“Adam is going through your mom’s estate now, to see if she has a place that they could possibly be holding El.We can only assume her absence lately isn’t a coincidence,” Marcus supplied.
Trip wanted to let out a sigh of relief when Ryan’s eyes left him to move to Marcus.
“Stare at me all you want, but this is a damn bad time for you to be stuck in lion mode.The Pride is already up in arms with all that’s going on, and now, you’ve been stuck for days,” Marcus voiced his frustrations.
Trip couldn’t imagine a worse time to hash out shit than right now, but Marcus apparently didn’t care.
“El needs us, all ofus!”Marcus told him.
“Our child needs us,” Trip added.
“I don’t know how we could even look at this child, who will be the reason we’ll lose El,” Shawn sneered.
“You can’t be serious?”Marcus snapped.
“I am serious!We’re going to lose her so that this child can be born and unite two shifter species that don’t even want to be united.What kind of bullshit is that!I’m not ready to lose her, especially for some bullshit cause!”
“None of us are!We’ve only just found her!At least you had years with her!”Marcus argued.
“That doesn’t mean I’m ready to let her go!”
“Enough!Fighting isn’t going to do any good.We need answers,” Trip said, calling a halt to their argument.
“We’re not going to get them out here talking to him.He’s useless to us and to El,” Shawn spat towards Ryan.
Shawn turned and began to retreat, which was the worst possible thing to do.Ryan’s soft roar came as a warning, but Shawn didn’t stop.Ryan stood and shook out his mane, letting another—much louder— roar give Shawn another warning.Shawn still didn’t stop.
“Shawn,” Trip warned.
“Fuck off, Ryan!Until you can shift back and start helping, I don’t have time for this posturing shit,” Shawn said.
Ryan lunged, Trip shouted, and Shawn suddenly shifted all at once.Ryan met Shawn’s panther in midair as the two giant cats crashed together and onto the ground as they clawed and bit at each other.
There wasn’t much Marcus or Trip could do to stop them, so they just stood by until the two giant cats had worn themselves out and backed away from each other, each of them a bit bloody but nobody with too much damage.
“Feel better?”Trip asked mockingly.
“Can either of you shift on your own now?”Marcus asked, his annoyance coming through in his tone.
Shawn stood up, shook his coat out, and then went still.Trip assumed he was trying to shift.After a few minutes of nothing happening, Trip threw his hands up and stormed off.Marcus followed suit.
“I guess it’s up to us.Let’s go see if Adam has some info for us.I want to call El’s dad too to see if he has thought of any other place for Persia, too,” Trip said.
They found Adam in Ryan’s office just as he was disconnecting a phone call.
“Our guys at the precinct weren’t much help, so I asked Officer Wolfe if he could do a door to door on two of the smaller towns that touch our borders,” Adam said in lieu of a greeting.
“Officer Wolfe is proving to be more beneficial than our own pride members on the force,” Trip said.
“He wants to make a name for himself, so we’ll use that to our advantage,” Adam replied.
Trip caught Adam up on the phone call with El, Shawn’s mother, and the fact that his mother was a guardian.
“Mom and dad used to take us camping when we were little at an old cabin.I was so small, I don’t remember where it’s even located.I remember it had a creek that we used to fish in.
“I wonder if Ryan could get us there?”Marcus asked.
“Maybe, if we can catch up to him and ask him,” Adam said.
