“Not officially or anything,” I mumbled. “We found her on the bar’s doorstep, with no one else in sight. No scent trail when I tracked it in my wolf form. It was like whoever left her there just disappeared.”
Nate mulled this over. “How’s that? What kinda shifters are the bio parents, do you know?”
“The alpha-father is a wolf,” I muttered. “Omega-father is a fox.”
Nate’s brow creased. “A wolf and fox? Not leaving a scent trail? Now that’s crazy. Those are some seriously stinky animals. And I’d know—my shifter form is a snake. I can smell a dog probably ten miles away.”
I glowered at him. “I know what I smelled. Besides, we think it has something to do with magic anyway.”
Nate crossed his arms on the counter. “What, like, you think whoever did it put a magic bubble around themselves or something?”
“I don’t know, okay?” I snapped. “I just know that she’s gone, and so is my mate!”
But Nate didn’t seem deterred by my outburst. Heavy in thought, he brought his hand to his chin. “I dunno, man, it seems like there’s something fishy going on with that you told me. If their scent was totally disguised, it’d have to be some master of clear magic or something to do that… Are you sure the bio parents can evenusemagic that strong?”
I opened my mouth to refute his argument, but then I paused. I’d never seen MavorHenry actually use magic.
Before I could follow that train of thought, the front door opened and a familiar form came slinking inside.
Ryu!
My chest fluttered with a strange mix of anger and heartache. He caught my gaze for a moment before lowering them shamefully.
Nate turned to follow my glance. “Hey, it’s him! The nanny guy.”
“He’s not a nanny,” I growled. “He was my mate. We were raising Angel together.”
“Ohhh,” Nate said, nodding. “That makes more sense.”
Ryu sidled listlessly up to the counter. I’d never seen him look so upset. Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his usual kind expression was gone, replaced by one of sorrow and longing.
“Hello, Scar,” he said.
“Hi,” I said curtly.
Nate looked back and forth between us, but made no effort to leave. I didn’t care if he stayed—at least we’d have a buffer for whatever altercation was about to happen.
“I’m sorry,” Ryu murmured. “For everything. It’s all my fault.”
“Yeah, it kind of is,” I replied.
Ryu didn’t wince. He knew it was the truth. But I knew I had to accept some blame as well for attacking Mav. Despite everything that happened, I didn’t regret standing up for Henry—even though he turned out to be a horrible person—because at the time, he was just an omega being harassed by an alpha. I’d have done the same for anyone.
“I mean… me attacking Mav probably made everything worse,” I admitted.
Ryu nodded in acknowledgement. “Still, if I hadn’t forgotten to lock the door, none of this would have happened.”
I shrugged. I had nothing to say to that. “Is that why you’re here? To apologize?”
I still didn’t want to accept his apology, but I was glad to hear it.
“Yes. I didn’t know if you would want to see me, so I stayed away for awhile… But we needed to speak. I couldn’t let things end this way.”
We shared a meaningful glance. We both knew the baby I might be carrying was on our minds.
“Have you checked?” Ryu asked carefully.
“Not yet. I was gonna after work,” I replied.
