Page 36

Nate

B reath hissed out of my mouth with each strike. Left jab, right hook, left jab. Keeping my hands up to cover my face, I bobbed back and forth before attacking again. Left uppercut, right cross, body shot.

My gloved hands slammed into the training dummy with dull thuds after each punch. Sweat beaded on my body, running down to soak my shirt. Muscles flexed and bunched as I played out my mock fight, and all I could do was think about Cameron.

Even as I exhausted myself, my mind drifted back to everything I’d learned over the last twenty-four hours.

I’d come to the gym to blow off steam after seeing the crime scene.

After the horror and fear I’d felt when I thought the dead woman was actually Cameron, I’d needed to get my mind right before calling her with the test results.

From what they said, an extra couple of hours wasn’t going to change anything.

Driving forward, I threw a body punch that nearly shattered the four-by-four the dummy was attached to, and I backed away.

I tucked my glove under my left arm, pulled my hand free, then stripped off the other glove.

Still full of nervous energy, I sat down in the middle of the ring and began to do crunches and sit-ups.

Possibly the biggest revelation was when Cameron’s boyfriend had shown up.

I’d scented him the moment the door opened.

A shifter. The odds were insane. Shifters weren’t rare, but we were definitely a minority compared to any metric on earth.

Shifters did take humans as mates sometimes, but that was even rarer.

I’d noticed the scent of a shifter on her that first day in the hallways of her apartment, but had assumed it was from the guy who’d attacked her.

Neither Ollie nor I had thought she might have been dating one of us.

This Rick guy was more than just a boyfriend, though.

The pheromones had oozed off him. He’d bonded to Cameron, or he was trying to, anyway.

That explained his anger when he saw me.

He’d marked her as his . An integral part of his territory.

Though, he hadn’t fully claimed her yet.

The scent on Cameron was more subtle, less aggressive than I’d have anticipated; otherwise, I would have noticed it the moment we met.

I’d caught the scent of a shifter on her in her bathroom the other night, and I’d had my suspicions about what her boyfriend was even then.

Once that Rick guy had shown up, it was confirmed.

As soon as I left her apartment, I’d called Ollie. That conversation echoed through my head as I flipped over and started a set of one hundred pushups.

“This is Ollie. What’s up?”

“We’ve got an issue,” I’d said.

“Another one? Jesus, what now?”

“I’m leaving Cameron’s apartment. Her boyfriend just showed up.”

Ollie sighed through the phone. “Look, Nate, I’m sorry you got cockblocked, but I don’t see?—”

“He’s a shifter, Ollie. A shifter, and he’s bonded to Cameron.”

A long pause from his end, then, “No shit? I haven’t looked into her personal life yet. Didn’t seem important. You got a name?”

“First name only,” I’d said, pushing through the doors. I spotted the high-end luxury sedan sitting out front. “His name is Rick, but I’m going to take a picture of his license plate. Can you run it and get me a full ID?”

“Sure. I can run it in five or ten minutes.”

I’d sent the picture to Ollie, then pulled a fresh shirt from the saddlebag on my bike.

Once I was fully dressed, I found a spot out of sight to watch and wait.

From my spot in the shadows, I watched Cameron and Rick leave the apartment ten minutes later, their car pulling out just as Ollie had called me back.

“Got it. Holy shit, Nate. This is the guy she’s with?”

“I suppose so. You’ll need to tell me who the fuck he is first, though.”

“Richard Masters. Son of Lincoln and Madison Masters.”

“You say that like I should know who the rich pricks are. Info, Ollie. Give me fucking info .”

“Sorry,” he grunted. “I forget you aren’t in this pack sometimes.”

The words irked me, but I let him continue without saying anything.

“Lincoln Masters is a shifter. A high-ranking member of the Toronto-Ottawa pack, and a self-made millionaire to boot. He’s married to Madison Masters, a human. Lady comes from old money. Like, railroads and newspapers old.

“Lincoln left his old pack and came to join ours thirty or so years back. Since the Masters showed up, Lincoln has been jockeying for control of the Toronto pack. It got bad when Quintin Bishop died.”

“Quintin Bishop?” The name rang a bell.

“He was the last alpha prior to JC. Alec Dupont was one of Quintin’s right-hand men, and that’s why he took over as interim alpha.

