Page 39 of Midnight Rain

When the knock sounded again, Cormac eased his arm from under his mate’s head and then pulled his leg from over Austin. He got up, trying not to jostle the bed too much. After sliding on his underwear, he cracked the door open and saw Duncan on the other side.

“Something wrong?”

Ducan held up a small device. “I followed a hunch and found this in a rear wheel well of Austin’s car. The son of a bitch is tracking him.”

Cormac opened the door farther and then stepped into the hallway as Duncan backed up. He closed the door and took the device from his brother’s hand.

“Do you think he put it there before or after Austin got to Midnight Falls?” Cormac turned it over in his hand.

“If I had to guess, I would say before. That’s how he knew where to find your mate when he moved.” Duncan crossed his arms. “He probably asked Beth for Austin’s number so he had a way of communicating with him, but he’d been tracking him this entire time.”

Which meant Jaycee could possibly already be in town, possibly watching the house at this very moment. Cormac was thankful he’d convinced Austin and Paloma to stay at the Lovato house.

“I think it’s time to get Sheriff Harper involved,” Cormac said. “This guy is obsessed with Austin. There’s no telling what’s going through his twisted mind, but if he’s watching this house, that means he knows who lives here.”

“Which means he could use the other mates or Paloma. Snatch them while any one of them are in town and use them as leverage to get to Austin.”

Cormac looked back at his bedroom door. “Too bad we don’t know what he looks like. I’ll get as many details as I can from Austin, but we all need to be on high alert, keeping our heads on a swivel.”

Austin had planned on going into town later today to talk to the owner of the hair salon. Now Cormac had to decide to either keep Austin in the house on lockdown or pretend everything was normal, lying in wait for Jaycee to show himself.

If it had been one of the other mates, Cormac would insist they stay inside where their stalker couldn’t get to them. Deny the guy access to what he wanted the most.

“Do you think we should lock the house down?” His entire life Cormac had been making decisions for his brothers, especially when they’d moved away from home. The one thing their father had insisted on was that they move to same area as each other. That way, if something happened, they’d have their siblings close by.

So why was Cormac finding it hard to map out a plan?

“It would be the smart thing to do,” Duncan said. “Our home is more secure than being out in the open, like in town. Regardless of what we decide, Jaycee is determined to have Austin to himself. He’s going to try something, and the longer he’s denied the object of his obsession, the worse it will probably be.”

Cormac had read the text Jaycee sent. The guy had said they were perfect for each other and that Austin was just confused. That he wanted to meet up to grab a coffee so he could show Austin that they were meant to be together.

Now Cormac wondered if Jaycee had said that because he knew that Austin had stopped at Bluebird Café the morning he’d arrived. Had Jaycee been in Midnight Falls the entire time that Austin had?

“Why didn’t he try something when Austin was at Paloma’s?” Cormac looked at Duncan. “It would have been the best time.”

His brother shrugged. “If it was me tracking someone, I would want to know what I was up against since the playing field had moved to somewhere unfamiliar. I’d lay low and observe until the perfect opportunity presented itself, and then I’d make my move.”

Curling his fingers inward, Cormac gripped the device. Austin was behind his bedroom door, sleeping peacefully. News that Jaycee had been tracking him since the beginning, and that he was in town, was going to send his mate into a downward spiral.

He had to tell Austin. One, Cormac never wanted to hide anything from his mate. That was no way to build trust. He didn’t want to shatter that, and Austin looked up to Cormac.

Two, knowledge was power. It was better to involve his mate in any plan to keep him safe.

Plus, Austin would want to know why he couldn’t go to the salon today.

“Hayden is outside right now in his cheetah form, trying to pick up on any unfamiliar scents. Izel is out there too, but…” Duncan sighed. “Since Jaden released him from his duties, we discovered things.”

Cormac frowned. “What kind of things?”

Duncan leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “When we were in our room the other night, Izel tried to ‘pop’ down to the kitchen to get Orion something to drink, but it didn’t work. He was confused, so he tried summoning his scythe and couldn’t.”

“Because he no longer needs it since he’s not a reaper anymore,” Cormac surmised.

“That’s what Izel thinks,” Duncan replied. “If I had to guess, though, aside from immortality, Izel has reverted back to being human, to who he was before his father killed him.”

Jaden couldn’t strip Izel of his immorality since it had been the Keeper who’d made Cormac and his brothers, along with their mates, immortal. It sucked not having someone with abilities on their side anymore, though that didn’t make Izel useless.

He’d been a warrior before he’d been killed, and he still possessed those skills. “Even if Izel’s human, I would have him at my back in any given situation.”

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