I stepped up to the table, grabbing the second beer, and followed his action. The bottle was cool between my fingers. My body ran hot due to holding back my wolf. He was annoyed with my lack of efforts and any progress. Moss would be the best source of information though. He would know everything I needed to know.
I toyed with the beer between my hands, scratching at the label. I hadn’t actually said it yet, but it was harder to admit out loud what I already knew.
“I met my mate.” I took a hard pull from the bottle. When I set it back down I caught Moss’s intense gaze. He waited for me to go on. Moss’s unasked question hung in the air. Where was she?
“She was taken.” I watched him carefully. There were subtle gold flecks that burned brighter when his animal was closer to the surface. “I need your help.”
He shook his head once. The muscles in his jaw ticked.
“Fuck, Moss. I need you to help me. You got me into this mess.”
Moss straightened his back. The guy was fucking huge. He was bigger than most shifters, and I knew the stance he was taking all too well. I often spoke without thinking. And from a guy who never speaks, he caught everything I said. My lack of a filter had gotten me into a lot of shit. I tried to take from Moss’s book for a time, but it didn’t last long. And he often had to play clean up.
“Shit! I’m out of my forest here.” I speared my fingers in my hair, tugging at the ends. Frustration warred through me. I released my hair and cracked my neck. My fingers were twitching to grab something. The frustration fed into my restlessness.
Moss didn’t relax. The gold in his eyes dimmed a little, but anger still wafted from his scent. His fist tightened, the vein on the back of his hand pulsed as blood pumped through it.
“It was stupid coming to you.”
A throbbing pain bloomed behind my right eye, on my temple, and immediately following a headache pounded. Moss had moved so quickly that I hadn’t even had time to blink and he was there punching me in the face with his right fist. I stumbled back a step or two. It fucking hurt, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve. Anger had clouded my judgement as it always did. Moss was the steady stream of calm that had shaped me into the man that I had thought I become.
Losing not only my mate, but the Cajun’s mate’s sister? I was at the end of my ropes. At least Moss didn’t knock me with his dominant hand. In the years I lived with Moss, I had watched him in countless of fights. If he wanted to cause damage he would fight with his dominant hand, if he was annoyed and wanted to prove a point, he would fight with his right side.
“Fucking, shit.”
Moss grunted. He hated when I swore, and it was why I had stopped while I was around him. Probably contributed to why he punched me. I righted myself and the vision in my right eye blurred before I blinked, and it cleared. The throbbing pain lessened as my body healed itself.
“She was taken right under my watch!” I growled, frustrated. My wolf rose, adding his own anger to the mix. How the fuck did I manage to do that? I let her get taken. And I had no leads. If I went to the Cajun, he would take her from me. She hadn’t felt real until I told Moss and it came crashing down.
My mate. I pulled at the roots of my hair again. Moss’s lips were pinched, and he let a breath out through his nose.
“It’s Boudreau’s mate’s sister.”
Moss tipped his head down in a shallow nod.
My hands shook. My wolf jerked forward. It was a mixture of hatred toward the Cajun and fear that he really would take my mate away, after I got her back. The shift swept over me, bristling fur sprouted from every pore, my teeth elongated, and the wolf took over.
Chapter 6
Mallory
The cool tile pressed on my heat skin. A fever had overtaken my body and I had escaped into the bathroom before Asher realized anything was wrong with me. I didn’t even know what was wrong with me. Shifters weren’t supposed to get sick, even as a latent I rarely got sick. This felt different. My skin was crawling; my stomach had twisted into so many knots that I thought it would never untie. Nausea pooled in my mouth.
I whispered to the floor asking for sweet relief. I crawled forward to find a new place to set my head. The chain attached to my arm allowed me full access to the bathroom, thankfully. It ticked against the tile as I moved forward.
Man, I wanted out of here. My arms shook with fatigue even though I hadn’t done anything all day. Yesterday, after I had confronted Asher about seeing Mazy, he had left after a phone call. It was during the night that the fever started. I had kicked off the covers on the bed, sweat plastering my hair to the back of my neck.
