Greyriver Shifters

by Kristina Weaver

  In that building is both my freedom and my downfall, and right now I wish to God I never saw it again.

  “It looks so normal.”

  “Of course, how else would we hide in plain sight?”

  Beebee shakes her head and takes a deep breath, turning to me with her jaw set.

  “Before we go in there I want you to know a few things. One, I owe you my life for what you’ve done.”

  “Bee—”

  “Let me say this, okay? It may be the only time we have, and I want it out before we do this. You saved my life, but more than that, you gave me hope when I didn’t think I had any left. The last few days with you have been a revelation to me. I learned that appearances are deceiving, that you’re more than an elite, that you have honor and kindness inside you and more. I learned that for whatever reason, you like me enough to risk your own freedom. I’m grateful and more than that, I love you for who you turned out to be. If I don’t get out of there and things go south, I want you to know I won’t blame you. These were my choices to make, and I’ve made them all wrong. The only good choice I made was trusting you when it was too late.”

  My fucking heart feels like it’s being ripped out of my chest, bleeding, raw. I feel as if every part of me is cold and dead as I let her lean over and kiss me, her sweet scent filling my nose and making my wolf snarl and snap inside my head, his denials feral and furious.

  “I hope you mean that, Bee.”

  “Of course, I do,” she murmurs against my lips, her tongue swiping over them before she pulls away, as if she needed just that one taste.

  “You were so stupid to do this in the first place! Christ Bee, why are you still doing this? Go. Leave. Even if you can’t go back home. Run. Run with me now. I’ll take you with me and we can get lost up north. We can build a cabin in the middle of nowhere and live. It could be just you and me. Together. Don’t make me do this. Please!” I snarl, hating that I need to beg her.

  I need her to make this one decision right. Be selfish. Say fuck the shifters and the pack and fuck everyone else who hasn’t bothered to lift a finger to help her.

  I need her to turn around and make this about her, force me to do the right thing because if she doesn’t, if she chooses the others and forces my hand, I will choose me.

  I always have.

  From the moment I first realized that I was alone and all I had was myself I have never thought of anyone. I don’t let anything stand in my way. I can’t afford to.

  “Brig—”

  “Just once, Bee. Just one time make the right choice! I’m pleading with you here. You’ve come this far on nothing but luck, baby, but it’s going to run out. This is the end of the road. The moment you step foot in there it will all be over. For you. For me. Don’t do it. Tell me to turn the car around and keep driving until we reach the border. Tell me that we’re both going to leave here and not care what happens to everyone else. Do it, Bee. Please!” I gasp, swallowing bile when she shakes her head, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

  “I can’t.”

  “Then you have no one to blame but yourself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Beebee

  I’m so nervous as I walk into the lobby of Glenhaven, my position among a group of shifters hiding me from the guards I see stationed at a little counter right in the middle of the nondescript lobby.

  I keep breathing though, masking my scent very minimally because not to have one would tip everyone off but to keep it light enough that no one who knows me will scent me is the only way I won’t get caught.

  When the group moves to the elevator, I take a deep breath and look left, my ass clenching with fear when I see the door to the stairs and feel adrenalin pump through me.

  All I need to do is get to it, go down a few levels, and get to Brie where she will be waiting for me in the basement’s utility room. It’s so simple. It should be fool proof. And yes, I just said it that way—not a typo—because any fool could do it.

  For some reason, all I feel is dread though. Not one scrap of confidence has survived the feeling that’s been building inside me since I sat in the car and felt Brig get tenser as the miles passed.

  It’s almost five in the afternoon right now, the time when normal humans would start leaving work, and yet the place is still packed, something that is working in my favor when the group stops and allows me to silently creep left and get through the door.

  I do it silently, slowly, not making any fast moves or letting my body tense to tip them off, and by the time the portal is closed and I’m panting against the door, I am strung so tight trying to be relaxed I should feel confused.

  “You can do this,” I mutter, twisting the handle hard to snap it off and keep others out.

  Taking the stairs, I descend, keeping my back to the wall and my eyes alert and scanning upward for any movement. This doesn’t feel right. It’s too easy, I think, but I shove the thought away and keep descending, calming my breathing before I hyperventilate and pass out.

  When I get to the lowest level, a place I haven’t ever been in the building, I take a right and slink down a long corridor filled with pipes and the low lighting of a true horror movie.

  I hear nothing but machinery down here, likely the heat and cooling systems that most shifters don’t use, and it strikes me as odd that I don’t see anyone as I keep going and try to remember Brie’s exact directions, as relayed to me by Cyrus.

  When I get to the door I’m supposed to go into, I take a deep breath, stilling my anxiety and turn the handle, pushing it open slowly.

  I’m not surprised at what I find. I should be. I should be shocked and frantic and not at all prepared for it, and yet when the door swings open to reveal the face of a male I never wanted to see again, all I feel is…right.

  God, I hate being right, even if I fought the suspicion and refused to believe it. Inside me, deep, where the logical part of me lives, I think I knew.

  “Jock.”

