“Wow. An entire cake?” Whisper asked.
Otto shrugged. “I asked the kitchen for one. Told them I was hankering for a good chocolate cake and they obliged.”
“But won’t they be suspicious when there are no leftovers?” Whisper was already reaching for a giant chunk of cheese.
Otto laughed. “Naw. They wouldn’t be that surprised by a shifter supposedly eating a whole cake in one sitting. They’re used to our giant shifter appetites.”
“Well in that case, let’s eat this entire cake,” Axel said to Whisper with a wink. She winked back and took a huge bite of cheese. But Axel didn’t dig in. Not quite yet. First, he wanted to take care of business.
“Here are all the vials of the poison,” he told Otto as he began unpacking them. “They aren’t labeled, just in case they’re found by someone from Gilt Hollow, so be careful that they don’t get misplaced or put somewhere that someone could accidentally ingest the liquid. This stuff is potent, or so I’m told. Supposedly, just a few drops can be enough to kill a grown man. Of course, we didn’t do any field tests on this round. It’s kind of hard to find volunteers to test a poison.”
Otto smiled. “That’s alright. We’ll do our own round of field tests on the Gilt Hollow soldiers.”
Axel nodded. “Just be careful, seriously. Don’t let this stuff get anywhere it’s not supposed to be.”
“We’ll be careful,” Otto promised as he loaded the vials into his own bag that he’d brought with him. And with any luck this will be the last Shifter Games ever held.”
Axel felt a swell of hope in his chest. “You really think they’ll stop the Games after this?”
Leo shrugged and spoke up. “They’ll at least have to postpone them indefinitely. People are already on edge about the Games. After a bunch of soldiers die, no one is going to want to come to the Games again for a long time. They’ll be afraid that there’s no security, and they’ll be right. With soldiers dying in the middle of the event, who is going to believe that anyone at the Games is safe?”
“But there will be a time that they restart the Games, even after losing the soldiers,” Otto said. “Unless we can first overthrow the Gilt Hollow regime. That’s the goal here. Disable the Games for a long period of time by taking out the soldiers, which will also cause the Gilt Hollow citizens to worry that the nobles have lost control and can’t keep the city safe. During this time of unrest, when there are no Games, a weakened army, and a general distrust of the Emperor, we’ll make our move. If all goes as planned, this will be the best chance we’ve ever had to take down Gilt Hollow.”
“Well, good luck,” Axel said, grabbing Whisper’s bag and passing over the vials of poison from there as well. “All of us in Bear Hollow are ready to help however we can.”
“We appreciate that,” Otto said. “I’m excited that you’ve all decided to form your own branch of the resistance force. The shifters have never been so united and so strong. I have a good feeling that change is coming soon.”
Axel smiled in agreement as he handed over the last of the vials, and then he began to dig into the food, just as Whisper was already doing. Whisper hadn’t said anything as the poison was discussed, but she had a worried crease in her forehead. Axel knew she wasn’t so convinced that this plan was going to be the magic turning point for the shifters. There were still too many things that could go wrong and prevent the shifters from ever getting the poison to the soldiers, but what was the point of telling Otto and Leo that? Otto and Leo knew better than anyone how risky and fragile this plan was. They would do their best, and if it didn’t work they’d try again or try something else.
For the rest of the time that Axel and Whisper ate, they exchanged news and gossip with Otto and Leo. The two Gilt Hollow shifters were eager to hear of everything going on back in Bear Hollow, and Axel and Whisper wanted to know how things in general were going for the Gilt Hollow shifters. It was good to catch up with friends from across the river, and chances to do that were few and far between these days. Axel dreamed of the day that the Gilt Hollow regime was gone and he could freely visit with all his friends, but until that happened he would treasure moments like these. All too soon, Axel and Whisper had finished eating and Otto was looking nervously at his watch.
“Leo and I need to get back. The shifters are being watched quite carefully these days, and if anyone realizes we’ve been gone for so long this late at night, they’re going to get suspicious.”
