The defensive? What the fuck. Just saying that put him on the defensive.
“Name’s Carys, don’t know her last name. Drives the Jeep that was parked outside the gate.” The second he said that, Prowler flicked his fingers toward Boogey and Kansas, who were both already clacking away on their keyboards. One likely hacking public record, the other checking shifter files.
“Sick mom, don’t know about a dad, vegetarian, and can suck a trailer hitch through a garden hose. Is that enough?”
Prowler raised an eyebrow in warning to scale back the attitude.
“Sorry, Prez. Ulf is well, restless, and he doesn’t like that we’re discussing her.”
“Is she your mate?” Kansas’s voice held a touch of awe at the possibility.
“I don’t know, but Ulf really fucking likes her. I’m thinking either way I might make her my ol’ lady.”
Prowler and Bulldog exchanged a look he didn’t like one bit.
“Maybe if you didn’t wear that silver all the time, he …” Prowler’s voice trailed off when his eyes drifted down to his wrist where the cuff had always been. “You’re not feral.”
“No, I guess not. Maybe Ulf has calmed with age or enough silver. I don’t know, but he feels more coherent and unified by the minute.”
A round of whoops and table-slapping filled the room.
Monster blushed, actually blushed. He never wanted to find a mate, didn’t really think he was missing out on anything until Carys. Now, he couldn’t wait to kiss her and know for sure.
“Shit,” he heard Bulldog swear under his breath.
“Can I be privy to why we’re discussing this in?—”
“Donaldson!” Boogeyman shouted with glee. “Carys Donaldson. Mother Linda, father listed as unknown, thirty-two, a Capricorn, works at a small FBO. She’s a certified aircraft mechanic, annnnnd has an apartment in the southwest part of town.”
Monster listened to all the new things he was learning about Carys with interest. Everything his brother was saying just made her hotter. He could picture his pixie in greasy coveralls, holding a big wrench next to a small twin-engine aircraft, and fuck, it made him hard. He was definitely going to ask her to dress up for him next time.
He was pulled out of his fantasy when Kansas kept repeating her mother’s name.
“Linda Donaldson. Linda Donaldson, Linda … I know that name,” he muttered a little more to himself before he looked up at Monster, then to Prowler with wide eyes and a concerned look on his face.
“It’s not the most unusual name. As a matter of fact, Linda Donaldson seems a little common. However, since we’re discussing her daughter in an emergency meeting, it can’t be a coincidence. I mean, what are the?—”
“Kansas. Just spit it out, brother. Where do you know that name from?” Boogeyman brought Kansas back to the subject at hand because when he got going, he would wax on for twenty minutes before getting to the point. The man was a wealth of information and one hell of a King, but it took him two business days to get to the point if you didn’t dial him in.
“Right. Linda Donaldson. That name was in the files I got from Ben a while back. She was their first successful breeding program female. If you call being raped repeatedly by multiple males until you get pregnant successful.” Monster’s stomach bottomed out, and Ulf howled a long, painful keening cry.
Could Carys be the product of that breeding? Monster banged his fist on the table at the thought.
“Is the child’s name mentioned?”
Kansas typed some until he found what he was looking for. “No, but the DNA test revealed who the father was so she could be bonded to him.” Kansas’s face went white as chalk. “It was Samual.”
Fuck.
“You mean the Samual?” Ghoul asked.
Kansas nodded.
Samual was the wolf who’d volunteered Kansas’s family as guinea pigs. The one who tried to get Kansas into the lab to test the wolf ejector they were developing. One that would suppress it enough that it leaped from the body but couldn’t live in another host. If it couldn’t eject itself, it would suffocate and die a slow, painful death. That was when Kansas had run and never looked back.
The thought of his beautiful pixie being that evil man’s offspring made bile rise in his throat.
So many emotions were assaulting him at once, and he couldn’t sort through them, so Monster focused on facts and information.
