They both glared at Ash, daring him to object. The teenager raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, I don't like it either. They always make me stay behind because I can't shift."
That brought Caitlyn up short. "You can't?"
Ash shook his head. "Nope, but don't worry. I got the super-strength and the super-senses, so Mom thinks I'm just a late bloomer and it'll happen someday."
"Let's go to the living room," Annabeth suggested. "It's got that big bay window."
* * *
As Mark emerged from the house to see who was visiting them so unexpectedly, he found a big white van parked in front of the house.
Lined up in front of it were eight shifters. Four were in human shape, men and women of varying ages, and four were in beast shape, great tiger-like beasts with coats ranging from a dark brown to a light golden color.
Mark growled when he caught site of a man with reddish brown hair sticking out from a diadem of bandages around his head. The man had gray eyes, fair, deeply freckled skin, and a very familiar scent.
"Pete Langlais," Mark said very softly, staring the other shifter in the eyes. "You attacked my mate."
Langlais took an involuntary half-step back, then scowled. So did the tall, golden-haired sabertooth shifter standing next to Langlais.
"So that's the guy, huh?" Dane asked.
He descended from the porch, and Mark and Evan moved to flank him.
"Now, now, we're just here to talk, and we want you to play nice," said the man at Langlais' side. He was movie-star handsome and dressed in an expensive suit and polished shoes that looked ridiculous in the middle of a working ranch.
He scanned the three brothers, apparently trying to figure out which of them held the highest status. Mark saw his mother's mouth thin as the man's glance passed quickly over her, still standing on the porch, and dismissed her. Uh-oh.
Then the sabertooth shifter walked slowly over to stand in front of Dane, his hand out.
"I'm Philippe Bertrand, Second in the Sandia Mountain Pride."
Dane looked Bertrand up and down and ignored the proffered hand. After a moment, Bertrand withdrew it.
"Get off our land. Now." Dane's voice was glacial.
Mark pointed at Langlais, who flinched a little. "Except for him. I have unfinished business with him."
Bertrand just raised his brows and shook his head gently, as if surprised by unexpected rudeness. Then he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. "Felice."
At his signal, a petite, red-haired shifter woman opened the van's rear door and pulled two Ordinary humans out of the vehicle. Their eyes were wide and terrified above the wide strips of silver duct tape sealing their mouths.
"What the hell is this?" Dane demanded, his fists clenching.
Bertrand looked at the house, and Mark followed his gaze to see three shapes behind the living room's lace curtains.
"Ms. Morgan!" called Bertrand. "You have something we want, and we have something you want. I'm willing to cut a deal—are you?"
Chapter Fifteen – Shifter Standoff
From her vantage point inside the living room bay window, Caitlyn gasped. "They've got Jake and Jen…my boss and his wife!"
"You leave my mate out of this," she heard Mark say.
Philippe Bertrand only smirked.
Caitlyn leaned forward and peered anxiously through the gauzy lace curtains.
Jen Zimmerman looked scared and disheveled, her long dark-brown hair tangled around her oval face, but she appeared to be unharmed.
Jake was another story, though. It appeared that someone had worked him over.
He looked awful, his face swollen and bruised, his arms crisscrossed with claw marks, both scabbed and freshly bleeding, and it was apparent that he could barely stand upright.
Both of them had their wrists bound in front of them with zip-tie handcuffs.
"We have to rescue them!" Caitlyn said urgently to Ash and Annabeth.
"But they're all shifters, I think," Annabeth objected. "Maybe we should just let Dane and the others handle this? I'll call Sheriff Jacobsen," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"Ash?" Caitlyn turned to him, frantic with the need to do something. Anything.
She was expecting him to object, but he grinned down at her, all knees and elbows in his torn jeans and anime T-shirt.
"Hey, just because we're all trapped in human shape doesn't mean we're helpless…let me show you where the gun safe is. Do either of you know how to shoot?
Wide-eyed, Annabeth shook her head.
"My dad used to take me skeet shooting," Caitlyn said, her throat tight with fear. "I used to be pretty good at demolishing those clay pigeons."
