My hands closed around nothing. Troy and Trent skidded into the room at my roar, their claws scraping on the polished wood as they tensed for battle.

What? Trent’s head whipped around, hackles raised and lips curled back in a snarl, looking for the invisible enemy.

Troy stared at me. Where’s Blue?

Gone, I sent back, lurching toward the door and breaking into a flat out run. Flanked by the wolven, I vaulted into my truck and rammed it into drive, burning rubber as I peeled out onto the street.

What do you mean gone? Troy shoved his head over my shoulder, his breath warming my cheek as he head butted my shoulder, demanding an answer.

She disappeared. The thought fragmented as my mind struggled to accept the fact that my mate had been snatched from my arms without warning.

She’ll come back when she wakes up.

“She wasn’t asleep!” I roared, the backend of the truck fishtailing as we skidded around a corner. Yanking the steering to the left, I forced the wheels back under control, hurtling into the station parking lot and jumping out of the truck. Silence had met my outburst. They didn’t have a clue, either. But someone would know.

One look at my face and bodies cleared out of my path, instantly dropping their eyes. “Chief Lombard!”

The male barreled out of his office at my shout, instantly alert. “What?”

“Blue’s gone.”

His eyes hardened. “Downstairs, now.”

* * *

After submitting to the strange machine that scanned our eyes and slipping through the secret door tucked away at the back of the chief’s office, we’d finally made our way down to the underground tunnels, a network that the shiften used to maintain the secrecy our species required, also housing rooms for some of the males, including me.

It was all taking too long. The walls were closing in on me, thoughts of Blue lost and alone, scared, hurt, begging, too much for me to take.

Wade ended his phone call and delivered the news. “Khain doesn’t have her.”

I was pacing back and forth, too wired to even think about sitting down. “How do you know that?”

My chief ignored my snarl and pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long breath. “Because the felen have reports of him being outside her apartment just now.”

I couldn’t think straight. Khain would hurt her, try and make her his. The demon had never hidden that he intended to capture one of the one true mates and claim her as his own. My stomach twisted, the thought of Blue being brutalized by that monster, just too much. “And? How do you know?!”

The chief’s hand landed on my shoulder with a thump, forcing me to stand still and meet his eyes. “Think. If he had her, he wouldn’t be looking for her.” Sympathy blazed, and it was almost too much. I looked away. “We’re going to find her, you are going to find your mate.”

The door crashed open, a large man filling the doorway. “You need me?” He had dark hair, cropped short, the silver clinging to his temples marking him as an older male, but it was his eyes that gave him away. Red and yellow, they swirled with colors, like flames licking at a grate. The dragen shifter from Scotland.

“Graeme, meet Nial, he’s from your neck of the woods.”

The dragen nodded, his eyes taking in the tension that rode my body. “Nobody’s from my neck of the woods, unless they have a fetish for being crispy fried.”

“And rain,” I added on a mutter.

“It rains in London,” he commented, noting my accent.

Biting back the need to growl and stamp my feet, for all the time we were wasting, I settled for a scowl. “It rains everywhere back home.”

“That it does.” He nodded, the introductions done with. “This about your mate?”

“Blue. She disappeared.”

Easing his body into a chair, the metal straining under his bulk, he grunted. “She do that a lot?”

I filled him in on everything, not leaving a scrap of information out. “Wade thinks you can help me.”

He nodded, resting his chin on his fist. “Dragen travel at will. Your mate used her pendant to travel.”

I spun, hope filling me. “You can take me to her?”

He nodded, then winced. “Probably. It can be a little … tricky.”

Wade held up a hand. “She’s traveling, so she’s safe from Khain at the moment.” Folding his arms over his chest, he fixed me with a stare that reminded me just why he was the Chief of Police in Serenity. He was the Citlali of the entire region where Rhen’s body rested. He was one of the most powerful wolfen alive. When he spoke, you listened.

Even if you didn’t want to.

“Are you going to claim Blue as your mate?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your damn business,” I snarled. Okay, my mind knew I was supposed to listen, but apparently, my instincts didn’t have a fucking clue.

“If you won’t, then you can leave now. I’ll find someone else to go to her and protect her.”

My control snapped and I launched myself at him, my hand closing around his throat. “She is mine!” My body froze, my lungs squeaking as they struggled against the bind holding them. I wanted to claw at my throat, but my hands were glued in place.

“It is my business,” Wade growled, leaning into me and putting us nose to nose. After searching my face for a brief moment—which felt like years—he nodded and released me from the hold he’d put me under.

Refusing to collapse to my knees, I released him and gulped in air, nostrils flaring and hands tightening into fists.

“Don’t, Nial. I needed to know you were willing to fight for her.” That’s all he said and my anger evaporated.

“I would die for her.”

“Then claim her already. Trust your gut. If you’re meant to be together, then that will only help us win this war.”