“Alright,” Axel said with a reluctant sigh. “Let us help you clean all this up.”
It didn’t take long to clean up the plates from the food. Axel and Whisper had eaten just about everything, so it was simply a matter of stacking the plates and putting them back in the bags Otto and Leo had used to bring out the food. Once everything was cleaned up, the shifters bid each other goodbye, with promises on both sides to keep sending updates back and forth about how the resistance forces were doing. Of course, the biggest update that everyone in Bear Hollow would be waiting for was news on whether the poison had worked as planned during the next Shifter Games event.
Otto and Leo left the little forest hideout first, and Axel and Whisper promised to wait about ten minutes before leaving as well. Fewer shifters moving through the forest at one time meant less chance of the soldiers realizing that shifters were out and about, plotting against Gilt Hollow.
Axel was fine waiting a few minutes to walk back to the tunnel, anyway. He stretched out beneath the trees and sighed. “Damn. I am way too full. I haven’t eaten that much in one sitting in ages.”
“Glutton,” Whisper said accusingly as she stretched out beside him. Axel turned his head to raise an eyebrow at her.
“You’re one to talk. I’m pretty sure you ate about the same amount I did.”
“Pfft, nonsense. You ate more than your fair share.”
Axel gave her a playful punch in the arm and she giggled. He savored the delightful sound, then both of them lay quiet for a few minutes, staring up at the stars that twinkled between the trees’ branches. Axel thought they probably would be safe to start walking back to the tunnel, but he didn’t want to rush things. He was enjoying lying by Whisper in the quiet, nighttime forest. It would have been better if it was the Bear Hollow forest, of course, but they weren’t really in that much danger here. They were far off the path, and no Gilt Hollow soldiers were likely to come by and disturb them.
“You were awfully quiet tonight,” he observed as he squinted at a large, abnormally bright star that had caught his eye.
“Yeah. I was thinking a lot, I guess. I don’t want to be a downer, but it’s hard not worry about this plan. There are so many things that could go wrong, and if things go wrong we’re going to be paying the price over in Bear Hollow. Raids will get even crazier, and more lives will be lost.”
Axel sighed. “You sound like Violet now.”
Whisper bristled slightly beside him at the accusation, but she didn’t sound angry when she spoke. “Well, maybe she has a little bit of a point, as much as I hate to admit it.”
“She has a point, yes. But we all know the risks. It’s not like anyone expects everything to go perfectly. We’re just hoping for things to go well enough that no shifters get killed and we significantly weaken Gilt Hollow’s leaders.”
“I know. And obviously I wouldn’t be here on this mission if I didn’t believe the risks were worth it. It’s just…” Whisper trailed off and didn’t complete her sentence, forcing Axel to prompt her.
“It’s just what?”
“It’s just that I want a normal life. With a lifemate and cubs and happiness that isn’t constantly threatened.”
Axel’s eyes widened slightly, but he continued to look up at the stars instead of at Whisper. He had never heard her talk like that before, with such a sad wistfulness in her voice. He wanted to lean over and promise to give her all of that. He wanted to kiss her and tell her that perhaps, just perhaps, he might be her lifemate. But that was crazy talk. He had no reaso
n to think they were lifemates other than the fact that lately he was insanely attracted to her. And that wasn’t enough, was it? Surely, if they were destined to be together forever, he would have had some hint of that before the last few weeks. He must just be overthinking things because the craziness with Violet had him thinking about whether he would ever actually find his lifemate.
Suddenly, Axel didn’t want to sit around in the Gilt Hollow forest anymore.
“Come on,” he said, jumping to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Whisper sat up much more slowly, brushing leaves and dried grass from her pants as she did. “Are you sure it’s safe? Have we waited long enough for the others to get ahead of us?”
“I’m sure. Those guys are halfway home by now. It’s time for us to get home, too. And for all the talk about heavy patrols, I don’t think this forest is being patrolled that heavily. I haven’t seen or heard anything to indicate a patrol is nearby. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Axel offered his hand to Whisper to help her stand, not knowing how wrong his overly confident words would turn out to be.
