by Laura Taylor
“My mistake,” Miller muttered softly.
When they reached the gate, Skip didn’t even consider entering the code to open it. Having Baron and the others meet a Noturatii operative at the gate would be bad, but if they found him already inside the estate, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. So instead, she went over to the intercom and pressed the call button.
“Good morning. How can I help you?” Silas’s voice came through the speaker, and Skip felt herself relax. It was so good just to hear a familiar voice again.
“It’s me,” she said, making sure not to use her own name. She didn’t trust Miller, and he wasn’t anywhere near contained yet, so letting him know her name was an unnecessary risk. “I’m down by the gate. I need-”
“Fucking hell, Skip?” Silas yelled. “Are you all right?”
Skip sighed. So much for remaining anonymous. “I’ve got someone with me,” she blurted out, knowing that she had a very small opportunity to explain herself, “and you have to not shoot him.”
Silence. “Who’s with you?” From his tone, it sounded like Silas was already imagining gutting whoever it was.
“You won’t like him,” Skip said, trying to buy enough time to make Silas listen to her. “But you can’t shoot him. It’s really important.”
The intercom shut off suddenly.
“Oh God, they’re going to shoot you,” she groaned. “Quick. Hide in the bushes.”
“What?” Miller asked in alarm.
“Hide in the bushes,” she repeated, waving him back urgently. “If they see you, they’ll shoot you, so I need a little bit of time to talk them down.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Skip held her breath as Miller darted over to the thick bushes beside the gate and dived inside. The sun didn’t reach the deep pocket of leaves, and with his dark skin and clothing, he was all but invisible.
She could well imagine the chaos going on inside the manor. Silas would be yelling that they were under attack. Baron would gather a team of armed soldiers, arrange a line up of the less experienced wolves in the foyer to defend the manor, and bring the stronger ones with him to meet their foe head on. Skip stood patiently, long minutes ticking by, and then the heavy thud of multiple sets of boots could be heard coming down the driveway.
“Hi,” she said simply, when they arrived, and yep, there was quite the line up. Silas, Tank, Andre, Caroline. Raniesha was there too, and Heron, with a look of profound relief at seeing Skip alive and unharmed. She was a little relieved that Baron hadn’t brought John along. Given his past, he was just as likely to shoot Miller, regardless of any orders to the contrary.
Baron marched straight up to the gate and tapped in the code. The gate began to open. “I’ve got-” Skip tried to say, but before she could get any further, Silas grabbed her arm and hauled her inside the gate. He stepped through the gap, gun at the ready, Andre and Baron quickly following him, and then Tank closed the gate behind them. They scanned the road, looking for any sign of danger.
“Wait! Listen to me!” Skip told them insistently, struggling from where Heron had grabbed her and was holding her back. “You can’t shoot him. It’s really, really important.”
“Who is it?” Silas asked, continuing to scan the road.
“He’s from the Noturatii. But he’s leaving them. He wants to help us. He’s got intel that we can use.”
“It’s a trap,” Baron declared flatly. “Fucking hell, Skip, are you really that stupid-”
“You fucking listen to me,” she snarled, breaking free of Heron and marching forward to stand at the gate, knowing she had mere seconds to save Miller’s life. “I am not some five year old idiot! I know what war we’re fighting, I know who our enemy is, and I’m not going to believe some Noturatii arsehole just because he smiles and tries to sweet talk me. Things happened last night that you know nothing about, and I have very good reasons for what I’m doing. So pull your head out of your arse and listen for a change.”
The outburst had the desired effect. Baron stopped cold, staring at her like she’d grown a second head. He glanced up and down the road one more time, and then lowered his gun, motioning for Silas and Andre to do the same. “You brought a Noturatii operative to our very doorstep,” he snarled at her, his eyes never leaving hers. “So you’d better have a fucking good reason for that kind of lunacy.”
“I do,” Skip said firmly. She didn’t bother being surprised at her own outburst, or at the odd courage currently pulsing through her veins. After her conversion, she’d rapidly learned that her wolf’s personality was rather different from her own, confrontational where she was timid, stubborn where she gave ground, and over the years, there had been half a dozen occasions where the wolf had sprung to the fore, driving Skip to do things that she would normally have found terrifying. And after surviving a car crash and a night in the wilderness with a Noturatii man, she was feeling rather bold. “So are we going to play ball, or are you going to shoot us in the foot when I’m doing everything I can to help us?”
Baron hesitated a moment longer… then let out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine,” he said, though it was clear he was far from happy with the situation. “Come out,” he called. “No one will harm you.”
“Wait,” Skip said, eyeing Silas and Andre. “He’s not just a Noturatii.”
“Then who is he?”
“You promise you won’t shoot him?”
“I promise I won’t shoot him until after I get the full story from you. After that, all bets are off.”
It was as good a reply as she was going to get, so Skip took a deep breath and blurted out the rest. “It’s the guy who led the massacre up in Scotland. The black one who took the dead hiker away.” While Skip hadn’t been present at the end of the battle, she’d been there when the attack had begun, and had heard the story of how the fight had ended.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” It was Silas who made the exclamation, his face turning pale at all the possible implications of her statement.
