by Seere, Diana
She paused with her hands on the keys, suppressing a shiver. Survival. The shadow of death—in the form of a malicious cat—was hovering over them.
In the seat behind her, she heard Gavin’s low, authoritative voice suddenly say, “Wait. Open the door.”
The attendant in the aisle paused with the drinks. “Mr. Stanton?”
“I need to stay here.” Gavin was now on his feet, unbuckling his seat belt, moving toward the door. The plane continued to taxi slowly. Gavin raised his voice. “Jamal, stop! I need to get off. I’m staying here at the ranch.”
A flight attendant hurried into the cockpit. “Yes, sir!” shouted a deep man’s voice. “We’ll abort.”
Sam only had one thought. “But Asher—”
“Wants me here. I was wrong to leave the ranch unattended.” Gavin closed his eyes, shook his head. “The women need me here. The children—” Noticing Sam’s worried look, he cut himself off and smiled as if trying to put her at ease. “Who am I kidding? I can’t bear to leave my wife. I’m completely whipped, am I not?”
Sam nodded and said nothing, but she knew. Gavin was not an indecisive man. The plane stopped; the door opened. One of the ground crew set up the stairs, and the pilot stood by, worry etched on his face. Gavin said a few quiet words to Zach that Sam couldn’t hear, and then the second eldest Stanton was gone, shaking Jamal’s hand and whispering something to him that made the pilot’s jaw set with determination.
The door closed, the engines roared, and in minutes they were airborne.
“What did Gavin say to you?” Sam asked Zach.
He turned from the window, a haunted look on his face. He glanced at Molly, who sat across from him.
Molly reached over the aisle and put a hand on Sam’s arm. “Gavin realized he needs to be here as the second child in the family line. In times of danger, the heir and the spare need to be in different locations. You know, in case…” She trailed off.
“You heard him from way over there?” Zach asked Molly.
“I know because I’ve seen it,” Molly said.
“Of course,” Sam said, although she wanted to scream for Gavin to return to the plane, to fly to Boston, to protect Asher with his life. “Of course.”
Blinking back tears, she tried to focus on the glow of her screen. As it had thousands of times in her past, work would be her lifeline. Science would keep her from falling apart.
She began to read.
Chapter 18
“Asher.”
The elevator doors to the Novo Club’s arched foyer had just opened to reveal Eva standing there, hands clasped in front of her, face impassive and unfailingly calm.
“Eva.”
“Come.” Her arm extended with the uncanny grace she always possessed, inviting him to enter the hallway toward the small, private rooms where business was conducted.
Where fates were sealed.
“Your flight was smooth, I assume?” she asked as he stood still, gathering his thoughts.
“I’ve no time for pleasantries, Eva. I am here on business.”
Her eyes gleamed with acknowledgment. “We all are, Asher. Every one of us.” Again, she beckoned.
This time he moved, walking behind her with a quick stride she matched as he caught up to her.
“You know?” he said in a low voice.
“Of course. My own cousin.” Her nostrils flared with the words. “The Nagy family is in uproar over Tomas’ actions. Suspicion, accusations, incriminations…” She sighed. “Tomas’ betrayal is casting suspicion on me.”
Her voice was measured, but her anguish was clear.
He paused, halting suddenly, Eva taking three steps before faltering and turning around, brow furrowed in a rare show of emotion.
“Eva, let me be very perfectly clear: I trust you completely.”
Gratitude, relief, and some deeper emotion he couldn’t not quite name ran swiftly across her face, those eyes never wavering.
“Good,” was all she said in response.
Indeed, it was the only response he could imagine from her.
“Where are we going?” he asked, impatient as they resumed their walk. “I am only here because I need to find the mutant cat shifters Tomas has unleashed.”
“We have them.”
Her words shocked him. “Where? Here?”
“In the LupiNex lab.”
“What?” Suddenly his scar began to itch, the burning a kind of torture on top of the chaos.
“Two of them were captured by our security forces, Asher. The shifter breach in the media triggered our standard protocols. Manny’s special team found them.”
“They are alive?”
“No. But we have their bodies. And Asher—they are not shifters. They are human.”
Stunned, he followed her, processing it all. He knew from the reports, but speculation was quite different from the facts before him. “Humans? It must be Tomas’ serum. Yet again, he is turning humans into shifters. But not like Webb. This time they become cat shifters. Like Tomas.”
“Yes,” she replied, her voice full of distaste. “And they look like us. Like Nagy cat shifters.”
Asher caught the unspoken message in her words.
Like me.
Distant cousins, they came from an old shifter bloodline that was strong. While the Stanton family was a mix of shifters due to most of the men marrying humans, the Nagy line was—in Tomas’ own words—more “pure.” Few Nagy men married humans.
Perhaps it would have been for the best if they had.
Tomas’ strange fixation on pure blood had been a bone of contention between Asher and his old friend. While Asher shared the idea that human-shifter relationships were a poor idea, his opinion was born of sorrow from his own experience with Claire and the medical reality of BirthDeath.
Not Tomas’ deeper, more unsettling sentiment.
