Shifters Hunt: Shifters Hunt Romance Boxset Books 1-4

by Selina Woods

  I lifted my brow. “You want to suggest that to her?”

  “No, I think I like my tail where it belongs.”

  Within a half an hour, Constantine returned for the rest. As we got them into the vehicle, I said, “I’d like you to stay with them since you have some know-how in healing.”

  “I expected that,” he replied with a small smile. Digging into his pocket, he handed me a small jar. “Keep putting that on your wound.”

  “Thanks. Tell the nuns I’ll send them food and what medicines I can.”

  “Please do, Ragnor,” he said, his smile fading. “They are very poor, and I don’t think they’ve had much to eat in recent months. Be as generous as you can.”

  “I will. I’ll have food, water, and weapons brought to you all come daylight.”

  “Good luck,” he said as he got behind the wheel. “See you.”

  He drove away again into the night, the sound of the engine gradually fading into silence. I glanced at my remaining companions. “First chance we get,” I said, “we take the loaded SUV to the nuns.”

  “I know where the nunnery is, Ragnor,” Barney said with a nod. “I’ll take it and leave the vehicle with them in case they need it, then bring my truck back. A truck can be handier to have than an SUV.”

  “All right, then let’s get to the mansion.”

  Shifting forms, I led my small group into the shadows, well concealed from any chance eyes. We had no sooner gone a block when the roar of an engine struck us, and we crouched low, watching as a truck loaded with Kanata’s henchmen pulled up to the hall in a screech of tires. Nearly a dozen of them, they lit rags stuffed into bottles, then threw them all through the door and windows into the structure we had just vacated.

  Yelling and laughing wildly, they roared off down the street as flames climbed within the concert hall. Firelight pushed the night back as the flames spread, consuming the curtains, the seats, the fine wood walls, the stage I had just stood upon as I organized my rebels. I met Nigel’s grim eyes.

  “That asshole knows far too much about us,” he growled.

  “I’m just glad we got everyone out,” I replied as Skyler brushed her body against mine. “Now how do we figure out who the mole is?”

  “I have a few ideas on that, Ragnor,” Nigel replied as we continued on. “Let me work on it a bit more.”

  The hour neared midnight by the time I pinned the map of the city up on a wall and faced three-hundred-odd faces that stared back at me. “Until such time as we find our mole,” I told them, “we have no formal base of operations. At the moment, we need none, so I’ll address you unit commanders first.”

  I paused to gaze at the watching eyes, the set expressions, and tried to gauge their readiness for this. “I hope you’re all ready,” I told them, “as all the people in the neighborhoods are counting on you. I’m not, they are. Without you, without us, they will be lucky if Kanata kills them quickly. If not, they face torture, hunger, life under his bootheel again. I shit you not, people, there is no turning back now. No crawling to Kanata for mercy, for he will slay anyone of us he finds. He will kill our mates, our children; if life was bad before the incident of four days ago, consider life a thousand times worse than that.”

  I paused to gaze around. “Are you ready?”

  The roar—yes— that came from those three hundred odd throats had me wincing. “Okay, great, let’s not curb the enthusiasm but keep it several decibels down. Now the force I am putting together will hunt Kanata himself,” I told them, pacing in front of the map. “You boys and your units will go from neighborhood to neighborhood to secure it, then protect it.”

  I paused to gaze around. “That’s all you do. You kill any enforcers you find, then you stay put, patrol the area, and protect the helpless. The deer shifters will start bringing in supplies, and when I contact Casey and his human army, I will send them out as support. But first and foremost, you protect the citizens in your given locations.”

  I tapped the map. “One by one, you will come up here, and I’ll mark your name on your specific area. Then you will go, get what rest you can. Meet your units an hour after dawn, then get to your neighborhoods. I know some of you will have farther to go than others, but that’s okay. We have Kanata out hunting us, not those in hiding. Get there as quick as you can, then protect the people. Got it?”

  This time, I received raised fists, grins, and murmurs, not shouts.

