by S. M. Reine
Gage lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I get it.”
“Going to try to change my mind?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Because you got walled out for the safety of all shifters. Because Rylie had a good reason for setting up those policies. And because we need your help, and I can tell you’re good enough to give it to us.”
“Easy for you to be optimistic,” Deirdre said.
He rubbed a hand over his chest. The look in his eyes wasn’t optimistic—it was haunted. “It’s a choice. You can make the same choice.”
“I don’t think I want to,” she said.
Rylie was waiting for them outside one of the cottages near the lake, indistinguishable from the hundreds of others like it. The windows were decorated with pentacles over their arches, the flowers were well tended, and its yellow paneling looked like it had a fresh coat of paint. There was nothing to declare that the Alpha lived there other than her presence.
Away from a political setting, Rylie looked much less like a world leader and more like a neighborhood mom from down the street. She wore a long white dress with her hair in a loose bun. Her bare feet were dirty. A toddler played in the grass between her legs, clad in nothing but a sagging diaper.
“Deirdre!” Rylie rose, lifting the child with an arm hooked around his tummy. “I didn’t think you were going to come.”
“Neither did I,” Deirdre said. “The message from Stark was pretty convincing, through.”
Rylie dropped the child into Gage’s arms. “Lucas’s diaper needs to be changed.”
“Why are you telling me that?” Gage asked, tickling the child’s feet. Lucas giggled, kicked, arched his spine. Deirdre noticed that the toddler had shockingly silver eyes—all the more shocking because of his dark brown skin. The contrast was striking.
“I’m telling you because you’re going to change him while I talk to Deirdre,” Rylie said. She slapped Gage on the butt. “We’re not going anywhere. Go ahead.”
“Why do I have to change your stinky diaper, Luke?” Gage asked.
Lucas jammed a foot in Gage’s face. “Stinky!”
Deirdre wrinkled her nose as Gage passed. The child was very smelly. Luckily, the smell vanished when he went inside the cottage. “How many kids do you have, exactly? Biologically.”
“Seven,” Rylie said. Her cheeks were pink. “I like kids, and my mate and I… Yeah, anyway, we have seven.”
“You know how babies are made, right?”
Rylie laughed. “Yes. Definitely.”
“Right. Well, if you want me to join the pack so you have another babysitter, I can tell you to save your breath. I swore off changing diapers when I aged out of my last foster home.”
“If you were to join the pack, watching kids would sometimes be your responsibility. Everyone in the pack helps with everything,” Rylie said. “We take turns doing chores, watching all the children, cooking dinner…”
“Gage mentioned that.”
“I hope he also mentioned that I want to apologize for insulting you.”
“Yes. He did.” Deirdre folded her arms, lifting her eyebrows expectantly.
“I’m sorry,” Rylie said. “I should have known that the word ‘Omega’ would have sensitive connotations for you. I didn’t think, and you were hurt by my thoughtlessness. I was too excited to meet someone who does what you do.”
“Doesn’t transform, you mean.”
“Doesn’t bite when ordered by Stark.” A group of shifters in human form passed nearby. Rylie waited until they were out of earshot to continue speaking. “Do you want to have this conversation in private?”
Deirdre had already crossed the border for the conversation. It was probably too late to go home.
“Yeah, fine,” she said.
Inside, Gage was wrestling with a now-naked toddler, who seemed uninterested in being diapered. Lucas flung himself onto Gage’s face, punched little fists into Gage’s gut, slobbered on his shirt.
“He’s killing me,” Gage said. “Help.”
Rylie scooped Lucas up again, rolling her eyes. “Do you want him to pee on you again?” She set the child on a changing table by the window, holding him down with one hand while the other deftly diapered him. Alpha strength was useful for many reasons, apparently.
Deirdre wandered around the living room, looking at all the pictures and trinkets on the shelves. There were a lot of ugly crafts made by children, even more family photos, and one painting of a couple that she didn’t recognize. The woman had sleek black hair, pale skin, black eyes. The man matched her coloring, but his eyes were blue.
