by Amelia Jade
The metal flew through the air so fast it almost whistled, and then the jagged hook opened a huge gash down the blonde’s cheek.
“Ow!” she shrieked, and came at Peyton faster.
But her left hand whipped out this time. Although her opponent brought a hand up to block it, Peyton’s makeshift weapon opened that skin too. Then she began to whirl her arms around, the hangers flying at the blonde’s face faster and faster. Cuts opened on her arms, the back of her hands, even one across her forehead as she missed a blow.
Peyton advanced grimly, never letting up her assault. Blood was pouring down the woman’s arms and face, staining her gray suit. Finally the woman faltered in her defense, and in that instant Peyton dropped her weapons and hit her in the stomach twice. Even as she bent over in pain, Peyton rocked her back with an uppercut that snapped teeth together and deposited the blonde on the ground.
Leaping at her, Peyton’s arm snaked around her throat, tightening viciously.
“Okay blondie,” she said without emotion. “Time to talk. Tell me everything you know about me.”
The woman opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, the front door jingled mightily.
Peyton’s eyes snapped up as she saw two more shifters enter the dry cleaner. Her immediate thought was that they were more reinforcements for Kiefer, but then she noticed that they weren’t wearing the white T-shirt and tactical pant uniform that was the standard sign they were Green Bearets.
And on top of that was the ugly way they were glaring at her.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the bigger of the two said. “All that matters is that you’re coming with us.”
“I’m a little busy here, if you hadn’t noticed,” she said, tightening her grasp as the blonde tried to get free.
“We don’t care. You are under arrest.”
Peyton was almost overwhelmed by the woman in her arms as she stared at them in stunned surprise.
“I’m what?” she asked
“Under arrest. You’re hereby charged with treason and murder in the deaths of hundreds of dead Fenrisians due to your actions in regard to fomenting unrest and ultimately war between Fenris and Cadia.”
She stared at them in horror.
It was true. It was all true. She had done it. She’d been the one who had caused all the death and suffering.
“I don’t remember,” she said in a haunted voice. “I don’t recall anything.”
“We know,” the smaller one said, speaking up for the first time. “We’ve been tracking you down ever since you were taken from our jail.” He frowned. “That is why you were put in there in the first place, you know.”
“How did you even get into Cloud Lake?” she asked, still trying to come to grips with all the information being given to her about the atrocities she’d been responsible for.
“Sneaking in two shifters is not so hard,” the big one said with a shrug. “Sneaking in an assault team, much more difficult. But two of us? Not too hard to keep us concealed. Now, if you’ll release this woman, and come with us, that would be appreciated.”
“You don’t understand,” Peyton said, her anger returning. “I do not remember what happened. My memory is gone. This woman here, she knows. She knows who I was working for.”
“Then she comes too,” the smaller one said. “But we’re done. It’s time you paid for your crimes.” His eyes filled with anger and pain, and the pair advanced on her.
No. Not now. Not after she’d come so close to finding out who she was. Peyton needed this. If she truly had done all these things, then perhaps she’d be best off going with them. But not without saying goodbye. No, this needed to be settled in a much calmer manner than this.
“KIEFER!” she screamed.
The two shifters from Fenris, shifters who had somehow not only infiltrated Cloud Lake, but had also managed to track her down, jerked as if they had been stung. Their heads whipped around as they looked for Kiefer.
Neither of them looked at the wall between the counter and the swinging door that led toward the rear of the building.
Kiefer simply bulldozed his way through it. Drywall went flying and dust exploded out in a giant cloud, forcing Peyton to hood her eyes. Kiefer still had a glassy look in his eyes. He must still be fighting off the effects of the tranq dart, she realized.
But her shout for help had mobilized him, and he didn’t let the wall slow him down as he hit the first Fenrisian. His legs weren’t working under him and he staggered aside as the smaller of the two shifters after her crashed to the ground.
Amidst the noises, the blonde began to laugh. It was a diabolic, near-maniacal laugh, evil enough to chill her blood and make her bones tingle.
“You can’t escape it, Peyton Raine,” she cackled. “Your actions will follow you no matter where you go, until you pay the price.”
“No,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction.
“You must face yourself. You must admit it.”
“I will not.”
“You did it!” the blonde howled. “You, all you. It was your mission, and you accomplished it. You started the war with Fenris. All those deaths.”
She twisted to the side so Peyton could see her face. “All that blood is on your hands.”
“NO!” Peyton shouted, but even as she denied it, screwing her eyes shut as she maintained her hold on the blonde, she knew it was true.
I did it. I got all those people killed.
Just like that, as she admitted her guilt, Peyton felt her body begin to shudder. Images flashed through her brain too fast to process them. Her memory was returning.
And with it came the horrific realization that it was all true.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kiefer
He blinked drywall dust from his eyes.
Pain washed over his body from innumerable places, but one in particular stood out. Raising his left arm, Kiefer noted a piece of wood several inches long jutting from his forearm like an oversized splinter.