  “Now, we have no communications system,” I told them. “That’s not good, but neither does Kanata. If you need help, send a runner to The Den, Jonas’s bar. Someone will be there twenty-four hours a day who will know where I am, and he or she will get word to me. I’ll get there as soon as I can. Any questions?”

  “Very good. Let’s start with you.”

  Over the next two hours, I scribbled names in squared-off boxes indicating individual areas to be protected, glad for the sheer numbers of rebels I had. Much of the city I marked off overlapped one another, and each commander knew the name and face of the commander he overlapped with. As each received his given area, he left the mansion to rest up for the rest of the night.

  When the last one left, I felt numb with exhaustion, in considerable pain, and certainly not up to my next task. Gazing around at the over two hundred and fifty shifters and humans, many of them wolves as I had hoped, I said, “You, boys and girls, are the lucky ones. You are my private army. We are the main fighting force who will take Kanata out. If any more join our cause, they, too, will be incorporated. As Kanata will be on the move, we have no way of knowing where he is.”

  “So how do we find him?” asked a wolf not far from me.

  “I am very glad you asked,” I replied, then pointed my finger at him. “Your noses. Come daylight, all the wolves will accompany me to Kanata’s old digs. You will roll in his scent; you will cover yourselves with it; you will memorize it. Lions and tigers, much less the humans among us, have not the tracking ability you wolves have. Your ancestors hunted by scent, ours by sight.”

  I paced around in front of them, my fingers steepled. “Then we hunt the bastard down. We spread out across the city, seeking his odor. We start west where his place is and move east, working our way both north and south as we go. Remember, we outnumber him. As our brothers secure each neighborhood and kill his enforcers, he will soon have nowhere to go.”

  Nigel grimaced and pumped his fist in triumph as Jonas and Barney laughed, hugging one another. Gibson grinned from ear to ear as he gazed at me while Skyler’s eyes glowed with love and happiness. The rest of my army laughed and grinned, nudging one another, gesturing toward me as they spoke of how they will be the ones to hunt Kanata down.

  “This will not be easy,” I said, raising my hand for silence, listening as the chatter died away. “This will not be easy. Don’t be fooled. The best-laid plans can go awry in an instant. Kanata may have more tricks up his sleeve than we do wolves to track him down. Some of us may be killed. Save your triumph for when Kanata is dead, and New Orleans cleaned of his rats. Obviously, he has explosives while we don’t, so we cannot afford to get cocky.”

  Gesturing around the big mansion, I said, “Jonas and Barney, would you be kind enough to post a few guards around this place? I suggest we all get what sleep we can, for tomorrow we begin the hunt.”

  Chapter Ten

  As there was no way in hell I could conceal more than two hundred and fifty humans and shifters on our way to Kanata’s office cum residence, I didn’t bother to try. With as many vehicles I could get my hands on with short notice, many shifters running on four legs beside them, I led a huge caravan downtown. People appeared in doorways and windows to gape as we rolled by, many cheering and waving, yelling their thanks.

  “I hope they go back inside once we’re gone,” I said to Skyler and Nigel, who rode at the front with me. “If any of Kanata’s people are nearby, they may be in trouble.”

  Nigel gazed back along the long line. “They are, Ragnor. They aren’t dumb.”
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br />   I wasn’t worried about being attacked. Kanata hadn’t the numbers I had in my caravan alone, and his people were scattered all over the city. It was the individual units I had securing neighborhoods that were likely to be attacked, and I hoped they were up for it. Kanata’s enforcers were used to killing; my rebels were not.

  “Stop worrying,” Skyler told me firmly, snuggling under my arm.

  “What makes you think I’m worrying?”

  She poked my ribs. “I can tell. Now knock it off.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I caught Jonas watching us with a grin and suspected he now approved of me as a potential mate for his daughter. I sighed deeply and held Skyler close to me. Kanata’s place was only a few blocks ahead, and I gestured for my people to pass the word down the line to be cautious. While I doubted Kanata was in residence, that didn’t dispel the idea he had left behind a message for me.

