“Damn it, Layna. It’s necessary,” Renner snapped. His footsteps attacked the floor behind her and she knew he’d been pacing while Doc worked.
Layna growled a low warning. Pump me full of tranqs and see what happens when I wake up.
“Shhhh,” Bethany murmured, dancing her fingers under Layna’s jaw and eliciting a pained purr.
“I’m worried about the tail.” Doc’s voice was urgent. “We could lose it if we don’t move fast.”
She needed to heal. Needed the trap off her fucking tail so she could hunt Ryan. And she didn’t want to do it tripped out on tranquilizers.
Ryan.
A whimper pressed through her lips at the mere thought of him. It’d be even longer now before she saw him. More time wasted when all she wanted was to finally fall into his arms.
Mate can help heal.
It was true. The cougar could do miracles on her own. Could heal things a normal human would never recover from. But the bond of a mate could go further. Heal better, heal faster. The power was in their togetherness. When two halves make a whole, the whole is stronger than the two parts. The cougar would thrive with her mate near.
She had to find a way to tell them.
Fully shifting was impossible—not to mention, dangerous—but maybe she could manage a partial turn. Like she did in the woods, but farther. Enough human that she could talk.
Groaning with the effort, she pushed her animal away. But the cougar fought, trying to protect her body. Her cat held on as Layna struggled to separate them a fraction. Like they were bound together with an invisible elastic band, if she could separate them an inch, she could tell the others she needed her mate.
Dangerous, the cougar hissed.
But then the word came out of Layna’s semi-human lips.
Bethany froze, staring down at Layna as Doc screamed, “Don’t shift!”
Pain was a lightning bolt lashing her body over and over, the worst of storms, as she forced words into the thick air.
“Get… Ryan…my mate.”
That was all she managed before the elastic band snapped the human back into the cat, and Layna’s world turned black.
Chapter Five
Ryan huddled in his truck trying to get warm so he could eat his sandwich. He had thirty minutes for his lunch break and then it was back to work. His new crew had taken a job in Tunica, working an add-on for the big casino. He’d decided to stay in the hotel there until he had time to go looking for an apartment. Figured he’d burn his nights away playing slots to keep his mind off the Ouachitas.
Reaching into his lunch pail, he pulled out his sandwich and unwrapped it. The first bite tasted like sawdust. The second wasn’t much better. He washed it down with some coke and went back for a third.
Damn, he’d gotten spoiled on Eagan’s food. Bailey’s too. The two of them ran the kitchen at Lake Haven masterfully. When you asked the guy for a sandwich, he didn’t give you that bullshit white bread that comes in near perfect squares. No sir. You got his homemade stuff, sliced thick and piled high with the best toppings. And his sauce… yeah, it wasn’t just a mayo/mustard combo. It was something else, and he wouldn’t release the ingredients to anyone except Bailey.
Ryan polished of the rest of his sub-par lunch and then checked his phone. Eleven missed calls. Eleven?
Quickly, he thumbed through the numbers. Beth, Magic, Renner. And then the number that stopped his breath. Layna’s.
Ryan frowned. She’d called him? Any other time, he might’ve been over the moon, anxious to call her back, even if she was just reminding him about the pair of boots he’d left in the closet of his room.
But eleven missed calls from his family wasn’t because of his boots.
He scrolled on to find several more from Beth and Renner. Something was wrong. His chest tightened and the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as he quickly dialed his sister’s number.
She answered before the first ring was over. “Damn it, Ryan. Don’t you ever check your voicemail?” Beth’s voice whipped through the phone, causing chills to lift on his arms.
“I haven’t set it up yet. What’s wrong?”
She drew in a long, shaking breath that he could hear plain as day through the speaker. “It’s Layna. She’s been hurt.”
Like that, all the air left him. His sister’s words were worse than a punch to his soft spot. As if a vacuum had sucked out everything from his life and left only that critical announcement. Layna was hurt. His female was hurt, and where was he? Three fucking hours away.
“What happened?” he rasped, throwing his truck in reverse and spitting gravel as he sped out of the lot. He’d call Trent from the road and explain things.