Tomas had turned toward a darker side after his dismissal from LupiNex, but long before that, the rift between Asher and his old friend had begun. Jealousy never wears well on a face.
And it is the great divider in friendships.
The Nagy family was a formidable force in shifter politics, but the Stantons were the equivalent of the royal family. Asher took his role to heart, the responsibility etched in his bones, the need to use power judiciously engrained in him from childhood by his father.
Tomas had never liked the social reality of Asher’s status.
Rather, he’d wished to be the one in power.
And now, apparently, he was trying to make his wish come true.
But it would have to be over Asher Stanton’s cold, dead body.
As Eva took him toward the larger conference room deep in the Novo Club’s catacombs, he heard voices. Edward and Derry had come ahead of him while Asher had stayed at the airstrip, the hour briefing from Manny more angering than most. He’d needed some extra minutes to regroup, to think alone, for he knew that coming here he would face a crowd.
In fact, he’d hoped so.
Eva did not disappoint, the distant murmurs turning to distinct words as they crossed the threshold to find four people around an oak table older than the United States itself. Edward, Derry, Lars Jensen, and his wife, Kara. Animated conversation bubbled up between Derry and Kara, while Lars and Edward were polite to each other. Silly old tensions between the two made Asher want to roll his eyes, but that was Edward’s problem. Petty slights must be put aside for the sake of an alliance.
For the sake of survival.
“Asher!” Lars said, leaping to his feet, approaching with a sleek grace that all cat shifters—tiger, cougar, panther, cheetah, lion—possessed. The hug was less perfunctory and more meaningful, a physical manifestation of the seriousness of this meeting.
Emotion needed to be set aside for strategy, but that did not mean it was not present.
“Lars. Good to see you, my friend,” Asher said, nodding at Kara, who stood. A kiss on each cheek was the formality Asher bestowed, the young woman
analyzing him with clever eyes. She, too, was a tiger. A strong, large cat who could’ve taken down a mountain lion in a fight.
If she weren’t so heavy with child. Asher struggled to feel happiness for their family’s joy, but another warrior in this battle was sorely needed. Not having his bear sister, Sophia, was bad enough. Alas, Kara Jensen was obviously pregnant, a condition Tomas would swiftly and brutally exploit.
“I’m so sorry the circumstances are such,” Lars said with an awkwardness Asher felt too. “My father can be here tomorrow, and my brothers—well, unfortunately, they do not see the situation through the same lens that we do.”
“What does that mean?” Asher asked as Eva motioned for him to take a seat. He sat at the head of the table.
The seat had been left empty for him.
“Lars means that his brothers think that Tomas is not the one behind the attacks. That he is being framed,” Kara explained, her cheeks turning pink, brow down with anger. She clearly disagreed.
“Weak-willed manboys who have no concern for anything beyond their next quim,” Edward muttered, loud enough for Lars to hear but not so loud as to mount a direct challenge. Derry was sitting to Edward’s left and placed a warning hand on his forearm.
Edward’s face was slack, hiding emotion.
“Perhaps that is true,” Lars said, clearing his throat with meaning. “If I need to strong-arm them, I will.” He sat up straight, his considerable height a relic from Viking blood, like the Stantons. “But for now, they represent a significant subsection of shifters. Many consider the idea that Tomas has created a serum that turns humans into shifters and is using it to gain power to be tabloid fodder.” A quick glance at Asher followed. “Or worse.”
“I do not blame them,” Eva said smoothly. “It”—she laughed, her voice bitter—“it is ridiculous.”
“If we had been more open about the showdown with Tomas and Webb, we would have faced panic. We kept it quiet for good reasons,” Asher said, feeling defensive.
“But look at the result,” Derry interjected, his big face worn with worry lines. “Now we have a public relations battle in addition to a real one.”
“Any shifter with half a brain can put it all together and see that it is real,” Kara said, turning to Lars. “Right?”
“That would require half a brain, an attribute your brothers-in-law clearly lack,” Edward said to her.
“Enough,” Asher warned him. “Those same shifters could be by your side in a fight to the death against a mutant cat shifter, Edward. Rise above the past. We need you fully in the present, brother.”
Morgan appeared, two additional workers coming in behind him with coffee and tea, pastries and fruit, a large spread they assembled on an expansive buffet table to Asher’s right. Moving as if fueled by magic, they were done in under a minute, the two workers disappearing without a word. Morgan slowly made his way around the room, delivering the favorite beverage to each person at the table.
Which meant that Asher received a tumbler of whisky.
“No,” he said softly, with regret, pushing the thick glass aside. “I need all my wits. Tea, please.”
Morgan’s eyes, buried deep behind loose skin, filled with a troubled emotion, but he did as told.
Derry pushed his own tumbler aside. “Fine. I don’t like it, but I, too, will face the apocalypse sober.”
Eva’s head tilt revealed more emotion than her next words. “You truly believe it is that dire?”
“When Tomas is injecting random humans with a serum that turns them into cat shifters who go on to kill humans?” Asher snapped. “Yes. It is that dire. We need everyone possible to fight him.” Looking around the room, he frowned. “And the six of us are hardly an army. Aside from Lars’ brothers, what has happened to the rest of us?”
