He looks genuinely worried. Either he’s a fantastic actor or he is, in fact, genuinely worried.
“Hunter’s taken her by force,” Azazel says.
“What?” Eldrick’s lip curls in contempt. “I warned him if he laid a hand on her…” He strides away toward the door to his penthouse suite.
We follow him into opulence to find Larson lounging on the sofa, clutching a glass of whiskey. The beta doesn’t even bat an eye at our presence.
The man is older than Hunter by a decade and should have been in line for the alpha spot, but for some reason, Eldrick chose Hunter. It doesn’t seem to bother Larson, though. He seems perfectly at home on the leather couch with his crystal-cut glass filled with expensive whiskey.
“Hunter took Fee by force,” Eldrick informs Larson.
“I warned you,” Larson says. “I warned you that Hunter was a loose cannon.”
Eldrick shakes his head. “He has my daughter, Lar. This is not the time for I told you so.” Eldrick picks his glass off the table and drains it. “I thought maybe with time Fee would come around, that she’d discover the spark that makes Hunter her mate.”
“Fated mate,” Azazel says. “Hunter is her fated mate.”
Eldrick exhales sharply. “She didn’t say.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that he’s not what she wants.”
“Yes, but it explains Hunter’s crazy behavior of late.” He runs a hand through his hair in agitation. “The heat is painful for a female, physically, and if left unsatisfied, it can kill, but for a male, it’s mental torture.”
“Are you excusing his behavior?” Azazel asks incredulously.
Eldrick looks stunned. “No. No, of course not. I’m just attempting to rationalize it, to understand...He could have come to me. Told me. Maybe I could have mediated for them. But kidnapping her? Why such a rash move?”
His confusion reeks of sincerity.
I glance at Azazel, wondering if he’ll fill the Loup in. When he doesn’t, I step in. “Fee was on her way to mate with Grayson. She wanted to quell the heat so she wouldn’t be forced to complete the mating with Hunter.”
“Oh…I see. She chose his brother.” Something passes across his face, and if I knew him better, I might be able to decipher it correctly, because surely it can’t be what I think it is. Surely it can’t be sympathy?
“Yes,” Azazel says. “Fee chose Grayson, and Hunter took her.”
Eldrick’s expression hardens. “There is no excuse for his actions. He acted against me when he kidnapped my daughter. The alpha’s daughter.” He looks to Larson. “Larson, old friend…”
“I’ll send out scouts,” Larson says, setting his glass down and standing. “We’ll find him.”
Eldrick nods, and Larson leaves.
The alpha turns to us. “Find her before he completes the mating. If she doesn’t want him, forcing her into this will crush her and wreck their bond, twisting it into something dark and destructive. Hunter doesn’t realize the damage he could do to them both.”
This isn’t the face of a man who’s an accomplice. There is genuine distress in his eyes.
“Do what you need to,” he says. “I’ll get you the keys to Hunter’s room. Larson will scour our territory. Hunter can’t have gone far. I need to get out there and help with the search.”
“You didn’t know about this?” Azazel asks, blatantly.
Eldrick stares at him, horrified, and then the horror turns to anger. “I understand why you’d ask that. You don’t know me. Yes. It would benefit my pack to have my daughter join it, but not by force. Never by force. I loved her mother with all my heart, and I lost the chance to be a father to Fee, but I have her back now, and I intend to spend the rest of my years making her happy. Hunter may be her fated mate, but I want her to decide whether to accept that fate.”
I want to ask him about the rogue packs, about his plan to bring them together and take over Necro, but Loup business isn’t Dominus business, and Grayson has asked us not to make Eldrick aware of what he knows. Still, my gut tells me that this man isn’t capable of such duplicity.
Azazel places a hand on Eldrick’s shoulder, and I know he sees the truth too. Eldrick isn’t a liar. Eldrick is a man concerned for his daughter.
We leave Eldrick to mount a search of his own and step into the lift.
I press the button for the ground floor. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s innocent,” Azazel says.
“Which means that either Grayson’s source got it wrong or he’s lying.”
“That’s for Grayson to figure out,” Azazel says. “All I care about is getting to Fee.”
Me too, mate. Me too.
Chapter Four
Fee
The sun was setting by the time we sat down at the dining table in the spacious kitchen, all civilized as if we were on a winter getaway. I noted there were two exits—the main one into the room from the hallway, and a smaller door, partially hidden by the jutting fridge freezer. That one led to the formal dining room next to the kitchen, and from there, I could get into the hallway and to the front door.
A waft of garlicky goodness hit my nostrils. God, that smelled divine, and if I wasn’t mistaken, the garlic bread was homemade.
So, he could cook, so what?
He’d dressed down in a V-neck knitted sweater that molded to his muscular frame and hugged his biceps lovingly. He’d even pushed up the sleeves to expose his strong, tanned forearms. What was it about a guy’s forearms that made my knees weak? How could rolled-up shirt sleeves make my pulse quicken?
He caught me watching him as he laid the table and smiled slightly. “See, this isn’t so bad, is it?”
I crossed my arms defensively. “If you’re waiting for Stockholm syndrome to set in, you’ll be waiting a long time. All this nicely, nicely crap isn’t fooling me.”
He placed a plate of carbonara in front of me. It was garnished with some green stuff like you get in the restaurants.
My stomach made appreciative sounds. Damn traitor.
“Eat. You’ll need your energy.”
I looked up sharply. Did he know I planned to escape? No. I was being ridiculous. Why would he feed me so I could escape?
“Energy for what?”
He’d just forked some food into his mouth and chewed at a leisurely pace, finishing his mouthful before responding. “Rutting during a mating takes energy.”
He said it casually, as if rutting were an everyday thing, and maybe for him, it was, but I didn’t rut. It was a crude word, and I hated that it made my stomach flip in anticipation.
I focused on my plate, ignoring my stupid physical reaction.
“I won’t be easy on you,” he continued, but his tone was thicker now, as if he could sense my body’s reaction. As if he was feeding off it. “This second part of the mating, the part done in human form, will be primal. Our beasts will come to the surface, and it may go on for some time until the inferno becomes a steady burn.”
I forked food into my mouth and chewed with intent before swallowing. Yeah, I was going to need energy, all right. Energy to get the fuck out of here before he brought his cock anywhere near me, because once the heat hit, that cock would be the world to me whether I liked it or not.