Perfect Mate (8 page)

Nell went cold, then hot again. She’d felt it, though she’d been trying to deny it,
the tiny seed in her heart, the minute tether that could grow into something amazing
if she let it.

“Cormac.” She shook her head. “Too soon. Too fast.”

Cormac smiled at her. “Nell, under the Father God and before a witness . . . I claim
you as mate.”

Brody stared at them a second then broke into a wide grin. “Yes!” He pumped both fists,
but his shout was a whisper.

Nell’s throat closed up in panic. “That’s a dirty trick, Cormac.”

“I’ve waited too many years to find a mate of my heart,” Cormac said, his hands warm
on hers. “But there’s no time like the present. I’ve mate-claimed you, love. Promise
you’ll at least think about it?”

“This isn’t the time or place,” Nell said.

“Stop arguing with him, Mom,” Brody said. “Just go with it for now.” His huge grin
broke through again. “This is awesome. Now we need to get Shane, so we can celebrate.”

***

Cormac moved with newfound speed. He knew the mate bond was forming between him and
Nell—it had started in Cormac when he’d found the letter from Magnus and read the
words across the decades.
Find Nell. Care for her in the way I haven’t been able to.

Cormac had felt the bond grow when he and Nell had been alone in the cabin—the spark
had jumped like the flames that had leapt from the kindling in the fireplace.

The mate-claim was the first real step in making her his. A mate-claim meant Cormac
had declared his intentions to fully mate with her, that he wanted her to join with
him in the official ceremonies under sun and moon, which would bind them together
forever. It meant that all other males had to back off, that Nell was
his
.

Cormac wished he could have found her all those years ago, so she wouldn’t have had
to make her way in the world alone, truly alone. But at least he was here now, and
he could get Shane back for her.

Whether Nell refused his mate-claim later, or denied that she felt the mate bond,
Cormac could at least make sure her cub was safe. He’d been too late to help Nell
in the past, but he could help her now.

Cormac skirted the clearing under the cover of the trees, keeping to the shadows and
making his way around to the back of the cabin. This low in the mountains, the snow
had melted, but clouds hung over the peaks, and the cold breeze from them said that
snow was on its way.

The cabin looked quiet, but Cormac knew that two living beings were inside. He could
scent them clearly—one human, the other Shifter, injured and overlaid with the strong
scent of unhappy grizzly.

The porch wrapped all the way around the cabin, the interior one story. Probably two
rooms—kitchen and living room combo and one bedroom with a small bathroom. Compact,
tidy, great summer getaway.

The cabin had too many windows. Cormac couldn’t be certain in which room the hunter
and Shane waited—living room or bedroom. Bathroom might work as an entrance if Cormac
went in human. That is, if he could figure out which window led to the bathroom, and
if the bathroom had a window at all.

He kept to the shadows as he drew as near to the cabin as he dared. One corner was
shaded by a huge pine, but that corner also could fully be seen by the wide windows
across the back porch.

The side of the house was more exposed to the clearing but had fewer windows. Cormac
shifted back into human, lowered himself to a crouch, and ran from the edge of the
trees to the house, pressing himself down under the windows.

The bare ground beneath the windows was littered with junk, but nothing as helpful
as a periscope or even a mirror presented itself. There was, however, broken glass
and rusty nails to cut Cormac’s bare feet.

He risked a quick look into the first window, but a shade had been drawn, showing
him only a blank white. A window shade would mask what was inside, but if Cormac stood
up outside it, his silhouette might show. A shooter needed only the silhouette.

He went at a crouch to the next window and darted another look inside. A shade had
been drawn down on this window as well, but one inch above the sill had been left
exposed. Through that gap, Cormac saw a dim bedroom with junk strewn across the floor
and piled on the bed.

The room was empty of people, though. No Shane, no bounty hunter.

Cormac checked the windows for wiring that would mean an alarm system. Nothing. The
windows were newer than the cabin itself, panels of thick glass that slid sideways
to open, screened to keep out bugs.

Cormac carefully removed the screen from the bedroom window. The window itself was
sturdy, double paned, and though there wasn’t a lock or alarm system, the window was
definitely latched.

Old windows in decent condition were much easier to pry open than new windows engineered
to withstand fire, high winds, and burglars. On the other hand, windows could be taken
apart from their frames if a person knew how, and Cormac knew how. The one job the
humans had let him have in Wisconsin had been construction. He hadn’t been allowed
to use the big boys’ tools, but he’d been very good at carpentry and component installation.

Cormac fished around the litter on the ground for nails that weren’t too far-gone,
and pushed these around the frame as shims. He’d need to find something flat and sturdy
to use as a crowbar. He had a tire iron back at the truck but running there and returning
unseen was too much of a gamble.

