This was just a house. It was lifeless. Magazines weren't scattered around, the TV wasn't blaring loudly, and there was no noise coming from the kitchen, indicating that dinner would soon be ready. He might like the way the place smelled, but that was it.

He turned when Mason tapped him on the shoulder. Sam glanced to where the man pointed. He didn't understand what Mason was pointing at until he saw something caught under the wall. Under the baseboard.

Shott moved down the hallway and gave Sam a quick nod, telling him that the back of the house was clear. Moving closer to the wall, Sam bent and pulled a small slip of paper free. It was a receipt. He glanced over it, but there were ordinary items listed. But it wasn't the paper that intrigued him. He slid his hand over the wall, trying to figure out if there was some sort of hidden entryway.

Shott began to do the same. Mason walked back to the living room and kept an eye on the streets outside.

"Here," Shott said.

Sam looked to see a slight break in the paneling. Shott pushed at the paneling, and a section of the wall slid aside. It wasn't a large piece, but big enough for a person to walk through.

"Son of a bitch," Sam muttered. He was gazing into a hidden room. The area was maybe ten by ten, not big at all. The walls were bare, the wooden slats showing. There was a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling with a pull chain attached. Sam reached out and pulled the chain and then gasped in horror when he saw the mattress lying on the floor and a woman bound at her wrists and ankles lying there. Bruises covered her from head to toe.

"It looks like he tried to beat the information out of her."

Shott's jaw was clenched tight, his words growled. Sam had started to enter the room when he heard something that sounded like a wristwatch. It was a low and barely discernible tick.

Shott swung toward Sam, his eyes wide. "The room is rigged."

Sam quickly shoved his weapon into the pocket of his overalls before he leapt forward and grabbed the woman from the mattress. She was unconscious and barely breathing, but Sam didn't have time to check her over.

"Mason, get the fuck out of here," Shott yelled. "Bomb!"

The three hauled ass out the side door, down the driveway, and past their plumbing van. They were halfway down the block when the house exploded. Sam fell forward but turned at the last second to take the full impact of the fall. He glanced back to see flames licking the sky, debris everywhere.

He glanced over at the other two men. "Shott, go get the van. We need to get this woman to the hospital."

Shott nodded as he took off down the street. Mason helped Sam to his feet. The ranch hand stared at the woman and shook his head. "I don't get how anybody could do that to another person."

Sam agreed. "We might be bear shifters, but you'd be amazed at the monsters that live in this world."

He cradled the woman to his chest as Shott drove up in the van. Mason opened the side door, and Sam crawled in. They took off toward the hospital, leaving the wreckage behind.

If it was the last thing Sam did, he was going to find Reno. There were just some men who didn't deserve to live. And Nicolas Reno was one of them.

After Stripper helped Wilbur from the truck, they walked up a stone sidewalk and passed a well-manicured flowerbed. Stripper held the door open for Wilbur as they entered the interior of the doctor's office. The inside was bathed in calm colors of tan and cream, and the receptionist was an attractive brunette. Shelly. Stripper had gotten to know her name from the previous visits.

"Hello, Mr. Castro, Mr. Zoltan." She grabbed a chart from her desk and stood. "Have a seat and I'll let the doctor know you're here."

Stripper hated coming here. He always felt like he was the one going to be examined. For some strange reason, he had a fear of doctors. Technically, it was a fear of needles. Growing up, his father always had to wrestle him to get him into the truck. Stripper was like an animal who knew it was going to the vet. He tried to hide, run, and even bribe his father to cancel the appointment.

After taking a seat in the exam room, Stripper's leg started to bounce nervously. He grabbed a magazine on housekeeping from the table just so he could try and occupy his mind.

Wilbur was no better. The guy paced like he was an expectant father. The man's eyes shot to the exam room door a thousand times as his hands went from his pockets to behind him then fell to his sides, only for the process to repeat again.

It might have been Stripper's imagination but he swore he smelled antiseptic, like they were in the hospital. And that was the strange thing. Hospitals didn't freak him out. Only the doctor's office.

"Why is he taking so long?" Wilbur stopped his pacing to ask. Stripper checked his watch and groaned. It had been only three minutes. This was going to take forever.

"Come have a seat." He hated to watch Wilbur pace. Stripper didn't like the fact that the man was nervous, and his pacing only frazzled Stripper's nerves. The carpet should be worn under Wilbur's feet. They'd had numerous visits, and the man paced every time.

Stripper went back to looking over the magazine and found himself reading an article on how to keep flowers fresh. Anything was better than sitting there staring at the exam room door.

"I feel fine," Wilbur said. "I don't see why I have to keep coming here."

"We need to make sure your heart is doing okay," Stripper reminded Wilbur, although he was ready to bolt at any second. He kept envisioning the doctor coming out with a three-foot syringe in his hand, laughing malevolently as he chased Stripper around the waiting area.

Wilbur tapped his chest. "Ticker's fine. Can we go now? I feel a rash coming on."

