt to escape.
Lachlan could get no sense of what the room would previously have looked like because nothing remained in one piece. The sofa was shattered, the cushions ripped to shreds. A table and bookshelf lay in pieces. They each ran off in a different direction, returning seconds later having completed a search of the tiny cottage.
“The kitchen and bathroom look the same as this,” Caleb said.
“Both bedrooms are in the same state,” Lachlan said. They both looked at Prescott. He was holding something in his hand and staring fixedly at it.
“I know why she ran,” he said. The tone of his voice had ice spreading through Lachlan’s veins. This was going to be bad.
“She’s married.” Lachlan voiced the fear he’d kept deep inside him since Meg had first run from them that Friday night in the Outpost.
Prescott growled, the sound long and low as it rumbled through him. “Worse. She’s being stalked.” He handed the crumpled piece of paper to Caleb, who then echoed the growl.
Lachlan stepped forward to look at the paper in Caleb’s hand. As his mind tried to make sense of the images his cat had already done it, and he felt his eyes heat with his cat’s rage, his claws erupting from his fingertips. The paper was a photo of Meg and a small blonde-haired girl. The girl was on a swing with Meg standing behind her. They were both smiling. The little girl’s face was circled in red ink, the circles growing smaller and smaller. A target.
Written under the image in neat lettering were the words, “You’re mine. Try and go to the police again and she dies.”
Lachlan wanted to kill this person, but he also felt ashamed. He’d wanted to let her run. He’d been too proud to think past his hurt feelings when she hadn’t fallen at his feet. He hadn’t considered she had a life and problems of her own. Big problems, as it turned out. He was already a terrible mate.
“There’s more like this,” Prescott said. “They’re in the trash.”
Lachlan ran out to retrieve the evidence, his investigative skills as a sheriff overruling his cat’s blind rage. He returned with a few more crumpled photos. Some had threats penned underneath. There were photos of Meg at her work and of Lexie at school, as well as a collage of them together while shopping or playing in the park.
The threats were all similar. They said she was his and that he’d kill her sister if she touched another man. Lachlan didn’t know if this was an ex-boyfriend or a stranger, but whoever they were they were going to die if they’d hurt his mate.
“She’s not here,” Lachlan said softly. “Do you think he has her? Has both of them?”
“I hope not,” Caleb said. “I fear they’ll both be dead by now if he has. We need help.”
“I’ll call a detective I know,” Lachlan said. He reached for his phone and mentally reached out and begged the Fates to forgive him and allow him another chance with his mate. This time he would not fail her.
* * * *
Meg drew up to an abandoned building down near the docks. She could scent Lexie’s fear, but still couldn’t scent Nick. It was what had always made her uneasy around the man. He carried no scent.
Walking straight to the gap in the doors, she followed the scent of Lexie’s fear into the old building. She didn’t know how one dinner date had gone so horribly wrong. Nick was a lawyer at the council building where she worked as a secretary. After Kaitlyn left, she’d felt sad and a little lonely, so she accepted Nick’s offer to go out for a steak and beer one Friday night. Then everything had gone to hell.
“Nick, I’m here,” she said softly, walking deeper into the empty warehouse. The space inside smelled of rusty metal. A small candle flickered next to Lexie as she sat tied to a chair, Nick stood next to her, his hand around her neck.
“Meg. The lovely Meg is here at last, Lexie. I told you she’d come.” Nick was stroking his hand down Lexie’s arm and Lexie was staring ahead, her eyes wide, tears dribbling down her cheeks and off her chin.
“I’m here, pumpkin. I won’t leave you now,” Meg hoped she was telling her sister the truth. She didn’t want to leave Lexie, but she’d die if that’s what it took to make her safe again.
Nick was a tall man, about six feet, maybe not tall compared to her mate, Prescott, who was over six and a half feet tall, but Meg was only five feet one, and so he towered over her. He had jet black hair that he wore combed straight back off his handsome face. He had eyes as black as coal that contrasted with his pale complexion, making him look intelligent and handsome.
Meg had been like all the secretaries, in awe of the man’s compelling beauty and confidence, so she’d been honored when he’d asked her out. Accepting in a moment of loneliness had been the biggest mistake of her life. He’d been kind and courteous on their date, but had become pushy and crude when she’d declined his offer to go back to his place for coffee.
He’d been so shocked that she’d declined his offer to go to bed with him that she wondered at the number of women who’d probably accepted. When he’d struck her, she knew she’d made the right decision. He was a creep. She couldn’t shift and reveal herself to him, and she had been lucky to get away from him.
“So we get our second date at last, little Meg. I am going to have to punish you for keeping me waiting though.” He shook his head and walked toward her.
She looked at Lexie and saw she had tape over her mouth, which explained why she wasn’t screaming for her. Lexie looked terrified and she was shaking as hard as Meg was.
“I’ll take Lexie home, Nick. I won’t tell anyone what you did. Please. Just let me take her home now.”
“No!” Nick screamed the word at her as he picked her up by her forearms and threw her across the warehouse. She flew faster than she could even run. Her arms and legs flailed as she tried uselessly to slow herself.
She didn’t stop until she hit the rusted corrugated steel siding of the warehouse. Her whole body screamed in pain. She felt the crunch of broken ribs as she breathed.
What is he?
She shook her head and tried to clear it. Her vision swam as he suddenly appeared right in front of her.
“Meg, see what you made me do?” He grasped both her ankles and dragged her from the dent she’d made in the steel wall. Her broken ribs stabbed her as he bumped and dragged her back into the ring of candlelight beside Lexie. Her whole body hurt. Her head throbbed so badly she wondered if her skull was fractured.
