by Amelia Jade
So he had sent Ajax and his mate Arianna, both of whom already had experience with the Agency and the Underground. He was the one she would have to convince, to prove that they belonged.
At a nod from Madison, she went straight to the front of the room, Chad trailing along behind her. Despite him being the more natural orator between them, they had both agreed that Hannah would be better suited to make this speech.
“Thank you for letting me speak,” she said without preamble. “I’m not used to that, so my apologies if I only have a few sentences prepared. That’s all I can normally get out.”
An awkward chuckle ran through the room at her reference to people normally attacking her once they knew what she was.
“The reason I’m here is to ask that the Underground—and the people of Genesis Valley as a whole—allow my brother and I to…” Hannah trailed off as she looked around the room.
“Why are all of you still smiling like that?” she asked.
The entire group had big smiles on their faces. Especially Josh; he was beaming at them. Then he coughed to cover up a laugh.
“No seriously, I had this big speech prepared, and now I get the feeling I don’t need it,” she said, shaking her head in confusion.
“That’s because you don’t,” Ajax said from his side of the rectangular table.
“I don’t? Why not?”
“Because I’ve already gotten your story from the others. I was waiting for Josh to come around so that I could speak to him, as he knows you better than anyone else. But your actions in saving them after the explosion at the hotel speak more about who and what you are than any rumor.” The big shifter from Genesis Valley paused thoughtfully. “I cannot say that it will be easy, and that you won’t face any prejudice or dislike. Not everyone who lives among us in the valley is as open-minded as those in front of you. But you are welcome there, make no mistake of that. It may take us time to accept what you are, and hopefully you can find it in you to forgive any automatic reactions we may have. But I promise you, you have a home among us now.”
Hannah barely heard his words through the storm of tears coming down her face. She had been so stressed over the speech she had prepared, knowing it was her one true chance to change things. And now, the others were telling her that they didn’t need to hear her speak. They had heard words in what she did, words enough to welcome her amongst them.
To offer her a place she could call home.
Josh came to her side and swept her up in his arms, allowing her to discreetly wipe some of the tears onto his T-shirt. They didn’t stop flowing, however, even when he kissed her repeatedly.
“You knew about this,” she accused, though there was no malice in it.
“Surprise?”
“You’re going to make up for keeping that from me tonight,” she said, her head bobbing as his chest bounced with laughter.
“Of course,” he said, touching his lips to her forehead.
Ajax came up alongside them after shaking her brother’s hand and welcoming him.
“Thank you,” she said before he could speak a word. “Thank you for taking a chance.”
The big shifter nodded solemnly. “Those of us from Genesis Valley have been through a lot. The world is changing, and I don’t think it will necessarily be for the better for our kind. It is best, in my mind, if we stick together. You have demonstrated your courage, and your ability to keep calm. You’ve proven to us that the rumors and the things we have been taught are done so in error. It will take time for that to be corrected, but it will take longer if we don’t start somewhere. I wish you the best, Hannah Terrik, and if there is anything I may do, please do not hesitate to ask.”
With that, the man was gone, disappearing back into the crowd to find his mate.
Hannah let herself be pulled into her own mate’s arms.
She knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last. The Agency had struck at them again, indicating they were growing stronger, and feeling ready to renew the conflict. Hannah hadn’t been part of it initially, but she was now.
The Agency had found new troops, new allies.
But so had the Underground.
She took Josh’s hand in hers. There was going to be a fight, but she was confident—with them facing it side by side—that they would emerge victorious.
They had to.
**********
**********
Kingpin Bear
Chapter One
Jared
His bear growled impatiently.
Knock it off. It’ll happen when it’s time.
Things were still going according to plan, which was a minor miracle in itself. Rarely did a plan go off this smoothly for this long when it involved the Agency. As much as Jared hated them—and he did not use that word lightly—he had begrudgingly come to respect their competency. They were well-organized and didn’t tolerate their members slacking off.
So for his team to get this close to one of their remaining bases and still remain undetected should be considered a success. Contingencies were in place in case they had been spotted, but none of them, not even the most optimistic, had expected them to get this far.
Which is probably why you’re going crazy. Something has to go wrong, because it always does go wrong. You fundamentally cannot accept that something will work this well.
He bared his teeth in a silent snarl at himself, and then scuttled closer, keeping cover as best he could.
The Underground had mobilized completely for this strike. Every available combat shifter was somewhere in the vicinity of the Agency base. They had the Agency on the run after a series of hit-and-run strikes over the past two weeks that had gone abnormally well for the Underground. The Sentinels, Jared’s team of highly-trained and extremely lethal bear shifters who formed the core of the strike team, had wiped out three Agency teams with astonishing ease, without taking so much as a single serious wound.
