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A small part wondered why the police wasn't chasing me as I sped and ran red lights through the city. The small part that contained all the emotions my fear and anger had compressed in a corner of my mind to make more space for themselves and all the theories they brought.

They were going to hold Eddy and force me to do some horrible task for them like turning Denver over to their tender mercies. They were going to make me beg for my son's life. They were going to torture him until it drove me out of my mind.

Whatever they wanted, I'd do it, so long as it freed Eddy. Then I was going to rip them apart for putting my son in danger.

The answer to why the police hadn't chased me was that they were all at Martin's house, at least it seemed like it by the number of blue and red flashing light along the street. I was out of the car and running to the house, shoving the gawkers out of my way.

A uniform officer stood in the doorway. "Sir," she said, her tone authoritative, "this is an active crime scene. You're going to have to return to the perimeter." Out the corner of my eye I could see another officer approach. One of the people on crowd control duty.

My first instinct was to deck her. My next one was to scream obscenities at her for getting in my way. But now that I was here, the small, compressed, spot in my mind was expanding and reminding me the woman was just doing her job. She hadn't caused this, and I'd worked alongside uniform police for a decade. I already knew how miserable their lives were.

I took a breath and swallowed as much of my anger as I could. "Officer," I growled, "my name is Denton Brislow. I'm Eddy's father, my son is the one who was kidnapped. I'm going to go in there and find out what happened, if you try to stop me, I am going to forcefully remove you out of my way."

She motioned for the other officer to stop, he was a few paces away from us. "Can I see some ID?"

Just doing her job, I reminded myself. She's making sure I'm not some random cheetah here for a quick thrill, or even worse, some news reporter trying to sneak in. With a shaking hand I took out my phone. She scanned it with hers and read what came up.

"It's okay," She told the officer, "He's the child's father." She put away her phone. "Mister Brislow, If you'll follow me in, one of the detective will want to speak with you."

"I don't what to talk to them, I want to see my son's room. If Martin here? I need to talk with him."

"I don't know a detective by that name. They'll be able to tell you more." She looked over the living room which was a bustle of activities; mostly uniformed officers with a few plains clothes ones and lab people. "Detective Cooper?" She called out, and the officers parted to show Alice talking with them.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," I grumbled. But it made sense she'd be here. She knew Martin was one of my friends. She'd be interested in anything that involved him.

Her eyes grew hard. "I'll deal with him."

"She'll answer your question," the officer said, heading back to guard the door.

I looked around. If she was here, Reilly had to be nearby. The other detective I recognize was the calico, Hemingway, Alice's partner. He was talking with Tessa, who looked harried.

Fuck, I hadn't even though to ask Martin if his son was okay. I looked around trying to see if Esteban was in anyone's arms. Instead I saw an exhausted-looking Jasmine gesticulating at an officer.

"What are you doing here?" Alice demanded, forcing my attention to her.

"Are you kidding me?"

"I don't fucking care that the guy who owns this place is one of your fuck buddy, or that you run the security that oh so successfully kept the attackers out. You have no fucking business being here."

I stared at her. "Eddy is my son. I'm fucking going to help find him that you fucking want me to or not!"

"What do you mean, he's your son?"

"Did someone forget to tell you he's a cheetah? That his mother's a cheetah? How did you think it happened? That this is like your bible stories of birth without a father?"

"You're fucking gay. Don't fucking try to tell me you're the father."

Images of me on top of Eddy's mothers flashed through my head. The sense of helplessness tried to force its way in, but I was too fucking angry to let it.

"You think that I don't have the will power to do that?" I leaned in and saw the effort of will it took her not to back away. I lowered my voice. "I can do magic. We have ways to make things happen when we want to." I grinned as I straightened.

"Fine. Johanson! I need you to take his statement."

"I'm not here to talk, Cooper. I'm here to--"

"This is a police investigation. You're going to fucking do what I tell you. You want to help your fucking son, that's how you do it. I dare you to tell me you don't want us involved. Go ahead, and see what the media is going to say about a father who kicked the police off the search for his own son." She gave me a satisfied smirk as a squirrel approached me.

"Denton," the officer greeted me neutrally.

"Andy," I replied, glaring at Cooper's back.

"Still on the outs with her I see."

I turned my glare on him and he took a step back, hands going up to placate me. "I didn't mean anything by it. Just that I'd figured you two would have patched things by now."

"I gave up trying after she slammed the door in my face a dozen times. Figuratively," I added at the tilt in his ear. "Just ask your questions so I can get on with rescuing my son."

"You should know all the questions, you've asked them often enough."

"Andy, if we don't do this by the book, she's going to blow up at me and come up with reasons as to why this is my fault."

"Alright." He took his phone out. "Where were you when the child was taken?"

I glared at him.

"You know that kidnappings are usually done by a relative," Johanson said. "I notice this isn't your house, so the child's mother isn't living with you. That indicates a strain in the relationship."

"No, it indicates my small apartment isn't set up for a family. I'm actually staying here too while I find a more appropriate place. You can ask Martin."

The squirrel gave me a displeased look before glancing at Tessa, but didn't comment.

"Fine, still, where you?"

"At work. You can check with them."

He made a note. "Do you have any enemies?"

I glared at Alice who was talking to officers again.

"Enemies who might want to kidnap your child."

I shook my head. "Eddy isn't someone I advertise. Only a handful of people know I have a son." I wasn't telling him about the Orr twins. I didn't want the police mixed into this and making the situation worse.

"So could any of them want to take him?"

