Mate Bond

Kenzie ran down the gallery to the door. It was locked. The manager came behind her, her voice distressed. “You can’t go in there!”

Kenzie could go anywhere she wanted. The door was solid, but Kenzie was strong. A few well-placed kicks, and she was through. The manager shrieked and headed back to the stairs, no doubt to call the police.

The room Kenzie found herself in was old, dusty, and used for storage. The only light came from behind her—the yellow glow of the downstairs chandelier, dimmed for the night—but her Shifter sight let her see well enough. French doors on the other side of the room were closed, but a cold draft told Kenzie they’d been open moments before.

She dodged haphazardly placed furniture and boxes and flung open one of the doors. Modern ones, she saw, with shiny brass fittings. Someone would need a new key to get in from the outside.

The French doors led out onto a balcony. The night was so quiet she easily heard a thump below as someone landed on dirt, then the sound of feet running away.

“Ghost, my ass!” Kenzie shouted after him. “When I catch you, Gil, you will be a ghost.”

She leapt to the balcony’s railing, balanced on it a moment, and sprang off into darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Cade watched Bowman, a worried look in his bear-brown eyes. Bowman growled in irritation and continued to shove Turner’s books to the floor.

They’d reached the trailer house in the woods to find no one home. The front door had been locked—Bowman remembered the keypad on the inside—but the doorframe was weak enough for a Shifter to pull off. Cristian had done that, in fact. Bowman also remembered Turner boasting about electrifying the windows, but Jamie found the junction box and made short work of the wiring.

Most of the papers fluttering out of books and folders—charts with such labels as “Diaspora,” colorful bar graphs, and what looked like mathematical equations—meant nothing at all to Bowman. Cristian kept picking things up, saying, “Interesting,” and not bothering to explain why.

Bowman searched for something he could use, such as a recorded payment to a sniper, or receipts for supplies to breed a monster, but he found nothing. Turner’s desktop computer booted up without a password, but there was nothing on it—according to Jamie, who was clicking away with the mouse. Pierce would be better at determining that, but right now Pierce was looking after Kenzie.

Who was haring around after Gil. Kenzie would get him—Bowman knew she would—and Pierce would help her. That’s my girl.

He hated the thought of Pierce out there with her. Once upon a time, Pierce had touched Kenzie, kissed her, listened while she laughed at him in her dusky, sultry voice . . .

“Bowman?” Cade asked. “You all right?”

Bowman found himself standing in the middle of the room, the papers in his hand shredding under his twisting fingers. He cleared his throat.

“I’m fine. Keep going. I want everything he’s ever written gone through. Then we track him down.”

“Yeah.” Cade’s concern didn’t go away. Bowman’s rage had mounted to a place where he’d soon lose control; one spark from his Collar confirmed that.

He needed to find Turner and beat answers out of him, then find Kenzie and let her soothe him down. She was the only one who ever could.

* * *

Kenzie landed on her feet, the impact jarring, but she was up and running in seconds. She might not be as graceful as a Feline, but out of all the Shifters, Lupines made the best hunters. Or so Uncle Cristian always said.

The back of the hotel gave onto a small empty lot. Kenzie dashed across it to an alley that led between stores in this touristy part of the town. She scattered a clump of cats who were investigating trash cans in the shadows and ran out into the street beyond.

A flash of movement took her attention to the right. Gil was still trying to cloak himself, to blend into the white mist that was rising in the dark. He couldn’t hide from Kenzie’s Shifter sight, though, and she wanted to laugh as she sprinted after him.

The road Gil ran down ended in woods, which Gil plunged into. Kenzie dashed after him.

A motorcycle roared up behind her, Pierce’s back tire skidding as he stopped. “Kenz, wait.”

Kenzie flung off her jacket. “I’m going after him. Either stay here and guard my clothes or come with me.”

“Damn it, if anything happens to you, Bowman will take my head off.”

Kenzie ripped free of her sweatshirt, kicking off her boots. “Tell Bowman you tried to stop me, and I fought you. He’ll believe that.”

She started running even as her jeans slid away. She tossed her underwear behind her, becoming wolf before she went another three strides.

The woods here were so thick snow hadn’t made it to the forest floor. The carpet of old pine needles and mud was frozen, cold and slick under her paws.

Kenzie had been raised in dense woods in the Transylvanian mountains—wild country, and remote. She’d roamed far and wide as a cub, fearless in her innocence.

Even now, she was more at home in woods than in towns. She craved clear air; to feel the ground, not concrete, beneath her feet; and untainted wind rushing through her fur.

Gil’s distinctive scent lay in a clear trail before her. Foolish man—or whatever he was—to think a Shifter couldn’t track him. Out here it was even easier, with fewer human scents to get in her way.

Gil could run, though, Kenzie gave him that. He was moving almost as fast as a Shifter could. But not quite.