Grant looked over and caught her staring. “What?” he asked. “Do I have something on my face?”
“Uh, no. But I’ve never seen you look so tense. You should relax a little. It doesn’t look like we’re being followed.”
Grant glanced over his shoulder, as if to verify whether what Storm had just said was actually true.
“No, we haven’t been followed,” he said. “But I just remembered that I know a few more shifters in the city who I should have warned.”
Storm’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know more shifters in the city?” she asked. Grant had tried to keep his circle of friends small, and had especially avoided making friends with shifters outside of their little group.
“Yeah,” Grant said slowly. “I haven’t talked to them in years. But I should have warned them.”
Storm frowned. She knew there were other shifters in Chicago. In a city that large, there were bound to be quite a few, after all. But there was no way they could have warned everyone and still made it out themselves. Sometimes you had to just save yourself and your closest friends and hope for the best for everyone else.
“You can’t save everyone, Grant,” Storm said softly.
“No, I know,” Grant said. “But I should have saved them. They were members of my clan. Their parents were good friends of my dad.”
Storm raised a shocked eyebrow in Grant’s direction. “You have more clan members in Chicago?”
Grant nodded slowly. “Yeah. They actually tried to hang out with me a few times when I first moved to Chicago for law school. But I was pretty rude to them. That was at the height of my anti-clan phase, so I didn’t want anything to do with anyone from my clan. I had Jack to hang out with, and that was enough for me. Jack actually hung out with them a few times, but they had a falling out with him because of me and my stubborn refusal to talk to them.”
Storm nodded slowly to acknowledge that she was listening. She wasn’t sure what else to say.
“I should have warned them, Storm. I know they weren’t my closest friends. But…they were my own clan members. I’m next in line to be their alpha. I’m responsible for their safety.”
Storm’s whole face must have looked shocked right now. She had never heard Grant speak so explicitly about the fact that he was in line for the title of alpha. Usually, he got angry if anyone even said the word alpha around him. Storm glanced back at Juno to see if she was listening. Juno’s face looked just as shocked as Storm’s.
“What do I say?” Storm mouthed to Juno. Juno shrugged helplessly. What could anyone say, really? It seemed Grant had finally decided to face the fact that he had been born an alpha, and would always be an alpha.
“I have to go back for them,” Grant said, staring straight ahead with a determined look on his face. Storm wasn’t even sure if he was talking to her anymore. He seemed to be having a conversation with himself.
“I have to go back,” Grant said again. “I’m going to drop you all off at Drew’s, and then I’m going back to get them before it’s really too late.”
They had almost reached Drew’s cabin at this point, and the hovercar had started descending. Storm chewed her lip nervously, trying to work up the courage to say something to Grant. She knew he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. Finally, as the hovercar slowly came to a landing right in front of Drew’s cabin, Storm decided to just spit out the words and hope for the best.
“You can’t go back, Grant.”
Grant gave her a sideways glance but didn’t answer, instead he grunted and then hopped out of the hovercar. Storm let out an exasperated sigh and jumped out after him. Beside her, Bash had just landed, and Jack and Silver were climbing out of the hover.
“You can’t stop me, Storm,” Grant said in retort.
Storm was a bit shocked by the sharp tone in Grant’s voice, and she paused for a moment. But only for a moment. Then she went right back to explaining to him why he couldn’t go.
“Grant, by the time you get back to Chicago, all hell will have broken loose. The place is going to be complete chaos, and it’s quite possible that your face is all over the news, depending on how clear all those phone videos were. Everything is going to be on lockdown, so there won’t be any possible way for you to sneak in unnoticed.”
Jack, Silver, and Bash, who had been talking and laughing happily moments before, fell silent. Everyone was staring at Grant with questions in their eyes. In the background, a creaking sound filled the air as the front door to Drew’s cabin opened and Drew stepped outside. Even Drew didn’t speak, though. He sensed the tension in the air and kept his mouth shut, leaning against the doorframe.
Jack was the one to finally break the silence. “You’re going back to Chicago, Grant?”
Storm saw Drew raise an eyebrow in the background, but he still said nothing.
“Yes, I’m going back. We left three of the bears from our clan behind.”
Jack’s face instantly went pale. “They’re still in Chicago? Are you sure? I thought they had moved?”
Grant shook his head. “No, they’re still there. They had planned on moving to Texas for some sort of job with a big clan down in Austin, but that fell through at the last minute.”
“What the hell is going on,” Bash asked, finally growing impatient. “Does someone want to fill me in?”
Grant glanced over at Bash. “Three of the bears from my clan back in Alaska are still in Chicago. Calum and Hope are twins, and then there’s Mia, who actually moved out to Chicago at the same time as Jack. I have to go back to the city and get them out of there.”
“Grant, that’s crazy,” Silver said, piping in. “Going back now is a suicide mission.”
A chuckle from the front porch of the cabin drew everyone’s attention to Drew, who had started laughing as he watched the conversation in front of him unfold.
