Page 106 of Heat Lightning

It wasn’t Gwen. My heart leaped from my chest at Max’s name lighting up my screen.

“Looks like he may already have…” Saint mumbled when I beamed at the phone screen, headache be damned.

Max

I’d like to talk, if you’re free sometime? Oh, and the glasses are perfect. Thank you.

I immediately called him. I was free now, and wanted to see him so badly my chest ached.

Not for sex or anything physical. I just… missed him. He slotted into my life, into my world, so perfectly after resisting the pull to be near him for so long. I missed his rambling about cultured butter and double-fold vanilla extract—whatever that was—and different types of cat food. I missed the concentrated look on his face when he brushed his teeth in the morning, and the way he smelled after wearing my sweatshirt all day.

Hell, I even missed his demon cat and the way he plotted my demise from the corner of every room.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up…” I mumbled as the phone rang out. When I got his voicemail, I hung up and tried again.

Voicemail.

Unease crept in. My thumb hovered over the Find My app on my phone, the habit to check on him second-hand by now. But after telling Gwen where to find him the night before, I’d respected his wish to be left alone.

I tried to call one more time. Again, the call went to voicemail.

Fuck it. I pulled up his location. Unease settled into dread. He wasn’t far from Gwen’s, in a parking lot I recognized immediately.

The diner where Weber worked.

My phone vibrated with an incoming call, and I answered before the caller ID even had a chance to populate. “Max? Are you okay? You need to get out of there right⁠—”

“Atlas, something’s happened.”

It wasn’t Max; it was Gwen.

Ice spread in my veins. I sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“We were at lunch. Everything was fine. Max got up to use the restroom and didn’t come back out. I checked, but no one’s in there. He wouldn’t just leave, Atlas. I don’t know what’s happened.”

I put her on speaker and pulled up the map again. Max’s dot now moved away from the diner at a fast clip, like he was in a car, headed for the edge of town.

My ears rang. “Weber took him,” I said, standing. “I forgot to tell you he works there now.”

How could I have been so neglectful? Gwen was saying something very fast, but I couldn’t hear. The room spun, and I would’ve fallen if Saint hadn’t caught me by the elbow.

“Atlas!” he called. “Atlas, calm down.”

“I should’ve—” I choked on the words, looking to where Enzo sat on the floor across the room, watching us.

I should’ve killed him.

“It’s what I’m good at,” I said to my brother, probably not making any sense. “It’s the only thing I’m good at, but I didn’t, and now he’s—he’s⁠—”

Why the fuck had I waited? Because I was scared of getting caught? Of going to prison? What was that, compared to losing Max?

Red blanketed my vision. All I could think of was Weber’s blood coating my hands. My alpha raked his claws down the walls of the cage I kept him in.

“Hey!” Saint shook me by the shoulders. “Calm down.”

He pushed me onto the couch and grabbed the phone, taking it off speaker. Their conversation faded behind the ringing in my ears. My vision pulsed, and darkness crept in at the edges.

Get up! my alpha snarled. Go get mate. No one else is going to save him. He needs us! Get up! Go! Kill the one who took him from us. Bathe in his blood, and then knot mate in it so he knows he belongs to us. Only us. Go, go, go!