by Jeff Hale
The guilt on his face made me sad. “I asked you to keep an eye on him, Alex, remember? You were only doing what I asked.”
He nodded, still frowning, finished off the cereal and pushed the bowl away. “I know, but I’ve been back in the States for a couple months now. I came to Vegas and checked in on Henry’s pack, you know, just to make sure they were still behaving… which they aren’t. I wanted to see you, but I was just… afraid, I guess, afraid that you’d hate me, so I went back to Florida. I shouldn’t have, I should have just sucked it up and found you.”
Kris stood and cleared the bowls away, taking them into the kitchen, but I knew she had her ears perked up to hear our conversation.
“I don’t think I could ever hate you, Alex,” I said. “We’re not just pack, we’re friends too.” And something more, maybe, that I haven’t figured out yet.
He nodded at me, taking another drink of the soda, before setting it down and closing his eyes with a sigh. He opened them again and gave me a sober look. “Darien’s missing.”
A stab of cold slithered down my spine and my heart seemed to skip a beat. Kris came back into the dining room and dropped back into her chair. “What do you mean, he’s missing?” she asked.
“His father called me yesterday morning, told me that Darien’s actually been gone for almost two months. He said that he has a ‘suspicion’ as to where Darien might be, but that it’s not something he can get involved in. However, as not only his pack, but as his cubs—” cub was a term that was used by shifters to describe someone who was created by a specific shifter, almost like child, “—you and I could.”
“Waitaminute. Doesn’t Darien’s father count as that, too? I mean, I know that they aren’t pack, but Darien is his child,” I said.
Darien was a feral shifter, meaning that he was born to two shifters and had been one since birth. His parents both counted him as cub since they had created him. Alex and I were different, in my case being a wilder, having one shifter parent, so still having to be Blooded to be changed, and in Alex’s case, his becoming a shifter after Darien had attacked him in a moment of thrall and severely wounded him, the type of shifter the rest referred to as savaged due to their creation.
“He does, yes, but I guess it’s a political thing that makes it touchy for him to get involved. He wants us both to fly to Greece, to see if we can track Darien down.” Alex tapped his forehead and I knew what he meant. As Darien’s cubs, we both had the ability to sense him when he was near enough, and him to sense us as well.
“Greece? I thought Darien went to Sicily?”
“Stefano, Darien’s father, has his home in Sicily, but the Council has their seat in Greece, a bit farther away from the Vatican.”
“What’s wrong with being near the Vatican?” I asked, confused. My mother was a good Roman Catholic. I wasn’t so much, but I still respected the Church for what it was. Which reminded me, Mom was expecting me and Kris for Easter in a couple of weeks.
Alex grinned wryly. “The Vatican has its own power and the rest of us AEs try to not tread too closely to it if we don’t have to.”
“I’m coming, too,” Kris put in, giving me a mutinous glare, as though daring me to tell her she couldn’t tag along. I thought she was afraid I would disappear, like I had the last time something big had happened. “I’m pack, too… sorta.”
She was… sorta. Shifter packs could be complicated things, made even more so by the fact that they were usually not made up completely of any one breed of shifter. The ones that were exclusive that way were uncommon.
The Alpha of any given pack, or even the Beta—the next in the chain of command—could extend pack protection and privileges to anyone they deemed worthy of them, and it seemed that when the vampires had still been hot on my tail over a year ago and Aerick had whisked me away to Las Vegas, Darien had Marked Kris for protection.
He had extended the same protection to Nina, another wilder, or half-blood shifter like I had been (she just hadn’t chosen to be Blooded yet, if she ever did) after the Las Vegas pack had tried to kill me and Darien had beaten their Alpha in a fight. He’d given control of that pack back to their leader on the conditions that no one in Darien’s pack, or under his protection, was to ever be touched, hurt, accosted, etc.
I shrugged. “But you’re going home if it seems to be getting dangerous, got it?”
“Got it.”
