by Cat Kalen
Stone scents the woods and spins around in a circle to commit our current location to memory. His voice is calm but I don’t miss the underlying urgency when he says, “We need to move. Fast.”
I nod in agreement, and with that he gestures for the others to follow. Using hurried footsteps, I fall in behind him. While he takes the lead on this trek, Logan stays at the back of the pack, keeping every one of us in his sight at all times.
Our feet fall mutely as we track deeper into the woods, until the sounds of the highway, the ocean, and all forms of human life are left far behind.
My skin begins to itch, burning in warning, and I resist the urge to claw at my flesh as I continue to scan the forest. I angle my head to the side, sorting, searching, listening for signs of danger.
I take another step, but when Stone stops abruptly, I crash into him. My nose smashes into his hard back and I let loose an undignified oomph as my legs falter.
He spins on the balls of his feet, and in a movement so fast it catches me by surprise, he curls protective arms around my waist and pulls me against him. His familiar scent drowns out the smells of the forest around me and practically steals the breath from my lungs. I open my mouth to speak, but he presses a finger to my lips to silence me.
“Sorry,” he whispers into my thoughts, as the rough pad of his thumb scrapes across my bottom lip. His touch, warm and deliberately intimate, sends sensations rippling through me. A flurry of emotions pass over his face, and everything in the hungry way he’s looking at me, purposely dragging his thumb over my mouth in a slow agonizing caress, confuses my animal and tortures my soul. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I’m… I’m okay,” I say, but he doesn’t make a move to let me go. Instead, his nostrils flare and heavy lashes briefly fall over his dark eyes as he sends me a look, one that promises so much. We stay like that a moment longer, my body completely immobile as he keeps me anchored to his.
I hear a twig snap, the sharp sound piercing the quiet and dragging me back to reality.
“What is it, Stone?” I finally ask breaking the moment between us. I look past his shoulders, trying to see what spooked him as hurried footsteps herald the approach of the others.
Logan moves closer and fixes Stone with a dangerous look, but the alpha with his arms circled around my body seems reluctant to break his hold. Stone glares back, but when I push on his arms, he uncoils them from around my waist. After I extricate myself from his grip, my father steps up beside us all and gestures to a spot behind Stone.
“What’s going on?” Logan asks between clenched teeth, tension crackling in the air.
Stone gestures, and using our exceptional night vision, we all look in the direction he’s pointing. Collective gasps can be heard when we glimpse an old cabin camouflaged beneath a cluster of weeping trees. Tucked far off the beaten path, the place is invisible to the road, the sky, or even hikers. As I stare at it, and recall the scent saturating the fallen leaves, my mind takes me in a bleak direction, one that has me realizing how a shader’s tortured screams would go unanswered way out here in the middle of nowhere. I will the image from my head, but there is nothing I can do to stop the tremble running along my spine.
As if sensing my distress Logan steps close, his stance protective, and his eyes are full of genuine concern as his body hovers over mine.
“What is it, Pride?” he asked, his comforting heat wrapping around me like a tight glove.
“I don’t know.” My hackles spike and I shoot Logan a wary glance. “Something isn’t right.”
Logan places his hand on the small of my back, but I quickly sever the intimacy, unable to take comfort in his affectionate contact because I need my animal sharp.
Logan’s voice is a coarse rasp when he says, “Maybe we should go back.”
Wind hums around me and the fine hairs tracking along my spine stand on edge, but my animal isn’t about to surrender even if I want to.
Which I don’t.
Nova moves in beside me, her breath coming in hurried gulps as she whispers, “Do you think Malcolm and the others are inside?”
I watch her for a minute and don’t miss the urgency in her eyes. Her blood is pounding hard, rushing faster than an animal on the prowl, and I wonder what’s elevating her heartbeat—fear or anticipation?
“There’s only one way to find out,” I answer.
“You’re going in?” she asks, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow arching inquisitively.
I’m about to answer, but Stone waves us forward and we all push past the low-hanging branches and step up to the pitch-black cabin. I sniff the air, and when a breeze washes over my face, the deadly stench of sulfur and silver thickens my throat.
“PTF,” Logan says coming up beside me. Pewter punctures the blue in his eyes as he scans the tree line. “They’re nearby.” He sweeps his hands through his hair to push it off his face and says, “It’s not safe here, Pride.”
My heart begins to beat faster because I know we can’t run away. Not yet. I stalk closer to the cabin and try to scent the inside. When my efforts prove futile, I turn to Logan. “Do you…?” I begin to ask.
“I can’t tell. The place is locked up tight.”
I go up on my tiptoes to peek inside. It’s dark, and I can’t detect any movement, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty.
When my animal growls, Logan moves closer, his body caging me between the cabin and his chest. “What do you see?” he whispers.
“Nothing. I have to get inside.”
“Pride…,” he begins.
Just then Nova comes up from behind, looking windblown and nervous, her eyes wide, and her blood is rushing so fast I fear her heart is about to explode.
“I found a small window around back. It’s open,” she says, and hurries out, and there is an intensity about her that makes my feral want to crawl out of my throat and snap at her. Her glance fixes on me. “It’s tiny. Only big enough for you to fit through, Pride.”
