Forbidden Shifters Complete Series (Books 1-6): A Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance

by Selena Scott

  She frowned when she reached for the back door of the center and found it unlocked. She had definitely locked it when she’d left last night. A few of her more trusted mentors had keys to the center but she’d never known any of them to use them this early in the morning.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out her pepper spray as she cautiously entered the building. Why did she have to wear her extra high heels this morning? Not only were they louder than tap shoes, they were not exactly getaway footwear. If she had to run, she was definitely going to have to do it on a turned ankle or two.

  As quietly as possible, Diana made her way toward the main room of the center. “Hello?”

  A dark shape rose up suddenly from a desk in the corner. Large. A man. Diana braced and stepped back.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Diana.” A familiar voice said. “Sorry. It’s just me.”

  “Quill.” A strange feeling tripped down Diana’s spine. One she’d never had with Quill before. He had been one of the first mentors she’d hired on. And she’d considered him doubly useful over the years because not only was he really, really good with shifter re-acclimation into human culture, he was a shifter himself. He had an insider’s perspective on how to help the shifter population that almost none of her other mentors had. She’d trusted him from the beginning. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I just— I have an early meeting with Callie.” One of his mentees. “And I came in to use the printer and the, um, copy machine for some stuff we were gonna do today. I didn’t bother letting you know because I thought I’d be in and out. But, yeah, you’re here early. Sorry.”

  It was three times he’d apologized to her at this point. Diana was almost positive that he was lying to her about why he was here. Her eyes discreetly took in the scene around her. From where she was standing, she could see just slightly through the door of her office. She registered, with shock that she hoped she was hiding, that her computer in her office wasn’t dark-screened and sleeping like it usually was. In fact, it was woken up, like someone had just been on it.

  She frowned. “Okay.”

  There was really nothing else she could say without outright accusing Quill of lying to her.

  “I should get going to meet Benjamin.”

  “I thought you said your early meeting was with Callie.”

  “Right. Yes. Benjamin and then Callie. Busy morning.” Quill nodded to her as he scuttled past and out of the center. She stared after him for a moment.

  Slowly, Diana walked to her office and stared at her computer, the desktop incriminatingly lit up. “Shit.”

  Oh, she really, really didn’t want this to be a thing. She did not want to have a weirdly suspicious feeling about one of her most trusted employees. But facts were facts. Her computer was the only one in the entire center that could access clients’ personal files. Diana could think of absolutely no other reason why Quill would have been on her computer instead of the ones out in the main room. Especially when you added in the fact that he’d come to the center at damn near five am to do it.

  He hadn’t looked good either. In fact, he’d looked like shit. Purple under his eyes. Haunted. More thin than usual.

  She thought of the way she’d slammed Orion against the wall in the hallway recently. How sharply she’d surveyed him, searching for any clues that he’d gone the way so many other shifters had before him. Drugs and alcoholism. Gambling. Gang activity. Her stomach fell out. Was it possible that she’d missed the signs with Quill? Was it possible that one of her very own needed her help and she’d been too preoccupied to see it?

  Well, no more. Whether he wanted it or not, Quill was going to be getting Diana’s full attention.

  ***

  Orion was three quarters of the way through a particularly easy moving job when a stiff breeze ruffled through the trees overhead. He stood up straight and turned straight into it, his nose twitching from side to side.

  “Hey, boss!” Orion called to no one in particular. “I’m taking a break.”

  He didn’t stick around to see how his news was received. If he got fired, well, there were other moving companies to whom he could offer his services. This was way more important.

  Because for the first time since he’d abducted Ida in an attempt to lure Phoenix into captivity, Orion had caught Watt’s scent.

  He took off at a dead run toward the stand of trees due directly north of him. Once he was there, he was going to shift, damn the consequences. He would have shifted right there on the street if not for Diana’s voice in his head, reminding him of the laws that required shifters to shift in private, out of eyesight of the general public. Whatever.

  The second he was half a foot into the stand of trees, Orion shifted in a whirl of claws and teeth and fur and growl. He sprinted in the direction of the scent, stronger and stronger with each step he took. He wondered, briefly, if his siblings had caught the scent as well. If all three of them were converging on Watt from different directions.

  Orion carved through the trees, realizing that the stand of trees he’d plunged into had been just the beginning of Forest Park. He was surrounded on all sides by lush green trees and plush moss. If not for his nose, he would have completely missed Watt. The man practically blended in to the forest around him.

  Watt was hunched against a tree, his burnished skin streaked with mud and rain, his red hair dulled and matted. He wore Goretec clothing and a good pair of hiking boots, but his cheeks were hollowed from lack of food and his eyes looked impossibly tired.

  “I don’t want any trouble, Orion,” Watt said, apparently recognizing Orion even in his wolf form. “I’m not here to hurt anybody.”

  Watt’s voice was cracked and broken from disuse.

  Orion eyed Watt suspiciously, peering at him through the green gloom of the forest.

