Switch of Fate 2

by Grace Quillen

  Vlade rested his back against the wall across from the heavy wooden door and waited. Twenty minutes later the noises coming from within stopped. Five minutes after that, Zver appeared, skin tinted red from his work. He spotted Vlade and his lip curled in a snarl. “Our sisters grow more vicious with every litter.” Zver wiped the sweat from his face.

  Vlade mused in his quiet way. Perhaps they would not be so, brother, if you did not keep them bound or birthing all their lives. But this argument had been settled years ago, and Vlade would not risk the decades he could lose by renewing it.

  Zver took off down the hall. Vlade played along with his arrogance, hurrying to follow, listening attentively to his brother’s words. “I must limit the variables of lineage to keep our power strong should there be no more Fatherborne.”

  Vlade tsked his tongue. Zver would be happiest if no more Fatherborne were ever born. Zver would kill them all, the three Fatherborne that were left, besides himself, if it served his purposes. Vlade held no illusions that his life was precious to Zver. It was barely so to him.

  Zver eyed him, so he gave report. “No news on Garner anywhere. I believe he has been Undone.”

  Zver dismissed the idea with a flick of his wrist. “Perhaps it was the twins in one of their little games.” He chuckled, zeroing in on Vlade with a sadistic sneer when he failed to laugh along. “You don’t find it funny, brother? I must confess I do. Almost as funny as that time our father had me set you on fire to see how fast you’d grow back from the ashes.”

  Vlade refused to let Zver bait him into doing something that would justify punishment. It was bad enough he had secrets he didn’t want Zver to know, a witness-at-large he was still trying to remedy, and now the return of switches to report. He couldn’t afford to lose time to Zver’s petty antics. He held his brother’s gaze and set his jaw before speaking. “Switches have returned. One chased me just days ago.”

  Rage seeped into Zver’s gaze, his sculpted jaw grinding his teeth together. “And you only think to tell me now?”

  The dangerous look in Zver’s eyes kept Vlade’s voice even and measured as he weighed his words carefully. “I knew you were busy. The fate of our whole race rests in your hands.”

  Zver’s lip twitched in disappointment at Vlade’s skilled evasion. “Fine. Choose a helper and go. Do what you must do to uncover the truth.”

  Vlade nodded sharply and turned, eager to leave. Zver’s voice reached after him with a final command. “Pick a shifter and learn what you can with your new toys.”

  Vlade could not flush, but fear clogged his throat.

  Zver knew of his secret experiments with weapons, and Zver had killed brothers for less.

  Chapter 15 - Mysteries And Moms

  Flint jogged to his Rover under darkening skies and tossed a box of odds and ends from the duplex into the backseat. Goldie was not around, and he hadn’t seen her since the day before, when he’d taken her the food. He didn’t need Carick on his ass, he was on his own ass, but trying to give Goldie space and time, too.

  Flint was glad to have the overcast day off. He’d spent the last few hours at the duplex, cleaning, packing, grabbing some special tools he needed from the kitchen that he knew Bryce wouldn’t miss. He was unsure, though, of a few things he’d found laying around, so Flint had gathered them in a box and was going to run by the Bear Claw to show Bryce and Molly and Nando before he threw the stuff out.

  He heard an engine rev behind him and turned to see Riot’s black motorcycle pull into the driveway on the other side of the duplex. What the fuck is that cat doing here? But the magenta hair spilling from the helmet of the woman behind him answered Flint’s question almost as soon as he asked it. So Darby was still chummy with that punk.

  She lifted her leg over the bike and handed Riot his extra helmet, then kissed his on the faceplate, leaving a deep burgundy lip-print, and headed inside. Flint didn’t miss the glare she shot over her shoulder and right into Flint’s eyes as she made her way up the front steps.

  What was it about him that Darby hated so much? He knew he’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but damn. That woman didn’t know the meaning of the word slack, much less how to cut him some. Riot probably was not helping. Flint waited while Riot backed out of the driveway and tore off down the street before backing out and making his own way toward town.

  But Riot didn’t turn north to go back to town. He turned to head deeper into the forest.

  (follow him.)

