Primal Heat 4

by A. C. Arthur

  “You and Rome are doing what is natural for humans or any other species. As for the timing, well, that’s never ideal and nobody could have foreseen Crowe’s hybrids or Boden’s plan of revenge,” Priya said. “Besides, I have complete faith that the Shadows will come out on top and dispel all the evil that’s currently swirling around you … us,” she corrected. “It’s all going to come to a head soon and blow over just as quickly.”

  Kalina was about to agree, albeit still with her own inner misgivings, and hug Priya for her kindness when the door to Priya’s office was thrust open and Jax came running in.

  “Rome wants you back at Havenway, now!” he told her, reaching for her to take his hand so he could help her up off the chair.

  “What’s going on?” Priya asked instantly. “What happened?”

  On the desk her cell phone rang. Jax looked at her. “Answer it and you’ll be filled in.”

  He took Kalina’s hand as she stood up, staring at him. “Tell me, Jax.”

  “Let’s get you to the truck and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  She nodded, knowing better than to stand there wasting time arguing.

  “Okay, let’s go,” she said, grabbing her purse.

  Within fifteen minutes Kalina was whisked from the office on the sixth floor, down to the parking garage, and into the back of the black Suburban she always traveled in with Jax. She was snapping her seat belt when Jax climbed in from the other side, talking as he put on his seat belt. By the time he’d given her the rundown of what had been happening while she sat languishing in the gorgeous headquarters offices, she was speechless.

  “He murdered shifters and left them out in the open for anyone to see,” she said quietly.

  “He wrapped them up, but people on the street saw the heads and the blood and news crews are all over the place. Traffic’s going to be rough getting out of the city, but Rome wants you safe so that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “I was safe at headquarters. We could have just stayed there until things calmed down.” If things calmed down, she thought as she looked out the tinted window.

  “No. He wants you home and I think that’s best too. Don’t worry, we’re going to get you there,” Jax told her.

  But Kalina wasn’t so sure. She had a sour taste at the back of her throat and the baby that had been moving steadily inside of her all day had ceased. Her hand was firmly planted on her stomach, moving of its own volition in an attempt to coax and help calm her young, but it wasn’t working, she knew. Her heart was beating faster with every movement of the SUV. Beside her she heard Jax taking a call and giving their coordinates. He would either be talking to Rome personally or to one of the guards at the command station at Havenway. They would be giving the best traffic options to get her home as soon as possible.

  Home, she thought as they passed cars quickly. Their driver had taken the shoulder of the road and was passing the stalled traffic completely, the SUV going much faster than what she thought was the speed limit.

  Sweat had begun to trickle down the back of her neck. She leaned forward to tap on the privacy divider to tell Marc, the driver, to turn up the air when out of the corner of her eye, she noticed another SUV coming up beside them. It was also black with tinted windows so she couldn’t see through them, but at that very moment the baby inside of her kicked so violently that Kalina slid off the seat, the belt tightening to painful proportions around her waist. Then there was a loud crash. The SUV was turning over and over and over and Kalina was holding her stomach. She prayed and whispered Rome’s name.

  * * *

  With confident strides Nivea walked past the two guards at the entrance to the holding cells where both of her parents were now being kept. It had been days since what she now called her “aha” moment—when she’d realized that both her parents were assholes and the man she loved was incapable of loving her in return. Each time she’d heard about that special moment on television or via online personalities, it had represented a turning point in one’s life, a new beginning or some other crap. For Nivea, it had just been a wake-up call. One which she’d answered and was now ready to put behind her.

  “Five minutes,” Sal, the guard at the first door said to her, his bushy brows moving as he spoke.

  He was a Croesteriia shifter—a cheetah—but nobody would have known it by the thick build of his body. When he shifted into the long, sleek cat, nothing gave him away except the speed he also maintained in his human form. That’s probably why he was placed at this door, just in case Michele Cannon tried to escape as her husband had the day before.

  Sal and the other guards were still pissed as hell that Richard Cannon had been able to dig his way out of that concrete room. The fact that huge blocks of the wall had been cut away, as if someone with a circular saw had gone in and given the guy a helping hand, wasn’t sitting well with the guards or the Assembly Leader.

  When they’d come to tell Nivea she’d been just returning from being in the field, once again searching for Agent Wilson with Caprise and her personal guard, Tobias. Nick had looked as if he wanted to accuse Nivea of helping her father escape, but Ezra—to her shock—had been the first to remind them that Nivea had been out all day. Caprise and Tobias had verified her alibi and the Lead Enforcer had no choice but to back down from accusing her. Nivea had been relieved because the last battle she felt like fighting at that moment was with the shifter leadership.

  Instead, she’d quickly made her way down to the doubly secure room they were holding her mother in. She knew that should Michele try to escape, Sal and the other guards had been instructed to kill if necessary. She wasn’t going to overthink the fact that it didn’t evoke any emotion in her either way.

  “That’s all I’ll need,” she told Sal and waited while he turned his back to her, punching in the code to unlock the door.

  Of course they wouldn’t tell her the code, even though she’d sworn many times that she had never helped her parents do anything against the shifters and wasn’t about to start now.

