Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six)

by Anya Nowlan

  “You two need to promise me you won’t freak out,” she said, giving them both a look that could have meant anything from a stern warning to desperate pleading as far as Grant was concerned.

  He frowned, but nodded carefully.

  “Okay. We won’t freak out. Right, Grim?”

  “Sure. You hiding a dead body in there or something?” Grim asked dubiously, trying to lighten the mood.

  “No,” she mumbled, but she didn’t sound that convincing.

  She bit her lip in that cute way that she did and hiked up the stairs, Grant and Grim in tow. Kelis’s steps were fast as she moved through the long hallways and up narrow staircases to the third floor, where a long corridor looped behind a corner.

  Grant definitely liked the view he had behind her as she was going up the stairs, but her steps seemed to slow down as they stepped into the hall, until she ground to a halt.

  “What is it?” he asked, receiving a quick shushing and a raised hand from Kelis.

  Then he felt it too. His hackles raised and his eyes narrowed, and as he looked over to Grim, he could already see his brother reaching for the knife he kept in his boot. Grant slipped a hand into his jacket and pulled out his own pocket knife. There was something in the air. It was probably just a feeling for Kelis, but Grant could smell them. Wolves.

  She stood still for a moment, listening, while the Aldrochs did the same. As Grant was about to make a move forward, she burst into a sudden run, faster than Grant would have expected her to.

  “Shit,” he muttered, casting a look at Grim.

  His brother seemed to share the sentiment.

  She whipped around the corner a step or two ahead of Grant, but he caught up with her as she burst in through an open door, straight into one of the apartments. As soon as Grant got to the door, his world shifted and changed, a lump in his throat. Three men dressed in their usual black, with bright blue eyes and blond hair, hovering over the tied-up body of an elderly woman, who was on the ground squealing into her gag.

  “Get the fuck off of her!” Kelis snarled, and she was on the man closest to the woman, a fist up and ready to punch the guy’s lights out.

  Grant went for the next man, becoming swiftly aware that while he and Grim were armed with knives, these fuckers had guns. He took hold of the man’s wrist, twisting it behind him painfully before he could grab for his sidearm, but the bastard was fast and there wasn’t a lot of space to conduct their brawl. Grant slammed his elbow into the guy’s nose with a satisfying crack before someone grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and threw him back.

  He landed against a wall, but got back on his feet before he had any real time to crumple to the floor, flipping the knife in his hand so the blade was facing down. Grim was caught between two of them, punches to the gut being used to try and subdue him, as Kelis was having a hell of a time keeping the third guy from getting his gun. Growling, Grant yanked the head of one of the guys on Grim back and thrust the knife into the delicate flesh, blood bursting out of the gaping wound like a waterfall.

  The man gasped and gagged, collapsing on his knees, and Grant forgot all about him. Seeing the death of one of his partners in crime, the man keeping Kelis busy kicked her off. She painfully landed on a table, cracking it and tumbling to the floor along with the splinters of the broken wood. He burst past Grant before he could get ahold of him, and when Grant looked to Grim, he found his brother pulling his long switchblade out of the chest of the blue-eyed adversary, the man’s eyes already getting glassy.

  “Come on, let’s go get him,” Grant hissed, running to the door.

  He could see an open window at the end of the hallway that had certainly been closed before and he mumbled a few choice expletives.

  “Grant, no!” Kelis voice called, rooting him in place. “I might need you here! Please don’t go!”

  It was that little moment of standing still that made Grant realize why he’d felt such a sudden and inexplicable change when he stepped into the apartment. It had nothing to do with The Arctics or whatever reason it was that they were there in the first place, but the smell. The scent of something very familiar, something so basic and raw that it was decoded into his DNA, and he couldn’t mistake it for something else even if he tried.

  The scent that he now realized had been hanging onto Kelis the entire time was the reason why she smelled so inexplicably sweet to him.

  The smell of cubs. His cubs.

