by Seere, Diana
The cat sprung up and disappeared behind the fountain. Suddenly there was a human scream, which was bad enough, but then it fell silent, which was worse.
“Has this reached the media?” Asher asked.
Nate shook his head. “Only rumors. The cats attacked at dawn and left no remains.” He shuddered. “Shifters attacking humans is bad enough. Eating them is… obscene.”
“I must get to Boston immediately,” Asher said, signaling to Manny. Servants appeared with shoes, a coat, a black case. “Tomas is striking us where we live. Where humans live. He’s risking the secrecy of our world.”
“Wait, Mr. Stanton,” Nate said. “You’ll want to see the rest.”
He began playing another video. “I took this one about thirty minutes after the first. Total accident. I was trying to reach the safe house under Mr. Derry’s place. If a feral cat shifter is eating humans, it’s only a matter of time before the humans come after the rest of us. I was going to wait it out, but then—”
The screams in the second video were even louder than the first. And a flash of fur showed this cat was a spotted tan, not black. The sun had risen higher, illuminating a horrific scene of kicking, human legs disappearing into an alley. The victim was a large man, and for the cat to be able to drag him like a small rodent meant…
The cat had to be very, very strong.
“Is there more video?” Asher demanded.
“No, I called Morgan at the Novo as soon as I saw the second attack,” Nate said.
“Why not call him after the first?” Zach asked.
Asher, Zach, Manny, and Sam all looked at the redheaded man.
“I like to mind my own business,” Nate said. “But I realized this was the moment for me to think about the greater good.”
“And get a free plane ride out to the Stanton’s safe house in Montana in case things went further south in Boston,” Zach said.
Nate shrugged.
“Get him out of here,” Asher said, looking at the papers on his desk.
Gavin spoke behind Sam. She hadn’t realized he’d come in. “He can stay in the guest building I use for LupiNex business.”
A security guard strode across the room, hooked his arm through Nate’s, and took him away.
“Thank you, Mr. Stanton,” Nate said. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d love a bite to eat. Not like that cat, of course—”
The door slammed behind them. Sam turned and saw that not only Gavin but Lilah, Sophia, and Edward, Molly, Derry, and Jess had come in during the horrifying video show. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t surprising that every Stanton was living on the edge, ready to act at any moment. Asher could try to handle this on his own, but his siblings wouldn’t let him.
Sam felt a rush of gratitude for the clan that nurtured her One.
“I can’t figure out where the Book is,” Zach said. “Not from here in Montana. The materials that we have here at the ranch simply aren’t specific enough. We’ll have to search in person, hit all the shifter homes near large bodies of water, starting here in the States—”
“The Book must be in Boston,” Asher said. He looked around the room. “Tomas has told us as much with these recent attacks. He wants to draw us out and fight for it. The final battle.”
“But why draw us out?” Sophia asked.
In a soft, firm voice, Lilah said, “Because he thinks we have it.” She looked at Gavin. “Shifters know you have a library, right? Maybe he’s looked everywhere else and couldn’t find it.”
“The Novo Club,” Edward said.
“And our penthouse is above the old safe house,” Derry said, putting an arm around Jess.
“But how do we know if he’s going for the shifter safe houses or for a Stanton property?” Edward asked.
“He doesn’t know where it is.” Sam approached Asher, more panicked than ever. “He’s making a show, trying to draw you out. Don’t do it. It’s what he wants.”
Asher put both arms around Sam and, heedless of the closeness and attentiveness of the family, gave her a long, deep, lingering kiss that promised his heart, his dreams, and a bottomless well of love.
But then slowly but firmly he pulled away, his thumbs stroking both her shoulders as he withdrew. “I must go,” he said. He turned and looked at Derry, then Edward. “We must.”
Derry nodded, looking away from Jess’ anguished face. “We must,” he said in agreement.
Jess looked to Sam, whose heart had begun to pound. She and Asher just found each other. They’d only had days, minutes to be together. Would fate be so cruel to tear them apart already? If only she had the actual powers of a shifter and not just the mysterious guardianship of a fox spirit.