  When she walked into the room, Nivea took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her mother’s scent, familiar and slightly heartbreaking, filled the small area. There was a table in the corner with a lamp, but it was not switched on. In another corner there was a tray where Michele had received her lunch, but she had not touched it.

  “Bitch.” The word was hissed through clenched teeth.

  Flecks of spittle peppered the side of Nivea’s face as Michele stood right next to her to the left. Nivea didn’t even turn to face her, but walked deeper into the room, stopping just before meeting the wall on the opposite side.

  “Maybe that’s what you should have named me since that is what you believe I am,” she said, now looking at the tall, frail woman.

  She wore a white jumpsuit that was fitted with electrical fibers that would deliver instant shocks to her body should another escape be attempted. Around her neck was a solid lead necklace equipped with a GPS tracking system and steel-reinforced layers so that if Michele thought to shift into a jaguar, she would choke to death before the change was complete. Her hair was a wild halo around her mocha-brown face, hands fisting at her sides.

  “You were always ungrateful no matter what we tried to do for you. I hate you!” she yelled vehemently.

  “Do you hate me or yourself?” Nivea asked her. “Because of all those nights you had to lie in that big comfortable bed, in the lavish penthouse you liked to brag so often about, while your husband was down the hall doing heinous things to your youngest daughter? That ranks right up there with something to hate yourself for.

  “Or maybe, it’s because you helped him transport hundreds of children and then watched as he facilitated their demise. You killed shifters, some probably from the same bloodline as your own. Again, that’s a heavy burden to bear and I can easily see how one would hate herself for participating in such acts.

  “Or,” Nivea continued, her voice growing edgier with every word. “You could be h
ating yourself for being so gullible and eventually expendable. Did you know he escaped and left you here to rot, or to be killed, whichever comes first?”

  “You think you’re so smart. Think you are so high and mighty but they don’t give a damn about you here either!” Michele spat, taking a step closer to Nivea. “Nobody cares about you, they just let you stay to do their dirty work. They knew all along who and what you were. A whore and a backstabber.”

  Michele lunged at Nivea and she was ready. Stepping to the side, she let her mother tumble across the floor, falling into the wall. Before she could turn around she knew Michele would try again, so Nivea moved quickly, wrapping her arms around her mother’s neck, pulling her body back against hers as she squeezed. The brace around her neck was thick and Nivea felt it pressing into the inside of her arm as she continued to tighten her grip on her mother’s neck. In an instant the weight of a heavy realization hit her.

  She could kill Michele Cannon. With all the distaste and disappointment for what she’d done and what she’d allowed over the years, Nivea could kill her and walk right out of this room as if she’d dispatched any other enemy. After all, that’s what she’d been trained to do.

  With a quick motion she released her and Michele stumbled around, finally standing up straight to taunt her daughter once again.

  “You can’t even do that right,” Michele said viciously. “Nothing you do will ever amount to anything. You will always be a complete failure. No man will want to touch you either because you’re disgusting to have wanted your own father in your bed.”

  Nivea reacted instantly, her arm extending, fist landing against Michele’s jaw, the woman’s head snapping back from the assault.

  “You are the bitch!” Nivea told her. “You never knew how to be a mother and instead of owning up to your faults, you tried to make us feel like the failure was ours. You’re no better than him, and believe me when I say both of you will rot in hell for what you’ve done.”

  Michele made a move like she wanted to charge Nivea again, her sharp jaguar’s teeth and claws bared. Nivea simply shook her head at the pitiful sight.

  “I didn’t kill you once,” Nivea said, her voice deadly calm. “But let’s be perfectly clear, that is the only chance you’ll ever get.”

  Michele growled loudly, her arms lifting, claws bared just before her entire body trembled with the bolts of electricity soaring through her. Nivea turned to look at the door that was still closed. Had someone been watching or had Michele’s actions activated something? The woman fell to the floor, still convulsing, but Nivea turned away.

  She didn’t give a rat’s ass what was happening to her mother. But more so because there was a weird feeling assailing her at the same time. She walked to the door, opened it, and walked right past Sal without a word. Inside her cat was up, its eyes trained via Nivea’s human ones on something straight ahead. She was moving but she had no idea where she was going or why she needed to get there so quickly. All she knew for certain was the scent that filled her nostrils, the warmth that coated her body, and the warning that her cat was sending was loud and clear.

  Something had happened to Eli.

  CHAPTER 20

  Eli had called her more than a dozen times. Since the moment he’d raced through the garage to get the SUV he’d been trying to get in contact with Nivea. She wasn’t responding.

  There were three dead guards, all in uniform, all dumped at locations that either a human or a shifter were sure to find them. The thought that there would be more, that Nivea could be … he held the phone tightly in his hand, pressing the speed dial one more time. As it rang insistently in his ear, Eli closed his eyes. He tried to concentrate on his breathing, tried to focus on the smidgen of light he could see. It was shining amidst the dark and he knew what it was now, knew who it represented in his life. Each time he dialed her number he was reaching for that light and it was slowly diminishing, until the moment his chest constricted with the possibilities.

