Shifter Wars Complete Series

by Sarah J. Stone

  Closing my eyes, I pulled the trigger.

  A crack sounded through the room, followed by a yelp of pain from Castille. I opened my eyes to see him lying on the ground, curled up into a tight ball, his hands on his upper leg.

  "Ah, fuck!" he shouted. "What the hell did you do?"

  Carter and the two gorillas stopped mid-fight and turned toward Castille. Then, before anyone could make another move, a squad of men rushed down the hallway and into the room. Outside of the window, I spotted another squad out on the balcony. The Sapiens were here.

  "Fuck-fuck-fuck!" Castille screamed. "You goddamn bitch! You shot me!"

  I glanced at the gun for a moment before tossing it aside in disgust.

  Carter shifted back to his human form and looked over the scene. "Nice shot." He flashed me a smirk.

  CHAPTER 9

  CARTER

  I had to admit, it felt good to watch Castille squirm. Standing on the other side of the one-way mirror, I'd spent the last thirty minutes watching him yell and complain about how poorly treated he'd been, about how we were all going to pay for this injustice, yadda, yadda. And that wasn't even getting into his claims of brutality for the chunk of his thigh Alice's shot had blown off.

  "Shouldn't he be in a hospital bed or something?" Taggart asked. "The last fuckin' thing I want is to deal with a goddamn brutality lawsuit."

  "It was barely a flesh wound." I crossed my arms as I continued to watch Castille bitch and moan. "Maybe if Alice was a better shot, she'd have gotten him right where he needed to get hit though."

  "No kidding," Taggart said. "If the worst that happens to this asshole is a few stitches on his thigh, he'd better be thanking his lucky fucking stars."

  As much fun as it was to watch Castille, I knew the time for screwing around was over. He was our best shot at tracking down Salt, and I needed to get in there and pry what I needed out of him while I could.

  "How's the girl?" Taggert asked.

  "Pretty fucking pissed that I let her think I'd thrown her to the wolves. Or, ah, tigers, in this case. But I think that's outweighed by the fact that she got to put a round in this prick."

  "Atta girl," Taggart said.

  "Time to do this," I said.

  Taggart nodded. "Good luck."

  Moments later, I stepped into the interrogation room. Castille was handcuffed to his steel chair in front of a small, cheap table.

  "That looks like it hurts," I said, pointing to the fresh bandage on his leg.

  Castille turned to me, his forehead glistening with sweat and his typically immaculate hair hanging over his forehead.

  "What's really going to hurt is when I get every shifter lawyer in the city on your ass for this. In a month, I'll be the owner of this goddamn building."

  I took a seat on the edge of the table and looked down at Castille.

  "Pretty big words for a guy we've got dead-to-right on kidnapping and human trafficking," I said. "Pretty goddamn stupid of you to be showing your face around town when you knew we had those girls in our custody. We've got more than enough to put your ass away for a long while."

  "You think I'm scared of you?" he said before spitting onto the ground.

  "You really should be," I said. "Because with the testimony of those girls, we've got more than enough to whip up a search warrant to go poking around in that big old house of yours. And who knows what else we'll find in there."

  That shut him up.

  "Then why am I even here?" he asked, looking around. "Why am I not sitting in a goddamn jail cell?"

  "You know exactly why that is," I said. "Because as much as we'd love to take you down, you're just one player in this whole goddamn mess. You know who we're after, and you're gonna help us get to him."

  "Salt?" Castille asked, the name coming out of his mouth with some hesitancy, as though he was afraid to speak it. "You want to take him down? Good fucking luck."

  "We don't need good luck," Carter said. "We've got you."

  "And what is it that you're suggesting?" Castille asked. "That I turn rat?"

  "That's exactly what I'm suggesting," I said, getting up and making a slow loop around the room. "Because from where I'm standing, you've got two options—you can help us out, give us what we need in order to get to Salt, and maybe we can cut some kind of deal. Or, you can play this stupid fucking game, act all indignant, like you've got honor or some shit, and we can seize just about every piece of property you own and throw your ass in prison for a few decades. Which of those two options seem like the better choice to you, buddy?"