JC was chosen as next in line because he was the strongest and most powerful alpha the Toronto-Ottawa pack had seen in generations.

It was a foregone conclusion even before Quintin died that JC would take over one day.

Alec was just a placeholder until JC came of age.

Everyone was cool with it.” He paused. “Everyone but Lincoln Masters, that is.”

I sighed, leaning back against the concrete wall of the building. “This is reading like a goddamned soap opera. Get to the point, Ollie.”

“I’m trying. To have a chance of being alpha of a pack and to prevent outside members from swooping in for some sort of hostile takeover, a shifter has to have a three-generation link to the pack.

Meaning, to have a shot, you need to have at least a father, son, and grandson born as members of the pack to be considered established enough to vie for leadership. ”

“Let me guess,” I’d said. “Rick is Daddy’s most precious boy, and he thinks he should be alpha over JC?”

“Bingo. He and his wife Madison are snobbish pricks, and everyone knows it. JC wasn’t poor, but he was definitely what you’d call middle-class, and that didn’t fly with Lincoln.

If his wife ever found out about her husband and son’s true natures, I’m sure she wouldn’t like it, either.

” He chuckled. “Some fucking commoner being in charge of them? It probably eats at Lincoln night and day.”

The threads were coming together. The extreme aggression Rick had shown upon seeing me, the protective way he hovered near Cameron. It came from his bond with her, sure, but also outside pressure, if I had to guess.

“Daddy Lincoln needs a grandson,” I said.

“That’s what I’m thinking, too. Rick Masters may genuinely care for Cameron, but he may be using her as well.

Mate with her, knock her up, and boom , he’s eligible and willing to fight JC for control of the whole damn thing.

” Ollie sighed. “This is crazy. Rick Masters could have any shifter woman he wanted. Why go for a human?”

“I already told you,” I said. “He’s bonded to her.

The guy’s attached. Probably caught a whiff of her pheromones and zeroed in on her.

His wolf is screaming she’s a good mate, so he pounces.

He’s like a damned leech on her from what I’ve seen.

The guy could find another woman, but once the bond is in place, it’s hard to break.

You know that as well as I do. Shifters get with humans all the time.

That wouldn’t preclude him from being a pack alpha. ”

“True, I suppose,” Ollie considered.

“I need to go. Thanks for the intel,” I’d said. “I’ll call with any more questions. I need you to get some cops to watch out for her. I, uh, need to do some work and can’t watch her nonstop.”

In truth, I’d been worried I wouldn’t be able to control myself around her. I needed a clear head to catch this feral, and Cameron was making everything fuzzy in my mind.

“I think I can swing that,” Ollie said. “At least for a few days.”

“Great. Thanks. As soon as possible. And make sure they stay out of sight.”

“Yes, sir,” Ollie grunted sarcastically.

I’d hung up then, sitting there running it over in my head before moving my bike out of sight of the apartment. Now, as I rolled back over for more crunches, more details emerged as I worked it over in my head.

Rick was a shifter and bonded to Cameron. Okay, fine. Whatever. But if that was the case, why the fuck wasn’t he taking better care of her? There was no way he hadn’t smelled that feral lone wolf on her. That, along with him knowing she’d been attacked, should have had him on high alert.

With a grunt of anger, I rolled to my feet and began pounding on the dummy again, not bothering to put on my gloves. The thought of Cameron in danger filled me with rage. The fact that this dude, who was supposedly bonded to her, was doing jack shit to protect her irritated me, too.

With a final right cross, the arm of the dummy snapped off and went flying across the ring.

“Shit,” I muttered.

Not only did I have to deal with a territorial and incompetent boyfriend, but now I had to break the news to Cameron that her life would never be the same.

The tests had come back positive. She had a shifter in the male line of her ancestry.

The genetic link had been low, so probably as far back as a great-great-grandfather or something, but it was enough.

The bite had made it a foregone conclusion. Cameron was going to become a shifter.

One of two things would happen. Either she would take to the change naturally and go about her new and secret life.

In so doing, she’d become Richie Rick’s wet dream.

Not just a bonded mate, but a shifter bonded mate.

That also meant that any child they might have would for sure be a shifter, staking Rick’s third-generation claim to the pack.

The other possible—and more worrisome—option was that the change would break her mind, and the pack would take her out or exile her, leaving her to wander in madness until something else killed her.