by Alisa Woods
His ragingly strong protective instinct aside, this whole thing was a tremendously bad idea. Once he had her alone again, he would talk her out of it. But, for the moment, he was outnumbered. And she wasn’t listening to him anyway.
“Looks like we’re done here?” Kaden directed his question to Terra.
She backed away from Julius, a smile on her face. “Yes, I think so. Thank you again, Julius.”
“No, thank you, my dear.” He smiled wide. “Please let me know as soon as you have any works to share. I would love to see the evolution of your process with this.” He handed her a small white card with just a name and a number on it.
Terra took it and thanked him again. Kaden ushered her away, leaving Sally and Julius in the warehouse, as he shepherded Terra back through the partitions in the gallery.
“I don’t like this,” he said, quietly. He was leading her back toward the car. “Roaming around the city—what part of that makes any sense to you? It’s insanely dangerous.”
She gripped his arm, pulling him to a stop. “It makes sense because it means I can do something important with the time I have left.”
Kaden squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then open them and drilled a serious look into her deep, dark eyes. “The time you have left? Terra, I am not letting anyone—”
She stopped him with a raised finger. “There are no guarantees. Not of waking up in the morning. Not of living another day. Not in this life. I know you’re trying to protect me, but if death is coming for me, it will find me one way or another, no matter what you do. You have to let me do this. It makes everything worthwhile.”
Death was coming for her? Jesus. He was shaking his head, but he didn’t have any words to fight this. “Terra, please don’t do this.”
Her expression softened, the anger fleeing. “I need to. Besides, I know somewhere safe we can go—somewhere I’ll be safer than any other part of the city. Come on. I’ll show you.” Then she turned her back on him and strode toward the underground parking lot.
Kaden hustled after her. This was a tremendously bad idea, but he had no idea how to stop it, short of physically wrestling her into the car and driving her back to the safehouse. And she would fight that, fang and claw. Which he could handle, but still… she would complain directly to the mayor and get him pulled off this detail before he could blink.
And then she would be even worse off.
Goddammit. This was a mess.
Wherever she was dragging him off to, he would simply have to do everything possible to minimize the danger. He would defend her with his life, if he had to. And not just because it was his job. Or because his protective instinct was in hyper overdrive. But because she was actually trying to do something good for the city and all its people, including shifters.
And he’d be damned if she wasn’t right—that made everything worthwhile.
Terra quickly swapped out another memory card in her camera.
She couldn’t believe how much raw material she was getting. First, in the drive to the art gallery, and now, as they headed straight into one of the tougher—and more desperately alive—sections of Seattle. She’d already racked up enough shots to keep her working for weeks in her darkroom.
Officer Grant couldn’t be more obviously displeased. “I really, really don’t like this.” He was gripping the steering wheel so hard, it squeaked under his hands.
Terra pointed her camera out the window, which was rolled down, and snapped shots as they cruised by the dilapidated storefronts and crumbling apartment buildings. They would probably be wasted shots, but she might accidentally catch something magical. Either way, it was enlivening her like she hadn’t felt in months.
“Why can’t you see that Julius’s idea is phenomenal?” Terra asked, irritation seeping into her voice. “Is it because you’re not a shifter?” She kept her gaze peering through the camera, not looking at him, but her words had to be pissing him off even more.
Surprisingly, his reply was soft. “The idea is fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
That pulled her away from her camera.
He was staring straight ahead at the road. “We’re driving into the worst possible part of the city.”
She shrugged. “This is where the shifters are.”
“This is where the shifter gangs are.” The muscles in his cheek worked. “I patrol down here. I’m very aware of what exactly goes on down here.”
She pulled her camera back into the car to face him more fully—she really didn’t know anything at all about Officer Kaden Grant. “You know some of the shifters in this part of town?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He threw her a slow and serious look. “First sign of trouble, and I won’t care if you haven’t gotten all your pictures. I’ll be hauling your pretty little butt out of here—understood?”
