“Raina!” She grabbed the bars, then cried out as an electrical jolt zapped her. Cole caught her as she fell back, supporting her weight as she jolted back and forth between forms – bear, woman, bear, woman, bear, woman. The world around her melted into a haze, and she could hear Cole shouting her name, but she couldn’t actually make out what he was saying.
“Save Raina,” she choked out, or at least she tried – she couldn’t quite manage to get the words out when her mouth kept changing into a muzzle and back again. But Cole seemed to get the message – he laid her down on the concrete floor and rushed over to the cell. His voice washed over her as he chanted the unlocking spell, and she focused on the sound to try and anchor herself.
Focus. You at least have to focus long enough to see what’s going on.
She managed to hone her hazy vision in time to see the cell door swing open. Raina was straining against the chains, her eyes wild as she shouted Angela’s name. Her long, black hair, normally silky and oh-so-perfect, hung in unkempt hanks around her face, making her look like a crazy person, and Angela half-giggled, half-sobbed as she watched Cole get to work on the manacles.
“Well, well, look what we have here?”
Angela’s blood froze at the sound of Garrison’s voice. She tried to turn her head in the direction of his footsteps, but she couldn’t manage to move so she didn’t see him until he was almost atop her. Tears smarted in her eyes as she looked up at him – in some ways he looked so much the same, with his sandy brown hair and his cornflower blue eyes and his long, lean, almost gangly form. But those eyes, once filled with kindness, were icy cold, and that long, lean body of his had filled out a bit more and was dressed all in black, with a long leather duster flowing around him. Flanking him were two huge shifter men, also dressed in black and their heads shaven. They had flat faces with blocky features and merciless eyes that coated Angela’s heart in a layer of ice.
“My dear sister,” he said, crouching down beside Angela as his lips curved into a smile – a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m so glad you’ve come. You’ve made it just in time for the festivities.” He reached out to touch her face. “It’s just too bad you had to be so reckless as to touch the bars. You really should have known better.”
“Get away from her!” Cole shouted, rushing forward, but one of the shifters who’d accompanied Garrison had kicked the door shut with one of his boots. Rubber soled boots, Angela noted with some resentment. Why didn’t she just try kicking the door first?
Yeah, like that would have worked.
“I think you’ll find it significantly harder to get out than it was to get in,” Garrison said conversationally. He rose to his feet and slid his hands to his pockets as he strolled over to the cell. “I forced the last mage I captured to place a special seal around several of my cells that would prevent mages from being able to use their powers to get out.”
“You bastard,” Cole said hoarsely, his eyes wild as he stared at Garrison through the bars.
Garrison’s face purpled. “I. Am. NOT! A bastard,” he insisted, baring his fangs at Cole. “My parents were well and truly mated when they had me. It’s through no fault of theirs that they weren’t around to raise me.” True pain flickered in his eyes, and it was that pain that soothed the edges of Angela’s anger and reminded her that, whatever Garrison had done, he was hurting and needed to be helped. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more important matters to see to.”
He snapped his fingers, and his two bodyguards lifted Angela between them, carrying her as though she was on a stretcher – which was no mean feat since her body was still fluctuating. She struggled against him, but she couldn’t break out of the trap she was in, and all she could do was listen helplessly to Cole shouting for her as she was pulled from the room.
Chapter Thirteen
When Angela opened her eyes next, she was sitting in a high-backed brown leather swivel chair in a crescent shaped room that resembled something like a command center. In the center of the room were two rows of desks facing each other that were fully equipped with computers, several of which were manned. A large screen ran across the length of the far wall, with a map of San Francisco spread across it, and several areas were marked with bright red beacons – the precincts, Angela realized with dread.
“Ah, so you’re awake.”
Angela swiveled in her chair to see Garrison standing off to the right, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. His two bodyguards from before flanked him, as imposing as could be, and lending him an air of ‘evil mastermind’ that just seemed so wrong on the kind, gentle boy she’d grown up with.
