by Amelia Jade
Holding her breath, Caia eased to her left to get a better view of the person getting out of the truck.
The tall man, clearly a shifter, kept his back to her for the longest time, until he was halfway back to the cabin. Then he turned, pointing something in his hand at the truck. The vehicle beeped twice. It was a long time after that Caia realized it had been keys in his hand. She was too focused on who it had been.
That was Kent, the Opal Alpha!
“Holy hell,” she whispered to herself. The Sapphires were sheltering the Opals! That’s why they needed six new cabins, to house the six shifters who had escaped from the fight at the Tongue & Flame two weeks ago.
Now who else was in that cabin with him? Caia needed more information. Moving as quickly as she dared, she made her way around the wide perimeter of the clearing. It took her twenty painstaking minutes until she was within a quick dash of the building. Taking a deep breath, she looked around, and not seeing anyone, ran hunched over from the clearing until she was crouched down behind the cabin.
None of the windows were open, however, so she couldn’t hear what was going on inside. Moving to the side of the cottage, she hoped for a better chance there, but the weather once again betrayed her. With the temperature dropping, all the windows were closed.
Debating her options, Caia decided to creep away to bring the information back to Gabriel, but before she could, the door opened and Kent re-emerged. This time he was followed by Shia, the Sapphire second. Caia had seen his face in the crew profiles before, and also in person the day she and Gabriel had first stormed the Sapphire apartments. His bald head and big bushy beard would have been a dead giveaway if she hadn’t immediately known who it was.
“This batch should have all of the side effects minimized,” he was saying, holding up a brick-sized object. It looked to be a bag wrapped in tape, though she wasn’t completely certain.
“We’ll see,” Kent said, his voice almost a snarl. “You promised us that the last time, and look what happened. We’re hiding out here because the shit you sold us was fucked!”
Shia just rolled his eyes. “Nobody forced you to take it Kent. And nobody forced you to take double the dose either. So don’t go blaming us for your idiocy.”
They were talking about drugs. Caia’s heart hammered in her chest as she realized that she and Gabriel had been right all along with their hypothesis. Now all she had to do was tell Gabriel and let his shifters do the work.
While the two shifters continued to argue on the front steps, she backed away slowly, aiming to disappear back into the brush.
“Leaving so soon?”
Caia froze as a leering face she recognized all too well walked around the corner of the cottage.
Chapter Thirteen
Gabriel
It was three thirty. Caia still hadn’t called.
“Where the hell is she?” he growled, staring at his phone.
“Maybe she’s just busy with things?” Raphael suggested from where he was perched on the edge of his own desk in the Stone Bear office.
“That’s not like her. She’s extremely organized and efficient. She doesn’t run late. And if she was, she’d still have let me know. I don’t like it,” he said angrily, pacing up and down the length of the office.
He took out his phone one more time and glared at it, as if his anger could make it ring. It defied him yet again, so he tossed it down on the desk and did another lap around the office. When he neared the desk, he snatched it up once again and double-checked to ensure it hadn’t gone off in his absence.
“You have the volume set to full,” Uriel said calmly from behind his desk. “If it goes off, you’ll hear it.”
“Just call her already!” Raphael urged, tiring of Gabriel’s antics.
“Fine,” he grunted, caving in to their repeated desires for him to call her so that he would stop worrying so much.
He punched the button and the phone started dialing.
“Fuck!” he roared a few seconds later, throwing the phone down once more.
“What now?” Raphael said with a sigh.
“Straight to voicemail. Something isn’t right. I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth this morning, but I wanted to respect her, to give her the benefit of the doubt. Dammit, I knew I should have insisted that she tell me what the hell she was actually up to.”
Gabriel wanted to hit something, but he also didn’t want to have to repair the damage that would cause. That just made him even madder, knowing he couldn’t take out his rage by destroying something.
“Pick up the phones,” he said, stabbing a finger at his fellow Stone Bears.
“And do what with them?” Raphael asked, not moving. He was senior to Uriel, and much more willing to stand up to Gabriel when he was barking orders.
“Call the crews. Tell them to go home early so that we know there won’t be any calls for pickups. Then three of us are going for a drive,” he said nastily, snatching up the phone on his own desk and putting action to words.
“Now!” he roared as both Raphael and Uriel looked at him skeptically. They glanced at each other, and then sorted out who would call whom, and began to dial.
“Gabriel?” Uriel called.
He looked up, frowning at the other shifter. Uriel was holding the phone out with a puzzled look on his face.
“Yes?”
“Nobody is answering the Sapphire shaft phone,” he said tentatively.
Because the shifters worked deep in the mines, cell phones would be of no use to them. Instead, they carried a portable landline that stayed with the Alpha in whatever section he was working on that day. If the shifters were in the mines, they would answer it. The phone was connected to several flashing lights as well, to alert the shifters that a call was incoming.
“Interesting,” Gabriel said aloud. “Neither Caia, who I’ve tried to call several more times, nor Ben and the Sapphires are answering their phones. Either of you two believe in coincidences that big?”
He saw from the answering looks on their faces that neither of them thought Gabriel was overreacting anymore. They had the serious, drawn looks that the trio usually exhibited when they were retrieving a dragon stone.
