Shifter Wars Complete Series

by Sarah J. Stone

  She took in a deep breath through her nose and spoke.

  "Fine."

  I let go of her wrist, and this time she didn't run.

  "Smart girl," I said.

  She looked me up and down.

  "Wait a minute," she said. "You're the guy who saved me in the bar!"

  "Yeah," I said. "That's right. You're getting your ass saved twice by me in a less than a half-hour. You're welcome."

  "What…but," she stammered. "What's going on?"

  "Come with me," I said.

  I started off down the road and soon arrived at my bike a few blocks down. The girl said nothing during the walk, and I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't a relief.

  "This is yours?" she asked.

  "That's why we're stopped in front of it," I said, fishing my keys out of my pocket.

  "Are we gonna…ride it?" she asked, nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

  "No," I said. "We're gonna hop on it and just sort-of use our feet. Like the Flintstones."

  "I've never ridden on a motorcycle before," she said.

  "Goddamn," I said. "It was pretty fucking obvious from the moment I saw you that you were out of your element, but you went to a biker bar and had never even ridden on a bike before?"

  "I don't know," she said, crossing her arms under her full breasts and looking away. "I mean, I've kind of wanted to, but they just seem really dangerous."

  "Fucking foxes," I said. "Let me guess, you're a rich girl who wanted to slum it, but in a spectator kind of way, right? Well, bikers ride bikes, and this biker is about to drive you on his away from a bunch of thugs who'd love to get their hands on you. So, unless you want to take your chances with them, I suggest you get the fuck on."

  With that, I hopped on my bike and gunned the engine.

  "What do I do?" she asked over the noise.

  "Just sit down and hang on!"

  Awkwardly, she straddled the back of the bike and wrapped her arms around my midsection. And though this girl was currently annoying the piss out of me, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't appreciating her pressing those tits of hers against my back.

  I peeled off on the bike, getting as far away from Hell's Kitchen as possible. During the ride I made sure to check behind my back as often as I could, keeping an eye out for any and of the Thrasher clan bears who might've seen me leave with this chick.

  I was taking a huge fucking risk, but it needed to be done.

  After a time, we pulled up in front of a diner in the Lower East Side.

  "What're we doing here?" the girl asked.

  "We're going to get some coffee, and I'm gonna explain to you just what kind of shit you're in. And what we're going to do about it."

  We stepped into the diner and took our seats in one of the ratty-looking booths. After ordering a pot of coffee, I poured us both a cup and sat back in my seat, taking another look at this girl. I watched as she pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the screen. She looked like she was ready to type up a text, and as quickly as I could, I snatched the phone out of her hand.

  "What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

  "Hey!" she shouted, reaching across the table like a little kid who'd just had a toy taken from her. "Gimme that back!"

  What a fucking brat. I don't think she even has the slightest idea how much trouble she's in.

  "You just escaped from a biker gang that wants to kill you and you're worried about checking your fucking texts?"

  "I went to the bar with a friend," she said. "And now she's worried because she can't find me, so I want her to know that I'm okay."

  I shook my head and looked at the screen. Sure enough, there was a conversation open with some girl named Eleanor, asking just what the girl said she was. I typed up a quick response and shoved the phone into my pocket.

  "Hey!" the girl said. "What did you say?"

  "I said that you're fine, and that you're going to be out for the rest of the night."

  "What?" she asked. "That's it? Ugh, she's gonna think that I went home with some gross biker or something. I swear, I don't even know why I went to that place to begin with."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Reaching across the table, I snapped my fingers in her face.

  God, only a rich babe like her could get away with acting like this. Not with me, though.

  "Hey!" I said. "Focus. I need you to tell me what you saw."

  I held up hand.

  "Wait," I said. "First, tell me your name. I need to know who you are."

  "My name's Jane Ainsworth," she said.

  "And you're a fox," I said.

  "How does everyone know that right away?"

  "Are you kidding?" I asked. "Foxes have a smell that any other shifter could pick out from a mile away. And it drives bears fucking wild; you're lucky that big asshole Wrecking Ball was all you had to deal with. Well, that, and whatever you saw in the back of the bar."

  "And who are you?" Jane asked. "Wait…they called you ‘Connor,' right?"

  "That's right," I said. "Connor Rickart, bear in the Wild Fur clan. And a Sapien."

  "Whoa, what?" Jane asked.

  And that was the most important little detail of the evening: the fact that I was an agent for the largest shifter intelligence agency in New York.

  "That's right," I said. "I've been working undercover with the Thrasher Clan for the last four months. And those guys back there, the ones who they had tied up, they were my contacts. So, if something happened to them, then I'm just about fucked. And not in a good way, either."

  "Um…" Jane said, looking away.

  It didn't take a fucking psychologist to know what this meant.

  "Spill it," I said, my tone making it clear that I wasn't in the mood to fuck around, not even a little.

  "They're dead," she said.

  I looked away for a moment, gritting my teeth hard. This was bad—very bad.

  "Fuck!" I said, slamming my fist on the table and causing the coffee in the mugs to slosh over their sides.

