by Godiva Glenn
“He what?”
“Little fucker came straight to me bitching about abuse. Claims Lee and Mitchell broke things up but you seemed entertained.”
“That’s bullshit!”
Sully eyed Troy.
“I wasn’t entertained,” Troy bit off, lowering his voice.
“Yeah, I didn’t say you were. Mister sue-happy Jason said so.”
“He’s going to sue?”
Sully reached up to his head to grab glasses that weren’t there, then cursed and fished them out of his pocket and put them on. “It’s what the kids do these days. Now look, you’re suspended—”
“What!” Troy stood and slammed his fists on the desk.
“Sit your ass down, boy,” Sully growled. Troy complied and Sully shook a finger at him. “Suspended with pay until further notice, because I have to get the goddamn discretionary board involved.”
Troy’s fingers dug into the rests of the old chair. “I don’t understand.”
Sully threw the paper back into the folder and shut it. “Look. This is the world now. Back in my day, two guys had a row on the job, that was it. Now, we didn’t go killing each other, and what have you. But times are changing, and this is it.”
“I don’t—”
“And, if you want the fucking truth of it, I was pissed upon from a goddamn great level,” Sully growled. “Seems our Jason’s uncle is dating the city manager—you know—my damn boss. He wants this investigation to be as thorough as a colonoscopy and no one cares that I’ve been running this station for long enough to have built it and know what I’m doing.”
“But—”
“The best part is, one of you, or I guess both of you, wet your goddamn horndog dicks in Jason’s ex-fiancé and now he’s on the warpath to bring that up too, that you’re gossiping about the dames you date and it’s…” Sully took a breath and shook his head as he continued, “creating a hostile work environment by objectifying and degrading women.”
Troy laughed in disbelief. He didn’t know Jason had ever been engaged. Six months at the house and this was the first Troy had heard of it. “How the fuck was I supposed to know that he had an ex-fiancé?”
“How you guys handle that shit, not my concern. I know there’s a complicated code or what have you—”
“Sure, but the code only works when we actually know who we have to avoid,” Troy sputtered. “Was it the girl this past weekend?”
Sully stared at Troy in disbelief. “Look at who you’re asking. I don’t want to think about you two getting your jollies off with anyone, and what, you think probie gave me a profile picture or something?”
“I’m sorry,” Troy murmured. “This is unreal. I’m fucking dreaming, right?”
“Wish we both were, son. If it were me, you know I’d give Gabe the shit-shifts for a month, yell at him, maybe make him the station maid for a while. I know he didn’t mean to really hurt the kid. Nothing broken but an ego, after all, but…” He sighed. “Out of my hands. He hit someone and there’s no looking the other way.”
Troy settled into the chair with a heavy breath of resignation. He wanted to fight the decision, as he’d done nothing wrong, but only one thing stood prominent in his thoughts.
“If I’m suspended, what about Gabe? Not…”
“No termination unless they pry it out of my pissed-off dead fingers,” Sully answered. “He’ll be suspended, same as you. No investigation could lead to him being gone permanently, that I fucking know.”
“The job is his life,” Troy said. “This station is his home. He’d be here all day every day if he had the choice.”
“Hell, if I don’t know that. And I’m not looking forward to giving him the news. At least I have a few hours.” He lowered his voice and eyeballed the cabinet to his left. “Might break out the emergency whiskey.”
Troy glanced back to the door he came in through. On the other side of it, Gabe was somewhere, probably joking around with the guys. Clueless about the shit about to run him over.
“Actually,” Troy said slowly, “he came in early. Figured you’d want to set him straight first thing so he could get on with his day.”
“Hell,” Sully breathed. “I’m getting too old for this shit. Fine. Send his stupid ass in. Can’t wait for this.”
“Where’s Jason by the way?”
“Taking a day for recovery. I shouldn’t say this, but it would surprise the hell out of me if that kid managed to turn into a man someday. He’s got potential but this ain’t the way to start a career.”