Tears stung my eyes as another wave of nausea swept through me. My stomach lurched forward, and I cringed at the thought of throwing up again. My throat was so raw, it felt like I had swallowed razorblades. My body flushed with a feverish heat. I crawled forward, holding onto the rim of the toilet bowl. Vomit crept up my throat, burning me from the inside out.
I released it into the bowl and dropped back to the floor. Gods, what was wrong with me?
Footsteps sounded. They pounded to the new rhythm of my headache. I hoped that if they belonged to one of Asher’s guards he would go back out of the room once he realized I was in the bathroom. If it was Asher, I hoped he accidentally tripped and fell out of the balcony to his death.
I hated him for threatening my only family. And for telling me that his was my mate. He wasn’t mine. My animal, the ghost of her had been lively at the fresh scent of my mate. And he seemed like a blurry idea in the back of my head. The longer I stayed here the more distant his scent became. Maybe he had been just a dream.
The footsteps clomped closer and drew me out from my thoughts. I pressed my forehead against the outside of the bowl; the porcelain felt so, so good. The door swung open, just barely missing my bare feet. I curled them closer, hating whoever came in unannounced. I thought I had locked the door, but I had stumbled in here in such a haze that I’d probably forgot.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I peeked around from where I was curled around the toilet. I raised my brows. Asher stood in the doorway, his lithe frame shadowed by the light from the other room. I had turned off the brighter light and left the shower light on. With the pounding in my head, and nausea, I needed less light.
Asher had a scowl on his face as if he was disgusted by the fact that I was laying on the bathroom floor. Shifters didn’t get sick, so I could only imagine what he must of thought of me hugging the toilet.
“Being sick, obviously.”
“You should have called me.”
“Now why in the hell would I do that?” Apparently, my filter had called in sick today, too. A dread swirled in my stomach counterattacking the already terrible churn.
Asher took a menacing step forward, his chin tucked down, shadowing the features on his face. His eyes burned yellow with the rise of his animal, and it was the only thing I could focus on. Gods, why hadn’t I just kept my mouth shut?
As he came closer, his big work boots stepped on top of the chain attached to my wrist. It caused a quiet crunching noise, which distracted him for a brief moment. Asher glanced down at the chain, and the left side of his lip upturned into a malicious smile.
In the blink of an eye he had snatched up the thin chain and pulled it taut. Unable to find the gumption to fight back, I let him tug my wrist until the muscles strained in my shoulder.
“Stand, mate!”
His words were biting, but they didn’t hold any power over me. He wasn’t an Alpha. He was a crime boss with betas behind him because he paid well. I sneered at the thought. Asher yanked the chain again, the metal cuff cutting into my skin. Crawling to my knees, the hard, unrelenting tile pressed into my bones. My body was still recovering from coming out of the coma, and now this plague that had taken me. My breaths were labored.
“While I enjoy the visual, get on your feet.”
My limbs trembled; the muscles in my knees strained, scre
eching with pain. A sharp hiss escaped as I climbed to me feet while trying to avoid putting my face right into his crotch. Fucker would like that, I snarled. My head swam, instability caused me to sway forward. Asher caught my forearms in a biting grasp.
“Easy, mate.” His voice was a chilling hiss. A shiver went down my spine. He yanked my body flush to his. My belly was pressed against his hardening dick, and nausea crawled up my throat in slow progression.
“Is that a roll of dimes in your pocket or is your dick really just that small?” My lip quirked up and I berated myself for letting my tongue get the best of me. His grip became punishing and I almost regretted the words.
“Good to see you have some spunk left in you. It will be all the more satisfying when you submit to me.”
There was a stirring way in the back of my head, a deep seeded anger that couldn’t quite rise to the surface. The feeling rang through me like an echo. I would not submit.
You must submit to the bigger predator. Sweetie, you are at the bottom of the food chain. There are rules you must live by. My father’s warnings echoed by my mother, and when she was old enough to understand I was different, Mazy. They strove to protect me, I understood that. In a world full of powerful shifters, I was practically human. Even though I was supposed to have shifter genes, my legs hadn’t healed quickly. Instead, I had pushed myself too hard.
