RISE OF THE LYCANS - Mates and Bonds

Thank you, everyone, for your feedback on Hazel’s situation! Now that I know where I’m going with the next chapter and Hazel, I slipped this chapter in first.

Just a reminder—don’t go far! This book should be done and removed from this platform around May 12-15th.

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Lukas

“I want to come with you,” Selena said, and I wrapped my arms around her tighter. I loved the feeling of her in my arms and being able to hold her anytime I wanted to.

“It’s not safe for you. Darc knows I carried you off from the ball. If he’s out there and looking for a way to hurt me or the family, he has to know you’re my soft spot.”

“I can help you snoop. I’m great at snooping,” Grandma Dori said. “I’ll just run get my purse.”

“I’m taking Rex,” I told them. “I don’t want to risk another apartment exploding with any of you there.”

“But I’m fireproof,” Flaym argued.

“I know, but I need you here with Grandma.”

“I should come with you,” Selena insisted. “I’ve been to both apartments.”

“I’m not putting you or the pup at risk. Storm will stay here, and if the hotel is breached, nothing will get past her lycan.”

Storm shot me a glare that told me she wasn’t happy about being on babysitting duty. I needed her here to ensure Grandma Dori didn’t get any wild ideas. It also calmed my beast to know that Storm was here with my mate because he wanted to lock her away in the hotel vault until we returned.

“If there’s no sign of Caspian, we’ll have to call dad and let him know,” Rex told me as we walked through the hotel lobby.

“We’ll check Jose’s apartment first. It’s on this side of the river.”

A taxi was waiting for us, and Rex gave the driver Jose’s address first. I caught glimpses of Sacré-Coeur between the streets as we got closer to the Montmartre area in the eighteenth arrondissement. People often connect the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre pyramid when they think of Paris, but this church always seemed like one of the most iconic monuments in Paris to me. It was built on top of Montmartre hill, which towered over Paris.

“When she said behind the Sacré-Coeur, she meant it,” Rex said when we stepped out of the taxi on the cobbled street of Rue Paul Albert. “Those stairs lead up to the backside of the church.”

I paid for the taxi and let him leave. This area was a popular tourist spot, and taxis were easy to find, so there was no reason to have the driver wait. Jose lived just above a corner café, so we’d have to be extra careful not to attract attention. We moved to the wooden door leading up into the apartment building and Rex reached for the door nob.

“It’s locked,” Rex said through the mind link.

“Where’s Grandma Dori when you need her now,” I chuckled. She taught me to pick locks when I was a pup, but unlike her, I didn’t carry around a lock pick kit.

Rex applied a little extra lycan strength and popped the door open. The clanking noise of the lock breaking was the only sound I heard. We moved through the corridor and up the stairs to look for apartment B. It was located just above the ground-floor café, with a street view over the red canopy.

I knocked on Jose’s door and used my lycan hearing to listen for movement inside. There was a great deal of noise from the Café below, but nothing out of the ordinary. The apartment was vacant, so I reached for the handle and applied enough pressure to break the deadbolt through the door frame.

“Glad it didn’t explode,” Rex smirked.

We entered Jose’s apartment and started our search. He was very tidy, and nothing appeared to be out of place. The corner of his living room held a sewing machine and workstation. Neatly organized bolts of fabric were stacked beside the work desk. A corkboard hung with design sketches, notes, and magazine cutouts. There were no dishes or cups in the sink, but there was a bowl of cat food and water.

“He has a cat,” Rex said.

“Did the bowls give it away?”

“No, the cat in the window did,” Rex motioned to the partially open window where a fluffy white cat stood watching us with big eyes.

Rex moved to the bedroom, and I continued to check the living room. We opened drawers, looked through cabinets, and opened boxes. His refrigerator had a few photos hanging on it with magnets. The first photo appeared to be of a large family on vacation in Hawaii. A photo of what looked like his parents celebrating a wedding anniversary. There was a photo of Jose with three other females, one of whom was my Selena.

I studied the photo for a moment, feeling regretful that I had missed so many special moments with her. They wore party hats and had noise makers in hand. It appeared to have been taken on New Year’s Eve, and my mate looked stunning in that little silver dress. My beast rumbled in my chest, and I wanted to get back to her.

“Anything yet?” Rex called from the bedroom.

“Not yet,” I replied as I took in the next photo.