  Grant looked back into the room, confusion muddled on his face. His gaze rolled from the two dead agents, to his brother looking just as confused, to Kelis getting up off the floor and trying to untie the woman. Grim’s mouth was slightly parted, his gaze clear but racked with emotion.

  Is this what I think this is?

  Shaking out of his reverie, Grant stepped back in, slamming the door shut so no snooping neighbors could get a view of the scene unfurling in the apartment. He sniffed at the air, nostrils flaring slightly, and his eyes flashed gold at the same moment as Grim’s did. As if driven by the same power, both brothers went for a door past the table that Kelis had smashed through, the pleasant but unremarkable cream walls of the room looking scathingly out of place considering the roar of feelings battling for prominence within Grant.

  “Grim, Grant, wait!” Kelis called, but they didn’t listen.

  It was Grim who pushed down the door handle and stepped into the room first, Grant on his heels. The room was small, quiet, shades drawn. Two side-by-side cribs were the centerpiece of the room, and when the Aldroch twins walked up to them, Grant’s heart beating out of his chest, they could have been knocked over by the slightest gust of wind.

  Grant dropped his knife with a click while Grim had the good sense of flipping his shut and pushing it in his pocket. Together, they stared at the two sleeping boys, cherubic faces blissful and unaware, though both seemed to stir a little as the strong scent of their fathers wafted into their little noses.

  Kelis came up behind them, hurried steps betraying a heavily thudding heart in her chest as well. She stopped a few steps behind Grant and he didn’t turn to acknowledge her. He simply stared at the boys. A million questions rose in his chest and a thousand were answered, with just as many coming to him again as soon as the former were dealt with. How, when, and so on, but most importantly why? Why had she hidden this? Why had she hidden them?

  Is it because she didn’t trust us to take care of our young? a voice inside of him asked, urging discontent and making his cougar growl low and dangerous.

  The boys were perfect. More than perfect, really—completely flawless. They were obviously twins and the more Grant looked at them, the more he knew they had to be his and Grim’s. The facial lines were far too similar, as well as the unruly mops of blond hair and the way their little hands fisted in the blanket, showing a sure grip. If that hadn’t been enough, then there was the smell, of course, marking them as Aldroch and no one else. Grant’s cougar knew and it could not be argued with. Especially when the evidence was so clear.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kelis whispered behind him, her voice frail and shuddering.

  Slowly, Grant turned, flicking a look at Grim, the gold dissipating in their eyes as they turned to face the mother of their firstborn sons. His throat seemed to collapse on itself and the first sound he made was a strangled gargle, more beast than man.

  “Why?” Grim asked, apparently having more faculties and sense at that moment than Grant did.

  A surprise if there ever was one.

  “It’s… it’s a very long story,” she said, hesitating for a moment.

  It all made sense now, in a way. Why she looked different, why her curves seemed rounder and more appetizing. Why she had left the Corps. But of course, it didn’t explain what business she had with The Firm, or with Spade. Immediately, Grant assumed the worst. It was a reasonable reaction, seeing as he was rarely wrong when it came to the company.

  “Did they make you do this, make you hide them from us?” Grant demanded, sudden
ly very much in command of his own voice again.

  Her eyes shimmered with tears and her ruby lips parted slightly, words promising to spill. Before she said anything, though, Grant’s ears twitched with the first ragged breaths of a baby awakening. A second later, a cry rattled through the room, one that made him smile instead of frown. The boy had strong lungs. Like an Aldroch should. When his brother joined in, Grant couldn’t help but chuckle, and Grim grinned, looking at the babies protesting loudly at being stirred.

  Whatever the reasons Kelis had, some explanations were in order. But regardless of that, Grant knew his life would never be quite the same. And against all odds, he couldn’t have been gladder for it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kelis

  Kelis’s heart was in her throat as she watched the Aldroch twins turn around and pick up a baby each, Dylan in Grim’s arms and Dante in Grant’s. The babies hushed immediately in the arms of their daddies, and Kelis couldn’t deny that which she’d already known. That her boys looked a lot like their fathers. She just hadn’t realized quite how much before she’d seen them together.

