Page 2 of Bound

“That makes six abductions in the last six weeks. Any idea if he had time to trigger the emergency protocols?”

“Guess we’re about to find out.”

We made our way up to the top floor of building five. The emergency exit sign over the stairwell bathed the walls blood red like a scene straight out of a slasher flick. The landing’s stained carpet smelled of shapeshifter and fear. Neither of us needed to state the obvious. This one was just like all the others.

We were too late.

We were nearly to the door when my phone buzzed with a text from my oldest brother and pack Alpha.

Brody: Where the hell have you been?

West: Hello to you, too, sunshine. That would be Back to School Night. Followed by a hot date with 175 punctuation quizzes. Your tax dollars at work.

Brody: I’m already getting calls that Topher was stirring up trouble down in Austin earlier tonight.

West: Well, considering how well you two connected during your last heart to heart…

Brody: Don’t get cute with me. You and I are sitting down with him later this week. No more putting it off.

I ground my teeth.

“Look,” Topher began. “When we get in there, you don’t have to, you know.”

He waved a hand between us.

My stomach clenched. “Can we not do this right now?”

“Just saying, I can get what I need from outside.”

Except he couldn’t. And we both knew it.

“I’m fine.”

I blinked. Hard whiskey-amber eyes met mine. Something stirred in my gut. And as always, I was the first to look away.

Like all fantasy antiheroes destined to either redeem themselves in a blaze of glory or be eaten by a rodent of unusual size courtesy of their local fire swamp, I had three weaknesses.

1) Mayonnaise. Let’s just get that one out of the way. Some things should be illegal in polite society. Being from Texas, I had been raised on barbecue, Mexican food, and cheeseburgers, the longstanding debate in the Caldwell-Montemayor household being whether Dairy Queenor Whataburgermade the ultimate flame kissed Texas burger. The aforementioned evil condiment, which held no appreciable value other than to enable the existence of potato salad, fit nowhere into that equation. For the record, Team Caldwell was split straight down the middle with the two foodies in the family, Dallas and Ethan, plus Brody’s twin Cal landing hard in DQ-Country (no doubt for the Blizzards) and Brody, River and August siding with Whataburger. And yes, I had six brothers. More on them later.

2) My advisory class. You would think that twenty minutes wouldn’t be long enough for a focus group of teens you’d been mentoring since freshman year to dig up the landscaping in front of the high school in order to recreate Fangorn Forest across the hood of your Prius. You would be wrong. Sidebar: no more library passes for those demon spawn.

3) But my worst, most undeniable Achilles’ heel was none other than Topher Greer, who due to a magical accident the night we met almost a year ago, I now felt under my skin every moment of every day whether I wanted to or not.

Hence the reason he hated me.

I rapped twice on the door to 5B. A slim werewolf in chucks and a retro Star Wars tee edged it open. His pale blue eyes widened. Quickly he stepped outside. At twenty-seven, Phoenix Richards was a year older than me, and had already risen to the position of second in the North Austin pack. Like most young shifters who’d clawed their way up the ranks of a large pack, Phoenix had a powerful network of allies. He was also one of the few within this particular pack we could count as a friend.

“Are you freaking insane, Caldwell? Wait, don’t answer that. You know you can’t be here. We’ve been over this how many times?”

The two gray wolves guarding the door pricked their ears in sudden interest and I briefly wondered which one was the plant assigned to report back on Phoenix’s every move.

“Five minutes. And sushi night this month is on me.”

Phoenix threw a glance over his shoulder into the apartment, and hissed, “For real, West. My Alpha is all over me on this one. He knows you and I went to school together and he doesn’t like that I gave you access the last three times.”

Four, but who was counting?

“He wants our forensic people handling this,” Phoenix continued in a low voice. “He doesn’t even trust the Tracers after the botched lab work at the last site.”