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Her back was to Maddox. She murmured something, then turned.
Maddox got his first look at her face. She was beautiful, from the pout of her lips to the elegant slope of her freckle-covered nose. Drawn to her like a magnet, he met her gaze through the shield of his sunglasses.
He froze on the edge of his seat.
“Holy shit,” he breathed out.
Her eyes were green. Forest green, dark and wild and full of life. So what if they were shadowed, her lips turned up slightly in the smallest of haunted smiles? He would know those eyes anywhere.
His cock punched to life so fast, he swore there would be zipper treads burned into the length by the time his erection finally went down again. If it ever went down again.
Evangeline.
By the time he got over the shock of seeing his mate in the flesh for the first time in years, she was halfway out of Mugs. So stunned, he didn’t even realize it when she looked away from him or when she started to leave him behind. But as the soft tinkle of the bell over the door rang and he caught a glimpse of her long legs as she walked away from him, Maddox’s predatory instincts awakened.
He was a beast, his beauty the prey.
The chase was on.
Abandoning his own cup, Maddox trailed behind Evangeline. It went against every instinct he had not to simply swoop her up in his arms and run off. It was her. His mate. He was absolutely certain it was. Only… her scent. He couldn’t get over how her scent had changed.
No. Not changed.
Disappeared.
The warm vanilla scent he adored simply wasn’t there.
It was gone.
He breathed again, his wolf whining with confusion. Maddox saw her. That was u
ndeniably his Angie. His sudden hard-on, his first one in more than three years, was proof enough.
But what the hell happened to her scent?
No wonder Colt couldn’t track her down. Except for the slightest hint of a sickly sweet scent that made his nose twitch, Evangeline left no scent trail. Once she stepped outside, the stronger odors of car exhaust, asphalt, and trash drowned out her meager scent.
His nose was out. Maddox had to rely on his keen animal sight to track her as she walked about a block ahead of him.
He followed her to an apartment building two blocks away from the coffee shop. Pretending he was interested in the bakery across the street from the building, he watched her reflection as he looked past the scones in the window. When he was certain that she was going inside this particular building, he struggled to wait another few minutes before heading straight toward the front door.
That was as far as he got.
The instant his hand closed on the handle, he was zapped. It was a mild jolt, a quick sting that warned him against touching the door again. Maddox ignored the warning. After shaking the sting out of his hand, he grabbed the handle and yanked, pulling the door open. He felt the pulse of magic as it traveled up his arm, the ache causing his entire right side to go numb before he tore his hand away.
Snarling under his breath, he folded his injured hand and tried to force his way inside. His boot kicked up against resistance; it felt like he walked into a brick wall. Maddox pressed his good palm against the patch of space in front of him and pushed. No go. He shoved and punched and growled and didn’t even move an inch inside of the entryway. His brute strength might have been enough to open the door, but even his shifter abilities were no match against Para-proof enchantments.
And that’s when he realized he was in bigger trouble than he first thought. Because Evangeline’s apartment? It was warded and there was no way he could get any closer to her.
Evangeline kept her drink in one hand, her cell phone in the other. She tried to keep her pace leisurely, looking like she didn’t have a care in the world as she strolled down Main Street. Inside, she felt like her heart was doing the mambo against her rib cage.
With only the tiniest of peeks over her shoulder, she glimpsed a big, dark figure loping quietly not more than a block behind her. Black shirt. Dark jeans. Sunglasses. It was the man from the coffee shop. She was almost positive. He was built like a linebacker, but moved like a freaking cat.
And he was following her.
Okay, she couldn’t say for sure that he was following her. There were probably thousands of reasons why he had appeared behind her as soon as she made her escape, her iced caramel macchiato in hand. They’d locked eyes for two, maybe three seconds when she was heading out of the coffee shop—and that was assuming he could even see her through the thick, dark shades he had on.
Evangeline wanted to think it was the sunglasses that caught her attention. Who wore sunglasses inside unless they had something to hide, right? Of course she was curious.