“Can’t say I trust him,” Troy admitted.
“Give him a second chance. If he fucks that up, well… But you gotta have heart for the guys you’re risking your life with. Not sure Jason understands that just yet, but he will.”
Troy stood but before he turned away, Sully held out his hand. They shook, and the action felt full of remorse. It was a shit situation, but for the life of him, Troy couldn’t see anything to do but let it play out. He didn’t blame Gabe for this mess, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t see this day getting anything but worse.
Troy hadn’t given Gabe a warning or heads-up of any sort before directing him to the chief’s office. It’s not like he had any training in delivering bad news or even softening the blow.
He stood in front of his personal locker, wondering how long he’d be gone. Should he clean it out entirely? He dug around and lifted out the faded My Little Pony sheets. He shoved them into his duffel. The guys gave him shit about the sheets, but they fit the crappy beds perfectly and stayed soft even when crammed in a locker most days.
He took his extra clothing and boots out, figuring they could use a wash after being neglected in a stale space. His fingers touched the back of the locker and found paper. Closing his eyes, he could see everything written on the letters inside the envelopes bundled and buried deep under everything else.
One letter was for his mom, letting her know all she’d done for him. Another for the guys at the station, which he kept up-to-date each year. They deserved to know that they were decent fuckers, for all the rough edges. He’d learned a lot from them.
The last was for Gabe.
They were the letters meant to be found in case someday, someone else was cleaning out this locker for him. The letters that would be seen only when he was dead and buried.
His hand slid back through the junk, leaving the envelopes in their hiding space, pressed between a box of old training manuals and an empty squeeze bottle shaped like a honey bear. How you get ants. He slammed the locker shut.
“What’s that?” Mitchell asked, stepping into the bunk room. His eyes were trained on the duffel slung across Troy’s shoulder.
“Long story short, I’m suspended until further notice,” Troy said.
Mitchell’s jaw dropped. “You’re playing. No?”
“Nope.”
Mitchell stepped back into the hallway and shouted for Lee to come. Lee poked his head in. “What’s up?”
“Troy’s suspended. Probie’s lost his damn mind.”
Lee frowned and stepped into the room as if it were a different universe. “That’s not possible. Since when does a scuffle result in anything but cleaning duty? And you didn’t lift a finger, are you serious?”
Troy shrugged. “Long story. Doesn’t matter. Kiss my ass goodbye for the next few weeks I guess, hopefully not too much longer than that.”
“And Gabe?” Mitchell asked.
“Same.”
Lee sucked in a breath. “There are stations that haze, don’t get this deep with punishment.”
“Bitch move, probie,” Mitchell said to no one in particular.
“Maybe we can grab dri—” Troy said and was interrupted by the station alarm then tones.
Mitchell’s hand went to his pager. “We’ll meet up.”
“Yeah,” Troy said to Lee’s and Mitchell’s backs as they left the room.
Once again alone, he looked around the sorry room and sat on a depressingly flat
mattress. Eventually, footsteps came from down the hall and Gabe entered. There was no sign of the anticipated fury that Troy expected. Gabe appeared calm in a disturbing way, like there was a caged madness locked in his eyes.
“Looks like we’re taking a vacation,” Gabe commented, crossing the room and dragging his hand across the locker fronts. He stopped in front of the third locker from the end, which was not his.
“You okay?”
Gabe nodded and yanked the door open. A t-shirt and some socks fell to the floor. It was Jason’s locker. Each man had to provide their own lock, and probie was obviously lax when it came to personal security. Still, it didn’t give anyone the right to dig around.
“Stop it. What are you even looking for?”
“Nothing,” Gabe said.
A zip whispered through the air, followed by the unmistakable sound of Gabe urinating on the contents of Jason’s locker.
“Nice,” Troy groaned sarcastically. “Are we twelve now?”
Gabe shook himself off and slammed the locker shut. “Maybe. He started it.”
