Page 66 of Ruthlessly Mated

“I just punished her for that,” Tailor says.

“If anal sex solved emotional problems, they wouldn’t exist at all,” I say. “We need to get on her scent. Now.”

“We can’t leave him behind,” Tailor frowns.

“Yes, we can. He’s safe here. She’s the one who needs to be found.”

Mandy Molloy has been helping us look. At first I’m not sure she was even aware of what she was looking for, but she’s one of those terminally helpful people who cannot help but be useful in terrible times. She’s worked it out now by context, and the way we keep cursing about how we can’t find our mate.

“Never worked on a wolf shifter before,” she says. “That’s what you are, right?”

“Yes.”

“I expected there to be more hair. His physiology was human. You’d never know. At some point I’d love to be able to observe a transformation…”

“Doctor, we need to find our mate.”

“Go find the girl,” Mandy says. “Your boy will be safe enough here for as long as he needs to be.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Truly.”

“Don’t worry. The port brought us a lot of business. Can’t say I’m pleased to hear it burned down. Can’t say anyone here is. You will be rebuilding, won’t you?”

For the first time, I’m realizing that the port meant something to more people than just me and my mates. We were always focused on our own profits and aims. Never really thought deeply about how we were supplying the local economy.

“We’re going to try, ma’am,” I say. “Looks like we’re going to need some firepower to do that, but we’re going to try.”

“We are?” Tailor mutters the words to me as she goes back inside.

“We are. But we get our mate first.”

Tailor and I take our wolf forms and head off after our missing mate. Her scent is easy to find because we are tuned into her in a way we are not tuned into anything else.

This is a simple task.

We run until the sun rises.

We find blood.

Not hers.

Animal.

Then we find the trap site. Silver. Still no blood of hers. Good.

It smells like her here. It’s like she’s right in front of us, but we can’t see her. It’s strange. How can she possibly be here without being here? We maintain our wolf forms. Easier to move. Easier to scent.

“Run away! Run. The fuck. Away!”

She screams suddenly from the darkness. Our ears prick up. She’s here. We’ve found her. But she’s not happy. And she’s warning us. That’s what run the fuck away means.

The animal brain processes slowly. Her warning cry doesn’t frighten us, it indicates her presence. Running is the last thing we are going to do right now. We’re going to find her. We’re going to follow the scent until it reaches here, wherever she is, no matter what is happening to her, no matter how bad her situation is.

“Oh, my god, what the fuck. Run!”

She screams again. We bound toward her.

“Fuck.”