  "You don't get it," Castille spat. "If I tell you anything and it gets back to me, then I'll be lucky if Salt has me killed. And the rest of the shifters in our little flesh-peddling game…I shudder to think."

  "Then I think that makes you luckier than you think," I said.

  "'Lucky'?" Castille asked, looking up at me with blazing eyes. "What the hell is ‘lucky' about this situation?"

  "Because," I said, flipping the chair across from him around all casual-like and taking a seat, "we're about to take down this slavery operation. And that means every single prick involved in it is going down, and going down hard. You, on the other hand, are in a position to help us out. That means, you can get out of this relatively unscathed, if you play your cards right."

  Castille looked around the room one more time, as if unsure if this was some kind of strange loyalty test by Salt that he was on the verge of failing. "What, exactly, can you promise me?"

  "Now, you're using that big brain of yours, Castille," I said. "Here's what I'm thinking: You let us know just how we can get to Salt, and give us a list of all the assholes involved in this along with your testimony, and we'll make sure that you don't do any prison time. We're thinking a few years of house arrest, maybe a sizable cash donation to some charities around town, and your agreement to work for us as an informant in any more shady shit going on around town for the indefinite future."

  "You want me to be your permanent rat?" he exclaimed.

  "You can be a rat who's a free man with some money still to your name, or you can be the most honorable man in the cell block. Have you ever seen shifter prison? It's, uh, not the nicest place in the world. All the way up in Nunavut, in the most shit-frozen part of Canada. The worst shifter scum from all over the world. Makes Rikers look like a damn Club Med. And I'm sure that there's plenty of shifters up there who might not take such a shine to flesh-peddlers like you. Shifters have been known to go missing in the great white north. Be a shame if something like that happened to you."

  Castille's face turned a deep red. He was screwed and he knew it.

  "Okay, fine!" he shot out. "Get me my lawyer and let's get the goddamn details sorted out."

  "Not so fast," I said. "If you want to go forward with this extremely generous arrangement of ours, you're going to have to give us a little something. A show of good faith, let's call it."

  "Oh? And what the hell would that be?"

  "See, we're looking to take down Salt ASAP. By now, he's probably heard rumbling of some Sapien activity, and we're figuring that he might just paranoid and go into hiding if he gets a little too scared. Poor guy. Might even flee the country."

  "So ,you want to know where he's going to be in the next week."

  "You're getting smarter by the minute," I said. "Now, tell me what you know."

  Castille took a deep breath. "I want our agreement in writing within the hour. And I want my lawyer here to look it over."

  I waved my hand in a "sure, sure—get on with it" gesture.

  "There's an event happening this weekend," he said. "It's another auction."

  "Another auction?" I asked. "But I thought these were once-in-a-year kinds of things?"

  "They are. Well, the ones that you know about."

  I leaned forward—I was more than a little intrigued.

  "But there's an event coming up that's meant only for the top of the top. Tomorrow, in fact. Men like me. It's a very exclusive, ve
ry private little get-together for the top funders of the auctions. Anyone who's anyone is going to be there, and it's where we sell the more, ah, exotic fare from all over the world."

  "Sounds like a party that I wouldn't mind crashing," I said. "How do I get in?"

  "You don't," Castille said. "But I can." He winced as soon as the words left his mouth, as though he knew just how much of a world of shit this was going to get him in.

  "Then it looks like you're gonna have a hot date for prom, my man," I said, reaching over and giving him a hearty slap on the back.

  "No, no," he said, shaking his head. "I don't have to be there. I can simply let Salt know that I'll be unable to attend, but that I'll be sending a proxy in my place. I'll vouch for you, and you'll be able to go under the guise of someone making a purchase for me. And the girl will have to go with you. They know that she belongs to me, so it'll make it look like I sent her with you."

