The Lynx Who Claimed the Sun (9 page)

Yours,

Nico

P.S. Say good-bye for me to your kits. Tell Corbin I said to take
care of his dad. For Preston, a special message: Grow a spine! He
needs to be on his own feet now and stop doing whatever his brother
wants him to do. Just my opinion, of course. And above all, don’t
forget to say I will miss them and their pranks. They might not care
about me, but I do care about them.

The e-mail didn’t say anything else about who exactly had come to get Nicolas or what had happened to make him leave like that.

Garth peeked into Skylar’s e-mail as well. It was, unsurprisingly, a forward of the message Nicolas had send his friends.

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From: [email protected]

To: [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected]

Subject: I’m sorry

Hi my friends.

By the time you get this message, I will be gone. I know you
probably won’t understand why I chose to do this. In a way, I don’t
understand it myself. I just know that I have to go to keep you all from
being hurt.

I’m sorry for lying to you, for hiding my past, and even now, for
getting you involved in my problems. You were the best friends a
hummingbird, or anyone else for that matter, could hope to have. So,
above all, thank you.

Please, take care of yourselves and your families. And, as one last
favor to me, please take care of Garth. He will not understand.

All my love,

Nico

Gritting his teeth, Garth wished he had listened to his heart and taken Nicolas as his mate. He’d wanted to give the hummingbird time to adjust, and now, that could very well be their undoing. Even if their bond was strong, without the claiming, Garth couldn’t follow Nicolas to wherever the man had gone.

Then again, Garth had no knowing if lynxes could or could not bond that way. He’d been impressed by the extent of Soren’s connection with Daniel, but Soren was a wolf. It might be different with felines. No matter. He’d worry about it later, much later. Perhaps he couldn’t detect Nicolas through their bond, but he would stop at nothing until he found his mate. And he knew exactly where to start.

It seemed very suspicious that Bella had showed up at the same time with Nicolas’s mysterious kidnappers.

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He found it strikingly easy to shut down his emotions, just like he’d done many times in the past while working for Byron. There was no time for suffering. He needed to get a move on and find his mate.

If Nicolas didn’t turn up in LA by nightfall, Bella should start to expect a visit from him. Now more than ever, he was glad he’d fired Gina the day before and chosen to take the kits to the agency nursery until he found another babysitter.

There was one more thing to do. He dialed Skylar’s number again, and the seahorse answered in moments. “Any news?” he inquired.

“No, but I found some suspicious photos in Nico’s apartment. I think someone has been watching us. We need to get everyone to a safe place.”

“My house,” Skylar suggested without missing a heartbeat. “Since the attack, my parents tripled the guards and the alarm systems. It’s practically a fortress.”

“Great idea. Get my kits safe and call Soren and contact Liam Denning-Holden as well. There were pictures of them, too, as well as of the Williams-Wade family. They’re not safe where they’re living now.”

“Will do. You find Nico, okay?”

Garth thanked his friend and snapped his phone shut. He would not rest until Nicolas was again by his side.

* * * *

“Corb, I don’t know about this,” Preston said, biting his lip. “You know Daddy told us to stay inside the agency at all times.”

Corbin glowered at him. “Do you want to see Mom or not? She won’t be able to come here, and you know it.”

Truth be told, Preston didn’t really want to see his mother. She gave him the creeps. Unlike Corbin, he didn’t remember her too well from when they’d been younger. What had stuck with him, though,
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was one conversation he’d heard between his parents. “I don’t want to be a mother,” she’d said. “Just let them grow on their own.”

At the time, what that meant hadn’t really processed, and even when she’d abandoned them, he hadn’t understood why. It was only when their dad started bringing him and his brother to the agency that he’d grasped the meaning of their words. If their father hadn’t insisted on keeping them, Preston and Corbin would be like these children here, without a family.

Still, Preston never went against his older brother, so he just nodded. Corbin looked pleased and changed into his lynx form.