  The shifter male, a tiger breed with starling green eyes and hair the color of dark umber smiles at me, his face a mask of victory, as he looks me over and his gaze seems to linger on my chest. By the time his eyes meet mine again, I am curiously numb and yet filled with rage.

  “You came right back to us, Barbie doll,” he purrs, his slimy hand reaching up to stroke my face.

  My urge is to pull away, turn and run, but I ignore it. Instead, I stand completely still and let the male touch me with that curiously gentle hand that seems at odds with who he really is.

  The touch is nothing like what I now know he is. Inside, this male here is cold, deadly, with a drive to get what he wants always and the ruthlessness to do that no matter what the cost.

  At one time I looked at him and saw only good. I believed him when he spouted his idealistic views about being a police force to help all packs and how all he wanted is what is best for the shifter race at large.

  Once I almost believed that this male is honorable and kind and everything that I thought this network stood for. I know better now. Just ask my ass and the beating it took from his cruel hand.

  “I came back,” I agree, shifting over when he pushes forward and comes to stand in front of me, his eyes taking in the raised chin and squared jaw I force myself to keep.

  Inside, I am crumbling, shaking with terror, but on the outside I am calm, numb, fearless. I have to be. Jock thrives on fear, a trait that I think comes from his tiger.

  “You seem different, Barbie doll. Almost as if you knew what you were walking into. Tell me, female, did you suspect what was going to happen?” he asks conversationally, his eyes going soft when I swallow, my only concession to the emotions trying to break free.

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “When did your clever little mind finally piece it together?”

  I shrug, choking on the pain that blooms in my chest and the hope that still wants to beat inside me, my cougar whining when I refuse to let her free for a shift.

  She wants to
rip this male apart, tear him to pieces while I know that it won’t matter.

  I can’t win.

  But you can go down fighting!

  I don’t want to, I think, the betrayal slicing me deep. Oh Brig, why?

  “When he took me through the western edge…so close to Greyriver...and no one showed up. I know you, Jock. You’ve had plants there for months now. They should have shown up the next morning to stop us.”

  “And yet you didn’t run? You were a breath away from your pack, Barbie. You could have tried to make it,” he muses.

  I could have, but a part of me was still hoping that what I was thinking wasn’t true, that Brig wouldn’t do this to me. Plus, well, I have a backup that no one knows about. Something that came to me in the early hours of this morning that should have occurred to me much sooner.

  I just didn’t consider it until the doubt hit me and I started trying to deny it. That denial was what made me finally wake up and see, think, plan as I should have before.

  It swept away some part of me that was pulling me down and making me fail so constantly. It woke me from my bumbling attempts and made me stop and freaking hurt even as I laid plans just in case.

  I was so hoping I would be wrong, that I was just paranoid and that I would have to apologize for even considering it. But…

  “It wouldn’t make a difference! You already know that the packs are aware of your dealings. They know what you’ve done,” I tell him, smirking when his mouth thins.

  “Yes. They do. My people inside Greyriver failed to stop the Harris Alpha from getting in.”

  “That must have pissed you off. I bet you didn’t think he’d go there and risk being torn apart,” I muse, smiling when his eyes flash.

  “I assumed he’d be warier of exposing himself and his pack and that he was going to rest all his hopes on you. Never mind though. This place will be abandoned within the hour, all agents will be recalled, and we’ll just work from elsewhere,” he says easily, his tone making my spine crawl with dread.

  “So you think you’ve won?” I ask, not fighting when he grabs my arm and starts pulling me behind him, the grip bruising my flesh as he snarls and pulls me along for minutes before tossing me into a room.

  I fall against the far wall, biting back a moan when my arm hits at an awkward angle, the muscle and bone creaking under my weight. Pushing myself up, I keep my back to the wall and face Jock, who saunters in as if he has not care in the world.

  “I know I have. Do you think I haven’t planned for every single outcome of this project, Barbie? I know everything that could arise, and I’ve made provisions.”

  “Like Brig?” I laugh, choking down the hurt I feel just saying the words. “What did it take for him to do this?”

  “Freedom,” he says simply, laughing when I blink, my surprise shining clearly from eyes that have gone wide. “Oh, you thought…come now, Barbie! The male isn’t all bad. He’s not an agent anymore, hasn’t been since he refused to kill Hannah under our orders.”

  I go still, closing my eyes and accept that yeah, maybe I didn’t think of everything in this equation, but who can blame me. It never occurred to me that this could have been so…ruthlessly carried out.

  Brig made love to me countless times and saved me countless times. It just doesn’t make sense that he’d do all that, or go to that much effort, when he could have just handed me over immediately.

  “So he had to make amends,” I say knowingly, hating that my throat is tight with pain when I want to feel cold and not hurt.

  “Yes. He had to do this. See, he was planning to leave. I’ve know it for a long time. He thought he could just slip away without paying the exit fee.”

  “Hannah was his exit fee?”

  “No, Hannah was his punishment. When he couldn’t do it, I dabbled with killing him but came up with this instead.”

  “I was already here when you were doing all that. It doesn’t make sense,” I hiss, my legs quaking when he strolls forward and pulls a chair from the corner, taking it with an easy grace that belies the power in his body.

