The Lynx Who Claimed the Sun (8 page)

Nicolas held up a photo of Garth’s kits playing with Soren and Daniel’s pups and tasted bile in his mouth. This couldn’t be happening. He’d lowered his guard and drawn the shadows of his past over the people he cared about.

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The sound of the phone ringing didn’t surprise him. If they’d been watching him for so long, they obviously must know his cell phone number as well. Nicolas steeled himself and got up. He retrieved his cell phone and stared at the display. For a brief moment, he’d dared to hope it might be someone else, perhaps Garth, but the call was from an unknown number.

Struggling to control the racing of his heart, Nicolas pressed accept. “What do you want?” he asked without preamble.

A disembodied chuckle echoed from the other side of the connection. “Hello to you, too, Nico-Chi. I see our gift made the right impression on you.”

The caller spoke in a whisper, so Nicolas couldn’t even tell if his stalker was male or female. Not that it mattered. Whoever this person was, he or she obviously had accomplices.

“Skip the boasting,” he shot back, “and explain. I’ve got nothing to do with you. Why are you following me and my friends?”

“You don’t know?” The person tsked. “Right, I forgot. Your little amnesia problem. Tell you what, Nico-Chi… I’ll make you a deal.

Come meet me tomorrow at dawn, in front of the Museum of Art.”

“The museum’s not open at that hour,” Nicolas replied numbly.

His caller laughed again. “You always were perceptive. Don’t worry, Nico-Chi. We’re not going there to see the exhibits.”

“And if I refuse?” Nicolas couldn’t help but ask.

“You won’t.”

The phone went dead, and Nicolas had the sudden urge to throw it against the wall. He didn’t. Instead, he gently abandoned it on the coffee table and sat down at his computer once again. Without allowing himself to think too much about what he was doing, he logged into his e-mail account and started composing messages. The least he could do for the people he’d involved in this mess was say good-bye.

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Garth read through the documents in front of him, not really registering the information. He’d tried to call his mate that morning, but the hummingbird’s phone had been turned off. He wasn’t answering his landline, neither at home or at the bookstore. Garth was wondering if his mate might be more upset than he’d originally thought. Had the prank from the day before bothered Nicolas so much?

“Sir?” Elsa’s voice snapped him out of his musings. “Sir, did you hear me?”

Garth stared at the owl, having completely forgotten about her presence. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“The papers for the Pattersons,” Elsa repeated. “Have they been processed?”

Garth couldn’t really think about that right now, especially since remembering the happy couple made him think about Nicolas.

“They’re being processed now,” he answered. He got up from his desk and passed a surprised-looking Elsa. “I’ll be leaving early today.

If you have any other questions, direct them to my secretary.”

He ushered her out, ignoring her shocked hoots, and left the office as well, locking it behind himself. He nodded at his secretary, a pretty, plump koala-shifter. “Cancel all my meetings for today.

Something’s come up.”

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“Yes, Sir,” the woman answered. She knew better than to question his decisions, and she would efficiently reorganize his schedule to accommodate the change.

Garth thanked her and started walking away. As he exited the building that housed the agency, he retrieved his cell phone once again and speed-dialed Nicolas. Nothing. The cell phone was still off.

He briefly considered dropping by Skylar’s office to ask him if he’d talked to Nicolas, but decided against it. He needed to solve this problem on his own and not involve outside people. Nodding to himself, Garth drove off and headed toward Nicolas’s bookstore. He stopped by a flower shop and purchased the largest bouquet of roses he could find. It was actually quite funny, but in spite of his moody nature, Nicolas loved flowers. As Nicolas couldn’t be like all hummingbirds, he hated to show it. Garth had only discovered it one month into their relationship.

He should have felt a bit stupid bringing flowers to a man, but he would do anything to make Nicolas open up. He’d never had the hummingbird cease all contact like this, and it made him nervous.