“So you’ll come with me to find him?” Alex asked, giving me a searching look.
“Of course I will, why wouldn’t I?”
“I just wasn’t sure, after what happened between you two.” He glanced away from me.
I hadn’t forgotten, although I had long ago forgiven. In a jealous temper, Darien had tried to force himself on me during one of the last times I had seen him. Not the kind of force that is rape necessarily; Alphas could pull their packs’ Aspects to the fore, letting the beasts’ natural inclinations take over.
I was a cat shifter, and we tended to have spotty morals; Darien had pulled my cat to the surface, making me almost cheat on Aerick with him, and I might have if Alex hadn’t stopped him. It was the only time I had seen Alex in a rage, and I thought he might have gladly killed Darien right then if he could have.
Once Darien had realized what he had done, he had gone into a state of self-hatred that had resulted in his departure to Sicily to join his father, who was one of the Elders on the shifter European Council. It seemed that no matter how angry I got with Darien, or how much I loved somebody else, I could never shake him from my heart. Kris didn’t comment. I’d told her about it long ago.
“Water under the bridge, Alex.” I made a noncommittal gesture. “Doesn’t mean I’m okay with what happened, just that I don’t hate him for it.”
I got up and headed for the bedroom, finding where he had left my purse and retrieving my cell phone. I checked the voice mail as I headed back out to the dining room; there was one from Alex saying he need to talk to me, and one from Nina saying that Alex was looking for me. I dialed Nina’s number as I sat down.
She answered after the sixth ring, sounding somewhat out of breath, and I wasn’t sure if I had interrupted her during sex or her martial arts workout; she was going to be a cat shifter like me if she ever chose to be Blooded, but she had thin morals to begin with and being a cat just made it worse.
“Whatcha need, kitty Kat?” she asked breathlessly, and then I heard her gulp liquid down; must have been a workout I interrupted. “Oh, did Alex ever find you?”
“Yeah, he did. That’s partially why I’m calling.”
“Oh? Do tell!” she said, her voice mischievous.
I loved Nina, I did, but no way in hell was I going to tell her I had slept with Alex. “This is kinda serious, Nina. Darien’s dropped off the radar over there in Europe and his dad wants Alex and me to see if we can figure out where he’s gone off to. It’s a pack matter, and since you’re almost pack, well, I figured you should know.”
“Oh, shit, that doesn’t sound good. I hope he’s okay.” She paused a moment, gulped down more of whatever it was she was drinking. “I would go with you guys, although not sure what kind of help I’d be since I’m not changed yet, but Lucien really needs me here right now.” I could hear the disappointment in her voice, knew that she wasn’t just blowing us off.
“That’s okay, I wasn’t really calling to insist you come with us; Kris is being determined in that direction as it is. I just thought you should know what was going on.”
“You guys just be careful, okay? And call me when you find out anything new. And yes, I will come by and check on your cat.”
“We will, I will. Thanks, Nina.” I snapped the phone shut and looked at Alex. “So, when do we leave? School’s out for Spring Break, I don’t have a job, Nina will make sure Angel doesn’t starve.”
I was almost glad that I didn’t have a job to worry about now. I had been fine with finding one, but both of my parents had wanted me to be able to concentrate on my schooling,
so they were paying for everything.
My mother had inherited my now dead step-father’s multimillion dollar business, and my father was a couple century old shifter-vampire hybrid who was now the Alpha of the North American hybrid pack and extremely wealthy in his own right. I would be well taken care of if I decided to never work a day in my life, Kris as well since my mother had informally adopted her.
“As soon as possible. I was thinking that we could head down to the airport and get tickets for the earliest flight out if you’re okay with that?” He gave me a deferential look, as though it were up to me now.
Unfortunately, it was. Darien was Alpha, and in his absence, it was the Beta or the next highest ranking shifter who led. We had no Beta and Alex was no Alpha, so my half-blood shifter heritage left me in charge.
