by Amelia Jade
Kierra could have climaxed from that alone if she hadn’t already been so worn out from earlier.
Some time later he carried her up the stairs while she drowsily pointed him in the direction of the bedroom. But the rest of the evening was all a happy blur.
***
Kierra sat up with a start. The sun was shining, the bright morning rays reflecting brilliantly off the stark white landscape, temporarily blinding her. Rapid blinks helped her eyes to adjust, but it was still several seconds before she felt awake enough to look around.
The rest of the bed was empty. There wasn’t even any residual warmth, which meant that he must have been gone for some time now.
Gone.
He had left! She fumed at the way he had so casually been with her the night before, but hadn’t even had the courtesy to stay through the night.
Okay. Hold the heck up brain. Think about this, there’s probably a logical explanation here. Why don’t you try checking your phone?
Grudgingly she located her purse from the pile of clothes next to the bed and pulled her phone from it.
Sure enough, there was a blinking green light, indicating a text message. Opening it up, she found she had several emails as well, but her focus was on that text.
Good morning. I’m sorry I had to go, but I am supposed to work today. Thank you for letting me stay, and just so you know, I did give you a kiss this morning. Two actually. But you didn’t stir. Must have been some good dreams.
It was followed by a winking face.
“Jerk,” she said aloud, though the smile on her face dispelled any notion she was upset.
Without warning a huge yawn overtook her. She stretched mightily, reaching for the ceiling as she shook herself awake at the same time. Feeling more invigorated, she hopped in the shower, eager to enjoy a morning full of warmth and relaxation. There was nothing scheduled for her today. The next thing she had was a speech booked for the next day, but with the way things seemed to be going with her campaign, she wondered if it would even be worthwhile, or if she should just withdraw.
That was something she would have to give more thought to.
Unfortunately, her peaceful day deigned not to stay. As she headed downstairs for some food, something came flying through the window next to her front door. The glass exploded into huge shards that went flying through the house.
Kierra screamed and ducked out of the way. Thankfully most of the large chunks of glass fell far short of her. A number of small chunks pattered across her body though as she cowered on the floor near the entrance to her kitchen. As soon as she was sure it wasn’t a bomb, she scurried across the floor and into the kitchen, putting at least a wall between her and the street.
Her cellphone was upstairs still, and she no longer had a landline. She was trapped.
As quietly as she could, she reached up onto her counter and pulled two of the biggest knives she could from the knife block before returning to the floor. This time, however, she was in a crouch, ready to throw herself at any attacker that showed themselves.
Attacker?! Why the hell would anyone attack you?
She didn’t have the answer to that question, but it seemed clear that someone was out to get her: the pictures mysteriously showing up on the news yesterday, and now someone breaking in to her house.
Would they really have come in through the window though? And besides, you’ve been cowering here for a minute now. You would have heard something if there was a person.
Despite the logic, Kierra decided to spend another two, maybe even three whole minutes hiding in her kitchen with knives in hand before she went to explore. Just in case, she told herself. But after more than double her time had expired, she finally crept out of hiding to see what was going on.
She quickly determined there was nobody in the house. The door was still shut, and the window still had shards of glass all over it. Anyone coming through would have either dislodged the shards, or have had to dive through the window, which would have landed them on her furniture. Either way, she would have heard something.
Looking around, she spied a rock, the clear culprit.
“Gee, thanks mysterious person,” she said with a curse, chucking the rock back through the window in anger.
Now what?
Call Darren.
So she did. But he was at the mines and just like the day before, there was no reception down there.
Kierra swore and began pacing back and forth. She could drive up there of course, but that would bring her into the open if someone was outside waiting for her or was going to follow her again. Either way, it wasn’t something she felt comfortable doing.
But even as she sifted through her brain for ideas, a nugget of an idea presented itself to her.
No, that’s crazy. You don’t even know if they would remember! And besides, who says they’re on your side of things?
Still, she didn’t see much other choice.
Kierra picked up her phone and began to search online for the number she needed.
Chapter Nine
Darren
His eyes went wide as he listened to the voicemail.
“Fuck,” he said, halfway to the door of the trailer, his lunch completely forgotten before he realized he needed to tell the others. “Someone threw a rock threw Kierra’s window. I need to go. Now.”
“Do you want us to come?” Corey asked, concern plastered on his face.
He considered that for a moment. The backup would be nice, but he didn’t want to cancel yet another day of mining.
“No, just stay close to the emergency phone. If I call, come running.”
The others nodded. He gave them one last look, then burst from the trailer, using his long legs and enhanced strength to practically bound across the distance to his truck. The door wasn’t even closed before he was gunning the engine, the big V6 roaring to life as it gathered speed.
He tried calling her back once he was underway, but there was no answer. He frowned. It rang and rang, going to voicemail. Either she hadn’t noticed it ringing, or Kierra didn’t have it on her.