“What’s so funny, dude?” Bash asked. “Silver is right. It’s a total suicide mission.
“Yeah, I’m sure it is,” Drew said. “So what? The dude is obviously an alpha, and alphas are known for their insistence on saving their clan members, even when it’s a suicide mission. It’s Grant, right?”
Grant nodded at Drew.
“Welcome back, buddy. Good to have you all here. I’m assuming you’re the alpha of this little ragtag group?”
There was a long pause as all of the Fur Coats looked around at each other, unsure of how to respond. Before last night, none of them even dared to say the word alpha around Grant. But now, it just fit. Grant had stepped up as their leader when the circumstances demanded it.
“Yeah,” Jack finally said, a big smile spreading across his face. “Yeah, you’re right. Grant’s our alpha.”
Grant looked sharply over at Jack, but didn’t protest.
“Well, then, you all should know better than to talk him out of going back to save his bears,” Drew said. “Let’s take care of destroying one of these hovers so it doesn’t attract any attention with its electronic signals. And then I’ll get Grant some decent weapons so he can take the other hover back to Chicago to rescue his other friends. Come on everyone, chop chop. We don’t have any time to waste here. Get away from the hover so I can start demolishing it. Grant, head over to that shed by the cabin. There are a lot of weapons and ammo in there. Start picking some stuff out and I’ll catch up with you in a minute to help.”
Storm watched as Grant nodded and started walking slowly toward the shed. Then she took off after him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, looking over at her in surprise.
“Picking out my weapons, too,” she said, raising her chin stubbornly.
He sighed. “Storm, you can’t come with me. It’s too dangerous.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Storm said. “I’m an alpha, too. If this is an alpha mission, then I’m coming with you.”
Grant let out an exasperated sigh, but he didn’t protest. In fact, Storm thought she saw the hint of a smile pulling at his lips as he turned
to continue walking toward the shed.
It was time to go rescue some bears.
Chapter Eleven
Storm eyed the horizon warily. It was the middle of the day, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. The clouds had grown darker and darker, going from light gray to almost black. She looked over at Grant, whose face was set in a tight line. He hadn’t said much, but Storm could tell he was getting worried. The wind was growing stronger, and the crazy weather system they had encountered didn’t show any signs of slowing down. Storm tried to remain calm, glancing over and over at the trip computer that listed their estimated arrival time.
According to the computer, they would be flying another two hours before the hovercar reached the north side of the Chicago suburbs. Drew had contacted Calum, Hope, and Mia, and instructed them to leave Chicago right away and meet Grant and Storm well outside the city limits. Hopefully, this would allow Grant and Storm to pick up the trio without having to actually fight off a bunch of police hovers.
But if this weather system kept getting worse, they weren’t going to make it across the lake. Storm bit her lower lip anxiously, chewing on it until she tasted blood. Finally, she couldn’t keep quiet anymore. She turned to look at Grant, and tried to sound as calm as possible while she spoke.
“Grant? Uh, do you have any idea how long this storm is supposed to last.”
Grant glanced over at her, his own face looking a little less sure with each passing second. “I’m not sure. This wasn’t on the weather radar when I checked a few hours ago. It literally came out of nowhere.”
Storm’s frown deepened. “I’m not sure we should keep flying into this. It seems to only be getting worse. The hover can’t take winds much stronger than this.”
Grant was silent for several moments, weighing Storm’s words in his own mind. A huge gust of wind sent the hover into a bit of a spin, but Grant quickly adjusted the controls and corrected its course.
“We have to keep going. We can’t just leave my clan members alone in the middle of this mess.”
Storm let out a long, slow sigh. “I get that. But we have no idea what we’re flying into. Both in terms of the weather and in terms of what might be going on in the city of Chicago.”
Grant only grunted in response. Storm knew that meant that he knew she was right. They had disabled all but the most necessary of the electrical systems on the hover, to avoid any chance of detection. They had no contact with Drew, and only had very basic navigation systems online. The more time that passed, the more likely it was that the chaos in Chicago had started. But they had no way of knowing for sure how bad things were, since all of their connections to the outside world were severed. They didn’t have any way of checking the weather either. Grant had looked before they left, and the forecast had called for completely clear skies. By the looks of their current predicament, the forecast had been dead wrong.
Another gust of wind sent the hover into an even worse spin. Storm’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the edge of her seat and tried not to react. It took a lot longer for Grant to correct the spin this time, and the hover lost several hundred feet of altitude in the process. Almost as soon as Grant had the hover flying straight again, another gust of wind came and threw them into another spin, causing them to lose several hundred more feet of altitude. As soon as Grant had recovered control, Storm looked over at him in a bit of a panic.
“Grant? We can’t help out your clan members if we’re dead.”
Grant let out a frustrated string of curses, but then started turning the hover around. “You’re right,” he said. “We can’t fly through this. We’ll have to try again later.”