It was Erick with his arms wrapped around Jose from behind, and they both had a laughing smile on their face. As if the person taking the photo had just said something funny. The color of the trees in the background told me the photo had been taken in the fall, but I couldn’t tell where they were. The next photo was of Jose with two drag queens, and it appeared to have been taken at a bar. The last photo captured a tiny white kitten nestled in Jose’s arms, which looked like the big fluffy cat spying on us now.

The fruit basket had recently been stocked, and a bowl of fresh eggs sat on the counter. I looked in the refrigerator, and it was well stocked with food. He wasn’t planning on going anywhere. I continued my search and lifted couch cushions, pillows, and the rug.

“I found something!” Rex called out from the bedroom with a laugh.

“What is it? And don’t tell me sex toys.”

“Then I won’t tell you what it is,” Rex chuckled. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary here unless you count the feathered boa, makeup, and high heels. He has an autographed photo of Lady

Gaga hanging on the wall, nothing that screams demons, mages, or shifters,” Rex returned to the kitchen. “The apartment is smaller than Selena’s, and there aren’t any traces of Erick here.”

“Except for the photo on the fridge.”

Rex moved to the refrigerator and studied the photos for a moment. “This seems to be everyone that’s important to him. I’m starting to think Jose had no idea what Erick was or that Erick used him.”

I pulled the cupboard open and reached for the bag of cat food I had noticed earlier. The cat jumped down from the windowsill and rushed to the food bowl with a meow in anticipation of being fed. I filled the bowl and gave the cat fresh water as Rex watched.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you do something so domestic before,Alpha,” he grinned. “Must be the impending fatherhood softening you.”

I glared at Rex to remind him that I was still perfectly capable of kicking his ass and watched the smile disappear from his face. I wasn’t sure if or when Jose would return to the apartment, and I assumed he left the window partially open so the cat could come and go as it pleased. If he was innocent, I didn’t want my tender-hearted mate to hear that I had left the cat to starve.

“What if the apartment blows up when we leave?” Rex asked, looking at the cat.

“Take him with us and release him outside. He knows how to climb back up through the window.”

Fuck, I really was going soft now.

Rex moved slowly to the cat, who was still eating, and scooped it up. I was expecting it to hiss and scratch, but the cat was docile in his arms. We stepped out into the hall, and I attempted to pull the door closed so the break-in wasn’t as noticeable. We moved at lycan speed down the stairs and through the corridor.

I took a deep breath when we reached the cobblestone outside, and the bustling café greeted us. There was no explosion, fire, or demon. Rex scratched the cat on the head and set it down by a tree. We watched as the cat quickly climbed up the trunk, slunk over branches, and jumped onto the window ledge to return to its meal.

We walked two blocks before we found an available taxi. I gave the driver the address to Erick’s apartment, and we slid into the back seat. Rex called Storm to see if anything had transpired in the hour since we had been gone, but the phone went to voicemail.

Thirty minutes later, we arrived at an upscale building that appeared to have five luxury apartments with balconies above a pâtisserie that seemed to be very busy with people purchasing their pastries and sweets. The large double doors next to the shop were propped open as a furniture delivery was being made to someone in the building.

“This should be easy,” Rex said.

I double-checked the address Selena had given me. “Looks like Erick has the top floor.”

We crept up behind the two men struggling to haul a sofa up the narrow stairs and helped them carry it up. The old lady waiting for her sofa was so distracted that she didn’t even notice us move past her front door and continue to the top floor.

“Let me do it this time,” Rex said, reaching for the door. Erick didn’t have a deadbolt on his door. “A broken lock makes less noise than a broken door frame.”

He knocked on the door, and we listened for movement. It was quiet, but there was a scent I couldn’t ignore. Whatever it was, it made my beast uncomfortable.

“Do you smell that?” Rex whispered, and I nodded.

He gripped the door handle, preparing to apply pressure, when it turned with ease in his hand. The door wasn’t locked, so Rex pushed it open. The foul scent grew stronger, and I was now sure I recognized it.

“Don’t touch anything,” I told Rex and used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe the doorknob.

The apartment was spacious and bright, with high ceilings that oozed classical French elegance. We walked through the large open living room, past the dining table, to the fully modern kitchen, complete with a large stainless steel refrigerator—a refrigerator Flaym would approve of. A large marble island stood in the middle, and Rex moved closer to it.

“We should open a window,” Rex coughed. “I think Erick left some rotting fruit or meat in the trash.”

“I don’t think that’s rotting fruit,” I told him, realizing what the putrid stench was.

“Oh, Fuck!” Rex halted, his eyes wide as he looked on the ground behind the island.

“Who is it?”

“Darc.”

