by Ivy Sinclair
“I think that we need to go on the offensive here, Eric. You took a page from my playbook before. Well, now I’m taking one from yours. We can’t wait for her to come to us. We have to go to her. We have to do everything that we can to take her magic away.”
Eric looked at her with a stunned expression. “What did you say?”
Nina realized she was probably grasping at straws, but it was the only idea she had. “If she is the alpha, and we are all blood bound to her, then she can control us. She can control us with her mind control, and she can also do things to us with her magic, like possession. She is the most dangerous person that you probably will ever encounter in your life. We have to do whatever we can to take away her magic to level the playing field. What would be best would be if there was some way that we could make her human again. Crazy, right?”
She heard Kelly’s gasp. Eric looked at her. “Well, Doc. We’re back to where we started. Oak Tree’s research.”
Nina had no idea what he was talking about.
“You know I still have it,” Kelly said slowly. “I know what you’re thinking, Eric, but we agreed that we would never explore that research again. We swore that we would not go down that path. It is a slippery slope.”
“This is not a slippery slope, Doc. This is our fucking survival. We need this. It’s the only way that were going to be able to take her out. She expects that we will come at her with some kind of magic means. That’s what she will be waiting for. If she comes for Nina, the only way that we are going to be able to slow her down is by making her human again. You know that we can do this.”
“Even if we could use it, the vaccine’s affects were only temporary, remember? Oak Tree never got around to being able to modify the formula with the data from the live trials to create a permanent vaccine. So she could transition back to her shifter self.”
“That’s fine,” Eric said. “We’ll stick her in a cell for the rest of her life and keep pumping her with the vaccine on a regular basis. We can control a human. We can’t control her with whatever power it is that changed her and bound all of us to her. We need this.”
Nina was starting to catch up with the flow of the conversation. “There’s a cure for shifterism?”
“There was work done. It was a while ago. It was an illegal research project that was abandoned.” Kelly was clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “I need to talk to Kyle about this.”
“I’ll talk to Kyle about it. I will talk to Tony about it. You need to go your lab, and you need to get out your little beakers and Bunsen burners and create us a cure in time to get us the hell out of the situation.”
“How much time do I have?” Kelly asked. Her face had drained of all its color, but she looked resolute.
“I’ll give you twelve hours,” Eric said. He looked at Nina. “Is that going to be enough time, do you think?”
She realized what he was asking her. She reached into her mind to that other part of her. It was scared and tentative and hiding away from her in the darkest parts of her mind. She understood the sentiment. She was afraid of it too. They hadn’t had a chance to create any kind of tenuous understanding between them yet.
She asked it the question. She didn’t really understand how she did it. It hissed its reply. “It doesn’t know,” Nina said. “It just knows that she will come, and it will be soon.”
“Doc, get to work,” Eric said.
Kelly gave him a short nod and walked out of the room.
Eric turned back to Nina. He smiled at her, although the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “How about I spring you from this room? I’ll get you some clothes and some food. I think it’s going to be a long night.”
An hour later, the six were sitting around a table, Kyle and Kelly, Tony and Maggie, and Eric and Nina. The Urban Dwellers together and at full force.
Eric couldn’t help but feel a weird sense of déjà vu. Possession. The word was terrifying. He had a sense that Jillian had been waiting for this day for a very long time. As they sat there discussing their options and trying to figure out the best way to go about their battle plan, Kyle made a decision.
“We need to avoid any kind of collateral damage.”
“Obviously,” Eric said. “Where can we draw her to in the city to be able to do that?”
“I think we have to go back to where it all started,” Tony said.
Maggie, who had so far been quiet through the interaction, gave a visible shudder. “You guys pick the creepiest places to hang out.”
Eric knew that Tony was talking about the quarry where it had all transpired eighteen years ago. He knew that his friend was right. The pull for all of them to that place was irresistible.
“So I finally get to see this place that I’ve heard so much about,” Kelly said.
“I don’t think the three of you should go,” Kyle said. Immediately, an uproar went up around the table.
“I have to go,” Nina said. Eric watched her carefully, ready to step in if necessary because he agreed with her. It was her first real interaction with the alpha of her new clan. “I’m the one she wants, and I am okay being bait. Besides, I won’t let Eric go alone. If he goes, I go.”
Eric rested his hand on her knee underneath the table and gave it a squeeze. He gave her a reassuring nod. He wanted her to know that he was on her side.
“It is too dangerous,” Kyle said.
“No, more people means more opportunity for us to get this done,” Kelly said. “The only way this is going to work is if we directly inject the serum into one of her major arteries.”
“We can have a sharpshooter up on the canyon wall,” Kyle said. “We’ll distract her, and he’ll get it done.”
“I don’t trust that,” Eric said. “You guys didn’t see her. She is scary as hell. She is going to come after us with everything she’s got. We’ve got to strike quickly, and we have to strike first if we want a chance at this at all.”
“I don’t like this plan any better than you do, Kyle, but I think Eric is right. This whole plan has been set into play by Jillian. She brought us our mates. We’re in this together,” Tony said.
