by A. C. Arthur
* * *
Amina Cannon lounged on the small couch across from Nivea’s bed absently flipping through a fashion magazine as Nivea changed into the newly designed guard uniform they all had to wear—navy blue mission pants and a lighter blue button-down shirt. Her boots lay across the room on the floor, where she’d left them last night. Immediately Eli’s words echoed in her head.
“Guards should always be in uniform, Cannon,” he’d said in that low, laced-with-death voice of his.
During this morning’s workout she’d worn tennis shoes and exercise clothes. This had been in direct contrast to the will and the way of Eli Preston. Nivea had simply nodded in response, smiling as she walked out of the training facility because she knew he’d liked seeing her in her spandex capris and sports bra. His actions had spoken much louder than his words, in that regard. Still, she had no intention of disobeying him again, not so soon anyway. There was a meeting in the auditorium in twenty minutes. Not only did she plan to be there early, she planned to be wearing her crisp new uniform and to look damned hot doing so.
“Marriage is about love,” Amina was saying when Nivea actually decided to tune in to her sister’s conversation. “It’s about respect and commonalities. It is not about a perfect union of the two biggest advertising agencies in the country.”
Nivea shimmied into her pants, tucking her tank top in before buttoning them up and looking over at her sister.
“Shifters mate, Mina, they don’t get married. The official ceremony is called ‘joining’ and it’s far more intense than any human contract. That’s what your argument to Mom and Dad should be,” Nivea told her.
“Yes.” Amina sighed. “Because that’s exactly what the Cannons of New York want to hear. Talk about their origin in the dirty, sweaty Amazonian jungle instead of their rich and haughty new lifestyle that plants them firmly on the Forbes’ most influential and wealthiest couples list year after year.”
Nivea knew her words were absolutely correct. Richard and Michele Cannon wanted nothing to do with their Topètenia heritage. On paper they looked to be model citizens, successfully building and maintaining the Cannon Group and even starting a nonprofit agency that provided aid to underprivileged children. A good portion of those children were orphaned shifters. They looked like they were doing all the right things in this world. But Nivea knew better. She knew things her sisters did not and had made a deal with the devil himself to keep them from being exposed. Walking away and keeping her mouth shut about all that she’d endured had been the deal, and she’d taken it happily.
The older Cannons had come to the States as teenagers. After witnessing how humans of different races were treated, degraded, and dismissed, they knew without a doubt that a shifter would never be accepted as a part of this society. With that thought in mind Richard and Michele knew there would never be tolerance or acceptance in this country for their kind. The humans would brand them as outcasts and either kill or humiliate them until they wished they were dead. They swore then to build something bigger and better for their family, something normal, no matter what the cost.
Serene, the middle sister, had wholeheartedly subscribed to their parents’ way of living, while Amina tried to straddle the fence as much as she could to keep the peace. Nivea, on the other hand, had always been extremely vocal about her disagreement with the way her parents chose to live. The day she’d gone to her parents with what would be her final and most disturbing complaint, the Cannons had decided to let their youngest daughter go. Forever.
“So what are you going to do? Not marry him? Walk away from the agreement, from your job at the agency, from your million-dollar penthouse, the BMW, the parties, the clothes? Are you really going to give all that up in your quest for true love?” Nivea wished daily that her sister would do exactly this.
Still, she knew without a doubt the answer to that question was no. With that in mind, she was having a hard time entertaining her sister’s mostly contrived dilemma because Amina was the most materialistic person Nivea knew. Case in point: today her sister wore a pink silk jumper—her favorite color—silver stilettoes no doubt made by some extremely overpriced designer, diamonds in her ears and on her fingers, she had her hair perfectly coiffed, and a limousine was sitting outside the front entrance to Havenway, waiting patiently for Amina to finish with her visit and leave. Amina wasn’t yelling about traveling to Havenway, which was essentially located in the center of a national park, but when she’d first come in she had scoffed at the size of Nivea’s room, calling it “a glorified jail cell,” even though she’d never seen a jail cell in her entire thirty-one years of life.