Pretty little butt? Her wolf latched onto that sideways compliment like it was the scent of a squirrel and went bounding after it. Kaden turned back to staring at the road ahead, which was just as well because her mouth was gaping open.
She managed to shut it. “Understood.”
They had almost missed where she wanted to stop. “Over here.” She pointed to a parking lot that was overgrown with weeds outside an abandoned grocery store. It had been turned into a shelter of sorts—she’d never been inside, but she’d seen it during her prowls of the city. It had a not-so-secret reputation as part shifter gang headquarters and part shelter for wayward souls.
“Fantastic,” Officer Grant said. This place was obviously high on his shit list.
Terra had done a lot of shooting downtown, scouring the obscure alleyways where people had been pushed to the fringes of society, but she’d kept her distance from the shifter gangs who controlled a good portion of the city… simply because she didn’t want to get involved. And she hadn’t actively been looking for shifters for her art before—they generally wanted their privacy kept private. But now, with this new project, the shifter gangs were exactly what she needed. They would benefit more than anyone else if the public could be persuaded to believe that shifters were people. The gangs’ reputation for illicit activities and violent tendencies was somewhat earned but mostly overblown. However, they definitely operated at the margins of the city they called home—as they had to. As society forced them to. Terra knew all too well how the world simply forgot some people. She had seen more than one kind of person—shifter or not—slip through the cracks and fall down hard. Bad things could happen to anyone.
It was just like she told Officer Grant: there were no guarantees in life. She knew this from the moment her mother died, and Terra’s world had been permanently darkened.
“You picked a hell of a neighborhood.” Kaden had come around to open her door, and he was holding it for her to step out.
“I’m a shifter, Officer Grant. These are my people. Besides, I can handle myself.” She adjusted her camera bag over her shoulder and raised her camera to her face, snapping several shots of the exterior of the run-down building. A couple of young-looking, very muscular men guarded the front door. Definitely shifters, and they were checking her out. One nodded to the other, and then he slipped inside. She knew this was more dangerous than she was letting on, but Officer Grant didn’t need anything more to be agitated about.
“You may be used to roaming the streets of downtown,” he said as he escorted her toward the door of the building. “But this is different. You have to know that.”
She threw him a glance. How much did he know about shifters and packs? She didn’t have time to ask before they arrived in front of the muscular guard at the door. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark brown eyes—obviously a shifter, with those muscles piled upon muscles—but with a fresh face that said he was still on the younger side of his teens.
She gestured with her camera. “I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge.”
The guy folded his arms and gave her a raised eyebrow. “What exactly do you think you’re going to
do with that?” He flicked a look over her camera.
“My name is Terra Wilding—”
“Yeah, I know who you are.” He narrowed his eyes. “Everyone does. Don’t know what you’re doing here, though. Seems to me like you should be leaving soon.” He turned his hot glare on Officer Grant. “And we don’t care for his kind here.”
His kind? This kid must know Kaden was a cop.
Terra bit her lip and stared at the door, hoping someone would come soon—whoever the first guard had gone after. “Look,” she said, holding out her hands to show they were empty except for the camera. “If you know who I am, you know I’m a shifter. We’re on the same side.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.” He glared again at the hulking presence next to her.
“He doesn’t have to be a part of this.” Terra didn’t bother glancing at Kaden—she could feel the heat of his no way in hell look on the side of her face.
The guard snorted his amusement, but he didn’t have a chance to reply before the door swung open.
Terra opened her mouth to plead her case to whoever was in charge, but then her mouth just hung there. “Marco?” she asked, all the breath going out of her. “Oh my God, Marco Wilding! What the hell are you doing here?”
Her cousin let loose a growl, and his dark blue eyes blazed anger. “I could ask you the same thing. Cousin. I don’t recall inviting you downtown.” Then he took in Officer Grant’s presence and drew back, snarling louder and letting his claws come out. That movement put the guard outside and the three other shifters accompanying him just inside the door into defensive stances.
