For a minute Allison thought Dawn was not going to answer her. Dawn started to say something, but hesitated. Almost like she was picking and choosing her words carefully. After a couple of minutes of the stop and go conversation Allison finally gestured to Kate laying on the floor.
"We can't help her if we don't know what is going on. She isn't one of us, no matter how much she might smell like us, sometimes she slips up. And I have never known a shifter with flames in their eyes like she had. Now what is she? If you know start talking. We can't make plans if we don't have all the information."
"That is just it Allison, I don't know. She has never said what she is, but I will tell you this, whoever it is she has looking for her, they can talk to her like pack. They were in Australia when Kate was taken. Have you ever known anyone who could talk mentally more than a few miles apart? Shifters can't do that, not that far. That is around the world from us. That is where Kate was taken from, Australia, and even after she got here she talked to them. Daily, anytime she thinks she might have overheard anything that will help them find us. She tells them when it gets daylight, well, she guesses, and when it gets night as close as we can figure out. That is why she built that sundial out in the park. Whoever is looking for her told her to build one, and told her how to build it."
"The sundial? That monument she had all of us help her build? That is why she built it? Wait, what was the purpose of it? She told everyone it was because she was missing home and having one of those would be like, wait a minute, she never said it was a sundial, she said it was a monument to the sun-god and, oh my god, how utterly sneaky and devious of her. So all those times she was 'praying' to the sun-god she was really telling someone what time it was so they could locate her? Does that mean she knows where we are in the United States? Because I was not 'hidden' away long enough to get out of the US, but I was taken from Colorado and we could be anywhere within a day's travel of there." Allison looked back at Kate laying on the floor, admiration on her face along with a touch of wariness. "A sundial, and those things are so out of date we never even recognized it. How ingenious of her, and whoever she has looking for her. So, how is that going to help us? Do you think whoever was looking for her found her?" Looking back at Dawn she muttered, "Well if they did they are paying for it now. But it couldn't have been her mate, mates can track each other, and you did the mating ceremony, so that isn't it."
"I don't know how it is going to help us. But I can tell you the best guess of where we are, according to everything Kate was told by these mysterious people looking for her, which I am pretty sure is her parents myself. We are somewhere around New Mexico, maybe Arizona, northern part of one of those states. Whoever is looking for her is at a huge disadvantage, they are not from this country, and according to Kate, they cursed out whoever came up with daylight savings time." Dawn wiped the blood away again, tears trickled down her cheeks.
"Daylight savings time? What does that have to do with where we are?"
Dawn shrugged, "No idea, something about the states not having the same time and her searchers having to set up sundials to figure out which state is which? Truly, no idea, apparently the time in the state doesn't match the sundial if it is daylight savings time, or maybe it is the other way around. I know Arizona never changes time and New Mexico does but all I know about sundials is what Kate told me. And that isn't very much, but it is more than she told the others, they all still think it is a monument to her sun-god. Which, by the way, she does not worship a sun-god, in case you wondered. I know, I am rambling now, but I do that when I am scared, drives Kate nuts. Come one Kate, please wake up." The last, a plea that went unheard by Kate, but not by the wolves who struggled deep within her to keep her and her mate alive, sharing her strength with her fallen mate.
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CHAPTER FIVE
The Prison
The Prison
"No, boss, we took care of him. He was almost dead when we left. Another few minutes to make sure wouldn't have made any difference at all." The gravely voice paused for a moment to listen to the voice on the other end of the phone. The excitement of the last hour had faded as the group slowly made their way back into the prison compound. By the time they had finished a perimeter check and headed back inside most of the injuries they had gotten would be healed.
"No problem boss, we will go out in pairs and keep the area patrolled for the next few days, the cameras give all the coverage we need though. I don't see why we need to patrol. Yeah, I understand that, but if anyone else shows up we will take care of them just like we took care of the last one. If, for some reason we come under attack, which is highly unlikely, the helicopter is always ready to fly us and our females out." After listening another minute to the boss, Ben closed out the phone call and slid the phone back in the holder. Shrugging his shoulders he motioned the others back to the prison.
The men had spent a while checking the surrounding area to ensure the wolf they had attacked was not followed. When they found no sign of anyone around they had called in to their boss. He was not their Alpha, the men at the prison had no Alpha in the real sense of the word. When they had spotted a strange wolf approaching the prison on the security cameras the group had headed down to cut the wolf off, and eliminate him.
