Claiming His Mate(25)

Lauren bristled at the command. “Dad, I’m right here. We’re not—”

“Some lying female is saying you attacked and tried to kill her when she caught you trying to smuggle out the jewels.”

Surprise slammed into Lauren’s chest as she leaned back against the seat. “What? That’s not true!” And why would anyone make that claim?

“I don’t care. Dominga, get her out of town now.” He ended the call before either of them could respond.

Lauren turned to look at her mom, ready for an argument. There was no way she’d leave like this. She understood that her pride just wanted to protect her, but she had to iron out all this mess before it snowballed into something totally unfixable. Leaving was not the answer.





Chapter 9





Max wanted to rip his hair out at the scene before him. Wade was pacing angrily in front of the floor to ceiling windows in the living room of Max’s condo, his wolf clearly agitated and ready to lash out if his extended claws were any indication. But he’d been surprisingly silent as his sister shrieked and screamed.

A bloodied Naomi sat on the wood floor, crying about how Lauren had attacked her. The jaguars, minus Dominga Hayes, were all on the other side of his expansive living room glaring daggers at the blond wolf while three of his own male packmates stood defensively between Naomi and them.

The sparkling brooch was in the middle of his coffee table where Naomi had slammed it down. She swore up and down that Lauren had attacked her when Naomi caught her trying to leave the condo. Lauren had supposedly dropped the brooch then attacked Naomi and left her for dead before making her escape.

Max couldn’t scent any lies coming off the blond. But his gut told him there was no way in hell Lauren had done this. Absolutely no way.

“Why would Lauren do such a thing when you’d already promised her the jewels in a week’s time?” Though untamed violence rippled off Lawrence, his voice was steady as he looked at Max. He was a true alpha, a good example of what one should be like. And Max missed his own alpha more than he ever had. He’d actually called Grant a few hours ago while they were searching for Lauren, but true to his word, his alpha had turned off his phone during his honeymoon.

Lawrence continued, his voice deepening in anger. “Unless you’ve abused my daughter in some way?”

Max snarled, even the thought of her in pain angering him. He didn’t bother answering because he didn’t trust his voice. Right now he was trying to keep his shit together. Lawrence had told him Lauren was safe and out of the city, which was the only reason he was managing to control himself.

She was safe. That was what mattered. He hated that she’d left with her mother because he wanted to hold her in his arms and figure out this mess. But first he needed to calm down his two irate packmates and try to figure out why Naomi was lying. Because he had no doubt she was. Grant had taken the two wolves in because they’d been desperate and had no pack, but Max didn’t know them and he barely tolerated Wade.

When Max, his packmates and the jaguars had been out searching for Lauren, they’d stumbled across Naomi on her way back to the condominium. Luckily tourist season was over so there hadn’t been many humans about, but it still surprised him no humans had seen her bloodied and shredded to ribbons. That alone was hard to believe. She’d already healed from her cuts—which had definitely been made by a shifter—but hadn’t cleaned up the blood yet because Max had ordered everyone to his place.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he started to ask Lawrence to give him some privacy so he could hash this out with just his wolves when the front door opened.

He couldn’t see her, but he could scent that amber and vanilla scent stronger than he ever had before. Shoving past the jaguars, he’d made it two steps down the hallway when Lauren launched herself at him. She was shaking as he held her, kicking his protectiveness into overdrive. He wanted to order everyone out and tell his pack and her pride they could deal with this mess on their own.

But as second in command, he didn’t have that luxury.

Her mother was behind them, giving him a cautious stare, but he ignored her. He tuned everyone out for a few seconds as he buried his face in Lauren’s neck and inhaled her sweet scent. It invaded his senses, soothing his primal beast. When he thought she’d been taken from him—he shut that thought down, not wanting his inner wolf to get even more agitated. He needed to find out where she’d been. She smelled odd, like another female.

As he started to set her on her feet, an angry shriek from behind him made his wolf go on high alert, wanting to hide Lauren from any threat.