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CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

“You’re not listening to me, are you?”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Tate blinked at his father. “Not really, no.”

Leaning back in the dining chair, Vinnie sighed. “I figured as much when I asked if you’d ever consider fucking a goat and you actually nodded.”

Tate snickered. His father was a damn nut, which was something he hid well. Vinnie was also good at hiding his calculated nature. He knew how to come across as approachable, easygoing, and happy to help. In truth, he was as cunning as they came and could cause a riot in heaven itself.

Lifting his mug of coffee from the table, Tate took a sip. “I zoned out because you were rambling about minor shit rather than telling me why you turned up here at the crack of dawn.”

“You consider your brother having his carotid artery nicked in a fight ‘minor?’”

“I’m thinking of it as Karma, since he nicked mine when I was twelve.” Tate had the scar on his throat to prove it. Before reaching adulthood, he and Luke had treated each other as mortal enemies merely because pallas kits didn’t get along with siblings who were too close in age. “I told him that very same thing when he reported the incident to me twenty minutes ago. Besides, it’s not like our healer didn’t fix him up.”

“I noticed he and Farrell have made themselves comfortable in your living room,” said Vinnie. “Have you gotten used to having bodyguards yet?”

“No. And I don’t like it much.” When he was at home, Tate often sent them on errands just to get some alone time. As the prior Beta, he used to be a bodyguard. He and Luke had shadowed their father pretty much wherever Vinnie went.

After Tate ascended, he’d promoted his brother from Head Enforcer to Beta, knowing the position would fit him. Luke was a natural-born alpha but had zero wish to lead a pride. Plus, there was far too much anger in him, and far too little patience for politics. Vinnie had slipped into an advisory role, too action-oriented to retire from active duty. The pride had adjusted just fine to the change of leadership, as had their allies and contacts.

It hadn’t seemed like such a dramatic change for Tate, because Vinnie hadn’t abruptly stepped down. He’d subtly begun to pull back little by little and tone down his assertiveness, which stirred Tate’s natural take-charge instincts and made him automatically push forward with each step Vinnie took back.

The biggest change for Tate was moving to the cul-de-sac. He’d only ever lived in apartments before now. But his father had recommended he live in a separate building from the rest of the pride or they’d be knocking on his door every two minutes with simple queries. Vinnie hadn’t been wrong, so Tate had moved out.

His father had also been right in predicting that being Alpha would suit Tate. He’d fully settled into the role. It fit him well. It also fulfilled his cat, who’d been angling to take over for years.

What saddened Tate was that it shouldn’t have been a case of Vinnie retiring alone. It should have been a case of the Alpha pair retiring. But Tate’s mother had died many years ago. He couldn’t call up a clear mental image of her face anymore.

Shifters didn’t always survive the breaking of the mating bond. The mating bond was special in that it could bind two people in a metaphysical way that fed every bit of their soul. But if a shifter lost their true mate and that bond thereby snapped, they also lost a huge part of themselves.

“Before we get into what I want to speak with you about,” began Vinnie, “tell me why you’ve been in a perpetual pissed-off state over the past week.”

Tate rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’ve just got shit on my mind.”

“Would that shit be related to the pretty little devil shifter you were seeing?”

Tate narrowed his eyes at the “were.” He hadn’t yet made it public that his fling with Havana was over. “Who told you I was no longer seeing her?”

“It was a guess based on your sour mood. Am I right?”

Tate merely gave a curt nod, not wanting to discuss it.

“By the way you’re grinding your teeth, I’m sensing you’re not happy about it.”

Tate just gave a nonchalant shrug, though he felt anything but nonchalant. The truth was … he missed her.He’d never gotten involved with a female like Havana before. Someone who intrigued, tempted, and challenged both man and feline in equal measures. Which was no doubt why his cat missed her, too. She could hold their attention in a way that no other female ever had, not even the one they’d almost imprinted on.

Tate did his best not to think about Havana, but many times he’d found himself wondering where she was, what she was doing, who she was doing it with. She cropped up in his thoughts far too often, especially at night. He couldn’t even jack off without her appearing in his mind’s eye, so then he’d end up coming to memories of the times he’d had her beneath him. He hadn’t taken another female to his bed as it wouldn’t have been fair to them when his mind was on Havana.