“I might,” she exclaimed.
Nivea chuckled. “You won’t.”
“Look at you,” Amina said as Nivea moved to where her boots were, leaning over to shove her foot into one and then the other. “All dressed up in your war clothes, ready to go out and fight.”
Amina waved her hand and the silver bangles at her wrist clinked.
“We fight the rogues, Mina,” Nivea said with chagrin. It still bothered her that her own family didn’t give a damn about the battle the shifters were in for their lives, for the lives of those coming after them. These were precarious times, Nivea knew that. Her family, however, refused to accept it. That fact made her sad, almost as much as the years-long crush she’d had on Lead Guard Eli Preston.
“Yeah, I know,” her sister replied. “But I don’t know why. They aren’t bothering us. Besides, there’s crime all over the world, killings and beatings, robberies, and all other sorts of evils lurking around out there. The Shadow Shifters can’t expect to defeat them all. That’s a futile mission if I’ve ever heard one.”
Pulling her hair back into her favorite black band, Nivea shook her head at her sister. The band and the ponytail were the norm, the curliness of her hair and the soft flirty way it fell down her back was not.
“It’s not that simple, not anymore. You should really tell Mom. She needs to come to the next Assembly meeting. There’s a lot going on now that all of you should know about and get prepared for,” she told her.
“That presentation came in the mail a few weeks ago. Dad didn’t bother to look at it and forbade any of us from doing so either. But I did, at least some of it anyway. The new building is nice, much better than this dungeon-like place. Why don’t you move there?” Amina suggested hopefully.
Snapping her utility belt around her waist, Nivea resisted rolling her eyes. Of course Richard wouldn’t look at anything coming from Rome’s law firm. He knew Rome was the Assembly Leader but since he hated all things to do with the shifters, he refused to respect that leadership or whatever came with it. He also knew that Nivea was working here with Rome, yet another reason Nivea was certain he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Havenway.
But Mina wasn’t referring to that situation. How could she? No one but Richard, Michele, and Nivea knew the reason for her leaving New York and never looking back. No, her sister’s remarks were much more basic. Yes, the state-of-the art facility that had just been completed in Prince George’s County, Maryland that was the official Assembly Building with offices for visiting Elders and Faction Leaders and formal meeting space, was a gorgeous glass-and-brass structure. But it was so much more. Glancing down at her e-band, Nivea saw she didn’t have the time to try and explain it completely to her sister, not that Amina really cared either way.
“Listen, I have to get to this meeting,” Nivea told her as she picked up a bottle of perfume and spritzed.
Amina stood then, dropping her magazine to the floor as she came to stand behind Nivea. She looked at her sister through the mirror. “What?” Nivea asked.
Amina touched a hand to Nivea’s ponytail, letting the long, fat curls fall from her elegant fingers. She smiled as she continued to survey her and Nivea shifted uncomfortably.
“What are you looking at?”
“You, little sister,” was Amina’s soft response. “Perfume, glossed lips, slight
ly shadowed eyes. You’re a pretty little guard, huh?”
“Cut it out,” Nivea said, swatting at Amina’s hand and moving from the mirror.
“Got your eye on someone, sis? Another guard maybe?”
“No!” Nivea replied, loudly. Too loudly. “Dinner before you go back to New York?” she asked, changing the subject as they both headed for the door.
Amina continued to smile. “Sure thing. But not here. You have to get dressed in real clothes and we’ll go to a nice restaurant. I’ll send the car back to get you around seven.”
Nivea nodded. “Okay, I’ll be ready.”
She gave her sister a quick hug then ran down the opposite hallway, knowing she wouldn’t be as early as she’d planned, but still hoping to get there before Eli. It was silly, she knew, and well on the side of playing feminine games, which she’d prided herself on never having to do. But as she’d attempted to tell her sister, things were different now. The position of the shifters was more than precarious, and as she would probably learn more about at this meeting, at a very critical state. If she didn’t go for what she wanted now, would she get another chance? Would the shifters? She didn’t have those answers and she wasn’t about to take the risk.
