by Amelia Jade
The shifter didn’t stand a chance. The look of shock in his eyes as Gabriel loomed over him without warning was good enough to win him an award if it wasn’t real.
“Hi,” he said jovially to the stunned man behind the desk. “Take your hands out from under the desk please,” he said just as politely when the Sapphire moved to activate what he assumed was some sort of alarm or warning system.
“Much better. Now, we’re going to go upstairs and see Ben. Just to have a talk with him, nothing crazy, I promise. If it was crazy, I’d have hauled you out from behind your desk already, trust me.” He let his eyes go all wide as he talked, trying to intimidate the other shifter a little more.
Caia, to her credit, was already summoning the elevator. He had expected to have to tell her to do so. Gabriel revised his opinion of her, and told himself to stop underestimating her all the time.
“While we go upstairs,” he said, continuing with the shifter. “You’re just going to sit here and do nothing. Do you know why?” he asked sweetly.
The terrified shifter shook his head violently.
“Because if you do warn him, then I’m going to get upset. And well,” he dropped his voice until it was just few degrees above freezing. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m upset.”
He could sense the eyeroll from Caia at the lame line, but it did have the desired effect. The other shifted nodded jerkily, his hands firmly placed on the desk in front of him.
“Remember,” Gabriel said over his shoulder, walking toward the elevator as it dinged and opened. “Don’t say a word!”
Caia spoke the instant the doors closed. “Do you ever feel you overdo the evil villain bit?”
“Really? I don’t even get a round of applause before you start to tear me down? I thought that was a great acting class. Besides, I’m not evil or a villain. I’m an enforcer, and they know it. I need to play that up, or else they don’t obey. Now Ben won’t be warned, which is exactly what we want.”
He punched the top floor button, knowing that Ben resided up there, and it would likely be where anything was hidden, though he intended to walk through the two levels below that one as well. The Sapphire building was five stories tall. The ground floor was the lobby, with nothing in it. The second floor was a pool and workout room, all glass. There was nowhere to hide anything there. He knew Ben wasn’t stupid enough to try and build something there to block it off either. No, if they were hiding something, such as the Opal crew that had gone missing, it would be in the upper floors.
Movement caught his eye.
“What are you doing?” he asked, giving Caia a funny look as she looked around the elevator. “It’s an elevator. Brown wood paneling on the walls, buttons here, doors there. What could you be looking for?”
“Stand over here. No, like this,” she said, maneuvering him until his back was against the side wall. “The doors are set more to this side. If you stand here, they won’t see you right away. Give me ten seconds then come out. It’ll give me a chance to see their relaxed attitude, and the change when you come around the corner.”
He tried to respond but the elevator shuddered to a halt, making several screeching creaking noises that did nothing to help with his confidence of its stability.
“Stay quiet,” she whispered, standing in front of the door.
The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Caia walked out, full of confidence, no trace of the doubt she had expressed earlier in her body language.
“Hi. Are you Ben?” he heard her ask. Obviously the Sapphires had realized someone was coming up. Gabriel wondered if the sentry had warned him anyway. If he had, he promised to ensure he regretted it.
“Yes,” came the growled reply. “Who are you and why are you here?”
“Now now, is that any way to address a lady?” she chided, not giving any ground.
Ben made a sound like a surprised grunt before he replied. “Depends on who the lady is, and why she’s in my home.”
“She’s with me,” Gabriel said, stepping around the corner.
There was no shock in Ben’s eyes. He must have been warned.
“Hello Gabriel. What brings you by today?”
“Just having a look around,” he said lightly, giving Ben his best predatory smile.
“Why? Did we do something wrong?”
“Always Ben. Always,” he said as if the other shifter should have known better. Gabriel pushed forward, shouldering the smaller shifter out of the way rather more roughly than was necessary.
“Okay, okay,” the Sapphire Alpha protested. “What do you want to see?”
“Your digs. I haven’t been here in a while. I’m sure you’re hiding all sorts of things in here that you shouldn’t be.”
“Like what?” Ben snorted. “I didn’t realize you were the police.”
“Actually that’s exactly what I am,” Gabriel told him. “And there’s been a lot of complaints about foul odors coming from here. So I’m here to ensure you’re flushing the toilets and not living in your own filth any more than usual.”
Ben made a noise that sounded very much like he didn’t believe a word Gabriel had just said, then turned and eased around Gabriel. “So, left or right?” he said, pointing down the halls.
Gabriel turned to face Caia. “Well, which do you prefer?”
He hoped she understood why he was asking her to decide. If she had seen anything in Ben’s body language that suggested he wanted to go one way instead of the other, she would go with the less-than-preferred one.
“I’m left-handed,” she said, “so let’s go left.”
Gabriel tried to keep a straight face. She was most definitely right-handed from what he had seen. He wondered if that meant she had seen something in Ben’s body language to indicate he would prefer they go right, to give his shifters time to hide evidence of something.