  “Wait,” said the wolf from last night, whose name I’d learned was Jericho. “I smell gun powder.”

  We had piled out of the vehicles, and the lions and armed humans had ringed the building round while Skyler, me, and the ninety-plus wolves lined up to enter the tall building. On four legs, Jericho sniffed the doorway and the shrubbery to each side. His hackles up, he backed away to return to my side.

  “There’s a tripwire near the floor of the doorway,” he growled, his ears flat. “Attached to bombs on either side. One strike of a foot and boom.”

  “Get everyone back,” I ordered. “No one comes close until I yell. Got it?”

  Skyler tried to protest as Jericho, Jonas, and Nigel pushed her away, and well out of range if I screwed up and blew myself to kingdom come. In my human form, I closely inspected the tripwire and the device and discovered it was a very simple bomb. The wire would pull the pins from the grenades packed around the gunpowder, and when they exploded, they would ignite the powder and send the broken glass, nails, and other shrapnel flying.

  Backing away, I yelled, “Anyone got any wire cutters?”

  It took a few minutes before wire cutters were found. I cut the wire without dislodging the pins, collected the grenades as well as the gunpowder packed around the shrapnel in sacks, and set them in Barney’s truck.

  “Hey, that shit ain’t gonna blow my truck up,” he demanded. “Is it?”

  I grinned. “You’ll know when I do, I reckon.”

  With Jericho and a few other wolves leading, sniffing for other potential disasters, we climbed the steps rather than take the elevator, suspecting that would be a rather easy trap to send the occupants flying to ground level at a killing speed. The wolves’ keen sense of smell located a similar crude device just inside Kanata’s penthouse, which I quickly dismantled and sent down to the truck with Barney.

  He was less than enthused with the task. “If I blow myself up,” he muttered. “It’s your fault.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  With only Jericho, I checked out Kanata’s private residence for any other booby traps, then when we found none, I cast his clothes everywhere for the wolves to sniff and invited them in. “Know his scent, boys and girls,” I said as the wolves entered, their noses working. “Know it, memorize it. We need you to find him.”

  As each wolf stated he or she would know Kanata’s odor, they headed back down via the stairs as I knew Kanata would have trapped the elevators. At last, no wolf, save Jericho, remained with me, and I walked around the huge apartment with him at my side.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied slowly, peering at old photographs on the walls I had seen in the past but not studied.

  They were pictures of tiger shifters on the beach, in human form and on four legs with stripes. His family, I suspected. At picnics, fishing at lakes, on boats, on land. The more I studied them, the deeper my frown grew. “Where is his family?” I muttered.

  “What?”

  I stared blankly at Jericho. “He always said he doesn’t have a family,” I told him. “These say otherwise. So where are they?”

  He shifted to two legs in order to study the pictures as I had. “That was taken at Lake Champlain,” he said firmly. “I recognize it since I went there as a pup. I’m sure that is a photo taken at the Gulf; that is definitely the ocean in the background.”

  I rubbed my nose. “Of course he would lie and say he has no family,” I said, thinking hard. “He can’t afford anyone finding out, as they could be used as a leverage against him.”

  “Right,” Jericho agreed.

  “So why leave these pictures on the walls for me to find?”

  Jericho gaped. “What?”

  “Look,” I said, dragging my fingers through my hair. “You’re Kanata. You’re on the run. You leave booby traps, but even if they worked and people got killed, someone would eventually get here. Why didn’t he destroy or hide these pictures that reveal his family?”

  “Because he wants us to go after them,” the wolf replied without thinking.

  “Exactly. But why?”

  “Misdirection. We go to Lake Champlain, the coast, in search of him, and he’s here behind us, wreaking who knows what kind of havoc.”

  I shook my head. “That’s part of it, but not all. Let’s go. I think he has a trick that involves those pictures, but I don’t know what yet.”

  Rather than follow me, Jericho shifted to wolf and carefully sniffed the picture frames. “He’s touched them recently.”

  I stiffened. “How recent?”

  “I’m guessing only hours ago.”