As with all the other previous visits, Stripper had to put his own fears aside in order to calm Wilbur down. If he didn't, the man would try to ease from the waiting room and take off. It seemed they shared the same fears when it came to the doctor's office.

Stripper tossed the magazine aside and stood, grabbing Wilbur as the man passed him. Wilbur was chewing on his lower lip, sweat already gathering over his brows. "It's just a checkup, beautiful. There's nothing to worry about, and I'll be at your side the entire time."

"This office is so small." Wilbur pulled at the collar of his shirt as his gaze darted around. "Why can't we just go and get some ice cream? I like ice cream. It's a hot enough day to enjoy it. We don't have to waste our time here."

Stripper hugged Wilbur and chuckled lightly. It seemed Wilbur's fear was much worse than his. He was half-tempted to give in when the door opened and the doctor smiled at them.

"Gentlemen."

He stepped aside to allow Stripper and Wilbur to pass him. They were taken down a short hallway and shown into the last door on the right. Wilbur hopped up onto the exam table as Stripper took a seat next to the table. The doctor sat at the counter in his tall swivel stool as he glanced over a file in his hands.

Stripper and Wilbur glanced at each other a few times as they waited for the doctor to speak. Wilbur had gone to the hospital the week before and had tests run, and now they were waiting for the results. Stripper hated waiting. Patience was not one of his strong points.

"Have you been having any problems, Wilbur?" the doctor asked. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," Wilbur said. "I watch what I eat, do the exercises you recommended, and my blood sugar levels have been stable."

"Good," the doctor said, but Stripper didn't like the frown the doctor wore as he continued to read the file. Doctor Brown usually had a smile on his face whenever Wilbur was there. He thought Wilbur was the funniest man he'd ever met. But today that smile was absent. The man's glasses were perched at the end of his nose, his thick blondish-grey brows pulled down so severely that they should have touched.

"No fevers, loss of breath, or anything else that was on the list of things to watch out for?" the doctor asked.

Wilbur shook his head. "No."

The doctor finally set the file aside and turned. "Let's listen to your heart."

"Wait." Stripper stood as well. "What aren't you telling us?"

Wilbur's eyes darted from Stripper to the doctor. "Is there something wrong, Doctor Brown?" Wilbur began to shake, and Stripper slid his arm around his mate, pulling him close to comfort not only Wilbur but also himself.

If the doctor had bad news, Stripper wanted to be holding Wilbur when the man crumbled.

"That's just it." The doctor scratched at his hair. "The tests came back negative, except for one. Your blood work is off. Your estrogen levels are through the roof, yet you don't have any signs that your body seems to know this."

Stripper shook his head. "I don't follow."

"Simply put," the doctor said, "too much estrogen in a man isn't a good thing. It can lead to chronic diseases. But like I said, all of Wilbur's tests came back negative. It's as if his body is preparing him for something."

Stripper held the shock in check. He kept his face masked as he stared from the doctor to Wilbur. It couldn't be. He hadn't bitten the man. There was no way Wilbur's body was changing in order to carry a child. All shifters had to bite their mates in order for their mate to conceive. That was a known fact among their kind.

Stripper needed to get Wilbur to Doctor Gallagher, the shifter physician. There had to be a logical explanation for all of this.

The doctor finally smiled. "But since he seems fit, we'll just monitor him a little more closely."

After Wilbur's exam, Stripper led his mate back to the truck. But before he got in, he called Gallagher.

"I need to see you right away." He explained what Doctor Brown had told him and Wilbur.

"Come into my office. I'll make time to see you," Gallagher said.

"On my way." Stripper hung up the phone and gazed at his mate who was sitting in the passenger's seat, messing with the channels on the radio. Wilbur was oblivious to the potential threat, and Stripper wanted to keep the man that way until he had concrete answers. There was no need in scaring Wilbur.

But fuck if Stripper wasn't terrified.

"Intel just came in," T-Rex said as he entered the kitchen where Shott and Sam were standing. Sam was stirring a pot of something that smelled good and Shott was begging for a taste. "Might have a lead on Reno. Colton is working another assignment, and Legend is meeting with a client. Take Mason with you. He seemed to do so well last time."

Sam turned the burner down to simmer and then pointed to the pot. "Stir every ten minutes and then take it off the fire in about twenty. Don't eat, sample, or sip from it."

T-Rex nodded, waited until Sam had left the room, and then grabbed the wooden spoon off the stove. He lifted the lid and dipped the spoon. God, it smelled good. He took a taste and then froze. He spun, ran toward the sink, and then rinsed his mouth out.

Sam walked back in, laughing. "I told you not to taste it. I'm brewing an all-natural detergent for Chris. He keeps breaking out, and Gallagher thinks it's the detergent. But no worries, it won't make you sick."

T-Rex glanced at the scrub brush sitting on the back of the sink and considered using it on his tongue. Now his mouth tasted like lavender. He was going to kill Sam. The man knew no one could resist stealing samples of whatever he was cooking.