“Follow me,” Ben said, leading the way.
There were only four rooms on either side of the elevator. The first three were unoccupied and the trio made their way through them quickly. The fourth had an occupant who answered the door swiftly, and showed them through without hesitation.
Gabriel took one last look around that room and frowned. Perhaps Caia had been wrong in her reading of Ben after all. He wanted to ask her, but knew that Ben would overhear anything they had to say. It would have to wait until they were back in the elevator.
“Satisfied yet?” Ben asked.
“Not even close. Take us through the rest of the rooms,” Caia replied before Gabriel could say anything.
Gabriel just smiled at Ben’s raised eyebrows. He really liked her. She was strong and didn’t take anybody’s shit.
The trio worked their way between all eight rooms on the top three floors, and even scoured the second floor, but they found nothing.
“Okay, you’ve seen it all and wasted my day. It’s time you got out,” Ben said, gesturing at the elevator.
“Don’t miss us too much,” Gabriel told him as the doors closed between them.
“Anything?” he asked quickly once the elevator started moving. They only had one floor to go, so they wouldn’t be alone for long.
“At first, yes. But he seemed to calm down rather quickly. I don’t understand. He is hiding something. I just don’t know what.”
The elevator banged to a halt at the ground floor.
“Wait here,” Gabriel said, striding out the doors and toward the reception area.
“You!” he yelled, pointing at the shifter behind the desk.
The other man looked panicked and tried to turn and run away. Gabriel caught him before he’d gone a step, using his and the other man’s momentum to hurl him forward off balance.
“Gabriel!” he heard Caia’s shocked voice behind him as the lookout went crashing through a pane of glass into an empty room.
“I told you not to warn anybody,” he admonished his victim, who was just starting to get to his feet.
“Don’t do... ah shit,” Gabriel said, jumping
back out of the way as a big brown-and-gray mottled bear lunged at him from where the man had been just a moment before.
“Get outside!” he yelled at Caia, not turning away from the oncoming bear at all. “You’re a big fella, aren’t you?” he said lightly.
The bear launched itself at him, the ridge of its spine just inches below the ceiling.
Gabriel waited, arms spread wide and above his head. Once the bear was in full flight and committed, he slid to his left, just out of its reach. Then he brought his fist down as hard as he could on the other shifter’s nose as it went by. The bear squealed and curled into ball as it slid across the tiled floor and crashed through another wall.
A massive paw swatted at him as he stalked up to his prey. Once again using the momentum, Gabriel waited until it was almost at the apex of its swing and lunged in, wrapping his powerful hands around the paw and wrenching it sideways with bone-shattering force.
The hurt shifter trumpeted in pain once more, his jaws snapping at Gabriel as it labored to get its other paw at him. Calmly Gabriel sidestepped the biting teeth and drove his fist into the shifter’s head as hard as he could.
The bear collapsed, its head hitting the ground almost as hard as his fist had hit it. The eyes rolled back into its head and the bear stayed still.
“I told you not to warn him. But you had to go ahead and do so anyway, didn’t you?” he said, shaking his head in disgust.
“Ow,” he complained to himself, holding his left hand gingerly.
“Are you okay?” Caia asked as he walked toward her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just forgot how hard their damn skulls are. It’ll heal. Just fracture I think.”
“Do we need to get you to the hospital or something?” Caia looked far more worried about him than she should have.
“Did nobody tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“About a shifter’s healing abilities?”
Caia blushed. “Right. No, I knew that. It’s just that I’ve never seen one get into a fight before. Especially not where a shifter in human form takes on a bear. That was intense.”
“I thought I told you to go outside?” he asked, looking around.
“I was going to, but he didn’t seem to be a threat.”
“That could have been a good way to get hurt,” he told her.
“You fought him without changing. I needed to see if you were either competent or an idiot,” she fired back.
“And?”
“Both.”
Gabriel snorted. Then his eyes spied something going on out in front of the building.
“Listen, it won’t be long before the others come down to investigate. Go out the back, and take a cab home. Call it right now. See if you’re tailed, and if so, how far. I want to know if they’re worried about what we’re up to.”
“I thought I was going to canvass the area, see what I can pick up on the feelings of the non-shifters here?”
“Change of plans,” he told her. “Just go with it.”
“I don’t like plans changing,” she protested. “This is why we’re supposed to work together.”
“We are,” he said somewhat more vehemently than he meant to. “I trusted you in there; you trust me now.” The situation out in front of the building that he could see was developing quickly. He had to move. “Just do it.”
He left her standing there and headed out the doors. She would be fine, he thought, glancing back to ensure she was headed for the back doors. She was already moving, though he could tell by her body language she wasn’t overly happy about it. The street on the other side was arguably busier than the front, so she would be safe.
Gwen, on the other hand, was in a bit of trouble.
“Gabriel!” she called, spotting him a few seconds after he exited the building.
The other person with her followed her look and voice, noting very quickly who was striding rapidly toward him.