  He could not see Nivea. No vision appeared and he wanted to curse whatever was inside him, whatever he was truly supposed to be. If it was a Seer, how come he couldn’t see the one thing he needed desperately to see right now? How come he couldn’t find her wherever she was in this world to ensure that she was safe?

  Ezra was speeding down the highway, trying his damnedest to get them back to Havenway as soon as possible. There’d been reports of suspicious deaths interrupting the radio stations and Ezra had finally turned it off, while in the backseat Rome and Nick kept an angry silence.

  Eli was just about to dial Nivea’s number again when his phone rang instead. “Yeah?” he answered, instantly hoping …

  He turned in his seat the moment the voice in his ear began talking, his gaze connecting with Rome’s.

  “Fuck!” Eli cursed.

  Rome sat forward, his hands gripping the leather-backed seats in front of him.

  “Kalina?” he asked.

  Eli was moving the phone slowly from his ear as he said, “There’s been an accident.”

  * * *

  Havenway’s side doors burst open and Caleb Sanchez carried Kalina’s unconscious body inside. Ary and her newest assistant, Lucas, the teenager that had come from the Gungi with her almost a year ago, were waiting right there dressed in scrubs with a gurney between them.

  “I keep talking to her but she’s not responding,” Caleb yelled.

  Lucas helped him get Kalina’s bloody body situated on the stretcher, while Ary looked down in concern.

  Nivea rounded the corner having broken into a run, the anxiety centered in her chest so potent. The second she picked up the scent of blood she thought of Eli and ran faster, only to stop short at the sight of the First Female lying on the stark white sheets. Blood streaked her face and down the front of the yellow blouse she’d worn. But there was more on her legs, the beige tights almost completely covered with it, her brown suede skirt twisted around her waist.

  “Kalina,” Nivea whispered.

  “Let’s get her to the medical center, quickly!” Ary yelled.

  “Jax and the driver are hurt too. They’re coming in the other truck,” Caleb told Ary who looked around.

  She wasn’t panicking, not just yet, but with others milling about, shocked silence registering on her face, the curandera needed to act fast.

  “Nivea, you come with me. Caleb, you stay here and wait for the others. Lucas, you go get another stretcher, and somebody page Papplin!” Ary instructed.

  Nivea came around to the opposite side of the bed and helped Ary push it through the crowd spreading out before them. They moved quickly, running alongside the bed until they were finally at the medical center.

  “Get those clothes off her while I check her vitals,” Ary instructed.

  Nivea moved, taking off the First Female’s riding boots and tights, then her skirt, all the while her hands were shaking at the blood and the possibilities. In her mind she wished for saving mercies, that this woman who had been so strong and so nice to all the female shifters at Havenway would live. And not only that, but the baby as well.

  The first child of the Assembly Leader. With emotion clogging her throat, Nivea moved slowly, using the scissors to cut the blouse away from Kalina’s chest. She tried like hell not to look down at her stomach, at the pouch where the baby should be growing and breathing.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood, I just need to figure out where it’s coming from so I can stop it,” Ary was saying.

  Nivea inhaled deeply and let the breath out as she looked down at Kalina, studying every part of her but not thinking about the baby or the hurt that Rome would endure if she did not live.

  “There’s a head wound,” she said. “On this side, right here.” She pointed and Ary hurried around to her side of the table.

  “Superficial, she probably banged it against the window or something when the truck flipped over,” Ary said. “I’ll need to stitch it but that’s not where all this blood is coming from.”
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br />   “Flipped over?” Nivea repeated.

  “Yeah, five times, across the highway. That’s what Aidan said when they called.”

  Ary was talking as she moved, pulling out instruments and doing things to Kalina that Nivea had never seen before.

  “I’m going to start an IV. Get me that cart from over there and open those packages for me.”

  Shaking her head to clear the visual of a truck rolling over with people inside of it, Nivea hurried to do what she’d been told. With skilled hands Ary inserted a needle and soon whatever was in that IV bag was dripping into the First Female.

  “Found it!” Ary yelled. “There’s a gash here at her back. I can sew it up as soon as I stop this bleeding. In the meantime her pressure’s dropping.”

  That didn’t sound good and when Ary moved Kalina’s body it looked even worse as blood gushed from the wound.

  “Grab those towels and get over here!” was the next order that came Nivea’s way.

  She wasn’t trained for this, wasn’t really into saving lives as much as she was defending—and usually taking—them. But this was Kalina … this was her family. All the family she figured she would ever have, all things considered. So she moved around the medical center, doing whatever Ary asked even when she barely understood what the curandera wanted her to do. It didn’t matter, whatever assistance she could offer, she would, to save this female shifter and her baby because there was no way in hell she was going to walk out of that door and tell Roman Reynolds that his mate was gone.

  * * *

  “Where is she?” Rome asked immediately, after having pushed through the double doors of the medical center.

  “Sir, she’s in the back with Ary. I believe she’s stable but you cannot go back there right now,” Lucas said, his voice as shaky as his hands, which he finally put down to his sides in an attempt to keep them still.