“I agree,” Gavin said.
“You’ll need all our strength,” Zach added.
“No,” Asher said curtly. “It will be me, Edward, and Derry. Sophia is pregnant. Lilah is mother to two babes. I will not allow their mates to risk their lives.”
“It’s not for you to decide,” Gavin said. “Tomas is an existential threat. Hiding from him only increases his danger. You’ll need all forces to fight him.”
“I’m the strongest shifter alive,” Zach said. “I must join the fight to protect Sophia and our child.”
If it would save Asher’s life, Sam had to agree. In spite of her affection for her old lab worker, she nodded, believing his strength—developed in her own lab—could make a difference.
“And what century is this anyway?” Molly piped in. “I agree the preggo lady should stay here”—she nodded at Sophia—“but I’ve got some kind of special sight, remember, and Jess is a healer? Maybe it’ll help Zach just at the right minute he needs to—”
“No, Molly,” Edward said, more fierce than Sam had ever seen the youngest, quietest Stanton. “Your blood puts you in too much danger. For all we know, it’s you he wants to catch. And torture. No, you have to stay here. You have to.”
Molly grabbed his arm. “And watch you leave, not knowing if—”
“Enough,” Asher said. “The plane is waiting for me, Edward, and Derry. No one else.” He was already halfway to the door.
Jess put her arms around Molly, preventing her from stopping Edward from leaving. Edward gave her a surprised but grateful smile, then leaned over to Molly for a quick, anguished kiss. Then he left, Molly struggling to free herself from Jess’ grip.
“No, no!” Molly cried. “Don’t try to stop me!”
Sam ran over to follow Asher. This wasn’t a fight he could win on his own. If he died, she would die too.
But Zach got in front of the door, blocking her. Before the shifter serum transformation, she might’ve been able to shove him out of the way, but after it—not a chance. He was too strong.
“Don’t help him do this!” Sam cried. “He can’t take on Tomas by himself! He’ll—” She broke into a sob. He would die.
Zach put a soothing hand on her shoulder and leaned down to speak softly in her ear, just as Jess had done with Molly.
“There’s more than one plane,” he whispered. “Jess has already texted the pilot.”
Chapter 17
He should have kissed her longer.
In the rush of action, he’d defaulted to his standard emotional state, which was brutally simple: have no feelings. None. Not a one.
Emotions made one vulnerable.
And when cat shifters were killing and eating humans, vulnerability was death.
But that impulsive kiss with Samantha had broken through his defenses. It would have to be enough until he saw her again.
And he would see her again.
He must.
Eyes scanning the plane’s interior, he watched Edward and Derry, each lost in their own thoughts. The somber look on Edward’s bearded face was closer to his normal state, but to see Derry so quiet, so pensive, brow creased with concern, was odd.
Appropriate, but brutally out of the norm.
When do we know that we are living through history? The legend
s of the purges in old Europe were detailed in the books Zachary had mastered so easily. So, too, were the spells and fairy tales about the Beat. The One. Father had been so dismissive of the idea of fated mates, lumping in the concept with wood nymphs and fairies. Silly nonsense that only weaker minds would find possible.
Asher let out a low, self-deprecating chuckle, closing his eyes and finding her in seconds, her Beat steady. Ah, fate. Eyes darting about the cabin, he half expected to see a fairy tweak Edward’s nose.
If his One was nothing more than a silly slip of magic, then so be it. He would gladly play the fool if it felt this good for eternity.
Then there was the known. The true. The facts of the past.
Students of shifter history had been taught the milestones for centuries—the Year of the Wolf, the Sherbrooke Accords, the Great Croatian Fire, the alliances between different shifter families who had dominated Eastern Europe and Scandinavia for so long.
And then the humans had decided they’d had enough.
No one knew what caused the cyclical tipping points, but the legends in all the sacred books told tales that returned over and over, lost to history and then rediscovered, recorded in spotty fashion, the old books so crucial to understanding shifter identity. In moments like this, Asher wished he’d chosen the scholarly route rather than leading the shifter families, but then again, the choice was never his to make.
