Fox Hunt

by J. Leigh Bailey

  “What’s the meaning of this? Buddy Brady, get your hands off my son.”

  Buddy lifted his hand, but I stepped into his warmth, showing him and my mom that I decided who got to touch me. Not my mother. He stiffened, and I had a second to worry that Buddy wasn’t interested in claiming me publicly, that he might still intend to stick to his stupid “friends only” plan. Before the hurt could fill my chest, he resettled his hand at my back.

  “I trusted you to protect my son, not take advantage of him. Not seduce him.” Her voice held so much cold disdain that I was surprised I didn’t see icicles dangling from her words.

  I snorted. “Believe me, if there was any advantage-taking, it was totally me.”

  Buddy glowered down at me. It was adorable.

  “You are young, and not thinking clearly with everything going on. Adrenaline and proximity can cause a false bond. He’s too old for you, and he exploited the situation to his benefit.”

  “Yeah, that is so far from the truth, it might as well be on another planet. Mom, I’m not a child. And I’m not blinded by adrenaline and proximity. I’m twenty-one years old, old enough to decide for myself who I spend time with. You can accept that or not, but it won’t change anything. I’m in love with Theo, and you’ll need to reconcile that. If I have my way, he’ll be in my life for a very long time.”

  Buddy stilled next to me.

  My mother gaped at me.

  Aiden stared at me.

  It was like the whole room held its breath, and I stood there, nearly suffocating with the realization of what I’d said. “I… I… I….” My mouth opened, then closed again.

  I loved Buddy Brady—Theo. I was in love with him, and I’d just announced it to him and my family. The feelings had been growing and changing for days, but it had only been days. And then to just blurt it out like that, when I had no indication as to how he felt…. Hell, he might still think of me as a client, or worse, a substitute younger brother. My breathing and pulse sped up, and my skin felt too tight and too thin over my bones and muscles.

  Aiden cleared his throat. “Maybe we should tell Mom what’s going on. With the Moreau Initiative,” he clarified, “not you two.” He waved his hand between Buddy and me.

  “Good idea,” I croaked.

  “Just a minute,” Buddy said. He pulled me around to face him. Ignoring the audience, he cupped my cheeks and examined my face. His expression, like his voice, was soft.

  I licked my bottom lip.

  He traced over the moist curve with his thumb.

  “We have a lot to talk about.” He leaned in, kissing me sweetly. “Later. When this is done, we’re going to talk about how long you’re going to be in my life.”

  I nodded, too afraid to hope.

  “And, David?”

  I met his gaze.

  “I’m thinking it will be a very, very long time.” He kissed me again before turning to face my mother. “Mrs. Sherman, we have some news for you. It might be hard to hear. Let’s all have a seat in the dining room.”

  Wide-eyed, Mom let herself be led out of the room. She took one look at the assortment of computers and tech on the table and her expression hardened. “Hacking again? Didn’t that get you into enough trouble already?”

  “It needed to be done, Mom.” Aiden laid his hand on her arm. “It’s important.”

  “Fine,” she said. She settled onto the bench and folder her hands in front of herself. “Now, explain.”

  Aiden sat, straightening the small notepad he’d used to jot notes on during his search. It was a delay tactic, one I figured he used while determining his approach. “There’s a shifter traitor working for the Moreau Initiative.”

  Mom’s face scrunched. “We’d assumed so. They knew too much, worked too long, not to have someone on the inside.”

  “We know who it is. Or, in reality, we have proof of at least one shifter on the Western Division Council aiding the Moreau Initiative as well as hiring a couple of goons to kill David.”

  “Someone on my Council?” Mom leaned forward, scanning the computers in front of her. She growled low in her throat, a sound more natural in her fox form. “I’ll kill them. Who is it?”

  Aiden looked at me. Damn it. He expected me to break the news to her? Why did I have to be the one to break her heart?

  I straightened my shoulders and manned up. “Darren.”