Okay, that was a barefaced fucking lie. He hadn’t taken another female to his bed because he didn’t want another female. He wanted Havana.

He still couldn’t quite believe he’d almost marked her. The urge had come out of nowhere and crawled all over him. More disturbing, it hadn’t left him. He felt it everywhere. It was like a hum in his blood. A pounding in his veins. A craving in his gut. An itch he couldn’t reach, because it seemed to be beneath his flesh.

The disconcerting urge hadn’t lessened with time. If anything, it seemed to have intensified. He would have questioned if she could be his true mate if the impulse to brand her had stemmed from possessiveness. But it was more of a need to dominate, to force her to submit to his wants and not leave his side until he was good and ready. Which meant he had no business leaving any such mark on her.

His cat, being a mostly selfish creature, didn’t agree. The feline wanted to find her. No, hunt her. Catch her. But Tate knew his cat wouldn’t wish to keep her, and therein lay the problem.

“Walking away is definitely the right thing to do if a relationship doesn’t have a future,” said Vinnie. “You’ll find your true mate eventually, or someone who you care for enough to take as a mate. Havana will do the same. I once read that loners tend to have more luck finding their true mates—probably because they often travel. A beautiful woman like her won’t struggle to find a man.”

Jealousy swirled in his belly, and Tate had to bite back a growl. He tossed his father an impatient look. “Stop trying to bait me. It pisses me off.”

“Most things do lately.” Vinnie sobered. “And, completely off the subject of Havana, my news is definitely not going to improve your mood any.”

Even as Tate’s shoulders bunched with tension, he said, “Go on.”

Vinnie leaned forward and rested his clasped hands on the table. “Priscilla called me earlier. Apparently, Ashlynn wishes to return to the pride.”

Shock slammed into Tate, making his thoughts go blank for just a moment. His cat peeled back his upper lip—the feline hadn’t yet forgiven their ex-partner. “Why is it that Priscilla never came to me with this?”

“It’s not because she struggles to accept that you’re now Alpha, if that’s your concern. She’s been a friend of mine for years. She’s worried you’ll turn down Ashlynn’s request, so she came to me for advice on how best to handle the situation. I offered to act as a medium purely because I would rather you heard this from me than from Priscilla. According to her, Ashlynn simply believes it’s time she came home but fears she won’t be welcome.”

She’d never be welcome to Tate—too much shit had happened between them. And who wanted to be around their ex when said ex had fucked them over? Buthe’d always known she’d return sooner or later. Whereas the news once would have riled him, it now did no more than irritate him. She no longer had any real power over his emotions. “I’ll call Priscilla and inform her that Ashlynn can return.”

Vinnie frowned. “You want her back here?”

“No. But nor do I feel any great need to keep her away. She’s no one to me.”

“You and Ashlynn were a couple for over twelve months. The stirrings of imprinting were there. You suffered greatly after those minor threads broke.”

He had, yeah. And it had killed what Tate felt for her. Back then, he’d been so sure he loved her that he’d also been open to imprinting on her, even though it meant forsaking his true mate. The decision had been simpler for Ashlynn. She’d known for a long time who her true mate was; she’d known she couldn’t have him.

She’d been just twelve-years-old when she felt that one of their pride mates, Koby—a man fifteen-years her senior—was her true-mate. She hadn’t wasted a moment in declaring it to him. Freaked out, Koby had insisted she was wrong. He’d later imprinted on the female he was dating, Gita.

It had devastated Ashlynn, but she’d ploughed through, determined to build a life without Koby. She’d claimed she wanted to build that life with Tate. But when Gita later died, Ashlynn had told Tate that she needed to be with Koby. Not just to rally around him and help him overcome his loss, but to eventually make him accept that Ashlynn was meant for him.

At first, Tate had been too shocked to connect with her declaration. She’d made promises to him when they first got together. She’d vowed that he wasn’t second best. She’d sworn that she had let Koby go, too angry at him to consider claiming him anyway.

She’d lied.

Once the shock wore off, a freezing-cold burn had spread through his body and iced his blood, numbing him to everything, shrouding him in apathy. He hadn’t raged, ranted, or even talked it out with anyone. Instead, he’d thrown himself into the Beta role and allowed his friends and family to distract him. Tate hadn’t been willing to let the breakup eat him whole. He hadn’t been willing to spend even a moment’s time grieving the loss of a person who’d already wasted a year of his life.

