“Oh my God, would you guys cover your dicks. How dare you just barge in here—?”
“Barb—”
She doesn’t let the male finish, just starts muttering under her breath, and I take the time to look at them both. The black wolf has dark hair and grey eyes, his build putting him at about six three while the other has black hair, greying at the temples, brown eyes and is around my height.
They have all the physical characteristics of wolves, even the scent when they’re shifted, but that is where the similarities end. In skin, they’re almost human, giving off nothing, not even looking wolf as most of us do.
“Brig, shift please. They won’t stop bristling until you do, and I need to talk to the fools.”
I don’t want to shift, not with two males in our space, threatening the female currently stomping her foot and pulling at my coat.
“Dammit Brig, just trust me on this, okay? They won’t hurt me, or you, if they fucking know what’s good for them. They need me!” she barks, sighing and dropping to her knees near my head.
Taking my head in her hands, she turns me to look at her, tsking me when I fight and try to keep the males in my line of vision.
“Brig, baby, look at me. Please. There you are, my big, strong male. Thank you for protecting me. I really, really appreciate it, and if we’re not fighting later, I will so give you a hummer that will blow your mind.”
I like that, growling low in my throat as lust pierces me, my wolf panting a whine that has me chuffing out a chuckle. Yeah, my female’s mouth on my dick? I am not passing that shit up for anything.
Barking a threat to my right, ordering them to back off, I allow the shift to come over me and only ruefully acknowledge the boner Bee gave me as I roll to my feet and tower over them, putting her behind me in a protective gesture that has her muttering out a curse while she giggles.
“You.”
The male, the one Bee refers to as Cyrus, dips his head in acknowledgment and snarls at the smaller one behind him, his dominance clear when the younger male backs off and lowers his head.
“I apologize for entering your home and making you feel that we are a threat to your female. We are not, enforcer,” he says solemnly, his gaze winging to Beebee.
When he smiles at her, I feel my hackles rise again, but Beebee just laughs and shakes her head, coming to stand beside me and wrapping her arms around me.
I like that, really enjoy feeling as if my female is staking her claim on me somehow and— Wait, my female? Oh no, no, wolf. You just settle your ass down, right now. We’re friends, and we have great sex together. That’s all, I snarl, hating his triumphant whine when my arm goes around her of its own volition.
“What do you want? You have about a minute to explain just what the fuck you’re doing in my cabin near my…Beebee before I fucking kill you both and drag you back to the pack.” I warn him, not bending even when the light of the Alpha flashes in his eyes. “Not my Alpha, asshole, so don’t even bother.”
He laughs, the sound a loud boom in the room and looks at Beebee while shaking his head.
“If I’d known you had a beta looking out for you, I wouldn’t have killed myself looking for you, babe. Seriously, I had to rip apart four stalkers to keep your trail clean. The switch and divert worked though,” he says, giving me a chin nod of respect.
“How did you find us? And stop fucking talking to her! Christ, Beebee, go into the bathroom and put some clothes on,” I say and growl, not liking that she’s so bared to these two and feeling feral when the younger one keeps peering at her, his eyes way too interested for my liking.
“Oh hell! You males are so…” she trails off, bending to grab the clothes that fell from her grip earlier and stomps to the bathroom to slam the door.
Once she’s out of their sight, I face them again, my jaw clenched as I take them in and keep my wolf close, letting them know I’ll kill them both with ease.
The Alpha, he’d be a challenge, but I can still take them with my pureblood and beta strength.
“Calm down, male. We’re not here to hurt anyone. Christ, we love Barb. We’d never harm her,” he says softly, his body tensing when I move to grab them clothes.
“Calm down. If I wanted you dead, I would have killed you already, male. Put something on for fuck’s sake. I want to see your dicks even less than I want Beebee seeing them. Here.” I toss clothes over, snickering when they dress and noting that I am much broader than both males.
