A Prideful Mate (8 page)

A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

55

“I have your friend.” The voice was deep, raspy and completely unrecognisable.

“What friend?”

“The coyote.”

Payce swallowed the lump in his throat. Dennis, his only friend, was in danger. “What do you want?”

“All of you fucking shifters dead. You’re an abomination.”

“So you’re going to kill Dennis no matter what I do?” There was a pause. “I’ll send him to you in little pieces if you don’t go where I tell you.

Feel free to bring your fancy lion friend with you. The more shifters the merrier.” The man’s chilling laughter froze Payce’s heart.

Fuck.

“Here’s the address.”

Payce scrambled to grab a hotel pen and a piece of stationary. Quickly scratching down the address, he agreed to the time and place before the connection was cut and he collapsed on the bed.

Kevin was there in seconds, stroking his forehead with his large, warm fingers. “What’s going on?”

“Apparently I’m being stalked by shifter haters. They have my friend Dennis. He’s a coyote.”

“Don’t worry we’ll get him back.”

Payce opened his eyes to look at his mate’s worried expression. “He said I could bring you, the more shifters the merrier. Apparently he isn’t concerned with confronting the two of us.”

“The more shifters the merrier, huh?” A sly expression crossed Kevin’s face, unsettling on the usually friendly shifter. “Let me make a few phone calls.” An hour later they were speeding down the street to an address in the warehouse district. Neither of them decided to call the police because a stressed Dennis might have shifted and neither of them wanted to explain to the human police that there were other creatures in the world.

“Are you sure this plan of yours is going to work?” Payce asked his mate nervously.

A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

56

“Of course, darlin’, I wouldn’t bring you if I thought you could get killed. I don’t know this Dennis friend of yours and he’s not my mate so I could live with him bein’ killed.” His gold eyes flashed over to Payce. “You aren’t replaceable.” Despite his concern for his friend, Payce felt a rush of love for his overprotective mate.

“He’s the only friend I have so I’d like to keep him in one piece.” Dennis was important to him. As a shifter who always lived on the move, it was important to keep the few people he cared about safe.

“We’ll do our best, hon’,” Kevin said in his easy, relaxed manner.

Payce wasn’t fooled. The werelion’s hands were gripping the wheel so hard, his knuckles turned white.

The warehouse they stopped in front of looked like every other nondescript building on the street. Payce’s nerves were strung so tightly he was surprised they weren’t pinging.

He didn’t know who was in there but he knew this was a trap. They wouldn’t feel safe inviting two shifters if they didn’t think they had the upper hand.

The door opened as they reached it. Payce was shocked to see his foreman grinning at him from the entrance. “You fucker! I told them you were innocent.” Jim gave him a sinister smile. “That was sweet of you. Now they won’t look for me when you’re gone.”

Kevin growled beside him.

“Sorry,” Payce said to his mate.

“Don’t just stand there. Come on in and let me introduce you to some people.” Knowing this was a big mistake but unable to figure out how to get out of it, Payce followed Kevin into the warehouse. He stopped in his tracks at the sight of Dennis pacing a cage in coyote form. His eyes showed the panic he was feeling. There wasn’t much space for the animal to pace but it kept trying.

Payce’s heart broke at the despair evident in every line of his friend’s body.

A group of around two dozen people stood around the cage looking at it with varying degrees of contempt.

Payce jumped a little when the door slammed shut behind them.

“Welcome. This is a meeting of PAW, People Against Werekin. Cute name don’t you think?”

A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

57

Payce thought he wanted to rip the foreman’s throat out. It must have shown in his eyes because the man paled and took a careful step back before continuing. “Your friend Dennis here is instrumental in helping identify werekin.” Payce’s eyes went back to his friend. Dennis now crouched naked in human form in the middle of the cage, his eyes filled with guilt.

“Dennis?”

“I had to.” Payce could see the other man was close to tears but his heart was breaking for the friendship he thought they had, but was apparently a fabrication of his imagination.

“They have my sister, ” Dennis shouted.

“Shut up!” Jim snarled.

“Why do you hate us?” Payce asked.

