Blind Devotion (The Shifter Chronicles 3)

by M. D. Grimm

  “Here,” he said, pushing the glass gently into Travis’s hand. Travis took it and sat up to drink. As he did so, Travis opened his eyes. As Jack stared into those damaged eyes, he wished they could see him, that Travis could look at him. And he wished he could look into those eyes and see Travis. Then he berated himself. Travis was perfect the way he was. They saw each other just fine, dammit.

  “We have a big problem,” Travis said heavily. “I just scented someone I know for a fact is here to harm Haven.”

  Of all the things Jack thought Travis might say, this was certainly not one of them. Shock rattled his very core. “What?”

  Travis slowly reached out and found Jack’s arm and grabbed it hard. But then Travis’s hand moved up to Jack’s shoulder, then his neck, to his face. Travis’s fingers were gentle as they traced the lines on Jack’s face, from his eyes, along his nose, down to his mouth and chin, finally coming to rest cupping his cheek.

  “Jack, listen to me. Just a few minutes ago, I was walking down the sidewalk and a woman walked past me. Her scent was familiar. It made me nervous and frightened. So I followed her.” Travis paused and took another drink, becoming calmer but no less urgent. “And after several minutes of smelling her, I knew why she caught my attention. She was one of those who—well, I mean, she’s a member of those that want to destroy shifters. I think Lenard told me years ago that there was an organization that hates shifters. Right? Well, her being here can’t be coincidence. If she’s here, her organization could know about Haven. It means everyone is in danger.” He swallowed hard. “I might have brought her here. I don’t know.”

  Jack’s mind whirled as he asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “I escaped my captors. I hurt one of them and I escaped before they could k-kill me too. I don’t know if they continued hunting me or not. I called Trixie after I realized what happened and she was fine.” He paused before adding emphatically, “We have to kill her.”

  Those words ripped Jack out of his funk. “Hold on, Travis. We aren’t going to just kill her, not like that—”

  Travis removed his hand from Jack’s cheek, his face twisted in anger. “Dammit, Jack. This is not the time for soft hearts. I don’t know if she’s alone in Haven but even one is more than dangerous. If she’s allowed to leave, to report to her organization, or anyone for that matter, where and what Haven is, then other members of that group might come here and destroy the town. I doubt they’ll spare anyone, not man or woman or kid. I know what these monsters are capable of doing.”

  Jack hesitated before speaking. Travis’s hands were clenched into fists in his lap. He had to know. “Tell me,” Jack said, touching Travis’s arms. “Let it out, Travis.”

  Travis’s mouth trembled for a second, and he said in a low voice, “They captured my family. I was the only one to survive.”

  No tears came to Travis’s eyes, though Jack could hear the pain and grief in Travis’s voice and see it in the way his face contorted and his muscles tensed. His skin rippled faintly. Jack could also sense the primal spirit inside his friend growling and clawing to be let loose. His inner wolf responded in kind.

  “They blinded you,” Jack whispered. Fury built in his gut, and his own skin rippled with the impulse to shift.

  Travis nodded, and then took a deep breath. “Yes.” He straightened his shoulders, clearly struggling to remain in control of his emotions. “They experimented on me and my family. I don’t know why they destroyed my eyes, but I managed to escape before they did anything else. The one who tied me down didn’t do a proper job. I clawed my way loose and fought. I bloodied at least one of them and then just ran. I don’t know how long they held me. I just wished to Phoenix I could have killed them all.”

  Part of Jack wanted to pull Travis into his arms, tight and safe, to comfort both of them. But he knew that would not be welcome at the moment. It must be taking all Travis’s will to keep from breaking down, to keep talking, to tell Jack about his past, the painful secret he’d kept locked inside himself for years.

  The other part of Jack wanted to hunt and devour those who had harmed his friend. The thirst for blood grew strong but he consciously controlled it.

  “We have to kill her,” Travis said again. “There’s no other way.”

  Jack shook his head and stood. “No. Not yet. We have to find out why she’s here.”

