Chapter Six
Nissa paced back and forth in the guest suite in his parents’ home. Yeah, suite. Not sweet. No, she was feeling anything but kind and warm and bubbly. The party last night had been a bit over-the-top, and had surprised her and Zach. But they went with it. How could they not? His mom was a doll. Asina was kind and beautiful and had a light about her that made everything in the room glow. She had hugged Nissa so tightly, Nissa was pretty sure the wolf female had broken one of her ribs. And then they’d brought out food and drinks and gifts—holy cow, how were they going to get everything home—and partied most of the night. Nissa had never been to a wolf party, but it had definitely opened her eyes. The howling and baying and dancing and rhythmic music and drums, well, let’s just say she and Zach weren’t the only ones leaving for some private hanky-panky time. Zach’s father, Connor, had been just how Zach had described him. He exuded the power and confidence of alpha, there was no doubt about it. But he was just as uncomfortable during the dinner party as Nissa was. While Zach had been replying to his mother’s awkward question about when and how many babies, Connor had leaned over and grabbed the extra silverware from in front of both his and Nissa’s settings.
The rest of the night had gotten better, after that was taken care of. Nissa still wished they could have stayed in Zach’s smaller, more intimate cabin on the other side of the compound. But Asina had begged them to stay closer to her for the night so she could get to know Nissa more easily. She’d also said something about a rodent problem at Zach’s place, so Nissa was good. The suite was a bit more than she needed for sleeping and showering, but it was a nice gesture.
A soft knock came on the bedroom door, and Nissa opened it to see her mate’s beautiful mother. Appearing not a day over forty, she looked radiant in her cream-and-light-blue gown. “Good morning, dear. I came to walk you down to the meeting. If you’re ready?”
“We didn’t know if I would be welcome at a Tracker meeting, so I was just going to hang out here. Thanks.” She smiled at the older woman.
“Nonsense. As mate to our son, you are welcome in every and all meetings. I think it’d also be a good idea to have someone there who knows your area so well.”
“If I can be of any help, I’m happy to come.”
Asina walked her down the long hall and the stairs toward the sitting room in the back.
Nissa winced as the sound of shouts and curses echoed down the hall.
“That’s another reason we try to attend.” Asina smiled and clasped her hand. “We help calm our agitated mates.”
Nissa nodded nervously, and squeezed the soft, but firm hand that guided her to the door. Lone bear walking into a wolf den. Yeah, like that didn’t sound like the start of a bad joke.
“Gentlemen.” The lady of the house threw her shoulders back and grandly entered the room with a flourish. “This is my son’s new mate, Nissa. Did we miss anything?”
Connor stood toe-to-toe with a large, older man with gray hair and wrinkles. Both looked on the verge of shifting and making this meeting a wolf smackdown event. They turned to the women, and their eyes lightened as they bowed and backed off from each other.
Ding ding. Retreat to your corners, fellas. Round two starts after the sexy shifter carries in the sign, Nissa thought. Her mother-in-law stifled a giggle. Had she heard her?
“Sorry, honey. We started without you.” Connor hugged his wife and sat down with her on a couch facing the visiting wolf pack.
“I’m not trying to disrespect your heir or you, Alpha,” the older man said. “We’re just having a difficult time with the loss of our own.”
This must be the alpha of the Florida pack. The ones who hired Zach to find their missing female.
“You insinuated that my son is shirking his duties and is, how did you say it, using your funding to party his way up the coast while hooking up with women?”
The low growl came from Nissa’s throat before she could stop it, and Zach wrapped a tight arm around her. Probably a good thing, or she was taking over round two’s pummeling.
“I apologize to all of you. We’re very worried about her.”
“If you’re so worried about her, why haven’t you found her yourself?” Zach asked.
“We can’t pick up her scent.”
“She never shifts?”
“We’ve had our own trackers searching for her for years, but she never seems to shift. And we can only do so much. We can’t scent her.”