“Where is Gavin?” Lars asked.
“Back at our ranch in Montana with Lilah and the babies, and with Sophia.” Derry stood, looking at the food with a hunger Asher could not possibly imagine. Even as a small child, Derry could devour a large platter of anything. Big hands filled a big plate with pastries and fine cheeses, a bite in Derry’s mouth before he could make it back to his seat.
No one else touched the food.
“I cannot fathom that he would not be here for such an important meeting,” Lars replied. “Why would he stay back at the—”
Lars’ words cut off as Kara touched his hand.
She turned to Asher and said, “Because he is the heir if you die. Gavin will take over as head of the shifter world.”
“Yes,” Asher said simply. “He quite literally could not come. We need to plan for every contingency. Now, as I said, where are the Rosinis? The—”
Lars, Kara, and Eva exchanged a deeply uncomfortable look that made Asher stop in the middle of his question.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“No one else is coming,” Eva responded.
“No one?”
“No.” Her single word had a finality to it, like the last heartbeat one feels before death.
“I called the equivalent of a Gathering. All the Stantons, Rosinis, Jensens, and Nagys. This was not a request. This was a command,” he growled.
Discomfort rippled across the room, Derry pausing with a croissant half to his mouth, setting it down. Edward’s mouth tightened, eyes on Lars as if this were his fault.
Eva spoke.
“Tomas has poisoned the well, I’m afraid. He has started rumors, long ago, that you and Gavin were behind the shifter serum,” she explained, pausing for emphasis.
“He what?” Asher had no idea that his hair could catch fire spontaneously simply from anger. He reached up to touch the locks for a split second, certain his emotions had triggered a literal fire.
No such luck.
“He lied,” Lars said simply, shoving his hands into his wavy blond hair with an aggravated yank. “Started a whisper campaign. It was surprisingly easy. People love scandal, and they’ll believe anything if told it over and over.”
“Tomas has convinced high-profile shifters that Gavin and I are behind the abomination he created?” Agog and aflame, Asher could not believe Lars and Eva. Could not.
Would not.
“Not everyone. But enough. My father thinks he is pure evil. My brothers do not care. They are apathetic. If we insist, they will fight for our side, but it will take convincing. The Rosinis…” Lars gave a one-shouldered shrug. “You know them. If it doesn’t involve fame or fortune, they wait to commit.”
“Bloody hell,” Asher rasped. “This cannot be real. And the Nagys?”
Eva looked at him. “My branch of the Nagy family is one hundred percent on your side, Asher. Tomas’ family—Gregor, Miklos, Florence—are siding with Tomas.”
“Miklos? Florence? These are not stupid people! Those two are like my mother and father—strong-willed and smart!”
“And devoted to their son.”
“Blind to their son’s true intentions! We have dead humans in a lab in LupiNex who were made that way by Tomas.” He pointed toward the building upstairs where Gavin’s biotech company was located. “They were made so by some bastard version of the shifter serum!”
Eva’s face acquired a helplessness that turned Asher’s angry heat to ice water in his veins.
“And who are being blamed on you,” Lars reminded him.
“Does he have the book?” Asher asked Eva, who frowned in confusion.
“Book?”
“Zach read through as many ancient texts as possible. Found a prophecy. It alluded to the idea that he who possesses an ancient shifter book has the power to call others to their side. Good or evil,” Asher explained. The word prophecy reminded him of Samantha.
He could not think of Samantha right now.
“I’ve seen ancient texts at your home,” Eva said to him. “And I believe there are some tomes here in the Novo. Which book is it?”
“We do not know,” Asher reluctantly admitted.
Lars and Eva raised t
heir eyebrows in unison. “You have an old legend that says the keeper of a certain book holds all the power of the shifter world, and yet you do not know which book?” Lars asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” Asher answered. The best reply to someone else stating the truth was to confirm it.
“That is ludicrous!”
“So is this entire situation, Lars,” Asher said flatly. “This explains the reported break-ins. Your house was hit.”
“He’s systematically going through old-line shifter families and stealing books because he believes a specific volume will give him magical powers?”
“Looks like it,” Derry muttered.
Morgan made a sound. Everyone turned to him.
He looked at Asher. “I relocated a book a number of years ago, sir. It is the only ancient book that I have ever touched.”
“The chances are slim that it’s the book, Morgan,” Asher assured him.
“It called to me,” the old snake shifter continued, as if Asher had said nothing. “Quite sweetly.” A smile spread across the man’s face, joyfully childlike. “Such beautiful song.”
“Singing books? Is Morgan ill?” Derry muttered.
“Where did you relocate it to?” Eva asked.
“Montana.” He looked hard at Asher.
“Zach read all the books at the ranch. None of them are the one,” Asher said, frowning.
“I doubt, sir, that he read the book I moved.” Morgan’s words were grave.
“Why do you doubt it, Morgan?”
The old servant leaned down and whispered, “Because it is stored in a place only accessible by your paw print, sir.”
The den. The tree roots. The magical, mystical place.
Every muscle in his body went slack.