Shifters Forsaken: Shifter Romance Collection Bks 1-5

by Mia Taylor

  You cannot trust anyone. How could you not see that after all you know already?

  “Fallon!”

  She didn’t turn but she continued to run from Kevin, blindly and without direction.

  Where are you going to go? Into another small town and become another nobody? Just let them take you and torture you. Hopefully they will kill you.

  “Fallon!”

  It has been so long now that they won’t be able to trace the boys. Surely their names have all been changed.

  Still, her legs moved as though an unseen hand guided her. Something was forbidding her from stopping, from giving up on her own life or that of the boys.

  “Fallon, get in the car,” Kevin growled at her, pulling the Camry up beside her as she continued to run. “I am not your enemy!”

  Her breaths escaped in short, jagged rasps but she kept moving.

  “FALLON! STOP BEFORE DANIEL FINDS YOU!”

  The words were enough to freeze her in her tracks and she whipped her head around to glare at him with stormy brown eyes.

  “You are despicable!” she spat. “Pretending to be a godly man and using me. How do you live with yourself?”

  “Fallon, get in the car,” he urged, looking around like he was worried they were being observed. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You’ve already hurt me,” she snapped.

  “Fallon, you need to believe me,” Kevin pleaded. “It’s not what you think. I’m on your side.”

  She scoffed and turned around.

  “Fallon, I work for Beatrice, not Daniel. She knows her brother is unstable. That’s why she sent me to keep an eye on you.”

  Fallon laughed mirthlessly but she remained rooted in place. What other choice did she have but to hear out the rest of his insane story?

  “Please get in the car. It’s freezing out and you’re not wearing any shoes.”

  “Why? So you can torture me?”

  Kevin’s jaw firmed. “If I wanted to torture you, Fallon, I had two years to do it, didn’t I?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Just get in the car and we’ll discuss it,” he insisted. “Please. Fallon, if you still want to leave after we talk, I’ll let you go, I swear it.”

  “Oh, and I’m supposed to believe anything you say?”

  “Think of the alternatives,” Kevin sighed. “Give me half an hour and if you don’t like what I have to say, you can leave. No questions asked.”

  “I can guarantee you I won’t like what you have to say.”

  “Even if I tell you that I’m in love with you?”

  Her mouth gaped open and fury fused with disbelief, rushing through her veins.

  “Shut up!” she hissed, storming toward the car. “You just shut up! I trusted you when my life was over and you have abused my trust.”

  “You lied to me first,” he reminded her. “Leah.”

  She scowled.

  “I was trying to save my own life! You’re earning a paycheck by waiting for me to tell you where my sons are!”

  “Fallon, if I had wanted to know that badly, I would have gotten the information out of you well before now.”

  She stared at him in shock. She was too stunned to even cry but as she weighed his words, she realized he was right.

  “Please? Please come home with me where we can talk? The Brewsters are watching us through their living room window.”

  Fallon didn’t give a damn that the neighbors were watching but it did occur to her that if she was drawing attention to herself, it might alert Daniel too.

  Reluctantly, she pulled open the passenger’s side door and let herself inside, furious at herself for relenting.

  “It doesn’t matter what you say to me,” she warned him. “I know you’re full of it.”

  He pulled away from the curb but instead of driving back toward the house, he headed toward the interstate.

  “Where are you taking me?” she gasped, realizing her mistake at once. “Kevin, let me out!”

  “No,” he sighed. “I can’t.”

  She eyed him balefully. “You’re going to rot in hell. I don’t care what you do to me. I’m never going to tell any of you where the boys are.”

  “Good,” he replied grimly. “Keep your mouth shut, Fallon. It’s the only thing that’s keeping you alive right now.”

  He merged onto the freeway and Fallon looked around wildly for an escape.

  “I told you the truth. Beatrice hired me to keep an eye on you when she found out you were here in Dalhousie. She thought you would come clean and tell me about the boys right away but she didn’t realize how badly scarred you were by what happened.”