He also had to work as quietly as possible so no one would hear the
snick, snick
of him trying to remove the window. He would have to—

Boom!

The window shoved itself outward under his hands. Cormac dropped the nails and covered
his face as fire lit up the room inside. Fire engulfed the front windows of the house
as well, and a line of flame zipped down from the porch and headed for the propane
tank, used for the cabin’s winter heat.

Cormac was shifting to bear even as he ran for the propane tank and its safety valve,
his half-shifted claw-hand slamming off the propane just before the fire reached it.

He lunged away from the tank and back to the house, which was burning merrily. Another
explosion rocked it deep inside, the roof now in flames.

Coming across the clearing were Nell and Brody, both in bear form, both running all
out.

Nell would try to burst in there to save her cub. She’d get herself burned all to
hell, and maybe shot by the hunter, if he was still alive.

Before Nell and Brody made it halfway across the clearing, Cormac turned and dove
through the broken front windows and into the fiery room.

Cormac couldn’t see anything. Fire raged, and smoke choked the room. Cormac’s full
grizzly body had shoved the broken window out of the frame, and glass cut through
his fur, but he barely felt it.

His claws snagged on a rug on the floor. Shifting to the beast between human and bear,
Cormac seized the rug and flung it across the sill, creating a temporary break in
the flames.

Something moved in the shadows of a corner. Cormac ran that way, blinded by smoke.
He found chains, too strong to break, a limp body on a chair, the hot liquid of blood.

Cormac stayed his bear-beast, a creature nearly eight feet tall, head bumping what
remained of the low ceiling’s beams. He grabbed the body, chair and all, and half-carried,
half-dragged it to the window and the rug across it.

He heaved the chair and Shane outside. The chair landed on its back on the porch,
breaking the porch’s boards. Shane lay unconscious, covered with blood.

One of the grizzlies running toward the house shifted to become Brody. He seized his
brother and pulled him off the porch and away from the house.

The second grizzly came barreling into the cabin after Cormac.

“Nell!” Cormac tried to yell, but there was too much smoke for a breath.

The hunter was in a corner in the living room, his rifle in his hands. As Nell charged
him, her Collar arced electricity around her neck, trying to slow her down. The hunter’s
rifle came up, the barrel pointing at the center of Nell’s chest.

Cormac bellowed. He became grizzly all the way as he leapt at Nell, shoving her hard
aside. The gun went off, the bullet catching Cormac full in the belly.

As pain erupted in his stomach, Cormac heard Nell roar. She reared on her hind legs,
mouth open to flash her insanely huge teeth, an enraged grizzly ready to kill.

When she came down a second later, her great paws broke the rifle into three pieces.
Then Nell went for the hunter, her Collar sparking like crazy.

She would have savaged him, killed him, and ripped apart his body, if a tranq dart
hadn’t thwacked into her side.

Nell screamed a horrible snarling scream. She came down, missing the hunter, her form
swallowed by flame and smoke.

Cormac leapt after her, feeling like his insides were falling out. He found Nell’s
slow-moving body in the smoke as she tried to heave herself to her feet.

The tall form of the Fae called Reid stood just outside the front window, a tranq
rifle in his hands. Diego and Xavier flanked Reid, and behind them were Graham and
Jace.

Reid handed Diego the tranq rifle, swung in through the window, and moved to the human
hunter. Reid grasped the hunter by the shoulders, and then he and the human . . .
disappeared.

Cormac’s bear blinked, then coughed, pain buckling his legs.

“Out!” Diego shouted. “Before it comes down on you.” Cormac tried to climb to his
feet, slipping again to the floor. Xavier whipped inside, wrapped wiry arms around
Cormac’s backside, and hauled him up.

“Move your ass,” Xavier shouted. “Before I move it for you.”

Graham and Jace went for Nell. Nell swatted at Graham, but Cormac growled at her.

Nell wouldn’t go with Graham. She staggered to Cormac, her muzzle dripping blood,
her eyes as red as the flames around them. Cormac put his shoulder to hers, leaning
on her strength.

Together, supporting each other, encouraged by Jace and the cursing Graham, Cormac
and Nell pushed through the rug-draped broken window, half tearing out the wall with
them, and staggered out into the cold, fresh breeze of the mountain morning.

***

Brody made sure everyone had shifted back to human before the fire trucks arrived.
The cabin was beyond saving, but the danger that the fire could spread to the forest
beyond had multiple fire trucks there within minutes.

Diego and Xavier stayed in the clearing to talk to the firemen. Brody and Graham had
gotten the rest of them all into the pickups a little way up the road, out of sight
of the fire.