People had watched him closely, expecting him to unravel. But he hadn’t. Not even when, a month after he moved out of her apartment, the imprinting threads snapped. It had felt like drowning. Drowning in pain, emotion, nausea, exhaustion—waves of which had hit him at random times and pulled him under. But he’d always resurfaced, and the nightmare eventually ended.

When the numbness finally wore off, some anger had crept in. He couldn’t blame her for wanting her true mate, but Tate was pissed that she’d made him so many empty promises. He’d let that anger go for his own sake, though. There was no sense in clinging to that kind of dark emotion.

“You don’t think it would be hard for you to have her around?” asked Vinnie.

“No,” replied Tate. “She’s part of my past—a regrettable part. That’s it.”

“And what if she wants you two to try again?”

“It won’t happen. If I wanted her back, I could have had her back.” Four months after they separated, she’d turned up at his old apartment, begging him to take her back. He’d instantly suspected what he later learned—Koby had refused to accept her. More, the grieving male had claimed he’d never want her.

Tate felt pity for her now, but back then he’d felt only anger that she’d think so little of him as to ask that he take her back after all she’d done … like he should so easily forgive her betrayal and, moreover, be content with being second best. Well, he wasn’t. So he’d turned her away, and she’d hauled ass out of the pride the day after that.

“Does she know Koby switched to his brother’s pride?” Tate asked, because it was possible that she was returning to try to again claim the man.

“According to Priscilla, yes, Ashlynn knows and has apparently given up on him.” Vinnie twisted his mouth. “You’re so sure that you’ve really moved on from her? You built walls after she left. You haven’t been as open to trusting women since then. You’ve never allowed yourself to really connect with anyone. Maybe you still feel something for her.”

Neither Tate nor his cat were so trusting these days, but … “I moved past what happened. It’s neither here nor there to me if she comes back.” He felt nothing for her now. Not even a twinge of emotion. There was nothing to feel. As if his system had purged itself of her in every sense of the word.

Vinnie pursed his lips. “All right. But if you’re truly over the woman, you need to stop letting what happened affect how you live your life. You’re giving your past too much power over your present and future—that’s never going to end well. You’ll just keep sabotaging your own happiness.”

Tate frowned. “I’m not doing that.”

“Aren’t you?” Vinnie softly challenged. “You seemed happy enough with the devil shifter. Yet, you walked away from her.”

“She was the one who walked away.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I can’t say I blame her, considering the relationship wasn’t going anywhere. She’s done the best thing for both of you.”

Yeah, so she’d claimed. But “the best thing” didn’t feel best. And Tate didn’t believe it was the only reason she walked away. No, there was more to it than that, and he didn’t think it was unreasonable of him to have wanted the full truth.

“I’ll let Koby know Ashlynn’s coming back, just in case he wishes to come and see her,” said Vinnie. “But it’s unlikely he will. Even if he has come to believe that she’s his true mate, I can’t envision him wanting to do anything about it. Gita was his world and there’s no replacing a woman who touches you that deeply. Having experienced a fully formed imprint bond, he may not be able to truly mate again. The soul generally doesn’t choose to go there twice.”

Some people claimed they’d heard of instances where widowed shifters could mate again, but Tate believed they were bullshit. After all, if the rumors were true, they’d come complete with names and specific details to give grieving shifters hope. “Do you wish you could bond with another female?”

“No,” replied Vinnie without hesitation. “No one could ever replace Gaia for me. There’s no room in my head or heart for anyone else, and there isn’t enough of me left to give anyway. I’m not a full person without her, and I don’t wish I was. Because the parts of me she took with her when she died were all hers to take.”

Tate swallowed. He couldn’t relate to that level of pain. Ashlynn had wounded him, but the loss of her hadn’t marked his soul, hadn’t left him with a gaping hole that nothing would ever fill.

He and his father talked for a few more minutes before Vinnie left. Tate then headed into the living room. On the sofa, both Luke and Farrell slid their gazes from the widescreen TV to Tate.

“What was that about?” Luke asked.

Tate sighed. “Ashlynn wants to come back to the pride.”

