Page 276 of Secret Shifters Next Door

As I pulled into my driveway, I spotted Ava getting out of her car. Of course, we had to talk. She’d asked a simple question. I wanted to kick myself for not lying, but the emotions boiling within me did not allow that. Instead, I told her exactly what was on my mind. It was the first time I’d truly voiced the exact emotions out loud. I had to turn around and head inside before she could see the tears in my eyes.

Every part of me knew I’d made the right decision, but that didn’t change the heartbreak my body and mind were enduring. My panther was inconsolable, and doing that to him made me feel like the dog shit I’d scrape off the bottom of my shoe. There was no other choice, though. There had never been another choice. Ava was not supposed to be mine, and my panther and I needed to learn to live without her.

Instead of staying cooped up in the house, I decided to head up to the waterfalls in the mountains while there was still some daylight left. My panther loved the place. I kept the radio turned up loud to keep my mind from diving too deep into itself on the drive up. It worked, for the most part, but then I had the hike up to the falls.

Five minutes into the hike, my mind pinwheeled down paths I didn’t want it going. I didn’t have a mate. Now that the curse had been broken, I’d probably never have one since panther shifters were so rare. I’d rejected the one who’d beenfatedto me. Even though, in my heart of hearts, I understood Ava could never really have been my mate and it had just been a cruel twist of Fate, the idea of never being mated ate at me.

Ever since losing Liam, I’d been overcome with a soul-crushing loneliness. Out of our little makeshift pack here in Lilly Valley, I’d been the one most desperate to have a family. To have my own little cubs running around. To have a mate who loved me, who would take care of me and whom I’d take care of in turn. That was all gone. Out the window because of some goddamned curse. Sure, I could try to find a panther mate, but that would be near-impossible. Panthers were the rarest shifters of all, even rarer than dragons.

Before my parents had died, we’d been part of a small pack with another family. Once my parents died, they’d joined a small panther pack in Montana with only a few unmated panthers. Even if I found them, I wouldn’t find a mate there. I’d have to travel all across the country, maybe even through Canada or Mexico, to find a mate. Which would mean leaving behind the only family I had.

I was the last of my bloodline. When I died, the Walker panther line would be snuffed out. Forever tossed to the dustbin of history. Vanished like we’d never existed at all. That hit me hard. Liam and I had vowed to keep the family name going, which was why his infatuation with Ava had been so perplexing. We’d all known there was no way she could ever bear him children. My mind spiraled with old memories, future dread, and current pain.

The trip to the falls was supposed to make me and my panther better, but as I sat on a rock and watched the water cascade over the edge while the sun slowly set behind the trees, I only felt more depressed.

“Are you there, big guy?” I whispered to my panther. “Can you talk to me?”

Nothing. Not a growl or purr. It was like he wasn’t even there at all. The sadness and agony had driven him even deeper than I’d initially thought.

I tried to shift, thinking that would make him feel better and coax him to the forefront of my mind, but he wasn’t there for me to call on. Shifting wasn’t a one-way street. I couldn’t force it if he didn’t want it, and vice versa.

The loss weighed heavily on me. Not the loss of Ava or a mate, but the relationship I’d had with my panther.

EIGHT

AVA

The week off from chemo was doing Dad a world of good. He’d even got some of his appetite back. When I suggested going out for lunch, he jumped at the chance of getting out of the house for a while. He’d been stuck in there pretty much non-stop since the first chemo treatment—too tired or sick to go out even if he’d wanted to.

“I could go for a burrito. How about you?” he asked.

“Whatever you want, Daddy.”

He pumped his fist in the air. “Let’s go to Cocina. You know the place?”

I did. It was a little hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint that had been tucked downtown as long as I’d been alive. “Does that little old ladystillown it?”

“Sofia? She does, but her daughter Camille runs it now. Sofia’s getting on in years. They had a little trouble from the bank a couple of years ago, and we helped her out.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

He sighed. “I didn’t break anyone's kneecaps, if that’s what you’re wondering. I simply…” He paused and stared into space trying to find the right words. “I had a meeting with the president of the bank and told him it was in his best interest tolosethose mortgage papers. That a well-to-do bank like his could easily write off a couple of hundred thousand dollars.”

I leaned forward, my brow furrowed. “And he went for that?” I snapped my fingers. “No big deal?”

“Well…uh…I guess Sam and I did make sure he knew exactlyhowgood of friends we were with Sofia and her family. We, uh…hey, let’s get some food, okay? No need to bore you with family business.”

I dropped it. My family was one of the biggest organized crime families in the Midwest. I’d been aware of it since I was a child. They didn’t deal in any of the seedier sides of the criminal world that other families did. No human trafficking, no prostitution, no porn. They tended to do more strong-arm, investment-type stuff. Protection services, extortion, money laundering. My father owned a casino out in Nevada. Therewereforays into drug-running and selling, which I did not like, but I couldn’t stop it. It had been part of the family business since my grandfather moved the family to Colorado from Chicago over sixty years ago.

When we were seated at the restaurant, Dad kept moving his shoulders and trying to stretch his back. He sighed and took a drink of water. “The chemo is destroying my body. Everything hurts all the time. My joints ache like I’ve got arthritis or something.”

“It’s all part of the process,” I said as I dipped a chip into salsa. “It’s better than the alternative.”

“I hate feeling weak,” he said, his hands curling into fists in frustration. “I can’t wait for this to all be over.”

I reached over and put a hand on his. “I’d rather you be weak for a few months than have you die.”

His eyes softened and he looked down at the table. “I’m sorry. I keep going on and on about this. I hate feeling weak. It's not who I am. I don’t mean to be a grouch all the time.”

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