Now Ben understood why the boss had been so insistent the security feeds always be monitored. The men guarding the prison had scoffed at the duty multiple times. Watching the cameras had become a joke, almost a punishment duty. No one could approach from any direction without being seen for miles, with the exception of one direction. Behind the prison the desert turned to scrub and gradually greenery took over until, if one wandered far enough north trees and eventually mountains. One lonely cabin rested somewhere in a valley far to the north, too far to worry about a casual visitor, they had thought. But when the security cameras had picked up one lone wolf, and the men had gathered around to watch, they soon realized the wolf was not a normal wolf at all. The tell-tell signs of a shifter wolf had been obvious to the men once the cameras zoomed in closer. The eyes that were not normal wolf eyes one minute, yet fully wolf the next was the biggest give-away. The men, being shifters themselves could not have explained to a non-shifter just what they saw, or didn't see to that allowed them to determine the wolf was a shifter, other than the eyes.
The men knew the wolf-shifter was not one of theirs, and knowing that, they knew they could not afford to let him live. If he was rogue without a leader he would not be sane enough to reason with, if he was not rogue, he would do what he had to do in order to destroy the rogues. If he was rogue, but not yet insane, he would plot and plan until he had a female from the prison. And the men had plans for the females they had, and plans to get more females.
The men at the prison, playing guard for the time, were not regular, off the street wolf-shifters, not regular rogues as the shifter world saw them. No, the men guarding the females were there for a reason. Each of the men were sons of prominently placed men in the government. Sons who deserved to have mates. Being sons of important men had taught them the value of patience, their fathers and mothers knew politics, knew the value of waiting out your opponent and using time to their advantage.
And the men who now waited on the females in their care to reach the age of maturity knew the danger of taking one too young. A fully human child would be the result, if the female gave birth at all, and years and multiple attempts would not change the outcome. Much had been learned over the years, and the ones in position of power had finally understood the value of waiting for the maturity of the female. Older than a human female, in the long lives of the shifter world, twenty-one was not a long wait at all. In some few cases the captured females did indeed give birth a female. But those were rare cases, and the reason it happened would have surprised those in charge, if they had only had all the information they needed to figure it out.
The prison currently housed ten females, eleven if one counted the mental one. But after today she would be nothing but
a toy for the others to use. She was worthless to the men anyway. Frank, the doctor had even given up on her. The men intended to follow their parents into the political world, and they needed females to be proud of, not one that the media could get a hold of and make a laughing stock of the male. The men had discussed it, and even discussed it with the boss, it had been decided they could use her to alleviate their boredom at the prison, the only one against it was the doctor, Frank.
That very morning the men had drawn straws to decide who would get the chance to break the female in and Jonus had won. While the others were ridding the area of the lone wolf he had been having his go at the female. By the time the men got back inside he should be finished and have the female cleaned up. The wolves couldn't stand the smell of others on a female, but that was what high pressure showers were good for, removing the scent.
Jonus was suppose to have the female moved to the guard side of the compound by the time the others got back so it was with surprise that they could not find the female or Jonus when they returned. He wasn't in his room, she wasn't in the room they had arranged for her, the ropes still empty, the shower still dry, and no smell of sex lingered in the room, nor in any of the rooms.
As the ten men headed toward the security room they discussed what could have happened. If anything serious had happened, Frank would have called them. By the time the men had reached the room they had decided Jonus, who had little patience no matter what his father had tried to teach him, must have taken the female in her room. The other females would be upset if they found out, and maybe, just maybe his father would remove him from the prison guard. They only had ten females at the moment, not counting the mental one, and with the Doctor they had twelve males in the prison.
The boss was pretty sure they could still get their hands on a set of twins. Each man in the prison was hoping the retrieval team could pull the kidnapping off. None of the men had ever heard of twin shifters before, and it mattered not one bit to any of the men that the females had mated to other males. Kill the mate and the female is free to mate again. It would be inconceivable to the men that the female would likely die if her mate died. That was something that may or may not have happened in the past but the men knew things like that no longer happened. The doctor even reassured them such things were impossible.
Of the twelve men at the prison, none of them had ever seen a true-mating, nor did they understand how one worked. The did not understand magic more than science was involved. Their parents had married for the good of their future, with no regard for magic. Some females were just as ambitious as males, and some believed not one whit the old tale of true-mates.
After talking with Frank, three of the males decided to go check Julie's room. The rest of the males headed for the showers to get cleaned up, leaving Frank to monitor the cameras and the lone wolf they had just eliminated. The camera placement wasn't ideal for keeping an eye on the wolf, only one foot showed in the frame. But that did not matter to the males, no one, with that much damage, would live long. Maybe later they would pull the body into camera view and watch the carrion birds eat the evidence they left behind.
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CHAPTER SIX
Lies
Lies
Jerking her head toward the door, face pale, Dawn whispered, "I hear them coming, what are we going to do now? They will find the guy in just a minute." Breathing deeply, a trickle of tears in her eyes she looked up at Allison, "We can't hide her scent. Help me get her on the bed. Julie, baby girl, come here, we are going to put Kate to bed now, can you help us put Kate to bed huh? Be a sweetheart and help us."