“Because you’re nothing but filthy beasts. My mother dumped my father and me as soon as a weretiger came by and claimed she was his mate. Suddenly we were nothing.

Nothing! She just walked away. Every day for the rest of my childhood my father blamed me. If I hadn’t introduced her to my teacher, he’d still have a wife.” Jim lifted his shirt exposing a mishmash of scars covered his stomach. “This is what werekin did to me. We all have similar stories.”

The assorted crowd nodded their heads.

“That doesn’t make me responsible. It was your father that tortured you. It’s a terrible thing but he was a human and you don’t blame all humans.” Jim’s face twisted into an evil sneer. “He was the best father a boy could want until that weretiger took everything from us. It was the beast that caused the change. My father never laid a hand on me until she left.”

“So in return you’re going to torture other innocent people. How does that even make sense?”

Payce didn’t know what he was doing. Madmen didn’t listen to reason. The crowd wasn’t going to wake up and realise he was right. Now he was learning that the man he thought was his friend was the same one who put him and his mate in danger.

“If you’re all dead, this can’t happen to another boy.”

“You need counselling.” Payce said. He was surprised to notice his mate hadn’t said a thing.

A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

58

Kevin was looking down at his phone.

“You make a call and I’ll shoot him in the head.” Jim pulled a shotgun off a shelf behind him and pointed it at Payce.

“I don’t need to make a call,” Kevin said, still looking at his phone.

Jim shifted his feet. “Why are you staring at it then?”

“I’m just checkin’ the time.” Kevin’s drawl was slow and easy.

Payce knew his mate had made a few calls before he came, but he was waiting along with Jim for the explanation.

Glass shattered as dozens of wolves broke through the warehouse windows followed by a stream of lions. The screams of humans rang in Payce’s ears as the werekin left no one standing.

“Y’all are two minutes late,” Kevin reprimanded. “I was ‘bout to have to do something myself.”

“We wouldn’t want to put you out.” The lion alpha said, walking up to the pair.

Payce worked hard to look the man in the face, but a quick glance down let him know why Adrian was a happy, happy wolf.

“Called your alpha, huh?” Payce asked. Being a loner it didn’t even occur to him to call for outside help.

“No, he called my mate,” Talon said. “His brother decided it was too dangerous for him to come alone.”

Payce looked over to see Adrian glaring at Dennis through the bars. “Look, I found a coyote, can we kill him?”

The pack of wolves circling the cage reminded Payce for the first time that wolves hated coyotes. Apparently that dislike carried through to the shifter world.

“Not until he answers some questions,” Payce said.

Striding over to the cage, Payce looked at his former friend who glared back defiantly.

“How could you turn me over to that creep?”

“He’s holding my sister hostage and now I’ll never know where she is.”

“So it was all right to let him kill more shifters? Do you think that’s what she’d want?”

“Well, he is a coyote,” Adrian offered.

“Not helping, sweetie,” Talon said.

A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

59

Adrian bared a fang at his lover.

“She’d want to stay alive,” Dennis said. “Are you going to let me out of here?” Talon reached over and ripped the door off the cage. “There you go. I’d be careful about leaving with all the wolves around.”

“Can you help me find my sister?” Dennis asked Payce.

“I’m a tile guy and you tried to get me killed. What makes you think I would help you?”

Dennis swallowed hard. “I swear Payce, if I thought I could find her any other way, I wouldn’t have turned on you. Besides you’re one of the toughest shifters I know. If anyone could survive Jonathan, it would be you.

“Adrian could find her. He’s a whiz at computers,” Kevin said.

Everyone looked at Adrian who was still looking at Dennis like he wanted to rip his throat out.

“Y’all play nice now. You wouldn’t like it if it was your sister-in-law,” Kevin interceded.

Adrian’s expression lost some of its hostility. “True. Come with us and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’d keep an eye on your friend if I were you. I don’t know how long Adrian can keep his natural dislike of coyotes at bay and he’s used to getting his way.” Talon eyed his mate.

Payce inserted himself between Adrian and Dennis as they walked out of the warehouse.

A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

60

Chapter Seven

Payce tiptoed away from the office where Dennis, Adrian, Talan and Kevin were huddled around Adrian’s computer desk. He’d put it off long enough, it was time to talk to Tia. He didn’t want the woman to hate him or think he hated her. He found her in the kitchen curled around a plate of brownies.

