But was that even possible? She studied Aspen through lion’s eyes and guessed her to be somewhere in the ballpark of thirty. How could Aspen have gotten through thirty years without shifting? She’d never heard of such a thing happening. By nature’s very design, their bodies were programmed to shift well before adolescence. The scientist in her wondered what it was about Aspen that made her an exception to that rule.
* * *
The eighth floor of the hospital was dark and eerily quiet. Aspen followed the lioness who had no sense of humor. As far as she could tell, they were the only two up here. Silver nameplates on the doors suggested this floor was used for offices. She glanced at her watch: 10:33 p.m. Looked like everyone had gone home for the day.
She paused at the vending machine halfway down the corridor, marveling at the vast array of candy options. This vending machine was way better than what they had on the patient floors below. Her stomach growled in agreement.
She was nearly yanked off her feet when the lioness sank her teeth into the pocket of her cargo pants and started dragging her along. “Okay, okay,” Aspen said, struggling to break free from the viselike grip. “I’m coming.”
But the lioness didn’t let go until she had dragged her all the way to the door with a nameplate that read: Dr. Tora Madigan. The lioness stared at the doorknob.
“We’ve been down this road,” Aspen admitted. “Please, allow me.” She turned the doorknob and held the door open for Tora.
Aspen stepped inside the office, shut the door, and drew the blinds as the lioness moved past her to a large mahogany desk. She watched as the lioness carefully withdrew a gold pen from a cup with her front teeth before using it to peck at the computer keyboard. She pierced Aspen with a predatory gaze.
Maybe have antidote for dart was typed across the screen.
What did she mean by maybe? Either she had it or she didn’t. Before she could ask for clarification, the lioness added the word experimental.
“Okay, I’m with you.” The experimental part made her raise an eyebrow, but this was a step in the right direction. “Who has it?”
The lioness pecked at the keyboard with surprising speed and accuracy. Me.
“Where is it?”
Fridge. The lioness glanced at the stainless steel minifridge in the corner.
“Is it safe to try? You said it was experimental.”
Nothing to lose.
“Right.” Doc was a goner for sure without it. “How can I help?”
Open fridge.
Would it kill her to say please? She went to the minifridge and knelt on one knee. There was a thermal fingerprint scanner to the right of the handle. “Um, Doc?”
The lioness was busily pecking at the keyboard. Need to take fridge with us.
It occurred to her that the antidote was in the refrigerator for a reason. “Does the antidote need to stay cold?” she asked.
Yes. Can be unplugged 60 mins max.
She wanted to be sure she understood correctly. “So, it’ll expire after an hour if it doesn’t stay refrigerated?”
Yes.
Aspen mentally reviewed her new to-do list: sneak a large predator out of the hospital, carry a refrigerator down eight flights of stairs, and make sure they arrived at Oscar’s in sixty minutes or less to plug it back in. Just another day on the job. She set the timer on her watch. “Anything else I should know before I start the countdown?”
The lioness thought for a moment before typing. Fridge heavy.
Aspen couldn’t tell for sure, but she could swear the lioness was smirking at her. She started the timer, unplugged the minifridge, and lifted it from the ground with substantial effort. Having to use both hands to carry it meant she couldn’t reach for her gun in a pinch.
Feeling more than a little vulnerable, she followed the lioness out of the office, down the corridor, and into the stairwell once again. Stepping over the dead soldier’s body on level four proved a little tricky. The smell hit her hard and made her gag. It was only a matter of time before someone used this stairwell and found the body. They’d been lucky so far, but she knew luck always ran out sooner or later.
As if she had tempted fate with the very thought, someone chose that precise moment to swipe their badge and enter the stairwell on level two. Fortunately, the dead guy was two floors up and the smell of him wasn’t ripe enough yet to travel this far. The white-coated doctor looked up from his medical tablet as the door banged shut behind him. His eyes met Aspen’s before darting to the lioness on her right. He dropped his tablet and backed up against the door with an inaudible scream.
* * *
Tora did her best to look as nonthreatening as possible. Dr. Prandlepin stared at her, his terror palpable. The chief of cardiothoracic surgery, his nasal voice, pencil-thin neck, and supersized ego had always gotten on her nerves. She glanced at his hospital scrubs as a telltale stain spread across his pant leg. Grimacing at the pungent smell of urine, she had half a mind to put him out of his misery. But taking innocent human life was against her code of honor. Besides, she was starting to feel the effects of the dart and needed to conserve every precious bit of energy.
She took a few steps back and sat down, deciding this was as good a test as any to gauge Aspen’s skill set.
* * *
“Everything’s okay,” Aspen assured him, setting the minifridge down on the landing. She’d had six flights of stairs to come up with a convincing story to prepare for this little hiccup. “The lioness is tame. You’ve heard of police K-9s?”
The doctor nodded, refusing to take his eyes from the lioness.
“We’ve started using police felines at the Boston PD to help us with different aspects of the job. For instance”—Aspen gestured to the minifridge—“Fluffy here sniffed out a large stash of illegal drugs in this refrigerator, which is why I’m confiscating it for evidence.”