“He saved my life last night,” Skip told him. “So that at least earns him the chance to explain himself.”
“You had damn well better be right about this,” Baron growled, looking like she’d just asked him to eat a pile of his own vomit. He holstered his gun. “Come out,” he called again.
There was a pause, and then a rustling sound from the bushes. Miller came out slowly, keeping his hands visible, and stood quietly beside the drive.
Baron wasted no time in spinning him around, pressing his hands up against the stone wall and patting him down.
“He gave me all his weapons,” Skip told him.
“Smart move,” Baron said, coming up with nothing. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’m leaving the Noturatii,” Miller said, not moving from the wall. “The young lady said you’d be interested in the information I have on them.”
“And what the fuck happened last night that’s got Skip so excited?”
Miller told them the bare bones of the story; the kidnapping, the car crash, his two team mates both killed, the thunderstorm, sheltering in a cave overnight, and then hitching a ride back here this morning. Silas and Andre were both standing by, ready to leap into action at the slightest sign of danger, but Skip was relieved to see that they seemed satisfied with the explanation. For now, at least.
Baron pulled out his phone and dialled a number. “Simon?” he said, after a moment’s pause. “Find Kwan and get down to the gate. I’ve got a Noturatii operative I need you to scan for bugs.”
The group waited in tense silence after he hung up, and then, minutes later, more footsteps came hurrying down the drive. Simon was carrying a case of equipment, and he wasted no time in slipping through the gate and setting up what he needed. “Any metal on you?” he asked.
“Belt buckle,” Miller said, still not moving. “Steel caps in my boots. Wallet in my back pocket.” Baron set about removing the items, undid the laces on Miller’s boots and told him to toe them off, and
then Simon did a full scan of him, not just for metallic objects, but for anything with an electrical signal, listening devices, hidden cameras.
“He’s clean,” he announced a while later, stepping back and packing up his equipment.
“Kwan? You’re up,” Baron announced, and Kwan stepped forward. His scan of Miller was a lot slower, and a lot more unorthodox. After his conversion, Kwan had developed the unusual ability of being able to detect and manipulate electric currents, and he carefully performed a full sweep of Miller now, hands hovering just over his clothes as he scanned every inch of his body, checking for any kind of tracking device that might be too subtle for Simon’s equipment to detect.
“Nothing,” he announced, some time later. The look on Baron’s face was almost comical, as if he couldn’t believe that Miller was actually clean. Skip couldn’t really blame him for his scepticism, though. But for the events of last night, she herself would never have believed that a man like Miller would dare to show up here, unarmed and without even one tiny bug on him.
“Now what?” Silas asked, looking as baffled as Baron.
“I thought you could put him in one of the cages,” Skip suggested, watching from the gate. “Don’t worry,” she added, when Miller looked apprehensive about the idea. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. And it’s not like we can just let you wander around the estate on your own.”
“Take him through the cellar door,” Baron said, opening the gate once more. “And I want two guards on him at all times. Skip? You and me are going to have a little chat about this.”
Skip nodded. She had expected as much.
“And Tank? Do a full sweep of the estate. I want to know there’s nothing else going on around here that shouldn’t be.”
Ten minutes later, Skip was pacing the library, four pairs of worried eyes staring at her expectantly; Baron and Caroline, as the Den’s alphas, Andre, who was always a good choice when strategic decisions needed to be made, and Heron, who Skip suspected was just unwilling to let Skip out of her sight for the time being.
“Jack Miller,” Baron said, repeating the name she had just given them. “Why would you bring him here?” He was clearly making an effort to rein in his temper. “Okay, so he saved your life, but he’s a Noturatii. If he wants to leave the organisation, you could have just let him walk.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Skip explained. “See, there’s something else you need to know… Jack’s been converted. I don’t think he realises it yet, but he’s become a shape shifter.” She explained it quickly, the thunderstorm, the cuts on their hands, the lightning strike, and her shock at waking up to find she was sharing the cave with a wolf. And if she had been surprised, it was nothing when compared to the shock on the faces around her. “So I couldn’t just let him go,” Skip concluded. “He could have exposed us all. Or taken those secrets back to the Noturatii. And given that he saved my life, I couldn’t just shoot him, either. I know this is bad, and it certainly wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“It’s okay,” Heron said gently. “You did the best you could under the circumstances.” She levelled a firm glare at Baron, as if daring him to contradict her.
“Fuck,” Baron muttered, and Skip was already anticipating the extended argument that was going to happen about what to do with Miller next.
But she had another, much more urgent issue to discuss, and so she interrupted Baron before he could begin his next rant. “I have another problem,” she said quickly, but Baron was already not listening.
“We can’t just let him go. Get Tank in here,” he said to Caroline. “No, scratch that. He saved Skip’s life, so we’re going to have to think about this one carefully for a while. Maybe we could-”
“Baron! There’s something else you need to know.”
“Did he harm you in any way?” Baron asked, turning to her quickly. “Because the only reason he saved your life was because he kidnapped you in the first place, so if he’s-”
“I’ve been shot.”
