by Amelia Jade
“I belong,” she whispered.
Chapter Nineteen
Connor
“How is your father?” he asked as she returned to the kitchen.
Maddy smiled her beautiful smile, looking happier than ever. She had finally been able to contact her father, now that he was safe in Genesis Valley. It was something she had been worrying about a lot. More than she had been willing to admit, even to him.
“He’s good,” she said happily, sitting at the table. “He’s got a job at that Lionshead Mining Consortium, the one you work for. Doing some sort of research for them, I guess. We didn’t talk too much about that. He was, ah, a little more interested in knowing about me, and what I can do now,” she said awkwardly.
Connor smiled. She would get over that part of it. He could tell.
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said softly, meaning every word of it.
“Connor?” she asked as they ate breakfast the next morning.
The Underground had scattered overnight, dispersing to several other safe houses Connor and his team had set up without Flint knowing. There were still several people in the unit, but as it turned out, Connor had secured all three floors of the sixty-year-old storefront building for their use. The pair of them had had no trouble finding some privacy the night before to renew their relationship. He smiled at the memory of it.
“Mmm?” he replied around a mouthful of bacon and egg.
“I’m a shifter now,” she said with a grin. “And I think I was always supposed to be this way.”
He returned the smile, careful not to let the bits of bacon in his mouth show. “You certainly seem both more confident and happier,” he admitted after swallowing his mouthful.
“I feel…normal,” she said slowly. “I think. I mean, I don’t feel normal using how I used to feel as the ‘normal’ to compare it to. I feel normal as in, this is how I think everyone else usually feels. As if I’m finally who and what I’m supposed to be. As if I’d been denying a part of me somehow.” She shrugged. “Not that I ever could turn into a bear before, but it’s like taking the two serums unlocked something within me.”
He nodded. They had discussed how she had taken the two types of serums. The one that bonded with the shifter DNA that had lain latent in her, and the one that bonded with the active human DNA. It had formed something within her that had allowed her bear to come to life.
It brought a whole different angle to the shifter world, and half-bloods. The question was going to be asked for a long time now about whether every half-blood had a bear locked away inside of them or not. That wasn’t a problem for Connor to solve though. He was a warrior, not a philosopher, and was perfectly okay with it. He was happy with what he had.
“Well, you certainly are stronger than you were before,” he said, shaking his head ruefully.
They had tried to test out just how strong she was last night. Neither of them knew if her heightened powers was a temporary thing. She was much stronger than he was, and still had been this morning. He had rolled over on top of her when he woke. The move had startled her, however, and she had thrown him clear of the bed when she jerked in surprise.
“I said I’m sorry for that!” she complained, coming over to him and giving him a seductive kiss on the cheek, then trailing down to his neck.
He closed his eyes with a growl.
Her hands disappeared from his shoulders.
Connor’s eyes flew open just in time to see two pieces of bacon disappear from his plate.
He growled playfully, shoving the remaining bits into his mouth and got up from his seat to chase after her.
Maddy shrieked and fled across the room, but he caught up to her, locking his arms around her. Although they both knew she could break away quickly, that wouldn’t be fun. Maddy let herself pretend to be helpless as he picked her up and set her on the countertop.
Swallowing his meal, he moved in close so that they could embrace each other.
“How are we going to do this?” she asked softly into his ear as he held her tight, relaxing in their closeness. Being with her always evoked a sense of peace, something he had rarely felt before.
“You have a good team to support you,” he said firmly.
Not one person had decided to leave the Underground, despite all that had just happened. Everyone had said they would stay.
All those that had made it out, at least. Although those with families had reported that their loved ones were safely on their way to Genesis Valley, half a dozen members of the Underground had never reported in at all.
Connor feared the worst.
“I’m going to have to give you orders,” she said. “I don’t want that to be a stress point between us.”
He nodded seriously, acknowledging the point. “Well, don’t forget, Jared is actually the head of the team. So you can give him the orders. I’ll fight with him over them, and he’ll fight with you.”
Maddy brightened almost instantly with the reminder, before her shoulders slumped once again. “See? That just shows how little I know about the Underground, and how ill prepared I am for this.”
He squeezed her tight. “You’re going to do fine. Trust me.”
Maddy gave him a small smile.
“Now kiss me,” he said. “That’s an order.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure I give the orders around here now, mister.”
He laughed. “You give the orders in the office.” He leaned in close, nipping at her neck. “I give them in the bedroom.”
He quickly put himself to work proving his point.
Chapter Twenty
Madison
Two Weeks Later
“Jared,” she said sharply as the Sentinel team leader marched into the command center, followed by the rest of his team.
She had gotten to know all four of them rather well over the past few weeks as she cemented her place as leader of the Underground, and got their new command center up and running. It hadn’t been easy, and there had been a few brushes with the Agency, but now they were ready to go.
“Yes ma’am?” he said, stopping several feet short of her. He didn’t salute, but he did straighten his shoulders in her presence, a show of respect that he did for few people.
