by Anya Nowlan
The lack of sleep was definitely starting to leave a mark on him, but they’d agreed with Ryker that he’d take the first shift of driving and Ryker the second. It was the middle of the night already and they needed to make it to safety before daybreak, before it would become easier for The Firm to utilize their endless collection of security cameras all over the nation to track them down.
Luckily, they knew exactly where they needed to go for that. It was what came after that was a bit fuzzy, the small town of Oakley in Nevada being their only real lead.
“I assume you mean The Arctics?” Kayla asked. “I heard the name being tossed around when you were talking about the missions.”
Rio had forgotten that she didn’t know all about The Firm’s history. She’d blended in so seamlessly with the crowd of violent cutthroats and ex-military fanatics that it was hard to think that she hadn’t been around for all of it.
Or maybe it’s just because you wish she was with you all the time.
“Yeah, The Arctics. Bunch of psychos we keep trying to out-psycho. Or at least that’s how it looks like to me half the time.”
“So why are you with The Firm if you don’t like it?” Kayla asked.
Her scent was mesmerizing. Even with Ryker snoring in the background, Rio’s senses were all tuned to her. Driving came automatically, he barely thought about it even though he was breaking the speed limit by at least thirty or so miles an hour. Good thing The Firm kitted out their cars with decent engines and brakes, even if the interior was left fairly utilitarian.
“I love it,” Rio said in earnest. “After we got kicked out of the SEALs, we didn’t really have anywhere else to go. We got recruited about a month out of active service. I was basically planning to blow up a Navy armaments warehouse and I’m pretty sure Ryker wanted to commandeer a tank and go joy-riding through Mexico. It was for the best that The Firm got to us before we could do either of those things.”
He grinned slightly. It was weird to think back to that time and the memories weren’t particularly warm or fuzzy.
“But… you talk about The Firm like it’s made up of psychopaths,” Kayla said, curling up on the seat a little and giving him a confused look.
“Yeah, psychos like me and Ryker,” Rio said, giving her a long look.
Her gaze didn’t break from his.
Good.
“Well, some of them are like us, anyway. Most are generally decent shifters, looking to put bread on the table and keep their families safe and secure. We do a lot of stuff in The Firm that the governments can’t, so most of our work is not something that should ever be discussed or witnessed. But because of that, there’s a lot of room for the sick and the twisted among the ranks and Ryker and I fit in perfectly.”
“You’re saying that like you think you’re some sort of a monster,” Kayla said, snorting.
Rio couldn’t help but give her another long look. The smile that broke on his lips came a second too late, he couldn’t turn it into a joke as well as he would have liked to.
“Well, maybe we are.”
“No, you’re not,” Kayla said resolutely, yawning softly.
“How do you figure?”
“No monster would go to these lengths to save a boy he can’t tell apart from Adam.”
“It’s not like that for shifters. Kids come first,” Rio argued, but it sounded a bit flimsy even to his ears.
“I know that. But you haven’t even seen him. No, I’ve seen monsters and I’m pretty sure you work for one, but you and Ryker are not like that. You may think you are, but you’re not.”
“I’ll just have to take your word for it,” Rio said with a chuckle.
“You better,” Kayla shot back, grinning.
Rio glanced at her and then back to the road, shaking his head slightly. There were far too many emotions to work through now that she was suddenly in the picture again. It wasn’t a bad thing by any means but he did wish that he could just get a damn moment to sit down and think in quiet.
All he had right now was the chance to act on his emotions, leaving rationality behind. In his heart, he knew that she had been brought back to him and Ryker for a reason and there was no way in hell they were going to let Rhamos and Rylen down, regardless of whether they’d ever have any sort of a role in the boys’ lives past that. For now, he would just have to work off of instinct and hope for the best.
On an emptier stretch of road, he reached his hand for Kayla, snaked it behind her neck and pulled her into him. She gasped and it was the sweetest little sound he’d ever heard.
“I think it’s a miracle that you were brought back to us,” he said, his voice low and hushed. “And I can only promise you that I’ll try to do whatever I can that you’d never feel pain again.”
She didn’t have a response to that, or at least he didn’t let her give him one. Instead, Rio kissed her on the lips, hard and wanting, their tongues dancing together for a moment before he had to let her go and look back out on the dark highway, dotted with the occasional glow of passing headlights.
Whatever it takes, she has to be safe. She and the kids… That’s all that matters.
Making that come true could be a lot harder than he could anticipate, though.
Fifteen
Ryker
Ryker had switched places with Rio about an hour ago. His younger twin was now fast asleep on the backseat just like he had been before, though Rio’s snoring was more of a murmur compared to his own violent racket.
Kayla was curled up and napping as well and the road was long, endless and seemingly empty this late in the night, or close to dawn, however one decided to look at it. The sun was beginning to slowly rise in the horizon and the first soft rays lapped at the mostly flat grounds around them.
It was supposed to be peaceful. Ryker felt anything but that.
His grip on the steering wheel was a little bit too tight and his shoulders just a tad too hunched. He wasn’t relaxed, not one bit. Within him, a storm was brewing, one that he hadn’t felt before.