The doctor’s eyes remained on the lioness. “You named it Fluffy?” he asked in disbelief.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Aspen extended her hand to the lioness. “Fluffy, come.”
The lioness glowered at her with murderous intent as she begrudgingly joined her.
“Fluffy, sit.”
Amazingly, and without protest, she sat her furry rump on the floor beside Aspen.
“See?” Aspen turned to the terrified doctor. “Harmless.”
But the whites of his eyes were still showing. “I’d like to leave now, please.”
When Aspen bent over to retrieve his tablet from the floor, the lioness shoved her from behind with a paw the size of a dinner plate. She lurched forward, banged her head against the door with a loud thump, and winced as razor-sharp claws poked through the fabric of her pants on her rear end. Massaging the goose egg that was already beginning to form, she stood and handed the doctor his tablet. “She could probably use a little more training.”
Tablet in hand, the doctor made a hasty retreat to the other side of the door.
* * *
Aspen felt her heart pick up speed as she parked the patrol car in Oscar’s driveway. She hoped Skye had made it here safely. It took all the willpower she had not to call Oscar on the drive over to find out. She was being extra cautious in case the SEA was monitoring her cell.
She checked the timer on her watch and called out through the clear bulletproof partition. “We’re here, Doc. Made it with six minutes to spare.”
The lioness was crouched in the back seat. So far, no one had spotted them. The cover of darkness and empty roads had definitely helped. At seven feet long, her grumpy companion wasn’t exactly inconspicuous back there.
Aspen cut the engine and stepped out of the car as the front door of Oscar’s house opened wide. Oscar was there, a sight for sore eyes. With one hand on the door and the other on the gun at his hip, she could tell from his body language he was expecting her. She took a deep breath and let it out into the chilly nighttime air. Relief washed over her. Skye had made it.
She opened th
e patrol car’s rear door to free the lioness from her cramped quarters. A warm, tingly sensation crept down the back of her neck and spine. They were being watched. She was sure of it. Her hand wandered to the holster on her hip as she caught sight of several pairs of glowing eyes in the dark recesses around Oscar’s home. She froze, looking more closely. Wolves. One by one, they stepped forward and acknowledged her with a nod. She got the feeling they were letting her know they were there for her protection.
The lioness eased her body down from the car. Aspen could see she wasn’t doing well. Panting heavily now, her movements were slow and exaggerated. “Let’s get you inside.” She walked around the car, lifted the minifridge from the passenger’s seat, and followed the lioness to the house. They both stepped inside the living room as Oscar locked the door behind them.
“Oscar, this is Dr. Tora Madigan. Doc, meet Oscar. She says the antidote is in here, but it’s locked. Do you have a crowbar?” she asked as she made her way to the kitchen. She set the minifridge on the tile floor and checked her watch. “We have four minutes until the antidote is no good.”
Oscar made a beeline for the basement. “One crowbar coming up.”
Skye stood from the kitchen table and ran to greet Aspen with a hug.
“Good to see you, too, kiddo.” Aspen let her gaze surf the kitchen: empty plates and bowls on the table, dirty pots and pans of all sizes on the stove, empty plastic containers on the counter. It looked like she’d missed a championship cook-off. “Did you save anything for me?”
“Flying makes me hungry,” Skye admitted guiltily. “I think I ate everything he had. Oscar’s a really good cook.” The girl sat cross-legged on the floor and held one of the lioness’s giant paws between her hands. “She’s burning up. You really have the antidote for what was in the dart?”
Oscar returned with a crowbar and set to work on the minifridge.
“Doc said the antidote is experimental.” Aspen checked her watch again. Three minutes remaining. She turned her attention to Oscar. “The pack’s outside?”
“Yep.” He glanced up and met her gaze as he pried the minifridge open. “Figured it couldn’t hurt to have a little backup.”
The lioness was sprawled across the tile floor. Her chest heaved with each intake of breath. She had obviously used up the last of her energy to carry herself from the car to the house.
Aspen went to the minifridge and withdrew a plastic tray with foam holes and about a dozen small vials inside. She lifted one and handed the tray to Oscar before turning to the lioness. “Are you supposed to swallow this?”
All the lioness could manage was a snort.
“I think that’s a yes,” Skye said, her eyes glued to the lioness and full of concern. “I can help by holding your head up.” The girl rose to her knees and lifted the big cat’s head. Aspen removed the vial’s rubber tip and poured a clear liquid down her throat. As the lioness swallowed, Skye gently lowered her head back down to the floor.
They all stared at the lioness in silence. The kitchen clock ticked loudly behind them.
“What now?” Oscar finally asked.
Aspen shrugged. “We wait.”
“How will we know if it’s working?”
“If she’s not dead, then…it worked.”
Still sprawled on the floor, the lioness summoned enough energy to growl in protest at that last comment.
“Skye, stay here with the grumpy doctor. Oscar and I will be in the other room.”
* * *
Aware that her life was hanging in the balance as she struggled for air, Tora followed Aspen and Oscar with her eyes as they walked out of the kitchen. If Aspen made one more wisecrack, Tora decided she was going to save the SEA the cost of a bullet and kill Aspen herself.
