Alpha Mate: BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance (11 page)

She could no longer see the street in front of her, and
the light of the overhead streetlamp flickered for a moment before
being completely eclipsed by that eerie, evil fog.

This was bad. Really, really bad.

Charlotte knew that she had just run into a shitload of
trouble. Her hand jerked out, reaching for the one man she knew
would never hurt her, and would always, always catch her when she
fell.

A strong, decadently sexy man with a smart mouth that
did sinful things to her.

And she had run away from him...after hurting him.

As the whispers grew and the fog swirled to create a
cyclone around her, Charlotte thought she could make out some faces
in the fog. The ground seemed to disappear from beneath her feet and
she suddenly felt as though she was falling, being catapulted through
a gap in space and time. She had experienced this just once before,
during her training.

Charlotte cursed silently and wrenched her hands into
her jacket to try to find her wooden stakes. She knew who, or rather
what, the enemy was.

God, I hate being misted!

She swallowed hard as the fog continued moving,
transporting her from that deserted street corner to God knows where.
She knew what the enemy was, but she didn't know how many of them
she'd be fighting once they de-misted and materialized.

Fighting down her nausea and muddled emotions, she
closed her eyes and thought a single thought with absolute clarity
and calm.

Lucas, I'm sorry.

Lucas ripped away the bandage around his belly with a
growl. There was a long, angry scar on his torso where Charlotte had
plunged her silver blade into his body. He grimaced at the throbbing
pain and scrubbed a hand down his face, feeling the bristles over his
cheeks and chin. That woman will be the death of him—literally.

He sat up and swung his long legs over the side of the
bed, glancing around the medical bay of the PAC Headquarters.

“
Alpha!” Jasynta's strident voice came
hurtling through the air, followed by her furious footsteps. “How
many times have I told you to keep still and allow the Protection
Potion to work its magic?”

“
I don't need no Protection Potion,” Lucas
snapped, grabbing his shirt off the back of a chair and trying to
shrug into it. “I'm fine. Werewolves heal fast. Naturally.
Without potions.” He struggled to get his arm into a sleeve,
wincing at the sudden onslaught of crippling pain. How did wearing a
shirt become such a challenge? Was he not healing as he should?

“
Yes, yes, yes,” the witch doctor answered
as she grabbed another roll of bandages and approached him
fearlessly. “But you were stabbed, not with any ordinary
dagger, but with a
silver
one. Your wound's infected. You're
lucky you're not dead. Lie down!”

When Lucas raised a brow at her commanding tone, the
sassy little witch merely wrinkled her nose and tagged on, “Please.”

When Lucas didn't comply immediately, Jasynta huffed and
resumed her imperious tone, “Lucas, I know you're Alpha and
all, but I'm the PAC's Emergency Medical Consultant—E.M.C. And
E=MC squared. Meaning: Emergency equals Medical Consultant
squared,” she spelled out for him, not mincing or slowing down
her words. “In an emergency, the medical consultant's power is
multiplied by...infinity. The Alpha being gored by a silver dagger
qualifies as an emergency. So in this situation, my power has been
multiplied infinitely,” she concluded triumphantly. “So
I'm telling you to please lie down and let me bandage up your wound,
Alpha.”

Lucas opened his mouth and was about to roar out
something to the effect that the PAC was so not going to renew her
contract as the PAC's E.M.C. if she dared wrap him up like a mummy
when he spotted Jett, Blake and Glenn leaning against the far wall of
the room and shaking their heads at him.

The Chief Trainer, the bear shifter and the Master
vampire were eyeing the witch doctor nervously and seemed to be
trying to inch away from her. Three towering, glowering males, all
over six feet tall and packed with muscle and power, appeared to be
in awe of a petite, curvy witch. Jasynta picked up a dark-colored
bottle from her box of medical supplies and approached Lucas with a
no-nonsense look on her face.

Lucas frowned, staring at his three silent PAC members
lined up like schoolboys against the wall. How did the little witch
doctor instil such fear in his most fearsome Council members?

“
Must be witchcraft,” he snorted, shaking
his head. “Hocus-pocus, mumbo-jumbo.”

“
I beg your pardon, Alpha,” Jasynta said,
cocking her head, one hand on her hip. Jett, Blake and Glenn tensed
visibly and he heard one of them gulp.

“
Nothing,” Lucas said quickly, and saw the
three large males breathe out a collective sigh of relief. “Please,
do what you have to do, my good doctor.”

“
A good doctor is what I am,” Jasynta said,
all seriousness. “Take a look at your wound, Alpha. A
werewolf really shouldn't mess with silver.”

Lucas glanced down and saw that black blood had started
to seep from the red scar, which rippled and looked like it was
threatening to tear wide open. The witch doctor wasn't joking. He
wasn't going to heal right without proper treatment.

Jasynta uncapped the bottle and smiled, but Lucas didn't
miss the glint in her eye. He braced himself. This was going to
hurt like a bitch.

“
Now, think of your most favorite thing in the
whole, wide world,” she said.

Immediately, the image of Charlotte flashed before
Lucas's eyes. He could see her vividly, her green eyes shining in
the dark, her mane of strawberry blond hair wild and disheveled, her
face full of fight and passion.

Her lips moved, and he seemed to hear her voice in his
head, in his heart.

Lucas, I'm sorry.

Lucas let out a howl as the healer poured the violet
liquid from the bottle directly onto his wound. The potion stung
like hundreds of bees, wasps, scorpions and stingrays attacking him
at once. He should know. He had wrestled and sparred with these
stinger shifters before.

When he blinked again, Jasynta had already finished
wrapping a fresh set of bandages around his abdomen.