  "Aw," I said, "and I was just imagining how cute you'd look like a nice little prom dress."

  Castille rolled his eyes. "But that's it for me—if anyone found out that I used my proxy to send in a damn shifter, then that's the end of me in this town as far as that particular group is concerned. If you screw this up and those men manage to flee or some such, then, well, for my sake, I sincerely hope that you have a very good witness protection program."

  "We'll take good care of you, bud." With that, I gave him another slap on the shoulder as I got up. "If it's any consolation," I said, "you're doing the right thing. You have to know that this slavery shit is about as bad as it gets."

  But he only grumbled and looked away. I figured it was a little too much to expect that someone like Castille might have a change of heart—fucker was probably still fixated on just how much of an inconvenience to him this was.

  "Nice fuckin' work," Taggart said as I stepped out into the hallway. "You got this asshole on the hook and got him to cooperate."

  "Thanks," I said, "but this was just part one of this whole thing. Next, is the hard part."

  "True," Taggart said, "but you gotta take the victories where you can get them."

  I gave him a nod and headed down to the office where Alice had been waiting. She was seated on a small leather couch, a cup of coffee in her hands.

  "What's the plan?" she asked, those killer eyes of hers flicking up at me.

  "Hope you're ready for another fancy-ass get-together," I said.

  "When?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "Shit," she said.

  "Yep. But that means we can get this shit all sorted out and get these assholes off the streets all the sooner."

  She still seemed apprehensive.

  "Listen," I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. "I know this is an insane situation, and that you never asked for any of this. But this is the hand we've been dealt, and we're gonna have to see this through."

  She nodded, her eyes still downcast. "I know. Doesn't make it any less scary, is all."

  Hell if I couldn’t disagree with her.

  CHAPTER 10

  ALICE

  We spent the rest of the day at the safe house. Carter was fairly certain we would be safe at his place, but after what had happened before, he didn't want to take any chances. But that didn't mean we couldn't at least try to enjoy ourselves. To that end, he made a couple of drinks for the two of us and we headed up onto the roof of the building to take in the cool night air.

  "View's not so bad," I said, taking a sip of my drink and letting my eyes drift over the city spread out around us.

  "Brooklyn has its charms," he said.

  I couldn't get over how nonplussed Carter was by everything. He was still his same cocky self. And still just as gorgeous, of course. He was dressed in a simple white v-neck T-shirt that hinted at the sculpted pecs that I knew were hidden beneath, a pair of slim-fitting dark jeans, and his coal-dark hair hung loosely on the sides of his face. His fair skin a was a striking contrast to his dark hair, and I keep having to force myself to take my eyes off of him so I wasn't staring.

  But he seemed preoccupied. Something was rattling around in his mind and I couldn't figure out what it was. I could tell that Carter wasn't the type to open up about things that bothered him, but my curiosity got the better of me and I just had to ask.

  "Penny for your thoughts?" I asked.

  He flicked his eyes over to me, as though making sure he'd heard me correctly. Then he took a sip of his drink. At first, he didn't speak, and for a moment, I wondered if he was just going to blow off my question entirely. "Had a partner a while back."

  "You?" I asked. "I figured you were the solo type."

  "I am. Now, at least. When you've been with the force for as long as I have, they let you pick from certain perks like ‘not being saddled to a clueless rookie'."

  "Or a material witness."

  He raised his glass slightly, as though to indicate that I was right on the money. "But that wasn't always the case. A few years back I worked with a girl—a wolf shifter. Bears and wolves aren't the most likely of partners—wolves tend to be more on the scheming side, while us bears are a little more forthright—but it was what it was. Name was Mary. Prettiest goddamn girl I ever saw."

  My mouth formed into a tight line. I could already tell where this was going.

  "We butted heads at first—aside from being goddamn gorgeous, she was about the most stubborn woman that I'd ever known. Couldn't make a single suggestion without her undercutting me or pointing out all the flaws in whatever plan I'd come up with. Damn, did she get on my last goddamn nerves at first."

