The last fight with Ryenne had pushed Lucien to the breaking point. If he didn’t get some distance from her and her raging hormonal urges—and her displays of affection with other men—he’d lash out and hurt someone. He didn’t want to risk doing something they couldn’t come back from.

The decision to move out of Ryenne’s apartment and into the office with Gavin hadn’t improved much. Gavin kept trying to convince him to give Ryenne another chance. And he couldn’t see or spend time with the only person who really mattered.

Ryenne.

He just needed some time. And space.

“You’ve said that about a million times, dude,” Gavin said.

Lucien shrugged. It was the truth.

Willow also mattered to him, so he tailed her and Ryenne every morning and evening.

One morning, his phone buzzed with a text. He expected it to be Gavin, but it was Martin, a family friend who had helped them during the final attack at Grieux’s house outside of Paris. An elephant shifter, Martin’s strength was balanced by his calm and steady nature.

MARTIN: I just arrived in NY to visit a friend. Hope you and Ry can join us for a drink one night.

Lucien smiled at the idea of seeing his friend in a different setting, and he knew Ryenne would enjoy it, too. Then his heart plummeted into his stomach. Would she hit on Martin, too? He couldn’t bear to see it.

LUCIEN: Sounds good. Dealing with a situation but let me know when you want to meet and we’ll try

MARTIN: Situation? Need help? My friend is also a shifter

LUCIEN: I hope it won’t go that far, but thanks

If nothing else, it was nice to be in touch with someone from home. He didn’t want the family to know what was going on yet, but if he became desperate for someone to talk to, or needed help, at least he had an option.

That evening, Lucien waited up the street, a couple of blocks from Willow’s office. She and Ryenne always passed this way and they were less likely to see him loitering.

But they didn’t show up.

Instead, a commotion rose from the direction of Willow’s office. Sirens wailed, brakes screeched. Fear clogging his throat, he ran toward the building.

When he arrived, Willow was being loaded into the back of an ambulance on a stretcher. Ryenne climbed in after her.

“Hey, what happened?” he asked a man standing on the corner, staring.

“A car jumped the curb and hit that woman,” he said, pointing to the ambulance.

Lucien looked around. Traffic was stopped but he didn’t see a car with the appearance of having just hit a person. “Where’s the car?”

The guy shrugged. “It left. Hit and run.” The man shook his head and dashed across the street, away from the ambulance as it pulled away from the curb, siren blaring.

Lucien approached the building. He noticed skid marks on the sidewalk and studied them. Pulling out his phone, he snapped a couple of pictures of the treads. Then he noticed a faint scent of fox. Hmm, just like the guys who tried to kidnap Willow. The scent seemed to go in the same direction as the skid marks on the street, so he followed it.

The scent took him southeast.

Lucien walked for hours but lost the scent near the river. Or rather, an overwhelming smell of fish stole the shifter’s scent from the air. He looked around for street signs and landmarks. Fulton Street. A stone-paved pedestrian zone.

He scrubbed his hand through his hair and turned back the way he’d come.

The sun was starting to set, so he headed to Central Park. It should be safe enough to shift and run in the denser areas of the park. Really, he needed a distraction. He’d wanted to do something concrete to help Willow, but he was no closer to an answer. And he wasn’t ready to face Ryenne.

The run worked off some of his excess energy and a shower at Gavin’s helped him put on a neutral expression.

Until he saw Ryenne in the waiting room. She could barely look at him.

He hated himself for his weakness. If he were a stronger man, the kind of man Ryenne needed to get through her adjustment period, they could be together now.

“Where have you been, man?” Gavin asked.

Lucien explained how he’d spent the past few hours. “But I lost the scent around the South Street Seaport,” he ended.

“What?” Ryenne asked, sitting up straighter. “The South Street Seaport is where the cops found the bodies of the dead Fangs last night. There has to be a connection. It can’t be a coincidence.”

The cops again. Lucien was getting sick of those guys. Then he pushed the feelings of jealousy down into his gut to deal with later. Now wasn’t the time.

As he made himself comfortable in one of the waiting room’s uncomfortable chairs, he realized he’d never felt this way before. Envy and jealousy were foreign to him.

Ryenne had always made him feel new things. Since the day they’d met.

***

Ryenne was startled awake by someone shaking her.

“Miss Cavanagh.”

She looked up into Dr. Nakamura’s serious brown eyes. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Your mom is awake again and I thought you’d like to sit with her,” he said.

“Yes, thank you.” She stretched and looked around but there were still no windows in this waiting room. “What time is it?”

“It’s about four a.m.”

Lucien and Gavin were sprawled across some of the other chairs, but as she watched, Lucien’s eyes fluttered open.

“I’m going to see Mom,” she told him. “Maybe you and Gavin should go home and get some rest. I’ll text you later.”

He stretched, his shirt riding up and showing off a mere inch of tan skin. A familiar sensation hit her core. “No,” he said. “We can’t leave. I want to see her, too. Can I?” He looked to the doctor.

“Another fake brother?”

Ryenne’s gaze whipped toward the doctor. “Why, Doctor Nakamura, you have a sense of humor.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“Okay, you caught us. Lucien is definitely not my brother. And while Gavin isn’t my brother by blood, he’s the closest thing I’ve had since I was a kid, and he looks to my mother as his mom, as well, since his own doesn’t accept his lifestyle.”

Dr. Nakamura raised his eyebrows. “Lifestyle?”

Ryenne nodded. “Yes. Gavin’s lovely parents think being gay is a choice. My mom never judged him for the things he can’t help. So, of course, he loves her.”

“Ah,” the doctor said. He glanced at Gavin and his normally hard and serious features softened.

Hmm, maybe Gavin had been right. But she still wasn’t ready to trust Dr. Nakamura.

She followed Nakamura from the waiting room, leaving Lucien and Gavin behind, down the same corridor to the same door. He waved his pass in front of the scanner.

“I know you’re a shifter,” she whispered, stopping on the other side of the security door.

“Indeed.”

“It doesn’t worry you?” she asked.

“Should it?”

She considered him for a moment. He could be unconcerned because he had nothing to fear because he didn’t know about the Fangs, or because he was a Fang and thought he was above the law.

“Mind showing me your ankles?” she asked.

His eyebrows rose even higher. “I beg your pardon.”

If he were a Fang, he’d know why she was asking, so she’d already lost the element of surprise. “Got any tattoos, Doctor?”

“No,” he said in a bland voice. “Where my family comes from, only gang members have tattoos.”

“And where’s that?” she asked. She didn’t want to assume from his appearance and his last name. She didn’t know his first name, but it might not give any clues, anyway.

“My family is from Japan,” he said, “but I was born here in the States.”

She started walking toward her mother’s room. He definitely got points for answering her question and being open about his background. He didn’t have to answer her, and a Fang probably wouldn’t have.

He paused outside her mother’s room. “Miss Cavanagh, I’ll probably be off shift by the time you come out. But I’ll be here again this evening, and I promise you, I will take good care of your mother.”

His face was back to his serious and expressionless mask.

“Is your friend out there single?”

She had started to enter her mom’s room but stopped. “Which friend?”

“The blond one.”

“Oh yeah, he’s single.” She smirked. “But if you’re a Fang and you hurt him, I will end you.” She walked into the room and closed the door behind her.