Chapter Nine
For several minutes, the walk back to the tunnel was uneventful. And then, all hell broke loose. Axel was listening, watching, and sniffing the air, but somehow the soldier still managed to sneak up on him. One second, Axel was carefully walking along, cautious but confident. The next, the muzzle of a gun had been shoved into the side of his face.
“You! Stop, now!” bellowed a deep, mocking voice. For a second, Axel did stop. He froze, wondering how the heck he hadn’t noticed the Gilt Hollow soldier sneaking up on him. That second almost cost him his life. He knew there would be other soldiers around, and he didn’t have much time to react before the soldiers had Whisper and him hopelessly surrounded. Luckily, he regained his composure in the nick of time.
“Run, Whisper!” he yelled. In that same moment, he reached over with lightning speed and jerked the gun’s muzzle away from the side of his head. He had just managed to get the muzzle pointed behind him instead of at him when the soldier reacted and pulled the trigger. Axel’s hands shook and burned from the reverberation of the bullet traveling out of the gun while he was holding it, but that was a small price to pay for the fact that he’d just saved his own life.
“Hey!” the soldier shouted, apparently shocked by the fact that his bullet hadn’t killed Axel. “Don’t touch my gun!”
“Then don’t point it at my head,” Axel growled over his shoulder, already running deep into the forest after Whisper, who had wisely taken off as Axel had instructed. Behind him the soldier shouted again, then fired another shot. The shot was horribly aimed and missed Axel by several yards at least. But the noise of the shouts behind him was growing louder. More soldiers were joining in the chase, and even with their poor aim, if enough of them were shooting, their odds of hitting him were pretty high. Whisper had a bit better of a head start, but even she wasn’t completely out of the danger zone. They had to move faster if they were going to escape with a comfortable margin. The sound of boots pounding the ground behind him was growing louder, not softer. That meant those bastards were gaining on them. And that left Axel and Whisper only one option.
“Shift!” Axel called out at the top of his lungs, hoping that Whisper would hear him above all the other noise. “We have to shift and get out of here.”
Behind him, the noise was beginning to sound like a war zone. There were far more soldiers than Axel would have ever imagined. How the hell had he missed them? They had to have been downwind from him, and they must have been traveling without making a single sound. The soldiers were wizening up to how shifters detected them, which wasn’t good news. That meant the raids on Bear Hollow were going to get even worse.
But Axel couldn’t worry about that right now. First, he had to worry about making it out of this situation alive. Up ahead of him, he heard a telltale popping sound as a rush of energy emanated out from Whisper’s body. Good, that meant she had heard his desperate, screamed warning and had begun to shift. It meant he could shift, too, since he wouldn’t need to yell out his warning again.
Without slowing his running pace, Axel let his snow leopard form begin to take over. He hoped that none of the soldiers were able to actually see him at this moment. Snow leopard shifters were rare, and if they saw his snow leopard form, they might be able to actually track down who he was in human form. He didn’t think anyone in Bear Hollow would purposefully out him, but someone might accidentally give his identity away if the soldiers were tricky enough in their questioning.
Axel would have to worry about that possibility when it arrived, though. Right now, his most urgent priority was getting himself and Whisper away from those guns.
He felt himself speeding up as his slower human form faded away. His larger, more stable snow leopard paws, and his thicker, stronger animal muscles, quickly gave him the boost he needed. Within moments, he had caught up to Whisper, who was now running in bear form. She gave him a low growl, and he understood that she wanted him to take the lead. She wasn’t sure which way to go. Axel wasn’t sure either, but he didn’t think it mattered where they ran as long as they were running deeper into the forest, and not toward the city of Gilt Hollow itself. If they could just lose this huge group of soldiers, they could figure out later how to get out of the forest and back over to Bear Hollow.
