Page 5

5

BOAZ

“So what do we do?” I spoke through gritted teeth because I was pissed that my mate took a drug, not because he was sick but for recreational purposes.

He was a shifter, so why did he need to get high? He just had to shift, that was better than any manufactured drug. But no one should ask me how I knew that! Lips were sealed.

“He's not dead.”

“Ya think?” The doc raised a brow at my shouting, but he’d stated the obvious. I was expecting some long-winded medical explanation with big words that he’d need to interpret.

But I was taking the anger out on him instead of my mate because my mate couldn’t or wouldn’t shift.

This was so fucked up.

“Best guess is wait it out.”

I didn’t get the damned doctor out of bed so he could tell me to sit on my ass and do nothing. Turning around so I didn’t yell at him again, I fisted my hands, trying to funnel the fury from my body, not that it did any good. Anger was festering and bubbling inside me, and I might explode if we didn’t come up with a better solution.

“But when he shifts, he may need rehab. Even shifters can become addicted.”

Taking a deep breath, I contemplated having a life partner who was addicted to drugs. He was my mate, and though we hadn’t met in person, I adored him. That wouldn’t change, but I’d have to rethink my lifestyle and that of my family: no alcohol or gambling. None of them took drugs, though they wouldn’t tell me if they did, knowing I’d judge them.

I dug my nails into my palms, wishing it was my mate marking me, but he was meowing, and I chose to believe he was trying to communicate. But I was so peeved about what he’d done to himself, I ignored his cries.

Cats are independent .

I bit back a snarky response to my beast. This wasn’t the time to tell me about cat traits.

He might walk out and never return if you judge him.

I eyed the closed door, but cats were sneaky and they could squeeze through tight spaces.

“Is this room cat-proof?”

“Huh?”

“Nowhere the cat can escape.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes. “Not that I know of.”

I picked up my mate, and he mewed. It was safer having him in my arms so he couldn’t escape. Not because he hated me, though he might. But he’d witnessed me murdering another shifter. If he lived a quiet life away from other shifters, he might’ve been planning to bolt.

“Thanks. I’m going to take him home.”

“Watch him carefully and offer him plenty of water.” The doctor added that I should bring my mate back when he took his skin so he could run more tests.

That kinda horrified me ‘cause what if he couldn’t ever take his skin, and if he did shift, the drugs might have altered him forever.

Do you think he could become a lion or a tiger?

Not like that. I’ll explain later.

I texted my brothers in our group chat. Meet me at the house. Ten Minutes. Urgent.

My phone lit up with messages.

The house? Are you talking about our home?

We’re out of snacks. Bring more. Of course that was Lake.

Do you know what time it is? Apparently I’d woken up Maynard’s daughter, Luna. Oops!

I’m in bed .

Did you kill someone? We all got notifications about the drug deaths .

I ignored them all, especially about the snacks. Lake would have to buy his own.

The five of us still lived in the family home, as our parents had moved to the countryside when they retired. But our folks were on yet another cruise. I didn’t understand how they could be stuck on a big boat with a lot of people and unable to escape. Ewww!

I held out my hands, and the cat walked into them purring. He snuggled against me as we headed out. Having been in the car twice previously, he understood what to do and settled into what I now thought of as “his” seat.

Not wasting time, I took the shortest route home, and at this late hour, there wasn’t much traffic. Maynard had arrived before us because his car was parked on the street, and my brothers would all be awake and eager to discover why I’d called an emergency meeting.

Thinking back to when Maynard had done the same, I wondered why none of my siblings hadn’t caught on to it being about a mate. But they always said I’d be the last to mate, and I hadn’t told anyone that I’d broken up with the baker.

Once my folks found out I’d met my one and only, they might move back into our house because they were also on vacation when Maynard met Rhodes. Or maybe they would go on back-to-back cruises, as they were always pestering us to mate and give them grandbabies.

With one hand holding the cat, I went to punch in the door code, but it was flung open to reveal my five brothers standing in a semicircle.

“That’s the big emergency? You adopted or found a stray cat!” Thiago tut-tutted and yawned.

Lake glanced behind me, and his face fell when I told him I couldn’t stop off for snacks because of the cat.

“You could have gone to a drive-through,” he huffed and flung himself on a sofa.