  “Oh? Did she tell you about the boys and what they had done? Her and her sick brother?”

  “I know those boys are very important to Ambrosia,” Kevin replied, his knuckles tightening against the steering wheel. “But I don’t know the details.”

  And you won’t learn them from me, Fallon vowed.

  “Beatrice didn’t anticipate that we would fall in love,” Kevin told her softly and Fallon bristled.

  “I’m not in love with you,” she snarled. “You’re just another pawn in this game.”

  “We’re two pawns in this game who found each other,” he told her gently. “That’s what connects us.”

  She eyed in him in disgust. “You’re insane.”

  “No, Fallon, I’m in love and I’m putting myself into a great deal of danger by doing this.”

  “Oh, poor baby,” she retorted. “Is kidnapping not in your repertoire?”

  “Don’t you get it? Beatrice has my house rigged with cameras and audio equipment. She’s been waiting for you to ask me for my adoption investigation services so she can learn where you took the boys.”

  Fallon turned her head slowly and looked at him deadpan.

  “So you expect me to believe that now you’re going to take me somewhere safe and I can tell you what you want to know? And that you’ll protect me?”

  “I don’t want to know where they are,” he barked back.

  “Funny. At the house you were certainly interested.”

  “At the house she was listening! Fallon…”

  He grunted and whipped his eyes around to look at her.

  “I’m sorry I deceived you but there was no safe way to tell you the truth. All I know for sure is that Beatrice is the lesser of two evils. If Daniel finds you, he won’t exercise an iota of the amount of patience that Beatrice has. He’s incensed that you did what you did. There is a nationwide manhunt for you. You’ll be charged with custodial interference, maybe kidnapping.”

  Of course Daniel did that. He’s hoping to smoke me out.

  “Kevin, drop me off at the next rest stop,” Fallon told him. “I can’t stand to be in the same car as you.”

  “No,” he replied flatly. “I’m not letting you out of my sight now. When Beatrice realizes I’ve taken you away, God only knows what she’ll do.”

  “I know what she’ll do. She’ll pay you whatever sum you agreed on and you’ll shake hands and be on your way.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It is. I’m not the same stupid girl who fell for Daniel Wexley all those years ago, Kevin. I’ve been played for a fool enough times now.”

  “Well, you can fight me all you want, Fallon. You don’t have to believe that I love you, but it’s true. I may have met you under false pretenses but that doesn’t change the fact that I feel more strongly for you than I have anyone in my life.”

  “I swear to God, Kevin, I will scream bloody murder to anyone in earshot if you don’t let me out of this car.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “You won’t do that,” he told her matter-of-factly.

  “Watch me.”

  “If you do, you’ll just be turned over to the police. The FBI is after you and then you’ll be faced with Daniel again.”

  Shivers slid down her spine and she shook her head in shock. “Why are you doing this?”


  “Because whether you believe it or not, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Anything else?” she bit back.

  “Yes, Fallon. Anything else.”

  His face was wrought with misery.

  “If I had suspected for a minute that you were still wrestling with what happened to the boys, I would have taken you away a long time ago.”

  She snorted disbelievingly.

  “It’s true.”

  He sighed again.

  “I have a lot to make up to you, Fallon, but I will, I swear, and if you feel like you can ever trust me again, I will help you find your sons.”

  She laughed, her face wrought with malice.

  “You really are something else, aren’t you?” she choked in ire. “You just won’t give up until I tell you where they are.”

  “No,” he responded. “I will never give up on you. Not ever.”

  In that moment, Fallon was so consumed with fury that she wasn’t sure who she loathed more—Kevin or her husband.

  Chapter Seven

  Present Day: Berlin

  “Berlin?”

  She blinked and looked around the boardroom table, her eyes wide. “Sorry, what was that?”

