Love at First Mate - Dani Wyatt Page 0,26

him down.

Even so, if that’s what happened, she may have started it, but I’m going to finish it.

“I didn’t do anything to her!” He backs up against the outside brick wall, and I know the rage in my eyes must be clear, but from the way his hands are shaking, something else is going on.

“Is she in there? Did you touch her?”

He shakes his head as I swing open the back door and call for Wynter, but there’s no answer. There’s a new sort of noose that feels like it’s tightening around my throat as Robert’s voice breaks through.

“There were three guys. I was coming over to give Wynter all her copies of the lease documents and an extra set of keys I found, but when I came in the back door, there was this guy. He had his hand over her mouth…”

“Guy? What fucking guy?”

“I didn’t recognize him. I tried to get her away, she was fighting so I knew something wasn’t right. Two of them jumped me from behind and the other one went out the door with Wynter. They must have knocked me out, because the next thing I knew, I was alone. I came out the door and here you are…”

My bear roars from inside and it takes superhuman effort to hold back the shift. But I have to, because I need more info even as a red haze clouds my vision.

“What else did you see? Hear? Anything!” I’m yelling, I know it, and fucking Robert looks terrified as he leans down, resting his hands on the tops of his thighs like he’s going to pass out.

“When I came in the back door, I heard something…” He’s searching his memory and I force myself to hold back. Roaring in his face might make me feel better, but it’s not going to get me any answers. “Something about she had something that belonged to him. That’s all I remember. Something about how she put them in a really bad position and she’s going to fix it.”

Fix what? If she was in trouble, why didn’t she tell me?

I feel the burning tingle start in my gut as my skin stretches, and I know, this time I won’t be able to hold him back.

My jaw pops, my bones thicken and just before I lose the last of my human form, I reach into my pocket, pull out the little box and hand it to Robert.

“You keep that until I come for it.” My voice is deep, gravely, and I watch Robert nod as the last of the shift happens and I take a deep sniff of the air.

If they think she has something of theirs, she would have it at her house, so that’s where I’m headed.

Through the park and the woods, my grizzly is in a blind rage. When the first hint of her scent hits, my grizzly is roaring and running faster than we’ve ever moved.

The scent is stronger, we get closer to her house and there’s no doubt she’s there.

We smell her fear.

Someone is going to pay.

Chapter 11

Wynter

Orwell’s fingers twitch as he paces my living room.

His two friends, Raymond and some guy who just calls himself ‘D’, ransack my bedroom, swearing and throwing things as I sit in a chair at my small dinette table, twisting and untwisting a scrap of napkin, wondering why I’m not more frightened.

“Where is the money?” Orwell screams in my face, spit flying onto my skin, and his breath is a dumpster fire of beer, cigarettes and a disregard for dental hygiene.

There’s a clench in my stomach as I glare up at him. How I ever even dated this guy, for the life of me I can’t understand now.

He’s a cliché. Bad tattoos, a scar on his cheek, black leather jacket and an utter lack of originality.

Sure, he’s got that bad boy thing, and for most girls would be considered good looking. But seeing him through new eyes, I realize just how lost I must have been to have bought into the down on his luck, society has treated me so wrong sing-song story that he performed so well.

The only good thing is, when I figured out the whole game he was playing, I wasn’t hurt. I didn’t care about him really, I think I was trying to save him, save anybody after not being able to save my mom.

So leaving in the middle of the night with the sack of money I had promised to give him so he could