She closed her eyes and willed the antidote to work as Skye knelt beside her and held her paw in supportive silence. Tora prided herself on her ability to keep everyone at arm’s length. She never let sentimentality cloud her judgment, but Skye was knocking her off balance. She found herself liking this girl more and more. Skye’s only apparent flaw was her lapse in judgment when it came to trusting Aspen. The two obviously shared a bond that was beyond Tora’s comprehension.
She tried to flick her tail in agitation and suddenly realized her body was no longer responding to the synapses firing off in her brain. Feeling the end draw near, she hurriedly reviewed her checklist for the sanctuary. Everything was in order. Provisions had already been made for sanctuary members in the event of her demise.
Unable to lift even her eyelids, she felt her consciousness slipping away against her will. Her final thoughts were of Aspen. She only hoped the wisecracking cop could get it together long enough to be the leader their people so desperately needed.
Chapter Five
Oscar led the way to the living room, peeking through the blinds to take a quick scan of the backyard. “Been quiet so far. Doesn’t look like you were followed.” Years on the job as a beat cop had kept him in shape. He looked strong, fit, and in charge.
“I made about a million unnecessary turns. Would’ve spotted a tail.”
He gestured to the love seat across from him and settled in his favorite armchair, its dark leather worn sandy brown in all the places that mattered most. “There’s something you need to know, kid.” Sitting in the dimly lit living room in a black T-shirt and sweatpants, Oscar’s dark African complexion was perfectly camouflaged against the armchair. Pearl-white teeth blew his cover—a stark contrast to the rest of him. He sighed. “I knew your father.”
The feeling of betrayal reared its ugly head. Oscar had come into her life eighteen years ago. Never once had he mentioned that he knew her dad. When it came down to it, the thing she valued most about their relationship was honesty. She always knew where she stood with Oscar, and he with her. There were no games, no guessing matches, no pretending. Just total unbridled brutal honesty. It was there from the moment they’d met. “Why’d you wait so long to tell me?”
His eyes revealed a sadness that took her off guard. “I was trying to protect you.” He regarded her for a long moment. “Your father and I were part of the same brotherhood. We ran with the same pack. He was a wolf, like me. He was our alpha.”
“My adoptive father,” she corrected him. “I know he was a wolf. I remember.”
“Your mother and father didn’t adopt you, Aspen.”
She leaned forward. “Are you saying they stole me?”
He shook his head. “They were your real parents. Your biological parents.”
The sting of betrayal lashed out again like a hard slap in the face. She held her tongue and waited for him to go on.
“Before you were born, the world already hated Shrouds. Your father was convinced it would one day come to this—that humans would decide we were too much of a threat and either jail us or wipe us out of existence. More than anything, he wanted to protect you from humans. He knew the only way to do that was to make you one of them.
“There were rumors that a vaccine had been developed by one of our kind. It could be given to an infant just after birth to effectively thwart their ability to shapeshift. There was conflicting data as to the vaccine’s effectiveness. For some, it lasted months. For others, years. The one thing we knew for sure was that it always wore off, eventually. Your parents didn’t want to take any risks, so they sought out this vaccine and gave it to you each year until your fifth birthday.”
That would explain how she’d made it through three decades of her life without shapeshifting. Aspen listened intently, hanging on his every word.
“You have to understand,” he went on, “it was a very volatile time in Shroud history. Humans would go on killing sprees just for the hell of it and wipe out entire Shroud families. Your father made all of us in the pack promise not to interfere if something happened to him. He made us swear not to take you in if you were orphaned. He saw each of us in the pack as a liability for you. He didn’t want you on the government’s radar at all. That’s
why he had false adoption papers drawn up, claiming you were human.”
She thought for a moment, struggling to connect the dots. Her parents were murdered when she was six, and she spent the next six years in and out of foster homes. “But you broke your promise and took me in when I was twelve. Why the hell did you wait so long to come and get me?”
“There was little I could do for you without attracting unwanted attention, so I kept tabs on you from afar for six years. When I saw the vaccine seemed to be working, I maintained my distance. But watching you bounce from one foster home to the next was more than I could bear. I informed my pack that I was breaking the oath I’d made to your father. No one stood in my way. That was the night you ran away from your last foster home. I looked everywhere for you. The whole pack did, and none of us could find you. I was convinced you were dead…until that morning when I found you in the park.”
They were both pensive for a long moment. Aspen was filled with a profound sadness at the thought of never being able to shapeshift. Her ability to do so was taken away without her consent. “So I really am human?”
“That’s what I was beginning to think until Skye showed up here and told me about you. When she took your hand, she said she saw a panther.”
“So?”
“When we meet one of our own kind and shake hands, the shroud drops away. We see one another for what we truly are: the animal beneath the shroud. You and I have touched hands countless times since you were twelve. I’ve never seen a panther. Here,” he said, reaching over. “Take my hand.”
Aspen drew in a quick breath as a large wolf appeared before her with fur as black as the darkest night sky. The only thing that betrayed Oscar’s nighttime cover were pearl-white canines, which protruded menacingly from both sides of his muzzle. He circled her slowly, sniffing the air around her as he moved.
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