Or someone else is preventing her from answering.
Darren didn’t like to contemplate things like that, but with the way things had gone in the Valley lately, he knew he had a right to be worried. The forces moving against him and his friends were not afraid to use loved ones to their advantage. In fact, they had shown time and time again that they enjoyed doing just that.
There was probably a reason for that, but at that particular moment in time he didn’t have any idea of what it might be. He would bring it up to Garrett when he got back. His Alpha was very smart.
The truck swerved around corners at speeds far too fast for the single-wide gravel road. Tires spun freely at times, spewing stones out in a dangerous arc behind him as he wrenched the wheel over once again.
It took him far longer to reach the paved roadway than he wished, but the screech of rubber on asphalt was a welcome sound as his truck shot forward. He tried calling her again, but still to no avail.
What the hell had happened that her phone was off?
Darren poured on more speed, practically flying through the streets toward her house. He came down the street, looking frantically at her place. Her car was still in the driveway as his truck slid to a halt in a mix of whining rubber and shrieking metal. The stink of burned rubber flared his nostrils wide as he jumped from the truck and ran inside.
“Kierra!” he yelled, noticing the broken window and rock for the first time. “Kierra!” he called again, scouring the first floor thoroughly before heading upstairs. His heart began to beat frantically as he worried about what he might find. But as he opened door after door, one thing became clear.
She wasn’t there. There was no sign of struggle either, so she had been taken without a fight, or she had left of her own accord.
But why wouldn’t she call him if that was the case? Pulling out his phone, he tried calling her again as he headed back toward
the door. A sound coming from the front hall made his heart stop.
It was the buzz of a vibrating phone.
Searching frantically through the jackets hanging up he managed to identify which one contained her phone. Pulling it out, he felt his heart sink. The only reason Kierra would have left it there was if she had no choice.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he said aloud, his voice thick with anger and worry. It made no sense. Just two days before, nobody had given a shit about Kierra. But now they were trying to destroy her professional life, and possibly do her physical harm?
Why? What had changed?
You came into her life.
Oh hell. It made sense. They were after him. But why? No, that didn’t add up. He was missing something. Some key piece to the puzzle. But what?
He punched the air angrily, dearly wishing he had something or someone nearby that he could hit outright.
Shaking his head to try and clear it, he headed back out the front, unsure of where to go from there.
Wait. He did have a lead. He needed to track down the person who had been photographing her. Eyes narrowing he pulled the door open—
And bowled over Nash, his LMC liaison.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked, not bothering to help the other man up from where he had fallen over.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Nash said nastily.
Darren froze. There was something in his tone… something that said he was in control, and that Darren was in trouble. The shifter frowned.
Looking back outside, he noticed the big black SUV pulled up behind his truck, out of which emerged four large, menacing-looking shifters that Darren had never seen before.
His head whipped back to Nash. “What the hell is going on Nash?” he asked, although he made no move to threaten the liaison.
He desperately wished he could take the little man by the neck and slam him against the wall and question him, but that would not have gone well at all. As much as he hated Nash, he was a human, and if Darren used his strength to hurt him, well... that would be the end of Darren.
The four men, or goons he supposed, approached the pair. At a glance from Nash, two of them stepped up on either side of Darren. The other two pushed past and entered the house. As he watched first in surprise, then shock, then horror, the two of them began to ransack the house. Closets were opened, clothes strewn about, tables overturned, couches ripped apart.
“Hey!” he cried, taking a step toward them, intent on stopping them from destroying Kierra’s house.
The two shifters on either side of him clamped onto his arm and shoulder, bodily hauling him backward.
He was planning his attack when another van showed up in front of the house.
The side of it was plastered with the image of a mountain and the words Origin News.
They sure got here quickly…
How had both Nash and the news crew known to show up just as he did? That seemed a little coincidental, even for him. Could it have been Nash that had been following Kierra around? He did have a big black SUV. If so, that meant he knew where she had gone, and had the house under watch.
“Where is she? Where is Kierra you little cretin?” he snarled, lunging at the liaison before the news crew could disembark and begin filming. The shifters pulled him back, but not before he got within an inch of the liaison. He could smell his fear. “What have you done?”
Nash only smiled. “Just finishing the job that I started all those years ago.”
Darren stared at him in puzzlement. What job? What had he started? And who were the four goons he had brought with him? A nasty thought went through his brain. Here he was, a once-convicted shifter of Genesis Valley, present at the house of a woman he had been spotted with. A woman who was now missing—courtesy of the muscle Nash had brought— and whose house was now thoroughly ransacked.
As if to confirm his suspicions, the two unknown shifters emerged from the house just as the news crew started filming. There was one cameraman, and a blonde woman in a tacky-looking purple suit who he assumed was the reporter.
“No sign of her boss. The place is a wreck though,” the one said. “Looks like somebody took their time here.”