Cyrus’s lips twitch, but he holds his tongue and looks around, only relaxing when Beebee comes out of the bathroom and comes to stand beside me.
“Cyrus—”
“We need to start moving now, Barbie. The pack is restless being cooped up in the mountains for this long, and Grove isn’t going to be put off much longer,” he says, making Beebee nod and sigh, her shoulders slumping.
“Cy—”
“Before any of this goes any further, please explain to me what the hell is going on,” I cut in, my confusion making me antsy and aggressive as hell.
I don’t like males in here, in our space and I like even less that they seem to know my… Beebee…and that she’s familiar with them. It puts me at a disadvantage feeling this wild and not knowing what’s going on, so I need information and I definitely need Ry to stop fucking looking at my…Beebee as if he wants her.
“Eyes up, motherfucker!”
“Rylan! Stop doing that before I let him rip you a new one. Christ boy, she’s turned you down three times already. Take a hint!” Cyrus snarls, slapping the back of his head.
“Dad—”
“Shut up. Look Seers, we’re not here to cause harm, and as you can already see from the fact that Barb hasn’t attacked us, we’re friends. Or as close to as it gets,” he says, smiling at her with affection clear in his eyes.
Beebee sighs, smiles back, and looks up at me with a light of hope that makes me swallow back a curse because I know that I didn’t put that look there. That honor belongs to Cyrus and his flea-infested whelp.
“Brig, this is Cyrus Harris and his son Rylan from the Clayton Pack. Cyrus became Alpha after his uncle—Dreyer—was killed by the resistance,” she says slowly, her mouth thinning when I frown, struggling to process it.
“I don’t—”
“This is a long story. Come on, I’ll make coffee, and we can get into it. Ry, baby cakes stop staring at me now, okay? Brig will definitely kill you, and I don’t feel like scrubbing gore off the walls at four in the morning,” she mutters, leaving us to follow when she walks into the small kitchen.
Cyrus grins, follows, and takes a seat, making himself comfortable while Ry mutters and does the same, leaving me to decide whether or not I’m okay with any of this.
Muttering, I do the same, glaring at them both while Beebee boils the kettle and makes instant coffee, her mouth twitching when I wince. I hate this stuff.
“Come on, it’s not that bad, and I don’t want to spend my time making decent coffee while you all glare at each other. It’s stupid. Now then, where to start?” she muses, tapping at her lip.
Pulling her down onto my lap, I sniff at her, needing her scent inside me and bare my teeth at the males to let them know I stake my claim.
“Start at the beginning, Bee.”
“God, the beginning. I don’t even know all of it, but…dammit. The resistance has been handing down a lot of commands concerning the Clayton pack recently, in the last few months to a year, and it just seemed so out of line with what we were working towards,” she mumbles, swallowing a sip of coffee.
“Yes, but why—?”
“Cyrus tracked me down when I was out trading with the Deerbon pack and told me what was going on. His pack has abandoned their territory and are living out in the mountains to avoid the resistance—”
“Why? Why not just tell everyone what was going on?” I ask.
“Brig, be reasonable here. How are the other packs going to handle it if they find out that there’s a pack of wolf s
hifters running around with a scent advantage?” she asks, making me pause and think that over.
Okay, yeah, I can see how that would go over.
Scent is a defining marker, something that levels the playing field and makes things fair. To have shifters who can stalk onto our territory, virtually ghosts, would not go over well.
“I don’t understand though. How did this happen?”
Beebee looks at Cyrus and nods, giving him the floor.
“About seven years ago some asshole came to see my uncle—Dreyer—and offered him what he called an advantage to use in the conflict between our pack and the Hollows pack. We’d been losing large numbers the longer tensions went on, and Dreyer was not happy about it. Talk was that if Dreyer couldn’t lead, we’d elect a new Alpha to negotiate a truce. He didn’t like that one bit though—not with his intentions of crippling Hollows to take over their territory.”
“That’s against the universal laws.”