At last, he reached the bookstore Nicolas owned. His heart started beating faster when he saw the closed sign on the shop window. It was unusual for Nicolas to skip work. It was only when his friends needed him that he abandoned his business. The rest of the time, he went to the bookstore six days a week.

It was possible that the hummingbird had decided to take a break or even that the salad from the day before had made him sick. Garth doubted both options very much, but he didn’t wait to muse over it too much. He started the car once more, this time heading toward Nicolas’s apartment.

But much to his dismay, he found Nicolas wasn’t there either. He knew it from the very moment he stopped in front of the building. He could still scent traces of his mate’s smell in the air, creating a picture in his head. His mate had been outside today and left with his car. But where?

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It was an exercise in futility for him to try and follow the scent.

There were far too many smells in the city for him to have any luck.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.

Predictably, the tracks went cold as he engaged himself in the busy LA traffic, and Garth found his phone and dialed the first number he could think of. The call connected in mere moments.

“Hi, Skylar,” Garth greeted his friend.

“Oh, hey,” Skylar replied. “What is it? I heard you took the day off. Everything okay?”

“Actually, Skylar, have you spoken to Nico today?”

At the other side of the connection, Skylar’s tone grew concerned.

“I haven’t. Did you two fight?”

“Something like that.” Garth sighed. “The kits were acting up yesterday, and I just couldn’t find a solution. I didn’t think he was actually angry with me, but he’s not answering his phone and he’s not home or at the bookstore.”

“You don’t think...something happened to him?”

Garth hadn’t dared to voice that thought, not even to himself, but when Skylar said it, he realized that indeed, he suspected something was amiss. Nicolas had never left like this. He could always be located and kept his cell phone open at all times, just in case something happened. And that wasn’t the only unsettling fact about the situation. In truth, Nicolas had never shared the secrets of his past with Garth. He was hiding something, Garth just knew it, and he’d always thought Nicolas would eventually tell him, in his own time.

But what if these secrets were dangerous and had come back to hurt Nicolas? What if Nicolas’s quirk of collecting weaponry wasn’t a simple quirk?

“I don’t know,” he answered his friend, “but... My heart tells me something’s wrong.”

“Listen to your heart then,” Skylar advised. “We need to find him.”

“Thanks, Skylar. I’ll keep you posted.”

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Garth ended the call and dialed Byron. He might have been pushing his luck since his old boss had jumped to his aid before.

However, for Garth, Byron was among the few men he trusted and a friend, as well as his former mafia superior. Byron would understand if Garth explained how he felt about Nicolas.

Byron picked up on the first ring. “Please don’t tell me something else is wrong.”

“How do you know?”

Byron sighed. “I’m right. I hate it when I’m right. What’s the matter?”

“Nico is missing,” Garth answered, finding it harder and harder to focus on driving. “I… I need help, Byron.”

“Okay, calm down,” the shark said. “When did you see him last?”

“Yesterday night. We had a small spat, and he left. But he’s not at home or at his store, and he’s not answering his cell. It’s unlike him.”

Garth took a deep breath. “I know it may sound like I’m being paranoid, but I know something’s wrong. I can feel it.”

“Did he tell you anything at all?” Byron inquired.

His tone sounded strange and alarm bells rang in Garth’s head.

“Anything, like what? Byron, what do you know?”

“I did a little research on your Nico,” the other man replied nonchalantly.

“Say what?” Garth was more than a little shocked. He’d never known Byron to invade one’s privacy.

“Don’t take it personally, Garth. Something about him niggled at my senses, and I had to make sure Skylar’s safe with him around.”

Garth struggled not to scream. Nicolas had been around Skylar long before Byron ever showed up. Furthermore, the shark hadn’t even tried to approach Skylar and had been stalking the seahorse from the distance from that fateful day of the accident. Of course, Byron asked Garth to keep this a secret, something that frustrated Garth, since he suspected Skylar might want Byron, as well.

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He pushed the annoyance out of his mind and focused on the importance of the information Byron might have. “Okay. What did you find out?”