They’d slipped away from the nurses who were too busy with a small fight between other cubs and hidden in a supply closet. The plan was to change shapes and slip through the air ducts outside. It wasn’t a bad idea, given their size, although if they got caught, they’d certainly be punished.

Preston would have most likely gone with it anyway, but the door to the supply closet opened. “Boys, what are you doing in here?”

Skylar Pierce asked. “You scared me half to death.”

Skylar was the only one other than their dad that Preston truly liked without a problem. He felt his face flame at the man’s expression of disapproval.

Corbin quickly turned into his legged form. “We were just playing,” he lied with a straight face.

Skylar didn’t look like he believed them, but didn’t comment further. “Come on. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” Preston repeated. “Leaving where?”

“You’re temporarily staying with me,” Skylar replied. “Hurry up.”

In that moment, Preston realized something wasn’t quite right.

Skylar seemed nervous and upset. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” the seahorse answered too quickly. “Nothing at all.”

“Where’s Dad?” Corbin must have sensed the wrongness of the situation as well. “Can we talk to him?”

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Skylar groaned. “He’s not here right now. Look, boys, your dad has something very important to deal with. He’ll tell you about it tonight. Now come along.”

Preston didn’t protest as Skylar pulled them out of the supply closet, and neither did his brother. As Skylar loaded them in his car, Preston couldn’t help but wonder what kind of problem had led their dad to send them to Skylar’s. Was it Nicolas? Had Corbin been right all along? Had Nicolas taken their place in their father’s heart? God, Preston hoped not.

Corbin grabbed his hand and squeezed it comfortingly. “It’s okay,” he mouthed. “Dad wouldn’t leave us.”

Preston nodded, unconvinced. In his mind, his mother’s words sounded yet again.
“Just let them grow on their own.”

* * * *

Nicolas cracked his eyes open and immediately closed them again as a throbbing headache threatened to tear apart his skull. What had happened? The last thing he remembered was… Going to the museum to meet up with the mysterious caller. He’d been waiting for his stalker to arrive, looking at the time, thinking about what Garth would feel when he’d received the e-mail. After that, there was nothing at all, no memory of what had happened.

Nicolas took a deep breath and tried to open his eyes again. This time, he succeeded, but the only thing he could see was darkness, absolute darkness. He experienced a brief moment of panic while he believed he’d gone blind, but he then caught sight of a small speckle of light close to his legs.

In that moment, his situation truly processed. He attempted to move, but unsurprisingly, he couldn’t. Both his hands and his legs were bound. His kidnappers had also gagged him, and the realization almost made him laugh. He must have been even more out of it than he’d originally thought if he hadn’t figured out the horrid taste in his
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mouth was due to the rag stuffed in it. From there, it didn’t take a genius to figure out the cramped space he currently found himself in was the trunk of a vehicle.

Nicolas couldn’t say he was surprised. He’d known what to expect when he’d gone to the meeting at the museum. He’d have liked to know who exactly had kidnapped him, but he didn’t doubt that he’d find out soon enough.

In a way, he was almost relieved. There would be no more unanswerable questions, no more nightmares he couldn’t decipher. At last, he would find out who he was and how he’d ended up in that lonely forest in Mexico.

Unfortunately, his kidnappers seemed to intend to test his patience. For a little while, Nicolas just waited in silence, but the heat inside the trunk began to get stifling. Nicolas didn’t particularly have problems with high temperatures, but the small space made his breathing difficult and the tight bindings cut his circulation.

Nicolas decided to say fuck it and allowed the change to flow over him. Human arms turned into tiny wings as he released himself from the bindings. Of course, it would have been great if he’d been able to find a hole in the trunk, but his kidnappers must have anticipated the situation and made sure he couldn’t escape even if he did shift.

At last, Nicolas grew tired of waiting for something to happen.

Angry and frustrated, he changed back into human form and began to kick at the metal. Finally, he drew a reaction from his kidnappers. The car slowed down and stopped, and Nicolas held his breath as he heard someone get out from the front.