“Who’s this?” Deirdre asked, pointing at it. The painting was positioned above something that looked strikingly like a witch’s altar.
Rylie didn’t even glance over. “Just a couple of friends.”
“You worship your friends? This is an altar, right?”
“I only worship some of my friends,” she said lightly. “There. Now Lucas won’t pee on the floor.” She opened the front door, and he bolted outside to play with other shifter children on the trail between cabins. She watched him go with a sigh. “He’s going to shift out of that diaper in five seconds. Just wait.”
“So what do you want from me?” Deirdre asked. “I know you don’t want to grow your pack by another member. There are thousands of other shifters you could recruit if that’s what you wanted. Or you could just have another baby.”
“I’ll show you what I want,” Rylie said.
She pushed the bedroom door open. It was a small room, even smaller than the living room, with barely enough room to fit a queen-sized bed inside. If it hadn’t been for the array of dry-cleaned pantsuits hanging in the open closet, Deirdre never would have believed that bedroom belonged to Rylie Gresham. Not with the scattered toys kicked halfway under the bed, the laundry in the corner, and the crayon marks on the doorway.
The bed was currently occupied by a man for whom a king-sized bed would have been too small. His feet hung off the end. He took up more than his fair half of it.
He also appeared to be comatose. There was an IV pole and a heart rate monitor squeezed into that little room.
Deirdre gazed down at the man in the bed. His face was scarred on one side, with deep crags over his cheekbone, ridges on his jaw, a chunk missing from his ear. Half of his eyebrow wouldn’t grow in.
The intact part of his face was handsome, in that older guy kind of way. He must have been in his mid-thirties now. When Deirdre had last seen him, they had both been about ten years younger. And he had been telling the person who ran the home for shifter children that Deirdre was too dangerous to move into the sanctuary.
This was the man who had performed the first screening she underwent during Genesis. His face was branded into memory by the burn of hatred.
“This is my mate,” Rylie said. “His name is Abel.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Deirdre asked. She couldn’t think of a nicer way to ask it.
“Elena,” Gage said, hanging back in the living room.
Rylie bit her bottom lip. Her hand tightened on Abel’s. “Elena.”
“Everton Stark got to one of Rylie’s personal guards,” Gage explained. “This was before he was releasing statements on social media. I think his Plan A was a quick, quiet assassination so he could just take over. He didn’t anticipate Abel.”
Rylie’s fingers smoothed along her mate’s hairline, smile faint and sad. “Nobody anticipates Abel.”
“Elena had a silver knife. She gutted him.” Gage’s jaw clenched. “I was right there, and she got to him.”
“You’re not that fast,” Rylie said. “It’s not your fault.”
“But I’m supposed to guard you guys.”
“So was Elena.” The Alpha sighed, rearranging the sheets around Abel. “Anyway, she got him good enough that his body shut down. Anyone else would have died. Abel’s strong, though. He just needs a few moons, a little time, and he’ll wake up. Soon. Very soon.” That sounded more like a pra
yer than an actual statement of fact.
Deirdre folded her arms tightly across her chest. “What happened to Elena?”
Rylie’s steady gaze said it all.
She’d killed Elena. A member of her guard.
“This won’t be the last time he sends someone after me. He’s recruiting, building his forces, and becoming bold. I believe that he’s going to strike at my upcoming town hall. It’ll be the perfect time, since we’ll be open to all visitors and I’ll be easily accessible.” Rylie clutched Abel’s limp hand. “If we’re going to survive this, we need people who are immune to Stark.”
“So…what? You want me to hang out with you at the town hall? Get ready to take a silver knife to the gut?”
“We’ve got to do better than that,” Gage said. “We have to get ahead of him.”