It was a lesson, apparently, I still needed to learn. If I pushed too hard, I would endanger myself. Asher’s eyes flashed a dangerous color and it wasn’t just myself I was putting in danger. Mazy was all I had left. She had spent her life protecting me, now it was my turn. Dutifully―as a good, little submissive shifter―I tilted my head to the side, exposing my neck. The muscles were corded tight, straining. Any loosening of my control and I would be facing him head on once more. That fair distant cry sounded again but it was fading quickly. My strength was snapped from me; one moment I stood, the next my legs gave out.
My joints creaked with sharp, needling pain.
“We will have to get you out of the city. You need to shift, and you can’t do it here, strangled by the city. My little beast needs freedom, doesn’t she?” Asher asked. His grip on my arms wasn’t supportive, and I crumbled to the ground, panting. It was all I could do to keep my head upright.
I didn’t know why he thought I could shift. I couldn’t even stand. A new fever broke over my flesh, sweat dotted my forehead. I desperately licked at my lips, hoping for moisture for my very dry, cracked lips. But my tongue had withered. My body shook, and though I didn’t think there were any contents left for me to upheave my stomach deemed it possible. Bile coated my throat as I held it back.
As brave, and probably stupid, as I was feeling a moment ago, fear crept in. I wanted … no, needed the comfort of someone familiar. I just wanted to be held.
“Please, let me see Mazy,” I whispered, trying to tug my arms free from Asher’s grip. His nails scraped against my skin, leaving raised red welts. Hatred shadowed over my heart, darkening as I begged him to allow me to see my sister. In my bones, I knew seeing her could help.
Asher’s top lip curled with disdain. “No. Now clean yourself up and return to bed. We leave first thing in the morning.”
Helplessness grew in a hungry pit in my stomach, swallowing whole my hope, and any sliver of happiness I might have garnered to seeing my sister. Tomorrow he was going to take me from the city.
An invisible, heavy weight crashed down on my shoulders, making them drop. My heart felt crushed. The quiet nuance in the back of my head cried out, a low, sorrowful sound. Apparently, it didn’t like the idea of leaving either.
Chapter 7
Apollo
“Who the fuck is this asshole? More importantly, what the fuck does he want with my mate?” My wolf had been riding me hard for the past forty-eight hours. I hadn’t slept at all, barely ate, and hadn’t had a single fucking ounce of alcohol. I gripped the roots of my hair between my fingers and tugged. If I wasn’t careful I would scalp myself. My human fingernails had ceased to exist―in their place was black, curved claws. A manifestation of my wolf, since he was right on the edge of my skin.
Moss had somehow hacked into the security system at the hospital. He pulled up footage of the man who wheeled Mallory out of there. Moss was a closet genius, he had to be since he owned this fucking place. He didn’t bring in others to do his paperwork or pencil pushing jobs. He ran it top to bottom, solely. He had pulled up the electric documentation of Mallory’s check out. As I suspected, and I’m sure Moss did as well, the fucker had used an alias. Moss had left to run the front of the bar, leaving me to search for leads. I was coming up short and my instincts told me I was running out of time.
A low growl rattled in my chest. There was one option but I loath to consider it. If I called the fucking Cajun he would swoop in and take his mate’s sister away from me. My mate. My wolf howled and thrashed. He clawed at my insides; my muscles felt like they were torn to ribbons. I flinched, holding my own howl of pain.
Fuck, I needed to get a grip. And a fucking lead.
I rolled the rim of my beer bottle on the small dining table in the apartment I used to live in with Moss. The bottle had ceased being cold hours ago. It was probably stale and flat now, since I hadn’t touched it since the moment I opened it. The sound kept me grounded as I worked through my frustration and anger. What sort of mate was I?
The door slammed, making me glance upwards. Moss moved silently, even for a shifter―it was like he was ghost. His scent was so faint that it was hard for my sharp wolf nose to pick it up. Whatever predator he was, he was dangerous.