  Flint’s Instinct spoke up loud and clear as he reached the fork where Riot had turned. Careful to stay far enough back not to catch the puma’s attention, and keeping cars between them for as long as he could, Flint followed Riot for miles.

  The big cat ended up taking a washed-out dirt service road with ruts deep enough to strand even Flint’s tough-ass Rover if the rain came down too hard and fast. Instead he parked and jogged through the underbrush just off the road, prepared to dive into cover if Riot doubled back.

  By the time he spied Riot’s bike the shifter was standing next to it naked, stuffing his clothes into a bag much larger than them which he rolled up and secured with cording. He shifted into a tan, lean mountain lion with a single black diamond between his eyes. His ears twitched as he settled into his cat, then Riot picked up the bound sack with his teeth and ran on magically silent paws to a steep mountainside, where he found a path up the rock and disappeared.

  Flint made his way back to his ride as fat drops started to fall, unsure of what he’d seen or if it meant anything. So Riot liked to climb as a puma, that’s no crime. But something still felt off to Flint. He worried it like a rawhide chew, turning the questions over and over in his mind all the way to the Bear Claw Diner.

  Once inside, Molly noticed instantly, her condor senses on alert. She and Hernando didn't have the sharp perception of an eagle like Aven, but they were still sensitive to people's moods. “What’s the matter? Why are you wet?” she said by way of greeting, her shrewd brown eyes pinning Flint to the proverbial wall. He kissed her tan cheek as he set the box he’d brought from the duplex on the counter. Molly fluttered her hands at the box. “Not here, get a table! And a towel, you're dripping! It’s the lunch rush and we’re already strapped with poor Brittany gone.”

  Yep, every table was already taken. He snagged a seat near the counter and soaked in the bustling scene. Scents crowded in for his attention: human, shifter, half-shifter, and of course the wonderful food they served at the Bear Claw Diner.

  Molly and Hernando had been Uncle Bruce’s employees at the Black Bear Outfitting Company when the vampires killed him, and had been first to step up and help when Flint and Bryce stumbled into town. For twenty years after the brothers’ family had died, Molly and Hernando had run the BBOC, keeping the business the boys had inherited in the black and even thriving. But once Flint had been old enough to take over, and even more so after Bryce joined him, their adoptive parents had confessed that their true dream was to run a restaurant. They’d opened the Bear Claw Diner a few years back and were more successful than ever, especially with the influx of shifters they were having in Five Hills lately. Males and the occasional female, with all kind of animals, would frequently feel drawn to the diner and in particular its logo, which they now knew resembled something switches called the Ingrav.

  But to Flint the Bear Claw was an extension of home. Even as he watched, Bryce pushed through the door from the kitchen, a pie in each hand, and tucked them into the pastry case at one end of the counter. He saw Flint and strolled over, dusting his hands on a kitchen towel he then handed over to Flint. “Hey, bro, whatcha doing here?”

  Flint shrugged, toweling his arms. “Found a few things at the house I thought I’d get rid of if nobody wanted them.”

  Bryce poked through the box, his eyes lighting angrily on a cloth bag tucked in one corner. “What? You can’t throw out my diamonds, man!” He snatched the bag out of the box and glared at Flint with uncharacteristic fury. Flint didn’t know what had posses
sed the cub.

  He put up his hands in surrender. “Hey, sorry, B. I thought after all these years you’d accepted that they’re worthless.” It was true. The diamonds in that bag were useless crap, dug up from a mine where fifteen dollars bought you a day’s access to all the rough gemstone you could carry out. But Bryce treated them like he’d lucked onto De Beers’ secret stash. Flint had never understood it.

  Bryce stuffed the bag in his pocket, muttering as he turned back to the kitchen. “Not to me, they’re not.”

  Hernando came in from the back hallway that led to his and Molly’s office, spotted Flint, and came over for a handshake and back-slapping hug. “How are you, oso?”

  Flint looked into his adoptive father’s warm gray eyes. “Just as good as when you saw me three days ago, Nando.” Even after twenty-five years and Molly and Hernando legally adopting them, Flint had never been able to bring himself to call them Mom and Pop like Bryce did. Flint remembered their real parents; Bryce didn’t. Which was probably lucky for the kid, considering what Flint’s last memories of their parents were like.