Darren rolled his eyes, looking at the cameraman. “Tell me you aren’t so blind as to have missed the fact that these two were the ones that just destroyed the house, right? I mean I could hear things smashing from where I’m standing. I can’t imagine the extra ten feet between us dulled them that much?
The camera man ignored him, and just kept on filming.
“So, Mr. Nash, can you tell us what happened here?” asked a woman who was holding a microphone.
“We’re not entirely sure yet Danica, but what we do know is that the homeowner, Miss Kierra Valcke, is missing, and we got this man at the scene of the crime going through her belongings. The house is in a bad state of disarray. It looks like whatever happened, Miss Valcke put up one heck of a struggle.
“Do you know the man’s name?” Danica asked.
He rolled his eyes. Even the questions seemed faked.
“His name is Darren Shaw, and he’s a known felon, having served jail time once before. This time, I think he’s going to go away for life.”
“Oh come on. This is ridiculous,” Darren started to say, but the camera turned away from him, hiding his reaction. “Fine,” he said as the three of them stared at him. “Have it your way.”
Then he attacked. It wasn’t a decision he had come to lightly, because he knew it would all be caught on film. But Nash was trying to frame him for a crime he hadn’t committed. Just like when he had been in Stone Bear training. It was the realization of how similar the two situations were, that had sparked his decision. The last time he hadn’t fought at all, having gone down without a fight, and he had been convicted and spent three years in prison.
Not this time. If he was convicted this time, they would end him, and that wasn’t something Darren was willing to lie down and accept. So he chose to fight, to win his freedom, track down Kierra, and prove to the world that he was innocent.
He dropped abruptly to one knee, pulling the two shifters down with him as they clung to his arms. Flexing swiftly he stood up just as quickly, but this time he led with his elbows. They connected solidly—and painfully he thought as his arms went numb for a second—with the heads of the two nearest shifters. Although they weren’t out of the fight, he knew they were dazed.
Spinning, he sent one knee flying into the head of the one nearest him. Kneecap met temple and the shifter went down, collapsing into a limp heap on the ground. He wanted to take out the other shifter that was already hurting first, but the two who hadn’t been near him were reacting now, and Darren knew he had no time. Instead, he grabbed the shirt of the hunched-over goon and sent him tumbling into the path of the oncoming attackers.
One of them stopped to help his comrade. The other dodged around him and lunged at Darren.
Only to find himself impaled in Darren’s fist. The other man whoofed and fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He raised his hands, pulling them into fists, and clubbed the man with both of them simultaneously, putting all his shifter strength behind the blow. The man’s neck snapped and he fell to the ground.
Shit.
Darren hadn’t meant to kill any of them, that’s why he was still in human form. He couldn’t stop to worry about that now, however, because the remaining shifter was closing in. He was no longer caught off guard, but instead prepared for a fight. At least he was following Darren’s lead and staying in human form.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Nash’s voice cut through the two of them.
“Not letting myself get set up by you. Again.”
There, he said it. Thrown out the accusation that Nash had been the one to set him up years before as well.
The liaison snorted. “Finally figured that one out, did you? I’m actually rather shocked you never picked up on that at the time.”
A smile split Nash’s face. “Why, I think that’s a compliment!”
The shifter across from Darren had been listening to the banter the entire time as they looked at each other. Now, at the delight in his boss’s voice, he made the mistake Darren had been waiting for. He turned to look over his shoulder at Nash. It was brief, and his eyes were already flicking back to Darren, but it was all the time he needed.
The Ridgeback shifter darted to the opposite side, putting himself in the goon’s blind spot, then hooked his leg up and straight into the other man’s crotch. It wasn’t a good tactic, but at that point, Darren did not care. He was more focused on winning and escaping.
“It’ll do you no good,” Nash said, feeling confident as the shifter that Darren had hit with his elbow at the start but not finished off recovered and came to stand next to his side.
“I just took out three,” he said contemptuously, finishing off the shifter holding his crotch with a knee to the face that sent him into a crumpled heap. “What do you think that one is going to do?”
“Not him,” Nash said evilly. “Them.” He gestured with a slight flick of his chin at something behind Darren.
The shifter turned, and his heart sank at the sight of another SUV pulling up, out of which more goons emerged.
“Oh come on,” he complained under his breath.
The news crew were still close by filming the entire thing he noted. The only way Darren was going to escape now was by shifting and attacking. Unfortunately that would likely result in one of them getting hurt, or worse, killed. The bears were not exactly subtle or small beasts. He couldn’t risk it.
He thought about running, but with that many opponents already present, and who knew how many more available to Nash, Darren knew the odds were stacked heavily against him. His only option at this point was to surrender and hope that Kierra had managed to escape, and could then find a way to prove his innocence without getting herself caught.
The odds did not look good.