Mate Bond

“Your mate is all right? Did he go to a hospital?”

“To an urgent care place. He broke his leg; they splinted it. Now he’s home. Shifters heal fast, and hospitals don’t always make a difference. He’s resting.”

“What’s his name?”

Kenzie didn’t like all the questions, but she had no reason to lie. He could look up Kenzie O’Donnell and find out her mate’s name.

“Bowman,” she said. “He’s Shiftertown leader.”

“I’ve heard of him.” Again, he was acknowledging information, not disparaging her. “You sure he’s all right?”

“So far.” Kenzie’s heart skipped a beat. She’d never seen Bowman badly hurt before, with a pallor on his hard face, shadows under his eyes. He’d kept up his snarling for the benefit of Cade and Jamie, but Kenzie had known he’d been in profound pain.

“What kind of animal was it that attacked you?” Ramirez asked. “What did you see?”

Kenzie shivered. She’d been doing her best not to think about it. Tracking the monster was one thing—she could do that clinically. Remembering every detail was something else.

“It was horrible,” she said in a soft voice. “Like a mishmash of a bunch of things.”

Ramirez came alert without moving. Shifters could do that, suddenly grow watchful and ready to spring without betraying it. Ramirez didn’t have a drop of Shifter blood in him, though. Kenzie would have scented it if he had.

“Go on,” he said.

“The truth is, I have no freaking clue what it was. Big. Ugly. Like an animal, but not real. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“So, not a Shifter.”

Kenzie shook her head. “No Shifter I’ve ever seen. And trust me, I’ve seen a lot of Shifters. More than I ever wanted to.”

Ramirez’s dark brows lifted. “But you’re Shifter.”

“Doesn’t mean I love every Shifter in the universe. Some of them can be unbelievable pains in the ass. I’m Lupine, which means Felines seriously drive me crazy. When I lived in Romania, in the wild, I stuck to my family and clan and didn’t see a lot of different species. Never met any Felines or bears until I was moved to the States and into this Shiftertown.” Kenzie closed her mouth, wondering why she was saying all this to a human. Though she wasn’t telling him anything he couldn’t look up on the Internet.

“Mmm hmm.” Ramirez made the universal noise of someone showing they were listening. “This animal wasn’t any of those?”

“No. Like I said, I don’t know what it was.”

“Where is it now?”

Kenzie held her hands palms up. “No clue. We came back here today to track it—you have to have guessed that was what we were doing. We found nothing. It disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” he asked sharply. “How?”

Kenzie saw no reason not to tell him her theory about a truck and the evidence they’d found of one resting on the side of the road. Ramirez gazed out over the woods as she spoke, his patrollers uneasily wandering the grounds, the Shifters watching them in return. Jamie and Cade had their eyes on the car— Kenzie knew they could be with her in two seconds flat if she needed them.

“Thank you, Ms. O’Donnell,” Ramirez said when she finished. “I don’t like stories of giant monsters attacking people. Even if the stories are exaggerated, there’s still a threat. Shifters are in a good position to help me stop it. You can do things I can’t. So I’d appreciate it if you shared anything else you find out. I want to get this thing as much as you do.”

Kenzie listened to him, startled. “Work together, you mean?”

Humans rarely wanted to. Though it was obvious to Kenzie that Shifters would be great in military situations or law enforcement, people had been too afraid of them to put them in positions where they could wield weapons or fight humans.

Ramirez gave her a nod. “Surprised?”

“Yes. I have to wonder why you want to.”

“Because I took this job because I like to keep people safe. If Shifters can help me do that, I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to recruit them.”

Kenzie believed him. She’d spent a lifetime reading body language, and his told her he put protecting people first, and rules second. “Won’t you get into trouble?” she asked.

He slanted her a grin. “I wasn’t planning on asking permission, or even mentioning it to anyone.” He became serious again. “I’m not interested in office politics. I want to catch this thing and figure out what it is before it does any more damage.”

Kenzie turned over the possibilities in her mind. Having insight into what the police were doing and what they’d heard about the incident might help Kenzie and Bowman determine where the monster had been taken, and who had taken it there. Bowman would be less than thrilled to learn he had to trust a human, but Bowman had often told Kenzie he liked that she was resourceful. Well, Ramirez was a resource.

She let out a breath. “All right.”

“Thanks,” Ramirez said. “I appreciate that. I’d appreciate it too if I could speak to your mate.”

“He’s kind of cranky right now,” Kenzie said. “He’s like that when he’s healing.”

Ramirez laughed suddenly. It was a deep, warm laugh, one that would make others laugh with him. Kenzie wanted to smile in response.