  Jack picked up Travis’s shades and put them in his hand. Travis stood as well and jammed them back over his eyes. “That would be very stupid. What if she’s not alone? We don’t know how many are there just waiting to—”

  “I’m sheriff of this town,” Jack said calmly, despite his own impulse toward bloodshed. “I decide what we will do when there is something or someone threatening our community. Not you, Travis.”

  Travis straightened his shoulders, and Jack sensed the cougar wanted to lash out and attack. His wolf wanted to dominate, but Jack needed to control this situation, and he needed Travis to understand why his solution wasn’t possible. Not yet.

  “If you don’t kill her, I will, Jack,” Travis growled. “I swear this on the lives of my family, the lives she and her group destroyed. She doesn’t live past today. If you want to arrest me, go ahead, but just know you’ll be giving a death sentence to your town and every citizen under your protection.”

  Travis’s utter confidence set Jack on his heels. He turned away and walked over to his desk, trying to sort through all these revelations and choose the best course of action. At last, he turned back toward Travis.

  “Give me a day, Travis,” he said.

  “But—”

  “A day, dammit!” Jack said. “All I’m asking for is twenty-four hours. This is something we’ve never had to deal with. I’ve never dealt with. Besides, like you said, you don’t know if she’s alone. How do we know if by killing her we aren’t declaring war?”

  “Then let’s declare war! There should be a war!” Travis yelled. Jack’s wolf actually trembled, hunching defensively at the violence that lashed from the cougar. He’d never heard Travis raise his voice for any reason. This was a side of his friend he never knew existed. It made Jack wonder—just how well did he know Travis?

  “You have no idea what it’s like, Jack! How could you?” Travis dragged his hands through his hair and yanked violently. “I saw my family dissected in front of me, tortured in front of me, and all the while I was unable to protect them. That was the last thing I saw before some sort of acid was poured into my eyes.”

  Jack flinched. He could imagine it all too well. Travis growled and turned away. He grabbed his cane and held it in both hands, bending it until it nearly snapped.

  Jack’s heart twisted. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He took a deep breath and chose his words carefully. How could he break through the rage knotted inside Travis? Especially when he felt that rage himself?

  “I understand what you’re saying,” he said gently. “I care so much about you, Travis, please never doubt that. And I care about this town too, and my pack. And it’s my responsibility to protect all of them. If we make one wrong move here, one slip, then you and I and all of Haven could lose everything. We have to think this through.” He paused. “I need you with me on this.”

  “How can you be so accepting?” Travis said with a snarl. “How can you just stand there calmly and—”

  “I’m not accepting,” Jack growled, his wolf ready to attack. “Dammit, Travis. Don’t you think I want revenge on those fuckers? Those monsters? I want to taste their blood and rip them open for what they did to you and your family. But I can’t. And I hate that I can’t.”

  Silence fell again inside the office. Jack’s impotency was a bitter pill he was loath to swallow. He needed to focus on the present and push Travis’s past aside if he had any chance of resolving the situation.

  He vaguely hoped that Rae couldn’t hear them.

  It was strange for Jack to watch the activity outside, to see the happy faces and people going about their daily rou
tines, shifters and humans living side by side in peace and acceptance. And walking among them was an outsider, a dangerous woman who was a nuke ready to go off. He suspected it was the woman staying in Lindy’s hotel. There were too few visitors for it not to be the same one Travis spoke about.

  “I’m sorry,” Travis murmured, his face lowered and his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. It just—it all came back, viscerally. Painfully. I just—I want to protect those I love now, the way I couldn’t back then.”

  “I know.”

  Travis turned toward Jack appearing tired and ill. Jack stepped closer and hugged him. Travis laid his head on Jack’s shoulder, and Jack nuzzled Travis’s neck. His wolf was torn between the desire to comfort him and the desire to rush out and attack the enemy.

  “I have to tell my pack. They’ll know what to do.” He hoped to Phoenix they would.