With a growl he pulled it from his skin, a flow of blood coming out with it, dripping down to his elbow as he held the arm aloft.
His mind was working slowly, and even as he turned his attention to the shifter on the ground by his feet, Kiefer was rocked back by a fist. He stumbled away from the second shifter, who came at him.
Kiefer had been only grazed by the dart, the tech having just barely gotten the shot off before the table crushed him and his partner. The metal object flying at him through the air must have thrown off his aim, otherwise Kiefer would be on the ground with Allix and Mia.
Luther and Garrin are going to rip me a new one for letting them get tranq’d. I am so fucked. They’re probably going to bust me back down to corporal. Or maybe even lance-corporal.
Another fist hit him and his head snapped back. Kiefer hit the front counter and his back bowed over it.
Oh. This works.
He rested his arms on the counter and brought both feet up and then kicked them out even as the other Fenrisian—and how did two shifters from Fenris get into Cloud Lake anyway?—charged him.
The blow sent the shifter flying through the window at the front of the store and onto the street beyond.
Kiefer, with nothing to stop him, flew back over the counter and landed on his ass on the tiled ground.
“OW!” he yelped as something heavy and metal fell from the ceiling and landed on his head.
The blow, combined with the pain, served to clear his mind, bringing a sense of clarity he’d been lacking.
His bear roared.
Right. Peyton is in danger.
He surged back over the counter. The small shifter was crawling toward Peyton. Kiefer hauled back his leg and delivered a steel-toe-clad boot into the side of the man’s head.
The blow snapped the man’s head to the side so violently it broke his spine. The shifter dropped dead.
It was just then that he heard the woman cackle and tell
Peyton that she’d done it all, that she was to blame for the war.
His eyes riveted on his mate, he saw the truth buried in there, her eyes bouncing rapidly as memory returned to them.
An angry roar from outside announced that the second shifter had taken his animal form.
“I’m coming back for you,” he promised Peyton, and leapt for the broken window.
Even as he was airborne Kiefer summoned his bear, and the magnificent black and brown mottled beast answered his call eagerly. Power flowed through his limbs as they expanded rapidly. Bone cracked and adjusted as his joints reversed themselves. His head snapped up and began to jut forward, the snout of his bear emerging from his flat human face.
He was done shifting before he’d even hit the ground, and Kiefer landed, took one bound, and slammed right into the other shifter. The two bears went tumbling back into the street as cars slammed to a halt to avoid totaling themselves on the massive beasts.
The two titanic shifters were much bigger than the bears of the wild, weighing in close to two thousand pounds apiece. This was a fight between giants, and the ground nearby shook as they collided again and again.
Kiefer’s paw flicked out and exploited an opening, slapping the Fenrisian bear, a tawny blond creature, in the side of the head.
But instead of trying to defend himself, the bear charged. Kiefer realized it had been a deliberate opening a split second before two tons of angry beast hit him square-on. They went down hard, rolling over and over until they impacted upon a car. The tiny little sedan simply crumpled under the blow as the human occupant fled the scene.
Kiefer, unhappy about the collateral damage, roared in anger. His hind legs came up to his body and he raked them viciously along the underside of his enemy, before kicking out to send the unknown Fenrisian flying.
The ground trembled as the creature impacted the roadway.
The two of them bellowed challenges at each other and charged once again. They hit with bone-crunching force, and Kiefer felt something give way in his side, even as the other shifter trumpeted in pain, his head flinging back as he announced the injury.
Kiefer took advantage of the opening and sunk his teeth deep into the tender flesh of his throat and ripped a huge chunk of it free. Blood spurted everywhere, coating his fur and matting it together. A paw came up and took Kiefer in the head, sending his bear rolling to the side even as stars exploded in his vision.
He got to his feet, his legs slightly wobbly underneath him. The other shifter was doing the same. More and more blood flowed from the wound though, and Kiefer knew if it didn’t clot soon that his foe was in trouble. So he did the only sensible thing. He kept attacking. With another roar he charged. The pair rolled back into the middle of the street. Blood soaked Kiefer as they fought, though most of it wasn’t his.
The light-brown bear began to slow, his motions becoming more and more sluggish as his life essence poured out onto the street, darkening the gray asphalt.
Then, with a weak protest, the other bear’s legs finally gave out, and it fell to its side, honking plaintively as death overtook it.
Kiefer stood and watched. Once he was sure the creature was dead he changed back into his human form and ran back inside the dry cleaner as fast as he could.
Peyton needed him.
He saw the two of them. The blonde was sitting with her back against one wall, laughing evilly, even as blood ran from her nose and smashed lips, staining her teeth red. Peyton had her back to another wall, knees pulled to her chest as she looked up at him.
The look that was on his mate’s face made Kiefer’s heart break with sorrow. So much grief, despair, and self-hatred was reflected up at him that he hesitated, unsure of what to do.
But then anger washed everything clean, searing through him like a cleansing fire.
He turned on the blonde. “What the hell did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” she said with another crazed laugh. “I just told her the truth. It’s she who did everything!”
