wipe down the counters. The vampire turned his attention to Z. "Where's your witch?"
Z had only taken a couple of bites of the sandwich, but now he wasn't hungry, and it wasn't the less-than-appetizing food. "My what?" Maybe he hadn't heard him right. Maybe he was just preoccupied with Fiona, and the moping was causing him to hear things.
"Don't play stupid. We know you have a witch in your care. Or she was in your care. Now she's in our care."
Z lunged across the table, grabbing the vampire by the collar. The waitress came rushing out at the commotion with a burly, tattooed cook in tow.
"Is there a problem here? You should leave the priest alone," the cook said. He was simple-minded enough to assume religious clergy were all spotless lambs, so the priest couldn't have instigated this scene.
"You should listen to him," the vampire said, forcing a thin smile to his lips.
Z turned on the cook and bared his fangs, letting them see his sharp teeth and inhuman eyes. A low growl rumbled from his throat. "Go back to the fucking kitchen and learn how to make a proper tuna melt. This isn't your concern."
The waitress had scurried to the back the moment Z's face had shifted. The cook backed up slowly, not wanting to look weak, but not wanting to take the panther on, either. In the end, he followed the path she'd taken.
When they were alone, Z turned back to the vampire. "You think you can take me in panther form? Are you that confident?"
"You wouldn't dare."
"Try me. You'll have to thrall those two anyway, may as well make it a good show. You don't feel very old to me. Not more than a few decades. I can probably take you, and I haven't even hunted today." He'd been too busy moping.
The vampire growled and pried Z's hands from his clerics. "We have your witch. By now she's arrived at my employer's compound. We have the pup as well. If you want to see her alive again, you will tell the wolf to come to us at this address."
Z backed off as the vampire slammed a piece of paper on the table with an address in Washington state. Fiona would be terrified being that far from home.
"How do you know about the wolf?" Z knew the vamp was referring to daddy wolf.
"He left a scent trail, but it disappears into nothing. We suspect he's got some way to travel through dimensions. We just don't know how that's possible or where the portals are. If he was looking for his pup, he would have left a way to contact him in case you learned anything. Wouldn't that be the normal thing to do in this situation?"
Z got out of the booth and prowled around the diner, fighting not to change and rip the vampire apart. "Why did you bring her into it? She has nothing to do with whatever you want the pup for."
"You have an in with the wolf. I think the witch motivates you more than the pup. They told me what you did in the clearing. You killed two of ours for her, and you would have killed more. You chose her over the pup, so she has something to do with this now. Tell Cole to be at that address by 8pm tomorrow night and we'll release her."
Z was taken aback that he knew the werewolf's name. This wasn't some random kidnapping of a therian born in his fur. They'd known who the pup belonged to from the start. The vampire slid gracefully out of the booth. To his credit, he didn't flinch or show any fear of the panther as he made his way back to the kitchen to take care of the security leak.
Z threw money down on the counter and headed for his motorcycle.
When he got to the cave, he went straight for the kitchen and dumped the contents of the garbage can out on the floor. He cursed when he cut his hand on some glass, trying to sort through the trash to find the crumpled piece of paper with Cole's number on it.
Thank God he'd thrown it in the trash instead of the fire like he'd done with the priest's number. But then, despite his bravado, he'd wanted to leave the door open to the werewolf in case he got a lead on the missing pup.
***
Cole stared at his computer screen deep in thought when Jane came in and