“Sorry.” She screamed the word to be heard over the noisy crowd and ear-shattering music. He wasn’t sure how Christian dealt with this noise on a nightly basis. It was surprising his coven wasn’t deaf.
He gave her an easy smile and then walked behind Christo, entering the hallway and looking forward to the soundproof office. When Christian’s second closed the door behind Maverick, he sighed in relief.
“Now that you have us all here,” Christian said from the head of the table where the Ultionem was seated, “care to tell us why?”
Instead of taking a seat at the highly polished table, Maverick dropped down on the couch, setting his helmet beside him. “A cop in my town is after a coyote shifter.”
Everyone glanced at each other and then Christian turned back toward Maverick, his eyebrows pulled down. “What does that have to do with us?”
“He’s working for Kenyon,” Dante surmised correctly. “The head Vampire Hunter now knows shifters exist.”
Talking erupted around the table, everyone asking questions as Maverick watched them, waiting for them to quiet down.
“We don’t know that for sure,” Zeus argued.
“He could just have an ax to grind with the shifter,” Nazaryth interjected.
“Maybe the cop doesn’t even know this guy is a shifter,” Panahasi pointed out.
“Wait,” Ahm said loudly, cutting over the chatter. “I have a feeling there is more to this story.”
All six heads turned toward Maverick.
About damn time.
“There is,” he admitted. “The cop has been following Reno and his mate Baker. Officer Johnson tried to take Reno from his home at gunpoint and Baker is now missing.”
“That does sound like there is a bigger plot brewing behind the cop’s madness,” Zeus said as he shifted his mountainous body in the chair. “He’s using Reno’s mate for bait, or will be.”
“We have to find Baker,” Maverick said. “It seems the cop in question is nowhere to be found either.”
“Even if we find the cop and Baker, what about Kenyon?” Zeus asked. “It’s bad enough that he knows vampires exist. If he finds out about shifters, there is no telling what he will do. It’s a miracle he hasn’t gone public with his knowledge.”
“I think he wants irrefutable proof before addressing the media,” Maverick said more to himself than the group. He turned the situation over in his mind, looking at it from every angle. What would Kenyon gain from his knowledge?
“I still say we take him out before he opens his mouth, high profile or not,” Panahasi said as his fist came down on the table, making the glasses of water jump. “I can make it look like a terrible car accident, or he could burn alive in his penthouse. Trust me, Hondo is very good with fire.”
“And if he has files hidden somewhere?” Christian asked. “Do we continue to kill everyone who lays eyes on them?”
“Works for me,” Dante said. “It’s better than being exposed to the human world.”
“Let’s just catch this cop first and find out his motive.” Ahm leaned back, his belly more pronounced than the last time Maverick had seen the elf. It looked weird as fuck to see Ahm pregnant. Maverick remembered the man when he used to be blue, fierce, and closed off from the world. It seemed being mated to a Lakeland bear had mellowed Papa Smurf out. Too bad, Maverick used to have fun picking on the guy. He wasn’t even blue anymore. That just sucked. “It might not be Kenyon behind the scene,” Ahm finished.
It might not be, but Maverick’s gut told him that not only was the head Vampire Hunter pulling Officer Johnson’s strings, but this was only the beginning.
* * * *
Reno had been hunting his mate for the mating game before. Now he was on the hunt to find the man before Johnson did something horrendous to the human. Maverick had said he would help, but Reno couldn’t sit on his ass and do nothing.
“Anything?” Chief Callahan asked as he strode into the break room, a cup in his hand. The bear rinsed the cup out and refilled it with coffee. He set the empty carafe on the counter and then cut his eyes over to Reno.
“Nothing yet and I’m tired of waiting.”
“Then go search, but be careful. If Johnson reported the assault—”
“Cops would be swarming this place by now,” Reno finished, speaking through his teeth with forced restraint. “They aren’t, so I’m assuming he fled to where he’s keeping Baker.” If Reno had known at the time he had tagged Johnson with his fist that the rotten cop had kidnapped his mate, Reno would have hidden and followed the guy.
Now he had no clue where to begin searching. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands as he stormed from the firehouse to hop on his motorcycle and…go where? His intuition told him the cop hadn’t taken Baker too far. There were plenty of old houses standing empty around the county. But they were too many for Reno to search door to door.
There was a pain in the back of his throat and he found it difficult to swallow. If anything happened to his mate, Reno wasn’t sure what he would do. He was just getting to know the man.
“Do you want help looking for him?” Reno turned in the parking lot to see Bear walking toward him. “I haven’t a clue where to look, but if you need an extra set of eyes, I’m all yours.”
This was the second time today Reno had someone helping him. He wasn’t used to it. He had done things on his own for a very long time. Asking for help was hard for Reno, but this was for Baker. His pride be damned. “I’m not sure where to start either,” he finally admitted to someone other than himself.
“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, Reno.” Bear stepped closer. “Everyone needs help once in a while.”
Reno had tried his entire life to do things on his own, on his terms. But