The women all nodded in agreement.
Eric could tell that Kyle was less than thrilled about having the rest of them gang up on him, but there was little that he could do, considering they all agreed on the same plan.
“Where are we on the vaccine?” Kyle asked his mate.
“We’re almost there,” Kelly said. “I wish that we actually had time to test it, though. We’re making an assumption that this is going to work, and we’re not going to make the same mistake that Oak Tree did. I can only assume the errors in their equations and make further assumptions at this point.”
“Well, I trust your assumptions more than I trust just anybody else’s,” Kyle said as he leaned over and gave Kelly a quick peck on the cheek. It was a soft sign of affection at a tense time, and Eric watched as the gesture settled the doctor.
An hour later, the six of them were on the Urban Dwellers’ private jet heading toward Croftsborrow, Virginia.
“You realize that if you get caught in Virginia at this point, you are going to get your ass thrown in jail, right?” Maggie asked Eric. “You’re out on bail, and you’re not supposed to leave the city.”
“You’re really worried about that right now?” Eric asked. “I’m hoping that being able to produce a living breathing person will somehow get me out of this altogether.”
“As my client, I’m required to advise you of these things. If Jillian turned up alive, that certainly would throw a monkey wrench into things for the police. Trying to figure out how to explain that one would be really fun.”
Eric felt his temper flaring, but then it was Nina’s turn to comfort him. She reached over and touched his hand. “Let’s focus on one problem at a time.”
Nina could see that Eric was struggling with the fact that he was trying to think of too many things at once. He, Tony, and Kyle huddled up near the back of the
plane. She assumed that was because they were trying to figure out manly things like the way that they could keep their mates as much out of harm’s way as possible. She, on the other hand, made her way to the front of the plane to talk with Maggie and Kelly.
She knew that she was different from them now. Kelly and Maggie were still human. Nina was able to see the mark of their mates’ bite on their shoulder blades. Both of them were wearing looser shirts with collars that displayed it. She wondered if that was something that they had started to do on the behest of their mate.
“How are you feeling?” Kelly asked her.
“I think I’d feel better if someone didn’t ask me that question every five minutes,” Nina said. She felt bad then, because obviously Kelly was asking because she was concerned. “I’m okay. This isn’t what I wanted, and it’s not what I chose, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I feel like I understand Eric better than I had been able to understand him before. It’s probably brought us closer.”
She saw the considering looks on the other women’s faces. “I guess I never really thought about it that way,” Maggie said. She looked across the plane at Tony. She rubbed the spot on her neck where the mark was. “We haven’t taken it the full way yet. I wanted to get through this and figure out what life looks like now.”
“It’s not so bad,” Kelly said with a snicker. “Just a little nip, and then it’s all done. He’s yours forever.”
“He already is,” Maggie said with a small smile.
Nina never expected to be in a situation like this. She felt a definite kinship to these other women. She and Maggie had already been friends, but they weren’t super close. She just met Kelly the day before. And yet she felt a sense of family with them. She would do what was necessary to protect them. She had the uncanny sense that they felt the same way.
“It’s hard to believe how much my life has changed in just a couple days,” Nina said. “But, for all of the bad, it’s brought an equal amount of good.”
Maggie reached out and touched her shoulder. She gave her a smile. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“You know they’re over there trying to figure out how to ditch us somewhere they’ve deemed safe, right?” Kelly said, looking at the men at the front of the plane.
“Definitely,” Maggie said.
“There’s something about this, though, that’s my fight too,” Nina said. More so than the other women. She had the sense that they were pawns in the game just like she was, but she had been intimately touched by Jillian’s plan. It had to do with the fact that she was Eric’s mate. She was the one that Jillian would be gunning for.
“So, what’s it like?” Maggie asked her.
“You mean being a shifter?” Nina asked. Maggie nodded. “I don’t know yet. I don’t remember phasing. I don’t know how to do the whole active phasing thing that Eric has talked to me about. Guess I’ll figure it out. I know Eric won’t let me fall.” It was strange talking about him this way, but it felt absolutely right.
“A rattlesnake shifter,” Kelly said. She dragged a notebook out of her bag. Nina got the sense that she was getting a good look at Kelly’s geeky side. “From what I understand from Dr. Clarkson, rattlesnake clans are the rarest clans of all of the shifters. They are a direct descendant of the second line of the four legacy bloodlines. So your bloodline goes back to almost the beginning. It’s as old as the Greyelf Grizzly clan. I would love to be able to get a sample or two of your blood to be able to study, if you don’t mind. I am creating a whole genealogy chart of all of the shifter clans and how they have interspersed with each other through the years. It’s something that I think will be useful when we start developing different medicines and treatments for all shifters.”
“Okay,” Nina said. She wasn’t quite as thrilled about the idea as Kelly was. “I was just hoping to be able to go back to my job on Monday. I’m itching for a new case.”