* * *
“Captain Lawrence Crowe is the man behind the Genesis Project.” Roman Reynolds, Stateside Assembly Leader, spoke to the three hundred and fifty guards that made up the primary defense unit of local Shadow Shifters.
Up and down the East Coast there were thousands more that were prepared to fight for the shifters’ secret to be kept. But these were the men and women closest to the Assembly Leader, some that he’d trained himself—namely the Sanchez brothers—and others that had been trained by Xavier Santos Markland and Nicholas Delgado, Lead Enforcers, and Eli and Ezra Preston, Lead Guards in the Eastern Zone. Basically, these were the best of the best.
Nivea’s heart hammered in her chest as she realized this. How long had she worked to get to this point? And how foolish did her parents think she was for doing so? Who was she kidding? Richard and Michele Cannon were thinking about everything else in their socially elite and financially secure world, but not about their youngest child. No, that wasn’t quite true, Richard would never forget her, just as she couldn’t possibly forget him. Her chest ached at that thought, fists clenching in her lap.
In an effort to relax, to forget, Nivea moved uncomfortably in her seat, settling her gaze on the Assembly Leader and what he was now saying.
“We believe the goal of the Genesis Project is to successfully develop hybrid soldiers using shifter DNA to enhance their abilities. So far Crowe has only come close to achieving this goal. His latest attempt was disposed of in Arizona, where the project may or may not be continuing. Crowe has not been detained.”
Rome looked up from the podium then, letting his gaze fall on as many of the guards as he possibly could. There’d always been a very personal feel to everything that happened here at Havenway. Even though the Stateside Assembly was now larger than most corporations, Rome had managed to keep this headquarters as relaxed and family-oriented as he possibly could. The Leader knew most, if not all, of the guards by name, as he often came down to the training center to watch them when time allowed. That had grown less frequent in the past couple of weeks, but everyone knew that was not to be helped.
The kidnapping of Shya Delgado, Nick and Ary’s daughter, to try and obtain her DNA to aid in the Genesis Project, had put everyone on edge. Now, sitting here listening to even more information about this project that could force the exposure of the Shadow Shifters was more than a little alarming. And yet there was one person who didn’t look distressed at all.
Rayna Corpeta sat in one of the seats along the side wall of the auditorium, closer to the stage than Nivea had been offered. The Lormenia shifter wore her uniform pants two sizes tighter than any other female guard, her shirt always unbuttoned to expose her cleavage, leaving nothing to the imagination about her voluptuous breasts. She looked exotic, talked with an accent, and fought almost as well as a portion of the new recruits.
And Nivea didn’t trust her as far as she could toss the annoying bitch.
Rayna had one long leg crossed over the other, one hand with fingers running along the line of her throat while the other toyed with her long bronze-tinted hair. She looked around the room almost as if she were bored and Nivea barely resisted the urge to run up and kick the chair from beneath her. Just barely.
“Our number one goal from this point on is finding Crowe and whoever is helping him in this project. Although we are not sure of the others involved, we do know that somehow Crowe managed to obtain shifter DNA. If he has done it once, there is a likelihood that he will do it again, meaning other shifters are at risk. We are confident, however, that once we bring Crowe down this project and all he may be working with will crumble. To that end, I want him found and brought in,” Rome said, looking among them once more, his voice ominous as the microphone immediately amplified and silenced it. “Dead or alive,” were his final words, spoken with determination and clarity, albeit softer than his previous comments.
With perfectly synched movements, Nick and X fell into step right beside Rome as he walked down from the platform. Kalina, the First Female, stood from her seat in the first row to walk beside her mate as her personal guard, Jax, fell in with the others. As they neared the door Ezra and Eli joined in the ranks, slipping into the line behind Nick and X.