"Okay, then. Annabeth, why don't you call the sheriff while I show Caitlyn our gun safe?" Ash suggested. He turned to Caitlyn. "Follow me upstairs."
* * *
When Caitlyn emerged through a set of French doors onto the house's upstairs balcony a few minutes later, she was carrying a loaded shotgun. Ash stood at her back, holding a hunting rifle.
The floor of the balcony was the roof of the porch. It was surrounded by a waist-high white wooden railing.
Her movements caught Philippe Bertrand's attention. He smiled up at her and waved, as if they were meeting over a business lunch at a nice restaurant.
"Caitlyn Morgan, I presume?" he called. "I understand that you're in possession of a certain video. Hand it over, along with any copies you've made, and we'll leave peacefully. No one will get hurt."
Behind him, Jake was shaking his head frantically. Muffled noises escaped the duct tape covering his mouth. They sounded like "No! No!"
The red-headed shifter woman drove her fist into his stomach. Jake collapsed to his knees with a grunt of pain. She hauled him upright again by one arm. He sagged in her grasp while Jen, her eyes wide with horror, rushed to support his other side.
Caitlyn racked the gun, flipped off the safety, and raised it to her shoulder.
"Let my friends go." She was surprised at how steady her voice sounded.
"Caitlyn! Don't!" Mark shouted.
"Oh, please! She can't kill me with one of those," Bertrand sneered.
"Oh yeah? Like I'm going to believe that!" Caitlyn snarled back.
Bertrand raised his hand and snapped his fingers again.
And Caitlyn saw the redhead draw her fist back to hit Jake again.
White-hot rage engulfed Caitlyn. Her finger tightened on the trigger, and the shotgun fired with a blast that left her shoulder numb and her ears ringing.
"CAITLYN!" Mark roared.
Dark blood blossomed on one leg of Bertrand's suit pants. He staggered but remained upright.
"You little bitch!" he screamed up at her, his face darkening. Then unexpectedly, he began to laugh. "Just a scratch!" he said in a taunting tone. "And now you get to watch your friends pay for that."
Another snap of his fingers. "Emile."
One of the sabertooth cats slunk forward and eyed Jake. Caitlyn heard it growl menacingly.
Caitlyn racked the gun again and aimed for Bertrand's head. This time she wouldn't miss!
"Let's see you survive this," she muttered.
Unexpectedly, Pete Langlais stepped forward and grabbed Bertrand's shoulder, spinning the other shifter around to face him.
Her finger on the trigger, Caitlyn hesitated.
"Maybe it's only a scratch, but it's enough to give me a chance," Langlais snarled. "You fucked up my life and exposed all of us, you arrogant bastard! I challenge you."
"What—here? Now?" Bertrand asked, dumbfounded. "Can't it wait?"
In reply, Langlais struck Bertrand across the face. "No, it fucking can't wait!" he shouted. "I challenge you for Pride Second, here and now!"
"Pride Second? But I'm Pride First now," Bertrand corrected him with a scimitar smile. "Or hadn't you heard? I challenged your mother and won. The old cat is dead. The pride is mine now."
Caitlyn saw shock and rage move across Langlais' face.
"All the more reason to challenge you. I'll do a better job of leading this pride than you have, you fucking loser."
Still smiling, Bertrand turned towards the watching bear shifters…and Caitlyn. "Excuse me while I take care of some business. I'll be ready to resume our negotiation shortly."
He pointed at the red-headed shifter and the big cat crouched at her feet. "Felice, Emile, if any of the bears or Ordinaries try anything else, kill the hostages." His smile turned mocking as he turned his attention back to Caitlyn and the watching Swanson family. "No matter how fast or strong you think you are, Caitlyn's two friends will be dead if you interfere in any way." He drew a hooked finger across his throat in graphic illustration. "Behave yourselves, and I think we can come to an agreement."
At a frantic gesture from Mark, Caitlyn reluctantly lowered her gun. She watched with a mixture of curiosity and horror as Bertrand and Langlais stripped naked and began to shift into their sabertooth cat forms.