Kiefer turned to Peyton and took a step toward her.
His eyes opened in sadness and pain as she shuffled down the wall away from him, shaking her head. “No. Don’t come near me,” she whispered.
“This is too good,” the woman laughed.
Kiefer turned to see her getting to her feet.
“I’ll be leaving now,” she said, her hand whipping out from behind her back, holding a little tranquilizer gun that she’d somehow hidden back there.
But Kiefer was no longer slowed by the effects from earlier, and he was too close. His hand darted out with reflexes no human could match and snatched the gun from her hand, noting the way it was covered in blood and opened gashes along the back. What the hell had happened before he’d come outside?
His fist squeezed and the metal gun simply deformed in his grip, breaking it uselessly.
“Thank you for that,” he said with a smile.
“What?” the woman looked confused.
“Because now I can do this.” He punched her—careful not to use too much strength—right in the side of the head.
The blonde’s eyes rolled up into her head and she fell limply to the ground.
Kiefer looked back at Peyton who was still on the ground rocking back and forth. Then he stomped into the back room, lifted the table off the downed techs, and found one of their guns. He came back down to where Carter was just starting to move, and fired the gun into the man’s back.
Then he walked slowly to the front, and shot the woman in the stomach.
He crumpled that gun too and tossed it away with a look of disgust. There had been enough violence that day.
“Okay.” Kiefer heaved a sigh and turned back to face Peyton.
She wasn’t focused on him; her eyes were filled with a thousand-yard gaze, looking at something only she could see. He took a step toward her once more, but yet again Peyton, perhaps alerted by his movement, slid down the wall in the opposite direction of him.
“Don’t come near me,” she said, her voice taut.
“Why not?” he asked, squatting down onto his haunches.
There was a crowd growing around outside, but he ignored them. The Green Bearets would arrive soon.
“Because,” she replied, her eyes turning to face him. “You have no idea what I’ve done.”
The haunting tone was all he needed to hear to be aware that she had her memories back.
“Do you recall everything?” he asked gently.
She shook her head. “No. But what she said was true. I remember working for them, being sent to Fenris.” Her voice broke and it was several seconds before she spoke once more. “I orchestrated the war,” she said, barely getting the words out before her voice failed her once more. This time tears tracked down her face, leaving marks in the light coating of drywall dust on her cheeks.
“I doubt you did it all by yourself,” he scoffed.
Peyton glared at him. “Do you want to bet on that?” Her voice filled with anger, anger which she directed inward. Self-loathing was a destructive force. He needed to get her to stop. To change her focus.
“I doubt you single-handedly started the war,” he said, not entirely believing that either.
“No?” She gave him an ugly smile. “Well, let me tell you just how wrong you are.”
And she did.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Peyton
“I was working for the Institute,” she began.
“Do we know who they are now?” Kiefer asked, interrupting her.
She glared at him, but he didn’t back down. Peyton sighed and relented. It wasn’t Kiefer’s fault; he didn’t deserve her anger. He had done exactly nothing wrong. It was she who had done wrong.
It was a weird sensation. Peyton was beginning to recall these memories, but they didn’t feel like her memories. It was like a movie she had watched, where she knew everything that happened, but the person portraying her in them was not the person she was now. Peyton was horri
fied by what she’d seen. Knowing that it was, in fact, her who had done it, left her traumatized.
“Yes, we do know. Short form, they’re a rogue part of the government. They think they know what’s best when it comes to shifters.”
Kiefer’s eyes narrowed. “They think we’re freaks and want to kill us,” he said flatly.
She shook her head. “No, not at all. They think you’re freaks that they want to control. They started out as just a think tank. They had a longer name then, hence why they’re just called the Institute now. But at some point they morphed, and became active players in the shifter political scene.”
“So they don’t want to kill us?” Kiefer asked with a frown.
“No. They want access to your money, and they want to control you. Have you do their bidding.”
“A private force of mercenary shifters, working for humans.”
“Essentially, yes,” she said. “Though exactly why, I don’t know. They aren’t a huge group, but they seem to have a lot of the right people bought.” She shook her head. “Anyway, they needed a way to justify getting involved openly.”
Kiefer grimaced. “War.”
“War,” she agreed. “A war that would spill over into the human world, and allow them to move against both of you.”
Kiefer didn’t say anything.
“So they sent me. I met with the Fenrisians. Showed them fabricated evidence we’d made about how Cadia was starting to plot against them secretly. Spoke to as many of them as I could, and stirred up a lot of anti-Cadia sentiment. It took quite some time, but I apparently managed it.”
“Apparently?” Kiefer asked in mild disbelief.
Peyton swallowed hard. “I mean, it was physically me who did it,” she said, her eyes tearing up once more. “But I don’t recognize the ‘me’ who did it. Why would I want to do that? That’s terrible. So many people died because of what I did.”
Kiefer shrugged. “It sounds like it was going to happen no matter what,” he said. “If Fenris wanted to come after us so easily, it means they were already thinking the same thing in their heads. All you did was give them a push, really.”
