by KH LeMoyne
Total strangers were joining together to help her. Why? “Can they? I’m not in your clan.”
Deacon drew in a deep breath. “Technically you’re not. But you are on my sacred lands, and there are other—factors I can manipulate for this arrangement. The effect will be temporary. But you’ll only need coverage until the end of the tribunal.”
With a sick feeling, she nodded. “Until I’m judged innocent or guilty.”
“Nope,” Brindy said as she thunked her cup on the table. “Innocent’s the only option. Deacon never loses. Neither does Breslin. So?” She turned to her alpha. “Let’s do this. I have more files to go through for the retrieval team, background checks for Trim, and flight plans to submit.”
Deacon raised a brow but stood. A few seconds later, two more people joined them in the kitchen, another man and woman, both tall and slender and mated, given their twined hands and the easy acceptance of their shared touches and almost palpable refusal to let go of each other. A wolf shifter, if Rayven gauged the woman’s scent correctly, though the man was human. “This is my assistant, Shanae, and her husband, Matthew.”
“And me,” shouted a young voice. A small blur hurled itself at Shanae’s and Matthew’s legs, nearly bowling the two over. “I’m on Lena’s team. Me too.”
Lena’s lips twitched. “He’s an incredibly fearsome protector.”
“I bet.” Rayven eyed each of the people, wondering what snowball’s chance in hell this plan had of working with so many different types of shifters. And Shanae’s human husband. “The more the merrier, I suppose?”
“Exactly,” Deacon responded. “No one will feel anything unusual. Each of these people will cocoon you in a segment of my constellation, shielding you.”
Rayven blinked. “Do these ideas just come to you, or is this an alpha power thing?”
“My guess is it’s a product of his shaman training, from his days doing a walkabout in the territory,” Lena said. Everyone stared at her, but she shrugged. “I could be wrong, but it strikes me as more Zen than alpha.”
Brindy and Shanae nodded, while the men looked decidedly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.
“Zen or not, let’s get this done.” Deacon stood. “Do you each willingly agree to allow Rayven Karndottir to share your personal space?”
They each nodded, and Rayven watched, awed by the graciousness of these strangers.
Deacon turned back to her. “May I touch you?”
Now he asks? What about when his wolf nearly clamped its jaws around her neck and threatened her beast, though, in all fairness, she’d have refused without his ploy. Which would have been stupid. “Yes.”
He walked behind her and cupped the top of her head with his palms. “You might feel a bit light-headed for a moment because this will not only link you temporarily to my clan, but expand your reach to your own clan. Just give in to the feeling. Encourage your beast to do the same. You must seek your constellation first.”
As before, she viewed the sea of lights. Her people swam there like sunspots. A tug pulled at her back. Fighting her instincts to stay rooted in her spot, she gave in and floated away. A cushion of air buffeted against her back, spinning her around. Her clan was still off to the side, but farther away now. She hovered in the center of a brighter, richer ocean filled with spots that gleamed and bounced gently between each other. A variety of colors wavered around her. One caught her attention. A golden luminescence hovered before her as if tempting her to reach and claim it. She couldn’t stop her response and leaned toward the pulsing light. But it was as if her body passed through and moved away.
Heart-wrenching sadness engulfed her, for the light had form and essence before it fled. With a familiarity that resonated within her and her bear. She hated to keep relearning this lesson. How could his presence feel so strong without a true connection? He wasn’t even in the territory.
Her response dimmed as she realized the truth. Of course, his scent lingered in this sanctuary, in this house, because of his duties here. He was part of Deacon’s clan, not accessible in any part of hers. As an alpha of another clan, her responsibilities would separate them forever. Tied by responsibilities she couldn’t and wouldn’t walk away from.
The man who held her heart had taken an oath to his own alpha, an unbreakable bond of honor. His light hovered at the edge of the circle of colored souls now joining around her, in no part hers. To see him and almost feel him, to know he was close yet eternally far away, crushed a part of her spirit.