Troy eyed the now dripping locker with disgust. “Get your shit and we’re going to go get plastered.”
Gabe glanced down the row at his own locker, which was secured with a heavy-duty digital keypad. “I’m good. Unless probie brings the jaws of life in here, my stuff’s safe.”
Standing, Troy was bombarded with the reality of their current situation. They’d never had free time before. Not like this. Work was everything. He had more memories of 42 than he had of his own damn apartment.
He bet they wouldn’t spend much time with the other guys, either. Because the other guys would be busy between work and their own drama. Lee had a wife and kids, somehow. Mitchell had a son with an ex, and that son had delinquency issues that sucked up any free time.
All the men at 42 devoted ninety-percent to the job and ten-percent to drinking, mostly. They weren’t going to hang out with the two fuck-ups who managed to get suspended, even if the charge was utter shit.
And if Troy was facing down that monster of a reality, he could only imagine how Gabe was really handling it, if pissing on someone’s clothes was ‘handling it’ by any definition. What the fuck are we going to do now?
Chapter Three
Chell
“It’s amazing what can change in a year,” Chell mused. She stepped carefully through the forest, eyes scanning the ground for mushrooms. “When it feels like sometimes nothing happens in a full ten.”
“Just a few weeks until the dragons will visit,” Mara said beside her.
Chell could feel the time counting down like tension in her bones. The dragons were the leaders of the shifters, and they needed her to finish her business—or they’d step in. She had a decision to make. Technically, she’d already made it, but it was less of a decision and more of a forced hand. She wanted options that weren’t available.
“One more loose end to tie up.” Chell straightened and looked up at the soft pink sky through the canopy of violet leaves. Tucking a black curl behind her ears, she took in a breath of the sweet forest. “In a week, he’ll be someone else’s problem.”
“Good riddance.”
“In the meanwhile, I was thinking… perhaps it is time I chose a mate.”
Mara glanced sharply over. “Really?”
“Granted, my search for a mate is what landed me in this mess, I suppose.” Chell hated to recall the bitter truth.
She’d refused the intentions of Elric, and he, in turn, had drugged and imprisoned her. Then to top things off, another of her spurned lovers had told a lie about having mated her himself, in order to take over her clan in her absence.
Months spent in a cage while her bears thought she was having a “rough pregnancy,” as if such a thing would ever keep her away.
“The true concern is that the males don’t look at me the same any longer, I’ve noticed,” Chell said. She paused, one hand pressed to the bark of the tree beside her. “And I suspect you can tell me why.”
Mara adjusted the basket in her hands, jostling the mushrooms and flowers they’d gathered so far. She was the most reliable of Chell’s many cousins. Honest, but kind. No doubt she was trying to come up with the nicest way to say things. Because there couldn’t be a nice reason why interest in Chell as a mate had gone from challenge-worthy to non-existent.
She was the leader of the most prominent bear clan on Nova Solara. She was the youngest shifter to ever hold such an honor. Not to mention, she was strong and of a preferable beauty level by bear standards.
“Mara…”
“It’s not easy to hear the whispers, and you know it pains me to repeat them,” Mara said.
“Gossip isn’t a crime. I am not hurt by whatever they say.”
Mara shrugged and cast her mahogany brown eyes to the ground. She was meek for a bear, but Chell loved her all the same. She had strength in character for all she lacked of the usual bear brashness.
“I can guess,” Chell said. “I hate to guess, but I would think that some males look at me as weak now.”
“Some,” Mara admitted. “Since we have closed the borders, the others don’t know the full story of what happened with you. The dragons have not gossiped.”
“I wouldn’t have seen it as gossip,” Chell scoffed. “The truth is but facts.”
“Indeed, but in their decision to leave that truth to you, coupled with us being cloistered away from the world, speculation has been rampant. So yes, the Lower Lake foxes, and many of the shifters that had allied with Solomon believe you to be weak.”