“Seriously? You wake up my kid because you got soft and adopted a cat… from the street, judging by the matted fur.”

I shoved Maynard's hand away as he picked a grass seed off my mate. “Stop it!”

Five faces and annoyed voices must have been too much for my mate. He crawled over my shoulder, but I pulled him back. There were so many nooks and crannies in this place that I might never find him if he ran off.

Ezra groaned. “Am I to believe that you’re a cat dad now and we all have to bow to the kitty’s whims?”

“Kitty litter is in your room, bro,” Riggs snapped.

“Stop it!” That was my Beta voice, and my siblings froze.

Riggs gave in. “Fine. The litter can go in the laundry.”

“Shut it, you fools, and listen. I’ve met my mate.”

“I knew it.” Thiago leaped off the sofa. “Is he human? Did you stash him in the trunk of your car?”

“Is he handcuffed? I thought that was what we did to our brothers’ new mates.” Riggs had forgotten about kitty litter, and both he and Thiago had latched on to memories of when we met Rhodes for the first time. He chuckled, and he and Lake fist-bumped.

Ezra opened the door and peered outside, yelling there was no mate in the driveway, until I shouted again and told them they were asshats. “My mate is right here.” I pointed to the cat snuggled under one arm.

My announcement was greeted with five furrowed brows and huhs.

“Dude, that goes against shifter law and human ones.” Maynard lowered his voice. “That’s gross and?—”

I screeched, and the cat clawed my jacket. “Shut the fuck up, bro. He has a problem.”

“I think you’re the one with?—”

I glared at Lake, and he shut up.

“He can’t shift, and I think he either took some of the drugs at the Pulsepoint...” Or elsewhere. Until he shifted, it was all guesswork.

My brothers didn’t let me finish.

“Why would a shifter take drugs?”

“That’s not a great start to a relationship.”

Maynard sneezed and stepped away, saying he might be allergic to cats. I tossed a box of tissues at him, saying he was fine.

“I’ve heard of similar cases in the last month,” Ezra piped up.

“Was it deliberate or his drink was spiked?” Lake put his face close to the cat and meowed. It’d serve him right if he got scratched. “Like the ones that killed those shifters.”

“Do you speak feline?” I snapped. My brothers were my support network, and they weren’t helping.

“Sorry, no.” Lake waved at my mate

Ezra pulled up a message board on his laptop and scrolled through the posts. “See here and here.” The people posting assumed the drinks had been spiked. “But none of those instances were deadly as the Pulsepoint ones were.”

If that was what happened to my mate, perhaps he didn’t ingest the drug deliberately.

“But why?” Lake was puzzled why someone—shifters or anyone—would poison people. “What message are they sending?”

“Some asshats do it for kicks and others because they want to take advantage of omegas, especially.” I hated that it was true of our present-day society.

“I’m convinced that your mate being drugged and the shifter deaths are related.” We were silent after Maynard’s pronouncement.

“The deaths happened in our pack territory.” Riggs stabbed his finger in the air. “They killed our kin, and they did it on our land.” He clapped me on the back for killing the errand boys, but those guys we ended were the paid hands. Not the guys at the top.

“Who is behind this?” Ezra closed his laptop.

“Until we find out, you may be a target, Boaz, having killed some of their guys.”

I hugged my mate, and he nestled his head in the crook of my neck. If people were looking for me, I had to keep the cat safe. Handling a gun while holding a cat wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t put him in a cage.

“You should leave town.” Maynard was tapping his phone. “Go to the cabin for a few days.”

“Who are you messaging?” If he was sending out an alert about where I was going, he was putting me and my mate in danger.

“Grocery order. It’ll be here in twenty minutes. Then you take off. You can’t do your job as Beta and protect your mate when your mind is filled with ‘what-if’ questions about him shifting.”

I’d have to let Alpha know. I’d filed a report and spoken to him from the hotel but hadn’t mentioned meeting my mate or his little problem.

“I’m not one for the countryside.” The cabin wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. It was just outside a small town, but it was secluded and surrounded by an electrified fence.

“Stop being a baby.” Riggs folded his arms. “You have a mate to consider.”

“Fine.” I’d take off into the wilderness with my furry mate and wait out both his feline to human status and whether I was in danger from unknown elements of the mafia world.

Great!