Lover Claimed (8 page)

“I’m still in Jacksonville. What’s up?”

“Kristof and Trudy’s plane is missing.”

Lajos pulled himself up in the seat, afraid
that he’d heard right and his brother hadn’t misspoke. His wolf
came awake with a start. “Say that again?”

“Their plane went missing last night. When it
didn’t land on schedule I was notified.”

His free hand gripped the steering wheel. His
wolf prowled his mind, ready to act. “Why wasn’t I called?”

“Because you couldn’t have done anything in
Jacksonville.”

Lajos slammed his palm on the steering wheel.
“Bullshit, I could’ve been on the first plane to…”

He stopped. Right, they didn’t know where
Kristof and Trudy were.

“Exactly. I have a feeling that the shifters
that you both ran into down there also have something to do with
Kristof and Trudy’s disappearance. We need you to continue to track
down who’s responsible for the murder and attacks. Before Kristof
boarded the plane he’d told me that you and another human were
attacked. Did you figure out what pack they’re from yet?”

Lajos hung his head. “No. I can’t get a read
on them. But Meisha, the human, did kill one of them.”

“She did?” he asked, obviously surprised.

“Yeah, but unfortunately the other, Alexei,
got away before I could interrogate him. I have a lead—an
Enterprise license plate number. I’m going to the dealership to
find out what I can. I’ll need you to do some research for me. I
asked Kristof to do it, but seeing how he’s gone…” Lajos stopped
there, his heart dropped.

Please let Kristof and Trudy be all right,
wherever they are.

His wolf whined.

“What do you need me to do?” Andras
asked.

“The shifter that got away is named Alexei
and the one that was killed was Fedir. Check to see what you can
find on any Russian shifters with those names. Maybe we can
pinpoint what pack they belong to.”

“Those are pretty common Russian names, but
I’ll look into it. Keep in constant contact. I don’t want to lose
anyone else.”

“I’ll be fine. Once I find Alexei I’ll make
sure to interrogate him first—then kill him.”

“Don’t do anything stupid. If I get intel on
them and we’re able to locate their pack, I’ll be pulling you home.
Meanwhile, if you do catch him I want all the information you can
about who hired him.”

“I understand.”

“Be safe.”

“I will.”

Andras disconnected the line and Lajos stared
at his phone. His brother and brother’s mate were missing, and from
what he knew about these shifters they were out to kill, not
negotiate. He would have to find out who they were as soon as
possible so that he could hightail it back to Michigan. When his
brother called for help, he wanted to be there to provide it. He
lifted his seat from the reclined position and started the car.
When he eased out of the parking space he looked over to find that
Meisha’s bike was gone.

Crap. Where did that little hellion get off
to?

Meisha watched Lajos pull out of his parking
space. She squinted as he exited the parking lot. She didn’t know
what mojo he’d pulled on her last night, but she was sure it had
been something. She woke in the middle of the night to find that
she’d showered and put on some pajamas and had gone to bed, all
with just a faded memory of having done anything. At first she
thought that she’d just been too tired to remember going to bed; it
really had been a long night. But when she looked down at the
pajamas her mom had given her for Christmas three years ago, the
ones she’d never worn, it was a dead giveaway that she hadn’t done
anything of her own will. She hadn’t worn pajamas since she moved
out of her parents’ house and into her own place.

The second giveaway that something was up had
come when she’d taken Piper for a walk at an ungodly hour. This
wasn’t her first time watching Piper for Trudy. When Trudy had to
take business trips or planned to pull all-nighters at work, she’d
often called Meisha to watch her dog. Meisha knew good and well
that, just like her, Piper wasn’t an early riser. But at six
o’clock in the friggin’ morning Piper had clawed at her face and
didn’t relent until Meisha was up. For some reason she hadn’t taken
Piper out when she came home. How could she forget to do something
as simple as that? The only reason she could think of was because
something had happened to her mind.