Deacon’s voice called to her, command and compulsion threaded in his voice. “Rayven. Come back.”
She felt an arm over her shoulder and Lena’s voice at her ear. “It will be all right. Don’t give up.”
As she opened her eyes and leaned into Lena’s embrace, she felt a single tear track down her cheek. Everyone eyed her with concern. She did her best to plaster on a smile, though she felt how weak the effort was.
“Did it hurt?” Trevor asked, a frown marring his cherub-like face.
It had broken her heart. “No. It was beautiful.”
He stared up at his father. “Girls are strange.”
21
Breslin walked quietly in Quinn’s footsteps, unnerved by the eerie silence around them. Not a single sound from insects, snakes, or even mice. Frankly, he expected to hear mice rustling about, given the field. It was as if someone had stripped the surrounding land of wildlife.
Never a good sign. But at least nothing had blown up during their trek from the vehicle to the trailer targeted on the satellite maps. They’d also confirmed the trailers were empty.
After a sniff, Elijah leaned in and effortlessly ripped off the trailer door. With a brief nod, he pivoted and strode away toward his designated position at the edge of the minefield. Breslin watched him achieve his guard point and turned back in time to find that Quinn had already entered the trailer and uncovered the access panel in the floor to the belowground lab. The man was a veritable ferret.
Without the luxury of time to analyze potential risks, they descended the iron-rung ladder until they hit solid ground. Thirty feet down based on Breslin’s best estimate. They pushed on through a single-man-wide tunnel lighted by bare lightbulbs strung every fifty feet. The claustrophobic space suddenly opened into a large cavern, and they both came to a halt.
Breslin eyed the hydraulic pillars bolstering a grid of I beams that supported the carved roof. Roughly twenty feet high, the pillars appeared to span at intervals as far as he could see. But only steps away, a fifteen-foot-high wall blocked his view of the entire cavern. A security door sat dead center with a guard chained and shackled in front of a computer console beside the door. He remained hunched with his back to them, as if unaware of their approach.
Quinn scuffed his boot. and the guard looked up before darting his hand toward a keyboard in front of him. Not fast enough to avoid the blade Breslin threw. The tip pierced the man’s hand and pinned it to the tabletop.
With a grunt, he moved his hand free.
“Ah. Ah. Don’t even think about it.” Quinn grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the wall before he could retaliate. The chains strained, but the desk didn’t budge from its position, and the guard remained out of reach of the computer.
The man bucked in Quinn’s hold, his face twisted into a sour expression, dank locks of his hair hanging in his eyes. “No matter what you do, this place will rain down on your heads. It’s not like I’m your only problem.”
Quinn gave him a little shake. “Now that’s just plain unfriendly. What the hell are you talking about anyway?”
“Maybe Jacob has other partners in his little operation,” Breslin offered.
“I don’t take orders from him.” The man wrestled and managed to hawk spittle at Quinn’s shirt. “Jacob’s a monster just like you and that she-bitch.”
Breslin noted the red tinge to the man’s eyes and the tremor in the hands clenching Quinn’s around his neck. Tremors no doubt
coming from something more than fear. “This queen bitch tested some of her juice on you, didn’t she?”
The man hissed. “I refuse to become one of you fucks.”
No wonder he was ready to die. Breslin had already seen the result of humans injected with the chemical cocktail to turn them into shifters. Zombies would look prettier than that result. Not to mention that if it had worked, whoever funded this effort wouldn’t be focusing on shifter children instead.
“Where’s the key for the door?” Quinn growled, squeezing his hand tighter around the guard’s neck.
“There’s no key,” wheezed the guard with almost maniacal glee.
“Electronic access, then, since I don’t see a reader or a keypad.” Breslin sank into the empty computer chair, sliding the guard a glance as Quinn edged toward a small window in the door. “If Jacob knew about your misplaced loyalties, it’s no wonder you were left to die.”
