The clerk pretended not to hear
Maddox’s demand. “What was the name of your mate?”
Was. Maddox didn't like the sound of that. There must have been something about his three-year incarceration or the Claws Clause on that screen.
“Her name’s Evangeline Lewis.”
The clerk looked up from his computer. “Her first name is Lewis?”
“No— oh, that’s right. Last name first. Sorry. It's Evangeline. Lewis, Evangeline. And Lewis is spelled L-E-W-I-S.”
Maddox’s wolf bristled as he spelled her name. He knew his other half was desperate to assert its claim on his mate and, before he thought better of it, he found himself adding, “It should be Wolfe, but she didn't get the chance to change it legally after we got hitched before...”
He let his gruff voice trail to a close as he thought back to that night three years ago. Of course she didn't. The car crashed the night they got married. One bad turn in a freak storm on their way to their honeymoon cabin. They never even got the chance to consummate their union, his wolf edgily reminded him, or finish the claiming.
That was something that would change as soon as he got his claws back into Evangeline.
He couldn’t wait.
“Hmm...” More clacking. “Oh, I see. Let me just…” A tiny twitch above the clerk’s right eye. More clacking. The stink of fear started to seep back into his scent. He kept glancing back over at Maddox, his eyes locked on Maddox’s throat. “Okay. Hmm.”
Maddox wasn't a patient shifter at the best of times. While he had more control over his wolf than most—including Colton and his notorious hair-trigger temper—there was no denying the fact that this Ant was, in his wolf’s eyes, the only obstacle between him and his mate.
“Stop it with the damn ‘hmm’s, alright? Is she in there or not?”
“Can you verify her date of birth for me?”
If answering stupid questions got him to Evangeline quicker… “March 22nd. She just turned 27.”
“Thank you, sir. If you’ll just excuse me one moment.”
The clerk abandoned his computer. Maddox braced his hands on the granite countertop, scowling as he was forced to wait. The enchanted glass that separated him from the D.P.R. workers was the same shit they used in the Cage which made the whole thing worse. It didn’t matter that he was finally free again; he was free in name only. The trapped feeling still followed him, and his wolf whined. It wanted out almost as bad as it wanted Evangeline.
The clerk wasn’t gone long and, when he returned, he wasn’t alone. He brought back with him a tall, stern woman with slicked iron-grey hair and eyes so dark they were nearly black. She could’ve been anywhere from forty to sixty and, from the look of disgust on her thin face, she hated everyone and everything for every single one of those years. She had the word ‘supervisor’ written all over her.
She spared Maddox a quick, dirty look, sniffed audibly, then followed her employee’s point to something written on the computer screen. Turning sharply, she looked back at Maddox and, as the clerk had before, she narrowed her focus on Maddox’s throat.
That’s when he realized what all of the humans were staring at. He had worn a silver collar around his throat the entire three years he was in the Cage. When they finally removed it, he found out that they were full of it when they said that the treated side of the collar kept the silver from harming him—he just hadn’t felt it as it ate into the skin around his neck. Reaching up, Maddox anxiously rubbed the raw patch of ruined skin where the collar had left its mark. Thanks to the silver, that was one injury that would never heal. Anyone who saw the scars knew exactly why he had them.
The Ants didn’t need a computer to tell them that he’d been in the Cage. Maddox was all the proof they needed. No wonder he alarmed them all. They probably expected him to go rabid at any moment.
And, he admitted to himself, they weren’t wrong.
The supervisor turned back to the computer screen. She hit a couple of keys, peered closely at the screen, then pressed the enter button. Maddox’s hackles rose as a tiny glint of satisfaction lightened her expression. Something told him that meant bad news for him.
“What’s going on?” His stomach tightened as the old familiar weight of despair settled back into place. Maybe Colt was wrong. Maybe the warden made a mistake and Evangeline was…
He shook his head and gripped the countertop in front of him again. “Is it Evangeline? Is something wrong?”
“That, sir, is none of your business.”
Could she have sounded any snider if she tried? He doubted it. “She’s my mate. Everything about her is my business.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. According to our database, Ms. Lewis is listed as one hundred percent human. She's never bonded with any paranormal. At least,” the supervisor added, and there was the smallest of smiles as she did, “not officially.”
Screw despair. This was absolute panic. Maddox caught his outraged howl just in time, though his fingers flexed and he gripped the edge of the countertop with all of his strength. The granite was no match for a furious shifter. With a loud crack, the edge shattered as if it was made of clay, rubble and sand and broken bits of counter falling at his feet.
Was she fucking serious?