I narrow my eyes and peer at her. “Did you see anything inside?”
“It looks like a small bedroom, and it’s empty.”
“Okay,” I say, and work to strategize my next move, but when Stone joins us and his anger hovers like a dark rain cloud, it pulls my focus.
Wild eyes lock on mine, and an untamed sound gurgles in the back of his throat before he says, “You’re not going through it, Pride. I’ll break down the door first before I let you go in there alone.”
My pulse thrums harder in my throat and I fight to steady it. “You can’t,” I whisper, as I look at the shaders surrounding me. They’re homeless because of me and I know I can’t let them down. “The noise will draw the attention of the PTF and I don’t want to face them until I free the others.”
“What if it’s a trap?” Stone points out, pitching his voice low to match mine.
“What if it’s not,” I counter, intent on finding out who or what’s inside, and if I don’t find the others I at least hope to find information leading to them. “The PTF aren’t aware that we know about this place.” As I address his worries, I can’t help but think about Nova and the darkness I feel in her. But the truth is we’ve come too far to back down now.
My glance lands on my father, and I find him standing guard over Gem and Sandy. His face is tight, his body on high alert, but there is a new weariness about him, one I’ve never seen before.
“Logan?” I say, looking at him.
A guttural sound rises from the depths of his throat, and it’s clear he doesn’t like what I’m about to do.
His warm palm cups my face. “The first sign of danger, you get yourself out,” he warns, and I give a quick nod. I’m about to move, but he captures my elbow and holds me for a moment. He gives an encouraging squeeze. “I’ve got your back, okay.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” Stone barks out, his voice rising in the sudden updraft rushing through the forest.
I put my hand to his chest to calm him. “Stone, it’s okay.
I’ll get in and get to the front door as fast as I can and let the rest of you in.”
“It’s not okay,” he bites back. “You might not be able to make it to the front door.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Are you sure, Pride?” he asks, his back ramrod straight, his eyes drilling into me. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” As we glare at each other in strained silence, the air around us charges with volatile electricity, and I know in an instant what he’s really asking.
Before I can answer him, he changes tactics and I feel his voice inside my head, his words for my ears only. “You said yourself you didn’t trust Nova. What if she’s up to something? What if she led us here on purpose?”
I steal a sideways glance at Logan. With a frown on his face, his hands are fisted as he watches the silent exchange between destined mates. I can’t forget that Nova is a part of his pack, and she must want to find her missing family every bit as much as he does.
“Maybe we’re way off base, Stone. Maybe Logan is right and we have nothing to worry about.”
At the mention of Logan, Stone turns to stare at him and their gazes clash in a silent struggle.
The muscles along Logan’s jaw clench and there is real danger in his voice when he says, “I’m not going to let anything happen to her, Stone.”
Stone’s mood blackens and he gives a humorless bark of laughter. “Yeah, because you’ve been doing such a good job of that now, haven’t you? You don’t know how to take care of her, Logan. Not like I do.”
When they move toward one another, I press a palm to both their chests and try to defuse the situation before it escalates and gains the attention of hunters. There is a frantic edge to my voice when I say, “You two can stay out here and fight if you like, but I’m going in.”
With that I turn from them, and their voices fall off as I disappear from their line of sight. When I spot the small window, barely big enough for me to crawl through, I take a deep breath to fuel my courage. I go up on my toes and inch the glass all the way open and still for a moment, listening for movement inside.
Stale air spills out and I nearly choke on the bitter taste. I grip the window frame and hoist myself up on the sill until my knees are balanced on the rigid casing. I peer into the darkened room, committing every nook and groove in the tight space to memory as I slip my legs through the opening and shimmy forward until I’m halfway inside, then I drop to the floor and brace myself.
Keeping deathly still, I glance around the cold, dank room, and using slow, careful movements I drop to my knees to look under the unmade bed, the headboard jammed against the wall beside me. After finding the space empty, I push to my feet and take one small step, determined to get to the front door to let the others inside.
The wood floorboard groans beneath me, and I stop midstride and hold my breath. I stay like that for a long time, but when I hear no sounds in response, no guns cocking or the pounding of feet coming my way, I step around the mattress and move toward the closed door leading to the main room.
I listen for sounds outside, and can feel Stone trying to enter my thoughts. “I’m okay,” I say, and to ease his worries I let him hover on the outer edges of my mind as I quietly push open the door. Exercising caution, I slip into the next room, and the second I do, my senses are assaulted with the coppery tang of death and my stomach revolts in protest.
Blood. Danger. A violence so brutal that it puts my former master’s cruelties to shame, swarms around me in a kaleidoscopic burst. Bile punches into my throat, and when my knees falter, I grip the door handle to balance myself.
Knowing bad things have happened here, and in fact could still be happening here, I work to keep my emotions in check, work not to vomit as the bitter scent of brutality overpowers all the other smells in the small cabin.
Breathing through my mouth, I can almost feel the coldness of death seeping into my bones. I push forward and pad quietly toward the front door, but when a frightened whimper catches my attention, I spin in the direction of the sound. Dread takes hold because deep in the darkened shadows I spot an intruder. Tall. Powerful.
