Chapter Nineteen
Xander was sitting in the living room with Clyde, having a glass of whiskey. Luke and Clint were upstairs playing their uncle’s X-Box, which gave the grownups a chance to hash out a few things.
“Greer seems like a sweet woman. What exactly did you do to upset her?”
Xander clenched his jaw. “She wanted me to let you and the boys back me up.”
“Ah, and what did you say?”
“I told her she couldn’t understand because she wasn’t a shifter.”
Clyde whistled low. “Boy, you are all kinds of stupid.”
“Don’t start with me.”
“Why in the hell would you push a woman like that away? She’s beautiful, seems intelligent. She knows what you are and hasn’t run screaming for the hills. Those are all fantastic qualities in a human, if I do say so myself.”
Xander grimaced. He knew Greer was a catch, but he wasn’t going to go back on everything he had been working for the last five years because she didn’t want him getting hurt. He wasn’t reckless, although he might be an idiot where women were concerned. At least Clyde was right about that.
“I’ll go over there tomorrow when she cools down and try to make things right.”
Clyde raised his glass in the air. “You better try hard, because that woman had the same look in her eyes my wife gets when she’d ready to dig in about something.”
Xander was chuckling when something big and hard hit the sliding glass door off the kitchen.
“What in the hell?” Clyde shouted.
Xander jumped up and flipped on the light. He fumbled with the lock and when he finally got it open, he found a tawny cougar with aquamarine eyes glaring at him accusingly.
“Jill, what happened?”
“She was taken,” Derick called from the dark. As he stepped into the light, Xander could tell he was hurt by the way he hobbled forward, dragging his left leg behind.
And then his words sank in, right down to the pit of his stomach.
Taken.
“Pax?” Clyde asked.
“And Dakota. Bitch tried to shoot me. If Greer hadn’t gotten my seat back as fast as she did, I would have had a gaping chest wound. She saved my life.”
“And to thank her, you just left her there?” Xander took a menacing step toward Dereck, but found his thigh chomped down on by Jill. She hissed with her mouth around his leg, obviously telling him that it wasn’t Dereck’s fault.
Dereck finally reached the porch, a sea of regret swimming in his dark eyes. “My legs were fucked; there was nothing I could do except die and they would have taken her anyway. I watched them put her in the truck alive. Plus, I was afraid that Jill wouldn’t be able to shift back soon enough to give you what you needed. She is a newb.”
Jill swung her tail at Dereck, but Xander was rapidly losing patience. Pulling his shirt over his head, he tossed it behind him, anguish ripping his guts up. He had to save her before they hurt her.
And tell her how much he cared.
He stripped down and leaped from the porch, shifting in midair. As he raced through the woods, he heard the distinct sound of multiple paws and panting breaths behind him. He tipped his nose to the air as he saw the flashing lights of a police cruiser and ambulance through the trees ahead. He stopped to listen to what they were saying.
“There’s nobody here. Looks like a smash and grab,” a young officer said.
His older partner shook his head before squatting down. “I’ve never seen that in thirty years in this town. What the hell is going on here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe gang related?”
The older officer stood up with a laugh. “What the hell would gangs want to move all the way up here for?”
“Maybe it is shifters.”
“God help us.”
Xander backed up and turned to Dereck, Clyde, Luke, and Clint. Their coats all ran black to cinnamon, so they blended better in the dark than Xander did. Jill crouched next to Dereck, her long tail swaying. Xander wanted to tell Jill to go back to the house, but after the bite she’d given him, he figured it was no use.
Dereck whined and took several steps toward the road leading away from Twilight.
Maybe that was why he’d never caught their scent in town. They were staying on the outskirts.
He nodded and followed behind Dereck as they ran through the trees.
Please, let her be alright.