His brother’s lips parted. “You are shitting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

Luke cursed. “She has some fucking nerve.” Studying Tate’s face closely, he narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to let her, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have a real reason not to. Do I want to see her again? No. Do I care if I do? No. I’m not holding a candle for her.”

“I know that. And I know you’ve let your anger at her go, but I haven’t.”

“Jessie won’t be happy she’s coming back,” said Farrell, referring to his pregnant mate. “She and Ashlynn had a huge falling out when Jessie refused to support her leaving you for Koby. Ashlynn shut out pretty much everyone who disagreed with her decision.”

“There’ll probably be several people who won’t be happy to see her again,” Luke predicted. “Not just because she hurt you, but because she showed so little respect for Koby’s grief and Gita’s memory. I mean, who comes onto a grieving man? He was an absolute mess when Gita died. The last thing he needed right then was Ashlynn insisting they were fated to be.”

“I can’t blame her for wanting her mate,” began Farrell, “but she should have been more interested in comforting him than in snapping him up. Jessie said that Ashlynn just wasn’t rational where Koby was concerned.”

That was something Tate had realized far too late. “I need to call Priscilla and inform her that her daughter can return. Then I want to hit the bakery.”

Farrell smiled. “You’re giving me a chance to check on Jessie. I appreciate it, Tate. I don’t like her working so hard when she’s so far along in her pregnancy, but there’s no getting her to stay at home.”

“People will get word to you if she’s overdoing it or needs to go home,” Tate reminded him.

Many of the pride worked at the pride-owned stores and lived in either the cul-de-sac or one of the two nearby apartment buildings—all of which were also pride-owned. Pallas cats didn’t claim territories but often grouped together for protection in such a way.

There weren’t just Olympus Pride members working at the local stores. Some of the employees were human and even lone shifters … And now he was back to thinking about Havana again. Well if she’d given him straight answers, he wouldn’t think about her half as much.

Maybe he’d been right to suspect that there was another man. She’d keep it quiet to protect him from Tate, who would pummel the bastard into the ground for touching his woman. Well … Havana hadn’t been his woman as such, but she’d certainly been off-limits.

“You okay, bro?” asked Luke. “You’re looking mighty fierce over there with that scowl.”

“I’m fine.” He made a quick call to Priscilla and then headed to the bakery with Luke and Farrell. After scoffing down a Danish and finishing his coffee, he left the shop … and found himself heading in the opposite direction than he’d intended. And he knew exactly where his feet were taking him.

Havana knocked on Bailey’s bedroom door. “If you’re not done in twenty minutes, I’m leaving without your skinny ass!” she yelled, hoping to be heard over the loud music coming from inside the room.

“I’ll be two minutes, heifer!” the mamba bellowed.

Havana snorted. Bailey always left everything until the last minute. Still, she was rarely ever late for work. But this was no ordinary morning, since they were leaving early so that they could spend a little time with Hyman before the rec center opened. With any luck, he’d be in a much chattier mood now that he knew his captors weren’t as harmless as they looked, thanks to their previous career.

The Movement had formed to deal with radical, violent humans who’d maintained that shifters should be disallowed to mate with humans, confined to their territory, electronically chipped, restricted to having one child per couple, and placed on a registry like goddamn sex offenders. Moreover, the extremists had no issue with attacking and bombing shifters in an attempt to cull the population.

The Movement handled the extremists— countering their attacks, assassinating the big cheeses, wiping out entire factions. In sum, the group fought violence with violence.

The Movement often recruited unmated lone shifters, because these were people who could fly under the radar more easily than non-loners. Havana, Aspen, Bailey, and Camden had lived quiet, simple lives working at the center, but behind the scenes, they’d done plenty of jobs for the Movement.

The group had trained them in everything from combat to interrogation techniques. They’d given them a purpose, paid them well, and treated them like family. Then eight years later, they’d let them go, encouraging them to live lives free of missions. Aside from the key players, members were only allowed to work eight years of service. The group wasn’t willing to allow anyone to sacrifice a life with their mate to deal with bigoted assholes.

Only Corbin knew about their past work for the Movement. The group was careful to keep the names of their members, particularly the key players, secret. Sadly, there were shifters who’d sell those names to extremists or human law enforcement for the right price.

