“Thank you,” he said as he leaned back against the couch and crossed his leg over his knee.
I placed my glass on the coffee table and went back into the kitchen to fix Paul his scotch. I poured his a little less full than mine and after putting the decanter of exquisite brown liquid away, I brought the glass to him.
He took it with a nod, and I sat down with a sigh. Lifting my glass, I sniffed the liquid. Pulling back with a frown, I leaned in again and sniffed.
“Smells a little different.”
Paul took a sniff and nodded, his brows pulled together. “It does. Maybe a residue from the dishwasher?”
“Probably, I hate that shit.”
I shrugged and downed the full glass in one shot. I swallowed and sucked my teeth at the bad aftertaste.
“Damn, it tastes funny too.”
Paul was sipping his and he made a face. “Yeah, maybe I don’t want a drink after all.”
I laughed at how he could throw a joke out and still have such a serious face. Paul was the strangest person I’d ever met. It would have been nice to get to know him a little better, but he seemed to have too many walls up.
“Man, you have got to lighten up. I think you do need that drink to loosen up and smile once in a while.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
I glanced at him and shook my head, then stilled as the room began to spin. I closed my eyes tightly to steady myself, but when I opened them, the room was blurring. Damn, alcohol had never affected me like that. That shit must have been strong, I thought, shaking my head again. Bad decision, because the room spun more violently.
I looked down at my empty glass and blinked a few times to clear my vision. What I saw made me curse. A white residue clung to the bottom of the glass. What in the hell?
“Sorry, Bear.”
“Huh?”
I turned towards Paul’s voice a little too fast and swayed to the side.
“That was thoughtful of you to offer the drinks before I could. I had to give you a shit load of that tranquilizer just to get it to work.” Paul stood and faced me. “But don’t worry, as a shifter, it will only affect you for a little while. Only a few minutes actually, but that will be enough time for me.”
“What are you talking about?” My speech slurred, as I fell to the side, landing face first into the couch where Paul had just been sitting.
I never heard his answer, as the room continued to spin. “S-s-s,” I tried calling out to Sam, but it was useless. I closed my heavy eyes and succumbed to unconsciousness.
* * *
A loud, persistent noise had me groaning, as I rubbed my pounding head. I slowly sat up and opened my eyes. I blinked in the bright sunlight coming through the windows and looked around the empty room. Had I fallen asleep on the couch?
The high-pitched wail continued, and I wondered drowsily where it was coming from. Then it hit me and I smiled. The baby was crying. She sure had a set of lungs on her. I wondered where her momma was. Maybe she needed help.
Moaning, I began to stand up, when I noticed two glasses sitting on the coffee table. One was half-full, while the other was completely empty. That was when I remembered.
“Fuck!”
Ignoring my pounding skull, I jumped up and raced to the nursery. The baby was crying her little head off, but otherwise she was safe in her crib. I rubbed her head and promised I would be right back. I took off towards Sam’s room.
The bed was empty. A sheet hung half way off the bed and the lamp on the nightstand was broken on the floor. It looked like there’d been quite a struggle, and it was plain to see Sam had been taken.
I roared long and loud at the ceiling. Rage radiated from my every pore. My breath heaved in and out of my lungs as my body began to jerk with the change. I was able to stop before going too far, but I had felt my shirt and jeans rip, as my body and face began to morph and broaden.
“Bear?” Liz asked, and I twisted around with a growl to look at her.
She gasped and threw her hands over her mouth in surprise. The fear in her eyes as she stepped back calmed my racing heart enough to shift into human form. The sharp fangs and curved claws added to my angry roar was probably a little too much for her.
“I’m sorry, don’t be afraid.”
She swallowed hard and stepped back into the room. “What happened?”
I shook my head and tightened my hands into fists at my side. How could I have let this happen?
“Bear?”
“Sam, she’s gone.”
“What?”
“Paul took her. He’s a traitor.”
Liz’s eyes widened with true fear for her friend. “What does he want with her? What are we going to do?”
“I’m going to get her back,” I growled. “And so help me, if he has laid one finger on her, I’ll kill him.”
What I didn’t tell Liz was that Paul was a dead man either way.
34
Jordan