“Sapphire apartments. Let’s go,” he said, and neither of them hesitated in following him out the door.
The bulked-up and heavily armored truck they normally used for transporting stones seemed the logical choice, and as Gabriel brought it to a halt in front of the Sapphire apartment building, he only wished that there were more than just the three of them piling out. The Sapphires numbered over a dozen, and though the Stone Bears were extremely well-trained, the weight of sheer numbers would play a factor. There had been no time for backup to arrive, though he had notified the shifters he trusted that something was going down.
“I have a feeling we’re going to find this empty,” he said quietly as they piled out of the truck. “But we’ll go in quietly, just in case. Me, Uri, Raph,” he said, pointing at each shifter in turn to indicate his desired order.
The desk in the lobby was devoid of any lookout, which all but confirmed Gabriel’s suspicion that nobody would be home.
“Stairs,” he ordered, and they proceeded upward.
They stopped at each floor and fanned out, inspecting for any signs of life. “Clear,” Uriel reported shortly before Raphael returned from his sweep of the fourth floor. Gabriel looked up. They only had one floor left to go, but he was convinced by this point that they would find it empty.
Moments later, the three shifters regrouped in front of the elevator. Raphael and Uriel both shook their heads, indicating they hadn’t found any signs of life.
“Fuck,” he said into the silence, straightening and leaning against the wall. “Where the hell are they then? Try their shaft phone again,” he said to Uriel before either of them could respond, then turned and headed back down the hallway to Ben’s room.
He turned it over completely, opening drawers and moving pictures, searching
for any sign of information on their whereabouts.
“Gabe?” Raph said softly from the doorway.
“What?” he snarled, turning to face his second-in-command.
“I think I have an idea about where the Sapphires—”
The elevator dinged before he could finish.
Two sets of eyes met briefly in surprise, and then they took off down the hallway.
The only thought going through Gabriel’s mind was for his team.
Uriel.
They rounded the corner—the corridor was laid out in a U-shape—moments after they heard Uriel shout in surprise, followed by the sounds of a fight. When they got into sight of their comrade, Gabriel immediately slowed to a walk, a proud smile on his face.
Uriel was standing on his feet, the only thing out of place the cell phone lying on the floor. But it was the sight of Evan Mosier pinned up against the wall looking somewhat worse for wear that brought a smile to Gabriel’s face.
“Well I’ll be,” he said, sauntering forward. “Now what brings you of all people to a place like this, on a day like today?” he asked, smiling wickedly as Evan’s face crumpled at the realization that Gabriel knew something was up.
Still, he didn’t immediately speak up, which was enough to arouse Gabriel’s anger again.
“I have it from here,” he told Uriel, giving his junior-most man a pat on the shoulder in recognition of a job well done.
Evan snarled as Gabriel approached. “What is the—”
The Stone Bear’s hands clamped closed on the smaller shifter’s shoulders and whirled him around. Raphael went ducking out of the way into an open room as Gabriel launched Evan down the hall, the sheer strength of his throw sending Evan right through the flimsy drywall into the room behind it.
“Where is she?!” he yelled, storming through the new hole in the wall and picking the stunned shifter off the floor with one rage-powered hand and delivering a vicious left-hand to Evan’s face.
The Ridgeback had been caught so off guard by the violence of the attack that he didn’t have a chance to defend himself. Gabriel reached down, grabbed his collar with both hands this time, and hurled Evan back into the hallway.
“Tell me!” he snapped, his leg landing a brutal kick to Evan’s side as his anger raged unabated.
“What,” Evan began to speak, raising a hand to ward off any future attacks as he hacked and coughed, trying to recover his breath. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he managed to get out several moments later as Gabriel stood over him, trembling with restrained energy and anger.
“Caia. She’s gone missing. So have the Sapphires. Where are they?” he said, his voice turning into a full roar as he bent down and hoisted Evan to his feet, then slammed him backward into the elevator door. “I know you know where they are!”
“Ow!” Evan yelped. “Let me talk, dammit! I’m not one of them.”
“Bullshit,” Gabriel snarled, but he dropped the fist he had cocked back.
“Despite what you might think, I’m not,” Evan said once more, glaring at Gabriel through the rapid swelling of his left eye.
“Just tell me where they took her.”
“Well, considering I don’t know for sure that they even took her, I don’t know where they are. But,” he said, raising a hand, “I can hazard a guess where they might be. Although kidnapping Caia would be one of the stupidest things they have ever done.” Evan looked thoughtful as he spoke. “Then again, we all do stupid things on occasion.”
“Where?” Gabriel said, his patience almost gone.
“Their property outside of town.”
Gabriel frowned. “There’s nothing there. It’s just forest. Besides, they aren’t allowed to live out there. It’s only supposed to be for one or two of them to go at a time to keep their bears happy.” He shook his head, taking a menacing step closer to Evan. “Try again.”
“I’ve been out there, you oversized idiot. They’ve been building things out there for six months. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“What were you doing out there?” Raphael asked, stepping into the conversation at last. “Was that where they make the drugs you’re selling for them?” Gabriel had told his team about the suspicions he and Caia held, but he hadn’t wanted to reveal what they knew just yet.
