Page 15 of The Bear's Chosen Mate
Well, that’d been freaking exciting.He’d never been struck by lightning before.He got to his feet and shook his head to settle his brains back into place.Nope, electrocution wasn’t a thrill he was looking to repeat any time soon.
He’d just closed the balcony doors behind him when three things hit simultaneously.
The scent of Kaylee in his suite, recent and crisp.
An urgent ache in his gut that said he needed to find her,now.
The clear sound of his cell phone going off with Cooper’s ringtone.
The clothes he’d worn out on his last trip were on his dining room table, sort of in a pile, with his cell phone on top.Even as James answered the call, the memories of the past hours slipped neatly into place, although he wasn’t sure what had screwed them up to start with.
Holy shit, this had been the weirdest day yet, and it was far from over.Phone call, then he was tracking down his mate.
“What?”James demanded.“I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“You’re in trouble, that’s what you are,” Cooper drawled.“How’re you feeling?”
James marched to his bedroom to get dressed so he could go track down Kaylee and fix what he’d broken between them as soon as possible.Not to mention so he could fuck her silly and take her as a mate.“Annoyed.My brother insists on talking to me when I’m in the throes of mating fever, and my woman just vanished for some goddamned reason.Oh, and the power is out.Oh, and I got hit by lightning.Annoyedpretty much covers it, though.”
The dead silence on the other end of the line was unexpected.
“Talk or I’m hanging up,” James ordered.
“I’m shocked to find you this coherent,” Cooper confessed, his words coming out sharp and crisp.Accelerating as if he was reading his brother’s mind and getting to the point before James followed through on his threat.“Kaylee called Amber who called me.Seems Kaylee’s stuck in your elevator, and she’s worried because you’ve got the mating fever and are insistent you want her as your mate.”
“I do want her as my mate.Damn it, the elevator?Power surge must have fried out the entire building when the lightning struck.I’ll have to climb down to save her,” James said in a hurry.“You’ll have to contact emergency services to make sure there’s no one else in the building who needs help.And get my power up and running ASAP, got it?”
“Wait,” Cooper said sharply.“How come you’re not stupid with the fever right now?This is only your second time—it took years before I wasn’t mindless the entire seven days I was feverish.Are you sure you’ve got it?”
The desperate need to be with Kaylee was growing stronger by the minute, and his skin was on fire, but thankfully his mind was crystal clear.“Maybe getting struck by lightning cured the stupid—and why the hell didn’t you or Alex warn me about that part?Assholes.”
“Rite of passage.But slow down.Kaylee was scared to call you for help.Maybe I should come—”
A full-fledged roar escaped James’s throat at the thought of another unmated male near his Kaylee.
“—and forget I even mentioned it,” Cooper added smoothly.“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
James snorted.“Absolutely.Lightning strikes are great for clearing the confusion.I think I even know why she didn’t call me for help, but don’t worry.Everything will be fine.She’s mine.We belong together.”
He didn’t wait for Cooper to say goodbye.Just stabbed theoffbutton and finished yanking on his clothes.
Kaylee obviously had a working phone, but calling her to say he was on his way wasn’t going to get her rescued any sooner.He shoved emergency supplies into a bag, pulled on his coat, and made his way to the elevator control station.
Thank goodness Alex, in his role of head of security, had insisted all family members knew the inner workings of all potential escape routes from their buildings.
Of course, his brother had been raving about espionage and kidnappings and other impossible scenarios at the time, but the end result was James knew exactly which panels to remove to get access to the support cables for the stuck elevator.
He shined his flashlight into the darkness then checked the master controls.
“Damn it.”
The elevator cage was caught between floors.There was no easy way to get Kaylee in or out without joining her.
First things first, then—and at least being trapped together would give them time to talk where she couldn’t run away.
James slipped on the leather gloves he found on the work shelf by the controls, slung his bag over his shoulder, and got ready to make a move.
Maybe a warning was in order…
