One Night With the Shifter

by Theresa Meyers

  The spokesperson and the media peppered Eris with questions, which she answered as evasively as possible before making another announcement. “Officer Davis Brierly from the sheriff’s office will now give you the particulars of today’s events and their expected plan.”

  Jess stared in complete shock as her older brother took the podium. “What is that jackass doing?” she said under her breath.

  “As you know, the kidnapping occurred earlier today. My sister, Jessica Brierly, was forcibly abducted at gunpoint from the school. We have reports that she felt our brother, Riley Brierly’s, life had been threatened if she did not cooperate with the assailant.” A sketch of Ty’s likeness flashed on the screen. “Tyee Grayson is our prime suspect at this time. We’re currently conducting a search for Mr. Grayson in the immediate vicinity. All tips and information can be called in to our hotline.” A number flashed across the screen.

  Ty’s likeness vanished from the screen, replaced by Davis standing at the podium, that Eris woman right behind him, practically caressing him. “They’ve got to be kidding,” Jess muttered. “Davis can’t possibly be that stupid.”

  “He doesn’t have to be if Eris is pulling his strings,” Achilles said. “Did you see how she touched him? She can bend people to her will with just a touch.”

  Jess rubbed her temples and leaned her head on Ty’s shoulder. “It doesn’t make sense. How could he possibly think you’d kidnapped me?”

  Ty put his arm around her. “I’ve seen protective big brothers do worse. Believe me.”

  “Well, he’s being an idiot and someone needs to stop him. See, I told you I should have grabbed my phone. Let me call that hotline number and straighten this whole mess out.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Achilles said. “This is all a plan to lure you and Ty out.”

  Jess stiffened. “How can you be so certain?”

  Achilles frowned, making him look more menacing, if that was possible. “I’ve been around her long enough to know most of her tricks. This is just the beginning. It’s like a game of chess and she’s sending out the first pawn to get you to make a move.”

  “What can she possibly want with me and Ty?” Jess countered. “He’s one Werewolf. She’s got lots of those Thrall things, doesn’t she?” Ty knew she had no idea just how many Thralls Eris had at her command, or reiver vampires. Had she a clue, she would have been scared to death. It really had all the earmarks of a full-scale invasion.

  Achilles pinned a no-nonsense stare on Jess. “What she wants is to start World War III. Think about it, Miss Brierly. If she could get those she mentally controls into positions within the military in this area, how much chaos could she create? How many bases are there? Nukes?”

  Just the short list shooting through his mind made Ty sick to his stomach. The nuclear-sub base, the naval shipyard, the joint army and air force base. It was all right here in the Puget Sound, with a big freakin’ bull’s-eye on it.

  “Could she really do something like that?” Jess asked, her voice wavering.

  Crawford snorted. “It’d be her idea of the prom. Only one problem. Can’t get elected prom queen if you’ve got somebody watching to make sure you don’t stuff the ballot box. Your boyfriend is the rotten apple spoiling all her plans. He can sniff out a Thrall among military personnel faster than they could salute. Am I right or am I right, Grayson?”

  Ty growled and locked gazes with Achilles. “So getting rid of me is just step number one. If she can’t do that, then she’ll discredit me enough to make sure I never work with the military again.”

  “Bingo,” Achilles said.

  Jess crossed her arms over her chest. “So why drag me into this?”

  A half smile crossed Achilles’s face. “Unless my nose deceives me, congratulations are in order.”

  Jess blushed to the roots of her hair but said nothing. Ty put a protective hand around her waist and drew her closer to his side.

  “You’re carrying Grayson’s child, aren’t you?” Achilles pressed.

  Her lip trembled. “Yes.”

  “That’s one more Were in their territory they won’t suffer to live. And they’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of the baby and you.”

  Her hand strayed protectively over her abdomen and Jess turned her gaze to look up at Ty. His heart nearly broke at the fear and desperation he saw there. Then fury took over, red and blinding hot, searing through his skin. Making his joints ache to shift and tear the goddess to shreds.

  “This is why I had to bring you here, Jess. They aren’t going to stop until they get to you.”

  “You, too,” she lobbed back at him.

  Achilles flexed his hands and shut the volume off on the television. “As of now, both of you are our guests...and bait.”

  Ty’s eyes narrowed, his hair bristling. “I never said anything about agreeing to let Jess be bait.”

  Crawford slapped a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t make the rules, fur ball, we just get to play by ’em. Eris wants you. We want Eris, ergo, you and the little missus get to be bait.”

  Ty flung off Crawford’s hand. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Like it or not, Eris is capable of causing an all-out war. Just think of how a stray missile could set off retaliation from several countries across the Pacific. This is larger than you or your mate, Grayson. We’re talking risking the world. And you will play your part.”

  Jess huffed, gesturing to the screen with an open hand. “Don’t you think you’re overdramatizing this a little? She’s one woman.”

  Achilles turned on Jess. “Goddess. She’s an ancient goddess. And if she can start the Trojan War by flipping an engraved apple up for grabs among a bunch of Olympians, she can bring about World War III among a bunch of slack-brained mortals as easy as swatting a fly.”

