“Shit. Maybe. But why?”
“I don’t know. Any other possibilities? What about Corinne’s friends?”
“She had none, really. A few coworkers, but the only one who knows she’s pregnant is her boss, Jean-Pierre.”
“Right, the owner of Gateaux. It could be him. He could have been approached by Comtois’ people, who followed her to my place.”
“But the appointment and time we would leave today…”
“Did Pascal know you were going today?”
Paris nodded as Johanna ran a red light and nearly caused a massive pileup. Horns blasted behind them, but they were off like a shot. Paris took his phone out and dialed Agent Porath’s number.
“Two calls in the same day? I might have to charge you for stalking,” Agent Porath chuckled into the call.
“Listen, someone grabbed Corinne.”
“Shit.” On the other end, Paris could hear the agent giving all kinds of orders to her people. “What’s your location?”
Paris told her they were tracking Armstrong, who was, in turn, following the kidnappers.
“Okay, we are mobilizing.”
“Something else. I think my friend, Pascal Papineau, might be involved somehow.”
“I’ll send a crew to track him down. Keep me posted on your location,” Agent Porath said. “We need to get Comtois now, or he will disappear forever.”
“With my mate and kids.”
“We won’t let that happen,” she answered.
He clicked off the call, happy that the agent had been as sure as he felt. There was no way he was letting Gustave take his mate away from him. And if Pascal was involved, God forbid, there would be hell to pay. Paris wasn’t too sure how his friend could be involved, but Gustave had kept Corinne’s parents as prisoners, the damnable man wouldn’t be opposed to blackmail, or other ways of getting Pascal to speak.
Paris could only hope that he hadn’t been played. He had been friends with Pascal for years, and he would have hated being betrayed by him, especially now that it had put Corinne, Nugget, and Peanut in danger.
“If Pascal betrayed me…”
“We can’t worry about that right now.” As soon as Johanna turned onto the highway, she floored it. The speed limit was long behind them, and Johanna expertly crisscrossed the SUV through slower-moving traffic. “He might have been, or it could have been her boss, or it could have been good old surveillance. You two didn’t leave the house. They might just have taken their one shot.”
“But the fake nurse was wearing scrubs. That’s not exactly typical crony clothing.”
Johanna mumbled something rude that made him balk. “I don’t even recognize who you are right now. You could be a race car driver, and you just swore. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”
She shrugged. “Your father was the race car driver, but I took a few lessons to be able to keep up. It’s not my fault I have a natural gift for speed and danger.”
“God, this is messed up.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe they got to us that easily. I thought we were prepared.”
“It’s impossible to ever truly be prepared, Paris, you know that.” She was no doubt referring to the airplane wreck which had killed her husband. “We did the very best we could. Nothing is going to happen to her or my grandchildren. I promise you that.”
Johanna kept on driving like she had stolen the car, and the law was on their tail. The little red dot on her phone signaled where Armstrong was, and Paris could only hope that he could, at the very least, see that Corinne was okay.
The connection between him and his mate hadn’t been completely solidified yet, but he could swear he felt her stress and anxiety mixing with his own.
The little red dot seemed to be taunting him. He wished he could reach his hand out and scoop it up and demand to know where they were heading, but even that was silly. Armstrong was the red dot, not Corinne. Not his little family.
“I hate that we can’t even make up a valid plan, because we don’t even know what we’re walking into. He has two mountain lion shifters on the payroll, so who knows what the fuck else he has.” For once, his mother didn’t reprimand him for swearing. “No matter what happens, we just need to get Corinne away from Gustave.”
“We will.”
And just like that, Johanna had caught up to Armstrong. The man nodded to them as Johanna pulled beside him in the next lane over. With a subtle pointing finger, Armstrong motioned to a black SUV with tinted windows. There was no way to make out if Corinne was all right in the car. Paris thought he could make out three other people in the shadowed windows, but it was hard to tell.
It didn’t matter anyway. He needed to know what kind of shifters he was dealing with, and seeing the kidnappers wouldn’t give him that information.
Paris grabbed his phone, and he texted Agent Porath their location, and an update on his theories.
At the very least, the Warwicks had Interpol agents on the way. They were only humans, but surely, there was something to be said about a small army.
“I’m going to do something insane,” Paris said. If Johanna could drive like a badass granny, he would do his part.
He rolled down the window and unbuckled his seatbelt, leaving his phone in the center console.
“What in tarnation are you doing?”
“I’m going to fly overhead.”
Johanna clicked her tongue. “You’ll draw attention to us.”
“To us, but not to Armstrong.”
“Be careful,” Johanna shouted as Paris eased himself out of the window and climbed onto the roof of the car.
The wind was strong, but he was dragon. A little bit of wind never bothered him. He held on as Johanna made her way to the farthest right lane. As soon as she had, Paris leaped from the car and rolled into the ditch. It hurt, but the pain didn’t register fully. He made for the line of trees that bordered the highway and quickly shifted into his dragon.
It was insane, of course.
Humans would most likely see a very large bird flying over the highway. He was hoping that they would only think it was a police helicopter or plane monitoring the highway traffic.
His large green body was mostly hidden by the trees, but the kick up and flying away would surely get him spotted. He didn’t care. Let the humans wonder what they had seen.
He had a mate to save.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Paris
Paris kicked off the ground, hard. He knew that he had to get high up in the sky as quickly as possible. He was cavalier about the risk of exposure, but he also didn’t want to get the news crews, or every conspiracy theorist, spouting that they had seen a dragon high up in the sky in broad daylight.
That wouldn’t be helpful to Corinne or their children.
Paris went all the way up into the skies, using the thick clouds as a shelter from the more prying eyes. Even the keenest of humans would only see the shadow of something, and most would believe that it was a hobby plane. No one expected to look up to the sky and see a full-blown dragon.
He kept his eyes trained on the black SUV. He could only figure that the captors had no idea they were being trailed by two different vehicles and a dragon. Agent Porath had been in Paris, and she would quickly be catching up to them. No matter where they would end up, Interpol would be right behind them to take Gustave Comtois into custody.