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Panic infused every cell in Wes’s body. The blood whooshed in his ears, and his lion roared with fury and fear.
Our mate! He has our mate!
“He took her out the back exit.” Lusa pointed a bloody and trembling hand toward the back exit door.
Wes immediately ran for the exit. Cooper followed him, and Wes barely gave Chase a glance when he popped out of the t-intersection and joined them. Wes slammed open the exit door, adrenaline singing in his veins and his heart a jackhammer that threatened to break his ribcage.
He could smell the lion shifter’s scent in the stairwell, and the roar of his lion burst from his lips before he could stop it. He raced down set after set of stairs, the heavy footsteps of Cooper and Chase echoing behind him.
They reached the main floor and busted out into the lobby. Wes glanced around wildly. The lobby was mostly empty, and he whipped around to the left when Cooper shouted, “There!”
With Eleanor slung over his shoulder and hanging limply, the lion shifter ran down the hallway that led to the loading zone door. With another roar that made the half a dozen people in the lobby stare at him in shock and alarm, Wes shifted to his lion and took off after him.
His lion snarled when Chase zipped past him, but Wes didn’t give a fuck that the younger, faster cheetah was passing him even in his human form. All that mattered was Eleanor. His fragile hope that Chase would catch up to the lion shifter before he made it out of the lobby ended when the lion shifter put on a burst of speed that rivaled Chase’s astonishing speed and hit the loading door with the force of a bullet. The door opened with a loud bang, bouncing off the wall before slamming shut again.
Growling and snarling, Chase shoved it open and ran out. Wes and Cooper ran out of the building, and Cooper made a growl of surprise. A delivery truck with the words “West Coast Paper” stenciled across the roll-up door sped down the narrow alleyway. Chase, his arms pumping at his sides and his long legs eating up the distance, ran after it. His thigh muscles bunching, he leaped the last six feet, landing nimbly on the back bumper as he grabbed the narrow rail at the top of the truck.
“Holy fuck,” Cooper said, his voice thick with astonishment.
Wes ran down the alley, snarling when the delivery truck made a hard right at the end of the alley, its tires squealing and the vehicle nearly tipping before gravity caught up to it. The momentum swung Chase’s body sideways, and he lost his grip and flew off, slamming into the side of the building before falling to the ground.
“Chase!” Coop shouted.
Wes leaped over the fallen cheetah and onto the sidewalk. The delivery truck sped through the red light, narrowly missing a Honda Civic and forcing a silver SUV and rust-dotted Ford truck to connect with a squealing metallic crunch.
Wes ran past the startled pedestrians, but the delivery truck made another right and disappeared. Wes slowed to a stop before lifting his head and making another roar that sent the humans around him running for cover.
“Oh, for goodness sake.” An old lynx shifter, her hair silver and a cane in one liver-spotted hand stopped next to him with a frosty look. “It’s shifters like you that give the rest of us a bad name. Control your emotions, lion shifter.”
Ignoring her, Wes turned and loped back to the alley. He shifted to his human form, not giving a shit that a crowd of humans and shifters had gathered, and they were all staring at his naked ass.
“Don’t move, Chase,” Cooper said.
“I’m fine.” Chase climbed to his feet, wincing and rubbing at his lower back. “Nothing’s broken.”
“You don’t know that,” Cooper said as he placed a steadying hand on Chase’s arm. “You need to go to the hospital.”
“I don’t.” Chase shrugged off his concern and stared at Wes. “I’m sorry, man. I tried to hold on.”
“I know,” Wes said, his voice hoarse.
Cooper glanced at the people gathering around them. “C’mon, let’s get back to the office.”
Wes stared blankly at him when Coop took his arm. “Let’s go.”
“He took her,” Wes said. “He has my mate, Cooper.”
“I know. We’ll get Eleanor back. I promise, Wes.”
CHAPTER 23
“Okay. I convinced Mariana to leave, but I guarantee you she’ll be back here tomorrow demanding to know what the hell is going on. If we were looking to pique her interest in this story, that worked,” Cooper said as he walked into the boardroom.
He took one look at Wes and pulled out a chair. “Sit down before you fall down.”
When Wes didn’t sit down, Cooper said, “Wes, that’s an order.”
They’d long left the military, but having Cooper revert back to it, actually helped calm Wes’s chaotic brain. He sat down in the chair, staring at the cup of coffee that Grayson set in front of him.
