The hours passed quickly as I shut down the part of my brain that wanted to pick apart everything that had happened. My only focus was the paperwork on the abandoned truck and my final notes on the poachers. My back was stiff, and my fingers ached from typing so much. The sky was pitch black, and I was finally done. I’d come to the end of the hunt, and it hadn’t ended how I’d thought it would. Weretigers were beyond my grade, and there wasn’t a chance of me making myself a laughing stock. That’s exactly what I’d be if I made out the report to reflect the truth of what had happened with the poacher. No one would ever believe me. This was the best choice, and I knew I was making the right one. The right choice…I couldn’t help but still wonder if I was making the right one when it came to Talon.
What was my future with him? Sure things could get serious. Marriage was even a real possibility, given the authorities never found out about his complicated species. Children though? Our children would be just like him. He didn’t have to tell me for me to know how it would be. Part of me, much larger than I wanted to admit to, didn’t think that future looked like a bad option. It might not be what I had ever planned for myself, but it could be a happy one.
I shut my wayward thoughts away, along with powering down my computer, and stood. Sheriff Wilson was still in his office, however I was fairly sure he was on the outs with his wife and was sleeping there temporarily. Fred still hadn’t returned from whatever he was busy doing. My guess was that he was closing down the local watering hole, but then again, I was a woman, so what did I know about those types of things.
My numb legs carried me to my truck where I climbed in and pushed the key into the ignition. Sitting there in the dark, I stared at the abandoned truck sitting across the lot. Sheriff Wilson had thought the impound lot a few towns over was unnecessary, so he had André Tekin’s truck parked in front of the station. He had mentioned the likelihood of the man coming back for it would be much lower than breaking into an impound lot. I wasn’t so sure. Could he turn in to other animals? He was probably miles from Elk Springs, maybe even on his way back to Turkey if I was really lucky.
I turned the key, and the engine roared to life. I drove back to my motel, stopping at the front desk to let them know I’d be checking out early the next morning. I shuffled to my room and slipped inside; the click of the door shutting behind me was practically deafening in the silent room. Pulling off my jacket and boots, I moved to the bed and flopped down. Talon’s piney, crisp scent still lingered on my sheets as though he’d just gotten up from them.
How had things gone so crazy in twenty-four hours? A tiny voice in the back of my head whispered that nothing had really changed. Talon was still the same man he was yesterday, but he wasn’t to me. I could recall every snap of his bones quickly breaking as he took flight. His handsome image was replaced by the blunt-featured André’s face. That man was a true monster.
I decided I couldn’t dwell on the whole situation for any longer. There was a long stretch of road between Elk Springs, Colorado and Modesto, California waiting for me. The arduous task of packing up all of my belongings began. Almost every single item now had some sort of memory involving Talon attached to it. I tried not to think about it too much as I continued. Trip after trip, I carried everything to my car and loaded it all up. My emotions were spent, and I was running on sheer determination. When everything was said and done a couple hours later, I crumpled into the bed, exhausted.
No matter how hard I tried, sleep evaded me the whole night. Thin rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon, lightening the early morning sky. There was the nagging feeling that I was making the absolute worst possible decision of my life. I tried to convince myself that I would get over it and move on.
Looking over the room one last time, I knew I’d gotten everything. I was leaving. Stepping out of the room, I made my way to the front office, but almost half way there, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. Nothing stood out, and I chalked it up to it being my overtired brain. This worry that it was André never really left. Pushing the door open, I laid the key card on the front desk and made my way to my truck.
Something under my windshield wiper caught my attention as it flapped in the cold winter breeze. I hadn’t noticed anything there when I’d first walked out of the motel room. Scanning the near empty lot, I lifted the wiper and grabbed the paper. It was a folded note.
I didn’t open it right away. Giving the area one last glance, I climbed into my truck and started it. Staring at the paper, I opened it. A small downy feather fell out and floated down to land on my lap. I picked it up and examined it closer. The tip of it was white, darkening into the dark brown of Talon’s eagle.
Scanning the note, I read the two little words he’d scrawled across the paper.
I’m Sorry.
There wasn’t a signature or anything else written, but there didn’t need to be. Talon didn’t even need to apologize. His need to keep his secret was justifiable though that didn’t ease the hurt in my heart over being deceived and tricked into thinking he was something he wasn’t.
Shifting into gear, I pulled the car to the edge of the road. Two options laid before me. I could turn right and head back into Elk Springs and to Talon, or I could turn left and go home. Pulling out onto the road, I accelerated quickly before I could change my mind and turn around. Elk Springs was bidding me farewell from the reflection in my rear-view mirror.
Chapter 13
Talon
She left.
Her truck grew smaller until it disappeared over the horizon altogether. My knees wanted to buckle, but by some miracle, they continued to hold. My bare toes tried to dig into the frozen ground to keep me anchored. The eagle thrashed about inside me, crying for release. He wanted to go after his mate and bring her back home, but that wasn’t what she wanted. The only thing I could think of was that she hadn’t felt the bone deep comfort of being home with me that I felt by just being near her.