My sights zeroed in on the folder in his hand. His bright green eyes were hard and the news he was about to share, I wasn’t going to like it. If he got me closer to my girl, that is all I cared about.
Moss stepped over to the table and a quiet grunt escaped him. Probably commenting on my distinct stink. My skin crawled, even my wolf could barely stand to breathe in around me. I ceased to care. My thoughts were consumed with the thought of getting my mate back. I would shower when I had the information I needed.
I reached for it, and inside there were loose sheets, the top one had a picture paper-clipped to it. The shifter from the security video sat at a desk with a woman who looked remarkably like Mallory. It must be the mysterious sister that I never met. Boudreau’s mate.
In the file was also a paper, and on it was this delicate sprawl that was Moss’s handwriting. He didn’t speak, and he rarely spoke through paper either. I looked up at the giant shifter. Moss glared at the paper as if encouraging me to stop wasting time and check out what he found out.
Mazy needed money, got loan from Asher Tosh. A known shifter loan shark, all around asshole, and gang organizer. He’s got your mate.
Under it was an address to a hotel. I assumed it was one of many and doubt filtered through me. It could be the wrong hotel. He probably had multiple safe houses.
“How do you know this is the right place?” My voice came out as a snarl. The wolf dug and clawed, demanding freedom to rush to the hotel. My nose and lips twisted and elongated. My cheekbones snapped and broke as my face started to shift. I snapped my teeth together and tried to hold back the wolf.
Moss slammed his palms down on the table, rattling me into looking at him. His animal, whatever the hell it was, shone through. Those unnatural eyes swirling and darkening. My wolf, an Alpha, backed down with a quiet snarl. I breathed through the quick reformation of my face, hating my wolf for a moment. Forcing the shift like that was extremely painful, but it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to.
I licked my lips. Moss wouldn’t have given me this information unless he was completely certain. There was no one in my life I trusted besides Moss and I had to trust his information. I checked out the other papers in the folder. It was the alias that Asher used at the hotel, and his check out time was for tomorrow.
Fuck, he was going to take her out of the city and hide her away.
&n
bsp; He wasn’t getting away with my mate.
Fuck no.
****
After a shower and a small meal―which was all my wolf would allow―I was gearing up. I pulled out fatigues from my duffle bag that I had brought with me when I first came to Moss a couple nights before. He had left to go back up front while I made my plans. Most shifters who worked as mercenaries didn’t take human weapons with them, we preferred to kill with our claws. Even if the humans were aware of shifters, it was easy to pin murders on animal accidents.
In this case, I wasn’t taking any chances. It was my mate on the line. The weapons I had trained in were coming with me. I had a Glock strapped under each arm on a custom-built holster. Most built for human men were too small for shifters to begin with, but because we might shift we needed something that could be taken off easily, but not be shredded.
One of Moss’s many hidden talents was leatherwork. He had made the hostler for me when he trained me in using the weapons. I had an ankle hostler for a small butterfly knife. Another one tucked in my waistband. I pulled the smooth leather hostler, the clips on the back that would snap apart in a quick shift fitting snuggly between my shoulder blades.
The black T-shirt I had donned before bunched and I pulled the ends down. Doubt swirled through me. Would my mate even want me? I supposed that didn’t matter. She was mine and I was going to save her. What she chose to do afterwards was her choice.
But she deserved the choice.
After throwing on a plaid button-up, I snatched my jacket up, my heavy boots clomped against the old wood floors. Droplets from my hair flicked onto my face and I wiped it away with the back of my hand. I ran my hand through my hair, shaking out the excess hair. I was going to stake out the hotel, hoping that they hadn’t left yet. I didn’t think Asher would be stupid enough to wait until morning to leave with his precious cargo, and I had only a bit of time.
I scooped my bag up, throwing the black canvas bag over my shoulder and snatching my keys up. I didn’t know where I would be once I got Mallory. Would she want to return to her sister? In that case I would be seeing the Cajun I had been trying to avoid ever since he asked me for this fucking favor. Still, it would clear me of any favors to him.
Authorized: Mercenary Shifters (Mercenaries For Hire Book 4) Page 3
