by Angela Foxxe
But first, he had to find them.
“Damnit all to hell!” Decker screamed, throwing the papers as hard as he could and watching them as they caught air, fluttered, and fell in an unsatisfying heap onto the desk in front of him.
*
Paul turned down a narrow, winding street, pulling to a stop at the end of the mile-long road and parking the truck.
“What’s this place?” Sabrina asked, taking in the large, multilevel house that took up a good portion of the hill in front of them as they walked up the driveway.
“This is where Annie and Richard live. We’re having dinner with them tonight.”
“It’s a little early for dinner, isn’t it?” she asked.
“It’s five o’clock. That’s not early at all. What’s wrong?”
She shrugged.
“I feel really weird going to meet with Annie after working with her father so closely for so long. I was working for the enemy the entire time. I don’t want her to think I knew.”
“Then tell her. She knows her father. I’m sure she knows that he’s adept at manipulating people. You weren’t the only one that was fooled.”
“It feels that way. I just feel like I should have known.”
Paul stopped, tugging on Sabrina’s hand so she had to turn to face him. He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.
“You have to stop doing this. You can’t beat yourself up forever over it. You’re on the right side now, and that’s all that matters.”
“I doubt that everyone thinks like you.”
“So? Why worry about people like that? If someone is going to hold that against you, then they are probably looking for any excuse to hate you. That’s life. You know who you are and so do I.”
She smiled weakly, trying to see the silver lining he saw when she only saw rain.
“I’ll try it your way. I’m just more of a realist.”
“You’re going to be fine,” he said, grabbing her hand again and holding her tightly as they walked up the sidewalk together.
They were almost to the house when something caught Sabrina’s eye. She moved off the edge of the sidewalk and onto the grass, and gasped in surprise.
“What?” Paul asked.
“There’s an HLF van here,” she said, walking toward the van and all the way off the path. “What is it doing here, Paul?”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, but she could tell that he wasn’t sure what was going on either. “Let’s get up to the house and we’ll ask Richard what this is about.”
They hurried up the sidewalk and to the front door. Paul raised his hand to knock, but before his knuckles connected with the door, it was flung wide and a young girl no more than ten smiled and threw herself into Paul’s arms.
“Uncle Paul, I’m so glad you came!” the young girl said, her exuberance coaxing a smile out of Sabrina even as she worried about the van around the side of the house. “It’s been forever since I saw you.”
“I was gone a week,” Paul said, holding the young girl tight for a moment before he released her. “This is my friend, Sabrina.”
“Is she yo-”
He put his finger to his lips and winked. The girl winked back and stuck her hand out to Sabrina with a wide smile.
“I’m Simone,” she said, speaking fast and without taking a breath in between sentences. “I love your dress, is that new? It looks new. Purple is my favorite color. It looks like you just bought it at the mall. I love the mall. Did you know when you marry Paul, you’re going to be my aunt.”
“Simone,” Paul said, giving the girl a stern look. “Don’t you have a table to set?”
Simone rolled her eyes dramatically and ran off down a hall, presumably to set the table, but Sabrina wasn’t too sure. She looked at Paul, who looked a little embarrassed by the child’s behavior.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Kids say the weirdest things.”
“It wasn’t weird, but now isn’t the time to talk about that kind of thing.”
“I agree with you.” She stopped, looking down the hallway apprehensively. “It sounds like there are a lot of people in there.”
“We always have dinner together. Breaking bread together is one of the ways we stay connected with each other during these difficult times.”
“You have dinner at Annie and Richard’s house every night?”
“No, we have dinner at different houses every night. Tonight, it’s Annie and Richard, tomorrow, it’s a different family and a different group of people. There will be some familiar faces from tonight, but there will also be plenty of new faces.”
“That’s so different than what I’m used to.”
“That’s because humans isolate themselves. It’s not natural and it’s not how our species always were. Humans and WereLions used to live in harmony. It was when humans started valuing things over connections that they started to amass their trinkets and hide them away in locked houses so that the world couldn’t see what they had. It’s a very sad way of living.”
“But you’re wealthy.”
“I am wealthy. But I share my wealth. A lot of what I grow goes to the open markets, the same with any animals culled from the herd. I use what I need and share the rest. I can’t eat all those vegetables myself. I’m not the only one with a vast garden open to anyone who needs something. My ranch hands and my staff get first pick, and anything that is not taken is taken to the free market. I don’t make any money off it.”
Sabrina shook her head in disbelief.
“What?” he said.
“Here humans are, trying to save the world by locking up the people they’re afraid of. And the WereLions respond by planting gardens and sharing meals like one big family.”
Paul chuckled.
“I wouldn’t say that’s completely accurate, but I see your point.”
“It makes you wonder which species is really the wild animal.”
“Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s have dinner.”
She nodded, following him into the formal dining room. A man walked in through a side door just then, followed closely behind by an older man helping a frail looking woman through the door and to a chair at the head of the table. The first man was dressed in a crisp, black suit, dark sunglasses and slicked back hair that looked like it was still wet. Sabrina’s stomach clenched and her jaw dropped.