“Really James?” Gabriel said with annoyed disgust.
“I was just leaving, I promise.”
James was a Sapphire, and one of the worst of the lot in Gabriel’s opinion. Both of them knew he was lying through his teeth, but Gabriel didn’t want to risk Gwen getting hurt. She was too exposed if he tried to get violent with James.
“The next time I see you doing something like this, you’re going to severely regret it,” he promised, his voice deadly serious as he stared the other shifter down.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” James rushed out as he edged around Gabriel. “She was just lost and asking for directions.”
“Get out of here,” Gabriel said, taking a step toward James now that he was between the Sapphire and Gwen.
“Going,” James said and practically ran for the building.
“Thank you,” Gwen said.
He inclined his head. Gabriel was just glad he had recognized what was going on. Gwen had been at the Tongue & Flame the other day when the Opal crew had gone insane and tore the place down in their fight with the Emeralds. She was friends with Emma, who was also the person that Gabriel was about to go and meet.
After talking with Gwen, he realized she was headed to the same place, so he offered to drive her there. They didn’t talk much during the drive, and after they entered, he said his goodbyes and sought out Emma, joining her at her table.
“Hi,” he said, sitting down gently in the wire-backed chairs. They had an annoying tendency to break when a shifter sat in them, and he was determined not to have that happen to him today.
“Hey, thanks for meeting me somewhere peaceful this time,” Emma joked, waving over at her friend who was seated alone, talking to the waitress.
“Indeed. This is much better. Although I do enjoy a good fight, that was just ridiculous,” he agreed. The reason Gabriel had been at the Tongue & Flame had actually been to meet with Emma the first time. Unfortunately, they had never really had a chance in the aftermath of everything. So now they were finally having a meeting several days later.
“So, what did you want to see me about?” he asked, getting straight down to business. He didn’t want to be any longer than he had to before he called Caia to find out what had happened.
Emma nodded. “Evan.”
“What now?”
Evan was a member of the Ridgebacks. He was also one of the survivors of the first anomaly that had occurred within Genesis Valley. Originally Evan had been the Alpha of the Onyx crew. It was his first punch that had started the brawl between his crew and the Amethyst crew that had resulted in the deaths of so many bears and a few humans. The remains of those crews, against Gabriel’s recommendations, had been combined to form the Ridgebacks, and placed under command of a new Alpha.
Evan had not taken the stripping of his status very well. Gabriel knew that at first he had even kidnapped Emma when she was with Garrett, the new Ridgeback Alpha. Only Emma’s leniency had saved him from an immediate ending there.
Since then, it had been one thing after another with him. After he had messed up with Emma, he hadn’t done anything worthy of being ended, but he was a major thorn in the side of Garrett and the Ridgebacks.
“That’s just it,” Emma said. “He isn’t doing anything as far as we can see. But he’s been acting weird. He goes off on his own all the time, doing who knows what, and always seems to be skulking around.”
“Okay. That’s not much to go on,” Gabriel said.
“I know. But then last week, Trestin,” she motioned at the waitress talking to Gwen, “saw Evan come in and meet with Ben Groll.”
That got his attention.
“Really?”
“Yes. He apparently came in, spoke with Ben for a minute or two, then got up and left, and very shortly thereafter, Ben and the other Sapphire he was with left as well.”
“Unfortunately, that still doesn’t give us much to go on.” Gabriel was disappointed. He had hoped for more information to help him try and identify what was going on. It wasn’t Emma’s fault,
however. There was only so much she could do, and even just letting him know that Evan was on speaking terms with the Sapphires went a long way. Now he and Caia could follow Evan and see if they could pick up on something. It was at least a new angle, which is more than they had turned up at the Sapphire apartments.
Even as he thought of Caia offhandedly, his mind focused on her, bringing her to the fore.
“Listen, Emma, if there’s nothing more?” he said, raising an eyebrow in question.
“No, that’s all I had. Does it help you at all?”
“I think so. I’ll let you know though.” He rose from the table and left, hurriedly pulling his phone from his pocket.
He needed to hear her voice.
Chapter Four
Caia
“Gabriel?”
“Hi.”
“It’s about time you called! Where have you been?”
“In a meeting, like I told you. Is everything okay?”
She could hear the fierce note of protection in his voice and tried to deny the answering surge of delight that came from deep within her. She was not falling for him. She couldn’t, even if perhaps a sliver of her wanted to. It was out of the question. So she had to stop feeling giddy whenever he was around or talking to her.
“I’m fine. I just didn’t expect you to take that long, is all. I’ve been sitting back at the mansion for twenty minutes now.”
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t think I was that long. Did anyone follow you?”
“I think so.”
“What do you mean by that?” He didn’t sound angry, but he wanted clarification.
“A green truck followed us out of the city, but took a left as soon as we left the outskirts. So I’m not sure if it actually was following us, or just happened to be going the same way.”
