Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six)

by Anya Nowlan

  That was fine with Grant; he liked a challenge.

  “So, come here often?” he asked, offering his hand across the aisle to the flustered-looking young woman who he and Grim had chosen to tease a little. “I’m Grant. Sorry if we woke you. Safety first!”

  “Kelis,” she said with a ghost of a smile, putting her smaller hand in his.

  Immediately, Grant could feel a steady buzz hum through him, like someone had given him a Taser charge at low levels. Instead of making him pull his hand away, he deepened the handshake a bit, holding on stronger as his eyes widened in surprise.

  What the hell…

  She seemed to be feeling it as well, because when they let go, she was looking at him a bit oddly, her lush lips parted. They were entirely kissable. That much he’d noticed even before they’d shaken hands. Grim leaned forward in his seat while Kelis was looking away from him and raised his brows in question at Grant. Apparently the second Aldroch brother had not been immune to her explosive charms either. Odd.

  “And yes, I make it to Boston every now and then. You guys? You’re Grim, right?” she asked, turning toward Grim slightly and giving Grant an opportunity to admire her long neck and the lovely way her hair fell over her shoulders.

  His hand rolled into a fist for a moment, his pulse quickening. Reminding himself what he was there for, he gave one swift glance around himself again, coming to the conclusion that nothing much was going on at the moment. Their theory was that whatever was going down would happen when the plane was at cruising altitude and on autopilot.

  Fucking Arctics. Can’t let me enjoy a good conversation without mucking something up, he thought, releasing his fist.

  “Yup, Grim. We were just here for a game. We won, too. Didn’t we, Grant?”

  “We did. How does it feel, being in the presence of winners?” Grant asked, putting mock swagger into his comment, arching his brows.

  She burst out laughing and it was a damned sexy sound, filling Grant with a pleasant tingle that ran through him. Fuck, she was sexy. And that was saying something, coming from a man who’d been on every continent fighting some kind of a war or another, finding women willing to swoon over him wherever he went. She was tougher, though, and different. He liked it.

  “I think the ‘winners’ here are full of bullshit, but I’m glad you two had a good time,” she said, smiling wide.

  “The lady mocks us! I don’t think that’s very nice,” Grim said with an overstated pout, putting his weight on his elbow as he twisted his body to face her slightly.

  Both Grant and Grim, his twin, were big men. Six foot four, wide-shouldered, built for speed and action. Grant was slightly slimmer than Grim was, his work as the squad’s medic requiring him to be faster and lither, while Grim was a recon guy, ready to take down any enemy he came across. He was the first line of defense and the first man in, always.

  The Aldroch twins were both ex-Navy SEALs. Honorable discharges for both of them, though the events that led up to it might not have been quite so honorable, depending on who you asked. It was Grim who walked in on a couple of guys from another squad forcing themselves on a woman from their squad. He put a quick stop to it, getting her out of there, but it was Grant who found the guys again, with Grim in tow.

  They’d broken their legs, two grown werecougar shifters outmatching even the hardest soldiers the Navy SEALs could offer. Last Grant had heard, two of them had pretty much become crippled, while the other one would always walk with a limp. He didn’t regret doing it. Not at all.

  The military had given them hasty honorable discharges as soon as the mission was over, a tactic they often used with shifter recruits. No one wanted a pissed off shapeshifter commando on their hands; even the US military was too smart for that. They were wanted and welcomed while the military thought they could be contained and used, but once a shifter went rogue, all bets were off.

  So that was where The Firm came in. Grant and Grim were both members of an elite special ops team called Shifter Squad Six, led by Connor McLaughlin, a werebear with his own dark stories to tell. Every man on the squad had been a former SEAL and had their reasons, good and bad, to no longer be one. But they were a brotherhood now, brothers in blood, and though their employer didn’t always follow its conscience, the squad certainly did.

  Since its formation, Squad Six had not lost a single man, and it didn’t intend to do it now. So despite them going off the radar occasionally, doing things for reasons other than money and greed which was entirely against The Firm’s policies, they were always allowed back into the fold, though sometimes their direct supervisor Colonel Hemingway spent a long-ass time making them wish they’d never stepped out of line to begin with.

  Squad Six always got the best, and subsequently the worst, missions. The most dangerous, the most deadly, the most fun. By all accounts, this was supposed to be one of them. Kelis certainly helped with the fun side of it.

  I’ll have to keep an eye on her. Make sure she doesn’t get hurt when shit goes down, Grant mused idly, the thought catching him somewhat off guard.

  “Aw, I’m sure you two will live,” Kelis teased, her eyes shining with mirth.

  She’d been seconds from passing out the moment she stepped on the plane, but she seemed plenty awake now.

  “I guess we’ll try. Maybe you can make it up to us later,” Grant said, making it a statement, not a question.

  He winked at her and she blushed again, a lovely shade of scarlet that looked damn good on her. Giving her another look, he had to pause and ponder. She didn’t look like any other woman he expected to meet. She was curvy, yes, deliciously so, but her body seemed to hold itself in rigid order, betraying years of discipline and training. An athlete, maybe?