When Meisha had walked past the parking lot
and spotted the grey Pontiac G6 parked in a space, something tugged
in the back of her mind. She’d a fading memory of a car just like
that one following behind her the night before. She’d wanted to
divert her route and lose whoever was tailing her, but the urge to
go directly home was too strong.

She’d crept over to the car, dragging Piper
along, and found Lajos lying back, sleeping in the driver’s seat.
That’s when her memory began to return. Last night she’d been with
Lajos at Trudy’s business. Two other guys had come—big Russians,
she’d remembered. But were they members of a Russian mafia? She
frowned, a thought was in her mind.

You killed him, a man—a member of the
Russian mafia.

She could practically hear Lajos’ voice in
her head, telling her that. She remembered trying to desperately
hold on to the truth. But what was the truth?

That’s when it hit her, Lajos’ words coming
back to her. “
Meisha. You never saw a wolf. It was just a man
with long hair. He growled at you and you were so frightened that
you thought he was some kind of animal.”

Shifter.

She’d killed a shifter. A human that could
turn into a wolf. And Lajos was one of them.

She gasped.
What the hell is going
on?

What kind of craziness was this and was the
Yaruzi involved?

She wanted to pound on his window and demand
that he give her some answers, but she had a better plan.

She would find out for herself.

She walked Piper to her parents’ house, four
blocks from her place, and dropped her off. She explained
everything that’d happened to her dad, but left out the
wolf-shifting part. She told him that Lajos was sure the men had
been out to destroy his company and that Trudy and Mark were
unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire. She also told
her dad that she wasn’t so sure that the men hadn’t been sent by
the Yaruzi. Her dad, being the logical and thoughtful man that he
was, agreed with her. Meisha would take her time and assess the
situation, gathering as much information as she could before they
acted. Only if she found evidence that the men had been sent by the
Yaruzi would she begin to put the plan in motion to get her and her
family away.

Meisha ran home, dressed, packed an overnight
bag, just in case she wasn’t coming home for the night, and pushed
her bike to the parking lot across the street. There she waited for
Lajos to wake up.

When he made a right onto the cross street,
she fired up her engine and followed him. She made sure to stay at
least four cars behind him until he reached the interstate. On the
freeway she let him get farther ahead to ensure he wouldn’t see her
from his rearview mirror. He exited the interstate near the airport
and took the turn toward the rental car companies. When he’d gone
inside, she’d waited a couple of minutes and then followed him.
Once she got inside, following close behind a large group, she hid
behind a large plastic tree and watched as he spoke to one of the
ladies at the counter.

She strained to hear the words exchanged
between Lajos and the clerk, knowing that he was asking her for
information regarding Alexei and Fedir. She almost laughed. She’d
been joking when she suggested that she would call Enterprise and
get information from them. Enterprise was a reputable company. They
wouldn’t give out their customer’s information so willy-nilly. But
when she saw the lady write something down on a piece of paper, she
bit her tongue. Maybe they wouldn’t give information over the
phone, but apparently they were more than willing to give up
information in person. The lady even made a phone call while Lajos
stood there and listened.

After she got off the phone, Lajos thanked
the lady for helping him and walked toward the door. When he got
there he paused briefly to sniff at the air. She watched him with
caution. If she had played her cards right he would keep going. The
large amount of perfume that she’d put on, but usually never wore,
was sure to cover up her scent and throw him off. When he shrugged
and walked through the door, she smiled.

Score two for Meisha.

He didn’t get back into his car, but instead
waited outside the door and got on his cell phone. The call was
brief and just as he was hanging up an employee brought him a
motorcycle.

Impressive. A Harley Davidson.

She hadn’t even known Enterprise rented
motorcycles, and nothing as high-end as that one. She followed him
back onto the freeway. There she wasn’t able to follow him closely
and she’d lost him a couple of times. He raced through traffic like
he hadn’t a care in the world. He rode just like a professional.
Rich guys like him probably could afford to practice on a track at
breakneck speeds.