“As I said, Stark’s recruiting. He’ll want willing members. He can’t compel every shifter all the time. Now that he’s made this public statement of his, it should be easy to get in touch and volunteer.” Rylie stood from Abel’s bedside. “Deirdre, I want you to join Stark. I’m not asking for you to assassinate him—we don’t work like that. I just want you to hang out with them and pass information back to me.”
A lump formed in Deirdre’s throat. It made it hard to breathe.
She remembered the way that Colin Burgh had flung those cars around. The relentless way he’d pursued her, even up the side of a building and across two rooftops. And then she thought of Everton Stark himself, looking like a force of nature squeezed into the shape of a man.
Deirdre hadn’t even agreed to be part of the pack, and Rylie expected her to risk her life to take him down.
“What’s in it for me?” Deirdre asked.
The question only seemed to make Rylie sadder. “I don’t suppose that you’d find the good of our kind to be a compelling reason.”
“Not really.” The good of their kind didn’t seem to be good for Deirdre.
“We’re not short on money here. I could pay you.”
“How am I supposed to spend my money if I’m dead?” Deirdre asked. “Sorry. This sounds like a suicide mission. I’m not interested.”
Gage stepped into the room. With three adults standing around the bed, the room felt tiny, almost suffocating. “How’s this? We’ll figure out what kind of shifter you are. See if we can’t unlock your beast.”
Now that was an offer that got Deirdre listening.
But the Alpha’s mate hadn’t been able to sniff out Deirdre’s species, nor had dozens of other social workers and witches.
“How?” Deirdre asked.
“Brianna,” Gage said to Rylie. “We could get Brianna.”
Rylie nodded slowly. “She’s a friend of ours who works out of an office in Las Vegas. They do private investigation, some police consultation. She has an unusual magical skill—a skill that means that she can identify any preternatural creature as long as she’s run into another one before.”
Deirdre frowned. “So if she’s met another shifter with my animal…”
“She’ll know what you are instantly,” Rylie said. “If we know your species, we can probably find someone to help you transform, too.”
“And all I have to do to is join a murderous shifter rebellion.”
“And survive,” Gage added.
It was a tempting offer. Money would be great—money would mean getting out of the townhouse, maybe even out of the city, moving to somewhere that Gutterman wouldn’t be able to find her again.
But discovering her beast…
The idea was as exciting as it was heartbreaking. She’d been Omega for so long, Deirdre wasn’t sure what she’d do if that changed.
Gage must have taken her silence for reluctance. “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Rylie said immediately.
“Oh, so you’ll risk my life, but you won’t risk the life of one of your favorite pack members?” Deirdre asked.
“It’s not that.” Rylie glanced at Gage, then back to her feet. “I can’t explain. Gage needs to stay close to me, though. He absolutely cannot go out to face Everton Stark. Especially when tomorrow night is the full moon.”
“I might as well,” Gage said. “Someone’s got to keep Deirdre alive.”
“Chances are good that Stark already knows you work for me,” Rylie said.
“So I’ll tell him I’ve defected.”
Deirdre’s eyes narrowed. “Why? What makes you want to come on this mission? It’s insane.”
“It’s worth it,” he said firmly. “It’s his fault Elena’s dead. His fault that Abel got gutted. His fault that all these shifters were driven to murder, and his fault that the victims are dead. Who knows what he’ll do next?” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “Only problem is that I’m not immune to him. Pretending to volunteer for Stark might not be pretending for long.”
“That’s not the only problem and you know it,” Rylie said.
So Deirdre would be babysitting Gage as much as she would be undercover.
On the other hand, he’d make pretty good collateral. Rylie couldn’t just abandon her to the not-so-metaphorical wolves if Deirdre had Gage.
“I’ll think about it.” Deirdre moved to leave the cottage, but hesitated. “Let me ask you a question: If you didn’t need me, would you have ever invited me into your pack?”
Rylie bit her bottom lip. “Yes.”
Deirdre was pretty sure the Alpha was lying.