Sometimes it was extremely hard for me to reconcile Alex’s two personalities: the one that was strong and supportive, always there when I needed him, and the one that was submissive to Darien, and due to my own half-blood, me. I knew this duality must chafe at Alex, who had been born fully human and raised in human culture. I knew it did with me; I hadn’t found out what I was until I was eighteen (I was almost twenty now), and Darien and I had butted heads constantly over shifter culture and human culture.
“Sure, just let’s get dressed first,” I told him.
We hit the airport about an hour later, Kris and I both dressed almost alike in jeans and t-shirts. The early April air in Las Vegas was already warm, promising and even warmer May. Alex had donned a white button up shirt to go with the jeans he had on earlier.
When we reached the ticket counter, Kris went first, handing the woman behind the counter her identification and requesting a ticket for the earliest flight out that would get us to Athens, Greece.
Kris was told the earliest flight out was at four-forty-five that afternoon. She paid for her ticket, then stepped aside to let Alex and me forward. I handed the woman my ID, saw her give it a double check, then was informed that the earliest flight for me was at eight that evening. I gave the woman a confused look.
“But you just said that the earliest flight was at four-forty-five,” I said, pointing at Kris.
The woman looked from Kris to me, then smiled the way you would if you were trying to explain something to someone who wasn’t very intelligent. “Yes, that’s correct, for a regular flight.” She tapped my ID, her finger on the little sticker that proclaimed me as non-human. “But for an AE flight, the earliest is eight.”
I just stared at her. The last time I had flown had been on my father’s private jet, loaned out specifically to me. I heard Alex mutter an expletive behind me.
“The flights are segregated?” I felt like a moron. I must have missed something, somewhere in the news that had mentioned that air travel was being segregated. Or maybe I hadn’t. The human government was being rather cagey on certain things.
“Yes,” the woman answered, still smiling at me like I was mentally deficient.
“So what you’re saying is that my friend can’t ride on the same airplane as me?” Kris’s voice was loud with the question; she was pissed and didn’t mind showing it.
The woman turned her attention to Kris. “No, miss, no AEs are allowed on regular human flights. It’s against the new safety laws that were passed a couple months ago.
Kris narrowed her eyes at the woman. “So. Are humans allowed on the AE flights?”
The woman seemed taken aback. I was sure she hadn’t been asked that question before. “I don’t know, miss.”
“Is there some safety regulation that says they aren’t?” Kris’s questions had gotten the attention of some of the nearby, and not so nearby, people in the other lines along the counter.
“Not that I’m aware of, miss.”
Kris slapped her ticket back down on the counter. “Then I’d like to have this changed to the eight o’clock flight, if you don’t mind.”
The woman’s eyes went wide. “But, miss, that’s an AE flight, I’m not sure that would be a wise…”
“Look, I happen to be perfectly fine with AEs. My best friend is one for that matter, and to be perfectly honest, I’d probably feel a lot safer on a plane full of them than of humans. So unless there is some regulation or new law or whatever that says that a human cannot choose to fly on the AE flights, I’d really appreciate it if you’d switch my ticket.” Kris cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows.
“If that’s what you would like, miss.” The woman looked slightly worried, but she took Kris’s ticket and exchanged it out for one that matched my flight and one that Alex got.
It was a little before noon so we had plenty of time to go back to the apartment and pack. We walked away from the counter, Kris still fuming and grumbling under her breath.
“I’m sorry about that,” Alex said. “I flew over by myself so it hadn’t even occurred to me that they might be doing something like that on flights now. I thought it was rather odd that there were so many AEs on the plane.”
“It’s a bunch of bullshit, is what it is.” There was still anger in Kris’s tone. “You guys have been flying right next to them for decades, but now, just because they know what you are, now they treat you like terrorists or something. And it’s not even just the flight, they’ve been making it more difficult for non-humans on lots of things, all starting with that stupid registration thing.”
