Free Perfect Mate by Jennifer Ashley Page A

door.
    And then what? Cormac lifted his head and scanned the parking lot. Once that human
     or Shifter had tranqued Shane, he or she would have to lug Shane’s unconscious body
     out to a vehicle to get him away. Someone would have seen him do that.
    Or would anyone have? If the tranq had only had enough juice to put Shane mostly out,
     then Shane would stumble around like he was drunk, not unusual at a bar, even if it
     took a lot to get Shifters drunk. Any observers in the parking lot would assume they
     were seeing a human or Shifter taking home a blotto Shane.
    Not that anyone had reported seeing them, but witnesses might have gone home before
     Brody had become alarmed, and therefore wouldn’t know there’d been need to report
     it.
    Cormac lowered his head and snuffled around again. There were many footprints and
     many scents, but now that he was in bear form, he could take the time to sort them
     out.
    Nell waited beside him while he worked. Her warmth gave him an anchor, and his human
     senses, buried deep, observed that the view of her legs wasn’t bad either.
    Not far from the back door, Shane’s scent suddenly unfolded from the others, a layer
     that smelled a bit like Nell, even more like his brother Brody. The scent held the
     fiery hint of Shifter bear, and a bite that was all Shane’s own.
    Now to figure out where the scent went.
    He felt Nell come alert. “Have you got him?” she asked.
    Cormac grunted. He very carefully traced Shane from the scent pool, in a line that
     moved from the back door toward the Dumpster. Cormac followed, one step at a time.
     The trail of the garbage was cloying and distracting. Cormac closed his eyes and forced
     himself to focus on Shane alone.
    If someone had put him into the Dumpster . . . No, the trail moved beyond that.
    A vehicle had been parked behind the garbage containers. Cormac smelled exhaust and
     oil, a drip of antifreeze. The car or truck had been parked here, away from the bulk
     of the parking lot, in a place with easy access to the alley that ran behind the club.
     Whether the driver had understood that stopping the truck near garbage would confuse
     the scent, Cormac couldn’t tell.
    Cormac inhaled at a spot on the pavement where he calculated the driver’s side door
     might have been, then moved from there in an expanding circle, nose to the ground.
     Nell walked next to him, carefully keeping her heeled shoes out of the noisome puddles
     around the trash containers.
    He caught scent of someone else, froze. Wait . . .
    Cormac lifted his head. The scent was familiar. Wasn’t it? No, he couldn’t place it.
    Cormac stretched his body, willed himself to rise again to his human form, muscles
     and sinews crackling.
    “What?” Nell demanded.
    “Shane was tranquilized and brought out here to a car or small truck. By a human.”
     Cormac inhaled again. “I swear I’ve smelled the human before.”
    “Where?”
    Cormac knew what she meant. He guided her to stand where the vehicle had been and
     kept his hand on her arm as she inhaled. Nell tested the cold scents a good long time
     before she shook her head.
    “No one I recognize.”
    “But it’s familiar.”
    “Lots of humans come to this club. Maybe we brushed by them on the dance floor.”
    Cormac thought about that, playing over his scent memory of the night. The problem
     was, he’d filled every one of his senses with Nell, especially on the dance floor—her
     warmth, her scent, the feeling of her body against his.
    Cormac still scented her on himself. He took a step closer, right against her back,
     and wrapped his arms around her.
    “I can’t remember,” Nell said. He heard the tears in her voice.
    “It will come.”
    Cormac closed his eyes, not fighting his need to melt into her. Fighting the senses
     only clouded them.
    They stood together, locked as one, comfort and need twining them. Nell’s scent filled
     him again, covering the stench of the garbage, and everything else but