Both men were fit and leanly muscled. Langlais tore off his bandages, revealing injuries healed to pink lines of scar tissue across his scalp, back, and shoulders. Bertrand's left leg was raw and oozed blood from the blast of buckshot Caitlyn had fired at him, but he wasn't limping.
The shift seemed to take a long time and hurt a lot. Caitlyn glanced back at Ash.
"Is it always like this?" she asked, before she remembered that he couldn't shift.
He shrugged. "My mom and brothers do it a lot faster, and there isn't nearly as much—" he made a face and a waving-away gesture "—slimy stuff. These guys are gross."
"No kidding," Caitlyn agreed.
When she turned back to watch the scene below, two huge sabertooth cats were climbing shakily to their feet to face one another. The other shifters moved to stand in a circle around the snarling, growling pair, watching with intent attention.
The sabertooth cat who had been Philippe Bertrand had a deep golden coat that lightened to cream on its belly, with a black mane and black-tipped ears and tail. Its left rear leg was bloody, though it seemed to move smoothly enough as it stalked around its opponent.
The other cat was the brindled, reddish-brown one who had attacked Caitlyn a few days ago. She couldn't help a reflexive shudder when she looked at it.
With a feline roar, Langlais leaped at Bertrand and landed on his back, claws gouging a set of bloody lines down that golden fur. He tried to bite down on the back of Bertrand's neck with those oversized fangs, but Bertrand twisted and rolled, throwing Langlais off.
As Langlais hit the ground, Bertrand was on top of him almost immediately.
A frenzied combat of raking claws and teeth followed, punctuated by ear-splitting roars and growls. The two giant cats rolled over and over, blood streaming down their necks and sides, darkening their fur.
Again and again, each of the cats tried to stab the other's throat with their fangs and failed, leaving huge bleeding gouges through their manes.
Caitlyn stood spellbound with horror as the fight unfolded, the gun held forgotten in her hands.
The end, when it came, was brief and brutal. Bertrand lunged at his opponent, forcing Langlais to retreat. But Bertrand's attack fell short when he stumbled unexpectedly, his injured leg folding beneath him.
Langlais was on him in an instant, pinning Bertrand's head to the ground with one huge paw before sinking his fangs deep into Bertrand's throat.
Bertrand gave a coughing roar that quickly drowned in a gurgling torrent of blood. Langlais held him pinned with paws and teeth until Bertrand lay limp, his chest no longer heaving.
Caitlyn felt like throwing up at the sight of all that blood turning the dirt of the driveway into dark red mud dotted with bright, glistening scarlet pebbles.
No one moved or spoke when Langlais finally rose from the corpse of his opponent and staggered away on four paws.
The shift back to human shape was even slower. When it was finally over, Langlais curled naked and shuddering on the ground for long moments.
No one moved to help him as he pushed himself up to his knees, then slowly and painfully climbed to his feet.
He stood, swaying, covered with dirt and blood from dozens of fresh wounds crisscrossing his skin.
Then the red-haired Felice bowed her head without loosening her grip on Jake. "Hail to our new First!"
The other sabertooth shifters looked at each other, then slowly, they followed Felice's lead. "First!"
But Caitlyn thought that the acknowledgements sounded resigned rather than enthusiastic.
Someone—a woman with long brown hair—wiped off the blood with a towel and handed Langlais his clothes. He began slowly to dress, his movements stiff and blood soaking through his T-shirt from the wounds beneath.
When he was done, Langlais walked forward to face the waiting bear shifters. He was wobbling like a drunken sailor.
"Let me guess—you want to continue the negotiation now that you've killed your leader?" Mark asked, his voice filled with contempt.
Langlais shook his head wearily. "No negotiations. Just a plea. But first, a goodwill gesture." He turned his head. "Felice, let them go."
She huffed with displeasure but snapped the zip-tie handcuffs before pushing Jake and Jen forward.
They stumbled, then ran for the house as the giant cats watched them, muscles bunching as they fought the urge to pursue fleeing prey.
Elle met Jake and Jen halfway and guided them up the porch steps and out of Caitlyn's view.
"You have to believe that nothing about this clusterfuck was my idea," Pete began. "Montoya was my partner and my friend—if it had been my call, I could have found a better way to keep that video from being posted." He turned his head and spat in the dirt.
