“Call them,” Shawn barked.
Trip began making calls.When El’s father finally looked up, his eyes were cloudy as he tried to hold back his emotions.
It was shocking for Shawn to see him so torn up because the man had been about as emotional as a brick wall for all the years Shawn had known him.
“I should have put that implant in El when I wanted to,” her father said.
Shawn had been against it at the time and had argued vehemently with her father.He couldn’t help but agree, but hindsight was always twenty-twenty.
“Is there anything you can think of about Persia that may help?”Shawn asked him.
“You knew her better than me.I didn’t pay much attention to El’s friends.I think I might have met the girl once.”
“If Persia is El’s mother, though, then you know her better than us.Think about the things you know abouther.Even the smallest detail may help us.”
“The woman I knew couldn’t bake at all,” he said with a shrug.
“That’s easy enough to teach yourself, though,” Marcus intervened.
“What about things she liked to do, places she liked to go?”Shawn asked, hoping to push him further.
“She hated the city.The first thing she wanted to do when I was able was to move away.”
“That’s perfect, where did she want to move?”
“If she had a place in mind, she didn’t mention it, but she said she didn’t want to raise her children in the city.”
“What about near the Pantera?How did she feel about raising them around her pride family?”Marcus asked.
“She said there was too much unrest, she just wanted it to be us.There were a few of the elders in the Pantera that she spoke highly of, but I never met them.”
“Do you remember their names?”Shawn asked, eagerly.
El’s father’s face scrunched up in thought.
“One of them may have been called Herb, or something like it.It was kind of a weird name, but I remember I always thought of cilantro and parsley when she said it.”
“Okay, let’s see what we can find on a Pantera by that name,” Shawn said.
“How are we going to do that?”Marcus asked.
“I’m Pantera, I’m going to ask,” Shawn said with a shrug.
“If you go in there claiming to be Pantera, all hell is going to break loose.You have never been seen as Pantera, you can’t shift on your own, and you’re going to have the stench of lion all over you.You’ll end up dead,” Trip told him as he hung up his last phone call.
“My mom may know who that is, but we can’t not follow this lead.Maybe Herb is a Guardian or knows who they are.We have to do something,” Shawn argued.
“I agree, but let’s find a different way than volunteering you to them.Let’s see what we can find with just the first name and Pantera background through our system.If he had a record or filed with the human census like he’s supposed to then we may be able to find him that way,” Trip said.
Trip started to leave to more than likely go to his office to start the search, but Shawn needed an update on a healer for his mother.
“A healer?”he asked Trip.
“I’ve called them all and summoned them all here.They have an hour to show or they’ll be banished from this Pride,” he replied.
Shawn nodded.The bastard was drastic, but he was efficient, within twenty minutes there were ten healers at the house, but still no Claudia.Shawn found that a bit odd, but he didn’t have the time to go searching for the rogue healer.He told the healers his mother was under some kind of bound magic and took them to her room.
Hours went by as they all tried to help break his mother from the magic.Some of them even worked together to try and make their magic stronger, and still, nothing worked.
