Page 6 of Awakening the Dhampir

Chapter 3

Elliott

Iwrapped my fingers around the bar holding more weight than I had any business trying to lift. I’d spent all my free time in our private training room at the fortress in New Orleans trying to distract myself from my failures. I hated myself for what I’d done.

Lorna’s face appeared in my mind. I couldn’t forget the fear in her eyes while my wolf attacked my best friend. The only thing she’d remember of me was my idiocy. Not that my wolf wanted to claim her. Not that I’d protect her even if I didn’t agree with my wolf. Not that I loved the way she made Kenrid smile or the ease with which Damon embraced their physical touch.

All she’d remember of me was her fear.

It’d been twelve days since she went missing, but all our leads were dead ends. The group who took her just handed her off to someone else. Kenrid was still trying to track the money transfers but kept coming up empty.

Kenrid heard a rumor from the fae that she was dead, but we refused to believe it. Mostly because we’d caught the wolves who stole her from Kenrid’s house. They swore she was alive when they handed her over to a group of vampires and trolls.

A growl rumbled up my throat, and I moved into a low squat.

She hadn’t felt safe at Kenrid’s. I should’ve been there to reassure her, to explain how the wards worked. She should’ve known that even if they were weakened, no one could get through Kenrid’s magic, at least not before we arrived.

The fact that Kenrid hadn’t explained this in detail pissed me the hell off. He’d just assumed she would know. It was so out of character for our fae brother. His normally meticulous behavior had been upheaved with Lorna in his house.

He’d said, “She adjusted so quickly, it was too easy to forget that magic was new to her.” I sort of understood, but it didn’t ease my anger.

Not that I was any better. All I’d done was scare her by acting like an ass.

I sucked in a deep breath and pulled on the weighted bar at my feet. The muscles in my thighs, shoulders, back, and arms quivered with my efforts to move it. It didn’t budge. Just like my damn stubbornness.

I should’ve listened to Damon. He’d been there for me just as long as Nathan. Damon never lied. Not to me or anyone else. He just told you like it was whether you wanted to hear that shit or not. And I’d ignored him like a jackass.

Even though I wasn’t ready to accept Lorna as my mate, I wouldn’t—couldn’t—ignore my wolf’s desire to protect her. After Lorna’s kidnapping, I’d compromised with him, something I’d learned to do a long time ago. Had I done it sooner like Damon told me to, I could’ve been there for her instead of dumping it all on Kenrid.

My cell phone rang on the bench next to me. I could ignore that too, but it’d just prove my point. I glanced over at it and frowned. I didn’t recognize the number, so I picked it up and answered. If it was one of those stupid assholes trying to sell me an extended warranty on my brand-new truck, I’d get to vent my anger on them.

“What?” I growled.

“What happened to the happy-go-lucky wolf I used to work for?” a familiar voice asked.

It took a few seconds for me to recognize that voice. If I was right, I was talking to my sometimes-friend and ex-coworker, a grizzly bear shifter I hadn’t heard from in years.

“Jonah?”

“Hey, man!” Jonah replied. “Let’s have some lunch. I think I found something you might be looking for.”

I snatched up a towel from the bench and scrubbed my face.

“I didn’t know I lost something,” I hedged. Sure, Damon blurted out his mate status to an entire pack of wolves, but we hadn’t advertised that we lost Lorna. Mostly because we didn’t tell everyone that we had her in the first place.

“Then how about some lunch between old friends?” he suggested.

I could hear tension in his voice. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be talking about it on the phone. If he did have info about Lorna, I needed to hear it.

“Sure,” I agreed. “Meet me in an hour at Smiley’s?”

“Sounds good. I haven’t eaten there in ages.”

He hung up before I could say anything else. I stared at my phone’s blank screen for several seconds before dialing Kenrid. He answered on the second ring.

“I might have a lead,” I said before he even had a chance to say hello.

“Tell me everything,” Kenrid said.

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