  I took a deep breath, not wanting my emotions to get the better of me more than they already had. Turning back to Jane, I could see from her wide eyes that she was a little shocked by my outburst. Something told me that she was used to more mannered behavior.

  "Tell me what happened," I said. "Tell me everything you could remember. Every detail, no matter how small."

  "I went into the back hallway, trying to get out of the bar," she said. "And it led me to this, huge warehouse area where a bunch of bears were. And there was this guy…this guy who had silver hair and weird tattoos and talked in this odd accent. I mean, not really an accent, but he just had this weird way of talking."

  I held up my hand.

  "Guy with weird tattoos, right?" I asked.

  This had to be Mallory. Not a chance in hell that was his real name, but some dragon had been working with the Thrasher Clan for a while. I'd only met him once in passing, and I could tell even then that he wasn't up to a damn bit of good. And this didn't take my detective skills to figure out—whenever dragons got involved in the rest of the shifter world, trouble was bound to follow soon after.

  "Right!" she said, her eyes lighting up. "Old tattoos that weren't like anything any of the other bikers had. And then he had the two guys tied to a chair, and they looked pretty bad, like they'd been beaten up."

  I hated to admit it, but I was having a hard time concentrating on what Jane was saying; she was so goddamn sexy that part of me wanted to toss her over my shoulder, give her a quick fuck in the bathroom, and come back with my balls drained and my head clear. But I did my best to focus.

  "And did he talk to them before they died?" I asked.

  "Yeah," she said, playing with a ring on her long finger. "Something about ‘taking something off the top,' or something like that. It sounded like they were doing something with computers."

  I filed this little bit of information away. There was no way the Thrasher Clan, a group of thugs about
as close to cave bears as I could imagine, had the collective brainpower to put together any sort of operation involving finances and computers. More signs that Mallory was up to some shady shit.

  "So," I said, "the dragon accuses these guys of dipping into the company slush fund. Then what?"

  In my head, I was cursing these clowns for doing whatever dumb shit brought them under the eight ball. They were the guys who sponsored my working with the Thrasher Clan, and now that they were gone, I was on my own; I'd have to prove myself even harder now for the clan's trust. And though the guys were scome, I couldn't help feeling bad at their fates. With dragons, you either got roasted or stomped into a pulp, and neither is how I'd want to go out.

  "Then, he shifted and breathed fire at him."

  Well, I guess that answers that question.

  "And then what?" I asked.

  "What you do mean?" she responded. "Then I shifted and ran the fuck out of there as fast as I could."

  "Guess that was the smart move to make," I said. "But now they know that some fox's been snooping around. They're gonna be going nuts trying to find out just who it was."

  "And…what if they do?"

  "Then it won't be pretty," I said.

  "Great," Jane said, appearing to be on the verge of tears. "This is just fucking great. My parents are gonna kill me."

  "Your parents are the last people I'd worry about killing you, actually," I said.

  Now she looked like she wanted to cry even more. Whoops.

  "Listen," I said, trying to soften my tone a little bit. "I'm a Sapien; we know what we're doing, and you won't be the first witness I've had to look after."

  "I can't believe this," Jane said, looking down at her cup of coffee. "I can't believe that I went to a bar, and now I'm in the witness protection program or something. My parents think I'm studying."

  Cruel as it sounds, I had to force down a laugh. It was almost comical how quickly this girl had found herself out of her depth.

  "What do I tell them?" she asked, her sexy green eyes wide open.

  "Just text them and tell them you're staying over at your friend's place. Tomorrow, we'll get you sorted out at Sapien HQ and make sure that you're taken care of until we can get this all taken care of. But there's a little problem."

  "What?" she asked.

  "Not only did you overhear all of this, you're also a witness. Meaning, if we get this Mallory asshole dead to rights, we're going to need your word to back up our case."

  "What? Are you going to just arrest a dragon?"

  Any shifter knew that the dragons operated under their own set of rules, and weren't subject to the laws of the rest of the shifter rabble…for the most part. If one of them was meddling in the affairs of one of the species in the city for whatever reason, we could bring a case to the dragons and they'd make an arrest. How the legal system worked for a race of super-powerful, nearly immortal beings was anyone's guess, but I'd heard that they weren't too keen on mercy.

  "You don't need to worry about any of that shit," I said. "All you need to do is be ready to give a statement to the dragons when the time comes."

  The color drained out of her face just like that. I didn't blame her; the dragons were so secretive that they almost took on a mythical image in the minds of most shifters. Even rich girls like Jane could go their entire lives without having to deal with them.

  "Just…don't think too far ahead," I said. "This is a shitload for one girl to take in over the course of one night. And I—"

  A look of panic gripped Jane's face.

  "I don't want to do it!" she said, the words shooting out. "I want to go home, I want to talk to my parents. Do you even know who my family is? We're the Ainsworths; we're one of the richest families in the fox society; we can—"

  Now, it was my turn to cut her off.

  "That's about all of that shit I'm gonna tolerate," I said, narrowing my eyes. "I know you're a little rich girl, and you're used to the world being one big playground for you with mommy and daddy ready to clean up any of your messes, but you're out of that fucking world as of tonight. Right now, I'm the only thing standing between you and that dragon you just saw roast someone alive. So, cut the ‘spoiled brat' routine right now."