All his life, he had been the one in control of his emotions, who could look at situations rationally and make the right decisions for himself and his brother, and more often than not the team they were with. Yet for the last few days, he had felt almost headless, controlled entirely by his emotions and instincts instead of the rational beast he had been growing for decades within him. It was troubling to say the least.
This is not the right time to go through some sort of an existential crisis, Ryker, he thought to himself.
Ryker was torn from his thoughts by Kayla stirring beside him. She yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes, looking around hazily.
“Are we getting close?” she asked.
“Close enough, yeah. We can’t go to Oakley yet. If there’s even the smallest chance that someone would recognize us – and it’s hard for me and Rio to remain unnoticeable in a town likely run by werewolves – then we could be risking Rhamos’ life. We need to see what’s on that memory stick you swiped and make a plan.”
“So where are we going?” she asked, a little bit confused.
Ryker grinned.
“We have a friend around here. He’s exactly the kind of guy you want on your side when you’re running from the rest of the world.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Kayla said, stretching.
Fumbling around in the little compartment by the stick shift, Ryder produced a chocolate bar and a bottle of water.
“You need to eat something. You won’t be any use to anyone if you collapse.”
“Thanks,” she said, accepting his meager offering.
Ryker had changed places with Rio in a little gas station, filling up the tank and grabbing something to eat as well. Kayla had slept right through it and neither one of them had had the heart to wake her up. She just looked so damn peaceful when she was asleep and peace of mind was something that was becoming increasingly rare on their little excursion.
She unwrapped the candy
bar and took a bite, letting out a happy little moan as the chocolate and nougat hit her tongue. Ryker chuckled. She’d always loved her chocolate and he’d always loved listening to her eat it.
“Nothing’s changed, huh,” he commented lightly.
“Well, some things haven’t, I guess,” Kayla shot back, taking another bite. “But I think we’d both be liars if we tried to claim that nothing has.”
“That’s true enough,” Ryker agreed, nodding faintly.
“I wonder if Rylen’s still…” Kayla started, never finishing her sentence.
Ryker reached a hand for hers and grabbed her, feeling her warmth in his palm.
“He’ll be fine. We’ll be in time.”
I hope.
“I wish there’d been another way to do this than by leaving him there,” she said and Ryker couldn’t have agreed more.
But he knew that this was the only way that they would have a shot. The Firm didn’t move fast enough and it had been obvious that Spade wasn’t really interested in saving the child of someone belonging to Shifter Squad Nine. While they were his ‘personal’ team, Ryker made no illusions about how thin the ice was on the relationship between the squad and the man who chose to humor them. It was either make a desperate effort themselves or sit around and wait for a miracle.
Ryker had been around long enough to know that the only miracles he could depend on were the ones he created for himself.
“We’ll make it up to him,” Ryker promised.
He wished he could believe it as resolutely as he’d made it sound.
Slicking his tongue over his teeth, he exhaled deeply, allowing some of the tension to seep out of his shoulders. Talking to Kayla served as an immediate reminder that his own personal heartaches and worries were not paramount here. She came first, her and the two boys he’d barely even come to rationalize into existence.
“You know, I think I sort of knew we had kids out there, somewhere,” he said suddenly, glancing at Kayla.
“Yeah?” she asked, frowning.
Ryker nodded, staying quiet for another moment as he mulled over the thought.
“There’s some sort of a connection that forms, I guess, regardless of time and space. I don’t know if it’s a parent-child thing or a shifter-child thing but I remember being in basic training, running obstacle courses all day and faceplanting into some mud because I felt the universe shift suddenly. It was the same for Rio, but he fucking fell off a ten-foot wall he was scaling, losing his grip. We thought we were both losing our minds. But I think the timeline matches up to when you gave birth.”
“May 21st,” she said softly, that maddening blue gaze of hers flicking to the scenery passing by them. “That’s when I had them.”
“May 21st,” Ryker echoed, letting that thought seep in. “Yeah, that was it. I wish I’d been there.”
“I wish you’d been there too,” she said, smiling sadly.
He squeezed her fingers, still locked with his, and they stayed quiet for a few minutes. There was so much he’d missed out on and so much that he had to make up for. The thought that he might never get a chance to stung like a hot barb but it was just another thing that he couldn’t focus on, that he couldn’t think about in fear of allowing it to consume him entirely.
“So what are they like?” he asked. “I know it’s been a while but shifter babies tend to have a ton of personality at an early age already. So tell me about them… If that’s okay,” he rushed to add.
He could see tears brimming in Kayla’s eyes. He realized how much there was that he didn’t know about her. Yet, none of it seemed to matter. Every touch, every look, every second together seemed to confirm what his lion had known from the start, and what he as a man should have fought for harder to keep a hold of.
That she was his mate. That whether she knew it or not, she was the only woman who could ever make him and Rio into anything more than violent, efficient and completely deadly killing machines. That even if she wasn’t ready for it, her own fate was tied to theirs as much as theirs to hers and their only happiness could come through one another.