“I wasn’t left. I volunteered to take out those little freaks and save my people from genetic rejects like you two.”
His people. Breslin detected a rather thick New York accent in those words. Evidently, not a native.
“Shit, Breslin,” Quinn murmured. “There’s cages with kids in there.”
Pretty much what Breslin expected. He tapped his earpiece and slid a thumb drive from his pocket into a free USB port on the computer. “Brindy, I’ve got a locked door between me and some kids. I also need data retrieval.”
“My device connected?”
He noted a tiny light on the drive flicker from red to blue. “Yep, active now. Don’t have more than a—”
A detonation sounded on the far side of the wall, and dirt sprayed down from the ceiling.
“Very few minutes.”
“Got it. Here’s the decryption screen for the locked door—you need to press the enter key when it’s done.”
The small line of progress inched across the monitor with the speed of a slug. Breslin bit back his frustration.
As if she could hear his annoyance, Brindy chimed in. “Sorry, I can only automate so much on the fly, and I can’t control remote processor speed. But I’m copying the computer’s drives and communication history as we speak. Don’t worry about retrieving the thumb drive I gave you. I’m uploading the data.”
“Thanks.” He glanced over his shoulder. “How many kids?”
Quinn leaned to the side again, squinting through the window. “Four. No. Six.” He growled. “Maybe more.”
The guard kicked in Quinn’s hold, though the coyote shifter dangled him in the air without any sign of effort. “Those files are worthless. They’re encrypted.”
Breslin snickered. There wasn’t an encrypted file Brindy couldn’t hack. Not to mention she found the challenge fun. He doubted the people behind this twisted experiment could match her. The drive continued to flicker, and a final confirmation window popped up for the door. He pounded the enter key. At the click behind him, he swiveled around on the chair and grasped the opening door before it had a chance to shut.
Quinn waited, the guard still dangling. “What you want done with him?”
“If he wants to live, uncuff him and—”
The guard tried to spit again. “No fuc—”
Quinn slammed his fist into the guard’s head and then dropped him into an unconscious heap. “Right, then. You stay.”
What Breslin saw after they stepped inside turned his stomach. Cages no more than three feet tall lined the walls. Thankfully, many were empty. But the few children here sat inside, huddled at the far corners of their cages, grasping the bars as if that gave them security.
A loud hiss erupted from Breslin as he tried unsuccessfully to control his beast. Who could do this to children? Pale, with eyes as wide as saucers and bones showing beneath their scant clothes, the children huddled, their terror permeating air.
One of the kids whimpered, but several directed half-hearted snarls toward them. He motioned to Quinn. “Start at the back. Get them out fast.”
With a quick glance around, he crushed the lock on the closest cage in his fist and ripped the door open. What might have been a six-year-old scrambled free as Breslin searched for a teenager Nathan’s age. He found a slender young man with one eye swollen shut and bruises covering his face and arms slouched beside a smaller cage, eyeing them warily. His wrists were chained to a bolt in the rock wall.
“Nathan?”
The boy didn’t answer but angled his body, shielding the cage. That was all the confirmation Breslin needed. The personality profile of the young man fit Rayven’s description of brave, stubborn, and protective of others.
“We’re here to get you out.” Breslin crouched beside him and reached for the chain. The teenager shook his head and kicked back at him as a tiny cry erupted from the cage. Breslin leaned to the side and reached for the cage door instead.
“Don’t,” the boy snarled, his voice raspy. “Hazel will start to shift.”
“I’ll free you first, and we can work on her.”
The tiny girl inside, perhaps three at the most, screamed and curled into a ball as Breslin pulled several times on the bolt holding Nathan. Another explosion shook the large space, plumes of dust spewing their way from another tunnel at the far end of the cavern. He leaned over Nathan and the cage as a new shower of rocks pelted them.