When Tobias Stanton had been in his death throes, he had sealed Asher’s fate with a simple sentence that had turned into a divining rod.
Our world is in your hands now.
The last major purge in Europe had killed off so much of the shifter world, leaving members of rival families to come to the New World and rebuild. Hundreds of years had passed, and yet his father’s father had arrived here on a ship, a hardworking man whose wife and eldest son had been spared. Recreating a life from scratch is a seemingly impossible task. While Asher had never done so materially, he most certainly had emotionally.
It takes a toll either way.
The video that Nate showed him was horrifying. Beyond the obvious, though, loomed an existential threat, indeed, as Gavin had noted: Tomas was openly baiting the human world to come and get shifters. Those were actions of a madman. Not a power broker; Asher could respect that. He might hate the methods, but a power broker had a specific goal that was understandable.
Chaotic destroyers just wanted to watch the world burn… and dance around the ashes.
Tomas, though, had a deeper, more disruptive plan: a new world order. Shifters would rule the world at the cost of countless human and shifter lives. The quest for power made his old friend unrecognizable.
But not unstoppable.
“Asher?” Derry’s voice was forlorn. “This is bad.” No question was in his voice. It wasn’t even a request for confirmation, or connection. This was a declaration of reality. Derry was steeling himself.
Asher’s stomach plunged.
“Yes.” How else could he respond? Edward walked over with three shot glasses and an entire bottle of Glenfiddich. Derry grunted as their youngest sibling sat down on the cream leather sofa next to Asher and, without asking, poured three large glasses.
Derry downed his without ceremony.
“This is it, isn’t it?” Edward asked, measuring out his alcohol with small, furious sips. He sniffed, hard and fast, his body an economy of action. “It’s like the purges in the Old Land. We’re facing the fight of our life. Of our kind. And the cause is one of our own.” Sip.
“I wonder,” Derry said, leaning back in his chair, his impossibly large hands running through his thick hair, pulling it back off his forehead and revealing bright blue eyes so much like Asher’s own. “Were the earlier purges triggered by someone like Tomas? The history books don’t say why the humans suddenly decided to eradicate us. Just that they did. What was the cause? The catalyst for WWI was the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand. We know that wasn’t the only reason, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Perhaps what Tomas is doing isn’t unique?”
“Does it matter?” Edward asked gravely. “The why isn’t important any longer. We cannot use the why to help stop him. All we can do is stop him.”
“We will,” Asher assured him, the words automatic.
“We will try,” Edward retorted. “We do not know that we will.”
“Of course we will!” Derry scoffed. “Why would you doubt that? Good always wins.”
“That may be the long-term trajectory, but evil has many opportunities to flourish during the in-between time. And we are firmly in that space now,” Edward said, frowning. “Are you certain they’re safe at the ranch? If I lost Molly, I don’t know what I would—” His words cut off, throat thick.
Before Asher could respond, Roger cut over the intercom. “We caught a tailwind, sirs, and are readying for descent forty minutes early. Please fasten your seat belts and prepare for landing.”
Derry grabbed the remainder of Edward’s glass, swallowed the amber liquid, and set it down.
“Hey!” Edward protested.
“FAA regulations. I was doing a public service by making the airplane safer for us all,” Derry said with mock precision.
Edward cracked a smile.
Asher did not.
Evil has many opportunities to flourish.
His brother’s words rang through him as Roger brought the plane down in Boston, the wheels of the landing gear touching perfectly on the runway, the impact imperceptible save for one detail.
At that exact moment, Asher’s scar on his hip began to burn.
* * *
Thirty minutes after Asher, Edward, and Derry had departed on the first plane, the others gathered at the ranch’s airfield, most of their belongings left behind. The tools they would use to fight Tomas resided in their own bodies, their own unique DNA: shifter, seer, healer.
And, Sam thought, whatever the hell my own DNA is.
