Page 34 of Lost Mate

“In the shower. Did something happen? You look like death.”

“Not unless you call listening to Eli and Milo fuck like bunnies all night,” Niles said sourly. “Milo came home frisky, and I forgot my headphones.”

Ross tried to hold back a grin but from Niles’s disgusted expression he wasn’t very successful. He vanished into the office and returned with headphones he’d discovered in one of the drawers the day before.

“Thanks, but I plan to find a hotel room tonight.” Niles put them in his messenger bag anyway.

“Stay with the pack,” Ross advised. “It’s not safe to be away from us right now.”

“I’m not a member of the pack, remember?”

“Yeah, you are. You proved that yesterday. Do you want to sleep in the bedroom? The bedding is clean.”

Niles sighed as if that was all he wanted but he said, “Let’s talk sleeping arrangements later. We must establish what happened to Dylan after he went dark. Owen sends his apologies, but he’s tied up with Wild Creek pack issues.”

“I thought he’d been exiled.”

“He has. It’s a pack thing. They’re trying to keep his skinny ass alive. I decided to keep my human nose out of it. Let’s talk about your assignment.”

“I had no luck yesterday as you know. If Dylan was in or around San Antonio, he didn’t stay there.”

“That fits with my intel,” Niles agreed and took another swallow of coffee.

Ross fixed him with a steely gaze. “Am I wasting my time? Did Eli just send us here to get us out of the way?”

“No and yes.”

Ross blinked. “Say that again.”

“Yes, Eli wants Dylan away from the ranch. You know that. But my intel was following Dylan from his assignment. He was away from the city when he went dark.”

‘You’ve got more than one operative working for the hunters.”

“We have, but not with the Streersons. Another shady organization working with them.”

The Streerson family who’d overseen the human hunters chasing shifters in this part of the country were either dead or behind bars thanks to Sapphire Ranch and the Cavalry. But that didn’t mean to say the danger was over. The hunter network was international.

“So, Dylan worked undercover for an adjacent set of assholes and went missing.”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“We’re not sure of the exact date,” Niles admitted. “It could be two months, it could be longer. It was before Owen’s abduction. Our operatives didn’t check in every day. It was too dangerous to do that. Eyes were on them all the time.”

“And you had no idea what happened to me between then and two days ago.” Dylan stood in the doorway, his face pinched.

“No. But our intel was looking for you.”

“Eli said??—”

Niles waved his hand. “Eli doesn’t have time to scratch his butt. He would have searched for you personally if he hadn’t been trying to save the world. But I manage the intel department, and you were under my purview.”

“But you didn’t find me,” Dylan said pointedly.

“No.” Niles put his cup on the counter. “From your last check-in until the day you walked into the ranch house, we couldn’t find a trace of you.”

“And I don’t have any idea where I was.”

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