Nivea stood with all the other guards as they always did the moment the Assembly Leader was on the floor. Their hands remained tucked behind their backs, chins up, eyes focused on the Leader as they silently declared their loyalty and service. Only this time her gaze shifted back a bit, until it rested on him.
His glasses were too dark to see his eyes, not even an outline of them, his chin held high, steps coordinated, strength oozing from every movement of his legs, his arms, his shoulders. She swallowed hard and had to be tapped on the shoulder when her row was ready to file out of the auditorium. She was just about to head to the gym to work off some of this energy she felt running wildly through her body when a touch to her elbow had her jumping.
Fists raised automatically to fight back, she turned, only to have those sunglasses glaring down at her, lips of medium thickness held in a stern line.
“Let’s go,” Eli told her. “We’re running late.”
Nivea didn’t even bother to speak, wasn’t 100 percent sure her voice would cooperate if she wanted to. There were times—like earlier this morning—when she’d been able to hold tight to her attraction to him. And then, there were times like now when just the sight of him made her feel like coming, right then, right there, just letting the abundance of his sexuality take over.
She hated that part. Damn, did she hate it.
Chapter 3
“So Captain Lawrence Crowe is now Public Enemy Number One for the Shadow Shifters,” Nivea said, climbing into the passenger side of Eli’s Assembly-issued Jeep Wrangler.
The vehicle was silver with windows tinted so dark nothing on the inside could be seen. Each vehicle was specially designed to assist guards in doing their jobs with skill and ease. They had been retrofitted with bulletproof steel. Weapons and ammunition were stored in side-door compartments that were specially lined to go undetected should the vehicles ever be searched. They even had a self-destruct mechanism that, once activated, would cause a chemical explosion that would destroy all evidence of the additions made to the vehicle as well as any other items that may have been inside.
They were pretty slick to look at too.
Nivea hadn’t been issued one of her own yet. If Eli recommended her for this promotion, she would. If he didn’t she would continue to drive the older-model Jeep with minimal security features that might at some point get her killed. Pulling out of the parking spot, Eli tried not to think along those lines. His job was to train her, to observe as she completed the assignment of investigating Agent Dorian Wilson. It was not to take care
of her, protect her, or any of the other bullshit that had been roaming around in his mind where she was concerned lately.
“He’s not working alone, we’re positive of that fact. Still, the sooner we find Crowe, the sooner we can kill this supersoldier project before it goes any further,” Eli told her as he turned right onto the trail that led out of the forest to the main highway.
She’d finished adjusting herself, pulling the lever at the bottom of the seat so that it was a little closer to the dashboard, snapping her seat belt into place, and pushing down the headrest. He had to admit it was too high up for anyone who wasn’t at least six feet tall. Eli watched all her movements out of the corner of his eye, unable to keep his attention 100 percent focused on something as menial as driving the damn Jeep when she was around.
“I still can’t believe he cloned a shifter. Who would ever think to do something like that, without considering the repercussions?”
The last had been spoken quietly but Eli ignored that. Denying the ability to pinpoint changes in her voice, her demeanor, her hairstyle, was all about self-preservation. It was about coming out of this assignment in one piece, without change. It was how he needed to proceed.
“Believe it,” Eli said tightly, taking the Jeep into the busy midmorning traffic on Route 193. “It took Ezra, Bas, and Jacques, three pretty damned powerful shifters, to stop that bastard from killing every shifter in the police department out West.”
In his front pocket his cell phone vibrated. Retrieving it, Eli read the message from one of his staff at the barbershop he owned and frowned. He’d been receiving similar ones for days now and chose to ignore them all. Gritting his teeth, his fingers gripped the steering wheel as he refocused his thoughts on the scenario his twin brother had described with the first hybrid.
Ezra had been there to save the woman who was now glued to his hip, the human named Dawn who Ezra had claimed as his mate. That was part of the reason why Ezra’s new relationship status irritated the hell out of Eli. For one, Eli didn’t believe in the mating concept of the shifters. The notion that there was one perfect female for every male was to Eli a lie, plain and simple. His past was living proof of that fact.