Crossing her fingers that Bailey wouldn’t be late, Havana returned to the kitchen and poured more coffee into her mug. She’d only taken one sip when there was a knock at the front door. That had to be Aspen and Camden—the bearcat had texted to say they wanted to be present for the next “talk” with Hyman.

Havana placed her cup on the counter and crossed to the door. She glanced through the peephole out of habit, and her body stiffened while her devil hissed. Tate.

A flare of excitement buzzed through Havana’s veins. A flare she quickly stomped on. He’d be here as her landlord, nothing more. Unless … he hadn’t heard about what happened last night, had he? If so, he was nosy enough to pry, and he’d be all Grr, you’re under my protection, why didn’t you call me, grr? It seemed unlikely that news of it had reached him, though.

Bracing herself for the impact of his full-on raw masculinity, Havana opened the door. Her stomach flipped as their eyes locked. She wasn’t perversely glad to see him. She wasn’t. Nu-uh.

Oh, how she bullshitted herself at times.

His gaze glittered with heat as it travelled the length of her, making her pulse quicken and her hormones clumsily trip all over themselves. Standing a few feet behind him, Luke and Farrell watched her closely.

“Can I come in?” Tate finally asked.

She should say no. She should turn him away. But that would be weak and cowardly. She could handle being around him. She’d have to learn to handle it, considering he was her landlord.

Havana slowly stepped to the side to allow him to pass. He told his bodyguards to wait in the hallway and then entered her apartment. Her devil snarled as he boldly walked into her living area like it was his own. Hmm, it would appear that the animal wasn’t going to forgive him any time soon.

Havana followed him, only stopping when she reached the edge of the fluffy rug. She loved to watch him walk. Loved how his long legs covered the ground with an unhurried, confident stride. All that predatory elegance and animalistic sexuality was hot as holy hell.

Tate sank onto the black leather sofa and draped his arms over the back of it. He glanced around, sweeping his gaze over the butterscotch walls, the cherry oak furniture, the abstract artwork, and the leather armchair.

He followed the path of his hand as he slid it over the arm of the sofa. She wondered if he was remembering the time that he bent her over it and savagely hammered into her. If the heated glance he shot her was anything to go by, the answer was yes.

His gaze briefly flitted to the large corner bookcase. “I’m not sure why a person would need that many books.”

“You can never have too many books—everyone knows that.” She tipped her head to the side. “Why are you here?”

His broody, super-intense eyes drilled into her so boldly it almost made her squirm. Almost. She was made of sterner stuff.

He swiped his tongue over his front teeth. “We need to talk.”

“We did that last weekend.”

“Not really. You said your piece, danced around my questions, and then you left.”

Well, yeah. Her devil flexed her claws, wanting him gone. Havana opened her mouth, intending to ask him to leave, but then she thought better of it. Tate had a one-track mind—he never conceded, never gave up, never backed down. The quickest way to get him out of her apartment would be to just let him talk. “All right. Say whatever you came to say.”

His eyes bore into hers, as if he was desperate to see inside her head. “I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out what made you want to walk away all of a sudden. Your decision came out of nowhere, and I want to know what really led to it.”

No one could ever say he wasn’t tenacious, could they? “I honestly don’t get why you can’t drop this. You only ever meant for the fling to be temporary, so I don’t see an issue here.”

“The issue is that you’re not being upfront with me.” He pushed to his feet, making her heart thud in her chest. He leisurely stalked toward her, all smolder and danger and dominant male energy, only halting when there were mere inches between their bodies. Sexual tension crackled in the air, making the hairs on her nape stand on end and her body get all tingly and stuff. Gah, she should not have let him in.

“Is there someone else?”

The oh so casual question made her nape prickle. “I already told you there isn’t. It’s just time to go our separate ways.”

“Why? What we had was good.”

“What we had was sex. A fling. It was no different from the others you’ve had in the past.”

His jaw hardened. “It was different.” The admission seemed torn out of him.

“How?”

“It was exclusive, for one thing. I didn’t demand exclusivity from my past casual partners. I didn’t give a whisper of a shit if they slept with other men. I also never fucked any of them in my bed—only you. So yeah, Havana, it was different.”

Oh. Well. Okay. She hadn’t known that. Determined not to be moved by it, she shrugged one shoulder and said, “I was still only a plaything to you.”