Kris was right. For the most part, we still enjoyed the same rights as humans, but it had become harder for some AEs to get jobs, get loans, be allowed into certain schools, count on human law enforcement for help.
“This was why the shifters were torn on making themselves known to the humans,” Alex said, shrugging slightly. “We were worried that things like this might happen.”
The shifter community had been very close to reaching a decision about coming forward to the humans when the Barrier had fallen and taken the choice right out of their hands—theirs and every other supernatural creatures’ that had once tried to hide.
“Well, we have to make the best of the situation, whether we like it or not,” I said, sighing and chewing my lip. “Given more time, hopefully things will lighten up.”
We came to a set of double doors that led out of the building and to the passenger drop off and pickup area. We hadn’t come by cab, and had parked in the short term parking. The airport was very busy, especially with Spring Break and Easter coming up, and it suddenly dawned on me that I would have to call my parents and tell them I might be missing Easter with them. We were about halfway to my car when I heard the gunshot ring out, making all my senses go into high alert. Alex maneuvered himself to get in front of us, but it was too late.
Kris dropped like a stone, a startled noise coming from her as blood blossomed across the front of her shirt. She lay on her back on the pavement, red beginning to pool underneath her as I sank to my knees next to her, Alex already shielding her body from further attack.
I could hear screams and yells, saw airport security running toward us, weapons drawn as they scanned the milling people for the shooter. I could hear someone talking to an emergency operator.
Kris’s grey eyes met mine, already glassy with shock, her body starting to tremble uncontrollably. “Kat?” she whispered, grimacing in pain, and I was glad that I couldn’t see any blood in her mouth. I’d seen enough detective shows; blood in the mouth on a gunshot was always a bad sign. The blood puddling underneath her was bad enough already.
“Ssh, Kris, ambulance is on its way.” I could hear the sirens, already very close. “You’ll be fine.” I tried to keep the tremor out of my voice, because I wasn’t sure she would be fine. I had no clue why someone would shoot her, then again maybe they’d been aiming for me or Alex and had missed.
“Kat? Oh, god, it hurts!” Kris grasped weakly at my hand. “I need you… to do something for me…” Her voice was just as weak as her grip.
“Anything, Kris.”
“Call Matt.” And then she lost conscio
usness.
FOUR
KATELYN
Alex followed the ambulance in my car, while I rode to the hospital with Kris. The paramedics assured me that while she was severely injured, she wasn’t going to die… at least based upon what they could see. They told me that it looked like the bullet had gone all the way through and out her back, but they weren’t sure if it had hit anything vital on the way through.
Once we got to the hospital, they wheeled Kris away to surgery to ascertain how much damage had been done and to fix her. I was left out in the waiting room, trying not to cry, when I remembered that she had wanted me to call Matt.
Why in hell does she want me to call Matt? I had absolutely no clue, but if that was what she wanted then that’s what I would do. It would give me something else to dwell on anyway.
So I headed back outside to the parking lot and dialed his cell, hoping that maybe he could answer the question as to why she wanted me to call him. After the fifth time of getting sent to voicemail after several rings, I left a message and gave up.
Alex had shown up by then and was waiting patiently for me to finish what I was doing, although he looked upset. I knew he was worried about Kris, I could feel the emotion coming off of him, and why shouldn’t he be... she was part of his pack after all, even if she was only human.
“Any clue why Kris would want me to call Matt?” I asked him as he followed me back inside to the waiting room, thinking he might know more than I did.
“No idea. Were you able to get hold of him?”
I shook my head. “Kept ringing then going to voicemail. I left him messages, but maybe he doesn’t have his phone with him. Anyway, they took her in to surgery so they can patch her up, it’ll probably take a few hours. I’m going to wait here. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I’ll understand.”
I found a seat somewhat away from everyone else and dropped into it. I felt tired all of a sudden, and figured it was the adrenaline starting to leave my system. Alex settled into the seat next to me, snaked an arm out and around my shoulders, giving me a look that said he’d remove the arm if I wanted him to.