Eyes flashing bright green, she let out a low-pitched yowl. When that wasn’t enough to immediately scare him away, she lifted her hand, revealing petite, curved claws, then hissed at him, exposing a delicate pair of fangs.
Bloody hell. She was some kind of werecat!
He put up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bump you.”
Catwoman—yeah, he was going there—glared at him, letting out another hiss. “Stay the hell away from me. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m not getting involved in your crap.”
Baring her teeth at him again, she hurried away, disappearing into the crowd, leaving Zane to wonder if they were pumping psychedelic drugs into the club’s air system. Because there was no way in hell he’d seen what he thought he’d seen.
“I don’t know what the crowd looks like on your side of the club,” Diego’s voice in his earpiece jerked him out of the minor mental breakdown he was currently experiencing, “but there’s some weird shit going on in this place.”
“You have no idea,” Zane muttered. “I think some kind of werecat just threatened to rip my face off. She had glowing eyes, fangs, and claws, but she definitely wasn’t one of us.”
He expected an immediate barrage of questions—and maybe a few comments about how insane he sounded—but he got neither.
“This is going to sound crazy, but when we ran into this guy who didn’t smell like any human I’ve ever come across, he freaked out and took off through the crowd,” Rachel said. “We followed him to a small alcove, and when we tried to tell him we only wanted to talk, he ran through a wall to get away from us.”
Zane did a double take, sure he’d heard that last part wrong. Finally, he forced the words out. “He did what?”
“He ran through the damn wall,” Diego said. “As in he disappeared through reinforced concrete without leaving a mark on it.”
Zane was still letting that sink in when Alyssa walked up and stopped in front of him. She must have realized he wasn’t behind her and circled back. “What’s up? Did you see Stefan?”
“Not yet. Let’s do a lap around this level, then head down to the second floor.”
As they moved through the crowd, he kept a hand on her lower back this time, so they wouldn’t get separated again. They stuck close to the rail, keeping an eye out for Stefan, but between the swirling lights, hidden alcoves, and ridiculous number of people in the club, it was impossible.
“Anything yet?” he asked Rachel and Diego.
“Negative,” Diego replied.
“But we just walked by a girl who didn’t have a heartbeat,” Rachel added. “She actually had the audacity to look at us like we were something she’d only seen in the off-limits part of the local petting zoo.”
Zane didn’t know what kind of animals were off-limits in a petting zoo but was afraid to ask. This night was bizarre enough as it was.
They were heading toward the stairs to the second level when he picked up a scent he immediately recognized. An alpha werewolf. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly where the guy was in the sea of humanity, but he was close by. The comment about Grand Central Station from that girl with the blue hair out front suddenly made a lot more sense. Another werewolf must have slipped in there just minutes before they had.
Zane wasn’t sure if they found the other werewolf or he found them, but five minutes later, they ran into him. Alyssa didn’t realize what the tall, broad-shouldered Asian American guy was, so she stepped to the side to slip around him but stopped when she noticed Zane wasn’t following her.
“Man, am I glad to see you,” the werewolf said, relief clear on his face as he extended his hand. “Jake Huang.”
Zane automatically shook his hand. “Zane Kendrick. This is Alyssa Carson.”
Jake gave her a nod in greeting as he shook her hand. “I’m looking for two betas. Identical twin girls about eighteen-years old. Tall, platinum-blond hair, blue eyes—you can’t miss them. They’re in trouble, and if you’re willing, I could use help finding them.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Zane caught Alyssa looking at Jake in confusion, and he wasn’t sure what was crazier about this situation—that the other alpha had said something like that in front of a human or that he’d just described Zoe and Chloe to a tee.
Then it hit him. This guy was the twins’ alpha. And based on the racing heartbeat and waves of anxiety rolling off Jake, it was obvious he knew his betas were in danger. It must be so bad he’d simply stopped caring about the normal rules of werewolf behavior—like not letting random strangers know werewolves existed.
Zane would have preferred not to have this conversation in front of Alyssa, but asking her to wander off on her own for a few minutes so he could chat with Jake wasn’t going to work. “I know who you’re talking about and you can relax. The girls are okay. They’re safe in a hotel room halfway across town.”
Jake stared at him in confusion. “No, they aren’t. I tracked their scent in through the front entrance not more than ten minutes ago, but there are so many strange odors in here I can’t find them now. Every instinct I have is telling me they’re in serious trouble and that I have to help them even though I’ve never actually met them.”
Alyssa was standing there looking baffled as hell, but Zane ignored her. “How could you describe them if you’ve never met them?”
“Because I saw them on a security camera last week.” Jake ran his hand through his hair and blew out a breath as he added, “I’m a cop in Santa Fe. After my shift, I stopped at a diner to grab something to eat before I went home, and the moment I walked in, I smelled them. They must have been there right before I was.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it, but something told me they were in trouble. I got the manager to show me the security footage and as soon as I saw them on camera, I knew I had to find them. I took emergency leave and have been tracking them ever since. The sensation they’re in trouble has gotten stronger every day. They’re in here now…and they’re in danger.”
“You’re saying Zoe and Chloe are here in this club?” Alyssa asked.