The tension ramped up like crazy.
“What are you now, Terra?” Marco growled. “Some kind of narc?”
“What?” Terra looked between her cousin and her bodyguard, trying to figure out what was going down.
Kaden had hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m only here to protect the girl.”
What the hell? “Marco!” Terra shook her camera at him. “I’m here to take pictures, not cause trouble. I had no idea you were even here. How long has it been? Ten years? I haven’t even seen you since we were kids! I didn’t even know you were still alive.” The truth of that washed over her, and suddenly she found herself lurching forward and wrapping her arms around her cousin’s neck.
Marco had been dark and brooding and all kinds of trouble even when he was a kid. When he had dropped off the face of the earth, everyone assumed he’d gotten himself killed. The rebellious son of Frank Wilding, her uncle, had always been trouble waiting to happen… and it looked like he had finally found it. Uncle Frank was almost as useless as her dad, so it wasn’t like he’d scoured the streets looking for his son. But when Marco went missing, it had punched her in the gut—he had always been one of her favorite cousins.
That he had been here, in the city, all this time…
It took Marco a moment, but he finally put his arms around her and hugged her back. “I didn’t exactly want Dad to know where I was hanging out,” he said with a wry tone of voice that made her pull back. “And I don’t use the Wilding name anymore because fuck that family. Not you, Ter. The rest of them.”
She nodded. They were a pretty messed up bunch. But she knew he mostly meant his own father.
She took a fresh look around. “So this is all… you? Your pack? You’re in charge here?”
Marco huffed a small laugh. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“I’m not, it’s just—”
“Whatever.” He waved her off. “What are you doing here, Ter?” His eyes dropped her camera then bounced back up again. “And please tell me you’re mated. That you’re not crazy enough to wander around shifter gangland as an unmated female.” He flicked to look to Officer Grant. “Especially with this dumb fuck as protection.”
Kaden started the growl, but it echoed all around Marco’s pack.
Heat flushed Terra’s cheeks—her mating status wasn’t exactly something she wanted to discuss in front of Officer Grant. Or the suddenly-interested hot gazes of Marco’s pack members.
She glared at her cousin. “Finding a mate hasn’t been top priority—not with, you know, my family being targeted for death. Me in particular.”
Marco’s eyes flashed, but his voice quickly softened. “I know, Terra. I watch the news. And just because the family is completely fucked up doesn’t mean I want to see any of them dead. And frankly, have been worried about you, especially lately. But that doesn’t answer my question—why are you at my front door? Daddy finally cut you off?”
From anyone else, she would have answered that accusation with a face full of claws. But with Marco… if Terra shocked her father out of his trance enough to cut her off… well, Marco would probably be impressed.
Instead, Terra simply raised her camera and pointed it at him, peering through the lens. “All I want is pictures. Of wolves.” She fully expected him to tell her to shove off.
Marco put his hand on her lens and moved it away from his face. “Pictures of wolves? You mean shifters in wolf form. Why?”
“I’m doing a piece called People of Seattle… only with shifters. Starting with wolves, but I’m thinking of expanding it later. Think about it, Marco—all this fear and hatred that’s running through the city. Humans think of shifters as beasts, not people. I want to show them the people inside.” She glanced at the uneasy faces of the big, muscular men surrounding her. Her camera was one of the few threats that could bring that trouble to their faces. “I won’t reveal anyone’s identity. I just want to show the beauty of our wolf forms. I want to tell the story of your lives, the good things you do here—because I know you, Marco. I know you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t doing something amazing and worthwhile—I want to tie those stories, those good stories, to the images of wolves. Make it personal. Make it real.”
Marco’s pack had kept quiet while she spoke, and the expression on Marco’s face softened. “So that’s really why you’re here?” he asked. “To try to change all this.” He gestured to the dilapidated city around them. A small smile snuck in his face. “You always were one of my favorite cousins.”