It was that success which had pushed him to suggest they launch an attack to deny the Agency this particular base. It was a three-story house on the outskirts of the downtown core. It had been renovated extensively, including various anti-vehicle measures, and a secret underground garage that connected to the main house by a tunnel of some sort. They had tried to pull the plans for it from the city, but nothing had been available.
With the security measures in place they had decided to approach on foot. Jared’s team of four had been augmented by Madison, the leader of the Underground, as well as Milos and Andre, two shifters who were only nominally combat-trained, but had seen plenty of action over the past six months since things escalated quickly with the Agency.
In addition, there were two new members to his team.
A howl split the night as his sharp eyes surveyed the house, looking for any sign of life, like a guard that would shout out a warning. But there was nothing. The others saw the same thing, and two sleek, powerful forms raced forward. Hannah and Chad, two of the last remaining werewolves on the planet, went by on either side of him so fast they were nothing more than a blur.
Jared rose to his feet from behind the power generating box he had been using to conceal himself and charged across the street. In his peripheral vision he could see other forms edging around cars, and one even hoisting themselves from a sewer drain with a powerful flex of their arms.
Half the team with Madison in charge had been tasked with approaching the house from the rear, and he heard the sound of garbage cans toppling followed by soft cursing.
Well, you wanted something to go wrong. Now it did. Happy?
He was not.
A light flared into existence in the house and a door opened as a sentry came outside to see what the noise was about. The house had a balcony on the upper level that wrapped round the front of the house. It was ten feet off the ground, but that was no challenge to the superhuman strength of the werewolves. They cleared the railing effortlessly, landing on either side of the surprised Agent. He didn’t even have time to
shout before they tore out his throat and left him to die, and then spread out to check the rest of the balcony.
Jared marveled at the swift coordination between the two wolves. They had been working together for far longer than his team had, and it showed. They had known just how and where to strike by instinct. He made a mental note to talk to them and see how they did that, if they had previously established the best way to go about it. As the leader of his team, he was always seeking new ways to improve their skills and efficiency. Every little bit he could do helped to ensure that they would come home alive, which was the end goal of everything they did. He wasn’t afraid to die, and he knew his team wasn’t either, but that wasn’t the same as wanting to.
If anyone was to give his life tonight, Jared vowed it would be him. He could not bear the pain of having to notify anyone’s mate. There was no one to notify if he were to die, so it just made sense.
He shook his head, clearing it of the morbid thoughts. No one is dying tonight. Now get to work.
Jared crouched, and used the immense power contained in his legs to hurl him upward. His fingers grasped the top of the railing and he pulled himself up and over it without slowing his momentum. Booted feet landed more heavily on the balcony than he had intended. Two other shapes mimicked his movements in the dark, and he nodded to Connor and Andre, the last members of the frontal assault team. Somewhere out there Madison, Josh, Justin and Milos were all forming up. They would hit the rear of the house once the breach at the front had occurred and occupied the attention of anyone inside.
He waited for the werewolves to reappear—they were already in their animal form to protect their human identities, just in case things went south. Jared wasn’t willing to put them in even more danger than they already were. Werewolves were hunted by both humans and other shifters, though he was working to change that last one, to right some very old wrongs. For now though, cautious was the way to play.
As the gray shapes reappeared on either side, Jared launched himself forward and through the door into the house. The wood and glass frame shattered on impact, but he didn’t care. The entire point of their attack tonight was to render the house useless to the Agency. This wasn’t a raid. He had every intention of tearing the structure to the ground and burning it. The Underground was making a statement. No longer would they be afraid. No more sneaking around in the shadows.
The Agency had declared war on shifters, and now the Underground was bringing it to their doorstep. It was the second to last step before they could end it for good.
Inside there were three guards spread out in a shallow arc waiting for him. The fluidity of their motions and their lightness on the balls of their feet told Jared that these were well-trained guards, likely injected with the Extremis serum that would make them faster, stronger, and tougher than a normal human.
One of them whipped out a tranquilizer gun. They had been popular with the Agency in the earlier stages of the war, but for whatever reason had faded from use over the few remaining months. Jared picked up the closest piece of furniture, which turned out to be a solid-oak desk, and hurled it at the man. The heavy wood slammed into him, sending him tumbling backward, momentarily out of the fight.
To his right, he heard the snapping of jaws as the werewolves tangled with one of the shifters.
“Take him!” he shouted, pointing to the man climbing out from under the desk. Connor surged past him to obey.
Jared stalked forward, forcing the last man to retreat. Behind him Andre hung back. Because of his lack of combat experience, he was in a backup role, there to help in case anyone in their party became overwhelmed, or if a trap was sprung.
Which meant Jared had to deal with the man on his own. His cheeks tugged back in a grin at the thought.
“You find this funny, freak?” the man spat, throwing a swift jab at his head.