“You think we don’t know? Hell, we didn’t understand what he had in mind until half the pack was dead and our females were left unprotected. So, when this guy offered him an advantage, he took it happily, never once believing he was selling us all to the devil himself. One night, an army came into our territory and let off grenades. We thought it was the usual human bullshit, that the Hollows had decided to play it dirty, but it wasn’t them. It was the resistance, testing their little pathogen on a small pack they thought could be easily killed, their death pinned on the Hollows,” he says, the snarl in his voice reflected in my own.
“It was meant to kill?” I ask, feeling Beebee shift and settle closer, her warmth easing some of my strain.
“Yes and no. As far as I can tell, they wanted it to change our biology, make us scentless and un-trackable, but they’d settle for a biogenetic weapon as well. Turns out whoever cooked it up knew what they were doing, and in a matter of weeks, we all started noticing the differences. No scent when we were in skin, raised levels of aggression. Better sight, hearing, and smell. It was like being in fur times ten and then some. At first, we were confused, pissed off, and scared. I mean this is not shifter. To lose scent is like losing a part of us. Males couldn’t scent mark females to stake their claim. Females were losing control and shifting more often than not,” he says, his eyes going hard and dark with rage.
“My uncle had negotiated with them, promised that we’d be their army of sorts in exchange for the pathogen. Only, he changed his mind after everything became bad. The pack was rebelling, and he was having trouble with the changes himself, and he couldn’t stand the lack of scent in the pack, so he went to them and demanded a reversal, the cure they assured him they had.”
“No cure,” I finish for him, my heart going out to the male.
Losing scent…I never considered what it would be like for these guys. It must be almost unbearable for Fated males and mated alike not to be able to scent imprint their mates as all shifters do. It’s like having a cock and not being able to get hard while the porn star is grinding on your lap.
“No cure. So…Dreyer got upset and told them he was going to expose them to the packs and have them all brought up on charges.”
“But half of those bastards are pack. Alphas,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair in frustration.
Cyrus nods, looking away as if needing to collect himself.
“That still doesn’t explain why anyone should help you. Those raids—”
“Were not my pack. At least not those who I kept in my pack. Some of the males, the ones who had become super-aggressive wanted to fulfil the trade and join the resistance. Most of those idiots swallowed the shit they fed them, truly believing that they’ll change pack laws back to the old ways so that males can claim females without consequence.”
I snort, thinking about how Nick would take some asshole walking in and demanding he remove the equal rights laws he’s implemented. Chances are that he’d gut some and rip out throats to boot.
“A female of ours killed one.”
“Lupin. That guy was an asshole even before the change. Trust me, no one is missing him or stepping up to challenge his killer,” Cyrus says and snorts, grinning when Beebee whoops and hums girl power.
“So…what, you’re using Beebee to prove your story so that pack won’t come after you?” I snarl, not liking the thought.
“Oh no! I volunteered.” She trills.
Jesus.
Chapter Nine
Beebee
I swallow when Brig growls, his anger evident when he rises to put me in the seat and starts pacing the cabin, ignoring us all except Ry, who he snarls at intermittently.
“You really must have a death wish! Are you insane? What could have possessed you to volunteer for this shit? Beebee, you know they’re everywhere. How were you planning to help Cyrus, without getting yourself cited and brought in?” he demands, his aggression making the room feel hot and small, as I swallow again and push away the urge to curse at him.
“I did what I thought was right! These poor people are barely surviving as it is. The other half that left the pack hunt them constantly while our own pack is making waves asking about them. They’re in exile, hiding, their territory open and in danger of being taken. You know a pack can’t survive for long with odds like that.”
Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an excuse for her foolishness. I understand wanting to help, but then be smart about it. What Beebee has done is dangerous, foolish, impulsive, and likely to get her killed. Hell, if she hadn’t escaped she’d already be dead or praying for death.
“You deliberately got yourself involved in a mess that was always likely to get you killed, Bee! You have friends, family, an Alpha to whom you owe loyalty.”
