Page 37 of Monster Mate

It was wide open.

“Oh shit,” they muttered in stereo.

She was out of the car and halfway to the door when she noticed muddy paw prints on the driveway.

Waldo had gone walkabout.

“Where would he go around here?” she asked, frantically following the prints until they faded into the yard. “There aren’t any neighbors to steal from for…I don’t even know how many miles!”

Winston shoved his hands through his wispy gray hair, scanning the property as frantically as she was. “Um…there’s a butcher shop in those little corner shops. That’s only a mile from here.”

Yep. That tracked. He’d definitely follow his nose to the closest source of chicken or beef. “OK, you go in, check the house, and call me if you find him or he comes home. I’ll head to the butcher shop.”

Roxie drove like a madwoman to the butcher shop, scanning the landscape along the way. In her old neighborhood, everyone knew her and would just call when Waldo showed up. But here, she wasn’t sure someone wouldn’t call animal control and take her sweet baby to the pound.

By the time she hit the door of the shop, she was sweaty, in the middle of a panic attack, and barely able to ask the nice man behind the counter if he’d seen her dog. But she eventually was able to spit it all out. Unfortunately, the guy hadn’t seen Waldo.

It wasn’t until she walked out of the shop that she saw what should’ve been a giant danger sign. Sadly, though, she was quickly learning that panic totally overrode her sense of self preservation and caution.

Because when she saw her baby, baying at her from inside a stranger’s car, she didn’t stop and check her surroundings. She didn’t call Riordan for help. She went right to the car and tried to open the door.

The sad thing was that she’d trained in self-defense and martial arts for years. She was good. Really good. And she knew Neil was after her. She was ready for a fight. So, the fact that he was able to sneak up on her here, out in the open, really pissed her off.

But he did sneak up on her. She was completely unaware of what was going on until the taser hit her neck and the scent of singed hair rose to her nostrils.

All the training in the world, all the planning, couldn’t save her from the crippling, muscle-convulsing pain the taser caused.

The last thing she saw before everything went black was Neil, standing over her, looking more disheveled than she’d ever seen him. “You made me do this,” he hissed at her.

The worst part was that he was right. If she’d just let Riordan kill this motherfucker sooner, none of this would’ve happened.

CHAPTER 24

Riordan teleported into his living room and immediately yelled—more of a bellow, actually—for Roxie. He didn’t think he’d be able to breathe until she was within touching distance. Not with her bomb-making, stalking ex-boyfriend on the loose.

Winston charged down the stairs at a faster clip than Riordan had ever seen him move. “She went looking for Waldo. We got home and the door was open. We thought he went to the butcher shop, so she went there while I checked the house. I called her a second ago, but she didn’t answer.”

The roar of fear and outrage Riordan let out as he teleported to the butcher shop shook the walls. If that son of a bitch had harmed one hair on her head…

Two police cars were on the scene when he arrived, talking to a man wearing a blood-covered smock. The butcher, he presumed.

Riordan caught snippets of the conversation. Woman fitting Roxie’s description, looking for her dog, hit from behind with a taser, dragged into a car before the butcher could stop him.

And in the policeman’s hand was Roxie’s phone. She must’ve dropped it when Neil grabbed her.

His mate was in the hands of a man who was willing to blow up an entire city block, and he couldn’t track her because she’d never formally accepted their mating bond.

How the hell was he going to find her in time?

An idea tickled the very back of his brain. Something so outlandish, so risky. Could he…?

No. It was crazy.

Wasn’t it?

* * *

Roxie squealed when something hot and wet slid into her ear.

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