Graham did some quick first aid on Cormac’s gunshot wound, saying it had been a clean
shot, and Cormac should be all right if he didn’t move around too much. It hurt like
hell, but Cormac knew it could have been worse.

Nell was fine except for coughing up smoke, but Shane was more of a worry. He was
still out, lying flat in the bed of Cormac’s pickup. Graham had picked the padlock
on Shane’s chains and was now performing his quick patch-up on the bear, but Shane
didn’t wake.

Reid had the human hunter locked in a pair of handcuffs and now stood over him, training
a pistol on him. Dimly Cormac reflected that pistols and handcuffs were made of steel,
and Reid, a Fae, shouldn’t be able to touch either of them. Iron made Fae sick, could
kill them even. Reid showed no sign of weakness, however, as he continued to point
the semiautomatic at Joe Doyle.

Nell had squeezed back into her little black dress. She had to be freezing now that
light snow was starting to fall. But instead of huddling in the pickup’s cab with
the heater on, she sat in the bed next to Cormac, very close to him.

Cormac put his hand on her warm thigh and let it stay there. They needed to talk,
but not now.

Now was not the time for words. It was time to let the mate bond silently grow while
Cormac and Nell healed and took care of Shane. They’d speak of forever later.

“Last time I work for a Shifter,” the bounty hunter muttered. He shifted his weight,
trying to get comfortable in the cuff s, but he made no move to run away. “How’d you
get me out of there?” he asked Reid. “Did I pass out?”

“Yes,” Reid said.

He lied. Cormac smelled the lie, plus he’d witnessed Reid grab Joe and vanish. Another
thing to talk about later.

“A
Shifter
hired you?” Nell asked sharply. Her voice grated with inhaled smoke, but Cormac’s
throat didn’t work at all.

“He must have rigged my place to blow up,” Joe said. “Then called me and told me to
stash the bear and wait for him, so he could make the kill himself. But he never intended
to pay the bounty. He just wanted to slaughter. Didn’t care if I went up too. Bastard.”

“What Shifter?” Brody prodded, voice hard.

“Dick-wad who calls himself Miguel.”

Graham looked up from where he was bandaging Shane, eyes narrowing. “Isn’t Miguel
the Shifter who kept Peigi and the others sequestered in the old factory in Mexico?
Until Diego blew it up?” He chuckled. “I’d have paid money to see Diego do that.”

“I thought Miguel had been caught,” Brody said.

Reid shook his head. “About half those Shifters got away. The Austin Shifters have
been trying to round them up, but they’ve only caught a few of them. Miguel is resourceful.”

“So he’s taking out his frustration by putting a bounty out on Shane?” Nell demanded.

“Not just Shane,” Joe answered. “He also wanted Reid here, plus Diego Escobar and
Cassidy Warden. I guess he blames them for his problems. If Escobar blew up Miguel’s
home base, I’m guessing Miguel thought he’d blow up the perpetrators in return. He
has a serious screw loose.”

Reid gave him a hard stare. “What about you? You nabbed Shane and were going to hunt
me, Diego, and Cass.”

“No, I’d pretty much decided on just the bear. You and the other two were too risky,
even though the money was good.”

Cormac felt Nell tense, ready to come off the truck bed. “
Just
the bear?” Her voice held a warning snarl.

“He seemed like the easiest target,” Joe said without worry. “I don’t kill humans.
Guess I was wrong about the bear being easy though. No way I would have gotten through
all of you to collect the bounty, even if Miguel hadn’t exploded my place all to hell.”

“Where is Miguel now?” Graham asked.

Joe shrugged. “Don’t know. We only communicated by cell phone, and I bet his is a
burner.”

“If my son dies,” Nell said clearly. “I’m taking it out of your hide.”

“I think he’ll be all right,” Graham said, tucking in Shane’s bandage. “Anyone got
any booze? I’m going to try to wake him up, and he’ll need something for the pain.”

“We’re fresh out,” Jace said, coming back from Diego’s truck, where he’d been on the
phone. “Reid, can you get Shane home safe? My dad can look after him. Tell Dad everything
that happened, but assure him that Graham and I have got it on this end.”

Reid nodded. He handed Jace the pistol, climbed up on the truck bed next to Shane,
wrapped his arms around the unconscious bear-man, and vanished. Displaced air stirred
the ends of Nell’s hair.

“Shit,” Cormac croaked, at the same time Joe’s eyes widened. Joe stared at where Shane
and Reid had been. “Hey, did anyone else see that?” he asked.

Reid, Cormac decided, for some reason could teleport. He’d never heard of a Fae being
able to do that, but then, they weren’t supposed to be able to touch iron either.
Cormac shuddered. “Do you ever get used to him doing that?”