  Travis nodded. “Okay. Okay, it’s your call. I’m behind you.”

  Jack patted Travis’s back. “I know you are. I know.”

  He took a step back, needing to see Travis’s face. His arms remained around Travis’s waist, not ready to break that contact.

  “I know a bit more about the organization she’s potentially connected with,” Jack said. “And not only are they relentless but they might have special abilities. Like the Agency. You heard of them?”

  Travis nodded.

  “I think the group is called the Knights.”

  “So they have a name? Wonderful.”

  “I’m right here, Travis.” Jack stroked Travis’s back. Travis leaned into him again and set his head on Jack’s shoulder.

  “I know. I’m glad. Thank you.”

  Jack smiled. “You’re always welcome.”

  Chapter Nine

  Haven wasn’t what Shannon had expected. She was seated at a round table inside a small café. Her mission was to observe, to record, and report to her commander. But what was there to report? She remembered the shifter facts he had drilled into her head, the way they lived, the way they interacted. It was unnerving to discover a place so completely different than what she’d expected. For the way its inhabitants acted, Haven might have been any small town in America. It was disconcerting, knowing what they were. She watched families go into shops and cross the streets, laughing and talking, playing on their phones and meandering across the crosswalks. Cars sped past the café, some with music blaring. It stopped snowing and most of it was gone, turned into slush by the daily activity.

  It was all just so… normal. But Shannon knew better. These people, or whatever they were, were monsters. A disease lived here, an infection that had to be eliminated. Society could only be cured with blood and death. All this she knew, yet somehow doubt was worming its way into her mind. And that made her uncomfortable.

  Shannon sipped her coffee, took a breath, and shook her head firmly. No, it didn’t matter how pristine the place looked on the outside. There were sinister deeds behind closed doors. There had to be. This place was inhabited, founded even, by abominations.

  And she remembered, oh yes, she remembered. She had to remember—she couldn’t go soft. The memories were never far from her mind. Her parents. She’d seen the way that creature ripped into them, torn their flesh from the bones, licked up their blood. It had relished the destruction, the killing, the death. And, as hate welled up inside her, she knew all over again that all of them had to die. They deserved to die, for they were all evil.

  Shannon hardened her resolve and squashed the small speck of doubt like an annoying bug. She closed her eyes and sat very still, allowing the activity around her to fade and disappear. She focused all her concentration on transmitting her thoughts across the miles, touching the mind of her commander.

  She reported to him about what she had seen in Haven, her observations, the elements of the town’s layout that would affect the strategy of a potential invasion. Shannon finished her report and severed the connection. The noises and movement around her returned to sharp focus. She was relieved that she wasn’t left with a headache. Her telepathic ability was something she still struggled with, especially keeping her focus free from distraction. One limitation of the process was that she couldn’t receive thoughts back from the commander.

  Her ability was extremely useful, especially when communicating electronically was not an option. Her commander didn’t know how tight Haven was with the Agency or if this place was bugged. That damned Agency could hack into anything. It wasn’t safe to send emails or even to use a cell.

  The Agency. Shannon looked at her drink scornfully. An organization created to help and protect shifters. Disgusting. Agents had abilities like the knights did but they put them to much different uses. The Agency cleaned up after shifters, keeping their existence hidden from the human population. Shannon shook her head and glared out the window. They were the accomplices of shifters which meant they were the enemy as well. They were the reason that this disease still existed.

  The shifter-sympathizers must not discover this operation. Thank heaven the Knights had found her first. To be recruited by an organization that protected the very creatures that killed her parents!

  Hell would freeze over first.

  The anger she had summoned to quell her doubts still bubbled in her gut. She looked down at her coffee, forcing herself to breathe slowly and steadily. The world would be better off without them. She lifted her gaze and watched a small boy run around two people, probably his parents. The innocence in his face, the eagerness in his eyes, made her sick to her stomach. She couldn’t tell if he was a shifter. She hoped he wasn’t. But if he was, well, what had to be done would be done.