I turned my back on the now empty motel parking lot. I’d stayed all night, hoping she’d have a change of heart and come back to me. It was a long shot, and I’d known it when I discovered my eagle had claimed a human, but that hadn’t prevented the hope that took root.
I’d heard stories of men rejected by their mates. In those stories, it almost never ended well for either party. Shifters would lose control of their animal, and their partners rarely found lasting relationships. It seemed like they were always searching for something that was a little deeper and meaningful than their partners could give them. I’d watched my uncle pine away for his lost mate. He’d spiraled out of control until he found someone who would do the right thing by him and put him down before his eagle hurt someone he loved. Now, facing the same fate myself, I could understand his desire to end it.
One day, I’d become a danger to myself and others for as long as my soul and animal remained untethered. My life had been dedicated to saving lives, using my skills in a productive way. Gen leaving was taking away far more than just my future or the hope of love and a family.
Before Genevieve, I’d been all right. Having her and losing her made me see how empty I’d been before, and I was even more so now. I needed something to fill that void, to give me purpose, again. That purpose became André Tekin, the tiger shifter she’d been tracking.
It had been a few days since she’d left, and I’d immersed myself in the hunt. In the meantime, I discovered that the partner Gen had assumed was still helping the tiger was dead. Half eaten, by the looks of it, and discarded on the mountain near one of their camps. It had been a while since anyone was there and scavengers had already gotten to the body, so I left it and marked the location on the map. So far, I’d found three previous camp sites, but none gave me a clue to where the tiger was currently. It was getting damn tiresome. The man was like a ghost, disappearing into seemingly thin air.
Five days after she’d left, I was getting ready to head back out when my radio crackled loud with an incoming message.
“T? Man, it’s Justin. We…we’ve got reports of a camper with a back injury. He needs to be hauled back down the mountain.”
Something about his voice sounded off. There were notes of deception and fear in my friend’s words. He was in trouble. My instincts were screaming that it was a trap, and I was one to trust that intuition. However, Justin was family, or as close to family as I had. With Gen gone, he was all I had left, and I wasn’t going to let him down. Maybe it was a trap. I couldn’t really say I even cared one way or the other. Those rescues were my job, and I wasn’t going to let anyone down again.
“Roger. What are the coordinates? How big is the extraction team? Do I need to bring Harry?” I asked, holding my breath for his response.
Harry was our code word. If ever one of us was in trouble it was the go to word. The static crackled over the radio before his baritone voice came through.
“I’d say yes, but I don’t think you should bring him with you on this one, T.”
Something was definitely up.
“Alright, J. Send the essentials to my phone and I’m on my way.”
“Roger.”
The radio crackled into silence.
A moment later, my phone chimed with an incoming message.
It was Justin with the coordinates of the injured camper. However, it was a place I already knew. Close to where Gen and I had camped our first night together was an area where the ground was mostly rock and the land was fairly level. It was the perfect place for an ambush. There was a sheer drop on one side, leaving only one way out of there. It was essentially a dead end. If I were to launch such an attack, I couldn’t think of a better place to do it.
I grabbed my bag and double checked the supplies. It was my routine before going out on a mission. I always stocked when I came back, so it should’ve been good, however I always double checked to be on the safe side.
This time, I wasn’t taking any unnecessary chances. I rose from where I was crouched in front of my bag and strode to my bedroom. In the nightstand beside my bed, I’d kept a revolver my dad had bought me when I’d turned twenty-one. I grabbed it out of the drawer and made sure it was loaded. Stuffing it into the back of my jeans, I smoothed my t-shirt over it and made sure no one would be able to make it out. If these people didn’t want to fight fair, that was fine by me. I could fight dirty too. There was a big difference between them and me, though. They didn’t have something worth putting their life on the line for.
Striding for the door, I scooped up the supplies bag along the way. Snatching my truck keys out of the bowl, I marched out of the house and down the front steps. The sound of tires on dirt caught my attention immediately. It was too close to be noise from the road. Just as I reached my truck, Gen’s Ford rolled into the clearing in front of my cabin.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Gen’s angelic face peeked over the wheel of her truck, not meeting my stare. Anxious lines formed around her eyes; she was upset.
I had so many questions. Why she was back for starters? Not that I wasn’t grateful and blessed to see her, but it was the worst possible timing. Crossing to my truck, I pulled open the door and tossed my supply bag onto the front passenger seat.
Gen kicked open the door of her truck and hopped down. It was such a big truck for such a small woman.
Every movement was jerky and agitated. She slammed the door and marched toward me. It wasn’t the right time to even be thinking about such things, but seeing Gen all worked up was doing things to me…things that I’d have to ask forgiveness for in a confessional. I stuffed those thoughts down, jotting down a mental note to revisit those ideas later.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, listening to see if she was alone.
She didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she marched up to me and planted herself between the truck and me.
“God damn you, Talon Becker!” she seethed, however there were notes of sadness in her voice.
“What are you doing here, Gen?” I asked again.
She’d already gutted me when she left the first time. This felt exactly like rubbing salt in a very much still open wound. It had only been a week though it had felt like an eternity.
“I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing here! My life was fine! It wasn’t something to brag about, but god damn it! I was happy with the way things were, and now here I am, twisted into knots, and suddenly nothing is good enough anymore! What the hell is wrong with me?” she yelled, her voice a bit too loud for my sensitive hearing.
Gen was waving her hands around frantically. I could tell how upset she was because the more animated she was, the more bothered or angered she became.
“I’d like to say that I know how you feel, but it’s just not the same for me. You’re human; I’m not. You have a choice here, but you’ve been it for me since the moment you knocked on my front door. I love you, Gen. That’ll never change. However, you need to decide how you feel about me and about us. If you want to go back to your old life, I’ll let you go and walk away, but you have to tell me that this,” I said gesturing between the two of us, “isn’t what you want. Once you pick me, there’s no going back. I’ll claim you and not be able to stop myself from doing it. This is a choice you need to make for yourself. I don’t want to be the reason you’re unhappy…ever.”
Gen sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it nervously, not meeting my waiting stare.
I didn’t want to end up like some of the old timer’s had. They’d mated humans and watched as the women they’d loved grew to hate them for always living a secret double life or fearing for their children’s safety. Some had left everything behind.
“Take all the time you need to think about it and decide what you want. I’ll be here when you’re ready. But right now, I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”
Gen gave me a horrified expression like I’d just slapped her.
“You…you’re leaving? Now?” she gasped, eyes wide.
“Yes. Justin needs me,” I stepped back, ready to turn and climb into my truck.
“I’m coming with you.”
It wasn’t a question, and she had the stubborn set to her chin that screamed she was done with conversation, and one way or another, she’d be coming along for the ride.
This was going to be a problem. I wasn’t going to send my mate into a situation that was likely an ambush I didn’t know we’d be able to walk away from.
“Not this time,” I replied, standing my ground. “This time’s too dangerous, and I’m not willing to take that sort of risk with you.”
“What are you talking about? What danger?”
“I don’t know much, but Justin’s in trouble. I think it’s your buddy. I don’t think he ever left the area.”
Gen didn’t seem too sure.
“If he was still hanging around, we’d have found him. We canvased the whole town and gave it an extra five-mile search radius. If he was here, we’d know.”
“I’ve got to go to Justin. I won’t order you to do anything, but I am asking nicely for you to please stay here and out of harm’s way. You’re not like me; you don’t heal too fast, and if anything ever happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself."
“Is this how you’re always going to be? Putting me on some pedestal and not letting me live, not letting me help you when I can?” she shouted.
I kept my mouth shut, not sure what I could say that wouldn’t end with her walking away again. She just didn’t understand how dangerous this world was, how fragile she was compared to what we were up against.
“This isn’t us just walking into a situation where we’re evenly matched, Gen. This man has a monster inside him, a murderous beast. He’s faster than you, stronger than you, and skilled in the hunt. It’s just too dangerous. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, and I can’t muster a single speck of remorse for asking you to stay behind.”
Gen’s eyes had narrowed into slits, trained directly on me.
&
nbsp; “I can take care of myself. Don’t you worry about me,” she whispered as she lifted her shirt to show her holster clipped to her side. “And I’m an excellent shot. It’s a lot more of a fair fight than you think.”
She wasn’t going to give it up, and any more time spent arguing with her over whether she was going or not was just futile.
I nodded jerkily and turned toward the truck, hoping I wasn’t going to regret letting her ride along. She pranced around the front of my vehicle and hopped into the truck like a triumphant rabbit with a little extra spring in her step. She didn’t even know how dangerous the task could be.
Gen pulled the seatbelt across her lap and clicked it into place. I didn’t bother. I wanted to be able to shift on the fly if I had to.
“Are you scared?” she whispered as we bumped and shimmied over the uneven road.
“Yes. I’d be stupid to not be. Anyone who says they aren’t is either a liar or has a death wish, and you can’t trust those types.”
“What types can you trust?”
“The kind who proves time and time again that they have your back. The kind who are honest with you from the get go and will tell you there’s a chance you might not be coming home.”
“Is there?”
“Yes.”
Gen turned and stared out the passenger side window, neither of us saying another word. She knew what the stakes were, and they were far worse than losing her job.
Minutes stretched out into what felt like hours as we slowly made our way to the trail head where we’d have to go on foot. My animal was on edge, antsy, and lurking just below the surface. The only thing keeping me from shifting was the short leash of control I had with Gen being too close for comfort. I could kill her if she was too close during the transition.
“Where are we going?” she asked just before I turned onto the short road ending at the trail head.
Fly Me Home (Rescue Squad Shifters Book 1) Page 13