***
Maria’s relief when Ellison dismounted his motorcycle in front of the convenience store made her knees weak. Maria dashed to him, and in an instant, his strong arms were around her, Ellison sweeping her up into his warmth. Maria buried her face in his neck and hung on.
“You all right?” Ellison asked.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Connor . . . It was awful. They just took him!”
“I know. We’re on it.”
“But why take him? He’s a cub, but not in human terms, not like Olaf.”
Ellison went silent, and Maria raised her head to find his gray eyes troubled. “I admit, I don’t know. But we’ll find him.”
His expression was somber, but his arms were strong around her. So good to be able to lay her head on his shoulder, for him to understand her burdens, to share them, to fight with her.
“Hey!” A voice sounded across the convenience store’s tiny parking lot. “Shifters aren’t allowed here.”
Maria turned around, hot words on her lips, but Ellison stopped her. “Never mind. Let’s go hunt for Connor.”
Maria clamped her mouth shut. She didn’t like the convenience store clerk’s sneering expression, but now was not the time to fight this battle. After they found Connor, she’d come back here and say rude things to him.
Ellison helped her onto the back of the motorcycle. As she had only yesterday, Maria wrapped her arms around him and let him carry her away.
She realized after Ellison had made a few turns away from the convenience store that they were not going back to Shiftertown. He rode them down to the warehouse area they’d visited yesterday morning, with its empty back lots that might as well be in the middle of nowhere.
Ellison stopped in the open space in front of Pablo Marquez’s warehouse. Guys working on two high-end cars gave Maria and Ellison warning looks as they left the bike and went inside.
Pablo Marquez sat at his desk in his office, tapping a laptop’s keyboard. “I already talked to Dylan,” he said before Ellison reached him. “I don’t know where they took Connor, but I suggested some leads. You can go away now. I’m busy.”
Ellison walked steadily to the desk and stopped in front of it, doing nothing but standing there. “You know where Clifford Bradley is,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Chapter Twelve
Pablo made himself not blink. Shifters liked to stare a man down, to intimidate with a steady gaze. Pablo had learned in this last year that showing fear was the worst thing he could do—no matter that the small boy he used to be was quivering inside him in terror.
“Don’t mess with Bradley,” Pablo said. “Find the cub and then go home. I’m telling you this for your own good.”
Ellison leaned his fists on Pablo’s desk. “You’re working for him, aren’t you?”
“No.” That was the honest truth. Bradley wasn’t paying him.
The wolf Shifter inhaled sharply, testing Pablo’s scent, hunting for lies. “But you know,” Ellison said. “Tell me everything.”
Pablo had always thought of Dylan as the scary one. He knew damn well that at any time, for any reason—or for no reason at all—Dylan could simply kill him and walk away. He had no illusions that the human police would be very bothered about Pablo’s death, and Dylan knew that too.
Ellison was different. He was the most laid-back of the trackers, with his cowboy hat and his slow West Texas–style drawl. He, Spike, and Sean did little more than stand as silent pillars behind Dylan when Dylan came to visit, although Ellison might toss in an understated joke or tip his hat on the way out.
Today Ellison had left his hat behind, and the Texas drawl was laced with steel.
Pablo contrasted Ellison in his jeans and button-down shirt with Bradley and his ice-cold eyes and five-thousand-dollar suits. Bradley was dangerous because he was all business, no sentiment. The man had no family, no friends, no warmth in him whatsoever. The Shifters would lose against him, because they were all warmth, all emotion. Bradley was a robot.
“If I tell you, I’ll get you killed,” Pablo said.
The human woman, the cute little thing called Maria, stepped forward. From what Pablo had seen, she was a smart, compact firecracker. If he were fifteen years younger and not in love with his obnoxious, silken-haired hacker girlfriend, he might think about her for himself. But the way Ellison closed in on her protectively . . . Nope, she was spoken for.
“Mr. Marquez,” she began. That was sweet, calling him Mr. “Think about this. If it was your brother, your son, or your best friend who was missing, what would you do? You’d stop at nothing to go after Mr. Bradley, wouldn’t you? You are that kind of person.”
“True,” Pablo said. “I’d go find Bradley and get my head taken off for my trouble.”
“You’re not Shifter,” Maria said. “Shifters can do amazing things.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Pablo turned the force of his gaze on her, and met brown eyes full of fire. “You want to see him shot down, chiquita?” He gestured to Ellison. “With enough firepower to blow him to pieces right in front of you? Bradley and his boys are used to dealing with Shifters. I mean, shit, he steals their cubs.”
“Which is why you’re going to help us,” Maria said. “He took Connor—while I was watching. Do you know what that made me feel like?”
“Yeah. Actually, I do.” As a teenager, Pablo had seen his best friend dragged off by a rival gang and executed, while he’d hidden in terror, unable to do anything to stop it. From that day to this, he’d vowed to have the power to never have to go through that again. He’d protect his family and friends to his last breath. “I do get it. But sweetheart, let Dylan and his crew handle finding Connor. You go back home and wait.”
Ellison spoke again, the Texas accent not as pronounced this time. “Bradley wouldn’t have taken Connor to his own house. He’d have a place to stash him until delivery, and that’s where you sent Dylan and Liam. Right? What I want is Bradley himself. The body of the hydra. Not its heads.”
“Cut one off, two grow back, right?” It had been a long time since Pablo had read a book, but he remembered that story. “Let it go, man. Dylan will obliterate the thugs who did the kidnapping, you’ll have the cub back safe and sound, and all your Shifter friends will live.”
“And it will happen again,” Ellison said. “And again.”