  Jess paled and Ty grasped her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You sound like you know what you’re doing.”

  Achilles straightened, looking every inch the Spartan warrior Donovan had claimed him to be.

  “What about Slade Donovan and Raina? You planning on bringing them in on this, too?”

  Achilles’s mouth flattened into a firm line. “If necessary, yes. We’ll even reach out to the Wenatchee Were Pack. But for now this is our battle on our turf and it’s vampire to vampire.”

  Ty was glad the commander knew what he was up against, but he didn’t like how shaken Jess looked. She and the baby didn’t need to be under such stress.

  “Commander, if that’s all for now, I’d like to take Jess to see her brother and the doc.”

  Jess’s color returned to her cheeks. “Yes! Please can we go see Riley now?”

  Achilles nodded and they headed out the door.

  * * *

  Ty seemed to know his way around the hallways, which were a maze to her. Even though she’d tried to keep track, they all looked the same. “How can you tell where we’re going?” she demanded after they’d passed, she was sure, the same tobacconist shop three times.

  He grinned at her. “I can smell my way through. There’s running fresh water and green plants in the atrium that cut through the dank wet earthiness of the tunnels and the decaying stench of the vampires.”

  Jess stared at him. “You can smell the vampires?”

  He nodded. “They stink. Take my word for it.”

  She trotted along beside him to keep up with his long-legged strides as they veered from one hallway to the next until they were at the familiar double doors to the atrium once more.

  The brightly lit atrium lifted Jess’s spirits. She hadn’t realized how depressing the underground hallways had been. Ty guided her to the pale wood reception desk near the wall where water rippled over the surface of stones in a waterfall, creating a misty rainbow from the water droplets suspended in the air.
>
  “We’re here to see Riley Brierly.”

  The receptionist checked her screen, tapping out a few strokes on the keys, and nodded, then stepped from behind the reception desk and held out her hand, inviting them down the hallway. “This way, please.”

  Jess was amazed at how soothing the place seemed. Pale sage-green walls were balanced by walls of frosted glass. The receptionist came to a stop and touched the frosted glass of room 216. The glass suddenly turned clear. Inside the upscale hospital room was Riley.

  Jess dashed into the room, her arms outstretched. “Riley!”

  He picked her up in a big bear hug and swung her up off her feet. “You have no idea how good it is to see you.”

  “Let me look at you. You don’t seem like you were at death’s door.”

  Riley grinned. “Fast healer.”

  Jess raised one brow. “Really, because I seem to remember somebody who needed ice cream for three weeks after his tonsils came out.”

  Riley’s smile widened. “Didn’t want to ruin a good thing.” But the smile quickly faded as he looked into Jess’s face. “Hey, what’s wrong? I was only fooling with you.”

  Jess frowned. “Was Ty being straight with me when he said you were hurt bad?” She glanced back, only to find Ty was gone. He’d left her alone with her brother. Perhaps he thought he was intruding.

  Riley’s jovial manner evaporated completely, leaving his mouth a firm line and his eyes hard and direct. “Yes.”

  Jess threw her hands up in the air and paced around the end of Riley’s bed. “Then how is this possible? How can you heal that fast?”

  Riley blew out and cupped the back of his neck in his hand. He glanced around to make sure she was the only one within earshot. “Wow. How do I say this? I’m turning into a Werewolf, sis.”

  Jess stopped dead in her tracks and stared at her little brother. “You’re what?”

  “It was the only way, Jess. You don’t know—”

  “What I know is that he bit you. He turned you without giving a damn what it might do to our family, or that he was turning you into some kind of freak that the rest of Sinclair will never accept.”

  Riley’s jaw flexed as he ground his teeth together. “You’re wrong. He saved me when nobody else could. This is what I want, Jess. Whether you like it or not.”

  All the righteous indignation boiling up in her simmered slowly back down. She recognized her own hardheaded determination in Riley. There was no one, not her, not their older brothers, who could sway him from this path. And the harder they tried, the more he’d push back.

  “What about your future? Have you thought about that? The military might not take you back after this.” God knew she’d been asking herself the very same questions and come to the conclusion that even if she loved a Were, she never, ever wanted to be one.

  “I’m stronger, Jess. All my senses are better. I can hear the sweat trickling down your back right now.”

  Jess screwed up her face. “God, that’s gross! I don’t see how that’s an improvement.”

  Riley’s infectious smile returned. It was an uneasy truce between them, but one nonetheless. He tipped his head slightly to the side. “What about you? How are you doing? Turn around so I can look at you.” He took her hand and raised it above her, making her twirl around in a small circle like the little ballerina in her musical jewelry box she’d had since she was a small girl. “You look good for being pregnant. You’re not even fat yet.”

  Jess stopped, yanked her hand down and smacked him on the shoulder. “Nice. Where are your manners? Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s not polite to tell a pregnant woman she’s fat?”

  “You seriously didn’t just tell your sister that, did you?” Ty was standing in the doorway, a woman with chestnut corkscrew curls and soft hazel eyes behind thick black-rimmed glasses beside him. She wore a long white lab coat over her jeans, a purple T-shirt and a curious, relaxed smile, which contrasted sharply with Ty, who had his arms crossed and was glaring at Riley.