You’re a fucking idiot for ever letting her get so far away from you, Ryker.
He didn’t particularly need the reminder but it was there none the less.
“It’s okay,” Kayla said with a nod, wiping away the single tear that had rolled down her left cheek before Ryker could do it for her. “Rhamos is the calmer one. He’s quiet and sort of intense, always has been. I guess he reminded me of you a little bit. He has this big, heart-shaped mole on his neck that I used to tell them apart when they were just born. And he was strong, he started breaking out of everywhere when he was barely supposed to be able to crawl. Rylen, of course, followed him without question.”
“That’s my boy,” Ryker said, more than a little bit of pride in his voice.
She rolled her eyes and they both laughed. Ryker conjured up an image of the baby lion cub making a break from his crib, with his trusty sidekick by his side. It made his heart throb with the oddest mixture of happiness and intense sadness.
“And Rylen… He is the wild one. He’s so fast, you have no idea. He couldn’t quite outrun me yet but I’m sure he could now. No one warns you about how fast those shifter babies grow up, you know? I know parents keep complaining that their kids grow up way too fast but shifter kids really do. He is a chatterbox too, won’t shut up, won’t stop asking questions. I loved it. He used to drive my mother insane while Rhamos would just observe and kind of smirk at my mom’s mounting frustration at being unable to answer all of those questions.”
“Rio used to be the same way. Wouldn’t shut up. Still doesn’t,” Ryker commented.
“Yeah, I figured that there was a lot of both of you two in them,” Kayla said, and Ryker could feel her gaze on him, lingering for a moment.
Ryker nodded, smiling, as he turned off the highway and took a small side-road that turned from asphalt to dirt within a mile. There wasn’t a single signpost up promising any sort of civilization nearby.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Kayla asked, sitting up a bit straighter and taking a sip of the water, a delicate frown creasing her features.
“Oh yeah. If there’s one thing you’ll learn about Sy, it’s that if the place starts looking like an old abandoned mine of some sort, then you’re probably getting real close to where he’s hanging out,” Ryker said with a chuckle.
“Are we here?” Rio asked, his voice a bit broken from the sleep as he hiked himself up on an elbow and then popped up to sit.
“Almost,” Ryker said, turning off the last stretch of what could have been called a road.
Dawn was breaking rapidly now and the area they were in was mostly flat and lifeless, just dust for miles and miles, with the occasional hill and a spread of mountains in the distance. Going by memory, Ryker hoped he had the right place. He squinted slightly, leaning forward as he headed straight toward what looked like no more than a small hill of dirt and dust.
He brought the truck to a stop right before it and Kayla looked at him like he was crazy.
“Is this it?” she asked.
“Nope,” Ryker said, smiling a wide, toothy grin as the ground rumbled around them and the truck suddenly jerked forward about a foot before being swallowed up whole, beginning to sink into the dust and sand.
Sixteen
Kayla
“Holy shit,” Kayla murmured as the truck travelled down an industrial-sized lift, fashioned out of an elevator platform that looked like something they would use in an underground mine.
She rolled down the window and stuck her head out, looking up only to see the faint rays of the sun that had been lighting the grounds disappear as the ceiling closed up above them. This was like something straight out of a Bond movie and she wasn’t exactly sure how she was supposed to react to this.
“Sy really hasn’t changed, huh,” Rio commented as the truck came to a stop about a minute later and Ryker pushed open his door.
“Nope, doesn’t seem like he has,” the other werelion replied with a grin.
Kayla undid the buckle on her seatbelt and slipped out of the truck as well, feeling the soreness in her legs as she stretched from the long drive. Ryker was already heading down the few steps of stairs in the literal cave they’d been brought to, lit with fluorescent lights that ran the distance of the seemingly endless space.
It looked more like an industrial/military garage than anything else. As far as the eye could see, Kayla could count tanks, armored vehicles, trucks, ground-moving equipment and contraptions she couldn’t even name. This looked like a mechanic’s wet dream and she could see why Ryker was so damn excited to be here.
The tall man walking toward Ryker was just a few inches shorter than he was and built much the same, looking like he could withstand at least a few armageddons if he had to.
“As I live and fucking breathe. If it isn’t the Tyren twins,” the man – Sy, if Kayla had to guess – said, pulling Ryker into a tight and enthusiastic bear-hug.
“In the flesh,” Ryker parried, meeting the hug as Rio put his hand on the small of Kayla’s back and they walked down the stairs as well.
The physical contact felt good. She wished she was in the right frame of mind to really enjoy it.
“So what brings you here?” Sy asked, frowning a little as he released Ryker. “I assume this isn’t a social call. Ma’am,” he said, noticing Kayla now and taking off his ragged ballcap and reaching out a hand to her.
It was grimy and a bit oily, but Kayla wasn’t exactly the picture of cleanliness and order after her sleepless nights and two intercontinental flights.
“Kayla. You must be Sy. Nice to meet you,” she said, smiling.
“That I am. And likewise. Any friend of Ryker’s and Rio’s is a friend of mine,” he said with a nod, the frown returning to his brows. “Okay, now I’m really worried. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
