Lauren Dane: Unconditional

It was not the time.

She pushed it back, as far away as she could because now was the time to focus. Allie needed her to be smart and strong.

She’d never had the two most important parts of her life cross this way before. But the training she’d received from the clan had made her a better cop and a better witch. She could use both right then.

“You have to find her.” Kathy wrung her hands and pulled Michelle out of her little panic attack.

She gently untangled Kathy’s hands and took them into her own, squeezing. “You have my word. I will do everything I possibly can to find her.”

Michelle didn’t promise to save Allie, though she’d do her damndest. Allie was more like her sister than a friend, but Michelle was a realist. She’d seen enough in her time as a cop. Sometimes no matter how hard you worked, no matter how much you wanted it, things still came to a bad end.

“Will you call someone? To stay here?” Allie’s dad had died of cancer four years before and Kathy lived alone. But she had friends and family in the area who’d pull together to help.

“You think they’d come for me?”

“From what they say? Yes. They’re dangerous and they’re using our magick to fill a need. Like a fix. They don’t care about anything else. So if they know witches are here and they know they can use Allie to get themselves one more? They will. If you’re not alone, you present a less easy target. I’ll feel better knowing you’re safer.”

Kathy sighed, nodding. “I’ll call my sister and ask her to stay a while.”

“Good. I’ve got to get moving. I want to hit the ground running.”

“You’ll keep me updated? And be safe yourself?”

“Yes to both.” She hugged Kathy one last time and headed out the door.

She needed privacy for the next call she had to make to Clan Owen. They had a contact number they’d given her to call in reference to any mage activity so she’d start there.

She double-checked the address before heading inside the building in downtown Portland. Allie had been missing for twenty-four hours now. Each minute that passed, the chances of finding her alive were lower and lower.

The contact at Clan Owen had sent out a call for help. They were feverishly working on several fronts on these disappearances and something else the witch she’d spoken to had only hinted at, but sounded pretty bad. He’d been sorry not to have been able to rush down and assist on the case, but he’d done what he could, which was to hook her up with Others who could help.

Which had worked out because she’d followed a few leads of her own—a blue SUV that had been sighted at the apartment complex with Washington plates had also been seen at two rest stops on I-5 heading north, and when Michelle had gone to them she’d found that same mage energy signature she’d caught at Allie’s apartment.

Michelle was on the right track, but the track itself was pretty narrow and faint and she was terrified of fucking up and missing something.

So there she was going through the revolving doors of the Pacific Werewolf Pack headquarters to seek their help with tracking. They had some sort of relationship with the clans now and heaven knew they had better noses than she did and there was the added plus that they knew the area.

She walked through one set of doors where two very large men stopped her. One raised a brow at her. “You’re armed.” His voice was a rumble she felt over the surface of her skin.

“I’m Michelle Slattery. Roseburg PD. Gage Garrity from Clan Owen sent me here to request some assistance in an investigation. My credentials are in my pocket if you’ll allow me to retrieve them?”

Eyebrow appeared to relax a little. “First things first. The weapon needs to be put in the bin. We don’t allow anyone in the building armed.”

She reached, slowly and totally within view, to remove her weapon from her under-arm holster. She popped the magazine out and made sure the chamber was empty before placing it all in the bin they’d indicated.

“Thank you. Credentials?”

Slowly, so he knew exactly what she was about, she pulled out her badge, handing it to him. He looked it over and turned his gaze and attention back to her, apparently satisfied with her documentation. “I haven’t been told about anyone coming in, but I only just started my shift a few minutes ago. What’s your business here?”

“I’m investigating the disappearance of a young woman.” She looked around and lowered her voice. Wolves were out to the humans, but witches were still debating the whys, whens and hows of revealing their existence. “A witch. I believe she was taken by the mages.”

He stood up straighter.

“I’m here to appeal for some help in tracking them. Gage said you had some sort of cooperative agreement thing with them.”

“You smell like magick.” Eyebrow gave her a once-over, clearly interested in more than the way she smelled. It was more admiring than leering. Novel and, well, nice. She wasn’t used to being found attractive in connection with being a witch.

She smiled, blushing. She didn’t know a whole lot about shifters, but she did know they had an affinity with witches. It wasn’t a blow to her ego, or her libido, to be standing in a lobby bursting with all that earthy magick wolves carried. They were sexy and that they found her sexy? Well that was sexy too.

And interesting. “What does my magick smell like?”

“Always a little vanilla. Like from yellow cake.” He paused and then nodded. “Yes, you smell like yellow cake.”

“I really like yellow cake.”

“Who doesn’t?” He grinned. “If you want to hang on a sec, I can call up to see who is available to meet with you.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that very much.”

She moved to the mini-reception area he’d indicated and checked her messages while he did whatever it was he needed to do.

“Do we have a problem here?”

She froze before turning slowly to face none other than Josh Neelan.

Josh tried not to gape at the witch whose ass he’d just been admiring. But it wasn’t her ass that stunned him into long silence as he took her in from the tips of her sensible work boots, up shapely legs, the nip at her waist, the swell of her tits—he remembered those quite well—and into her face.

“ Michelle? ”

She blinked and he scented her blush. His wolf pushed at the human in charge. He’d wanted her back then. More than he should have. Apparently his wolf agreed about wanting her now.

“Josh?”

Well now. A hundred years’ worth of memories fell down all around him at the sound of his name on her lips.

He sucked in a breath and it was filled with her. And with her magick. Fuck. She was a witch?

“I take it you two know each other?” Shaun, one of his wolves who had the door shift that afternoon, spoke, his brow rising.

“Yes. Michelle and I are both from Roseburg. She used to be a cheerleader.” He smiled at that memory. Her in tight sweaters and short skirts. Christ.

Shaun looked her over. “Yeah, I can see that.”

Josh did not like it one bit that Shaun looked at his Michelle that way. He gave the other wolf a look, but Shaun wasn’t cowed.

But the amusement he’d expected to see in her features wasn’t there. Just hurt and devastation and most likely he’d put it there.

“You’re here because you need our help?” He took her upper arm and moved her toward the elevators, keying in his code.

She nodded and disentangled herself from his hold.

“Let’s go up to my office to talk.” He led her into the elevator and punched his floor number and his code before turning back to her. “Damn, it’s really good to see you.”