Lynx Northern Shifters 3

believe.”
“I’m not the liar.”
“When would he have told you that?” demanded Horton.
“When we met.”
“Where was that?”
“At the library.” Jonah didn’t pause with that reply. There had been former library books in his house.
Horton just rolled his eyes.
“It keeps me sane. Do you want me sane, Horton?”
The man’s look was assessing but his words dismissive. “I’ll take it under consideration.”
    Time passed. Time Jonah mostly spent alone in a small space. At first he assumed he was being watched, but he soon came to realize his bigger danger was being forgotten. Of course there was no math, and no real interest by Horton. Sometimes it was Horton, sometimes it was a guard who wouldn’t speak to Jonah, who came to deliver food, drink and basic toiletries.
    The water was always cold and he was being held in a basement, no windows. Though he longed to turn cat, he wouldn’t do it here. If they discovered he was a shifter, he would never escape. So his lynx waited and Jonah tried to keep up his strength even if they didn’t feed him enough calories.
Time passed and while Jonah’s internal clock worked, he seemed barely aware of the months passing.
    Then one day, Horton returned, excited and as interested in Jonah as he had been that first day. He snapped a picture of Jonah.
“A little pale and thin, but you’re okay.”
Jonah didn’t react. He’d stopped reacting to Horton early on when it became clear it wouldn’t help him. But now, suddenly, Horton appeared concerned by Jonah’s health.
“Math, right?” he asked.
Jonah eyed him and said, not for the first time, “First-year university calculus and algebra. The books I used before are old and might be out of date.”
Instead of appearing amused at his request, Horton nodded. “I’ll get you textbooks. We need to get you some fresh air. You’re looking a little washed out, too thin.”
“I look like a prisoner?” Jonah asked mildly. “Who are you trying to impress?”
“Manipulate,” Horton corrected. “We’ll improve your conditions the more he cooperates.”
Jonah waited.
“Trey will be angry with me if he thinks you’ve suffered overmuch.”
Something in Jonah’s heart ached to hear that. He was careful not to voice his doubts. His doubts weren’t what this was about. If it was all about him, he’d stand up, cross the room and snap Horton’s neck. But he wanted to warn Trey off this man first.
So he asked, “What do you want from Trey?”
Horton leveled his gaze at him and the expression was avid, but not in a murderous way. And yet what he said was “His blood.”

Chapter Fourteen
    Once the agency dug its claws in you, you were never entirely free. So though Trey’s job was done and Horton was supposed to be in prison, he wasn’t surprised to hear from the man a couple of months later. Horton had been released. He was free. Strings pulled and all that. Probably by Kingley, who’d wanted Horton’s agency destroyed, but also wanted Horton in his debt.
    By the end of his assignment, Trey had decided to disappear, couldn’t handle being part of any agency any longer, be it FBI or the corrupt one he’d helped bring down. He had his own agenda—and number one on that list was to search for Jonah again. No longer constrained by his job, Trey was going to go about the search differently.
    His biggest and most unrealistic hope had been that Jonah had returned home, was living there safe and sane. But this summer, as last, Jonah’s cave had been empty, with no signs of Jonah having ever returned.
    Trey worried Jonah was dead, though he refused to give up hope yet, for Jonah’s sake if nothing else. So he was going to search in depth and see what he could find. Like assassination, he was good at it. And he preferred finding people to killing them.
    But first, Dan Horton. Dan liked them to be on a first-name basis, liked to pretend he and Trey were friends. Well, Trey could call him Dan. Before he ripped out his throat.
Dan didn’t have to be found. He had made it easy by contacting Trey. They were meeting in an outof-the-way town, which put Trey on alert. Horton had said he needed to lay low, after his rather highprofile involvement in kidnapping and other irregularities. But Trey suspected Horton had other reasons for meeting like this. Because there was one thing Trey knew. Once you decided to kill someone, something had fundamentally changed in the relationship, and both parties often realized this.
Horton