  “So what’s in San Francisco?” Grim asked, driving the conversation further and thankfully distracting Kelis before she could notice that Grant was looking at her maybe a little bit too hard.

  “Work,” she said with a smile. “And I assume you two are going to have another glorious game, one which you will surely dominate?”

  “She’s mocking us again,” Grim said with a chuckle, obviously thoroughly enjoying the exchange.

  “Oh, let her. Maybe she’ll feel so bad she’ll insist on making it up to us later,” Grant said with a shrug.

  “Make it up to you how exactly?” Kelis asked, her teeth grazing across her plush lower lip, making Grant’s cock throb uncomfortably in his jeans.

  “I’m sure we can think of a few ways,” Grim said, his words trailing off.

  Kelis gave him a look and for a moment, Grant wondered if they’d overplayed their hand. But then she rolled her eyes good-naturedly and he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. For some reason, making her annoyed at them—and not in the fun way—struck him as something he wanted desperately to avoid.

  “Sure, I’ll buy you two drinks at the airport bar if you continue hamming it up like this.”

  “Deal,” Grant said, smirking.

  It was then that the seatbelt light flickered out of existence and the pilot’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain Farley speaking. I welcome you all on our flight and I’m letting you know that we have reached cruising altitude. Out of the windows, you can enjoy a lovely view, with clear skies for as far as we can see. The flight should be uneventful though—”

  And that was all that Grant could pay attention to. Next thing he knew, he heard a loud hissing sound and thick, whitish gas started rolling into the airplane, as if gobbling up the oxygen.

  “Shit,” Grant said softly, his body already throwing itself into action.

  He reached down under the seat in front of him, grabbing a black mask out of his carry-on bag. It was the first item in the bag, left on top. To an uneducated onlooker, it might have looked like some sort of odd gadget, but when he snapped it over his nose and mouth, its use became immediately clear. It was a gas mask.

  When Grant looked up, he saw Grim
adjusting his and looking around. Grant whipped himself around in his seat just in time to see Dutch tackling a tall, blond-haired man with distinctive blue eyes, tearing at the mask on his face. Several others popped up in various seats now and when Grant saw the familiar glint of a muzzle of a gun, his stomach churned.

  “What the fuck’s going on!” Kelis called, coughing already because of the gas.

  There was mayhem in the plane, the big jocks disoriented and confused, standing up and shifting around in their seats and making it harder to find the attackers. Grant heard heavy footsteps behind him and timing himself just right, he whipped his body in that direction, catching an Arctic barreling down the aisle, gun drawn and a similar mask as the one Grant was wearing pulled over his face.

  So they’re testing something… on fucking humans! The bastards, he thought with a snarl, pounding his fist into the face of the man, catching a few hits to his ribs in the process.

  One of them almost kicked the wind out of him. Grant grabbed the tall man by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him against the ground once, heavily. His head bounced once, twice, and he was out cold.

  “Werewolf scum,” he growled, ripping the mask off of the man’s face.

  He looked over to Kelis’s seat and found her out of it, on the ground, a rag covering her mouth. He tossed her the mask, making a split-second decision. She didn’t look like a terrorist any longer, though she certainly had the right instincts. So maybe not an athlete but a soldier?

  “Put that on,” he said, but his words weren’t needed. She was already pulling it over her face.

  Her vision seemed to clear as Grant scrambled up to his feet, kicking the gun far under the seats and away from the Arctic. The Arctics were one of the most dangerous, and certainly the most fanatical shifter terrorist organizations in the world. Made up of entirely werewolves, they seemed to have a penchant for creating the one “true” shifter, a super soldier stronger than anything the world had ever seen.

  Over the past few years, Squad Six had had several run-ins with them, from small to big, and every occurrence left Grant sick to his stomach. The Arctics were well-funded, and while it had originally seemed they were only interested in bettering werewolves, it soon turned out that they weren’t opposed to taking out other shifters or humans if it served their purpose. Genetic engineering, chemical warfare, and mutations were all tricks that The Arctics liked to play with and Grant knew well that their madness didn’t stop them from trying.

  They’d succeeded before and the outcomes were fucking terrifying.

  The fog was making it harder to see, and when Grant got back on his feet, he could hear scuffles breaking loose in the plane but he couldn’t see them.

  “Grim, you okay?” he called lowly, glancing at Kelis and motioning for her to stay down.

  Right then, something or someone piled into him from behind, knocking him down on top of the unconscious body of the man he had taken out. And then, the fog changed from white to a sickly tone of purple, wafting through the body of the airplane.

  This can’t be good.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Kelis

  Kelis could recognize a neurotoxin when she felt one. Though most nations had agreed to stop using chemical agents when waging war, in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and the other pits of hell that Kelis had visited over her last few tours, she’d quickly learned that what was not allowed to be used wasn’t always the same as what wasn’t used.

  Her instincts kicked in before her brain could even really make sense of the situation. That was why she’d found herself on the ground, trying to get as low as possible, away from the smoke to buy herself some time. Now, with the mask over her head, her breath came easier and the filter seemed to be holding.