  “I knew if I got close enough to the city that one of you would track me down. I’m here on purpose, not trying to sneak anything past y’all.”

  Orion waited. If he’d been in his human form, he might have had something to say to Watt. But in his wolf form, he let his unblinking stare do all the talking for him.

  “Look, I never meant to hurt Ida. I didn’t want Phoenix to get hurt either, for that matter. I really like Phoenix. I know you won’t believe me, but I considered him a friend.”

  Orion growled, low and insistently, just loud enough to have Watt taking a quick step backward.

  “You don’t have to believe me, I guess,” Watt said, hanging his head and dragging a hand over the back of his neck. “But… I had reasons for doing what I did. For being a part of the Program. The Director is… very persuasive. You have no idea, man. No idea.”

  Orion cocked his head to one side and without thinking twice, shifted into his human form. This was a conversation that definitely required English.

  “What program? What director?”

  Watt whipped his head up, surprised to see that Orion had shifted so quickly. “The one I was trying to recruit Phoenix for.”

  “Right, but no one ever really explained to us what it was. We just knew you were a radical. An extremist of some kind.”

  Watt kind of shook his head and laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You could say that. I know you don’t have any reason to believe me, but that was never really me. I was never sold on the ideology. I just wanted my sister back. Trust me, I was never as far in it as…”

  He trailed off and looked around him, a hunted look coming into his eyes.

  “As who?” Orion’s blood chilled when he considered the implications of what Watt was saying. Was it possible that there were more people like Watt in their lives? Could there possibly be more people who would do something as horrible as Watt had done?

  Watt shook his head. “I can’t. Look, my sister is all I’ve got. I can’t screw this up any more than I already have. I can’t go spilling the secrets. They already want me dead. I’m just saying that you and your family n
eed to be careful. The Director wants you. And he’ll take you any way he can get you. Don’t trust anybody, Orion. Seriously. The Director has ways of manipulating people so that they don’t even realize they’re following his orders.”

  Watt started to back away. “Don’t trust anybody,” he repeated.

  “Wait,” Orion called.

  But Watt was already shaking his head and backing away. “I can’t. I can’t. She’s all I’ve got.”

  And then, as weak and sick as Watt looked, he was running back through the forest, away from Orion. Orion could have easily overtaken him, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one. There was no way he was getting any more information out of Watt tonight short of torture. And Watt already looked tortured enough. He was obviously living in the forest somewhere. And not particularly well. He looked weak and hungry and close to the brink. He was obviously scared enough of this Director guy that he was trying to go off the grid. He had the distinct look of the hunted. Orion recognized it as the same look as the one in the eyes of any animal he’d ever tracked and killed. It chilled him to see that look in the eyes of a human. No. He wouldn’t chase Watt tonight.

  Instead, he shifted back into his wolf form and headed toward home.

  Don’t trust anybody, Orion.

  Watt’s words reverberated in his head.

  He needed his siblings.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Diana knew something was wrong when Orion wasn’t on her front porch when she got home from work. He’d said he would be there.

  But he wasn’t.

  She frowned. This was just the cherry on top of a shit sundae. This day had started with her becoming extremely suspicious of a formerly trusted employee, it had accelerated into a surprise visit by a health inspector, and then she found out she’d been rejected for a grant that the center had been awarded for the last two years running. She’d all but spent the money already. Now she was going to have scrounge for it, probably throw another fundraiser where she’d have to don a low cut dress and beg, borrow, and steal from Portland’s moneyed factions.

  And now this. No Orion.

  She’d been really looking forward to whatever the heck was going to happen tonight. It was the night after she’d fully surrendered to this thing between them. She’d sort of expected some fireworks.

  She parked her car, went into her dark, lonely house and started reheating some leftovers, because she was starving. She pulled out her phone. No messages. She shoved it back into her pocket.

  A half second went past before she yanked it out again and pulled up his number. It rang and rang. She didn’t leave a voicemail.

  Her food was still in the microwave when she went back out to her car and drove toward Orion’s house. Something told her that this wasn’t right. If he was standing her up, then it was for a good reason.

  A few minutes later, she was pulling into his driveway, jumping out of her car and marching up to the porch to ring the doorbell. She was causing a spectacle and didn’t remotely care.

  Fuck the neighbors. Let them watch.

  ***

  Orion sat in the brightly lit kitchen with Phoenix on one side of him and Dawn on the other. He’d just told them about his run-in with Watt and everything that Watt had said.

  Phoenix was the human personification of a clenched fist. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to grind his teeth down to splinters. Watt’s betrayal was obviously still fresh.

  “He’s lucky it was you who tracked him down, and not me,” Phoenix said in a low voice, his face pulled into that deadly-mean look he was known for. He could curdle milk with that glare.

  “It sounds like Watt might be the least of our worries,” Dawn said. “If he can be trusted. If we can believe what he told you.”

