Mate Bond

Kenzie hid her smile. Cristian might rule the clan, but Afina never let him forget who’d raised him.

Cristian and his mother exchanged a long look before Cristian let out a sigh. He stepped away from both of them, pretending he hadn’t just let his mother win another argument.

“Fine then,” Cristian said to Afina. “You can come with me.”

Afina blinked, surprised at the turn. “All right, I will,” she said.

“I’m driving,” Cristian said. “The Ottoman Turks were less frightening than you on a motorcycle.”

Afina only smiled.

“Wait, now I have to worry about both of you?” Kenzie asked, annoyed. “This isn’t trading up.”

Cristian became serious again. “You worry about your mate, Kenzie-love. He is perhaps too furious, too obsessed with what is happening. One reason I did not oppose him taking you as mate is I knew you could keep him calm. That is what you must do, or Shiftertown will suffer.”

Kenzie had known this for years, but Cristian’s words gave her a qualm. “Sure. No pressure.”

Cristian’s smile made his eyes crinkle, and he pulled Kenzie to him for a hug.

Kenzie wrapped her arms around him, remembering how, when she’d been a child, his strength had bolstered her. Her uncle could be a total shit, but he’d also saved her life, time and again.

“Keep in touch,” Kenzie said, releasing him. “I mean it.”

“I will make him,” Afina said. She also enfolded Kenzie in a hug, hers scented with woods, coffee, and cinnamon rolls. “You look after your mate. And your cub.” She gave Kenzie a kiss on the cheek before letting her go. “And get some sleep, granddaughter. You look terrible.”

“Aw, thanks.”

Afina gave her a big smile, then turned and walked away with Cristian. They started arguing about something before they even hit the end of sidewalk, then they turned the corner, their voices fading.

Kenzie let Ryan play a little more before she called to him to return with her to the house. Once inside, he raced to his bedroom to shift and dress—he was getting too modest to shift to a naked human in front of his mother. Kenzie warmed up the cinnamon rolls Afina had made. The good kind—huge and dripping with icing.

She licked icing off her fingers, took out the new cell phone she’d picked up on the way home, and called Gil. She knew Bowman would probably have already talked to him, but Gil’s warm voice when he answered lifted her spirits. Kenzie ran her finger through the bowl of icing and told Gil everything.

* * *

“Are you going to shut down the fight club?” Jamie asked.

He walked beside Bowman with his restless Feline energy, pissed off because he’d missed the excitement in the woods early this morning. Around them, Shifters were starting the day, sweeping snow from porches and driveways, the cubs playing in the winter wonderland.

Bowman pondered Jamie’s question. “We might have to move it. The human cops are all over the place up there now, investigating Serena’s murder. Poor woman.” Death was a waste. Serena had annoyed and worried him, but she’d not deserved to be murdered.

“Yeah.” Jamie whispered a brief prayer to the Goddess to look after Serena’s soul. “So you think the sniper shooting at you and whoever got her are two different people?”

“Two different guns,” Bowman said. “She was shot close range with a pistol. The sniper had a high-powered rifle that could pick us off from a long way away. Though it might have been the same person using a different weapon.”

“Great. A killer is out there who could shoot us before he’s in scent range, and he has no qualm pulling the trigger point-blank.” Jamie glanced around, as though the sniper could be lurking behind any tree. “We should keep the cubs inside.”

“Agree. That’s why we’re going to give the cops as much cooperation as they want.”

“I hear you. How much will you bet that the cops try to accuse one of us?”

“Nothing,” Bowman said dryly. “I don’t want to lose.” He looked around, but not for the same reason as Jamie. “I haven’t seen Marcus for a while,” he said, naming his third tracker, from Jamie’s pride. “What’s with him?”

Jamie made a derisive noise, his tatts rippling as he stretched his hands. “Sex. Frenzy. Scent of a female. He’s relieving his stress with Kenzie’s cousin.”

Bowman envied the man. He wanted nothing more right now than to be holed up with Kenzie, the two of them naked, not leaving the house for days. “Well, maybe he’s better off than the rest of us.” He let out a breath, suddenly tired, wanting to be done with this. He was coming to understand why Shifter leaders often welcomed the challenge by a younger member of their pack, knowing it was time to lay down the burden.

“If you can pry the two of them apart, tell Marcus I need him,” Bowman said. “I’m going out to talk to that Turner guy again. I want you and Cade with me for that, and Marcus needs to guard the fort. And my mate and cub.” Who were not coming with him.

The only way to make sure of that was to sneak off with Cade and Jamie, and so he did.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Before Bowman made for Turner’s cabin, he led Cade and Jamie up into the woods toward where he was sure the sniper had been sitting.

They found indentations in the earth where someone had set up a camp stool or chair to wait. Near a rock, which would have made a good blind, they picked up shell casings. Bowman plucked them from the mud with the end of a twig and put them into a bag Cade had brought with him. With any luck, the casings might carry fingerprints—then again, would the shooter have left them around if they did?