Lynx Northern Shifters 3

him with words of praise and words of affection, and with promises that he’d return to Jonah.
He fell asleep, dimly aware that Trey was rising to clean up, himself and Jonah. And when Trey said, “I’ll be back,” Jonah fell into deeper sleep.
Much later he woke to an empty hut and a dead fire. He didn’t know how long he’d slept, but the emptiness, the loneliness of his home, shocked him.
He hadn’t imagined those words would be Trey’s final goodbye. Jonah hadn’t even answered them.
Pushing himself to sitting in the frigid room, he took his naked body to the door and opened it. Welcomed the sharp, painful cold that assaulted him even as he observed that it wasn’t boot prints that had left his sheltered cave, but paw prints. Wolf tracks that disappeared into a storm that was sweeping everything away. A curtain of snow was falling across the cave’s opening.
It was as if Trey had wanted to make double sure Jonah wouldn’t try to follow him.
He stood there for a while, until his entire body juddered with the cold, until his skin threatened to slowly die of frostbite. Then he made the decision not to punish himself further and retreated inside, got dressed, started a fire. He had promised Trey he’d eat more, so he did. Trey had promised Jonah he would return, and Jonah believed he would. All he could do now was wait.
    Trey ran, through the snow, through the cold. The exhilaration of four weeks ago, when he’d discovered something or someone had begun to track him, was completely gone. That had been the start of his relationship with Jonah and this abrupt leave-taking was the end. He felt like he was returning to hell while abandoning someone who depended on him.
    He’d abandoned two-year-old Gabriel, and his brother had grown into a violent, murderous adult. He’d abandoned Quinn for a two-week job and returned to find his lover’s body ripped apart by wolves. And now he was leaving Jonah behind. But Jonah was not a toddler with an abusive father, and neither wolves nor FBI knew of Jonah’s home, let alone his existence.
    This time Trey would return and Jonah would be there for him, healthy and whole, if a little angry, perhaps. It was hard to be the one left behind, but Jonah would be alive because no one but Trey knew about him. Being alive counted for something, counted for a lot.
    Two and half days and many snowy miles later, Trey returned to his car parked in the abandoned hangar, exactly where he’d left it. Inside the trunk were his clothes and winter gear. No one, as far as Trey could tell, had been here over the past month. The only scent he smelled was his own. It was safe to turn human.
    So he lay down beside the vehicle and threw himself almost violently into the shift, then woke to mild panic and the realization that he needed to stand up, get out of the snow, open the car door and get properly dressed. Having not eaten since he’d left Jonah, Trey was ravenous and he ripped into his protein bars. He was thirsty too, but had to wait and guzzle water after the bottles had been melted by the car’s heater.
    By then he was on the road, heading south, heading back to his work. Moving far, far away from Jonah who was safer without him, at least for now. Trey would destroy the rogue agency, make the world safer for shifters, including Jonah, and then he would return to find the only lynx he’d ever met. His lynx.

Chapter Twelve
    Over the next year and a half of interminable waiting, Jonah proved himself wrong. He’d been confident, after the first shock of Trey’s leaving, that he’d learn how to wait and Trey would return to him. But the waiting got more difficult not easier as time passed and passed, and what he learned was that patience is not always rewarded.
    Eventually he learned that he could not outlast the long wait. He’d been through one entire, long winter alone and to face another was impossible, not without knowing what had happened to Trey.
As he packed up that fall he figured, with a kind of cold dullness that had taken him over, they had both broken their promises to each other. Eighteen months had passed—Trey had never returned and Jonah was no longer waiting. Instead he made the decision to go in search of the wolf who worked for the FBI.
He suspected Trey might never forgive him for seeking him out, for the wolf had made it clear it wasn’t Jonah’s role to find him. It was only Jonah’s role to wait. However, Jonah didn’t think he’d be able to forgive