"I'm not in the habit of telling people who don't like me things they can use to hurt me." Of course I'd been so happy Stefan called me, I'd blurted it out to keep him on the line while we traced his call, forgetting who he kept company with. They were probably listening in on the call, which was how they knew. Or he told them after the fact. I'd been an idiot.

But, it had brought Stefan to Denver, and I had him now. He should be at Steel link by now and I could figure out how to help him.

Johanson asked a few more questions, some of which designed to trip me up if I was hiding something. This wasn't the coercive questioning that took place in an interrogation room, but if they could find who was lying from the start, it sped things up.

"That's about it. If we have more questions, we'll let you know. I'll escort you to--"

"I'm going to talk with Martin, where is he?"

"Denton, you know who this works, he's a sus--"

"Andy, Martin would have given his life to protect Eddy, just like he would have his own son. Where is Esteban? Martin's son?"

Johanson looked at his notes. "No one mentioned him."

"Where is Martin?"

The squirrel considered the question, looked in Alice's direction, she was still busy. "Follow me." He took me to the kitchen where Martin, Eddy's mother, and Tessa were seated around the island.

Martin stood and said something, but on seeing her I became too busy fighting about the images, the sensations. I so fucking didn't have the time for this. I was shaking by the time I could focus on the kitchen again. Johanson had left and Martin looked at me fearful and expectant.

I could guess why he was afraid. "I'm not mad at you, I'm certain you did everything you could. I'm surprised you called the police though."

Tessa put a hand on the other cheetah's. "Loraine called them. They roughed her up when she tried to keep them away from Edward, but she was more afraid than hurt. She had to do something."

"We never expected something like this in our own home," Martin said. "I never thought to tell her we handled things like this ourselves."

I avoided looking at her. "Where's Esteban?"

"With my father," Martin said. "Me and Tessa were taking a day for us."

I raised an eyebrow and Martin blushed.

"Esteban needs a brother," Tessa said, "And we like to set the mood over multiple days before we conceive."

I looked from one to the other. Martin's ears were dark red now. "I'm never going to get used to this," I said. "Okay. Where was your security? I saw Jasmine answering questions, but where's everyone else?"

"There were half a dozen of them, I think," Tessa answered.

"Half a dozen? There should have been double that around the house and neighborhood."

The cougardess was surprised by that. Hadn't Martin told her I'd increased security on them even before Eddy was born? I wasn't going to have an elder's son be in danger, even less his grandson.

"The attack on the company reduced personnel," Martin said. "You'd know the numbers more than I would, a lot of people were hurt and we can't just go around healing everyone with sigils, the doctor would wonder what's going on, not to say of the employees. Add to that the number of men who were called back to their families."

I nodded. "Doc Merlin knows about us, I didn't have a choice, too much strange stuff happened in the attack. and you know that I also had to tell some of the people who work for me. Jasmine and her husband know." I tried to go over the numbers in my head. Were we stretched that thin? I'd lost track at some point, and knowing Tom, he'd have pulled people to protect me if needed. And as Martin had said, his house should have been safe.

"I don't think it would have helped if there had been more security," Martin said. "They attacked with overwhelming force. They had twenty men, some of which had abilities, and they weren't afraid to use them. The upstairs is going to need repairs."

"So this was always their plan then. Stefan said they wanted me dead, but now I'm thinking that was a secondary objective. They wanted to reduce my forces so we'd have to have to thin security all around. Make this attack easier on them."

"I'm sorry," Martin said, "I wish I could--"

"Martin, this isn't on you. I'm just happy Esteban wasn't her to get caught in the crossfire. This is on me. I'm the one who told Stefan about Eddy. I should have known better." I paused and forced myself to look at the cheetah seated at the other end of the table. I held the images and sensation back by will. "Can you and Tessa give us the room?"

The cheetah, Loraine, her name is Loraine, fucking start using it Brislow, wrapped her arms around her chest. Tessa studied my face, and I worked hard at making it neutral. She softly spoke to Loraine in Spanish and the cheetah nodded.

Martin leaned close to my ear. "Please be gentle with her."

I nodded and waited for us to be alone. I stepped around the island, wishing I could make myself be caring, this was the mother of my son, for fucks sake, she deserved some form of affection from me, even with how she'd taken part in how it was done. But neutrality was the best I could muster.

I forced my hand on top of hers and felt her tremble. "I don't blame you for any of this. Martin said you tried to stop them, and it's more than I could have asked of you. Thank you."

The look she gave me was a mix of fear, dismay, and worry. "You should, I could not keep him safe."

It's her fault, a nasty voice screamed at the back of am head. All of it, she's even admitting to it! "No, you did what you could. You weren't equipped to deal with the men that attacked. I'm the one who should have seen this coming and made sure there was more security on the house." I swallowed and forced the next words out. "Please forgive me."

She placed her other hand on mine and squeezed it. "You are a good man, a good father. I do not blame you for this either."

I nodded, breathing easier. I ignored the mental sneer trying to convince me it was a manipulation. That she was trying to sink her claws into me.

"I will find him," I said. "I will get my--our son back."

"I know you will."

I looked at her hand, still on mine. I could pull my out, but I thought it might look like I was pulling away from her and because I wanted that so badly, I didn't let myself do it.

"I need to go and start working on finding him," I said, not quite managing to make my voice gentle.

She took her hand off mine. And I fought the urge to run away from her as I walked out of the kitchen. "It's good," I told Martin as I passed him. "I'm heading to work, stay here with her, she needs to feel safe right now."

For an instant he looked like he would argue, but I didn't hear anything from him as I kept moving.

Tom was going to demand I live in a tower after this, with a moat, and knowing him he'd find a dragon to guard it. Maybe I could convince him to settle on a gated community.