Nick inhaled deeply, fighting to remain composed. But how could he? Dammit, it f**king hurt that she’d left like that. Not just because she was away from him, but because she’d so easily been able to run when he hadn’t had the strength to stay away. And he was angry too. Angry that she could leave him behind and start a life without him, and angry with himself for pushing her in that direction. Also, he was panicking. Not knowing where she was, if she was safe, if she was happy was a torment all on its own. Whatever Shaya or any of these wolves thought, he did want her to be happy. More than anything, he wanted to be the one to make her happy.

And with all that came the determination to find her.

But Dante was right: finding her simply to know where she was, to have peace of mind, wasn’t a good reason. The only chance Nick had of being in her life was to put right what he’d done, step down from Alpha, claim her, and take Derren’s and his mother’s advice and shove aside his fears rather than forsaking someone so important to him. That was exactly what he would do. If that meant the foundations of his pack began to crumble, so be it. Shaya was his; she was more important.

Of course it would be pointless to tell her pack that. They would never believe him—they would simply think he was feeding them shit so they would reveal her whereabouts. He’d have thought the same thing in their position.

Fine, he didn’t need them to tell him. Nick was a powerful Alpha, and he had many contacts, knew a great many Alphas all across the globe. There wasn’t one pack in the world in which she could hide where he wouldn’t find her. Pivoting on the spot, he began marching out of the kitchen.

“Nick?”

Halting, he glanced over his shoulder, meeting Taryn’s gaze.

“Let her be.”

“Not going to happen. If you want to end the alliance, start a war, you do that. But it won’t stop me from searching for her. Nothing will.” With that, he left.

Trey sighed at the sound of the main door slamming shut. They had hidden Shaya well, had taken her as far as South Carolina. Rather than settle her there, they had—cashing in a favor that another Alpha owed him—used a private jet to transfer her from there to Arizona. Their belief was that Nick would never think they would hide her in such a close location. Ryan, Trick, and Marcus had then created a false trail going from South Carolina to New York before allowing it to abruptly end.

They knew that Nick wouldn’t give up when finding no sign of her in New York and might backtrack, but they also knew that Nick wouldn’t be searching for a human with Shaya’s description—which was what she was posing as in Arizona. He would be searching all the shifter packs. Trey had been pretty confident that Nick didn’t have a hope in hell of locating her. But having seen the determination in Nick’s eyes, Trey wondered for the first time if their efforts had been enough. Not that he could blame the guy for his persistence in locating his mate. No one could keep Trey from Taryn, and God help anyone who ever again tried.

He glanced down at her, giving her an “I told you so” look. Taryn had insisted that although Nick might be pissed to hear that Shaya had gone, he wouldn’t bother taking the time to hunt her down.

She sighed at her mate’s expression. “Okay. You’re right. I’m wrong. You’re smart. I’m dumb. You’re tall. I’m…average height.” She arched a brow, daring him to call her tiny.

“Do we contact Shaya and tell her that he’s coming for her?” asked Tao.

Taryn shook her head. “No. The last time I spoke to her, she sounded happy enough. She likes her new job, and she’s decorated her new place. She’s starting to get settled. If I tell her that Nick’s on the hunt, it’ll have her panicking. Besides, there’s a good chance he won’t find her. He won’t for one minute imagine that Shaya’s hiding in the human world.”

Dante winced, running a hand through his short walnut-brown hair. “I don’t know. I’ve heard Nick’s a talented tracker. He’s also got a lot of contacts—not just through being an Alpha, but because of his time in juvie.”

“Juvie?” Taryn’s mouth dropped open. “How the hell did he end up in a juvenile prison?”

“When he was thirteen, he killed a human teenage boy and badly maimed two others in his wolf form while trying to defend himself and his sister.”

“Thirteen?” she echoed. “How long was he in there?”

“He came very close to serving a life sentence, but Nick had acted in self-defense—that’s a lot different than cold-blooded, premeditated murder, particularly when what could have happened to Nick and his sister had been cold and premeditated. But the human court ordered for him to remain contained until he was eighteen.”

“Shit,” said Taryn. Matters concerning shifters were dealt with by packs, but if the incidents involved humans in any way, the human authorities had a right to deal with it. “Time in juvie must have been hard as f**k.”

Trey nodded. “Hell yes.” Although humans had juvenile prisons specifically to contain shifters, they were run by humans who tried to make all their lives hell for committing crimes against their race. Trey had heard about the type of shit that went on in places like that, and he had to respect anyone who got out of them with their sanity still intact. Not only was Nick sane—or relatively sane—but he was an Alpha and a very good one.

“So when I say Nick has a lot of contacts, I mean it,” said Dante. “In juvie, shifters tend to band together, forming little packs of their own. They all keep in touch when they’re released—in fact, Derren’s one of the shifters who served time in juvie at the same time as Nick. It might be best to warn Shaya so she knows to keep a low profile.”

After a moment of thought, Taryn shook her head again. “What kind of life would it be to be constantly looking over her shoulder for the big bad wolf who broke her heart?”

Trick leaned back in his seat, frowning in a way that made the claw marks on his cheek seem to darken. “Nick’s right, though. Claiming Shaya would put her in danger.”

Ryan, a guy who somehow always looked grumpy and very rarely spoke, nodded. “A whole lot of danger—I’ve seen it happen before.” And they were probably the only words the enforcer would speak for the day.

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Taryn.

Trey narrowed his eyes at the roguish smile that curved his mate’s mouth. “What do you mean?”