Jared straightened up out of his fighting stance. “I’ve never had the chance to straight-up ask one of you this,” he said conversationally. “But before I snap your neck, I have to know the answer to something.”
The Agent looked at him in complete confusion, but he didn’t let his guard down. “The answer to what?”
“You call me a freak. But what I am is natural. It happens through genes passed down through generations. Similar to blond hair or blue eyes. Yes, it’s different, but the same general principle. You, on the other hand, are imbued with traits created in a science lab. There is absolutely nothing natural about your abilities. And yet, you call me a freak?” he asked, anger seeping into his voice as he spoke, until he was all but yelling at the Agent.
The man snarled and charged at Jared.
“That’s what I thought,” he said with a sigh, and went to work.
A raised fist turned the man’s wild swing aside, and he delivered a vicious hit into the Agent’s temple that had him wobbly on his feet for a moment, but he recovered in time to turn Jared’s attack and drive an elbow into the Sentinel’s stomach.
The big man grunted as he instinctively doubled over.
The Agent tried to drive a knee up into Jared’s face, but he neatly grabbed the leg and instead of trying to stop it, he pulled it with him as he stood up, dumping the Agent onto his back. Jared reached behind him, and as the Agent tried to rise he slammed the oak chair that went with the desk into the smaller man. The wood exploded into kindling, but it drove the Agent back to one knee, leaving him momentarily vulnerable.
Jared quickly danced behind the man’s neck, grabbed his jaw in one hand, the back of his head in the other, and twisted violently. Bone snapped and the body in his hands was suddenly devoid of life. It dropped limply to the floor and Jared grimaced in distaste. He hated killing, but he accepted it was necessary, and had trained to be as proficient at it as he possibly could.
“Let’s move,” he growled, ignoring the looks the others gave him. The others had dispatched their foes already, not having taken the time to talk with them.
They swept the rest of the upstairs, but it was empty. Below them there was a crash, followed by the sounds of fighting as the rear of the house was breached by the second team. Shouts sounded and suddenly the noise doubled in intensity.
“Something is going wrong down there,” Connor said aloud, and Jared agreed.
“Faster,” he urged. They moved down the staircase, ignoring the second floor entirely as they went to the aid of their comrades.
They found the fight going on in a huge room that appeared to be a combination kitchen and dining room. It almost looked like a wrestling match. Pairs had squared off for the most part, and the fights were raging throughout the room. Like Jared had done upstairs, the combatants were using whatever came to hand, which included the dozen or so chairs which had surrounded the huge, fourteen foot or more dining table. There were more Agents than allies in the room, and he needed a way to separate them quickly. It appeared from his quick glance that after his team had entered the room from outside, more Agents had appeared behind them.
Thinking swiftly, he ran in and flipped the table up on its end, creating a pseudo wall that he used to help separate some of the room, including leaving most of the reinforcements on the far side. He motioned for Andre and the werewolves to help end the fights on his current side of the table.
He and Connor smiled at each other and cleared it, landing amidst the reinforcements. Their sudden appearance from above, instead of from the sides of the table, surprised their foes. They struck like whirling devils, arms jabbing and chopping with a precision that would have made their instructor proud.
The numbers were against them however, and the tide began to press them back until he could feel the wood against his shoulder blades.
“Not good,” he grunted as footsteps sounded outside, indicating the arrival of more Agents.
Where were they all coming from?
It’s a trap, you idiot. They anticipated this, that’s the likely answer.
A shadow crossed over his face for a moment, and th
en a werewolf landed in the midst of the group of his attackers, scattering them. A second shape landed lithely beside it. Then the entire floor shook as a bear landed on all fours right on top of one of the attackers.
Jared grinned at the man closest to him as the odds suddenly turned. The fighting on the far side had been resolved, and suddenly the entire might of the Underground was united once more. He went back on the attack, and together his team left a trail of bodies as they systematically eliminated any Agent stupid enough to stick around. In a handful of seconds their foes were either dead, dying, or on the run.
“That went well,” he said, turning to head back inside. They had intended to do a sweep of the house, to see if there was anything valuable.
But before he could take more than a few steps, something loud beeped, there was a loud bang, and then fire rolled down the stairs in a solid wall.
“Time to go!” he shouted, throwing himself back over the table and through the rear of the house.
The others filed out after him. They raced along the side of the house to the front, where they stopped to watch in awe as the entire house went up in flames with a rapidity that startled him.
“I guess they knew we would be coming here,” Justin said from his side.
Jared nodded slowly. “It makes sense. They know we aren’t ready to go after their downtown base, and we’ve eliminated everything else.
The flames shot higher into the night sky, and the nearby shadows began to dance and weave as the red-orange fingers flickered in the night breeze.
Without warning, flames erupted from the house next door.
“Oh fuck,” he said in stunned surprise. It took his instincts a split second to follow up, but when they did he started sprinting for the house.