Fury drove his cat as he growled. This was not how they would all end. Wrapping the chains around his hands, Breslin tugged until his muscles burned. A fierce, unexpected wave of power pulsed through him, overcoming the resistance, and the chains tore free of the bolt.
He thrust the chain at the teenager and gestured with his head toward the open door. “A man named Elijah will be at the top and help you get out.” With a certainty, he knew nothing would have kept the big bear at his post if he felt the quakes and saw injured children fleeing the trailer. “He’s big but harmless.”
“Come on, kids. Time to get out of here,” Quinn yelled to the other children and wrenched open Hazel’s door, prepared to duck inside.
She shrieked at an eardrum-bursting pitch.
“I’ll get her,” Breslin yelled. He added to Nathan. “I don’t have time for a debate. Go with him now.”
“Really, she can’t help it.” Nathan stood rigid in front of the cage, bits of chain still hanging from his shackles. “They’d drag her from the cage and trigger her shifts. The pain is bad enough she’d shift back and forth out of control. They thought it was funny to hit her and keep it going until she passed out.”
He spat the last words.
Closing his eyes for a second, Breslin prayed for calm. Not something he did often or—ever. But already half-shifted, Hazel lay in a tight fetal position, hiccupping through sobs. The form of her upper bruise-mottled torso resembled a normal three-year-old. Her lower extremities sported furry pale khaki-colored rabbit hind legs. Every time she tried to move, she gasped.
“Shit.” Quinn stepped back, “What the heck are we supposed to do? They riveted the cage to the wall. Not that I could drag it up the ladder.”
“Her parents,” Breslin demanded of Nathan.
“Doctors said her dad was human, a soldier who was killed in the war. But her mom—” Nathan looked away and said softly. “She died a few days ago from the tests.”
Breslin didn’t know where to channel his rage. It certainly wasn’t in this cold hole in the ground or in front of these children.
“Go,” he said again. “Clear the area.”
“No,” Nathan said.
“That wasn’t a request,” he snarled, his cougar grabbing hold. “Rayven needs you to testify for her.” That was not how he wanted to broach this conversation. Right then, another explosion hit and the cave rocked.
“Go. I’ll bring the girl.” He turned back to the small girl. “We’ll be fine. Right, Hazel?”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” Quinn muttered, and grasped Nathan by the arm and almost dragged the boy out of the cave. He shouted over his shoulder, �
��We’ll be at the top. Waiting for you!”
“Don’t. Get clear of the trailer.” Breslin settled on the floor outside the open cage as they disappeared from view and looked at the child while he sought his beast. It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn his cougar flashed in and out. The child had stopped crying when he spoke to her, so he tried again. “You and I are leaving here together, Hazel. I’d like it to be on your terms, but we’ve only got two seconds.”
Eyes wide, she just stared at him with her big blue eyes unblinking and her chin quivering. What he saw was patches of cornsilk-colored hair lying matted and dirty in a mostly mud-colored mess against her scalp. The rest of her looked frail, her skin translucent as if she hadn’t had a good meal or peaceful night’s sleep in days—weeks maybe.
A charge exploded too close to them in the tunnel. The walls shook again. More rubble landed around them. Hazel looked up and then back at him, but didn’t move.
He suspected she was waiting for him to pounce. Even so, she glanced between his face and the phone swinging on the chain around his neck.
“I’m waiting right here, and I promise not to hurt you.” He raised his hands to the chain, noting her fixated gaze. He lifted it over his head and held it out to her. “You can even wear my phone. See, it has—” What was the name of that thing Trevor played? He slid through the apps he’d never bothered with and held out the screen filled with neon-bright treasure chest. “A game.”
She bit her lip but took the phone in a fierce grip and let him slide the chain over her neck. He waved a finger between the two of them. “We need to have some rules. I trust you’ll decide we can leave soon, and I promise not to leave without you. We need to get outside. You know—fresh air, sunshine, macaroni and cheese.”