He turned to find the stranger supporting himself against a wall, one hand rubbing at his throat. "Didn't seem right to sleep in Tam's bed."

Tam? The leopard growled, harsh and vocal. "Who are you and what are you doing in my mate's house?"

The other man's eyes widened. "Mate? She never-" He slapped up his hands, palms out, when Nate started advancing. "I'm a healer. Name's Finn."

That stopped Nate midstep. Healers, even enemy healers, had automatic protection. Only blood-hungry packs like the ShadowWalkers broke that rule. "We already have a healer." Claws raked his gut, twisted through his body like hard fire.

"She asked me to fly in and take over for a while." Finn coughed a few times. "Said it might be permanent. Our pack's got a senior healer and another apprentice, so they were happy to let me go."

"I said we already have a healer." Nate glared.

Finn didn't back down. "Not anymore you don't. She left."

The beast wanted to lash out, to tear and scar. "Where did she go?"

The healer held up his hands a second time and Nate wondered what the other man had seen in his eyes. "I swear I don't know. I figured she'd talked it over with your alpha-maybe a sabbatical or some extra training. She introduced me to him."

Nate left on a mission to find Lachlan, but it was Lucas he ran into first. He would have pushed past except that Lucas stepped into his path and said, "Looking for Tammy?"

Nate stilled. "You knew she left?" At that moment, the first rays of the rising sun hit the tree line, throwing light across Lucas's savage facial markings.

"Didn't you?"

"d.a.m.n it, Luc. Answer the d.a.m.n question."

"Sure." The juvenile folded his arms. "I heard her ask Nita to drive her out of the territory."

The urge to grab Lucas and shake Tammy's location out of him was so strong, Nate looked away and took a deep breath before saying, "And neither of you tried to stop her from leaving?"

"Why would we?" Lucas's tone was hard. "You made her cry, Nathan. You made your mate cry and then you didn't hold her."

The blow hit him with bruising force. "Where is she, Lucas?"

"I don't know-you could ask Nita, but I don't think she's around." He glanced at the sun-touched trees. "I have to get to the Circle for training."

Nate didn't try to stop him from leaving, and was still standing there when Cian appeared out of the shadows. "Nate? You after Lachlan? I just left him-he's free for the next half hour or so."

"I'm trying to find Tammy."

Cian's face showed instant comprehension and not a little anger. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing to that girl, Nate?"

"What's right for her." Cian didn't understand what it was to watch a woman fall out of love with her man, turn bitter and self-destructive...and finally, suicidal. He'd held his mother's dead body. He refused to hold Tamsyn's. "She's too young."

"She was too young when Shayla died. But did you hear her complain?" The sentinel's voice was a whip. "Seventeen years old and she took on a position most people don't touch until they've reached their third decade."

"Exactly!" He blew out a frustrated breath. "All that responsibility and then a mate, too? I'd demand things she has no conception of-"

Cian swore, low and pithy. "Isn't that your job as her mate? To demand but to let her demand as much in turn? You're supposed to f.u.c.king share the burden, not add to it like you've been doing with your self-pitying bulls.h.i.t."

"You might be my senior," Nate said, the leopard in his voice, "but you are not my father." His father was long dead, having literally driven himself to an early grave after his wife's death-he'd wrapped his car around a tree. "You want to take me on, go ahead."

"Screw that." Cian shrugged. "If I damaged you, Tammy would have my head."

With that simple comment, the other man defused every bit of Nate's anger. "Tell me where she is. I have to make sure she's safe." The leopard's desperation grew by the minute.

"I don't know." Cian shoved up his sleeves. "To be honest, I don't think you deserve to know, either. And don't bother asking Nita-she has no idea where Tammy went after getting out of the car."

"What, none of you bothered to ask her?" He couldn't believe that, not with how protective they had become after what had happened to Shayla. As this inquisition clearly proved. "You let her go off on her own without a word of protest?"

Cian's eyes turned opaque. "She's an adult leopard. No one has the right to question her decisions."

And she'd made one to leave him. Nate leaned against a tree and stared up at the dawn sky. It promised to turn a pure, mocking blue. "Where did Nita drop her?" She wouldn't be hard to track-she was carrying his heart with her.

Cian snorted. "Sorry, you're on your own. You made the mess, you can d.a.m.n well clean it up. But since you look like you've been gut-punched, I will tell you something she said to Lachlan when she made the request to leave and bring Finn in as cover."

Nate straightened. "What?"

"She said you were more important to the pack. Since one of you had to go, she decided it had better be her." The older male shook his head. "My Keelie is the most precious part of my life. How could you let your mate think she was less than you, Nate?"