“Plaything?” he echoed, dropping his voice a few octaves. “You liked it when I played with you. Liked it when I used you. Tasted you. Pinned you down. Fucked you however I wanted to fuck you.” He brushed his mouth over hers. “But you were never just a plaything to me.”

As need rose sharp and fast inside her, Havana clenched her fists so tight she felt her nails dig into her palms. She knew she should shove him away, but it was hard to be sensible when so much sexual tension pulsed in the air.

He moved his mouth to her ear. “Do you remember the first night I had you? I slammed you against my front door the moment I closed it. I would have taken you right there in my hallway … but you weren’t going to make it easy for me. You ran, you struggled, you fought. But then you yielded, and I took you on my dining table with your legs hooked over my shoulders. Fucked you so deep and raw you screamed for me. I’ve never come that hard in my life. Not until I had you the next time. And the next time. And the next time.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. She was easily seduced by words and he knew it. Knew her “trigger words,” so to speak. Knew exactly what buttons to push.

He breezed his thumb over her lower lip—it was such a soft touch, and yet she felt it in her core. “You remember, don’t you?”

“Sort of.” She let out a shaky breath as his big hands possessively spanned her waist. “Tate.”

Humming, Tate buried his face in her neck and breathed her in, letting her luscious scent fill him up. He’d missed it. “Just your scent alone makes my dick hard.” There was nothing subtle or delicate about that staggeringly irresistible blend of cherry blossom, rich jasmine, and fresh lotus flower. And when it was spiced with arousal just as it was right then, that scent could bring him to his knees.

He ground his teeth as the impulse to mark her began to pulse in his chest like an aching wound, becoming more of a need than an urge. Tate refused to answer it. Leaving a mark of possession was one thing. Marking someone as an exertion of dominance was a whole other thing. He’d never do that to Havana.

Wanting to feel more of her, he snaked his hand down her stomach, heading for her pussy. But her fingers curled tight around his wrist and stilled his hand.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what, baby? Don’t touch you? Don’t taste you? Don’t give us what we both want?” He caught her earlobe with his teeth and gave it a light nip. “Tell me it doesn’t feel good when I’m inside you. Tell me you haven’t missed it.”

Keeping a tight hold on his wrist, she placed his hand at his side. “You need to step back.” Her voice cracked.

“I don’t think you want me to.” He trailed his finger down one side of her face. So soft. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks were flushed, and her breathing wasn’t quite steady. Still, she looked him directly in the eye, bold and sure. His cat loved that. “I also don’t think you really wanted to end things between us. Everything was fine. You were fine. Then something changed.”

“Nothing changed, Tate. Things were exactly as they’d been from day one—simple, shallow. That was how you wanted it. And hey, that’s fine. But you couldn’t have honestly thought I’d be okay with you keeping one foot out the door and using me to amuse yourself until your true mate came along.”

He felt his jaw go hard. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Sure it was. Look, I can understand if you’re sick of jumping from bed to bed. If you want to stick with one female while you wait for your mate, fine. I just won’t be that female.”

“I’m not as desperate to find my true mate as you seem to think.”

“Whether or not you’re desperate to find her isn’t relevant. The fact is that, ultimately, you’ll want to one day bond with her.”

It wasn’t a “fact” at all. Unlike many shifters, Tate had never felt driven to find his mate. Many people saw it as their main purpose, but he often wondered if binding your soul to that of another was really worth the bother.

He’d never forget the fear he’d felt all those years ago watching his father—a man so strong and resilient and robust—begin to crumble at the breaking of the mating bond. Tate had never seen him like that before. Vulnerable. Fragile. Broken.

Vinnie had later told him it was like a slow death, like crawling through hell and then having to repeat the experience over and over. Vinnie would never have suffered that way if Gaia hadn’t been murdered by a shifter who’d turned rogue. And why had he turned rogue? Because he’d lost his mate, and the snapping of the true-mate bond had caused him to lose all sense of rationality.

Part of the reason Tate had been open to imprinting was that he’d never viewed true-mate bonds as shiny, sparkly things. But the shitstorm with Ashlynn proved that there was no avenue of mating that didn’t have the potential to result in a total clusterfuck. Neither avenue appealed to him all that much.