The two other women laughed. Nina’s goals were so simple. She had a feeling, though, that she and Eric had a lot to talk about when it came to their future. She wasn’t about to give up her business, but if Eric was looking for something else to do, maybe he would be interested in working with her. He seemed to be pretty good at the investigative stuff.
The hours flew by as they chatted. There was part of her that thought that maybe she should rest, but then she felt like she had been resting for days, and, in a way, she had. When they arrived at the Croftsborrow airfield and deplaned, she saw Maggie look around them with a resigned expression.
“I feel like I was just here,” she said in a sarcastic tone.
Nina hooked arms with her and headed for the limo that waited for them.
“We’ll get into town and then will rent a truck to take us out to the quarry. I don’t want anyone else in the immediate vicinity,” Kyle said.
“So you’re sure by going back out to the quarry, we’ll to be able to draw her to us?”
Nina closed her eyes and let her senses reach out to that other part of her. “Oh yes,” she said. “She’s close.” She had no idea how she knew that for certain, but Jillian was not far away. It was almost as if this was what Jillian had been waiting for all along. It was finally the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eric had to admit that he was impressed. They met Kyle’s contact at the rendezvous point and the vehicle waiting for them there wasn’t a truck. It was a Humvee. Kyle saw the looks of surprise on everyone’s faces and gave them all a thumbs up signal with a grin. “I called in a favor from an old buddy of mine.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t order a tank then,” Eric said.
“Don’t think that I didn’t think about that,” Kyle said. “But I figured that would be a little bit too obvious.” He smirked at Eric, who caught his joke.
Eric appreciated that everyone in the group was trying to keep a bit of a lighter tone about their adventure. But they all knew what was happening. They were going to war, and as much as Kyle wanted to lead the situation, they all knew that the epicenter of the conflict was going to focus on Eric and Nina.
He held Nina’s hand as they got into the truck. Kyle took the driver’s seat, as Eric expected. There was enough space for all of them to sit comfortably inside. Nina looked at him gratefully. During the flight to Croftsborrow, he had given her space. It was all still new and overwhelming to him, and he hoped that she was starting to settle into her new skin. He had enjoyed watching her interact with Kelly and Maggie. He didn’t know why he had been so afraid of this happening. He, Kyle, and Tony had been together for so long, just the three of them. Having their mates added to their trio seemed right. It had taken all of this to help him see that he wasn’t losing his friends. He was gaining a family.
Despite their best efforts to make it a ‘clanless’ clan, they were coming together and organizing in a way that he knew meant that things were going to be different moving forward. But that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be something great. He looked at Kyle and at Tony, and he could see his same feelings reflected on their faces.
“We are finally going to do what we always set out to do,” Kyle said quietly. Of course, it would be him that said so.
“Perhaps we just never realized what this brave new world was going to look like when we got there,” Tony said thoughtfully
Eric nodded. “So let’s take care of the one thing that still stands in our way.”
Kelly moved a duffle bag into the center between all of them. She pulled out several syringes that had a light blue liquid inside. She handed one to each of them. “Now, I don’t need to remind all of you what this serum does. I’m not sure if it will even work the way that we intended it to. I have no way of being able to test it, and I never plan to make it again. This is a one-time thing.”
Eric could tell this was important to the doctor, and he understood why. After this, they would destroy all of Oak Tree’s research for good. Hopefully, there would never be a need for something
like this ever again. In the wrong hands, it could be used as a terrible weapon against them. He wouldn’t stand for that.
“We get it, Doc,” he said in agreement. “It’s a one-time deal.” The rest of the others in the group nodded their agreement as well.
With this understanding, Kelly continued. “Needless to say, this will have the same effect on any shifter. So, if you don’t get Jillian, make damn sure you’re not accidentally getting anyone else.” She pointed at Eric, Tony, Kyle, and Nina.
Eric’s heart swelled with pride at the idea that his mate was also a shifter. He understood that fate didn’t allow you to choose who your mate was, but, at the same time, he felt like there was an understanding between them now that Kyle and Kelly and Tony and Maggie couldn’t quite have. They would always be just a little bit different. He and Nina were the same now. He thought that she might be thinking the same thing when she looked over and gave him a brilliant smile. He was so proud of how she was keeping it together. It was as if she had always been meant to be a shifter.
“Got it,” Kyle said as he looked in the rearview mirror at them. “Anybody have any questions?”
“So we are going in guns blazing, and this is pretty much our only option?” Maggie asked. Her face was grim. Maggie had had an up close encounter with Jillian as well and had luckily escaped it relatively unscathed. But Eric could understand not wanting to be in that situation again.
“We’re going to go to the quarry, and we’re going to wait. She will make contact. I’m sure of it,” Nina said quietly. Eric put his arm around her. They settled into an awkward silence for the rest of the drive.
As they turned onto the rough road that led into the quarry, Eric couldn’t help but be transported back in time. The last time he had been on that road in this place he had been eighteen years old. He still hadn’t known how he was going to make his mark on the world. He had felt trapped by Jillian’s demands to take their relationship to the next level. But they were all celebrating the shifter independence that night. It should have been a monumental day in a much different way than what it was in his memories.