  “Yes, you were,” he muses.

  “Then why not just kill me, save Brig the whole fucking effort, and just—oh God,” I say on a breath, pausing, my eyes closing with shame when it hits me.

  “You used me to get to—”

  “Brie. Yes, I did. You see, I knew I had a mole, but I couldn’t prove it, and even here, I cannot just killa female because I suspect her of treachery. Her mate would rip me apart,” he mutters, flicking his hand out at me casually. “You though, I knew that you had gotten your information from somewhere, and I knew that it was you who contacted the Clayton pack and not the other way around. When you called and told me you’d found an in, something which would have been impossible, I knew it was Brie. You lead me right to her.” He laughs, making me slump against the wall, as tears fill my eyes.

  “Where is she?” I grate, my heart throbbing at the thought of Brie being killed because I was so transparent.

  Jock snarls, his teeth grinding together, and I slump when I realize he hasn’t won completely.

  Good. That’s good.

  I may die here, a victim of my own stupidity and lust, but at least no one else has to fall victim to my foolishness.

  “She’s gone. Back to her pack, I suspect, although not for long if Brigger manages to ‘escape’ and convince that fool Harris to give away the pack’s location,” he drawls, making my blood turn cold.

  Cyrus would. Oh God, he would trust Brig because I told him he can. Oh God, this is on me, I—

  “Don’t blame yourself, Barbie doll. It would have happened eventually.”

  “Why! Why? I don’t understand any of this. Why are you doing this at all? You’re an Alpha. You lead your own pack. Why are you doing this at all?” I yell.

  I need to understand, just one thing, this one thing that I haven’t been able to reconcile, before I die. I can’t understand why they’ve done this when all along the creed has always been for the good of our people. It’s at times like these, right now, that I wish I was human. They may be weird and violent at heart, but at least they aren’t this savage.

  “Because I have to! Do you think this is was easy for me? I watch the packs decline year by year, Alphas making new laws that allow the pairs to stop breeding if they so choose. I hear them tell their packs that it’s okay not to adhere to the Fatings if they don’t want to. I watch people letting our numbers dwindle, moving into human cities and living with those animals as if it’s natural. I watch it all, and all I see is the destruction of our race. What happens to us when there are fewer numbers and humans keep multiplying like fucking rabbits!” he yells, shoving to his feet with a violence that makes me press back against the wall, my heart pounding when his face partially shifts, his teeth becoming razor sharp points.

  “We are a people who are not human. We shift. We are superior in every other way, but more than that, we always used to stick together. No matter where we come from or what breed, we always stay together. Now, I have to learn that they don’t care if a pair is Fated. I see the mating rates declining. Hell, one pack only produced seven offspring last year, and from what I hear Granger doesn’t care. He agrees that we should choose, that we can ignore biology.”

  “So you what, created a pathogen to create yourself an army? Jesus, Jock! What are you planning to do, kill everyone who doesn’t agree with you?” I yell, pushing away from the wall with a hiss. “You can’t kill them all. My pack is not the only one with a modern view on things. About the only assholes who agree with you are in the council and you work against them.”

  “Do I though?” he asks, smiling when I gasp and back away in horror.

  “No—”

  “Yes, Barbie. I work with anyone who will help me align all packs under one universal law. The resistance will no longer be underground. We’ll become the rule of law for all packs worldwide. We’ll sanction matings that are not Fated only if both parties have already lost
their true mates. We’ll make sure all universal law overrides pack law. We’ll replace the modern decline of our race with the old laws that dictate our survival,” he tells me softly, his eyes so clear it scares me to think he’s not crazy.

  No, this male isn’t crazy. Hell, I don’t even think he’s power hungry. He just truly believes this shit.

  “Then why work with the council! They don’t believe in Fatings that cross bloodlines,” I point out, shaking my head when he smiles.

  “No, but they have their purpose for the time being. When that purpose runs its course, we will of course give them a choice. Conform or leave. We all know those sissified prats couldn’t survive a day out in the human world.” He snorts, making me huff a laugh because I once believed that.

  Brig proved me wrong. Oh God, did he prove me so wrong.

  “This will never work, Jock. Packs are not universal. We’re territorial, we cling together in our numbers, and we don’t follow anyone but our Alpha. You should know this and respect it. You’re an Alpha in your own right,” I reason, wishing that I could make a difference here.

  “It will have to be. I can’t handle this shit anymore, Barbie. Honestly, it’s exhausting.” He sighs, his face twisting when he sits again and leans closer, his arms hanging between his knees as if he really is tired.

  “Packs are declining. Females mated to males who are not Fated to them. Suffering abuses under the hands of males who aren’t ruled by the animal enough to stop harming them. My own sister mated a male who was not hers, and he killed her eventually. If that male had been her Fated, he’d have thrown himself off a cliff before harming her.”

  My heart goes soft, aching for him, because I can’t argue that. Fated males are…a breed unto themselves once they find their mate. My own parents are Fated, and I have never, ever witnessed my daddy so much as growl at my mother in a threatening manner. In fact, I’ve seen him cry when Mama hurts. I’ve seen him almost kill himself to make her stop.