“Oh.” The weight of those words settled in Ewen’s chest. “So, when we met at the restaurant...”
“I wasn’t looking for a mate. It wasn’t even on my mind.” Lamont’s voice dropped. “I felt a pull toward you, but I thought it was just attraction. Or curiosity. I’m a journalist too, remember? When you said you had something important to discuss, my brain went straight to work mode.”
“And then Lord Hades called.”
“Lord Hades had already called. That’s why I was on my way out the door.” Lamont’s jaw tightened. “I saw you didn’t seem happy to be with those men, but you did go with them. My hound wanted to tear them apart. But when Lord Hades summons you, you go. Especially when another pack member’s mate is in danger.”
“Another hound’s mate?” Ewen asked. “Who? Are they okay now?”
“Both mate and hound are doing well, yes. It’s a long story, and I can tell you all about it later.” Lamont’s hand shifted, his fingers brushing against Ewen’s through the blanket. “The point is, I didn’t know you were my mate. Not consciously. I did think it was weird that my hound was so interested in you, but he didn’t really know either.
“I do know I couldn’t stop thinking about you when I was in Tuscany. After the assignment, I took a down day in Australia with some of the other pack members, and then spent another day in the wastelands of the Underworld…and you know, all the time I was running there, all I could think about was you. I came to Cairo and tried to track you from the restaurant…”
“But days had passed by that stage. There’s no way you could’ve picked up my scent.” Ewen had a keen nose in his fox form, but even he knew there were limits.
“I caught enough to realize you’d gotten into a vehicle, but I couldn’t track you after that. In the end, I had to go through the Zeus network to try and get a handle on where you were.”
Ewen had no idea what the Zeus network even was, but his throat tightened. His mate was telling the truth. “You really looked for me?”
“I went to your office in New York and everything.” Lamont’s smile turned rueful. “Louise at the front desk told me you’d been missing for ten days, and I realized you’d gone missing the night we met. She also confided to me that your editor had filed a police report, but that after that, the higher-ups ordered everyone to stop talking about you.”
That tied in with some of the things Ewen had learned. When he had more than two awake brain cells, he would think about it. “I’m glad Louise talked to you anyway.”
“I can be persuasive when I want to be.” Lamont’s thumb traced small circles against the blanket. “She mentioned she thought you’d been investigating something big. Government contracts, falsified documents, or something like that. She also mentioned that someone in your office claimed they saw you wiping your hard drive on your work computer before leaving for Egypt.”
“I did. I knew they were following me.” Ewen’s voice came out rougher than he intended, but shoots…his whole life had gone to crap from that point. “I thought if I left the country, maybe they’d back off. Stupid.”
“Not stupid. Brave.” Lamont’s fingers wrapped around Ewen’s hand through the blanket. “You were trying to expose corruption. That’s what good journalists do.”
“Good journalists don’t get themselves kidnapped.”
“Good journalists also don’t break paranormal law by shifting in front of humans to escape their kidnappers either.” Lamont’s eyebrow arched. “Yet here we are.”
Ewen’s cheeks heated. He knew Lamont was teasing him, but still… “I knew I was dying. The mating sickness was killing my fox, and they were going to kill me anyway, so I figured breaking one law was better than being dead.”
“Mating sickness?” Lamont leaned up, his face concerned. “Is that what that was? I knew you looked weak when I found you, but…”
“My fox recognized you as our mate the second I saw you at Pier888.” Ewen pulled his hand back, suddenly self-conscious. “When you didn’t rescue me, when you let me go with those men, my fox thought you’d rejected us. Silver foxes don’t handle rejection well. We’re not built for it.”
“Ewen.” Lamont’s voice cracked. “I didn’t reject you, I didn’t know. If I’d known…”
“I know that now.” Ewen cut him off. “But my fox didn’t. And when you’re locked in a basement, starved, dehydrated, and barely allowed to go to the bathroom, a person’s got a lot of time to think. Thinking you didn’t want us…” He swallowed hard. “It got bad pretty fast.”
Lamont stretched out again, this time closer. His hand found Ewen’s hair, fingers threading through the damp strands.
“I’m so sorry, and I’m not leaving,” he said firmly. “Even if Lord Hades calls, I’ll tell him I’m with my mate and for him to ask one of the other pack members to deal with whatever needs dealing with. If I have to go and see him, we’ll go together. Now I knowyou’re my mate, I won’t let you down again. Nothing is more important than that.”
Ewen’s eyes burned and he blinked rapidly.I’m just really tired.But that didn’t stop him from asking, “You promise?”
“I promise.” Lamont’s fingers continued their gentle movement through Ewen’s hair. “Now will you please get some sleep. I can see you really need it. I promise I’ll be right here when you wake up. We’ll figure out the collar box thing, deal with whoever kidnapped you, and eat more food with gravy. We can do whatever you want, but first, you need to rest.”
“Tell me more about hellhounds,” Ewen mumbled, his eyes already drifting shut. Lamont’s promise along with the combination of a full stomach, a hot shower, and his mate’s presence, finally calmed some of his anxiety.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” Ewen’s words slurred. “Where do they live? What do you do on Earth? Do you all have mates now? What powers do you have besides making food appear and translocating?”
Lamont’s quiet laugh rumbled through the bed. “My pack mates live all over the world. You’ll be the seventh mate, so there are still five more who hope to find theirs. We have quite a few powers. We’re completely immune to magic from anyone who isn’t a god. We can see the color of a person’s soul. We’re the strongest shifters on Earth, which is why we can’t live together, but we do get together for barbecue, or when one of us needs help…”