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“What if someone spots her?”
“Huntresses can’t fly. As for the rest of the Houses, even if they see her, they won’t snitch. Besides, Furies are the granddaughters of the night goddess so they blend in scarily well after dark.”
I open the mating connection, focusing on the roof. “Sadie isn’t with her.”
Stone grunts and the sound carries a surprising amount of meaning. “She know she’s your mate?”
“What are you talking about…” I cut off the lie at the don’t give me that shit look from him. “No, she doesn’t. Besides, it wouldn’t work out between us.”
“You’re mates. What’s there to work out?” He shovels a super-sized dose of sarcasm on the last.
“You wouldn’t understand. I’m sure you and Kiva were love at first sight with no issues. You two probably ran away to get married on your second date.”
He gestures for me to follow his lead, and I do even though I’m doing so blind because I can’t see anything around his giant bear shifter self. “Not that it’s your business,” he says, “but I’ll tell you in hopes that you won’t make Sadie’s life more difficult. Kiva didn’t say yes to marriage until my seventh proposal.”
“Man, how’d you fuck it up that many times?” I ask. He stops walking, and I almost crash into him. His low growl sounds like a windstorm coming to knock someone’s house down. “All right, all right. Sore subject, I get it.”
“My point is that having a mating bond doesn’t mean you don’t have to work to win your woman.” He leads me out of the hotel and into the night, crouched and sneaking through alleyways. A winged shadow darts over us from time to time. “Leave it to a wolf to be lazy about courting.”
“Cats are lazy, not wolves.” I’ve worked my human and beast tail off for years to rise in the marshal ranks.
“Chase, the mountain lion shifter mated to Sadie’s other sister? He almost died to win Dottie. What would you do?”
Damn, these men are serious about their Fury mates. I decide to break down the obvious for him. “The Furies can’t leave Syn City. I’m a marshal, and we aren’t welcome here. We can’t be a couple.”
“Being a marshal’s a job. A mate’s forever. The choice should be easy.”
“Says a guy whose old-timey weapons business was primed for success here in a place where you can’t use guns. The marshal’s office is the only life I’ve known.” Since Lowell’s dad wouldn’t openly disown me but made it clear to everyone that I would never be an alpha no matter how much alpha blood I had running through my veins.
“I get you don’t want to quit. The shifter murders have to stop. My pack lost a cub. I lost my wife to those psychopaths.” His growling returns with the last.
“You suspect multiple killers?”
“And you don’t? No one person—unless they’re a god or goddess—could do the kind of damage I saw when I found the body of our pack’s missing teenager. Whoever killed my Kiva and hacked Rylie into pieces? No shifter would’ve done that. Rogue or not.”
“Unofficially, I agree. The inflicted wounds don’t match any known claw pattern.”
“Whoever murdered Rylie used knives. Several different blades given the edging and serration of the gouges.”
I could use his expertise. The bear’s muzzle-deep in this already with his mate being one of the victims, no matter how temporary her death might’ve been. “Before I got arrested by the Huntresses, I had planned to stop by your school to ask if you and your mate would be willing to help with the investigation.”
“Once she finishes guiding us, Kiva will be busy since she and her sisters broke Tisia out earlier.”
“Sadie’s friend? The Gorgon bartender?”
“Yep. The Huntresses grabbed her first. Claimed she dosed the drinks to make everyone crazy.”
“I don’t know any spell or drug that could work that kind of magic so quickly on so many people.”
“That’s what Sadie argued. She’s pissed they took Tisia.”
But not that they took me. I shouldn’t be surprised, but it hurts. “Is that why your mate ran lookout for us and not—” Mine. I almost said mine. “Sadie.”
The bear scowls at me over his shoulder. “Your mate’s been grounded for the night, maybe longer. Huntresses’ orders. While the Furies will argue that their rivals don’t have the right to physically lock people up, they have to show some cooperation. Sadie said she would play hostage for the night.”
I bow up ready for a fight and turn to head back into town.
He stops me with a hand as big as a dinner plate. “Don’t worry about her. She turned it into a makeover and television marathon for the Muses and Nymphs who all volunteered to monitor her house arrest. It made for a nice distraction to get Tisia to safety and hide you in my forge.”
