The wait for Angelita turned out to be much longer and harder than I’d expected. I’d gone in knowing I’d be nervous, understanding that she had planned to complete her mission without my help. Fine. I was man enough to give my woman room to do her thing…just not so much that I couldn’t jump in if she needed me to. Which was why I’d called in Scarlett to be her second.

Angelita must not have needed me to, though. She’d been silent for a long time, as had the witch backing her up. Too silent.

I dug deep, trying to feel my bond to Angelita. To locate that same warmth from the link between us I always felt when she was near, but there was no warmth. Only static and…cold.

Scarlett’s unique ashes smell greeted me, but it was her voice that set me on edge. “We have a problem.”

“Is she okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

A pause. A long one. But then she quietly said, “She’s gone.”

A boulder the size of my entire island landed in my gut—at least, that’s what it felt like as my stomach tightened and the floor dropped out from under my world. “Gone where?”

“Quiet down. People are looking.” She grabbed my arm and tugged me closer, lowering her voice even more. “She took forever, so I went to check on her like you told me to do. The office was empty, and there was no sign of her anywhere in the building.”

There was no thinking to be done, no decision to be made. There was only one goal. “We have to go find her. We’re going to need help.”

“I know. I already called Shadow. He’s pissed at me, but he’ll be here in a minute. Come on, let’s go see what we can figure out.”

I gripped her elbow as she led me through the coffee shop and out the door. The night air had grown colder, the street quieter, all while I’d sat and done nothing. Whether it would be the anger or the guilt that ate me alive, I had yet to see. But one would. And soon.

We rushed down to the alley where Angelita would have started and ended her mission, but the bond inside of me never grew warmer. The static stayed, the distance between us too much. And while most of my mind focused on worry about Angelita, a tiny part raged. The base side of me, the instinct. The part that said if Angelita had run into foul play, whoever had put their hands on my girl would regret it. I’d rip them apart with my bare, human hands. I would not lose my mate over some bear clan’s fucking mating idol.

I didn’t hear Shadow arrive—I rarely heard the man move—but I felt Scarlett tense up next to me and knew that backup had arrived in the form of her half-tiger, half-wolf shifting mate.

“It reeks of bear by the front door,” Shadow said, his voice hard.

Scarlett stepped around me, moving closer to Shadow. “Maybe the guy who set this up pulled a switch?”

Shadow grabbed my arm, giving me a squeeze before inching past. “That doesn’t fit the scent.”

That answer didn’t sit well with me. “Why not? You said you scented bear.”

“But it’s a female bear.”

“Are you sure?” I followed Scarlett’s guidance as the three of us moved deeper between the buildings. All the way back to the alley that ran along the rear.

Shadow stopped, audibly scenting the air. “Yeah. Female bear, and Angelita got into a car with her. The scent disappears at an empty spot.”

“What do we do?” Scarlett asked.

There was only one thing to do. “We go see the bear that hired her and find out who took Angelita.”

---

The Grand Hotel where Harley had rented a block of rooms was one of those restored buildings from an earlier era. People raved about how gorgeous all of the shiny wood trim and grand staircase was. I gave no fucks for the history of it—I wanted to know the present. Particularly, the location of one bear shifter. Finding that information out would fall on the shoulders of the witch, though.

Once Scarlett had spelled the desk worker and determined the bear’s room, I raced up the stairs and felt the walls for room plates.

The growl I released when I finally found one could have stood up against one of Shadow’s for sure. “They don’t have fucking Braille.”

“Let me help you.” Scarlett placed my hand on her elbow and strode down the hall, pulling me with her. I was already pissed because my mate was missing. The fact that I couldn’t even find a damn hotel room without help from someone else was merely more shit piled onto me. Which might have been a good thing because by the time Scarlett stopped, I was in a full-blown fury.

“This is it,” she whispered.

I didn’t pause for a second. Reaching out, I placed one hand against the wood to get my bearings before taking two steps back. Then I kicked the fucking door in.

“Where is she?” I yelled as soon as I stepped inside. “Where’s Angel?” My voice caught on her shortened name, my need to keep her safe overriding everything I knew.

“Who the fuck…” the bear growled low and deep, the sound of him growing closer making the hair on my neck stand on end. “You’re the little wolf’s mate.”

He must have moved too fast because Shadow snarled from behind us as Scarlett edged around me.

“You’d better stay back, bear,” Scarlett said, then the smell of burning paper exploded through the room.

“You work with witches?” Harley asked, his voice high and angry. “That’s bad form, old friend. Witches are quite undesirable.”

“I’m not your friend, and this witch could burn you alive from the inside if she wanted to. So you’d better start answering my question. Where’s Angel?”

The bear huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Did your girl get caught?”

“No, she got taken by a female bear shifter.” I stepped closer, my anger driving me. My focus locked on bringing Angelita home. “Any idea who that could be?”

Harley roared, his animal side obviously taking over before he raced past me and out the door. Scarlett grabbed my elbow and followed the huffing, pounding footsteps.

“Did he shift?” I asked quietly, unsure what to expect.

“No. But he looks close to it.”

“Can you handle a full-grown bear?”

Shadow scoffed. “Kid, you have no idea.”

“And this is why you’ll be rewarded later, my love.” If Scarlett’s voice could have been more sarcastic, I had no idea how. “Fire is a base fear, kid. I’ve got this if he shifts.”

Okay, then.

Harley must have knocked another door down because the sound of the wood splintering broke like a gunshot. “Motherfucker. I’m going to kill her.”

He wasn’t the only one who could growl. “You’d better not be talking about my mate.”

“I’m talking about my sister.” He huffed a breath, hurrying past me once more. “Come on. I know where they went.”

Scarlett squeezed my arm as if to argue, so I said the only thing I could. The only thing that mattered in that moment. The only word I knew would keep her moving.

“Angelita.”

And so she led me to follow after the bear.