“Noble?” she said, incredulous and completely forgetting where she was.
The man looked at her, startled at first, then smiling. He took his sunglasses off and looked at her.
“Sabrina,” he said, nodding.
When Annie rushed around the corner and gave Agent Noble a kiss, everything suddenly fell into place. Annie held a baby in her arms, who she promptly handed over to Agent Noble. Noble peppered the baby with quick kisses, which had him squealing in delight. He handed the baby back to Annie and kissed her once again before turning his attention back to Sabrina.
“You’re the man I saw in the woods,” she said, still shocked.
“I am.”
“But you have green eyes and-” she dropped off, trying to reconcile his look now with his more primal, natural look from the day before. “I didn’t realize that you were him.”
“Of course, you didn’t,” he said. “My cover is blown after today. So, I don’t need these anymore.”
He removed his contacts and tossed them in the small waste basket hidden beneath a serving table.
“That feels so much better,” he said, looking at Sabrina again, his eyes the same hazel that Paul’s were. “Better? I slick and gel my hair back when it’s wet and it gives it a darker appearance. I was surprised that you didn’t say anything in the woods.”
“I’ve only worked with you a few times,” she said. “And our encounter in the woods was so short before the bullets started flying.”
“Sorry about that,” the old man said, looking embarrassed from where he sat.
Sabrina looked at the man, realiz
ing then who he was and shaking her head.
“I feel like I’ve fallen through a looking glass. What’s going on here? Why is there an HLF van here?”
“I stopped to refuel and have dinner, and then I’ll be taking Mr. and Mrs. Davies to Canada.”
“Decker is going to find you,” she said nervously.
“Decker doesn’t know I have it, and even if he did, he has no cause to come into The Zone for a vehicle. Besides, the GPS is disabled and I’m going to be driving it across the Canadian border after dark and ditching it there.”
“Did Decker know about you?”
“Being a WereLion? No. I’m sure he does now, and I’m sure he’s furious. But, he’s not going to come after me, anyway.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Sit down,” Richard said, gesturing at the seat beside Charles. “Let me tell you about our guests here. Mr. Davies here is the man who almost took you out with a bullet yesterday afternoon.”
“I’m sorry about that, Ma’am,” the man said, his face turning red with embarrassment. “It wasn’t only about the money.”
Sabrina shook her head.
“I’ve killed people for less, thinking I was working for the good guys. No need to apologize.”
“I appreciate that,” Charles said, eyes misty. “Knowing what I know now, I couldn’t live with myself if I hadn’t missed you.”
“I guess I couldn’t either,” Sabrina joked. “Really, it isn’t a big deal, at least not now.”
The man nodded, then sat back to listen to Richard’s story.
“You see, if Decker comes after me or talks about me and who I am, he risks people finding out that he ordered me to kill his own daughter.”
Sabrina stared at him in disbelief.
“He said she was kidnapped,” she said.
“She was kidnapped, because he ordered it. He knew that she was a WereLion sympathizer, and she was very vocal about her feelings on HLF and his plans. He ordered me to kidnap her on her morning jog, murder her and then dump her body near the border of The Zone so that she could be discovered in later and her death could be blamed on the WereLions.”
Sabrina was speechless, looking from Richard to Annie and back again, trying to take it all in.
“He knew it was going to be several months; maybe even as long as a year, but he had plans to put into place in the meantime. Once I was done, I was to go on vacation, which was started the day before Annie’s disappearance so that it would appear that I was out of the area, giving me an alibi.”
“What he didn’t know was that Richard and I had already connected,” Annie said. “And a big part of me realizing that my father was wrong was meeting Richard. And the dreams.”
“Dreams?” Sabrina said, almost wishing she hadn’t as soon as she asked.
“Fated Mate dreams,” Annie said. “They are usually a shifter phenomenon, but when a human is meant to be with a shifter and that shifter is close, then the human’s subconscious will pick up on their presence and start having dreams that are very close to the dreams that shifters have when they are fated to be with another shifter.”
“And you had these dreams?” Sabrina asked.
“I did. They started out small, but the more I worked near Richard, the more intense they were.”
“I don’t understand, was he working in your home while you were sleeping?”
“No. But I worked close enough to him to see him here and there. I didn’t notice any change in myself initially, but even the day I met him, I had an odd dream that night. It would get more intense, and then he would leave on an assignment for a week or two and they would stop altogether.”
“What were the dreams like?”
“They’re hard to explain, but how realistic they felt was the most striking thing about them. I didn’t feel like I was dreaming, and I would wake up and not know where I was. The more dreams I had, the more profound they were.”
Annie paused for a moment, looking at Richard and smiling before she continued.
“And then, Richard went out of town for work and I spent the entire week feeling anxious. It was as if I was having panic attacks, but I had never had them before, and I couldn’t figure out what was triggering them. Richard would come back and I would be fine.”
“And then he would leave again and it would just be worse,” Sabrina finished for her.
