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TWENTY-SEVEN

Leo just couldn't seem to sit still. Normally, on his days off, he'd shift and run around the estate in his beast form, but he couldn't do that with Lily here. It was enough to make him want to go into the office and work.

If he had a cottage at Hea Sanctuary, he'd be able to take off and run around there instead, but it would be a long time before that was a reality.

Maybe he could persuade his mother to send Lily out on some errands in town. Picking up the dry cleaning, or buying a new dress for the next charity ball he'd no doubt been invited to, which meant she'd have to come, too.

He hurried downstairs to his mother's morning room, where she always sat to have her first cup of tea of the day. He found her sorting the mail, a half-full teacup at her elbow.

"Is there anything interesting?" he asked. "Any invitations to events Lily will need a new dress for?"

Mother glanced up over the top of her reading glasses. "No. Apparently, she's not even going to her own graduation. She had her degree posted here instead. Did you know our housekeeper is also a licensed engineer?"

An engineer? Why was she working as a housekeeper? Engineers could earn way more money, or at least the ones Pride Holdings contracted did.

Even more reason to send her away, so she wouldn't see anything that would reveal his secret.

"Could you ask her to go and pick up my drycleaning?" he asked. "Or take my suits out for drycleaning, then pick them up?" Whatever got her off the property.

"It's the poor girl's day off. If it's so important to you, take your own drycleaning into the village. You might even see her there. She's gone out, she said, and she won't be back until dark."

"She's gone?" he blurted out.

Mother returned to sorting the mail. "That's what she said. So if you're getting the zoomies like some common house cat, I suggest you shift sooner rather than later, so you can get it out of your system before the poor girl comes home."

"Yes, Mum."

Leo didn't wait. He was out the door and headed for the woods within moments, running as fast as his legs would carry him. Once he reached the shelter of the trees, he shed his clothes and shifted to paws. He'd come back for the Felix 5000, once he'd had a proper run through the forest. Maybe even a successful hunt...there were way too many deer about. One less couldn't be a bad thing.

He leaned forward to snuffle at the leaf litter, to see if he could scent some suitable prey. A deer would do, if he couldn't find a boar. Even a rabbit or a badger, but they weren't as much of a challenge as a big buck or a boar with some fight in them.

Only...it wasn't prey he smelled.

MATE! His senses went into overdrive, no longer hungering for the taste of some animal. His mate had been in these woods, and recently, too. Perhaps she was still here.

He forgot about Lily, his uncle and Pride Holdings, even Hea Sanctuary. No, his thoughts were consumed entirely with the hunt, and what his mate would taste like when he caught her.