I rushed over to confirm it was Alpha Pierre Darc. It was. He was on his back, looking up at the ceiling with his lifeless green eyes still open. He looked discolored and bloated. There was a small bullet hole in the center of his chest. Even if the gunshot wasn’t fatal, I knew the silver of a bullet was.

“Silver,” Rex said. He was thinking the same thing I was. An Alpha could easily sustain a bullet wound unless it were silver. Silver in the bloodstream could be fatal for shifters.

“Shame to ruin such a fine suit,” I said as I reached for my phone.

My father answered on the second ring. “Lukas?”

“I found Pierre Darc.”

“No one touches him,” my father snarled. “Balthazar is on his way.”

“I’m afraid someone already beat Uncle Balthazar to it. And his death was far more pleasant than he deserved.”

“He’s dead?” My father questioned.

“I’m standing over his corpse. You want me to send you photos?”

Rex started moving around the apartment, using an oven mitt to open drawers while I explained what had happened and where we were. I told him about the catacombs, Notre-Dame, and Caspian disappearing.

“What are you doing to find Caspian?” My father’s voice grew tense.

“Well, it just happened about two hours ago. Zander is working on tracking both of their phones and has contacted LaRue Enterprises to hack into security cameras in the area. Zane is retracing our footsteps to see if he picks anything up. Rex is with me, and we’ve already searched both apartments.”

“A mage who’s strong enough can open a portal,” he said. “I’ll be back tonight to help you find him. Ask Storm to meditate and focus on Caspian. She should be able to see him and hopefully see a clue in his surroundings.”

“What about the demon?”

“Are you sure the demon you believe you’re seeing isn’t Erick?” My father suggested. “A mage could easily create an illusion.”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “The demon moved in a way a mage couldn’t.”

Alpha François Orléans was still missing, and we still had no clue where Caspian and Jose were. Erick had a dead body in his kitchen, and there was still a demon running around Paris.

“Is Balthazar keeping the pack?” Rex asked as he yanked open a closet door, and I repeated the question to my father.

“Pierre Darc has a younger brother, Jules Darc, who hasn’t turned up yet,” my father told us. “The Darc pack is made up of a few smaller packs that came together after the French Revolution. Balthazar has three Alpha sons and can easily divide the territory into three.”

“And the Orléans pack?”

“Killian might want it for Kairo, but we need to find out what Alpha Orléans involvement was in trying to abduct a lycan.”

“HOLY FUCK!” Rex yelped.

“What is it?” My father asked, and I moved over to Rex for the second time and found another dead body.

“There’s a dead woman in the closet. A she-wolf. She has a mate mark on her neck, and looks older than Darc. Her lips are black…”

“I don’t see any wounds,” Rex added.

“Sounds like poison,” my father said. “Have you seen her before?”

“No.”

I snapped a photo of her and returned to Darc for the same. I sent him both of the photos, and he confirmed that Alpha Darc and his mother, the previous Luna of Darc Pack, were both dead. We finished searching the apartment and found no other surprises.

“Did you touch anything?” My father asked.

“No, Rex was wearing an oven mitt,” I told him.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said as he disconnected and I slipped the phone back into my pocket just as it started ringing again.

“Ranger…” I answered on speakerphone.

“Storm took off with Grandma Dori, on a motorcycle…”

“She put Grandma on a motorcycle?” Rex asked. “Where did she get a motorcycle from?”

“Stole it,” he said. “Flaym snatched a motorcycle from a food delivery guy and is chasing after them.”

“Call me when you know where they’re heading.” I shoved the phone back in my pocket and took Rex’s oven mitt so I could close the door.

“Storm must know something,” Rex said.

“It would be great if our sister shared it with us.”

“Should we call the French police and tip them off about the bodies?”

“No. Then they’ll start looking for Erick and make things harder for us.”

“Good point,” he agreed.

“Does it seem strange that Erick left the door unlocked?” I slipped the oven mitt over my hand to pull the door open.

“He lives on the top floor with two bolted doors to get into the building. Maybe he’s just used to leaving without locking the door?” Rex shrugged and stepped into the hall.

“Or he left in a hurry.” I turned the lock tumble so it would lock behind us and pulled the door closed.

BOOM!

*****

Alright, as some of you might know, a New Years Eve celebration is sometimes called a Sylvester, because of Saint Sylvester Day.

Thinking about the New Years Eve photo of Selena and Jose, I was wondering if New Years Eve was appropriate for Paris, or do they call it a Sylvester? Anyone know? Thanks for the feedback.