“Hello,” he said hesitantly.

Her wide gold eyes, so like her sons’, looked at him with trepidation. “Hi.” She grabbed a napkin to wipe the chocolate from her mouth but didn’t say anything else.

“I thought it would be good if we got to know each other a little since the father of your children is my mate.”

“Were they bothering you?”

“What? No, no. They’re adorable. I think Quinn is a little concerned about a new person in his dad’s life, but Chase likes me. They’re sweet kids.” He finally got a smile from that. “Yeah they are.”

“I wanted to say how sorry I am for attacking you the other day. I don’t have the best control over my beast. It’s getting better, but it’s still shaky. Now that I’ve completed my mating with Kevin that shouldn’t be a problem any more.” Tia walked closer. “Try sniffing me.”

Payce walked closer. When they were less than a foot apart, he pressed his nose to her neck to get a good infusion of her scent.

“That better not be what it looks like or I’m whopping both of your asses!” Kevin’s gravelly drawl filled the air.

Payce stepped away from Tia so fast he almost fell. Spinning, he turned to face his mate.

“I was checking her scent.”

“You didn’t need to get that close.” Kevin stalked up to Payce.

He could see the lion close to the surface with every step his mate took.

“I wanted to make sure.”

Kevin wrapped his arms around Payce’s waist. “What did you learn?” A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

61

“That her scent isn’t driving me crazy any more. I didn’t feel the need to attack her.” Kevin placed a light kiss on Payce’s forehead. “That’s because you know I’m yours.” The satisfaction in Kevin’s voice made Payce laugh.

“Yeah, you are mine.”

“We found her.” Dennis marched into the room, a bounce in his step.

Kevin gave a low growl. The big lion still hadn’t forgiven the coyote for betraying Payce. For his part, Payce wasn’t totally aboard the ‘forgive and forget’ train either.

A low purr rolled from Tia’s lips. Kevin and Payce turned to look at the lioness. Tia’s eyes were focussed on Dennis as if he were a mouse and her cat wanted to play.

“Who are you?”

Payce thought Dennis looked more panicked than attracted and couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “This is Dennis.”

“Dennis who almost got the father of my children and his mate killed?” Tia’s look turned more feral than friendly.

Dennis took a careful step towards the doorway.

“Don’t even think about it, coyote,” Tia said in a dangerous tone. “I’ve hunted down bigger game than you. We are going to have a little talk about your tendency for betrayal.” Before he could argue Dennis was scrambling after Tia. He had to because she’d grabbed his shirt as she’d passed and hadn’t let go.

“I’d feel sorry for him if I wasn’t still mad,” Kevin said with a chuckle.

“Do you think she’s going to fuck or eat him?” Kevin shrugged. “Could go either way. We did find a few locations where we think his sister could be holed up. We sent out some groups to scout around. If they find anything they’ll report back.”

“Good. As much as I’m still mad at him, I don’t want his sister to suffer because of his mistakes.”

Kevin nodded. “Adrian is tracing the homes of the other people from their driver’s licenses.”

“You think someone has her stashed at their home.” A PRIDEFUL MATE

Amber Kell

62

“Yeah, they don’t look like they’ve got deep pockets and they were too cocky about not gettin’ caught. I’m sure they’ve got her somewhere at one of their homesif they didn’t already kill her. Dennis hasn’t talked to her in a few weeks.” Payce rested his head on Kevin’s chest. “Let’s hope for the best.” Kevin’s hand stroked through Payce’s hair. “I do have some good news for you.” Payce didn’t lift his head to face his lover; he was too comfy. “What’s that?”

“I was just in touch with the vice president of my company. They agreed to hire you to do some mosaics.”

Payce’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you ever heard of Lion’s Heart?”

“Yeah, they run those group of homes for homeless cubs. They do great work.” Payce was surprised to see his confident mate blush.

“I’m the one who started them. They agreed with me that some colourful mosaics outside each home would make them more welcoming. I’ve got seventeen homes that need mosaics. Would you like to do that for me?”