“Favorite?” she scoffed with mock outrage. “I was the only one who could put up with you.”
He chuckled, but it faded quickly. “Okay. But you only shoot pictures of volunteers. And only in wolf form. And Terra—we’ve got more stories than you could possibly imagine here. The abused kids, the abandoned ones, the ragged halflings who don’t know where else to go… we’ve got them all. They come to us, and they find a family. A pack. We look out for each other the way a real family should. You’re welcome to come in and see who wants to take part in your project as long as it doesn’t threaten any of that.” Then he trained a scowl on Kaden. “But this trash stays outside.”
Terra frowned, and she could sense Kaden bristling but holding back. She knew there was no way he would let her go inside a shifter gang stronghold without him. “Marco, he’s my bodyguard. I can’t just—”
“Bodyguard?” Marco asked, incredulously. “He’s a cop!” He said it like it was something filthy in his mouth. “And he’s human.”
“I’m in protective custody—”
“What the fuck, Terra… do you have any idea who this is?” Marco’s hard glare was still on Kaden. “Do you know what he does, when he’s not babysitting the mayor’s favorite artist?”
Kaden lifted his chin but said nothing. The tension seemed to ramp up again.
Marco's voice dripped with disgust. “He’s the worst of the worst. He grew up here, for fuck’s sake. Born and raised right here in the dumps with us. And he couldn’t high-tail it out of here fast enough. Only, you see, now he’s back. With a shiny badge and a gun and the power to ruin lives. I can guarantee your safety, Terra, but no one wants the cop inside. Probably not even him.”
Kaden was silent, just staring down Marco’s accusations. Terra’s stomach twisted. Kaden had said he didn’t want to come here, and she had basically forced him. Sh
e didn’t know what bad blood there was between him and Marco’s pack, but it was obviously real and recent. Yet she couldn’t leave Kaden out here alone, either. He was only human, and Marco’s pack looked like it was just waiting for the chance to take a bite out of him.
“I’m not putting Officer Grant’s life in jeopardy for this project,” Terra said, firmly. “And I’m not doing this without him, either. This is about diffusing hate not feeding it.”
Marco’s eyes flashed again, and she knew he heard what she was saying. That he had to take the first step of trust. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, staring at the ground by her feet for a long moment.
Eventually, he said, “All right. Fine. Come on in. Bring the cop. I’ll escort you the whole time and make sure no one gets overexcited.”
Growls of disappointment went around his pack. He turned a sharp snarl on them, and they immediately calmed down… or at least stopped making audible sounds of disagreement. Marco opened the door and gestured them inside.
Kaden’s face was inscrutable again, but Terra would bet her father’s fortune that he was silently cursing her with every vile word he knew. She was asking him to take a huge risk, a personal risk, just for her. Worse, it was for her art… which she was sure he didn’t give a flying fuck about.
“I’ll make it fast,” she said to both him and Marco.
And she did.
The building had been converted from a grocery store into a makeshift camp, complete with barracks, shower facilities, and a mess hall. It was half guerrilla warfare encampment and half homeless shelter. There were shifters of all ages from very young pups toddling around to aged grandmas. Terra was dying to take pictures of them in their human forms, and maybe someday she would come back here and do precisely that. But for now, she was after their inner wolves. And their stories. One by one, she explained the project, and they agreed to shift for her. Sometimes she took pictures of them on their bunks; sometimes on the floor playing with their toys. Some of the pups were so small she could practically fit them in her camera bag. Sometimes the older ones had battle wounds that were even more evident in their shifter form. In all cases, she took hundreds of shots, trying to capture that inner glow that each of them possessed, and that would bring out their true selves. She captured their stories on her phone recorder. She only stopped when she couldn’t see anymore through the tears that just flowed and flowed down her face.