Baron stopped immediately. His eyes ran over Skip’s body, looking for any signs of injury. “Where? I’ll get Silas to remove the bullet. Or did it go straight through? We’ve got plenty of local anaesthetic, so he can stitch you up-”
“No. He can’t.”
And finally, she had Baron’s attention.
“Where were you shot?” Heron asked, her face turning pale.
“In the leg. As a wolf.” Skip swallowed, remembering the pouring blood, the searing pain.
“How bad?” Caroline asked.
“Bad,” Skip said simply, knowing they would know what she meant. They were all well versed in the consequences of bullet wounds, and Skip had seen enough herself to know how much blood meant it was ugly but manageable, and how much meant a serious problem. It was remarkable how much a person could bleed before their life was seriously at risk, and it was common for new recruits to panic a little at some of the wounds that were presented. The older, more experienced wolves had a much better grasp on the intricacies of life-and-death situations. “It hit me in the leg, and possibly went through into my abdomen. I’m not sure about that part, but it definitely hit an artery.” Arterial blood was a much more vivid red than blood from the veins, and instead of seeping, it pumped, the waves of pressure often visible with each beat of the heart.
“How long have you been in human form?” was Baron’s next question, and Skip glanced at the clock on the wall.
“Coming up for twenty-four hours. I was in wolf form for less than a minute when I was shot, and aside from that, I haven’t shifted since about midday yesterday.”
“Fuck.”
The timing of her last shift was critical. In general, shifters needed to spend roughly half their time in each form. Spending longer than twenty-four hours in one form became uncomfortable, and after three days, a shift was all but inevitable. And Skip knew everyone had grasped the implications of her injury. They needed to find serious medical help within the next forty-eight hours, at an absolute maximum, or she wouldn’t be able to control her next shift, and she would likely bleed to death the moment she was in wolf form.
“I’ll call the Council,” Baron said, stalking from the room, the problem of a Noturatii operative locked in one of their cages suddenly forgotten.
It was mid afternoon when Jacob’s phone rang, and he answered it immediately. “What?”
“We found the car, sir,” one of his security personnel reported. “And it’s bad news. It crashed into a stone wall. Steve and Daniel are dead. Miller’s body isn’t here, but there’s blood on the driver’s side door and his phone was lying on the road. There’s no sign of the shifter girl.”
“So what the fuck happened?”
“Forensics are going over the scene, but I’d be willing to make a few educated guesses until we get the official report back. Looks like they were heading back to the base with the girl in the car. Maybe the other shifters caught up with them, ran them off the road, and took the girl back. If Miller was injured, but still alive, it’s likely they’d have taken him with them for interrogation. I don’t like his chances of survival if that’s the case.”
Jacob swore fluently, rubbing his eyes, then thanked the man and hung up. The shifters were getting far too dangerous; they’d lost dozens of staff to them in the past year, and now Miller as well? He’d been one of the best, level headed, devoted, as reliable an operative as Jacob had ever known. He would be damn hard to replace.
But despite the security guard’s assessment of the situation, Jacob wasn’t prepared to close the case until the official forensic report came in. Miller had a sharp mind, a strategic way of thinking, and it was entirely possible he’d managed to escape, perhaps hiding somewhere nearby, perhaps even managing to hitch a ride back towards London. There were dozens of questions about the crash that needed investigating, and Jacob wasn’t going to give up on Miller until he had answers.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Feng
!” One of the Council’s administrative staff came dashing into the foyer, almost running into Feng in her hurry. “Video call for you, sir. It’s Baron, from England.”
Feng swore softly to himself. The Council was currently snowed under dealing with a major crisis, and he’d been on his way to an urgent meeting. “Can it wait?” he asked sharply, continuing on his path towards the library. But the woman shook her head.
“No, sir. It’s urgent. A matter of life and death, he says.”
“Shit…” Feng swiftly changed direction, following the woman back into the IT office. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate at the moment. “Baron,” he said, once he’d taken a seat and put on the headphones. “What’s up?”
“We’ve had a run-in with the Noturatii,” Baron said, wasting no time on pleasantries. “One of our wolves has been shot. Possible abdominal wound. We’re going to need Nadia to get over here and do surgery.” Nadia was the Council’s physician, and the only person in Il Trosa currently with the skills to perform that kind of operation. Every Den had a few members skilled at treating wounds on the extremities, bullets or knives the usual culprits, and they were all equipped with a good supply of local anaesthetic, suture materials, antibiotics and the like. But abdominal surgery was a totally different ball game, with the risk of severe infections or damaged internal organs requiring the most skilled of hands for the task.
But recent complications made it impossible for Feng to meet Baron’s request. “Can’t do it,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry. One of the Dens in Russia was attacked. They’ve got a dozen casualties, and Nadia’s on the plane heading over to them as we speak.”
Baron swore. “Can you send the plane around? You could pick up Skip here, and send her over to Russia. She’s not critical at the moment, but the clock is ticking.”
“How much time?” Feng asked.
“We’ve got forty-eight hours, tops.”