  “Shit!”

  I grabbed him by his scruff, and ran toward the door, dragging him with me. With all my strength, I threw him down the stairs, and shifted forms, leaping down the stairwell just as the room behind me exploded. The burst of flames and hot air sent both of us tumbling down the flight to the landing, shaken, dazed, but otherwise not truly hurt.

  “Mother—” I swore, too short of breath to finish. “You okay?”

  Jericho stumbled up to his paws, his eyes unfocused. “I think so. What the hell?”

  “Another booby trap. Get my attention on the pictures, blow me up, and the rebellion with me.”

  He shook dust and bits of plaster from his fur. “So they are important.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he just wanted us staring at them long enough to blow us up.”

  Shouts and raised questions from below interrupted any speculation I might have voiced. “Let’s go. The floor above is burning, and we don’t want to get fried.”

  Both Skyler and Jonas fussed over me and my minor burns from Kanata’s last trap as I ordered my troops into formation. “Wolves to the front,” I bellowed in my lion shape from the top of the cab of Barney’s truck. “We have ninety wolves. That is ninety blocks, a wolf to a block. Each wolf is accompanied by at least one armed human and two lions. We move from the west to the east of the city. We know that Kanata was here only a few hours ago, but if he had a vehicle, he could be anywhere. Wolves, you catch a scent of him, you howl. We will be on you in seconds. Rebels, move out.”

  With drivers following with the cars and trucks, Skyler at my side and both Nigel and Gibson on my tail, I trailed behind Jericho as he sniffed his way eastward. The merciless sun beat down on us as we inched our way across the city. I ordered frequent breaks at regularly spaced intervals for water in the vehicles and quick bites of food, for without our trackers and soldiers, we were dead before we began.

  Luck may have been with us, for by late morning, the sky clouded over, and a light rain fell. The wolves bitched that the scents were now screwed up, but unless Kanata had been there within an hour before we arrived, he wasn’t there to find. As the weather cooled the day for hunting, I wasn’t about to complain.

  “You need to eat,” Skyler reminded me as I passed food and water to the wolves at one of our breaks. “We lose you, and we lose everything.”

  I took a moment to kiss her. “I will whenever everyone else is fed.”

  Sh
e withheld a great deal of dried meat as the wide column advanced again, holding out both fistfuls to me before I jumped down from the truck. “Eat,” she ordered.

  I dared not disobey. Not just from the look in her eyes, but from the trembling weakness I felt from within me. My body had taken quite a beating, and I had neither rested enough nor eaten enough to spur the healing process. I hadn’t used Constantine’s balm or changed my bandage and had ignored the new wounds I had taken. All would take their toll if I didn’t do something.

  So I munched the dried meat as I rode in the back of Barney’s truck, drinking water, watching Jericho in front of me as an armed human and a lion flanked him. Jericho roamed back and forth across the street, his nose to the asphalt, searching for any trace of Kanata.

  “What if he stays in a car or truck?” Skyler asked.

  “He can try,” I replied. “But unless he has a toilet in the back seat, he has to piss and shit sometime.”

  This part of town had few shops and fewer residences, but plenty of tall buildings that Kanata and his bodyguards could hide in. The wolves sniffed every door to each one as we made our slow progress forward. Skyler urged me to remove my shirt, then replaced the bandage and ointment on my wound. She dabbed more of the stuff on my other, less important injuries until I looked like I had pink blossoms all over my chest, back, and belly.

  Grumbling, I put my shirt back on under Jonas’s grin. “You know, Ragnor,” he said, “Kanata can easily circle back behind us.”

  “I do know. That’s why we keep searching until we find him. With the neighborhood units taking out his crews, soon he will have no one except his immediate bodyguards.”

  “Pity they won’t desert him.”

  I shrugged lazily, watching Jericho sniff around the rubble-strewn doorway of a tall skyscraper that had lost its top stories. “They might, once they see we have taken the city. Their loyalty isn’t unshakeable, and if Kanata has no power base, they might head for fresh territory.”