Armed.
When eyes as deadly as a bullet glare at me, survival instincts kick in and my animal turns feral. Sharp canines puncture my gums, and as the figure emerges from the semidarkness, I turn and face him straight on.
My nostrils flare and I suck in a quick, fueling breath. The rush of oxygen in my bloodstream parts the fog clouding my rattled thoughts and allows me to think with more clarity. A shudder moves through me because for the first time since we set out on this dangerous journey the tumblers all begin to fall into place, and I know at once why Lewis Lake sounds familiar.
I quickly realize, he’s not the intruder.
I am.
And there is a traitor among us.
Chapter Six
In the darkened cabin, I take a split second to size up my opponent, to determine what I’m up against and figure out the best course of action.
A sliver of moonlight filters in through the small window and highlights a path across the cabin. As the light plays with my imagination and creates monstrous shadows on the walls, I can almost feel them closing in on me, taunting my animal and encouraging her to rip clear of her restraints. I work to fill my lungs as icy shards of fear shoot through me, a violent, instinctive storm that urges me to shade.
Kill.
As that one word pounds through my head, I make a deep guttural sound and my animal tears at my flesh, frothing, clawing, fighting to rip her way from my body.
Moments before she emerges and goes for the man’s throat, I call on every ounce of strength I have to stop her, because from somewhere down deep, another thought registers, warning me not to let her off her leash. Despite what my father told me, that sometimes we need to let our primal side rule, I know if I do I’ll never be able to prove we’re not soulless monsters.
I draw a quick breath and marshal my animal into submission, being careful not to make any sudden movements in the process. As she hunkers low and whimpers from down deep, I keep motionless, my eyes trained on the dangerous hunter dwarfing me.
With my peripheral vision, I take in my surroundings. I’m smack dab in the middle of a PTF safe house—a shader caught in the lion’s den—and what I do next could either help end the war on our kind or forever put us at risk.
I open my mouth to speak, but my words die an abrupt death when the man stalks closer, his hard face coming into full view, and I don’t miss the way those black eyes of his move over my face with careful regard.
A hunter sizing up its prey.
My animal wails again, urging me to let her free, but then suddenly the ruthless face glaring down at me softens around the edges, his expression morphing into something that resembles relief. Bewildered by this turn of events I pull in his scent. I catch hints of anxiety, but I get the strangest sensation that his nervousness isn’t because of me.
It’s for me.
As my pulse thrums in my throat I watch his posture change, and that’s when it hits me. I know who he is. I almost breathe a sigh of relief, but the small whimpering girl caged in the corner triggers alarm bells in my brain and warns me this hunter is no longer on my side.
Instantly, fight-or-flight instinct kicks in, and I widen my stance.
“Easy there, Pride,” he warns, and I hear something desperate in his voice, something I wouldn’t expect from a PTF officer. He lifts one hand in the air, his large palm facing out in surrender while the other hand hovers over the gun slumbering in his holster.
“What’s going on?” I ask, and don’t dare take my eyes off him as the girl begins to whimper louder, her frightened cries echoing off the cabin’s bare walls.
Emotions gather in a knot inside my stomach, but I know better than to shift my focus and try to help her. I’m smart enough to know that I can’t afford to get distracted and any sudden movements on my part could be misinterpreted by this trained hunter and for
ce him to reach for his gun. He might have spared my life once, but I have no reason to believe he’ll do it a second time.
“It’s not what you think.” he says with a frown, his disturbed glance flickering between me and the small metal cage.
As my mind visualizes the torture being carried out in this cabin, there is nothing I can do to keep my talons from elongating or my lips from peeling back to expose sharp canines. As my animal zeroes in on the man’s jugular, one I’ve punctured before in a dirty alleyway when a trio of hunters failed to slow me with their poison, I listen to the rapid flow of blood in his veins.
“We don’t have lot of time and you need to listen to me. You have to let me explain.”
The scent of his concern mingles with the girl’s fear. The fetid aroma saturates the room and there is nothing I can do to keep my animal from feeding off the medley of emotions.
I watch the way his pulse jackhammers in his neck when he says, “I know what you’re thinking.”
I touch my tongue to the tip of a sharp canine. “If you knew what I was thinking, you probably would have drawn your gun already.”
His dark eyes study me and his voice is deceptively mild when he says, “I know you’re not a killer, Pride, and you need to let me explain.” But beneath that calm facade I know he’s every bit as leery of me as I am of him.
He lowers his hands in a show of trust, and as I watch him with suspicious eyes, studying his every move, I find nothing calculating in his actions, nothing to suggest he wants to hurt me.
My hackles settle, but my animal stays on high alert, her guard firmly in place. Bullets or not, there is no way she is about to back down in the face of this hunter, not when there is a young, frightened shader locked in a cage beside me.
While my animal is ruled by instincts, I’m smart enough to know I need to listen to what he has to say before making my next move, so I quiet my heartbeat and offer him the chance to speak.
“Explain,” I say, facing him straight on, my primal side angry and unafraid.