The trunk lid popped open, and Nicolas shielded his eyes as light suddenly hit him. At first, he couldn’t see the face of the person above him. The only thing he could tell was that the gender of the kidnapper in question, obviously male.

But Nicolas didn’t wait to see much else. He melted back into his smaller form and shot outside through the now free space. He didn’t get too far before a net trapped him midflight.

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“I don’t think so, little Nico-Chi,” a woman’s voice said. “You wouldn’t want us to turn our attention to your dear friends again.”

Images assaulted Nicolas upon hearing the voice, memories of a happier time, when his life had been his own and he hadn’t feared a thing. “Come on, Nico-Chi,” the woman said. “Turn back. We have a conversation pending.”

Nicolas obeyed, his mind reeling from the overwhelming flashbacks. One of them provided the information he needed to know.

“Valentina? Is that you,
hermana
?”

The words fell from his lips easily even if he hadn’t spoken Spanish in almost twenty years. God, his head hurt. What had happened? Why did his sister hate him? He recalled the two of them flying through the rainforest in shifted form, happy and carefree.

What had changed?

“Oh, so you remember me after all,” Valentina said. “And Alonso thought you’d forgotten all about us.”

Nicolas turned toward the man who’d open the trunk. Alonso, Valentina’s on-and-off boyfriend, his mind provided. Like Valentina and Nicolas, he was also a hummingbird, and his most distinctive feature was his large nose.

The sight of it sparked another memory in Nicolas’s mind.

Slowly, he reached for his own nose. It was, just like he remembered it, cute and small. He looked at Valentina and noted that her own nose was too large for her face.

The facts hidden in his mind resurfaced. For most bird shifters, the size of the beak made no difference for the size of the shifter’s nose when he or she changed shapes. However, hummingbirds were different. All the members of his clan had big noses, everyone except Nicolas.

His fractured mind couldn’t provide any reason for this difference or if it had anything to do with the rupture between him and his family. His memories made very little sense, coming to him in a whirlpool that threatened to destabilize his consciousness.

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“I… I don’t remember,” he told his sister. “What happened?”

“You betrayed us, Nico-Chi,” Alonso said. “You betrayed us, and now it’s finally time to pay the price.”

Alonso pulled Nicolas up, and Nicolas stared at his sister, willing her to say something. She never did. Before he could ask anything else, a blow to his head sent him spiraling back into the darkness, and this time there were no small lights to reassure him.

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“I’m sorry, Garth.” Byron passed a hand through his hair, looking genuinely agitated. “There’s simply no sign of him.”

Garth acknowledged his friend’s words with a nod. Something had told him that finding Nicolas wouldn’t be so easy.

“You should go home, get some sleep,” Byron suggested. “We’ll start anew in the morning.”

Garth let out a bitter laugh. “As if I can sleep.” Still, Byron had a point. He needed to check on his sons. Skylar had called him earlier to let him known Corbin and Preston were safe inside the Pierce mansion, but Garth needed to see them, regardless. They were smart boys, and they would figure out something wasn’t right. “I’m going to Skylar’s to talk to the kits. Have you found any trace of that other lead I mentioned?”

“Bella?” Byron frowned. “You really think your ex has something to do with this?”

“I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot. She tried to use the boys against Nico, so it’s clear enough that she’d do anything to get rid of him.”

“Well, I’m looking into it, but nothing yet. Your babysitter doesn’t know anything. Apparently, they met in different places arranged by your ex. Bella seems to be keeping a low profile, but I’ll find her.”

“Thanks.” Garth wasn’t exactly surprised about Byron’s lack of success. Even with the shark’s great influence, it wouldn’t be easy to comb to a city the size of LA. Garth wouldn’t have even known
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where to begin. But Garth had hope. He needed to if he wanted to stay sane.

“No problem,” his friend and former boss answered. “I’ll keep trying to dig into Nico’s past. I’ve already started sending people to find any other hummingbirds who reside within LA. We’ll come up with something, you’ll see.”