  She reared back. A slew of different emotions flew across her face. Denial. Hurt. Anger. Annoyance. Disbelief. Suspicion. With each changing emotion, I saw the truth settle. She knew we wouldn’t make up something like this. Her mouth firmed, and her posture stiffened as realization morphed into resolve.

  “Let me see your proof.”

  Buddy held me close to his side as Aiden walked Mom through what we’d discovered, and what we extrapolated further from the data.

  “He’s been playing us—playing me—from the beginning. All along.” She pushed the laptop away from her. Her voice was steady, but there was something in the timbre of it that made my heart ache for her.

  I’d always admired my mother’s ability to process information and make decisions. That, and her complete dedication to the protection of shifters both locally and abroad, had led her to the role as head of the Western Division Shifter Council. Sometimes I’d resented that her dedication meant she’d occasionally have to sacrifice time and attention with her family. But I’d always known that what she did was important. And now, for the first time, I could see what that sacrifice meant to her. For the first time since my father had walked out on us over a decade ago, she’d pursued something for herself. Something that didn’t have anything to do with the well-being of shifters or her children. And it had ended up being a bad choice.

  “Lord, but I have bad taste in men,” she muttered.

  I reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “No, baby, it’s me who’s sorry. I brought him into your life, and he tried to kill you.”

  “Badly,” Buddy muttered.

  I chucked. “Well, there’s that. The guys he sent weren’t very good. Though they did manage to always know where to find us. Even after we killed everything they could possibly have used to track us.”

  “They didn’t need to track us. Darren knew exactly where you’d be. That’s why he asked for your itinerary, and why he pushed for the daily check-ins.”

  “That would explain some of it, but not all of it. The trip to the woods in Chicago wasn’t on the agenda. And he couldn’t have known which rest stop we’d pick.”

  “He was tracking your car,” a deep voice announced from the living room.

  Buddy surged to his feet with a growl, closely followed by my mother. Then Buddy relaxed. “Shit, William. Don’t you knock?”

  “You should have been paying better attention,” William said. He was almost as big as Buddy but had a more refined look. His brown beard was neatly trimmed, and his conservative charcoal-colored pants and black polo spoke to his career in academia. I couldn’t quite reconcile the man in front of us with a secret agent.

  “There was a tracker on your car.” William held up a small piece of something, roughly the size of a quarter. “Someone’s been monitoring your movements.”

  “Someone?” Mom asked.

  “Darren is the obvious answer,” I said. “But it’s possible the guys he’d hired had access to the information instead.”

  Aiden stood, then reached out for the small device. “With the right equipment I can trace this back to whoever is pulling the data.”

  Buddy snarled. “Fuck.”

  The rest of us whipped our heads in his direction.

  “If he’s tracking it, then he knows we’re back in town.”

  “Fuck indeed.” I rounded on my mother. “Where is Darren right now?”

  She blanched. “He’s at the Council Headquarters. He said he had a conference call this afternoon, and has been holed up in his office ever since.”

  “Do you think h
e—”

  A cordless phone rang from its dock on the kitchen wall.

  Buddy walked over and picked the handset up. After a glance at the caller ID he said, “It’s the café.”

  William came to attention.

  Buddy pushed the button to answer the call. “Yeah?”

  Since there was no such thing as a private phone conversation among shifters, we could all make out the café manager Donnie’s voice. “Buddy? So you are there. I didn’t think you’d be back for a couple weeks yet.” William stalked closer to the phone, and I remembered William and Donnie were a couple.

  “I’m here,” Buddy said simply. “A little busy, though.”

  “Yeah, I get it. The thing is, there’s a bunch of weird guys here with official-looking paperwork demanding to speak with the owner. I tried to tell them you were out of town, but they didn’t seem to believe me. When I couldn’t get through on your cell phone, they told me to call your landline. I didn’t even know you had a landline. Why would you need a landline in this day and age?”