The winds were continuing to pick up speed, and their small hover was being tossed around the sky like a rag doll. Storm gripped the seat and kept silent, even though she wanted to gasp and scream out every time they went into a spin or lost altitude. She had grown up flying through some crazy weather, but she had never seen anything quite this strange. She knew better than to panic, though. The last thing Grant needed right now was the distraction of trying to console her or tune out her screams. After fifteen minutes of being tossed around in the sky over Lake Michigan, Storm breathed a silent prayer of thanks when she saw the dark shoreline in the distance. Grant was flying them straight back to the Michigan coast. They were in a wild, unpopulated area, which was just as well. Hopefully he could find a safe spot for them to land and wait out this weather. And hopefully Grant’s clan members would know enough to just sit tight and wait for him to show up.
As they neared the shoreline, the hover continued to be tossed around, although the winds here were a little bit weaker. Grant found a small, open space in the trees and started descending toward it, fighting to keep the hover steady on the way down. Storm wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t look away as they headed rapidly toward the earth. Tree branches brushed against her window as the hover was tossed sideways a few hundred feet above the earth, but Grant managed to correct its course before they actually crashed.
And then, just as quickly as everything had started, it was over. The hover touched down on solid ground, and Storm realized she could let out the breath she had been holding. Next to her, Grant ran his fingers through his hair and let out a long breath of his own.
“Well, shit,” he said.
And then the rain started coming down. A few drops splattered against the hover’s windshield, followed moments later by a torrential downpour. Storm looked over at Grant and whistled.
“Looks like we landed just in time,” she said.
“Yeah,” he agreed, trying to look out the window, even though all that was visible right now was a blur of water. “Seems like we managed to avoid any damage to the hover, too, so that’s good. It looks like it might be a while, though, before we can get back in the air.”
His voice sounded more frustrated than Storm had ever heard it. She knew he wanted to get to his clan members, but there wasn’t much they could do about that right now. And she knew there wasn’t much she could say to make him feel better. But she had to at least try.
“We’ll get to them, Grant. The storm can’t last that long. And they’re outside of Chicago, so they’re probably okay for the moment. It will take a little while before the police get organized enough to move their attack on shifters outside of the city limits.”
Grant didn’t answer for a long time. His violet eyes were dark and angry, and Storm had a strange urge to reach over and give him a hug. But she refrained. She didn’t want to send off the wrong signal to him right now. He had enough on his mind without having to wonder about whether or not she was interested in him.
But that was actually the strange thing about Grant—when he was angry, the expression on his face made him look even more attractive than normal. There was something about angry passion in an alpha that was hard to resist. Right now, stranded in a hover in the middle of nowhere, Storm was finding Grant hard to resist. She tried to fight the feeling washing over her, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore these moments. She cursed softly under her breath, wishing she had thought more carefully about her decision to head off by herself in a hover with Grant. She should have known she would end up fighting off feelings for him. Of course, she’d had no way of knowing she would actually end up marooned on the Michigan coastline with him.
“What?” Grant asked, looking over at her and catching her staring at him a little too intently.
“Uh, nothing,” Storm said. It was the best she could come up with, and she knew it was weak.
Grant sighed, and ran his fingers through his hair again. “How long are you going to keep playing this game, Storm?” he asked.
“What game?”
“You know. Trying to pretend like you aren’t as drawn to me as I am to you.”
“We’re both alphas, Grant. It will never work. We’ll just fight all the time.”
Grant actually cracked a smile. “Yeah. And then have fiery makeup sex,” he said.
&
nbsp; Storm’s heart started beating out of control. She couldn’t believe he had just talked out loud about them having sex. “Grant!” she reprimanded sharply, even though she was enjoying the little thrill rushing through her body right now.
Before Storm could say anything else, Grant had leaned over to her side of the hover and put his lips over hers. Storm tried to resist for a moment, but his kiss was urgent and insistent, and she couldn’t keep herself from melting into it. Fire jumped from his body to hers, and she felt herself growing weak and dizzy from the high.
His tongue slipped past her lips, and his hands reached for her face. His palms were hot and electric against her cheeks, and she gasped for breath under the intensity of the moment. Overwhelmed, she pulled back and looked into his eyes, desperately trying to convince herself that she needed to stop.
When she saw his eyes, she gasped. The deep violet color was gone, and his eyes were glowing yellow, and churning with emotion.
“Wow,” Storm said softly. “It’s true, then? That your clan’s eyes change?”
Grant merely nodded. Storm had heard many stories about the way the men in Grant’s clan had a special gene mutation that caused their violet eyes to glow yellow when they were filled with desire. Storm had never really believed the legends, but sitting right in front of her was proof that it was true. Grant’s eyes looked almost otherworldly as he gazed over at her.
“Why are you fighting so hard against your feelings, Storm?” Grant said, reaching his hand up to trace a finger down her cheek. Fire jumped from his skin to hers, leaving a hot trail down her face everywhere he touched her.
“It’s a bad idea,” Storm said, although her voice sounded unsure. He was slowly wearing down her resolve, and he knew it. He was a master at pushing her just to the point where she would truly pull away, and then giving her a chance to breathe before putting on the pressure again.
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