  Shannon finished her coffee and tossed the cup into the trash. She bundled up and left the café, hoping she would find evidence of sinister and murderous doings committed by these abominations. And not just so she could report them to her commander. The sight of that boy’s face reawakened the small speck of doubt that kept coming back, no matter how often she attempted to squash it.

  “Maybe I should just wait out here,” Travis said as Jack led him toward his pack’s house. “I know how your pack feels about me.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You’re a part of this. They can just suck it up.”

  But Travis ripped his arm out of Jack’s grip and stood his ground. “Seriously. They’ll believe the news if you give it to them.”

  Jack grabbed Travis’s arms. Travis felt Jack’s overwhelming presence, his anger and worry pumping off him in waves. The tone of his voice had deepened with his worry, and Travis was sorry that he’d put it there. But there’d been no other choice. The war he’d avoided as a young cub was now being brought to him. He couldn’t back off this time. And it comforted him that Jack had accepted his past. Part of him always feared that Jack would for some reason turn away from him. That fear proved to be irrational.

  “Travis, my pack is not like that,” Jack said. Travis wondered if he was trying to reassure Travis or himself. “They may not appreciate our close friendship, but they have nothing against you personally.”

  “Until I give them reason to,” Travis mumbled.

  Jack’s rough hands cupped Travis’s face. Travis leaned closer, longing for more of his touch. Why did this terrible thing have to happen now? Why did it have to happen at all?

  “Baby,” Jack said softly. “They won’t scare me away from you. I’ll see us through until the end if you will stay with me.”

  “Jack, are you—?”

  “Be my mate.”

  Travis was stunned and speechless for several seconds. Long gone was the subtlety that had carried their friendship for years. Now it was all in the open. “Just—just like that? We haven’t even….”

  “What?” Jack sounded impatient. “We haven’t what, Travis? We’re friends and I don’t care that you’re blind. I’ve always had a thing for you, you know that. And you are so damn sexy as a cougar.” Jack stroked his thumbs over Travis’s cheeks. “But it’s just not that,” he said softly. “We hav
e a connection. When we were together, out there in the woods, I felt it—and I knew, without any doubt.”

  Travis blushed, and it didn’t help that Jack chuckled. But then Jack’s smooth lips touched his, and he leaned further into the sheriff, gripping Jack’s jacket in his hands, pulling him closer. The kiss was achingly sweet, a confirmation of their devotion, something they’d felt for years, but were too cautious to voice.

  Their lips pressed together, sending sparks of desire to Travis’s groin. He groaned and wrapped his arms around Jack’s waist, pulling him tighter against his body. Unfortunately, now was not the time or place, and it was Jack who pulled away, gently but firmly.

  Travis sighed heavily. “Shit Sheriff, what do you want with a broken shifter?” Despite keeping his tone light, it was a question he wanted most answered.

  Jack snorted and cupped his face in both hands again. “Baby, you’re not broken. You’re perfect.”

  Travis grabbed Jack’s wrists. “Stupid, no one’s perfect, least of all me.”

  “Then you’re perfect for me. And if you try to argue with me, we both know you’ll lose.”

  Travis smiled. Jack pressed their foreheads together. They stood there a moment in companionship.

  “I can’t do this alone,” Jack said and took Travis’s hand.

  “You won’t have to,” Travis said softly, hope fluttering in his breast. Hope he hadn’t felt in years. He allowed himself to seriously imagine what it would be like to be Jack’s mate—to wake up next to him each morning and eat breakfast together, and to make love with him every night. It was a future Travis had never dared to consider.

  “I hoped you’d say that.” Jack’s hand tightened on his, and Travis allowed his mate to lead him to his pack’s home. He swallowed his fear, searching for calmness to quiet his cougar’s anxiety. He’d always avoided Jack’s home, his pack, at first because they were wolves, but later because he was afraid they could sense his desire for Jack, one of their own. And while he feared the consequences, his cougar wanted to defend his personal territory, to assert dominance. It was a fight he knew in his heart he could never win.