  “Donnie,” Buddy interrupted. “Go back to the part about men with official paperwork.”

  “Oh, yeah, they look like warrants or something.”

  “Warrants.”

  “That’s what they claim, but I’ve gotta be honest with you, dude, these guys give me the willies.”

  “In what way?” William asked.

  “William? Is that you? Why are you at Buddy’s house?” His voice lowered, making it a little harder to pick up. “Is something happening?”

  “Later. What can you tell us about these guys?” Buddy’s grip tightened on the phone, the plastic casing creaking ominously.

  “They smell funny. Sterile and metallic.”

  “Human?” William asked.

  “Yeah. A couple of them are armed too. I can smell the gun oil.”

  William snatched the phone from Buddy. “Where are you now? Where are they?”

  “I’m in the office. They’re in the dining room. Except, one just walked past Jessica and is heading this way.” His voice tightened.

  “Tell them I’m on my way,” Buddy said. “Don’t do anything to draw their attention further.”

  “But—”

  “Donnie,” William growled.

  “Fine. I’m hanging up now. They’re looking at me suspiciously.”

  “Okay. Stay safe.” William closed his eyes as in a silent prayer before hanging up the phone.

  “So we should probably assume this is related, right?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “No such thing as coincidences,” Buddy reminded me.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “What are we going to do?” Aiden asked.

  “I’m going to go to the café,” Buddy said.

  “Me too,” William said.

  “Hold up,” Mom said, raising a hand. “We need a plan before you all run off half-cocked.” Her tone brooked no argument. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” Mom said. “You”—she pointed to Buddy—“will go to the café and see what the men want. You”—she pointed to William—“will go with him. Go separately, but together, if you know what I mean. The two of you should be able to hold your own until backup arrives. If it looks like things are going to go south, then you will find a way to get all civilians, both shifter and human, out of the café. Aiden, access any available camera feeds near the café and see if you can identify any other outsiders we need to worry about.”

  I watched in awe as my mother took charge, proving once again she deserved her role on the Shifter Council. Buddy and William both adopted a stoic, emotionless visage common to soldiers of every ilk.

  “I will contact the Council and get a team of enforcers on the ground. I’ll also reach out to the Eastern Division Shifter Council and give them the information we have about Darren’s activities in New York and Toronto. They’ll need a heads-up on what’s happening in their territory.”

  “I’m calling Owen,” I said before she could give me an assignment.

  “Owen? Your ex-boyfriend?” Mom raised a brow.

  “He and the other bird shifters he’s friends with can take to the sky, get a broader view of the area. They can also notify us if there’s anything we need to worry about.”

  “They’re civilians—”

  “They can be in place faster than any enforcer team from HQ can. If they stick to the air, they’ll be safe enough.” I waited for her to argue with me, to point out that I didn’t know what I was talking about, that I was too young, too inexperienced to make this call, but to my surprise, she conceded after a slight pause.

  “Remember, information, not confrontation if at all possible,” she said.

  Buddy and William were already on their way to the front door. I hurried to catch up. I grabbed Buddy’s shirt to slow him down. Ignoring everyone else in the room, I tugged him close. I cupped his cheeks the way he so often did to me, and said, “Be careful, Theo. When this is all over, we have some conversations to have and some future plans to make.” I guided his head down the few inches so I could kiss him.

  Our breaths mingled as he rested his forehead against mine. “Same to you.” He kissed me again, another short but sweet press of lips to lips. “And, David? I’m in love with you too.”

  Ten seconds later, he’d exited and was on his way to the café.

  I didn’t have time to watch the door like some lovesick fool. I had some calls to make so I could haul ass to the café. It was time to end this.

  Chapter Twenty

  OWEN, whose shifted form was a great horned owl, agreed to hit the skies with whichever of his fellow bird shifters he could reach. The sun was going to go down any minute now, so I hoped he knew a lot of owl shifters. Many of the birds with excellent daytime sight didn’t necessarily have good night vision. Owls had the best.