T-Rex was wiping his towel over his tongue when his phone vibrated. He checked his text messages to see that Jeremiah had left a message. He'd recruited the man to help with Reno. It seemed Reno was on the move.

"Let's go."

"I thought you weren't coming," Sam said.

"Reno might be heading out of Junction City. I want to be there when we catch his ass." T-Rex thought of all the damage Reno had caused, and he wanted to be the first one to torture the man. That usually wasn't his style, but Reno deserved no less.

Sam, Shott, and Mason met him by his SUV, and the four took off toward Junction City. It was a long ride, and T-Rex hoped they made it there before Reno slipped away. Jeremiah would try and stop the man, but even given Jeremiah's large size, Reno was a force to be reckoned with. He was too cunning and too desperate at this point to be stopped. There was no telling what he might do to Jeremiah, and T-Rex wasn't going to have another death on his hands.

Ms. O'Connor was recovering in the hospital, but she wouldn't talk to anyone. She'd refused T-Rex's visit, and the nurses wouldn't go against the woman's wishes. She did say that Reno hadn't gotten the codes from her, but that's all she would say. T-Rex wasn't going to push. She'd been through enough.

T-Rex guzzled down the water he'd brought with him, still trying to get the taste of lavender out of his mouth when they'd reached Jeremiah. The mountainous man was sitting in his beat-up truck outside an office building. As soon as he'd spotted them pulling up, he got out.

The man lumbered toward them and then stopped at T-Rex's window. "He's still inside."

T-Rex looked at the monument sign outside the glass-and-chrome building to see that they were parked in front of a law firm. Was Reno consulting with his lawyer? Nothing was going to keep the man out of jail. He'd killed a guy, had nearly killed Wilbur, tortured a woman, and committed corporate espionage. The man was going away for a long time.

"I went inside and checked the directory," Jeremiah said. He wasn't wearing his usual farm clothes. Today he was dressed in a suit, and damn if the man didn't look good. Not that Jeremiah was his type, but the man cleaned up nicely. "The offices are mainly used by the law firms, but the fifth floor is used by a small software company. I chatted it up with a blond at the front desk, and she tells me that the software company specializes in breaking encrypted codes."

"He's probably meeting with someone to buy one of those programs," T-Rex said. "Reno wouldn't trust anyone to break the codes for him."

"Then I suggest we grab him before he can use the program," Jeremiah said.

"No, I don't want you involved any more than you have to be," T-Rex said. "Thanks for leading us to him, but go home, Jeremiah. You were a navy cook. You didn't deal in counterintelligence."

"But I was having so much fun." Jeremiah winked at him. "I do need to get back. I have a ton of things I need to get done."

T-Rex thanked the man and then sat back, waiting for Reno to emerge from the building.

Chapter Ten.

"Wilbur, I can explain," Stripper said as Wilbur sat there staring at the doctor as if the man had lost his ever-loving mind. Just what kind of crackpot doctor was this?

"What's there to explain?" Wilbur asked. "The man you brought me to just said I was pregnant. He's obviously off his meds."

"It's true," Doctor Gallagher said. "It's rare that a male can become pregnant when not bitten by his mate. But I think with the surgery and the meds you're taking, your body chemistry changed, allowing you to conceive when you and Giovani had sex."

"Do you understand what he's saying?" Stripper asked Wilbur.

He should have known better than to think this sexy man was sane. Weren't all good-looking men either taken, straight, or nutty as hell? And here he'd started to believe Stripper when the man said he was a bear. Wilbur was probably just high off of his meds when he saw those sharp teeth, but that didn't explain Reno's. Then again, Wilbur had been scared out of his mind back at that motel.

He, more than likely, had imagined Reno having long canines.

Wilbur patted Stripper's chest and smiled at his lover. "Don't mind me. I'm just doing the calculations on how full of shit both of you are."

"Wilbur!" Stripper looked stunned.

"I'll be out in the hallway," Doctor Gallagher said. "Let me know if you need anything."

"I need you to get back on your meds," Wilbur said to the doctor as the man left the room.

"That was rude," Stripper said.

Wilbur hopped off of the exam table and began to dress, giving Stripper his back. He didn't care what the doctor said or what the tests indicated. He wasn't pregnant. That wasn't possible. He tucked his feet in his shoes and headed for the door. Before he walked out, he turned to Stripper and said, "You know, everyone has a right to be a little nutty, but you're abusing the privilege."

He was going to have to move back home. Wilbur would finish recovering there and just take his chances with Reno. If Stripper thought him pregnant, then the man was totally off his rocker.

Wilbur breezed past the doctor, gave a polite smile, and hauled ass before the man diagnosed Wilbur with something else, like parvovirus.

The man was a quack.

He made it to the parking lot and frowned. Damn it. Stripper had driven him here, and Wilbur lived in Junction City. He was going to have to ask the guy for a ride home. It kind of made his dramatic exit less effective now that he had to wait in the parking lot.