“No,” Graham said.

Nell ignored them. She was twitching, fighting her instincts to kill Joe and rush
off to be with Shane. Cormac gave her thigh a weak squeeze, trying to soothe her.
Nell’s face was smeared with soot, her hair wild, her neck singed by her Collar going
off. Cormac thought she’d never looked more beautiful.

“Tell me what happened in there,” Nell said to Joe in a hard voice. “How did Shane
get hurt?”

“A little homemade bomb under the kitchen counter,” Joe said. “I spotted it right
before it went off. It had a cell phone trigger—Miguel called me. The second bomb
was in my fireplace, and Shane was sitting right next to it. I guess a lot of shit
flew into him. Not my intention. My instructions were to keep Shane alive.”

“So that Miguel could kill him?” Nell’s Collar emitted three bright sparks. “I’ll
make you pay for that in so many ways, little human.”

“Settle down,” Jace said, an edge to his voice. “We can’t murder a human, much as
we want to.” He looked at Joe. “Do you have a way of getting in touch with Miguel?”

“If my cell phone isn’t fried, his number will be on it. I have another phone in my
truck—would be on that one too.”

“You’re nice and cooperative,” Jace said.

“I’m a businessman. And this deal was a bad business decision—I get that now. If you
want to take down Miguel, you go for it. He’s too crazy for me.”

Graham went in search of one of the phones while Jace continued to watch Joe. Brody
climbed into the truck bed to hunker on the other side of Nell. Surrounded by the
warmth of Cormac and her second son, Nell began to relax, a little at a time. But
her eyes still held rage and terrible fear.

“Shane’s in good hands,” Cormac said to her. “As soon as Diego and Xav are done here,
we’ll go to him.”

“I know that.” Nell gave him an impatient look. “Shane’s resilient, and Eric knows
what he’s doing. I’m worried about you, you idiot. Why did you push me away like that
and get shot?”

Cormac growled. “So I wouldn’t have to watch you be mowed down by a rifle, woman.
Why do you think?”

“I can take care of myself.”

Cormac heaved himself onto his elbows, anger giving him strength. “Don’t spout that
bullshit at me. Of course you can take care of yourself—under normal circumstances.
But don’t stand in a burning building with the Goddess knows how many more incendiary
devices in it, with a bullet coming at you, and scream,
I can take care of myself.
The bullet doesn’t care. Sometimes we can’t do it all by ourselves. Sometimes we
need other people. Doesn’t mean you’re helpless. Just means you’re alive.”

Nell blinked at him, her Shifter fury still in her brown eyes. “Since when are you
an expert at togetherness? You decided to sneak into a cabin to find a Shifter bounty
hunter who had who knew how many weapons—
by yourself.
”

“Best way at the time.”

“Well, jumping in there and dragging out your ass and Shane’s was the best way for
me.”

“You almost died!” Cormac roared, which hurt his throat like hell.

“So did you!”

“Sheesh,” Brody said, half rising, his hands up. “Could you keep it down? Explosions
give me a headache.”

“They can’t help it,” Jace said. “They’re mates. The ceremonies will be only formalities
at this point.”

“He is not my mate!” Nell shouted.

“Yes, he is,” Jace, Brody, and the bounty hunter said together.

Nell growled and snapped her mouth shut, but at least her terror had left her.

Graham returned with a phone, plus Diego and Xavier. Diego studied Joe without expression.
“Miguel, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Wonder why he didn’t take out a bounty on
me
,” Xavier said, looking a little hurt. “I was there too.”

“You were unconscious, with a broken arm,” Diego said.

“True,” Xavier said. “Now I remember. All the pain, the thirst, the stink. Good times.”

“I should have shot him when I had the chance.” Diego took the phone from Graham.
Joe indicated which of the unnamed numbers was Miguel’s, and Diego tapped it.

“Miguel,” Diego said in a cheerful voice when someone clicked on at the other end.
“This is Diego Escobar.” He went into a string of Spanish Cormac didn’t understand.
Diego was still smiling, but his eyes were hard. Joe must have understood the words,
because he winced.

“The easy way would have been to surrender to the Shifters looking for you earlier
this year,” Diego said to Miguel, switching to English. “The hard way is going to
be me and every Shifter I know coming after you. You’d better keep an eye over your
shoulder, day and night, waking and sleeping, because we’ll be right behind you, Miguel.
And when we find you this time, we’re not going to be so nice. No, that’s it. You
don’t get to talk.” Diego clicked off the phone, tucked it into his leather coat,
and kept his smile as he turned to look at Joe.

Joe’s body tightened under Diego’s scrutiny. “Let it be known I was cooperative,”
the man said quickly.