Page 45 of Israel

He drew the fiery lock of hair to his lips and kissed it.

“Why not?”

“I’m not a wolf, for one thing,” she said.

“Fated mates don’t have to be wolves,” he said. “Our alpha’s mate is a human. And Kane’s mate…”

He stopped. He couldn’t tell anyone what Rachelle was—a magical beast called a ki-rin. Possibly the only one of her kind in this dimension, though others existed in the spirit world.

“It’s not about what’s in your body,” he said. “It’s about what’s in your heart.”

She pulled away, looking into his eyes. Hers were so sad he felt like shards of glass were spearing him in the chest.

“You are so, so special,” she said. “And you make me feel…like no one else ever has. But I’m not your mate. When you meet her, you’ll know. But it can’t be me. I’m sorry.”

She hugged him hard, then buried her head in the crook of his shoulder. He held her close, tasting the tears she’d left on his cheek.

He traced the necklace she wore with his fingers, wanting to rip it off her neck. He knew her refusal had something to do with the infernal thing, and with the stranglehold her family had on every part of her life.

She was right about one thing. He knew who his mate was, had known since the moment he met her. And if she was his true mate, then there had to be a way they could be together. And he was going to find it.

That night, while Ashley was onstage, Israel took out his drawing pad and made some detailed sketches. Then he got on his computer and searched the tour’s publicity database, focusing on close-up pictures of Ashley in low-cut dresses.

He photographed all his sketches and dumped them in a digital file with the publicity photos, and then he Skyped Jesse, the Silverlake pack’s resident tech guru.

“Yo, bro,” Jesse said. “What’s up?”

First things first. “I have a name for a deep background check,” he said. “Roger Kazinski. Human and shifter databases. It turns out Ashley helped him with some family medical bills, and he’s got an obvious crush on her.”

“How likely is he, as the stalker?” Jesse asked.

Israel said, “Fuck, I don’t know. Normally I’d say not that likely, but this case isn’t normal, so who the hell knows?”

“Tell me about it,” Jesse said. “There’s some kind of weird anomaly on the security footage from the venue the night that guy left the lilacs. I’m trying to identify it and see if I can get something we can use. I’ll let you know what I come up with.”

“Okay,” Israel said. “Send it to Harrison, but contact me personally too, okay?”

Jesse nodded. “Anything else?” he asked.

“Too much shit to even describe,” Israel said. “Listen, Jess, I need a favor. How many secret shifter databases can you hack into?”

“All of them,” was the immediate reply. “If I need to. Why?”

“I’m sending you a photo file,” Israel said. “There’s this necklace Ashley wears all the time. She can’t take it off. I think it’s some kind of binding thing—one that suppresses her animal. And I think it’s making her sick.”

“Suppression?” Jesse frowned. “Sounds like some of those experiments Gen-X was doing.”

Gen-X was an illegal organization that had been experimenting on shifters—one that Kane and Rachelle and the other Enforcers had recently taken down.

“Maybe,” Israel said. “Or magic.”

Jesse was silent for a minute. “That kind of magic left this world centuries ago,” he said. “With the dragons and witches and other mythological shifters.”

“Like ki-rin,” Israel said. “Who are not, it turns out, entirely gone. Thus, my question about secret shifter databases.”

“Oh,” Jesse said. Israel could practically see the gears turning in his friend’s very intelligent brain. Kane’s mate Rachelle had recently learned she was a ki-rin, after a lifetime of believing her special powers came from being genetically altered. She’d also spent most of her life with her ability to shift suppressed.

If one kind of magical shifter was still wandering this world, shielded from detection, then why not others? And Israel was starting to get a bad feeling about Ashley’s arrogant, controlling, badass family.