  I listened to Mom in the background, issuing orders to someone over the phone.

  Aiden sat at the table, fingers clicking over keys while he cursed under his breath about how Cody needed a CCTV system like London. Or at the very least, more ATMs.

  I didn’t have time for any of that. I’d done what I said I would, and now I needed to hightail it to Buddy’s Café. If I had to wait any longer, my imagination and anxiety would get the best of me. “Get the door,” I called over my shoulder before shifting.

  “Damn it, David!”

  I didn’t wait around long enough to see if Aiden got the door.

  Buddy’s house was in the center of a middle-class, residential area full of medium-sized houses on medium-sized lots. Lots of landscaping for me to hide behind. I didn’t have enough time to skulk around the shadows to avoid being seen, so I had to be fast.

  When I reached the downtown area where the café was situated, I had to slow a little. I put my nose to work, searching for any scent that didn’t belong. There, under the expected layers of car exhaust, dust, and sagebrush, I caught the weird scent Donnie had described as sterile. At the time I hadn’t known what he meant, but now I got it. It smelled like hospital corridors and new cars and ozone. There was an underlying smell distinctive to humans, but the rest was off.

  I wrinkled my snout to keep from sneezing.

  The scent trail made a fairly direct path to the café’s main entrance. I couldn’t exactly walk into a café as a fox, and I hadn’t brought my clothes, so I scurried past the front window to see what was going on inside. The dining room was mostly empty. Either William or Donnie had managed to usher everyone out, or the café had been exceptionally slow. William sat at a two-top table near the register, a coffee cup and a newspaper in front of him. Props, I’d guess. Behind the register, a tall Native American man with long black hair and an aura of power I could feel all the way outside wiped a white cloth over the counter with such concentration it was clearly an act. Donnie wiped down tables with the same attention to detail as the man behind the counter.

  At the center of the room, a group of four men in dark gray suits
faced off against Buddy. Buddy held a sheaf of important-looking papers in one hand while the four men spoke.

  Glass and distance muffled his voice, but I heard enough when Buddy spoke to get context. “Why would the FBI want to search my café?”

  I’d eat my tail if these men were really FBI.

  “Look, Mom! Puppy!” A little girl squealed from halfway down the block.

  “Jaycee, no!” A woman, likely the girl’s mom, pulled the curly-haired little girl back.

  Shit. I turned and hauled ass back around the building to where a delivery lane led to the café’s back entrance and a stack of broken-down boxes next to a dumpster. I scrambled to a stop at the glowing amber eyes under the dumpster.

  I sniffed the air. The scent I caught over the ingrained odors of rotting garbage and burned coffee made my fur stand on end. I pulled my lips away from my fangs and growled. The bastard was here. All alone. What was the overgrown housecat playing at?

  The spotted bobcat stalked around the dumpster and hissed, stunted tail twitching. He crouched, as though preparing to jump. Whether he intended to attack me or run away, I couldn’t tell. Either way, I wasn’t going to let it happen.

  I shifted back to human form.

  “Give it up, Darren. We know everything. Nobody else needs to get hurt.”

  Darren prowled forward, and I prepared myself for attack. While bobcats and foxes were similar in size—say compared to wolves or coyotes or bears—bobcats typically ran a few pounds lighter. It would be a fairly even match in animal form, but I didn’t want to fight him. As soon as fangs and claws got involved, shit got real. And in my fox form, I couldn’t talk.

  “Really, man, what in the hell is going on? One minute you’re set to become part of my family, the next you hire someone to kill me? Who does that?”

  His form wavered, and then a naked Darren stood in front of me. He looked a little worse for wear since the last time I’d seen him. He’d lost weight, and his skin was a pasty, sallow color that showed weeks of stress. At that last meeting with Mom and Aiden before I left, had he already been feeling the strain?