The night was windy but warm, hinting at pleasant summer nights to come. Sam imagined walking around the lake with Asher, hand in hand, watching the birds, laughing and talking, making love under the stars.
She strode toward the boarding stairs first, daring anyone to stop her. She didn’t have wolf teeth or grizzly bear muscles, but she felt the Beat tugging at her as strongly as she’d ever felt it. This was her destiny. To join Asher, wherever it led, was her path. With each pound of the Beat, the pain in her ear reverberated in acknowledgment, like an echo.
The plane door wasn’t open yet, so she was forced to pause on the steps and look back.
Not everyone would be joining them in Boston, and there were painful goodbyes to be had. She thought of her own abrupt, inadequate parting with Asher. Never again, she vowed. The man would learn she wouldn’t let him face the world or his responsibilities without her.
But Lilah, with her two babies at her side in a stroller, didn’t have the luxury to stay with her One. Gavin had his arms around her, their foreheads touching. When he finally lifted his head, the light from a waiting car struck his face; Sam could see love, longing, fear, pride, anguish. She turned away, regretting she had intruded on such a private moment.
In contrast, Zach and Sophia were standing at arm’s length, their faces hard and stubborn.
“You’re almost seven months pregnant!” Crossing his arms over his serum-enhanced chest, Zach stood between Sophia and the plane. “You saw the videos. Boston is the last place you should be. In order that it isn’t last place you will be.”
“Sam and Molly are going, and they’re not even shifters.” Sophia pushed a strand of thick black hair out of her wild eyes. “Sam has some unique qualities and Molly has some kind of Sight. But neither one of them can turn into a bear.”
“A pregnant bear,” Lilah said. She now held her baby boy, and Gavin the girl. “I share your frustration, Sophia, believe me. But Tomas will use our children against us. Against our families. Against everything we care about.”
Sam also feared
Sophia’s presence would put Zach in greater danger and therefore Asher and the rest of them. Tomas was smart enough to attack a pregnant female to bait her mate—a man Tomas had worked with as a colleague in Sam’s lab years ago, whom he’d targeted as an unwilling subject in an ad hoc experiment with shifter serum—to do anything to protect her.
Zach pulled Sophia into his arms. “My primary responsibility is to you. Not to your brother, not to shifters, not to humanity—to you.” One large hand slid down her body and began caressing her belly. “If saving you and our baby means running away to hide, then that’s what we’ll do.”
“No. You—you have to go,” Sophia said, biting her lip to slow the tears.
“Yes,” he said. “But I will come back. I promise.”
“You can’t say that,” Sophia said. “You don’t know.” She sounded angry, but everyone knew it was fear.
Zach wiped the tears off her cheek and kissed her tenderly on the lips. “I know.”
After a few long moments—Sam glanced away as best she could, but this was an old friend and she was deeply involved herself—Sophia broke the kiss.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Sophia said. “If you don’t come back, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Zach moved his hands to her shoulders. “I’ll come back,” he said again.
“You better.” Sophia cleared her throat and looked at Gavin. “Take care of him.”
“I will,” Gavin said.
A moment later the pilot appeared at the top of the stairs, apologized for the wait, and invited them in. Sam took a deep breath and hurried up into the plane. Molly was right behind her and took a seat next to hers inside the cabin.
“I was afraid somebody was going to tell me I couldn’t come,” Molly said, grabbing a stiff drink from a handsome young flight attendant carrying a tray. “I was going to climb in with the luggage if anybody tried to stop me.”
“Me too,” Jess said. “Derry can’t pour a glass of water by himself. Werebear or not, he needs me.”
Sam, too nervous to sleep, and haunted by the nagging earache, decided to use the pillow the attendant gave her as a desk for her laptop. She had some work to do. She wasn’t in the lab, but she had data, notes, and translations of old shifter texts that Zach had given her. Lab results from the Stantons had come in, but she hadn’t had time to study them. How had Asher’s body chemistry been corrupted by Tomas? Was it an infection, a virus, a bacterium? Or a biotech agent like the serum? If she could figure anything out before they faced Tomas, their chances of survival were greater.