Page 88 of Those That Are Lost

“It’s not set in stone, Red. Like with the mating bonds, pack bonds vary in strength and in power. Some can feel each other's well-being. Others can locate each other. We won’t know until we do it. Although, from the strength of both ourpowers I think we’ll have a fairly strong bond with our pack members.”

“But even if it’s not the most powerful it’s something, isn’t it?”

“Yes, we’d feel something if he was maimed. Though, if he’s killed outright, we won’t be able to do a thing about it.”

Red is quiet again. Too quiet.

“Unless one of us was there with him,” she states in frustration. Standing from the bed she starts pacing the carpet alongside it.

I’m momentarily distracted by the curve of her ass and the jiggle of her breasts as she turns. She catches me ogling her recently fucked naked body and I remember our conversation. “We can’t be there; we’ve been over this. Adicious would scent our mate bond too easily.”

“What if he couldn’t?”

I sit up then, crossing my legs on the bed, and pull the sheet around my hips. A pit of anticipation opens in my gut.

“Red?” I look at my mate, hooking an eyebrow.

“Remember…” She pauses, holding a hand out in front of her body. “This is a cover.”

“What is?” I say, completely confused.

It takes a few seconds but something wrong registers in my brain as I breathe, waiting for whatever Red is about to say.

The mate bond.

It's gone.

“What the fuck?” I fly at her. I land in front of her, cutting off her pacing and framing her face with my palms, forcing her to look up at me. My heart leaps into my throat as I inhale deeper, trying to scent us. I should be able to smell our connection on her. But I can only smell her.

‘Ty! It’s just a cover. It’s okay.’Comes through the mental bond as Red places her hand on my chest and gently pushesme back towards the bed. My knees hit the mattress and I’m forced to sit. She steps between my thighs. My hands come to her waist, never breaking contact.

I stare up at her, wide eyes and panicked. “Red, please… what’s going on?” I fight back the clawing feeling that’s trying to cave my chest in.

“It's a glamour,” Red says aloud, and repeats through the bond.‘It’s a glamour.’

‘How?’I fire at her, unable to voice the word. I do show her my fangs however, letting her know I’m two seconds from ripping into her throat to check her blood for myself.

“I’ve been practicing ever since we started talking about infiltrating Adicious’s pack. I’ve only ever been able to glamour my visual appearance, only ever wanted to. But as I’ve been researching, I found out that some Glamourers can change their scent too. The power is based on changing our appearance, to be able to blend in or disappear. With a society that relies on scent, it makes sense that it would extend to that too. Think how quickly Mitch and Demetri identified me even though I looked nothing like my natural form.”

True. I had been worrying about that.

“I’ve been trying it when you’ve been out the last few days. I didn’t know it actually worked until I saw your reaction.”

My heart slows incrementally. I still don’t like that she doesn’t smell like me, that the claim we have on each other is not clear for all to scent.She’s mine, gods dammit.

Red cups my face and looks down at me with her bright green eyes.

“I’m always going to be yours.” Her glamour drops and her scent immediately returns to the one mixed with my own. The need to sink my fangs into her still pulses just below the surface of my skin. I pull her onto my lap and take a deep inhale of her scent at the mark I left on her neck. Red clearsher throat before adding softly, “I want to go with Mitch and Antares, I want to secure the pack for us.”

Every single fibre, bone, and cell in my body wants to refuse her. We’d be separated. She’d be in that fuckers grasp once more. “I don’t like it.”

“I know,” she sighs, running a hand through my hair in our embrace. “But it could cut down the time we need. Antares wouldn’t have to risk sneaking information back to us.Wecould communicate the whole time and figure out which of Adicious’s pack would turn, given the chance. I can figure out who wants out.”

“We don’t know that our communication would work at any distance.”

“We’ve been a few miles apart this week with you running around the city.”

“That’s different.”