  She flicked the light on, the low dimmer casting a glow on the nursery. She had a small apartment, two fairly cramped bedrooms, and a living room-kitchen, now trashed because of her unexpected and unwelcome visitors. Grim and Grant sunk down onto the couch in the corner of the room, their attentions entirely consumed by the babbling and giggling kids in their laps.

  Kelis loved the sight before her. It was as she’d always known it should be, her babies with their daddies. It hadn’t been so long since she’d seen the Aldrochs last, but so much had changed in her life that it might as well been a lifetime. It certainly felt like it.

  “They’re yours. Dylan and Dante,” she said finally, knowing that they had no doubt of that, but needing to say it for her own sake.

  “You don’t say,” Grim gruffed back, chuckling.

  “If it looks like an Aldroch and it growls like an Aldroch, it’s probably an Aldroch,” Grant said scruffing his hand through Dante’s already thick head of hair.

  “Kelis! What’s going on here?” a strained voice called, belonging to Marta, her nanny.

  Kelis gasped, remembering that she’d left the woman heaving in the living room, completely shocked by what had happened to her. Kelis rushed to the door, finding Marta still on the couch, her eyes red and her cheeks burning up.

  “Why did they do that to me?” she asked, completely shaken.

  “I don’t know, Marta,” Kelis lied, biting her tongue.

  She couldn’t tell her mild-mannered babysitter from down the hall that the kids she’d been sitting and constantly cooing over about how fast they were developing were something akin to superweapons, wanted by more horrible people than Kelis could count. Or, well, apparently wanted because up to now, Kelis had been sure that the only people who knew about her babies at all were in The Firm. The “good guys.”

  “Come on, I’ll take you to your apartment,” she offered softly, taking a step forward.

  But Marta’s eyes were now staring fixedly at the two dead bodies on the hardwood floor, blood pooling around them and almost reaching her feet. There was horror in her eyes, real honest to goodness terror, and Kelis doubted any rational words could really get through to her.

  “We need to call the police! What if they come back? And who are those… those men with you?!”

  God dammit. I didn’t need this.

  She snaked out her cellphone from her pocket and ignoring Marta’s barrage of questions, dialed the one number she’d been told to contact in the off chance something like this were to happen. She heard a click on the other end of the line and without expecting a greeting, spoke into the phone, keeping her voice low.

  “Kelis Murdoch. Attack at my place of residence. Subjects safe, cleanup needed. Civilian involved, apartment 34A.”

  With that, she ended the call in time to see Grant standing behind her, Dante on his hip. His eyes spoke a million words and Kelis could see that he knew what had just transpired. She just wasn’t sure whether he judged her for it or not.

  “Marta, you need to go back into your apartment now,” Grant said, his words full of authority, so much so that even Dante was staring at him with wide eyes, hushed into silence. “There will be people coming to talk to you. They will make sure you are safe. The police have been notified.”

  Marta tore her eyes away from the gruesome scene and she nodded, very slowly, as if it took a while for the words to get through to her. Kelis walked to her and took her hand, helping her up and past the bodies of the two Arctics agents. She tossed a glance at Grant as she reached the door, but he nodded his approval, and Kelis took Marta back to her apartment. The older woman was shocked into silence, the color now draining from her face.

  Kelis had to be thankful that The Arctics had wasted time with tying her up instead of killing her outright, an odd bit of mercy on their side, causing them to still be in the apartment when Kelis and the twins got there. Her insides twisted at the thought of what would have happened if they’d been later, or if the agents had decided to murder Marta in cold blood.

  She practically ran back to her apartment, and although it was only a few doors down from Marta’s, every second away from her baby boys was a painful thing to bear at the time. The Aldrochs met her at the door, each carrying a baby bag over their shoulder along with one of the boys, blissfully happy in their fathers’ arms.