  He shook it off and returned his focus to Nando, chatting as he poked through the box. “Don’t see nothing I need. You happy up there at Tsigule?” Hernando’s gray eyes pierced Flint’s reserve and compelled him to speak. Nando wasn’t the biggest fan of The Cause coming back, and he didn’t like the idea of Flint leaving to take the vampires on alone, but Flint needed him.

  Flint tuned his voice low. “Things are moving. Did Bryce bring Darby in this morning?”

  Hernando nodded, his salt and pepper hair catching the light. “He brought her. Riot took her home to get ready, then he’s bringing her back for the dinner shift. Something we should know?”

  Flint shifted his weight from foot to foot. So Riot was just helping out? That didn’t fit with Flint’s picture of the big cat. He’d have to keep a close eye, make sure Darby didn’t get her ass in a crack she couldn’t get it out of. “Bryce tell you Darby’s roommate is a switch?”

  The older male shook his head wonderingly. “He didn’t mention it. Another switch in town. What a boon for you.”

  Molly shuffled over to take a turn looking in the box. “You talking about Darby? She seems like a nice girl, Flint, why don’t you ask her out?”

  Flint nearly choked. Darby, a nice girl? “I don’t think she likes me very much. We kind of got off on the wrong foot.”

  Molly’s brow, still smooth of wrinkles even at her age, creased in confusion. “Don’t be silly. Everyone knows my boys are as sweet as the pies I bake. About time the two of you settled down, anyway. Start families. You’re not getting any younger, niño. Your bear is going to start growling soon.”

  An ache the size of Wyoming woke deep in Flint’s gut. He’d never admit it to Molly, but his bear had been growling for years, urging him to find a female, settle down, keep her well-fed and round with his babies as often as she wanted, and to raise those babies in the kind of loving home he’d had before the vampires ruined it. But it wasn’t in the cards for him.

  Hernando looked at Flint with shrewd eyes that had always seen more than Flint had been strictly comfortable with, as if the old bird could not only pick up on his emotions, he could hear every thought as it ran through Flint's head. “The Great Bear has plans for you, Flint. Plans that don’t include you living alone. The sooner you accept this and get on with it, the easier life will be.”

  Flint muscled the hibernating beast of his bear’s Instinct back underground, back to the depths where those desires had to stay buried if he was ever going to avenge his family.

  It was harder than it had ever been before, perhaps because for the first time, he had a face he would like to attach to those desires. A face defined by kind blue eyes, and a sweetness that made his heart swell pumpkin-sized.

  Chapter 16 - Back It Up

  Later that day Flint returned to the duplex and pulled into the empty driveway on Bryce’s side, prepared to take another stab at getting Goldie committed to The Cause. He opened the car door and heard the thump of bass coming from her side of the building. It was after five o’clock. The rain had stopped and Flint had assumed Darby would be at the restaurant and that Goldie would be home from school, but the skull-rattling boom of hard-hitting hip-hop wasn’t what he expected to hear.

  He stepped up to the porch and looked in the front window where the curtains had been drawn back, and his mouth went dry. It was Goldie, her mouth rushing along to lightning-fast lyrics over a bass-line so heavy he could hear the window rattle in its frame, shaking her ass to the beat as she dusted the furniture.

  Flint was hypnotized. He started to groove with the music a little, admiring the sway of Goldie’s slim hips as she shook them along with her feather duster. Aw, hell yeah. Back it up for me, Pumpkin.

  His usually-alert senses barely registered the vehicle coming from the dead end of the street until it backfired directly behind him, sounding like a gunshot. Goldie screamed, her head whipping around for the source of the bang. She met Flint’s eyes outside her window and screamed again, seeming to duck out of sight.

  Flint stood there frozen. Did she think he hadn’t seen her, and she was trying to hide? He wasn’t sure whether he should back down the stairs and leave her alone or knock on the door and ask her why she’d ducked. He chose knocking.