The girls had just gotten Kate on the bed, and had Julie lay down between the wall and Kate, when they heard the swearing coming closer. The men holding them were always polite to them. They were never treated as prisoners, but rather as honored guests. Since Allison had been there not one single male had ever entered her room. They would knock, and when she answered the door they would stay on the outside and relay whatever information they needed to at that time. The males swore they were protecting them from others who would harm them. Oh, over the years the lies the males told were good ones. And until Kate came along most of the females in the prison had believed the lies.
Because some of the females believed the lies, they were proud to mate with important men who could keep them safe. Some of them even eventually gave birth to females themselves. Every female birth just solidified in the minds of the males that what they were doing was right, it was saving the shifter race. And as a result the drive to capture more females and save them became stronger every time a successful birth occurred.
The lies sounded so plausible. The females, most in hiding with families, were always 'saved' shortly after their families were killed. The males, sons and such of high ranking officials in the government, swore the positions of their families would keep the females safe. They had elite forces who were keeping an eye on the females and their families. They failed in their duty sometimes and would always rescue the females as soon as they got word. Some of the females were told the males bringing them in had been guards assigned by the High Council to keep them safe from a distance. But when that safety failed they would send in a crew to rescue the female. The lies did not always work with all the females though.
In Dawn's case the ones sent to rescue her had killed at least two of their own to save her. Most of the girls in the prison had some kind of similar story, which is what made the story so believable. But then Kate came along. Kate, whose parents had not been killed, who knew their lies for what they were, refused to allow the others to continue to believe the lies in spite of the evidence. Kate, who insisted the ones killed were the worst of the worst and the 'saviors' were undoubtedly culling the rotten ones themselves. What better way to win the trust of a young female, suddenly alone in the world, than to kill the ones who just killed her family.
In each case the ones who attacked were not the ones who later saved the girls. The ones who attacked were vicious killers while the saviors were usually an elite squad of men, specially trained. Rogues were easy to come by and easy to dispose of once they had served their purpose. Sometimes though, the female's families were too smart to be taken unaware by the rogues, and for those special ones, the ones in charge had to make different plans.
The prison was not bad, if the lies had been true, if the males sent to rescue them had really been rescuing them. But a prison is a prison even when it is called something else. The girls had games to play, a beautiful garden they could relax in, books to read, movies to watch and any number of amusements they could enjoy. They had an indoor swimming pool, bowling alley, and a game room. But the one thing the girls did not have was access to the outside world. No computers or telephones were available to the girls or the workers, at least, no computers with Internet. The massive library had computers to help with the schooling for the girls. The girls went through extensive schooling, and training, on how to act in a social situation. They were trained in business and finance, how to interact with media and politicians, and how to host elaborate parties.
The guards, future mates for the females, were not the only ones in the prison, they were just the only shifter males in the prison. The prison had many human workers. Most of them had been there for years. The pay was good and the amenities were suppose to be outstanding on the worker side of the prison. And as for the lie told to the humans to keep them quiet; the girls were political refugees and the set-up was to save their lives. Considering the deference paid to the females by the guards in the prison, the humans had no problems believing they were saving innocent lives and they kept their mouths shut.
Every now and then one of the workers would not show up for their rotation and, Kate had guessed, human nature being what it is, that they must have talked. The captors, being who they were, could make someone disappear with no problem. Sometimes a worker would tell the girls that a missing worker had tragically killed themselves. The workers worked in
rotations, six months at the prison and one month off. Kate had befriended a few over the months and found out the pay was unbelievable, enough to make someone give up the Internet and phone calls for six months at a time. All of them believed they were government employees with the highest security clearance available.
The females were courted, in a way, by the males. All of them knew before the mating ceremony who would be their mate. In a different world, under different circumstances, some of the females might would have chosen to mate the male voluntarily. But any illusions the females had were destroyed when Kate arrived. Little by little she uncovered the lies and explained to the rest of the girls what was really going on; except for a few of the girls, girls who had it bad on the outside world before being rescued, and some had it really bad. Kate had culled those girls from any serious talk, they were too happy to be rescued and too excited to be mated to important males to have believed Kate. Allison thought some of the girls would not have even cared if they had known the truth.
But even with everything Kate had told them over the past year, even with all the secrets and lies she had exposed, the one thing she had never shared was what she was, or how she was different. Some things she had kept to herself, and some things it appeared she had only shared with her roommate. Now it was up to Allison and Dawn to try to figure some way out of what was going on, and neither girl had a clue what they should do next. When the door slammed open the girls knew time had just run out.
Kate (Safe Haven Wolves Book 3) Page 4