  He shook his head and took another drink.

  "But those kinds of things can shift on a dime, and one night after an all-night case staking out some tigers, one of our arguments got heated. I remember us standing on Houston Street, right in each other's faces yelling at damn near the tops of our lungs about one goddamn thing or another. Then, we both stopped yelling at the same time, we looked deep into each other's eyes, and things got a different sort of heated."

  I said nothing, listening intently.

  "I'll, ah, save you the mushy stuff. But suffice to sa,y we fell in love, and we fell in love hard. She and I eventually got to the point where we started talking about maybe leaving the Sapiens, getting involved in some other line of work, something a little less dangerous, something a little more amenable to two people looking to…getting married, start a family, maybe."

  He took another sip of his drink, this one long and slow. I could tell that those last few words had taken some doing to get out.

  "Anyway, a few months later, she and I got a case to look in on some tiger drug runners. Seemed like some open and shut shit—just pop in, do some recon, and get out. Weren't even supposed to be there an hour."

  "But someone must've tipped the tigers off. They got the drop on us and dragged Mary and me in front of the gang leader. Got us down on our knees. I remember that fucking smirk on that asshole's face to this day as he paced in front of us, a gun in his hands."

  He killed his drink and poured another.

  "At first, he acted like he was going to let us go, made us think that he just wanted to ask a few questions, that he wouldn't dare get on the bad side of the Sapiens. But Mary was just as strong-willed as ever. She didn't tell him a goddamn thing. Then, he turned to me, and suggested that I might be a little more ‘amenable' to revealing just what we had on him. Before I could even form a single word, however, he shot her right in the head."

  A sick feeling crept into my stomach at this. I couldn't even begin to imagine what that would be like, to see someone you loved killed in front of you, just like that.

  "I remember the way she dropped, the way the life just flew out of her, like someone had pulled a battery out. Everything after that was a blur. Taggart had called for backup when Mary and I didn't check in, and before I could say or do anything else, a squad of Sapiens smashed through the doors of the place and opened fire. The leader took a bullet to the face, and he w
as down just as fast and abruptly as Mary was. I didn't even get a chance to think about revenge."

  "Just like that, I had the woman I loved taken from me. The team rushed me to the back of some van, and an hour later, I was in the psych eval office at HQ. Just all happened so goddamn fast. You think things like this play out in some grand, dramatic way, but in real life, it's just a car accident while you were looking at your phone or something. One second everything's normal, then bang."

  "They wanted me to take a month off or some shit, to ‘process everything,' or whatever it was they said, but I knew that what I needed was to get back into the game and work. Stewing around in my apartment wasn't going to do a damn thing other than making me think about how I failed to protect the woman I loved. But I told them ‘no goddamn partners'. And that's what I got." He turned to me. Until I got you."

  "You mean…we're partners?" I asked, feeling like a little kid as the words came out of my mouth.

  He let out a dry chuckle. "Something like that. But you're the first I've been responsible for since all of that happened. And I swear to you, I'm not going to let anything happen to you. As long as you're with me, you're gonna be safe."

  I could feel the emotion behind his words. There was pain and intensity. I found myself hopelessly drawn to it. Moving my body close to his, I felt his skin touch mine as we looked out onto the city.

  Carter killed his drink and set the glass down. He turned to me, his eyes fixed directly on mine. We held our gazes like this for a moment as feelings ran through me, feelings that I hadn't known in as long as I could remember. The skin of his arm was warm and rough, and I closed my eyes to better enjoy the sensation of his body against mine.

  Then, he leaned in and kissed me. It was exactly what I wanted.

  The kiss was like falling into a dark expanse, the rest of the world drifting away until it was nothing but him and me. His lips were soft but his kiss was hard. His hands clamped onto my upper arms and held me in place. I felt safe in his grasp, like I wanted nothing more than to be as close to him as possible.

  "God, I want it," I moaned, taking my lips away for just long enough to speak before kissing him again.