“Is your team ready to do their jobs?” she asked, for the benefit not only of him and his team, but the other seven people scattered around the room. Each of them were doing their own jobs as they monitored cameras, phone lines, reviewed imagery, and any number of other things necessary to ensure the Underground was as well-equipped as possible to fight their enemy.
“We are,” he said formally. His expression didn’t change, but she could sense the confusion in his voice. They had been doing plenty of things the past two weeks. Why would today be any different?
She smiled internally. Today was different however; he just didn’t know it yet.
“Good. I have a mission for you.”
The rest of his team stood straighter at those words. They had done many things for her recently, but they hadn’t gone out on a mission. The mission. To rescue someone in danger. It was what they had signed up for, and it was time that the Underground got back to its primary purpose.
Protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.
“We’re ready, ma’am,” Jared said firmly.
“Good. Here’s the information,” she said, handing him a dossier. It was sparse. They had to rely mainly on word of mouth and whatever they could dig up on the internet to provide them with information. But it would be enough. It had to be.
“Anything else, ma’am?”
She thought for a moment.
“Make sure your entire team comes home,” she ordered.
Jared beamed, and she saw two of his team do the same. The third just blushed a deep red.
“Of course, ma’am,” he said, trying to fight his smile down before it became a grin.
In the background, Connor mouthed I love you.
It was her
turn to flush.
“Now get out of my sight,” she said with false gruffness.
He saluted, and the team left, though Connor lingered behind, looking at her expectantly. She could see the rest of the team looking on in her periphery. With a sigh full of false anger, she mouthed the words back to Connor.
I love you too.
He smiled, blew her a kiss, and fled from the room before the pen she threw could hit him.
A sound ran through the room and she spun. No one would meet her gaze; they all focused studiously on their screens. But Maddy wasn’t blind. She could see the grins on their faces.
“Okay people,” she said aloud, letting herself smile. “Let’s make sure they get home alive.”
Spines straightened, and if it was possible, her team began to work even harder.
Her team. She liked the sound of that. Maddy was home, at last. She couldn’t describe how wonderful that felt, because it all paled next to something else. She was in love.
Her hands fell in front of her as she tried to discreetly play with a finger on her left hand.
She wasn’t used to having the weight of a ring on it.
Her smile became a grin, and right then, she didn’t care who saw it.
********
********
Blackblood Bear
Chapter One
Shay
Air screamed by, coming inches from her face before the clear plastic of her faceguard buffeted it aside. Her ears rang from the noise, despite the sound-deadening material built into her helmet that was supposed to help with just that problem. The noise came back down from its peak as she tapped the brakes while angling around the corner at a slightly less than breakneck speed.
On her left trees rushed by so quickly as to be no more than a green and brown blur; the majestic oaks and dominant maples were reduced to blobs that her brain never noticed. The grandstands on the right were packed with–
Nothing. They were empty.
That little tidbit of information managed to wiggle its way into her brain, but even then, she filed it away, jamming her foot down on the gas as she entered a straightaway. She needed all the help she could get.
The screaming grew louder once more as the needle on her speedometer raced to the right. It was accompanied by a deep thrum from the car as it shot forward. Vibrations came at a rate of several million per second as they raced up her feet, shaking her entire body as she rattled around in the chair, holding on to her wheel tightly, the course layout memorized in her brain. Turn Twelve was coming up, and it was the tricky one. A hairpin right that was more than ninety degrees, the track actually curved back onto itself a bit. It had been her nemesis so far during the time trials.
Her headset buzzed.
“Okay Shay, Twelve is just ahead,” her crew chief, Dan O’Hallern said in her earpiece. “Remember what we discussed.”
She nodded, though he couldn’t see her. “Take her down a notch, then hold that for a second, then accelerate like crazy into Thirteen, because she’s a slow easy bitch and you can really carry speed through into the straightaway.”
She could see Dan and his big beard, a smile on his face as she recited his directions word for word.
There was no more time for that, however, as Twelve was upon her. She let up on the gas, held it, tapped the brake, held it a split second more, then as she saw the first inkling of the end of the turn she hammered her foot home again. The car jumped forward, the open-cockpit racer responding to her slightest touch.
For just a second, she was elsewhere. Somewhere overseas, in a foreign country. One of the big races, the Grands. She wanted nothing more than to be there, to demonstrate to the world that she could hang with the best of the best. The grandstands would be full of cheering fans, waving flags of all colors and nationalities as their favorite drivers raced by almost faster than they could see. Nothing would be left behind but the thudding impact of the sound of the engine as it washed across the delirious bystanders, making them feel almost as if they were in the race.
Shay blinked rapidly, focusing as she guided the car through Thirteen, barely slowing at all as tires squealed slightly.
Not good. I should have let off the gas a bit more there.
That thought was reinforced by a slight bump, as her wheel hit the warning track, a red-and-white striped barrier that ran along both sides of the track. Her speedometer dropped precipitously as she grimaced, holding the wheel tight as she finished the turn and raced back up to speed once more. It wasn’t much, but it could be enough.
