Mate Bond
Page 66

He’d walked into every pocket of mist he could find, until his human hair or wolf’s fur was dripping wet, and he still found himself in the familiar wilderness of western North Carolina.
“Where the hell is she?” he snarled at Gil.
“The pockets move,” Gil said, shaking his head. He’d gone to a cabin he owned nearby to change out of his nineteenth-century clothes, and now wore jeans and a UNC sweatshirt. He’d been heading to this cabin, he said, to hide from Kenzie when she’d chased him from the hotel. “I tried to go in after her, but most of the gates are locked to me.”
“Why are they?” Bowman demanded. “What does that mean?”
“It means I was kicked out of Faerie a thousand years ago, and anything that smacks of Fae magic is barred to me. The Fae made gates to lots of worlds back in the day, though most of them have vanished, disused. The pockets are what’s left. I can’t traverse them.”
“A thousand years ago?” Bowman stared at him.
“Yeah,” Gil said. “I’m older than I look.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass. Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this before? About the gates? About you being from Faerie? You don’t look Fae.”
“Because I’m not. And I had no idea there were pocket gates in this part of the world, or that your professor was breeding monsters. He shouldn’t be able to.”
“I shouldn’t be able to turn into a wolf, but I do.” Bowman slung him away, tired of arguing. “Where else can we find these gates?”
“Everywhere. Anywhere. They come and go. A Fae talisman can make them easier to find and use, instead of hit or miss, but working talismans are few and far between. I’m sorry it’s not what you want to hear, but there it is.”
Shit. Bowman swung from Gil and walked away, deeper into the woods, where all was silence. The trackers didn’t follow him, knowing he needed to be alone for the moment.
Bowman stopped and let out a long, steaming breath. Kenzie, where are you?
He wouldn’t accept that she could be gone forever. Magic happened, yes; but magic could be undone. If Kenzie had gone into a gate, she could come back out of it. Logical.
Bowman didn’t want to admit that magic could be more complicated than that. People vanished all the time, never to be found again. Magic had created the beast that had attacked them in the roadhouse—a beast like that shouldn’t have been able to exist.
Gil shouldn’t be alive after a thousand years, but there he stood. Kenzie shouldn’t be gone. But she was.
No. Bowman clenched his fists and pressed them to his stomach. He wouldn’t let her be gone. He’d find her. She was his mate.
Ryan didn’t know yet. Bowman would have to tell him—he deserved to know.
Damn it. Bowman straightened up, his eyes burning.
The others were waiting for him, expecting him to give them orders, expecting him to be leader, no matter that he was dying inside. Even Cristian, as impatient and volatile as he was, was taking his cues from Bowman tonight.
Bowman should know what to do. But he didn’t.
He strode back to the waiting group and took a deep breath, the cold mountain air washing into him.
“Pierce,” he began. “Take Gil home with you. The two of you will find out all you can about these pockets and how to get into them. Pull in every Guardian out there to help you if you have to. Cristian, you, Cade, and Jamie keep looking for Turner. I want him alive and able to talk. I’ll join you after I contact some resources of my own.” He pointed at the other Shifters who’d come to help. “The rest of you will keep looking around here for Kenzie or any of these gates. No one go in, just call if you find anything.” He swept them in a collective glare, ending at Cristian. “And no one is to blab any of this to my cub. I’ll be telling him. Got it?”
The Shifters didn’t stand around and argue. They dispersed to their tasks without a word.
Except Cristian, of course. He could never let himself be seen simply obeying Bowman. Oh, no. Cristian regave orders to the Lupines in his pack to search for Kenzie, then he joined Bowman.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Bowman asked him as he strode for his motorcycle.
“Back home to my mother,” Cristian said. “She deserves to know what’s happened to her granddaughter. From my mouth.”
He had a point. Bowman mounted his Harley, kick-started his engine, and took off down the rutted track, the slice of Cristian’s light close behind him.
* * *
It was forty or so miles back to Shiftertown, the first part of the trip slow through dirt roads that had frozen over. The highway was a little faster but full of icy patches. An hour later, Bowman rode into Shiftertown, not stopping until he reached Afina’s.
Bowman dismounted and strode up to the house, not worrying about territory and courtesy today. But once Afina let him into the kitchen, and Ryan ran in to meet him, Bowman halted, his feet suddenly unable to move.
“Ryan.” Bowman’s mouth was tight, words dying in his throat.
He heard Cristian enter the house behind him. Afina went to her son and asked him something in Romanian. Cristian shook his head, and Afina put her hand to her chest.
Ryan was looking up at Bowman. His back was straight, his head high, the wisdom in his eyes too old for his twelve years. “Just tell me, Dad.”
“Your mother.” Bowman swallowed, a world of pain inside him. “She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Ryan’s question held no panic, only need for information.
“Don’t know.” The words rasped. “Lost her.”
Cristian quickly filled in about the idea of the pockets Gil had told them about. “We think Kenzie stumbled into one of those. But the way was closed when we tried.”
Afina’s face had lost color as he explained, her hands balling. “The mists?”
Cristian nodded. “I thought they were legend. Stories to frighten children.”
“No,” Afina said, her words hushed. “They are holes to other places, some of those places worse than Faerie.”
“Worse than Faerie?” Ryan said, worry entering his voice. “And Mom’s in one of these?”
“I have all my trackers looking for her,” Bowman said, “and the Guardian and Gil are working on how to get in . . .”