“I know that Brig, which is why I was, heck, I was sorta thinking I would go home and try to explain things to Nick,” I mumble, biting my lip.
“So why don’t you do that now?”
“Because he already knows, and he won’t let me come back without proof,” I tell him, wincing when he howls and throws his fist at the wall.
The wood splinters, leaving a deep impression and only serves to piss him off all the more while I share glances with Cyrus and Ry. Oh boy, see why I didn’t say anything before? The male thinks he just knows everything.
“Goddammit! Bee, this is…what are you doing? What were you doing?” he demands, coming closer when I bite my lip guiltily.
“I was spying on the chemist I tracked down within the network,” I whisper, wincing when he snarls.
“And you got caught!”
“Well, I mean, I was supposed to be undercover in the Clayton pack! I didn’t think they’d be watching me,” I say, as I defend myself, knowing it’s a poor excuse. “I snuck out and went to Helena to track down the chemist or bio-geneticist guy, and I for real got his formula! Only, I got caught and had to run. But they uh, kinda tracked me before I could get back to Cyrus and well…” I taper off, blushing when he just stares at me, his eyes blinking slowly.
“How did you get the formula?” he asks in a deadly quiet voice, so filled with fury even Cyrus shifts in his seat and throws me a worried glance.
Shit.
“Answer me, Beebee.”
“I don’t want to. You’re going to get mad,” I say in a small voice, squeaking when he lunges, caging me in with a hand on my chair and one on the table.
Ry growls, his anger evident, but Brig just looks at him and bares his teeth, snarling until Ry submits and slinks back in his seat.
“How?”
“Fine! Geesh. I just started a sort of flirtation with one of the scentless guys is all. I mean, they didn’t know me, so I assumed I had some time!” I mutter, gasping when Brig snarls and pins me against my chair, his jaw so tight I hear something pop before he lunges away and starts stalking the cabin.
“You are the most…just so…you reckless female! Do you know how bad that could have turned out?” he yells, making me jump and swallow a whine when my
wolf perks up, recognizing the tone.
“Trust me, I get it now! Just ask my ass.”
“Beebee, this isn’t a joke dammit. If you stole that formula, they’re never gonna stop. It was already a given that they’d come for you, but this, they will be relentless now. I’d bet my balls they have someone in the pack just waiting for you.”
“I know! Which is why I hesitated to go back. I didn’t want to tell Nick and put him in danger, not without something he can take to other Alphas. I just…I have Brie, Cyrus’s daughter on the inside feeding me information. I kinda missed out on that when they took me though,” I admit, still smarting at the ease with which I got caught.
You’d think being shifter and a hundred times faster than is human would have gotten me out in time, but no, I just had to go—and stop thinking that I could rest for a minute. Besides, I’m kinda glad they caught me before I led them to the Clayton pack.
Brig pauses, looking over at Cyrus who is still struggling with his emotions and finally calms down enough to come back to the table, though I notice he takes his own seat and shifts away from my heat.
Ouch, I think, my feelings hurt at the snub.
“Your daughter is working for them?”
“She’s a plant. She’s mated to Anders, one of the males who wanted to leave our pack. They don’t know that she’s my inside female or that she’s the one who currently has the formula. I just need to get her out safely and we’ll have what we need. Barbie says you have a female in your pack who can figure this out.”
“Althea,” I say, nodding when he sighs, as if my confirmation takes a weight off his shoulders.
“Look Seers, I don’t want to cause trouble, and trust me, I do not enjoy having to use two females to do my dirty work. My own daughter could die tomorrow if I don’t move soon, but this isn’t exactly the usual pack bullshit an Alpha has to deal with. I have people who need my leadership and strength, my commitment to reversing what was done to us. I have Brie and Barbie, and then I still have to consider that your entire pack, even those fucking elites, would come after my people because they think we were the ones attacking you.”
Greyriver Shifters Page 56