“Nicolas Shields doesn’t exist, Garth. Sure, there are a number of people with that name in the States, but your Nico isn’t one of them.”

For whatever reason, Garth wasn’t surprised. Even so, he needed to know exactly how this could help him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s easy enough. Upon first glance, his data comes out clean, but when you dig a little deeper, you figure out that the first time your mate ever appeared was twenty years back, in Mexico. It seems he just one day emerged out of the rainforest. Mind you, that’s entirely possible. It’s not unusual for shape-shifters to have reclusive communities in their respective habitats. But if that is so, the name he used in LA is not his real one.”

“Mexico.” Garth mused over the information. It was a stretch to go look for his mate there since this morning his mate had still been in the States. “Listen, Byron, send me all the data you have and please, monitor the borders, just in case something happens. I’m going back to Nicolas’s place to investigate.”

Byron promised he would, and after thanking his friend, Garth closed the connection. He could no longer track Nicolas using his senses, but there had to be something at his mate’s place, something to give him a clue.

It wasn’t hard to enter the apartment. Nicolas had given him the key once, and Garth was often around the place so no one who might see him would be surprised at his presence. Upon first view, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the apartment. The living room was as clean as ever, and the bedroom still smelled of Nicolas’s scent. There were no traces of anyone else having been in the apartment at all.

Disheartened, Garth readied himself to leave when his eyes fell on an apparently innocuous manila envelope. He didn’t know what had drawn his attention to it, but he figured it wouldn’t hurt to look it
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over. He wasn’t the type of lover who obsessed over checking his loved one’s messages, but on this particular occasion, correspondence could yield an important clue.

The envelope was, however, empty. Garth frowned, the feeling that its contents had been important swelling inside him. He sniffed the paper, hoping to catch a trace of where his mate might have put the item or items inside.

It was surprisingly easy to catch the scent in question. The envelope smelled like flowers, a bit like Nicolas did, but not quite.

Garth couldn’t exactly identify the difference, but it was there.

Another hummingbird must have dropped it off.

With the aid of the envelope, Garth found its contents inside Nicolas’s desk. He froze in horror and shock. There were pictures, dozens of pictures, all of Nicolas’s loved ones, including Garth and his kits. Any hope that Nicolas had taken them vanished when he caught sight of the hummingbird in some of them. Someone had been stalking them, and that someone must have taken Nicolas.

But why hadn’t Nicolas mentioned anything? Why leave like that, out of the blue? Did Nicolas know this person? So many questions, so few answers.

He was startled from his musings by the sound of his phone. Hope blossomed in Garth’s chest upon seeing Skylar’s number. Perhaps the seahorse had heard something from Nicolas.

He took the call and opened his mouth to ask Skylar about his news. He didn’t get the chance. “Check your e-mail,” the seahorse said, his voice so quiet Garth almost didn’t hear it.

“Skylar, what is it?”

“Just…check your e-mail,” the seahorse answered. Without further ado, Skylar ended the call. Garth didn’t delay in doing exactly that. Thankfully, his smartphone had an e-mail app, and in seconds, he’d logged into his account. Tucked in neatly in his inbox were two new e-mails, one from Nicolas, and a second one from Skylar.

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Remember me

Hi, Garth.

This is a very difficult e-mail for me to write. I considered and
reconsidered these words a thousand times, but I don’t have much
time and I’m sick of lies.

For the past twenty years, I’ve lived in fear, always looking over
my shoulder. I don’t remember who I was before, but I thought I was
finally free in my new life with you, with our friends. I was wrong.

I’m not going to tell you not to come looking for me. I know that
no matter what I say, you still will try. But please remember one
thing. You are a very good man, Garth. You have family, children
who need you, and friends who care about you. Don’t throw your life
away.

What we had was amazing. I know I didn’t say it enough, but the
time we spent together was the happiest in my life. Just think of me as
a beautiful memory and let me go.