“It’s okay,” Dan’s voice said in her ear, as if he understood her concern. “You’re still on track, you can still do this. You built up enough of a gap earlier. Trust me.”
She did. Instead of wasting precious breath, which she had already done earlier, she just grunted an affirmative. Sitting back into her seat, she let the asphalt flow beneath her, feeling the power of the engine as it roared its defiance to the gods of physics. It hurtled her along at speeds that would leave a normal person sitting in a pool of their own bodily fluids, struggling to maintain consciousness.
Shay smiled. She fucking loved it. There was no denying it; this was her passion in life. Speed. The more of it, the better. Even now her needle inched upward, tugging the corners of her cheeks tighter as the smile became a full-fledged grin. It didn’t matter that things were going south faster than an avalanche. When she was on the track, four tires hugging the corners and zipping down the straightaways, g-forces dimming her vision and noise roaring in her ears, she was at peace.
“Shay! SHAY!” The voice roared in her ears and she suddenly came back to reality.
Shit.
She was barreling toward Turn Fifteen. She should be reducing her speed already. With a snarl she tapped the brakes, downshifted, and tugged the wheel slowly to the left, trying to glide through the corner. She could still make it, but it would be a little tighter than initially hoped for.
The concrete wall loomed large on her right, coming closer and closer as she tried to force her way through the turn. This was going to kill time, but she still had one more lap left where she could try to qualify for this weekend’s race.
Shay could do it.
It came down to a fraction of an inch. The rear right wheel needed to clear the concrete as she pulled harder, turning the race car sharper than she’d wanted. The wheels lost traction for just a second, slipping across the hard ground. They recovered and shot her forward, but that rear right wheel just grazed the concrete barrier. Unfortunately for Shay, at the speeds she was going, a graze was catastrophic.
The tire shredded instantly, her car skidded across the track, and suddenly the whole rear blew apart. Pieces of carbon fiber showered the track and sent her into a tailspin as she careened down the course, the world whipping by, pressing her back into her seat.
It was over. She knew it. There would be no recovery from this.
The scent of burning rubber filled her nostrils. Shay closed her eyes and let the darkness claim her.
The pressure lessened, and she grunted angrily as the blackness never came, never hauled her blissfully into its realm, where she could escape the reality for just a while longer.
“Fuck!” she screamed, knowing the screech would be heard over the radio.
She didn’t care. The car slid to a halt. Popping her harness free, she hit the engine kill switch and jumped from the car. Her helmet came off next, momentarily becoming a club as she slammed it repeatedly into the side of the car. Black and purple metallic paint peeled off, turning her white helmet into a swirl of color as it twisted in her hands upon each impact.
“Dammit,” she swore again, but this time it was a cry of defeat, not of anger.
A pit truck rolled to a halt in front of her vehicle. She was the only one on the track at that time, so there was no fear of other vehicles that might come whipping around the corner.
Whipping properly around the corner, she corrected internally, still very u
nhappy with herself. A split-second lapse of concentration. That was all it took, and all it had taken, to derail her dreams.
Her helmet buzzed. Probably Dan trying to reach her. Shay lifted it to her face.
“I’m fine,” she said into it, then killed the headset built into it. Just then, she wanted to be alone. Just her, her wrecked car, and the lifetime it contained.
Just those three things, and the pit crew hooking it up so it could be towed out of the way of the real racers, the ones who would actually finish their lap in a decent time.
When they were finished, she wandered over to them and hopped onto the truck, hitching a ride back to the pit. The crew dropped the wrecked racer off at her station. Shay saw her crew waiting, but she couldn’t deal with them. Not right then.
Head down, shoulders slumped, she made her way over to the small trailer hooked up to the back of a truck and all but threw herself inside, locking the flimsy door behind her. Although she didn’t normally do that, Shay knew Dan would come to see how she was, to tell her it was okay.
Normally she liked that. But this time, she didn’t want to hear it. It wasn’t fine. It was over. The tears began to flow as she finally admitted that to herself.
It was all over.
***
Her head hurt.
In front of her, steam lifted itself skyward until it was sucked into her nose as she inhaled. The crisp scent of coffee went to battle with the lethargic slug that was her hangover.
The slug won.
Shay gritted her teeth in anger. This, this was a fight she could win. Bringing the piping-hot mug to her mouth, she slurped down some of the liquid, providing reinforcements.
The caffeine hit her like a sledgehammer, so hard that Shay thought she could actually feel her pupils dilate.
“Whoa,” she muttered into her empty mug, setting it down carefully as her hand began to shake from the sudden infusion of energy.
Around her the world seemed to cast off its cover of gray, color returning in a vibrant wave that threatened to lift her mood out of the black hole it currently resided in. In front of her, she eyed the scattered papers again, wondering if she now had the strength of spirit to go through them with the fine-tooth comb that would be necessary.