Tate snapped out of his thoughts when the music coming from Bailey’s room abruptly switched off.

Havana stepped away from him. “You should go. Bailey and I need to be somewhere.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I get the answer I came for. Tell me the truth, Havana.”

“I did.”

“No, you told me a partial truth. I want the rest.” His peripheral vision picked up Bailey entering the living area.

“There’s nothing more to tell you,” said Havana. “Really.”

Bullshit. “What you’re saying doesn’t add up.”

“Well, the cougar will hopefully fill in the blanks,” said Bailey.

Tate blinked. “Cougar?”

Bailey nodded. “The shooter. He’s a cougar. You coming along to meet him?”

Tate went perfectly still, and his cat’s ears pricked up. “What do you mean ‘shooter?’ What shooter?”

A sheepish expression came over Bailey’s face. She looked at Havana. “That’s not what you guys were talking about, huh?”

Havana shook her head. “No.”

“Oops,” said the mamba. “I figured you were telling him what happened, what with us being under his protection and all.”

“One of you got shot?” asked Tate, his stomach hardening. “Who? Tell me.”

Bailey raised her hands. “Easy there, big guy. There were no bullets, only tranqs. And they don’t work on devils, so she was fine.”

Anger whipped through Tate. His cat hissed long and loud, slicing out his claws. Clenching his jaw, Tate took a prowling step closer to Havana. “Someone shot you with tranqs?” The quiet question dripped with red-hot fury. “When? Who?”

Havana scratched her nape. “Look, Tate, we have to go—”

“Don’t blow me off. Not now. Not about this. As Bailey rightly pointed out, you’re under my protection just like every other tenant in this building.”

“You know, the ‘I’m an Alpha, fear my wrath and do my bidding’ tone really doesn’t work on me.”

Well aware of that, he dragged in a steadying breath and made an effort to speak calmly. “Havana, I promised you’d be protected. I keep my word. I’m asking you not to make me break it. That’s exactly what you’ll do if you keep me from helping you.” He paused. “Who shot you, and when did it happen?”

She sighed. “Last night. We don’t know his name yet.”

“We call him Hyman,” Bailey helpfully chimed in.

Tate’s nostrils flared. “And neither of you thought to tell me about this? Don’t say it’s not my business. Every tenant in this building is my business. An attack on any of them is an insult to me. I want to know exactly what happened.”

Havana gave him one of those alpha eye rolls, like he was being a dramatic man-child she couldn’t help but pity. “There’s really not much to tell until we get the cougar to talk. He shot me with tranqs in the parking lot outside the rec center. I snatched his gun and used it on him. His buddy jumped out of a van, and we had ourselves a brief struggle. He hightailed it out of there when Aspen, Bailey, Camden, and Corbin came rushing over. We … detained the cougar, asked him some questions. He wasn’t very cooperative, so we decided to give him the night to think over whether he really wanted to continue playing it that way.”

“What about his phone? Does he have one? Did you check it?”

“He gave me a false PIN that wiped the cell phone clean. I can’t even make it switch back on. I withdrew his SIM card and put it in another phone, but it was blank.”

“Did his friend hurt you during the struggle you were talking about?” The question was loaded with a promise of vengeance. “Don’t lie to me, baby.”

“Don’t call me baby. He punched me. I kicked him in the bladder and clawed him. That’s pretty much the extent of it.” She sighed. “I should have seen it coming anyway.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I heard the song Tranquilizer play twice yesterday—once on my car stereo, and once in the coffeehouse. Coincidence? I think not.”

Tate just stared at her for a moment. “When you very first mentioned you believed in ‘signs,’ I didn’t think you were being serious.”

Her brow creased. “Why wouldn’t I be serious? You don’t believe that the universe occasionally gives us clues to help us along the way?”

“No, babe, I don’t.”

She shook her head, like he was hopeless. “Well, that’s on you. I can’t help you with that. Now I want to go speak to the cougar, so we need to wrap things up here.”

“Where are you keeping him?”

“The basement of the rec center.”

“I’ll come with you. With any luck, I’ll know who he is. Either way, I’ll help you get his name out of him and anything else he knows.”

“All right. There’s a good chance he’ll be pretty talkative.”

Tate frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Just a little feeling I have.”

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