Chell nodded resolutely. It seemed about right of fate to play this hand of cards. She’d closed her borders for the sake of her clan, and in the meanwhile, lost the respect of the surrounding shifters. But she had done nothing wrong.
“That’s fine. If they judge me based on rumors, they aren’t worthy of my attention. And I don’t think I’d ever mate a fox or a bird. Solomon’s allies were notably of the more easily threatened and manipulated packs.”
Mara smiled. “Indeed.”
“But what of our own?”
“That’s perhaps more delicate.” Mara stepped close and leaned against the prickly bark of the tree Chell touched. “You have reclaimed power, and you show no signs of distress, yet… there is a fear that inside you are unstable. Scarred from what happened.”
“There’s no proof…”
“No, no proof. But you punished many who claimed innocence of involvement in Elric and Solomon’s treachery—”
“I had proof there—”
“Yes, but that proof came from Fianni, the dragon’s mate and hardly a neutral party,” Mara reasoned.
“Also, our fucking queen,” Chell muttered, slapping a mosquito from her tanned arm. “If we are not to trust her, then who?” She shook her head. “And I suppose, now I have those who believe that I am perhaps seeing deceit everywhere? Do they fear a ‘witch hunt’ from me?”
Mara scoffed. “Nothing so dire. Perhaps a few. The majority are simply… unsettled. I suppose in the grander scheme of things, they don’t understand why your former lovers have all been so… problematic.”
That made Chell laugh. Problematic indeed. And she could not disagree. Her first serious lover vanished into thin air, leaving the clan when he was needed. Leaving her when he was needed.
The second and third conspired together in an attempt to rule not only the Blue Mountain bears, but to overthrow the dragons that ruled the entire planet. She’d had other suitors, but only the ones she’d touched had turned against her. If she was the superstitious type, and if such magic existed, she’d believe she was cursed.
“Perhaps I should offer my availability to the dragons, then. As they are the ones who are most likely neutral at this point,” she mused. The wrinkle of Mara’s nose at the suggestion was priceless. “No. I’m not serious.”
“And yet… perhaps we should look to them. Not directly, but they found the matchmaker, after all. Gerri, I belie
ve was her name.”
“No matchmaker.”
“She found the dragons an aspect. What we would call a goddess. That’s power. Power we could use. What’s to say that she couldn’t find you a male equally impressive?”
The prospect was certainly tempting. Gerri had connections on the fae planet, Prism, but also on Nova Aurora, the planet where Solara’s shifters had originated. Between the two, there probably existed dozens of charming, virile males.
“She’s currently residing quite close to where we’ll be lodged on Earth during our stay,” Mara added.
Chell acknowledged the temptation and shuffled it aside. “Hiring someone, particularly when that someone is an Earth shifter, smacks of desperation.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.”
The foul odor of sweat hit Chell’s face like a firm slap the moment she opened the door leading to the prison.
The underground cells were rarely used throughout Chell’s life, and yet over the course of the last year, she’d had a body in each one. Every traitor that had chosen Solomon over her had spent at least a week in chains. A fair trial had come to each of them, and now all were gone but one.
Solomon himself.
Her footsteps tapped on the hard-beaten dirt. She knew from memory that the sound usually made prisoners flinch. Not him, of course. He was too stubborn to know fear. It was an admirable trait but didn’t make up for all that he lacked.
She approached his cell, keeping her distance from the bars, which hummed with a charge strong enough to disorient even the strongest shifters. Being underground for an extended time tended to drain Solaran bears, as they gained strength from the sun. That, coupled with the electrified reinforced metal cell, meant even attempting a breakout would be painful and futile.
“I’m told you didn’t eat your meal, again,” Chell said.
“I don’t like the taste of spit,” he replied.
Her lips pursed into a hard line. She’d talk to the guards. He was scum, but she didn’t like them stooping to petty actions. Prisoners had very little as it was. “I could bring you something myself.”