Nate still hadn't found an answer to that question seven hours later when he finally located the first hint of a trail. He was certain that this was where she'd left Nita's car. He looked up and found himself close to Tahoe. Tamsyn had vanished somewhere in the lake city's streets. Nathan had every intention of hunting her down.

UNFORTUNATELY, WHEN HE RETURNED TO THE DEN TO PICK up his gear, he found another surprise waiting for him, this time in his living room.

"Where's my daughter, Nathan?" was Sadie's first question.

He began to grab what he needed. "I'll find her."

"I don't know if I want you to find her." Tamsyn's mother scowled. "You didn't do a great job of keeping her this time around."

"I'll bring her home."

"Why? So you can make her miserable?" She moved to block the doorway, fierce in her maternal protectiveness. "Let her roam. That's what you've been telling her to do. Well, looks like she listened. Don't you dare go after her."

The blunt words brought him to a halt. "I can't do that."

"Why not? It's exactly what you wanted."

"She's mine to protect."

"You gave up that right when you decided you didn't want to be her mate." Sadie shook her head. "You've done enough. Let my baby go."

He stared at her, a sick feeling in his gut. "I never said I didn't want to be her mate. Where the h.e.l.l did you get that idea?" And did Tammy think the same?

Eleven.

"FROM YOU, NATHAN." SADIE GAVE HIM AN ARCH LOOK AS she shook the foundations of his world. "Tammy was practically screaming for your love and you wouldn't so much as hold her. She got the message-she can't break the bond, but she might be able to mute it with distance."

"What d.a.m.n message?" Impatience, anger, and a painful hunger for the scent of his mate combined to roughen his tone. "The only thing I wanted to give her was a taste of freedom before-"

"I've heard it all before." She lifted a hand. "If you really mean it, then you'll put down that pack and go sit down. After all, she's free now, isn't she?"

"That's not what I meant," he said between gritted teeth. "I wanted her-"

"You wanted her on your leash-close enough to watch over so you could satisfy your beast." Sadie's eyes went pure leopard. "It didn't matter to you that her need was turning into a kind of slow torture. You are not doing that to my baby again! You let her go. Let her find someone who'll love her for what she is."

Violent rage turned to lethal calm. "What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? She's my mate. That is not negotiable."

"Not if you won't let it be. If you set her free, maybe she'll fall for someone who'll adore her like she's meant to be adored."

"I adore her!" he yelled in disbelief. "No one else has that right!"

"Do you?" Sadie's features settled into a resolute expression. "Then show her, for goodness' sake. Otherwise, free her in reality instead of just giving lip service to the idea." She vacated the doorway.

Nate walked out without replying, but her words wouldn't leave his mind, no matter how far he went. Tammy thought he didn't want to be her mate? How could such an idiotic idea have ever entered her head? The second he saw her, he was going to growl the truth to her until she d.a.m.n well listened.

Well...maybe he'd hold her first. He'd made her cry and he hadn't held her. Lucas was right. That was unforgivable. But Tammy was his mate. She had to forgive him. And she had to come home. He couldn't exist without her close to him. Those months she had spent in New York had almost killed him, but at least then he'd been able to tell himself that she was still a girl, not a woman.

But now that he'd felt the lush heat of her, he could no longer kid himself. Tammy had grown up. And she'd left him. "We'll see about that." The leopard snarled, mad as h.e.l.l.

Not much later, he reached the point where he'd first picked up her trail-close to Tahoe. From there, he could try to track her by scent or...or he could do the one thing certain to lead him to her. No choice at all, really.

Taking a deep breath, he released the stranglehold of control he'd held over the mating bond since the day she'd turned fifteen and he'd realized what she was to him. It felt like the whiplash unfurling of a coiled spring-a burst of pure power that actually hurt as it boomeranged off his chest, driving him to his knees.

When his head finally stopped spinning, he felt for the bond and found it stretched out taut and clear, a vibrating cord of need, desire, and belonging. He could feel Tammy deep within his core, as if he had a homing beacon tuned only to her signal. It was perfection. And he wasn't sure he could ever block it again. But he'd think about that later.

Right now, he had to survive the intensity of the emotions shooting down the bond. It felt like he could reach out and touch her. She was sweetness and hope, woman and fire, erotic heat and gentle affection. And she was his. Not f.u.c.king negotiable.

IT FELT LIKE GETTING BROADSIDED WITH A BASEBALL BAT.

Tamsyn staggered under the point-blank surge of pure emotion, sliding down the wall to sit with her back braced against it.

Nate had opened the bond.