It took almost five hours, but when he pulled
off the exit toward Miami Beach she guessed that was their
destination. She continued to follow him until he parked in front
of a hotel, one that she probably couldn’t afford on her salary.
She snorted when he let the valet take his bike. Valet at a South
Beach hotel? Who would want to pay an arm and a leg for that?

She parked across the street and fed the
meter, then grabbed a seat on a bus bench. There she’d wait for him
to make his next move.

Chapter Nine

Lajos let the soft hotel curtain fall back
into place. He’d thought he smelled her in the air when he’d gone
out to the clothing store a couple of doors down from his hotel. It
was her, with just a hint of perfume added to how she normally
smelled. He’d made sure not to look in her direction and, instead,
used the reflection of a window to spot her. She’d been hiding
behind a tree, but had poked her head out to look at him.

What the hell was she doing here? He’d
thought he caught a whiff of her at Enterprise, but with all the
perfume and exhaust fumes in the air he couldn’t be sure.

She had followed him.

He mentally kicked himself for not being able
to detect that she’d been following. Granted he’d been preoccupied.
Andras still hadn’t heard from Kristof, and Lajos had possibly left
the most interesting human female that he’d ever met three hundred
and forty miles behind him. All the way to Miami he’d divided his
time thinking about his brother and Meisha.

When he’d found out that the address given to
the rental car company was in Miami and not Jacksonville he had the
Enterprise clerk call the number that was given and put the call on
speaker. While he pushed the clerk to act normal and ask the caller
how the car was working out for him, Lajos counted the raucous
voices in the background. He’d heard two. If Alexei was on the run,
that’s where he would go.

He’d called Andras and told him about the
lead. Andras agreed with his assessment that Lajos had no other
choice but to head to Miami and get all the information he could on
the shifter pack.

Lajos kept his hopes up about Kristof. He
wasn’t in Miami—Lajos would feel Kristof if he was this close to
him—but he was alive, somewhere out there. If Kristof was taken
prisoner, it was just a matter of time before whoever had him
contacted Andras with the demands. And when they did, Lajos planned
to have all the information about the other shifters to bring them
down and get his brother and brother’s mate back.

That’s where his thoughts had trailed to
Meisha. Lajos had never wanted a mate before. He understood that a
part of mating meant some compromise and give and take, like being
married. But Lajos wanted to run free; he didn’t need anyone
holding him back. Wolf or human. He didn’t want to mate with a wolf
and definitely not with a human as Kristof had done. There was a
reason why there weren’t many shifter-human bonds. During the
imprinting process the life-forces of the pair joined.

While Trudy’s life span would be extended as
a result of the bond, she would still die before Kristof. A wolf
who lost their mate was little more than a walking corpse. They
would lose the will to live and slowly degenerate. Not only would
Trudy’s death have a negative impact on Kristof, but her death
would also affect the pact as a collective.

That was a good enough reason to get Meisha
out of his head. If he mated with her he could expect her to die
first, leaving him to slowly wither away. No, he didn’t want his
life tied to another.

But…

But if he had a choice, he didn’t think
Meisha would be a bad one. That’s
if
she were a wolf and
if
he had a choice, but neither was the case.

He couldn’t bring Meisha into his world,
exposing her to all the dangers that shifters faced. While they
were busy remaining unnoticed by the humans, packs were known to
fight against each other. Some fights were so brutal that the males
of an entire pack could be wiped out by a rival one. That practice
hadn’t happened in quite some time, but it wasn’t unheard of. And
on top of that, he also shared a world with other dangerous
paranormal beings. The werewolves were brutal monsters, Faes were
self-centered and egotistical, and the soulless vampires were
ruthless and conceited.

But the main reason he couldn’t bring her
into his world was because he hadn’t imprinted on her.

His wolf was always interested in Meisha, but
he’d been interested in others as well. But always, in the end, it
remained just him and his wolf. Whenever he thought he was getting
close to someone his wolf would send pictures of being in wolf
form, running through the woods. He was by himself—always by
himself.