Axel breathed in deeply, smelling the air. To his right, it smelled faintly like buildings and people. To his left, it smelled like pine and wood. He turned toward his left, and ran as fast as he could. This would be the way deeper into the forest. He glanced over his shoulder once to make sure Whisper was following him and keeping up okay. Of course she was. She really seemed to have gotten faster with age instead of slower. He wasn’t sure how that was possible, but he didn’t care. Right now he was grateful for her speed. With the two of them running in animal form, the noise of the soldiers’ shouts and gunfire quickly began to fade away. Still, he didn’t slow down for a long time. For at least a good ten minutes after the noise had completely stopped, he continued to run. Finally, convinced that they had lost their pursuers, he slowed to a jog, then a trot, then a walk.
He looked behind him at Whisper, whose bear was breathing heavily. Other than being a bit winded, though, she seemed fine. Axel nudged her nose with his, and she nudged back, her way of saying she was fine. Axel breathed a long sigh of relief, then stopped walking completely and turned around, sniffing the air. He could not detect any scent of soldier, and they definitely wouldn’t be downwind from him at this angle. If they were coming toward him, he would have known it. But from the lack of noises and scents, it seemed they must have given up the chase way further back.
Axel looked around the dark forest, trying to take stock of where they were. The forest here was heavy with pines, but other than that he didn’t see any distinguishing characteristics. He started ambling forward slowly, trying to find any sort of rocky overhang, hollowed out tree trunk, or thick growth of bushes that he and Whisper could use for cover. There weren’t many hiding places to speak of, though, and finally he settled for a small grassy patch that was big enough for two humans to lie down on and was surrounded on two sides by tall, thick bushes. He would have preferred somewhere sheltered on all four sides, but apparently that wasn’t happening here. This would have to do.
With a tired grunt, he began to shift back into human form. Whisper followed his lead, but as soon as she was human again she looked around suspiciously.
“Are you sure we’re safe here?”
Axel shrugged. “One can never know for sure. But I don’t smell any soldiers and we ran really, really far. I have a feeling they aren’t going to bother coming all the way up here. They’re more likely to go take their anger out on Bear Hollow itself, unfortunately.”
Whisper winced.
“I know,” Axel said, lying down on the grassy patch and closing his eyes as the frustration of the last half hour caught up with him. “
I’m not happy about that either. But everyone in Bear Hollow knew we were coming out here tonight, and they knew there was a good possibility a raid would be happening. They’re as prepared as they can be for a visit from the Gilt Hollow soldiers.”
Whisper sighed and came to lie beside him. Axel tried his best not to think about the fact that both of them were naked. If he started thinking about her naked curves now, he would end up with a stiff erection—a stiff erection he would have no way of hiding. But the fact that they were both naked couldn’t be helped. They’d lost their bags and clothes when they shifted, so nakedness it was. Luckily, the night was on the warmer side for September. Axel still would have preferred a blanket or some warm clothes, but their current situation couldn’t be helped, and they would survive. It’s not like it was winter temperatures, where they might lose fingers and toes to frostbite.
“So what do we do now?” Whisper asked. She sounded weary, and Axel wished he could reach over and pull her into his arms. But she would undoubtedly push him away if he did that, which would only make this situation much more awkward. So he kept his hands at his side and kept staring up at the starry night sky instead.
“We wait,” he said. “This spot isn’t perfectly sheltered, but it’s good enough that we’ll have plenty of warning if anyone is approaching. I don’t want to make an attempt at getting back to Bear Hollow right now. The first thing the Gilt Hollow soldiers did when they gave up chasing us was send people to guard the perimeters of Bear Hollow itself. I guarantee you that. Trying to get in right now would be the stupidest thing we could do.”
“Okay,” Whisper said slowly. “But how long do we wait? We have no food or clothing. We can’t just stay up here forever.”
“Of course not. But we both have full stomachs right now, thanks to the huge meal that Otto and Leo brought us. And we’ll be fine without clothes during the day. At night well… we’ll just have to keep each other warm.” Axel looked over at Whisper and winked, earning himself an eye roll from her.
The Warrior and the Snow Leopard (The Shifter Games Book 4) Page 8