She rubbed a hand over her chest, then realized the usual persistent ache, the hard knot of dull hurt was simply...gone. In its place was the blazing glory of a fully functioning mating bond. She trembled. Why had he taken that step now-after she'd done what he wanted and put distance between them? Surely he wasn't trying to track her?

No, she thought, she wasn't going to believe in fairy tales anymore. Nate had probably done it by accident. Okay, no. That was stupid. No one who'd been as determined as Nate to block their mating would lose that much control by accident. Her eye fell on the small silver phone sitting on the table by the sofa.

Her mother had called soon after Tamsyn arrived at the cabin. Sadie had been distraught to return from her run in the wild and find her daughter gone. Tamsyn had a.s.sured her over and over that she was fine, but knowing Sadie, she'd probably ordered Nate to locate her daughter and provide a firsthand report. Tam-syn shuddered, trying to breathe past the impact of the fully flowing bond. She had to think, had to stabilize herself before Nathan arrived, so he'd go back and tell Sadie there was no reason to worry.

That done, he would think the bond shut again.

Her blood flushed hot as the vibrant male energy of him raced through her veins. Mates were joined on an incredibly deep level. To other changelings, the scent of one half of a mated pair became difficult to distinguish from the other the longer they were together. Nate's refusal to accept the bond had denied them that closeness, starving her. Now, her senses wanted to gorge.

"No," she said out loud, forcing calm on herself. All healers had to learn such discipline. It allowed them to work in the chaos of a fight or when attempting to heal those they loved-a pack healer didn't have the luxury of pa.s.sing on the hard cases to another medic. Every one of their cases was hard, because Pack was family.

Finally, after ten long minutes, she could think despite the masculine strength of the emotional connection surging through her. Then, for the first time, she tried to close her end of the exquisite pleasure/pain that was her link to this man she adored beyond life...and discovered she couldn't. She fisted her hands. Forget the known wisdom that said the bond couldn't be blocked-if Nate could do it, why couldn't she?

It took her an hour to come up with some sort of answer. She remembered what her mother had said-that Nate had had to learn to suppress his needs in order to allow her the time she needed to come of age. That control seemed to have carried over into everything he did in relation to her. But now he'd thrown off the reins and let the cat out to play.

It might be impossible to put the lid back on that bottle.

Her eyes widened. Nate was not going to be pleased if that proved true. More importantly, she wasn't pleased. She didn't want him to want her because he'd been forced into it by the primal cravings of his beast-cravings her own beast understood far too well. She wanted him to love her.

It was a terribly impractical dream for a practical, sensible healer.

EVEN WITH THE BOND, IT TOOK NATE THREE DAYS TO TRACK Tamsyn to an isolated cottage so far south of the lake, there was nothing else within shouting distance. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing out in the middle of nowhere?" he said, the second she opened the door.

Her eyes narrowed. "Trying to get away from you." Turning her back, she walked into the house, her hips encased in those d.a.m.n painted-on jeans.

He was tired, sweaty, and hungry. Not for food. For her. Every soft, curvy, bitable piece of her. His cat wanted to test the resilience of her b.u.t.t, while his-He slammed the door shut behind himself. "Jesus, Tammy. DarkRiver's operating at red alert while we prepare to take on the ShadowWalkers and you choose this shack to hide in?"

"It's not a shack and I'm not hiding," she said, sitting back down to what appeared to be her breakfast. "It's Cian's place. He likes the water."

Cian had lied to him. Not exactly a surprise. "It's miles from the lake!"

"It's not that far. He likes privacy, too."

Nate dropped his stuff by the door and shoved a hand through his hair. "What, this was some silly little jaunt and no one bothered to tell me?" He saw red.

Then she raised an eyebrow and that red morphed into something darker, more intense, a blatantly s.e.xual surge of dominance. "I'm leaving DarkRiver. Finn's agreed to stay on permanently. His agreement was what I was waiting for."

He didn't believe her. "You're leaving the pack."

"Yes." She put down her uneaten toast and stood. "There, you've seen me. I'm fine." Her smile was sharp enough to cut, her eyes sparking with anger that intrigued the leopard even more than the spicy/wild/hot woman scent of her. "You can leave the same way you came in." She began to clear the table.

"Put those dishes down."

She ignored him.

Covering the distance between them, he closed his hand over her wrist. She released the dishes softly to the table but didn't turn to face him. "What do you want, Nate?"

"I want you to talk to me." He found himself pressing against her. It took only a single move to enclose her in the circle of his arms and bury his face against her neck. He was ravenous for the scent of her, the feel of her. "Come on, baby."

Her body trembled so violently he felt her skin move against his caressing lips. "I can't do this anymore." Her voice was a whisper. "Please let me go."

Twelve.