  “He was only teasing me,” Jess said, a note of defensiveness to her voice.

  The woman held out her hand. “Jessica? I’m Dr. Rebecca Chamberlin-Stefanos.”

  Jess smiled “That’s a mouthful. Nice to meet you.”

  “It’s also why everyone around here just calls me Beck.”

  “Or the doc,” Riley supplied.

  “You’re due at rehabilitative therapy in ten minutes, aren’t you, Brierly?” Beck took the clipboard out of the holder on the wall and flipped through Riley’s charts.

  “Yep.” He grabbed Jess’s hand. “Be back in an hour. Will you still be here?”

  “From the sound of things, I may not be going anywhere for a while.”

  Riley gave her a peck on the cheek and saluted Ty. Somehow that galled Jess. She didn’t know if it was hormones from the pregnancy or just irritation with Ty from holding back yet one more critical bit of information from her “for her own good,” but either way, she was annoyed with him. She turned and crossed her arms. “You bit my brother.”

  Ty’s face remained inscrutable. “He needed it to survive. Would you rather I’d let him die?”

  “I’d rather that you hadn’t put him in this position in the first place!”

  “Look, I didn’t ask the reivers to show up.”

  Beck cleared her throat. “Lady and gentleman, how about we don’t raise the blood pressure until after I’ve checked it? Hmm?” She touched the glass wall, turning it frosted once more, and closed the door.

  Jess gave an irritated sigh. She’d deal with Ty later. While she realized that it probably wasn’t normal for Weres to go up and announce their status when they first met a person, she didn’t like that he’d hidden that from her. She really didn’t like that he hadn’t told her the truth about Riley from the start. But then, would she or her brothers have believed him? She would have thought he was a crackpot if she hadn’t seen him in wolf form herself.

  “Achilles tells me you think you might be pregnant.”

  “I’m fairly certain.” They went through the normal line of questions: how many days since her last period, how she was feeling, if anything was different or out of sorts. She had her blood pressure checked, had her eyes and ears, nose and throat looked at. And Beck had her lie back on Riley’s bed and felt her abdomen. Jess could swear something moved, which made her jump.

  “Am I hurting you?” Beck asked, frowning slightly.

  “No, something just moved.”

  “The baby would still be far too small for you to feel much.”

  “If it’s human,” Jess muttered.

  “Oh, it’s human. Vampires, Werewolves, mortals—deep down we’re all the same, human beings,” Beck assured her. “It might be just a little more sensitive than the rest of us.”

  “But Ty said their transition only happens because of a virus.”

  Beck nodded as she pulled the stethoscope down around her neck. “As far as we know that’s true, but it’s also true that the virus isn’t the only genetic marker involved. I wasn’t a vampire when my children were born, and yet they came out as living vampires due to their father’s genetic contribution.”

  Jess hesitated. “So you think my baby might already be a Werewolf?”

  “It’s possible.”

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. On one hand her baby was still her baby—well, and Ty’s, of course. On the other, visions of a baby being born with a tail or a muzzle made her skin clammy with fear.

  “You do seem to be much farther advanced than your dates would indicate. We might be able to take an ultrasound, if you’d like.”

  Jess looked at Ty. All this time he’d said nothing, just stood like a sentry guarding the entrance to the room. Could he tell she was scared of what the Werewolf genetics might mea
n?

  “What do you think, Ty?” Jess asked.

  Ty glanced at Beck. “Is Jess okay?”

  “She’s perfectly fine, and apparently pregnant.”

  “Do you think the baby is okay?”

  “Yes, but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out. I’ve never dealt with a Were pregnancy before, so I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. But what I do know is that it’s different than normal progression.”

  * * *

  Jess started to shake slightly. She was scared. Damn scared. He could tell by the coppery scent of it from across the room. But he could also tell that she was wary of him in a way she hadn’t been since he’d told her the truth. The constant push-and-pull effect she had on him was wearing him down.

  “Let’s do the ultrasound,” Jess said. Ty detected a flutter of worry in her voice. Neither of them knew what to expect, but then, he guessed that could be said of all first-time parents.

  Beck closed her eyes for a moment, looking as though she was concentrating. Ty had seen Crawford and Donovan do the same. It was their way of communicating, same as he’d been able to do when he’d been a member of the Wenatchee Pack.

  “How about I get you prepped while we wait for the equipment.”

  A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. One of the medical technicians wheeled in an ultrasound machine and monitor. Ty fidgeted, feeling useless, as they plugged it in and got things set up.

  They had Jess remove her hoodie and shirt and unbutton her slacks, baring the smooth skin of her belly. A blob of clear gel was squeezed out onto her stomach and she flinched slightly in response. The ultrasound gave off a keening wail that sounded like a ringing in his ears as they turned it on. Ty winced. Was that thing even working correctly? Surely they could hear the racket? Couldn’t they? He glanced at Jess, the doctor and the medical assistant. None of them seemed to be affected by it. Ty chalked it up to his lupine hearing and tried to concentrate on the grainy black-and-white images on the small screen.

  “This definitely looks like you’re farther along. Are you sure of the dates?”