“Stef,” Dexter said, “we figured out our Blake problem.”
“Excuse you?” Blake glared at him. “Your Blake problem is going to shove its boot up your ass if you don’t tell me what the hell you and Mal are going on about.”
Stef put her hand on her hip as she leaned against the door frame. She had a folder in her hand and a frown creasing her forehead. She wore dress pants and high, thick-heeled shoes. She actually ran in those things, which Blake found super impressive.
“Yeah, what is his problem?” she asked Dexter and Mal as if Blake wasn’t standing right there. “He’s been acting like a squirrel on crack lately. What’s wrong with him?”
“Fated mate.” Mal took off his dress jacket and dumped it on his chair. “Krista is his fated mate. That’s why he acts all weird whenever he sees her.” There was a smirk on his face. “Because he’s in luuuurve.” And he actually starting singing “Krista and Blake, sittin’ in a tree… k-i-s-s-i-n-g…” in a low voice.
“Soin love,” Dexter agreed, with a rumbling laugh. “You should see how his face goes all goofy when she’s in a ten-block radius. I don’t know how we didn’t pick it up earlier.”
“He looks likethis,” Mal said, and bugged his eyes out and let his tongue hang from his mouth, making panting noises.
Blake looked at Dexter and Mal with murder in his eyes.
Were they effin’ kidding with this? His job was on the line and they were cackling like a couple of high-school hyenas.And there’s no such thing as fated mates.
But apparently, Stef didn’t think so. She groaned, her entire posture sagging. “Great.” She pushed off the door frame. “Conference room, five minutes. Hit the head, drink, and meet me there.”
The room had a picture window that looked over downtown Crystal Bay, with its glass-fronted office buildings glittering like diamonds in the sun, and an astonishing view of the crystalline waters of the harbor. Crystal Bay was an international port, and enormous cargo ships from all nations chugged their way into the harbor every day.
Blake sat down at the long rectangular table in a chair that had been manufactured for a shifter’s large frame.
Stef set down her folder and took the seat at the head of the table. She skewered Blake with her gaze, making him feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. “Fated mate, huh?”
“No, she isn’t. It’s impossible.”
“It’s not.” Stef’s expression darkened minutely. “Details.”
“I screw up when I’m around her, I guess. I get distracted.”
She rubbed her finger across her lips, her dark eyes troubled. “Really. That could either be an opportunity or a problem. Most likely a problem.”
Mal and Dexter joined them, and Stef gestured for them to take a seat. She tossed them each a folder.
“Things have heated up in the Zoo. We have a new case, and we have to move now. Krista Ellis is still our best way in, and now Blake has to go and decide she’s his fated mate.” Her eyes blazed with annoyance.
“In his defense, nobodydecidesthat someone’s their fated mate,” Mal protested mildly. “That’s why they call it fate.”
Stef made an impatient flapping gesture with her hand, dismissing him.
“What’s the case?” Blake was desperate to re-direct this conversation away from the sexy red vixen who haunted his dreams and invaded his waking thoughts and was definitelynothis fated mate.
Blake’s assignment for the last few weeks had been to run surveillance on Krista Ellis and dig up anything he could use against her. She was one of their best chances at gathering intel on what was happening in the Zoo. Several people had gone missing there recently, including a DEA agent, and the suspicion was that it was tied in with the moonshine pipeline operating out of the area.
Krista had left the isolated, close-knit country community, apparently for good ten years ago, but it didn’t seem like she was an outcast—not altogether. That nutty great-aunt of hers still visited from time to time, and recently she’d been trying to wheedle Krista into returning for some kind of big family reunion.
Stef opened her folder on the table in front of her. “A missing nine-year-old cub named Ethan Coffman. He’s the son of Michael Coffman of the Golden Eyes Pride. A very wealthy, influential lion pride who live in a suburb of Crystal Bay.” Stef slid a packet of papers across to each of them. “Went missing this morning in Flowering Dogwood.”
“Flowering Dogwood?” Blake flipped open the folder he’d just been handed. That was Krista’s old stomping ground.
“What time exactly did this happen?”
“About four hours ago. His father was out there on business, looking into buying up some old mining property. Given the history of disappearances in that area, his father didn’t waste any time in calling us.”
“The other disappearances were all adults,” Blake pointed out. “It seems unlikely that the same people are behind it. He might even have just run off and gotten lost, or maybe he ran away on purpose.”
Stef shook her head. “His scent trail says otherwise. It led up to a big oak tree and then vanished. That’s the main thing that triggered his father call to us.”