  His sister turned her dark eyes toward him and, as he always did, Orion deeply considered her words. Orion sighed. “I know he’s a snake. I know he betrayed us. I know he kidnapped Ida—“

  Phoenix shifted abruptly in his chair, a low growl in his throat. Orion knew his brother was physically forcing himself not to spring up from the chair and track Watt down. Watt was lucky indeed that it had been Orion who’d found him today. There might not be anything left of him if Phoenix had found him.

  “But,” Orion continued on. “I got the distinct impression that he was telling the truth. I don’t know exactly why, but he seemed like somebody with pretty much nothing left to lose. He came back to Portland knowing full well that he might get his ass torn apart by us. But he came anyway. I think he felt guilty about the way the whole thing had played out. And I told you what he said. That he wasn’t as brainwashed as some of the others. That he’d been working with this Director guy for a specific reason. Something to do with his sister, I guess. And then he gave me that warning.”

  “Don’t trust anybody,” Dawn repeated the warning quietly, almost to herself. Her eyes went distant as if she were thinking of someone in particular.

  Orion nodded. “Don’t trust anybody,” he confirmed.

  “Well, that’s easy enough,” Phoenix said with an arrogant shrug. “I already don’t trust anybody in the first place. Problem solved.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “Of course you trust people. Orion? Me?”

  Phoenix rolled his eyes back at Dawn. “Of course I trust you two. That’s not what Watt meant.”

  “Oh?” She pursed her lips. “Now you know exactly what Watt meant? Are Orion and me not ‘anybody’s?”

  “You two are not secretly brainwashed.” Phoenix folded his arms. “You’re family. I would know if you were brainwashed.”

  “Okay, fine. But think of the other people who’ve made their way into our lives.” Dawn held up fingers. “Ida, for starters. Wren. Quill.”

  “Diana,” Orion put in. And there it was. The thing that had been tightening in his gut since his run-in with Quill. Orion didn’t know how Diana fit into all this. He didn’t know how the hell she fit into his life.

  “Don’t imply that Ida can’t be trusted,” Phoenix said in a low, frustrated voice, pointing one vehement finger at his sister. “I don’t like it.”

  Dawn’s shoulders sagged a little. “I don’t like it either, Phoenix. But what are we supposed to do with this warning? How do we decide who we can trust and who we can’t?”

  A dense silence filled in the spaces between them all.

  “We need more information,” Orion said eventually. “We can’t just trust Watt. Not after everything he did. And it doesn’t make sense to go randomly cutting people out of our lives. So, yeah. I guess we need to just go with our guts on who to trust.”

  Orion could practically see the word “Ida” floating over Phoenix’s head. He glanced at his sister and saw her biting her lip. He was almost positive that she was thinking of Quill. Orion wasn’t sure what to think about that.

  “So, how do we get more information?” Phoenix asked.

  “I can start at the library,” Dawn said slowly. “I can use the computers there to see if I can find anything about the Program or the Director.” She shrugged. “I’ve already been researching a bit into the history of shifters in America. I’ve read a lot about Jackson Durant and the Shifter Liberation movement. The internment camps as well. I’ll just start there, I guess. See if I can find anything.”

  “I guess I’ll see if Ida knows anything. If she’s ever heard anything about this. It’s been a huge question mark for us why Watt did what he did last year. Maybe this will answer some questions for us.” Phoenix looked stormy and angry and… worried. Orion hated that his siblings were worried. He hated that he couldn’t protect them from this. That he didn’t know enough about human culture to be able to know exactly what to do next. He was the big brother. The protector. The one with all the answers…

  “Diana will help us,” Orion said suddenly.

  Phoenix and Dawn exchanged a look.

  “Orion,” Dawn said slowly. “I know you’re really into her. But are you sure that she’d—�
��

  “I’m positive,” he said, knowing the answer in his soul. “Completely. You don’t understand. There’s a reason I’ve been so drawn to her. She’s exactly like me.”

  Phoenix barked out a surprised laugh. “Orion, no offense, but that woman is pretty much your complete opposite.”

  “Yeah. She’s a hardass,” Dawn said. “You’re a teddy bear.”

  “Rude,” Orion said, blowing a raspberry at his sister. “And you’re both wrong. She’s the softest person I’ve ever met. A big heart. Just like me. But she’s also a protector. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do for the people she cares about. Everything she does, it’s just to keep everyone safe.”

  He stood up. He suddenly felt anxious to see her. To hear what she had to say about all this. This weird, confusing thing had just happened and Diana’s was the only opinion Orion wanted to hear.

  He’d told her last night that things could stay messy between them. And they could. But he also kind of needed her in his bed tonight.

  “Actually,” he said as took two steps toward the kitchen doorway. “I’m gonna go get her.”

  “Right now?” Dawn said with a laugh. “Isn’t that a little bit impulsive?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t care. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met and I want to hear what she has to say about all this. I want her here. I’m going.”

  He was striding out toward the front door.

  “Wait! Orion!” Dawn called. “I’ll drive you.”

  But he didn’t care. He didn’t wait. He’d jog over to Diana’s house and make her drive them both back here.