That’s why Zach and his family were so useful. Royal Trackers were the only shifters who could differentiate between animals while they or their quarry were in human form. She, as a normal bear shifter, couldn’t do that. Heck, if these guys shifted into their wolves, she could smell them five miles away without too much problem. But, while they were in human form? She barely got a whiff of anything. That’s what made the Royal Herne clan so unique, so powerful. Zach had explained there were four royal clans. This was the east clan. When a wolf pack from Florida hadn’t been able to find one of their females, they’d gone to Zach and his father, asking them to help.
Now it looked like they were questioning his integrity, which made her want to cuff someone upside the head with her paw. But she was here to keep her mate calm and focused, so she’d better keep herself in check.
“Are you sure you don’t have any more pictures?” Zach asked. “The one of her as a four-year-old has only gotten me this far.”
“If she’s from your pack, why don’t you have anything more recent?” Nissa asked, leaning forward.
Rand, the alpha of their pack, answered with a sigh. “She’s my granddaughter. After a...fight, my daughter and her human mate left the pack and took her with them. They died a few years later, and she was put into human foster care. We were lucky to have a few friends on the outside who found her and kept an eye on her. But she got moved around before we could track her again. We finally found her in her teens, but she ran away before we could get to her. Her adoptive parents died shortly after that, and her trail went completely cold. It’s been years, but this is the only recent picture we have.” He held up a picture of a teenage girl sitting in the passenger seat of an old Mitsubishi.
Nissa squinted. The girl could have been twelve or seventeen. It was hard to tell at this angle and from so far away. Her long blonde hair framed her angelic face, and she wore a big smile as if laughing at the funniest joke in the world. She was thick-boned, plus-sized like Nissa, and she’d bet the woman had gorgeous curves now that she was all grown up.
“How do you know she’s still alive?” Connor asked, and the older man growled at him in reply.
Asina patted her mate’s hand and gave a calming smile that lit up the whole room, bringing the energy down a notch. Zach had done that before, too. That’s probably where he learned the cool trick.
“No, I’m sure she’s still alive, Dad. My gut is telling me I’m close to finding her,” Zach answered before the older man could.
“Are you sure you weren’t led to the bear territory by your potential mate?”
It was Nissa’s turn to calm her mate. She stroked his hand and watched him visibly relax as he formulated his answer.
“I was extremely blessed to find my mate, but no, that wasn’t what led me there. I can’t scent her at all, but my instincts keep telling me she’s there. Or she’s traveled through the area recently. Plus, I’ve been following her bank account activity, and I think she’s heading east.”
Nissa frowned. “If trouble keeps following her eastward, don’t you think she’ll double back at some point. Head west?”
“Yeah. And when she does, I’ll lose her.”
Rand pressed his face into his hands wearily.
Nissa stood and walked over to sit next to the visibly upset older man. “My mate is the best in the business. He’s got the nose and the brains to get it done. Just give us all the information you have on her. Even the most trivial. It might spark something with him.”
Rand nodded and rose. All the other males stood and shook hands. “We are going to head back to our hotel for the night. I will get you everything I can get my hands on. Find my granddaughter, Tracker.”
Zach nodded and placed his fist over his heart. Connor did the same. All four men gave a short tilt of their heads, acknowledging the power in each other, and left the room.
“Come on, little bear.” Zach took her by the hand and led her outside.
“Where are we going?”
Zach took off his shirt. “I need to run with my mate. We’re going to be stuck here a few more days, and I need to keep my energy in check.”
“Okay.” She stopped with her hands inside her shirt at his sudden growl. “What?”
Zach grabbed her and kissed her fiercely. “No one else but me gets to see your naked form. Strip in the woods over here while I watch.”
She shook her head, laughing at her overprotective, jealous mate. “All right. For your eyes only. But you better hurry cuz I’m getting a head start on this race.”
“You have twenty seconds, and your time starts now.”