  Jane's mouth sealed shut and she sat back in her seat, her eyes wide. It was pretty clear that she'd never been talked to like that before. And I'm not gonna lie—it was a little satisfying. Besides, I'd worked with upper-crust types before, and putting them in their place right out of the gate was the best way to prevent headaches later.

  "Get something to eat," I said, flagging down the waitress. "It's on me."

  "No way," Jane said. "I couldn't eat a bite, not after all that."

  "That's the adrenaline talking," I said. "You're gonna be operating under stress, so get used to eating when you don't want to."

  The waitress stopped by and I ordered a couple of deluxe specials. Ten minutes or so later, a couple of plates of greasy breakfast food were placed in front of us. I didn't waste a minute tearing into it. Jane, on the other hand, needed a little prodding, and I managed to get her to eat a few bites. I'd seen it before—normies get pulled out of their routine and forget to eat, then they start getting worn out at the worst possible times. This wasn't my first rodeo.

  Once my plate was wiped clean with a piece of toast, Jane cleared her throat and spoke up.

  "So, um, where are we going now?" she asked.

  "My place," I said. "I'm down in the village, you should be safe there for the night."

  "What?" Jane asked. "You want me to just, like, crash at your pad?"

  "I've got a spare room," I said, not wanting to deal with another bratty little outburst. "It should be fine for the princess."

  "Well, let's hurry up and go," she said. "I want to get all this over with as fast as possible."

  Damn, I thought, still not getting it. She thinks this is some annoying little inconvenience that she just has to get out of the way. Well, she'll learn.

  I paid the check and we got out of here. I could've been imagining things, but Jane seemed to be holding tighter onto me as we drove south down toward my neck of the woods. And fuck, she smelled good. I was a Sapien, but I was still a bear. And something about the scent of foxes just drove us wild. They smell like nothing else, like cotton candy and musk and sex. My skin tingled nearly the entire way down. Not to mention the halfie I was sporting the whole time.

  By the time we got to my apartment I was going half-mad with desire. I cursed my bear nature for giving me this weakness. Why did it have to be foxes? Why did it have to be that the species that was almost guaranteed to be the brattiest, most entitled, most self-involved, have to be the ones that made us bears just go fucking crazy? Hopping off of my bike, I had to brace myself against it for a moment to catch my breath.

  "You okay?" Jane asked, looking at me quizzically.

  "Fine," I said, standing back up straight.

  "This is your building?" she asked, looking up at the sleek, steel and glass tower where I lived.

  And, of course, as soon as she turned her back my eyes went right to her ass.

  "Yup," I said. "You sound surprised."

  "I mean, this is a pretty nice building," she said.

  "Don't think a Sapien could swing some place like this?" I asked, fishing the keycard for the front door out of my pocket.

  "I guess I don't know how much they pay you guys," she said, her eyes still tracking up and along the building.

  "It was a gift, actually," I said. "Well, more like a bonus."

  She flashed me another confused expression.

  I swiped the keycard in front of the lock next to the tall, glass front doors.

  "Some tiger a while back was scamming the dragons out of money," I said.

  Jane winced at this. I didn't need to tell her how bad of an idea that was.

  "We found him out and turned the case over to the dragons," I said, holding the door open. "We, uh, didn't hear another word about him
, one way or another. He didn't have any next of kin, and the tigers were pretty eager to cut ties with him in whatever way they could so they didn't get on the dragon's bad sides. So, we ended up with pretty much all of his shit. The Sapiens let me keep the apartment as a ‘cracking the case' bonus, I guess."

  We made our way through the lobby and to the private elevator that led us to the penthouse where I lived. As soon as the doors shut, I knew there was gonna be trouble. It was like her scent filled every available bit of that space. During the trip up, it took every bit of my self-control to not shift into my bear form right then and there. I felt something intense, something primal building up inside of me.

  "Pretty generous," Jane said.

  "Working for the Sapiens has its moments," I said.

  Jane stared straight ahead, and all I could do was gaze hard at the curve of her breasts through her shirt. Her T-shirt was white and thin, and it was easy to make out the pattern of the lacy, dark blue bra she wore underneath it. I wanted to rip the shirt off with my hands and tear the bra off with my teeth.

  Goddamn. Get it together; you got a whole night ahead of you, Connor.

  A wave of relief washed over me as soon as the doors slid open, revealing my loft penthouse apartment. Jane stepped out into the main living space and looked around as she walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the rest of the Village.

  "Very nice," she said. "Maybe I'll be fine staying here for the night after all."

  Then, as if under some power outside of myself, I moved to Jane until I was standing only a foot away.

  "You can, uh, take the spare bedroom, like I said," I told her, my voice straining a little.

  Goddamn, I could barely contain myself; I was looking at her like a piece of meat.

  "This is just such a great view," she said, her eyes still on the windows.

  "Yeah, it is," I said, my eyes on something else entirely.

  Then, almost without warning, my bear took over. I grabbed Jane by the hips, spun her around on her feet, and planted a hard kiss on her lips.

  CHAPTER 3

  JANE