The reaction from Evan, however, was the complete opposite of what he had expected when the topic was brought up.
“Selling?” the shifter all but yelped. “Fuck no. I don’t do anything for them. I’ve been trying to get them to stop, ever since—”
He cut himself off abruptly, crossing his arms and refusing to speak anymore, even when Gabriel threatened him.
The head of the Stone Bears stepped closer.
“Tell me what else you know,” he said. His smile made it clear he hoped Evan didn’t cooperate.
Chapter Fourteen
Caia
“This is really one of the stupider ideas you’ve ever had, Ben,” she said in disbelief. “I mean, you must at least recognize that, don’t you?”
“It’s not, actually,” the Sapphire Alpha replied, much more calmly than she liked. “Once the next batch is done, you’ll see what.”
“The next batch of what?” she asked suspiciously, trying to feign ignorance. After Ben had caught her snooping around the Sapphire territory—apparently she had been spotted and followed for almost half of her journey—he had escorted her to a large building she hadn’t noticed before, one large enough to house all of the Sapphires. Handcuffs around her wrists and ankles had reduced any hope of escape, so she had spent her time looking around. There was still an entire portion of the building she hadn’t seen, but Caia had already deduced that it must be where the drugs were being made.
“It doesn’t matter,” Ben said, his voice serene, as if everything were going to plan.
“You must have your entire crew out here,” she said, having counted numbers of individual shifters and come up with close to his entire crew, including the half dozen Opal members living there in exile.
“They are. Even those who don’t agree, but know better. Every single one of them is here, because they listen to me.”
“Hoo boy. Easy there Caesar,” she said mockingly.
“Enough!” he snarled.
“You know who I haven’t seen,” she said conversationally. “Your liaisons. Where are Nash and Olivia? Aren’t they supposed to be following you around? Or did you kill them too?” She spat the last part as an insult, but it didn’t faze Ben. In fact, he simply laughed.
“Olivia is on her way home to see dear old dad, who is dreadfully sick, and Nash, well. Let’s just say his leg is going to need some time to heal.” His eyes fixed Caia with a stare that sent shivers down her spine. “I don’t intend to kill everyone you know. Just those who insist on meddling in my business.”
“How did you manage to break Nash’s leg without him realizing it?”
Ben smiled again. “You humans are so fragile. All it took was a little clumsiness on my part, and I happened to fall against dear old Nash’s leg.” He shrugged. “Whoops.”
Caia shook her head at his casual attitude. “Well, since you seem intent on killing me, at least tell me what the hell is going on. I don’t believe for a second that selling this drug—whatever it is—is your end game.” She dropped her pretense of not knowing what the Sapphires were doing out here, hoping the fact that she knew more than he would have liked might convince Ben to see reason.
Unfortunately, like everything else she tried, it seemed to have no effect.
“What I’d really like to know,” she pressed, “is how you managed to take so many of the big players out of the game. Neutralizing the dragons? That’s a pretty bold move for a bear shifter, don’t you think?” she asked.
There was a brief flickering of surprise and something else almost like fear deep within Ben’s eyes, but then he clamped down on it. His reaction was almost as heartening as it was frightening, as Caia thought through what it
meant.
Ben had been unaware until she spoke about whatever it was that was keeping the Kedyns and Ferro from becoming involved. That meant that he wasn’t the mastermind of everything that had been going on in Genesis Valley. Someone else was... someone who was controlling the most powerful shifters, and quite possibly the entire Sapphire crew as well. Ben was just another player, and one not trusted enough to be aware of everything that was going on. To cap it all off, he was scared by that sudden knowledge as well.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
“Shut up,” he snarled. “Malcom, take her outside,” he said, motioning to one of the Sapphires in the room. “Put her by the fire. We don’t want her getting cold,” he said harshly.
“Who are you working for, Ben Groll?” she shouted, struggling with her bonds as Malcom forced her to her feet.
“I work for no one,” he snapped. “We do this on our own.”
“Who gave you the recipe for the drug?” she yelled back over her shoulder.
Fingers snapped, and Malcom paused in his efforts to haul her outside.
“What do you know?” he asked, peering into her eyes as she looked at him defiantly.
Caia’s brain was working on overdrive as his eyes searched hers.
What was it that I just said that got to him? It had to be something about the recipe, because I’d already mentioned the drug, and he didn’t even blink then. Why is he so concerned about the recipe? Could a copy of it have leaked? Oh shit.
Caia fought back another blow of terror as she realized what it was that had Ben on edge.
“Holy hell,” she said, her gaze stiffening as she took the upper hand in their staring contest. “You don’t even make the stuff, do you? Someone else gives it to you. All you do is sell it to lowlifes like Evan and Kent.” Caia closed her eyes. “You’ve fucked up so badly Ben. So badly.”
“Enough!” His backhand caught her across the chin, snapping her head back and leaving her seeing stars. At least he held back, a part of her thought. Otherwise her neck would have broken under the blow, and whoever was supplying Ben with his drugs would have been the least of her worries.