“Please.” She stopped speaking to spit out a mouthful of blood. Her tongue felt swollen and sore where she’d bitten into it when she’d hit the wall.
“Please, will do you no good now, Meg. Where did you go? I looked for you for two whole days.” He leaned down and inhaled deeply. “Good, you remain untouched. I would have been very upset if you’d let another man have what is mine.”
She opened her mouth to say something but he slapped her across the face. It sent her sliding a few feet across the floor. She screamed as her broken ribs stabbed into her as she travelled across the uneven floor.
She lay in agony, wondering how to rescue Lexie when a cell phone rang. Hers was in the rental car with her purse, so it must have been his. She tried to sit up and see what he was doing, but she couldn’t move. Her chest burned with just the effort to breathe.
“I’ll come now then. But I can’t spare you much time. I have a hot date and I don’t want to keep her waiting now I’ve got her all warmed up.” She heard Nick laugh at his own joke, and her involuntary shudder of fear and disgust made her scream with pain. “Yes, that’s her. Told you I had her all warmed up.”
Caleb and his brothers had searched the house and the only scent trail had been Meg and Lexie’s. Lachlan’s friend from San Diego PD had put out a BOLO—Be On the Look Out—for Meg’s rental car, and they had all been pacing the small cottage while they waited for him to call.
When Lachlan’s cell finally rang an hour later, they all jumped. “Thanks Paul, that’s great. Can you get them to wait for us? If she’s shifted we can’t have the uniforms shooting our little leopard.”
They were all running to the truck before Lachlan had ended the call. “She’s at the waterfront, I’ll program the GPS.”
“Will they wait for us?” Caleb said. Lachlan was right, if she’d somehow shifted to protect herself the local police may shoot at what they thought was a trapped leopard.
“Paul has told them to wait for him. They’ll wait.”
Caleb was so thankful that Lachlan had known a wolf shifter down here. They would have been driving around the city aimlessly looking for her otherwise. He longed to see Meg’s shifted form, but not after someone had put a bullet in her.
Meg’s sweet honey and pine scent had made his cat wild for her. He’d bet she was a small leopard. She was a tiny woman, he just hoped he’d get to see her cat at all. If this stalker had hurt her, he may find himself killing his first human.
When they arrived at the warehouse, Lachlan’s friend Paul was waiting for them. The big wolf shifter looked anxiously at them when they exited the car. Caleb knew why after he’d taken his first breath of the rain filled air at the dock. Blood.
“Fuck. I can smell her fear and her blood,” Prescott said. Caleb saw his eyes begin to glow. He growled softly at his brother, but Paul turned and sent the uniformed officers to the rear of the deserted building.
“Go,” Caleb said, as soon as they were alone.
Prescott and Lachlan shifted while running, their huge bodies sliding between the warehouse doors seconds before Caleb in his human form, with Paul running in right behind him.
In the dry space of the empty warehouse, the scent of his mate’s fear, pain, and blood had him stumbling in his stride. The pain of it pierced his heart and made breathing painful. Paul put an arm under his elbow, stopping his fall as they ran toward the flickering candlelight.
Caleb scented nothing but their mate and her sister. If her stalker was here, he was carrying no scent.
Vampires and now what? What creature carried no scent at all?
If they couldn’t detect he’d ever been here, then they wouldn’t be able to scent if he was still here.
Lachlan was standing in front of a small girl. She was tied to a chair, her mouth covered with tape. Her eyes alone told Caleb that his mate was hurt. She stared into the dark corner of the warehouse, her eyes shining with tears and wide with horror.
“Go to your mate, I’ll look after her sister,” Paul said.
Caleb turned to Lachlan. “Search the whole warehouse. I’ll send Prescott to help. Find the sick bastard.”
Caleb then ran into the dark corner, following the strengthening scent of their mate’s blood and fear. He could see Prescott’s light fur as he stood over a small unmoving form. He willed his legs to keep moving. Even if she was dead, he needed to see. Then he would avenge her.
He knelt by Meg’s side. Her long blonde hair was tangled and bloody, the strands draped across her face. Her breathing was slow and noisy. “She’s alive,” he said softly.
Prescott growled and looked at Caleb. “Go and search with Lachlan. Paul is taking Lexie out of here. I want the fucker alive.”
He brushed some of the hair from Meg’s face. Her lips were blue. She was in trouble. He put his arms underneath her and started to lift her up. Her scream was the worst sound he’d ever heard. He froze and looked down to find her staring up at him, her blue eyes wide with fear.
“Meg. It’s Caleb, your mate. We have you, you’re safe.” She blinked up at him, as though trying to clear her vision.
“Lexie?” she said, the sound wheezing out of her mouth, her face twisting in pain.
“We have her, too. She’s safe with the police. You should have told us, Meg.” She shook her head slightly and reached out to touch his face with her small bloody hand. She smiled slightly when she touched his face. His face tingled, the nerves sparking under her light caress.
“I’m sorry. Scared I’d never get to touch you.” Her breathing was getting noisier, it was wet and rasping. It was beginning to sound like a death rattle.
“Shift, Meg. You have to shift, baby.” Caleb knew only a little about medicine, but what he did know was that as a shifter, she would heal quicker if she shifted, and she looked like she needed to heal quickly. A shifter could heal from wounds that would be fatal for humans, but Caleb knew they still needed both a heartbeat and respirations. If she stopped breathing, she’d die.
Lachlan and Prescott appeared at his side. Their growls started in their cat form and finished in their human throats.
“Jesus,” Prescott said softly. “What did he do to her?”
She’d opened her eyes and stared up at his brothers. “Sorry.” Her eyelids fluttered closed.