“
Done.” She stepped back, and went to pack
her supply box. “Now, don't remove the bandages for at least
twenty-four hours,” she rattled off as she clicked her box
shut. “The Protection Potion needs time to...”

“
Twenty-four hours,” Lucas repeated, before
leaping off the side of the bed. “How long? How long have I
been out?” he shouted.

Jasynta opened her mouth, but Glenn strode forward.
“You were out for most of the day,” Glenn answered. “You
came in close to dawn. It was so close to daybreak I was nearly
singed while dragging you in. Thankfully it's nightfall now.”

“
I've lost a day,” Lucas said tightly. He
turned to the witch healer and said, “Thank you, Jasynta.
You're a good doctor, and you take good care of the PAC. Appreciate
it.”

She smiled. “It's my job. Looks like my work
here is done. I have to get back to the hospital.” Picking up
her case, she stopped at the door and gave him a pointed look.
“Remember...”

“
I won't remove the bandages,” Lucas said,
giving a three-fingered salute. “Alpha's honor.”

She nodded, and as she opened the door, Lucas noticed
her glancing over her shoulder at the brawny bear shifter, who
suddenly seemed to find the tiling on the floor particularly
fascinating.

“
Blake,” Lucas called out. “Would you
please escort Ms Morgan back to the hospital?”

Blake jerked as if he had just been struck by lightning.

“
I...” The big bear lurched and stumbled,
not minding that he had just been nudged forward with excessive force
by Jett. Jett winked at Blake and made a howling noise. But the
human couldn't howl for nuts. He sounded severely constipated.

“
Jett,” Lucas gritted his teeth. “Would
you mind...not howling?”

“
Why?”

“
We're discussing important matters here,”
Lucas said, shaking his head slightly as the door closed after the
blushing witch and the bumbling bear. “Can you give me a
report of...?”

Jett nodded immediately. He strode forward, his face
and tone grave as he reported what had happened to his Alpha, “Once
I got your call, I pinpointed Bryn's position and I managed to track
her. She was headed towards Eclipse Boulevard, in pursuit of a rogue
demon. I shadowed her until she cornered the rogue. She got the
demon to release the human but the demon bolted. She went after him,
and was chasing the rogue across Middle Park when...she was taken.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. “Taken?”

“
Yes. She was misted, just at the junction of
Eclipse Boulevard and Twilight Avenue. I gave chase straight away.
I followed the mist across the Chinatown area, past Dragon Alley, and
then I lost them. I haven't been able to get a bead on her location,
or on Charlotte's. Both Charlotte and Bryn are missing.”

At the mention of Charlotte, Lucas's heart seemed to
stop. The last time he had seen her, she was running away from him.

And now she was missing.

“
You shadowed Charlotte. What happened?”
Jett asked.

What happened?

What happened was I recognized the human rookie
Enforcer as my mate so I shifted into wolf form and interfered with
her Finals by fighting the rogue wolf that had dared hurt her! And
then I made out with her, and she stabbed me and fled.

And I lost her.

That's what happened.

Lucas took a deep breath. “I lost her.”

Lucas was aware that Jett and Glenn were staring
intently at him. They stood with their arms folded, their
expressions grim but knowing.

“
She's your mate, isn't she?” Glenn said at
last.

Lucas looked both men in the eye and nodded. “I
need to find her before the full moon. I've lost precious hours,
lying here swathed in bandages and potions, when I should be out
looking for her. There's no time. I can't scent her.” Lucas
turned to Jett suddenly. “Does Bryn have a mate?”

“
No.” There was the slightest hesitation
before Jett's throat moved. “Bryn is unmated.”

Lucas looked from the human to the Master vampire.
“Bryn may not have a mate, but she has a Master, has she not?”

Lucas saw Jett start, before turning to stare
open-mouthed at the Master vampire beside him. “You.”
Jett blinked and said slowly, “You turned Bryn.”

When Jett shot Lucas an accusing glare, Lucas only
shrugged. There was some information that was simply the privilege
of age. The longer you've been around, the more you knew. Jett had
been around for a little more than three decades. Lucas had been
around for three centuries and Glenn had been around for even longer.

“
Then you can trace her. She has your blood in
her. She will forever be connected to you, and...you to her.”
There was an odd mixture of both hope and resentment in Jett's voice.

Glenn shook his head. “We are connected, but only
in that instant just before death. It was an instant just before she
died as a human that she took my blood. Thus I can only sense her in
the instant just before she is about to die as a vampire. Otherwise,
she goes where she goes, does what she does without my knowing. It
is like an adult child, I guess. A parent will not know what the
child is doing with his or her life, much of the time. But somehow,
however far apart they are, the parent can sense when the child is in
mortal danger.” Glenn let out a heavy sigh. “A Master
vampire will always know when one of his own is near death. That is
the Master's curse.”

“
So by the time you sense Bryn, it might be too
late,” Lucas said, frowning.

“
No. We won't be too late.” Jett faced the
vampire squarely and demanded, “How fast can you travel?”

“
I reckon we're not talking about traveling on
foot. I thought not. Well, vampires can turn into mist and travel
at the speed of...mist. Which is, to put it in human terms, as fast
as you can blink.”

“
The vampires I chased didn't travel at the speed
of a blink. I managed to chase them halfway across the city before I
lost them,” Jett said, sounding unconvinced.

“
The vampires you chased obviously aren't Master
vamps. They need more than one vamp just to mist one female
vampire,” Glenn replied dryly. “That's why they travel
so slowly.”

“
And how many can you mist?”

“
I can mist as many as I like,” Glenn
smirked. “I am not your average vampire. It would take two or
three average vamps to mist just one person.”

“
So once you sense Bryn, you can mist Jett and me
to where the girls are, in the blink of an eye,” Lucas said,
stepping between Jett and Glenn.