  “We were just wondering what your take on the new plan for the library is,” Professor Giles asked and she nodded quickly.

  “It’s perfect,” she told him. “I think the students will be very happy with what we’ve done.”

  “Great! Well, that wraps up the meeting today unless anyone else has any questions or concerns?”

  There was a general “no” murmur and everyone rose from the table to adjourn the meeting for the day. Berlin grabbed her cell out of her purse and read through the text message again.

 

  Is this a cause to rejoice or not? she asked herself, pressing her purse to her side as she made her way off the college campus and toward her car. It was hard to decipher the sentiment in the few words that Briar had sent her but she knew she needed to get home and discuss their next plan of action with him.

  She knew for the sake of the sleuth that finding the fourth Forsaken brother was imperative, that finding Ryker could lead the way to finding their mother, but she had sensed the reluctance in her husband.

  They had come to Delaware to escape the bears, after all, the state being one of three which didn’t have any known sleuths.

  Are we continuing to open cans of worms we’re not prepared to deal with?

  It was a heavy question and her newly extended family didn’t hold any of the answers.

  At least not yet.

  Chloe’s pregnancy weighed heavily on Berlin. She worried about the baby and what it meant. Could Chloe also have bear blood somewhere or did the secret have more to do with the way the brothers came to be in existence?

  She slipped into the Mazda 3 and backed out of her staff parking space to pick up Stella from school, her mind completely unfocused.

  “Hi, Mom,” Stella chirped when she jumped into the backseat. “How was your day?”

  “That’s my question, isn’t it?” Berlin joked.

  “I’m faster than you,” she laughed.

  “My day was very boring,” Berlin told her. “How was yours? What did you learn?”

  “Mom, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “What are shifters?”

  Berlin’s head whipped back toward her daughter, her eyes wide. “Wh-why are you asking?”

  “You shouldn’t answer a question with a question,” Stella recited sternly.

  “Where did you hear that word, Stella?” Berlin demanded.

  “I heard Auntie Viv talking about them at the baby shower.”

  Berlin steadied her breaths and turned her head back toward the road. “Did you ask Auntie Vivian what that meant?”

  “I tried but she looked all embarrassed and told me to ask you.”

  I’m going to kill Auntie Viv, Berlin thought grimly but she maintained her composure.

  “Well?”

  “That’s a subject for when you’re older,” Berlin told her softly. “Okay?”

  “I guess.” Stella pouted and Berlin eyed her in the rearview mirror. “There’s so many secrets in our house.”

  “There are no secrets,” Berlin corrected her. “Only matters that you need to know when you’re older.”

  “That’s a cop-out.”

  “Stella!”

  “What? I hear you and Daddy whispering about stuff all the time. It’s not fair that I don’t get to know.”

  “Stella, you’re in a rush to grow up and you’ll regret it when you’re older. Enjoy being a kid and let the adults do all the worrying, okay?”

  “If you say so.”

  Berlin gritted her teeth and steered the car onto their tree-lined street.

  “Daddy’s home!”

  “Good,” Berlin said aloud. She needed all the emotional support she could get in that moment.

  They piled out of the car and moved toward the entranceway where Briar met them, his eyes shadowed.

  “Did you get my message?”

  “I did.”

  “Hi, Daddy!”

  “Hi, sweetheart. Why don’t you go in your room for a bit? I need to talk to Mommy.”

  Stella’s smile faded and she glared at them indignantly. “See? Secrets everywhere.”

  She stormed off, leaving Briar to stare after her worriedly. “What was that about?”

  “She’s hitting puberty,” Berlin sighed. “Come on, I need a glass of wine.”

  “Berlin, I don’t know about going after Ryker. I was right and he’s in witness protection. It won’t be safe for any of us to approach him.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to break through the firewalls of the US Marshalls to find out where he was,” Berlin said, flopping onto a stool at the island as Briar went to pour her a glass of wine. He grabbed himself a beer out of the fridge and slid the glass toward her.