  “Come on. We’re going back to headquarters,” Grim said, pulling the door shut behind him.

  “No objections. We can talk there. A car will be down in a minute,” Grant added, using his free hand to take her hand in his.

  A hot, permanent heat radiated through her from the touch, robbing her of words once more. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be touched by one of them, fire and ice, a cacophony of sensations and emotions. Flashbacks of their night together danced behind her eyes and she followed quietly, not arguing, not fussing.

  True to their word, there was already a car waiting downstairs, several agents of The Firm that Kelis had never seen before piling out with their gear in tow while Grim, Grant, and Kelis took their places.

  The cleanup crew, she thought wryly, shuddering slightly.

  In a few hours, it would be as if nothing at all had happened in her apartment and Marta would be either bought off or made to relocate somewhere where the things she’d seen couldn’t hurt anyone. Her heart went out to the aging Latina woman, but at least she’d survived and without injury to boot.

  I hope this doesn’t ruin her life.

  It wasn’t the first time that Kelis had felt that nagging feeling of worry and doubt hit her, like everything she did ended up hurting someone. Her squad, her family, her friends, or even the fathers of her baby boys—it seemed that there could be no right choice, only wrong ones. She missed Grant’s touch immediately as she took her seat in the car, falling against the upholstery, willing all of this to be a horrible, emotionally confusing rollercoaster.

  But it wasn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Kelis

  The ride to headquarters was spent mostly in silence, only the boys sometimes saying a word or two, surprising their fathers with their wealth of vocabulary at an age where most shifter kids said only one word if at that. She could see the frowns on Grant’s and Grim’s faces as they quietly doing the math, trying to figure out why the boys in their laps seemed to about three times as old as they should have been. The truth was going to be a hell of a surprise to them.

  It was only when they all made it back to Squad Six’s room that the tension seemed to dissipate a little. The kids had fallen asleep during the drive and now with no one else around for a moment, Kelis thought it time to speak her truth. She knew that in a bit, she’d be drowning under explanations and probably the worst conversation she could possibly have would be heading her way too—Spade was sure to have heard about this already.

  “They did make me hide the
boys from you, yes,” she started, choosing to stand while Grim and Grant sat down, setting the babies to sleep on one of the cots between them. “But there’s more.”

  “Start from the beginning,” Grim said, his voice almost stoic.

  They both looked at her, worn, as confused as she was, but calm. Far calmer than she thought she would have been if the tables were turned, if she’d found that something of such high importance was being hidden from her by a person or people that she thought had been loyal to her.

  “Take your time,” Grant added, nodding.

  “Okay,” Kelis said with a sigh, leaning against the single windowsill in the room, overlooking a dark and empty courtyard. “I never made it back to the Corps. I never went on that mission. I got pregnant.”

  She quieted for a moment, glazing over the conversation she’d had with Spade, not wishing to remember the way he’d overpowered her in a second. And it definitely wasn’t something she should tell the twins, lest they go and shoot the intelligence officer down where he stood. Knowing Spade, he’d just come back to haunt them from the dead.

  “Spade recruited me right out of that mission. Said we had a spot for people like me, but I later figured out why he wanted me. It was because of that gas, the fact that I’d ingested it and that I was a human. Honestly, I think he was the one who got me on that airplane to begin with, but he’d never admit as much, obviously.”

  She sighed, grazing her teeth over her lower lip. Grim’s hand was gently resting on Dylan’s tummy and Dante rolled himself over on his front, his sweet little face the picture of peace. He was a hellion when he was awake though, so the transformation always amused Kelis.

  “I went into basic training for The Firm, and got kicked out of it three days into it when the blood tests got back. I think you guys weren’t even back from your next mission then when Spade told me that I was not to tell anyone about my pregnancy, especially not you two. He didn’t make me swear on it, just said that if I did, I’d learn to regret it. He dropped the names of all of my siblings in casual conversation, like he had guns trained to their heads.”