"So what do you want?" Dane demanded.
Pete raised his head and looked up to where Caitlyn stood on the balcony. "I want you to promise you won't post that video and that you'll destroy any copies you've made," he said to her.
"Sergeant Richard Montoya died because he sent us that video," Jake said from the shelter of the porch. "The least we can do is honor his last request and post it to the site."
"And that would be a disaster." Pete gave Jake a hard stare, then returned his attention to Caitlyn. "I'm not just asking to protect my pride—hell, I'm guessing you probably hate all of us right now. But do you want to punish all of them too?" He raised his hand and pointed at Mark, Evan, and Dane. "Just because we were assholes?"
Caitlyn remembered what Mark had told her about the times when shifters had been hunted and nearly exterminated.
Dane turned to look up at her. "Caitlyn? He's got a point."
Caitlyn heard the sound of quick footsteps on the porch stairs, and then Elle emerged from under the roof. She cast a worried glance up at the balcony. "Caitlyn, sweetie? You're not really going to go through with it, are you?"
She looked at Mark in mute appeal. He raised his hands. "Mom, I told my mate that I trusted her judgment." His eyes met Caitlyn's. "Follow your conscience and do what you think is right, my love."
She swallowed hard and came to a decision.
"Hold on, I'm coming down," she said, and hurried back into the house and down the stairs to emerge through the front door.
On the porch, she paused to hug Jake and Jen. "I'm so glad you're all right! I was worried when you stopped replying to my emails on Friday."
"Yeah, well, they grabbed us when we pulled into a gas station on our way out of town," Jake said.
"I thought they were going to kill Jake! They hurt him, trying to make him tell them where the video files were," Jen said hoarsely. She clung to her husband's hand.
"You're not going to hand over that video, are you?" Jake demanded.
Caitlyn sighed. "Pete's got a point," she said. "If we expose the sabertooth cats, we'll expose all the shifters. And I don't think that's right, do you?"
Jake gave the waiting Swansons a long, intent look. "Mark, you're one of them too? A sabertooth?" He looked around at the others. "All o
f you? Holy shit!"
"No, bear. We Swansons are all bear shifters," Mark said, coming up to Caitlyn and putting his arm around her.
Jake's eyes widened. "I can't believe this! I've been waiting my whole life to prove that shapeshifters are real!"
"And now you have," Caitlyn said. "But for the sake of everyone here in Bearpaw Ridge, and especially my fiancé, Mark, let's keep it a mystery and a legend for everyone else."
Your fiancé? Jen mouthed silently, looking startled. Caitlyn nodded, and Mark gave her a quick squeeze.
Jake stood pondering for what seemed like a long time. Finally, he looked around, made eye contact with Elle, and addressed her.
"All right. They can have the video," he said with a deep sigh. "In any case, our UFO stories always get more clicks than the shifters do."
He turned to Caitlyn. "But I still want to post something about Montoya's murder. It's the biggest story we've ever done!"
"I'm sure we can come up with something that doesn't mention shifters," Caitlyn assured him. "Same goes for the Pemberton story. Wait here—I'll go get the USB drive."
"Thank you, Caitlyn," Pete Langlais said as she passed him on the way to Mark's house.
She glared at the man who had once flirted with her and asked her out on dates. "I'm not doing it for you. And I hope you rot in jail for what you did."
When she returned a few minutes later, she tossed the small USB drive to Pete, not wanting to come within arm's length of the shifter.
He caught it and crushed it between his fingers in a shower of plastic and metal fragments of plastic and metal. "And you swear that there aren't any other copies of this video anywhere?"
She looked over at Mark and the others waiting on the porch for her. "That was the only copy," she told them. "Your secret is safe."
Elle gave her a brilliant smile.
And Mark strode over to give her a long kiss. "Thank you," he whispered, when he was done and she was breathless. "And don't think I didn't notice that you just exercised your option to marry me. City Hall or church?"
Caitlyn hugged him. "Let's talk about that later—I see police cars coming up the road."
Smolder: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Bearpaw Ridge Firefighters Book 2) Page 18