—V—
Deirdre was given a guest cottage to sleep in for the night, along with reassurances that she could leave once she was well rested. Which was kind of a problem.
Being given a cottage to herself was nice. It was like the cleanest hotel room she’d ever been in. She had a great view of the waterfall and all the shifter children who played in the lake until well after dark.
The cottage wasn’t the problem. It was the “rested” part.
Deirdre didn’t bother trying to sleep. She was wired, jittery, all too aware of all the other shifters in close proximity to her. Their presence seemed to scream at her. Even in a bedroom of her own, it was too much like being stuffed into a group home with other gaeans.
She didn’t do well in groups.
Once evening fell, Deirdre slipped out the back door. She was too antsy to hold still and curiosity had finally gotten the better of her. She’d declined the official tour of the sanctuary, so she would just have to explore the werewolf city alone.
There wasn’t much to see. The sanctuary was very much like any other town Deirdre had lived in. It had all the same amenities—a community pool, lots of parks, some shopping downtown. The only difference was that the city center was deserted after dark. She was the only person exploring the various restaurants, shops, and public buildings.
That didn’t mean she was the only one awake, though. The forest, black in the depths of night, felt like it was alive. Like the trees were watching her.
All the nocturnal shifters must have been out exploring. The ones who hunted by the moon and preferred to catch a deer rather than eat with the pack at the dining hall in the mornings. She’d heard that they kept the forest stocked with prey animals, each of which was carefully tagged so that nobody would accidentally eat a stag shifter.
That was a luxury exclusive to the sanctuary. Elsewhere, there were federal laws against free hunting. Most shifters couldn’t afford the required licenses from the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
One more way the sanctuary shifters were dripping in privilege that the common people didn’t share.
It didn’t really matter to Deirdre. Not on a personal level. She felt no urge to be awake at night, so she didn’t think her animal was nocturnal. Nor did she long to hunt deer. She didn’t seem to be a predator.
But it was indisputably crap that someone like Gage could satisfy his animal instincts, whereas Jolene could not.
The rich nightlife of the sanctuary didn’t take place downtown, in any case. There was a bar—a “lounge,” a
ccording to the sign, which was probably meant to make it sound less trashy than a bar—but even that looked quiet. Deirdre couldn’t even hear music from the sidewalk outside. She was willing to bet that they wouldn’t have served her drinks there anyway. Everyone who was anyone was playing in the forest.
She didn’t see a single soul as she wandered around the city, unsure what she was looking for.
Deirdre didn’t want to socialize. She didn’t want drinks. She didn’t want to eat, either—Rylie had made sure she was fed.
She found herself by the dorms, which were a cluster of tall buildings constructed in the shadow of the mountain. They were gated in with black iron bars. The fence was about as friendly as wrought iron could look. It was obviously meant to protect shifter children from outsiders, just in case.
But there was still something very hostile about the dormitories. Even with the laughter of kids coming from the grounds. Even with the warm glow of lights from the windows.
Deirdre stood outside the gates and glared inside, hands jammed in her pockets.
Even the sanctuary’s group living facilities were nicer than the places she’d grown up.
She passed the fields where the shifter kids had been playing and finally found what she’d been looking for on the other side.
A gymnasium.
“Sweet,” she said, testing the doors. They were unlocked. No point in locking doors in shifter Utopia.
The sanctuary’s gym was big enough to hold a professional football game indoors, with a floor mostly covered in blue foam mats. There were a few pieces of exercise equipment around the room, like a couple Smith machines and some squat racks.
But the most interesting feature of the gym was the obstacle course that began with a fifty-foot climbing wall, near which harnesses were piled.
Everything a lonely Omega needed to distract herself.
Deirdre ignored the harnesses. She chalked both of her hands, patted them off again, surveyed the wall.
Fifty feet wouldn’t be bad. She could do fifty feet.
Pulling her t-shirt off over her head so that she only wore the tank top underneath, Deirdre did a couple of short stretches and then raced toward the wall.