“Exactly,” Annie said. “I take it you’ve felt this feeling before.”
“I have,” Sabrina admitted, ignoring the fact that there was a room full of people hanging on her every word. “I had that happen out of nowhere when we split up to buy supplies at a store. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I felt this irrational need to run to him and never leave his side.”
“And that’s not the kind of woman you are,” Annie said. “I know exactly how you feel. Being a strong, independent woman I had never felt that way in my life, and I didn’t even know where it was coming from.”
“Did it get better?”
“No,” Annie said, laughing softly. “You just learn to understand where the feeling comes from. It’s a visceral desire to be near your soulmate. There isn’t much in the world that can overrule it.”
“And the dreams; do they stop?”
“They do.”
“When?” Sabrina said, and both Richard and Paul laughed.
“It’s different for everyone,” Richard said. “Some people quit having the dreams as soon as they realize that they have met their Fated Mate, and others have them until a major commitment has happened.”
“I don’t understand,” Sabrina said.
“Mine stopped when I had Elijah,” Annie said. “I had them after the binding ceremony, and even into our marriage, when I felt really at home and confident living life in The Zone. I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t gone, but as soon as I was pregnant, they left and I never had them again.”
Sabrina took a deep breath, searching for the right words and coming up empty. Annie saw the distraught look on her face and smiled gently.
“It’s a lot to take in, especially when you’ve spent your time fighting LEO and their resistance. You can’t make the dreams stop, and you can’t change Fate, but I promise it will get easier.”
Sabrina nodded, but inside, she was reeling. She didn’t want this life, at least she didn’t think that she did. She had loved her old life, and-
And what? Sabrina thought bitterly. What about your old life was so good?
She thought back, but she couldn’t pinpoint a single thing that had made her life grand on any level. The truth was, she spent each day keeping to herself, and at night, she had done her job for HLF. When she wasn’t working, she was reading or playing her piano, which was not something she had shared with anyone. She had lived a pretty lonely, isolated life, and until now, she hadn’t even realized it.
She sat there brooding, and almost didn’t notice when someone set a basket of fresh rolls in front of her. The smell lulled her out of her thoughts, bringing her back to the moment. The people around her had gone on with their day when Sabrina had gone quiet, gently accepting that she was overwhelmed by a rite of passage that shifters didn’t give a second thought to. They understood her feelings and left her to them.
Paul, on the other hand, was watching her with concern.
“I wish I could help you through this,” he said softly. “But, it’s really between you and Fate.”
“I don’t believe in Fate,” Sabrina said quickly.
“But Fate believes in you, and that’s the important thing here. We choose our destiny, but it also chooses us.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Paul shrugged.
“It really does. There are things that we are slated for, and there are things that depend on our choices.”
“So, you’re saying that I’m Fated to be with you, but I can choose to eat a turkey sandwich if I want to?”
Paul chuckled softly.
“Fate may hav
e chosen us for each other, but you don’t have to choose that for yourself.”
She looked up at him, startled by what he had said.
“I don’t?”
“No,” he said, reassuring her even though she could tell that the thought hurt him. “If you want to leave, I can take you home tomorrow. Over time, the dreams will fade, and that anxiety you feel at being separated from me will, too. You can go back to your old life.”
“I won’t ever have the dreams again?”
“Not unless I come near you, which I won’t. If you want to walk away from this, I can let you go to make you happy.”
She shook her head.
“I can’t go back to my old life. Decker probably has men on their way here. He would have me shot on sight if he found me.”
“Decker’s men won’t be coming here tonight,” Richard said, pulling a bread roll apart in small pieces and putting them on the highchair tray for Elijah.
“What makes you say that?”
“Decker isn’t stupid. By now, he has called Frost to ask about Mr. Davies, and Frost has informed him that we provided him with a map. Once he realizes that Mr. Davies isn’t dead, he’ll check his account and find his account depleted, and about that time, the chopper that we ditched a few miles into Nebraska should be headed to his office.
He knows that we know his plans, so he’s going to lay low and try to catch us off-guard when things have died down for a while. It will be at least a week, if not more, before he takes any action.”
“What does that mean for me?” Sabrina wondered out loud.
“It means whatever you want it to mean,” Richard said. “The point is, don’t let Decker’s men coming here affect your choice.”
“What if everyone is in danger because of me?”
“They’re not. At least, not in any more danger than they are just being alive. Decker is always looking for a way to hurt WereLions; you being here doesn’t make that better or worse. Decker’s agenda is always the same.”
She nodded.
“You’re probably right. We still need to be prepared for them.”
“We do, and we will prepare,” Richard said. “But there is no sense in worrying about it now. They won’t be here for at least a week, and even then, we’re always prepared for intruders. If you want out before that, we can get you out, but no one is going to blame you when they try to get in.” He stopped, looking at Paul before he continued. “If you’re dead set on not staying here, I can take you to Canada with Mr. and Mrs. Davies, but it would be better, and safer for you if you stayed.”