  I knew I should have taken the fucking train, she thought darkly, scrambling to see what was going on.

  The surprised, frightened voices seemed to be dying down and she could see a few arms and bodies lying limp in their seats up ahead. Whatever was being pumped into the cabin had to have a sedative quality to it. But the plan clearly wasn’t only to knock people out. The armed men were clue enough in that regard.

  Who are these guys? she wondered, craning her neck in the tight space to try and see Grim.

  Grant was looking around, his muscles flexed, his body hulking and ready for anything. This wasn’t a football player, full of fake machismo. No, this was a soldier, a fucking mercenary. One of her own, though probably much better than most of the people that she’d ever served with. When he got thrown to the ground like a ragdoll though, her stomach lurched.

  A man not quite as big as Grant had plowed into him like it was nothing. Making her mind up quickly, she knew whose side she had to be on. The blond man’s eyes blazed with something crazed, the whites of his eyes almost completely red, and Kelis realized he had to be on something. Regardless, she threw herself at him, taking his legs out from under him just as he was raising a knife to stab Grant in the back.

  She grunted, her vision adjusting to the purple shadows, thinking for a moment that her eyes were playing tricks on her. But it was the air in the cabin that was changing color. She punched him hard in the ribs once, twice, before getting on her feet, the small space they’d been afforded already littered with one fallen body.

  Kelis jumped on a seat as the man turned to face her, his movements slow, but not in a calculated way. It seemed it was hard for him to adjust his plan of action. He lunged for her and she gasped, getting a knee between their bodies, probably scoring a good hit on his privates as he pushed her back in the seat, making her fall back painfully.

  He ripped at her face and she could feel a hard sting on her cheek as his strong fingers grabbed for the mask. She got an elbow up, pressing it against his windpipe and putting all her strength into it as the visibility in the cabin seemed to be falling with every second. Kelis strained for breath, conscious that the man on top of her, clawing at her as if he were a beast not a man at all, was hell-bent on getting the mask off of her face.

  She got her other hand out from under him and socked him in the face hard, but it seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever. It was maybe more of an annoyance than anything else. She growled under her breath, her body straining against him as she tried to push him off of her, but it was no use. When the mask was pulled down on her face, she took one last breath, trying to hold on for a moment longer and not allow the poisonous gas into her lungs.

  But the wild-eyed adversary was ready for this as well. He pressed down on her stomach hard, making her gasp. A moment later, the man was suddenly pulled off of her and through watery eyes, Kelis could see Grant pounding his face against the overhead bins until it was nothing more than a bloody mess. She clambered to move the mask in front of her nose and mouth, but it was too late.

  She’d already taken at least three breaths of the purple concoction.

  Her stomach twisted immediately and her vision seemed to blur at the edges, fading a little.

  “Kelis, are you okay?” Grant asked, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  Looking up, it was Grim, his brows furrowed and blood trickling down his temple. For an insane moment, she found the blood entirely enticing, inviting even. She reached her hand up, feeling the urge to run her finger along that bloodied line, when the plane seemed to shutter and roll, careening to one side.

  “What now,” Grant growled, stomping down the aisle toward the cockpit.

  Another tall body pressed by, clapping Grim on the shoulder for a moment, taller than him but similarly built. Kelis couldn’t do much more than to lie on her back on the seats, trying to fight the odd, buzzing feeling that was running through her in endless waves, making her tingle from head to toe. She felt a surge of energy, but it was overtaken by an immediate and equally strong burst of lethargy, and her mind couldn’t bend to process what was going on.

  Slowly she heard voices again, along with the sounds of men stirring.

  “You okay?” the other gu
y asked, his stern, gray-blue eyes looking around.

  “Peachy fucking keen,” Grim growled.

  “That’s not good, though,” the other man said and a second later, his fist collided with the large, blocky head of one of the football players.

  “Great,” Grim said with an annoyed grunt to his voice. “Stay here, okay, sugar?”

  Kelis nodded idly, not really in control of her body. Her hands wanted to form fists and a loud voice in her head told her that she wanted blood. Needed it. Visions of violence danced in her brain, and then in front of her very eyes as Squad Six methodically punched out every person on the whole freaking airplane.

  They were all crazed, almost foaming at the mouth as they charged, big and impossibly strong, but no match for the men pitted against them. Kelis could hear the sounds of a scuffle, and every now and then a few bodies would stumble down the aisle and then collapse in willful piles until the sounds muffled and quieted again. Slowly, she was regaining control of herself, breathing through the mask, until her muscles seemed willing to cooperate enough for her to sit up.

  She felt like she might have gotten a cracked rib and her head was throbbing painfully, but looking at the scene around her, she seemed to have made off easily. The airplane was littered with unconscious bodies, heaving for breath, but knocked out cold. She’d never seen something quite like it.

  “What the fuck,” she said, her voice strangled.

  “My thoughts exactly,” Grim answered, panting visibly as he offered a hand to her. “You all right, Kelis? I saw that guy get the mask off for a moment. Did you get any of that shit in you?”