  “I didn’t,” he sighed. “Chloe did.”

  “Uh, what?” Berlin gasped. “Our Chole? Cypher’ wife? Six-months-pregnant Chloe?”

  “She’s in IT too, remember? She found out what we needed to know in no time but…”

  “But what?”

  “It’s really complicated, Berlin. Not only is he in witness protection, it looks like Vivian’s brother, Justin, was his lawyer.”

  “What?” Berlin stared at him in shock and Briar nodded. “Justin has been a mob lawyer for a long time which means that… well, his loyalties are to the mob. I have no doubt that there is a lot of money riding on Ryker’s head right now. If Vivian tells him—”

  “Vivian would not sell out her own brother-in-law. Does she know her brother’s connected?”

  “I have no idea what she knows and Chloe called me directly to tell me the news. I’m not even sure if she told Cypher.”

  “Jesus,” Berlin muttered, taking a long sip of her wine. “Talk about six degrees of separation.”

  “Don’t you think it’s weird though?” Briar pressed. “I mean, think about it. Holly and Rhys ended up living next door to me in Seattle, well before I knew about Cypher. Justin was Ryker’s lawyer. Berlin, you knew Cypher from before. I wonder if, somehow, we haven’t already met Ryker somewhere.”

  “There’s only one way to know for sure,” Berlin told him softly. “We need to go to him.”

  “Did you not hear any of my concerns? He’s in hiding. We could be putting him in danger.”

  “I don’t think we need to approach him necessarily, but maybe go watch him from a distance? Keep an eye on him, see if he can lead us to Fallon?”

  “I think you’re grasping at straws,” Briar said curtly and Berlin sighed.

  “Why are you being so pigheaded about this? Aren’t you even a little bit curious as to what happened to him?”

  “Of course I am but I also know that my loyalty is to you and Stella. If that means forgetting about Ryker, so b
e it. Daniel Wexley is still looking for us, according to everyone. If he gets his hands on us, who knows what he might try to do to me or Stella? Have you thought about that?”

  Berlin knew there was no point in arguing. Her husband was right, after all. Endangering anyone was the last thing she wanted.

  “What did you tell Chloe?” she asked instead. “Did you tell her to leave it alone?”

  “Of course I did. And I told her to keep her mouth shut about it to Vivian, too.”

  “Okay,” Berlin agreed. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s just forget we learned any of this information and return to life as usual, all right?”

  Briar stared at her for a long moment and she wondered if he was deciding whether or not to believe her.

  “What?”

  “You can’t say anything to Vivian, Berlin.”

  “I won’t!” she exclaimed. “I’ve already forgotten everything I’ve learned.”

  He didn’t reply but chugged back his beer instead. The wheels in Berlin’s mind were turning faster than she could keep up.

  He’s not wrong.

  She thought about what Charlie would say if he realized how close she was to finding the fourth Original Forsaken.

  I might not be an avenger anymore but what Daniel Wexley did to those boys must be answered for.

  And Briar had asked her to stay away from Ryker but not from Daniel Wexley, who was still living large with his fortune in Ashbridge.

  I wonder if his new wife knows what happened to his old wife.

  It was an angle they hadn’t examined, only because the brothers would be put in peril if they approached their biological father.

  But Daniel Wexley doesn’t know me. At least not yet.

  “Berlin, whatever you’re thinking, stop,” her husband growled. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “I was just wondering what name Ryker is using and where he is.”

  Briar seemed reluctant to answer and Berlin grunted in annoyance.

  “Come on! I already said I’m not going to do anything.”

  “He’s in San Francisco. Andrew Parsons.”

  Berlin snickered. “Another interesting coincidence, ending up in San Francisco with Cypher.”

  “Maybe.”

  Berlin smiled warmly at him. “Come on,” she told him. “I’m starving. Let’s go out for Chinese.”