  When Goldie opened the door she was rubbing low on her left hip, a pained look in her eyes. “Ow. You scared me.”

  The expression on Flint’s face must have relayed his confusion, because Goldie’s cheeks pinked. “When you startled me, my foot slipped and I fell.” She flushed more. “I’m a little clumsy,” she said quietly.

  His resolve strengthened. He wanted her working alongside him. “Let me make it up to you. Dinner tonight?”

  Goldie’s smile froze and he knew she was going to turn him down. He should have tried something different. He smiled and put his hands up, palms-out, trying to show her there was no pressure to say yes. He wasn’t so attached to her answer at all. Nope. And he definitely had not been rehearsing the best ways to ask her the whole way here. “Leftovers are cool, too. I wanted to offer.” He turned for the stairs. Dammit.

  But Goldie’s shy voice had his toes doing a happy dance inside his boots that had nothing to do with a mission accomplished. “Just let me grab a sweater.”

  Once she was settled in the passenger seat and Flint had jogged around to climb into his side, he popped the question. “You mind if we go by the BBOC first? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Goldie looked over, her expression wary but curious. “Another switch?”

  Flint shook his head. “No, just you and Cora on that list for now.”

  She nodded and they headed out, speaking of light things, like her new job and how she was getting around. No magic, no vampires. Definitely no shifters. He didn’t know why he hadn’t told her that part yet. Hadn’t come up.

  Then she said that cat’s name. “But Riot said he’d have my car fixed soon.”

  Flint startled. What in the hell? Something about that male was still not sitting right. “So you know that Riot was toting Darby around town today on his motorcycle? You’re okay with that?”

  Goldie stared out the window. “Not like I can stop her. What do you have against him, anyway? He seems nice enough to me.”

  How was he going to explain this to her? He didn’t want to scare her, and J had told him to keep his mouth shut about Riot’s record, but Flint had to tell her something. It was only fair she know who her sister was getting mixed up with. “I run this sort of physical fitness training group-”

  “Like Crossfit?” Goldie interrupted.

  Flint gave a laugh that sounded more like a grunt. “Not quite that serious. Anyway, one night about a year ago Riot nearly beat a guy to death and nobody knows why. They were supposed to be sparring.”

  Goldie’s eyes went wide with alarm. “And you think he could do that to my- uh, to Darby?”

  Well, shit, now
she was scared anyway. Flint rushed to backpedal. “No. I mean, I don’t know. He’s never hurt a woman as far as I’ve heard. But he’s a shifty fucker, that’s for sure.”

  Goldie settled back into her seat. “Warning her off him won’t work. It will push her at him.”

  She sounded like she was tired of it. Best of friends, or not really friends at all? He was beginning to have his suspicions, although the pair looked nothing alike. “How long have you two known each other?”

  Goldie hesitated just a beat before answering. “Times like this, it feels like forever.”

  They parked and Flint opened Goldie’s door, watching her petite legs reach for the faraway ground as she slid from his car, her head only coming up to his shoulders when she landed. No sir, Flint did not mind his women being short. Seeing her reminded him of the way she’d danced when she hadn’t known he was there, the shimmy of her hips and the way he’d wished he could be pressed up against her as she grooved to the rhythm. But instead Flint chased the image from his head and pointed away from the river, behind the store. “We’re going that way.”

  They went up the hill together, side by side. Goldie slipped once on the muddy ground and Flint reached out to steady her, ended up holding her hand. She didn’t pull away. Mmhm. He wanted to ask her out again, nevermind that they were already on a date. Kind of.

  At the top of the hill, they stopped and looked down at Carick, standing there talking on his phone. Between that average human behavior and his outfit of jeans, long-sleeve red t-shirt, and hiking boots, the big fucker almost looked like a NFL football player on his day off. Except bigger, and scarier, like you could tell by looking at him that he didn’t belong.

  “Who’s that?” she said, letting go of Flint’s hand.

  “That,” he said, feeling the chill of her absence more keenly than he wanted to admit, “is our switch expert.”

  Goldie gaped at him for a second or two before turning and striding on. Was she angry? Curious? He couldn’t be sure.