“I am,” she agreed, and then looked down at her wrists and ankles, both of which were bound by spelled cuffs. “Though not under circumstances that I’d be agreeable with.”
“Yes, well I’m sure you’d rather be waking up next to that behemoth of a hybrid who you barged in here with.” Garrison’s brows drew together slightly. “I thought you had better taste, Angela.”
“I thought you had better morals.”
“My sense of justice is untarnished,” he hissed, taking a step forward. “What I do, I do for the good of all shifters.”
“What you do is about to get thousands of innocent people killed.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Garrison said, waving a hand. “At least not right now. That’s why I brought you here, you know. So that you could witness the glory of my first victory for yourself, and understand what it is that drives me.”
“Is that why you kidnapped Raina?” Angela demanded. “Because you knew that I would come, and you wanted me to witness your madness?”
Garrison chuckled. “You always were so very smart,” he told her. “The fact that Raina is the Commander’s daughter certainly was part of it though, and I was hoping that the Commander might turn himself in to me. But that wasn’t going to put a stop to my plans to annihilate the precincts.” He turned toward the map displayed on the wall. “Getting rid of the Order is a necessary step to riding this world of the filth, and suppression spread around by the mages.”
Angela opened her mouth to tell Garrison that he was crazy, but she knew it wasn’t going to do any good, so she tried a different tack instead. “Mom misses you, you know.”
Garrison paused. “Does she now?” he asked carefully.
“She cried on my shoulder today and asked me to bring you home.” Angela allowed the tears to shine through her own eyes as she looked up at her brother. “Dad said the same thing. We all miss you, Garrison. We miss having you around, and we’re tired of the constant worry and fear we go through every time we wonder where you are, and what you’re up to and whether or not you’re going to wind up dead someday.”
“Is that so?” Garrison said softly.
“It is so,” Angela said defiantly, not at all liking the way Garrison was looking at her, as though she were a bug and he was about to crush her ruthlessly.
“If that’s so true,” Garrison said, “then why is it that mom and dad have never once tried to visit me?”
“I – ”
“Why is it that they’ve never once come to check up on me and see how I’m doing, especially since they clearly know how to find me?”
“Garrison, that’s not – ”
“Fair?” he said bitterly, his eyes bright, his cheeks high with color. “No, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that while I’m out here putting my life on the line, doing all this good work, that my foster parents who claim to love and miss me so much, can’t do so much as drop me a line. Because they’re scared of what I’m doing. They can’t condone it. They’re too afraid to do anything except sit there on their hilltop home with their tails between their legs instead of taking this world back from the mages.”
“You know, it’s funny that you say you hate the mages so much,” Angela said through gritted teeth, “Since you clearly have no problem using spelled items, or hiring one to put down protective spells on pieces of your propert
y.
Garrison simply shrugged. “What can I say? Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire.” He turned toward the map and snapped his fingers. “Let’s get scene one on screen.”
The screen briefly flickered, and then a live feed of the southern precinct began to play. Angela swallowed her horror as she saw people she knew walking in and out of the building, going about their everyday business. Quite a few of them were Protectors, of course, but many were civilians, and they were going to get caught in the crossfire.
“You can’t do this,” she told Garrison, lifting both her hands to point at the screen. “That woman going into the building, she’s a shifter. You’ll kill her.”
“Yes, well, I can’t help it that she’s chosen to ally herself with the Order, can I?” Garrison’s face was stone cold as he stared at the screen. “She made her choice, and now it’s time for her to face the consequences. Give the go ahead,” he barked to one of the shifters sitting at a console.
“All clear,” the man said, speaking into a headset, and Angela watched in horror as a loud explosion blew out all the windows of the precinct, setting the entire building aflame.
* * *
“I don’t know why you’re wasting your energy trying to get these off me,” Raina muttered. “We should be saving our strength until an opportunity to escape presents itself.”
“By the time that happens, the entire Order in San Francisco could be annihilated.” Cole could hardly believe he was lecturing an actual Protector, never mind a mage, about this, but then again she had been trapped down here for awhile. “We don’t have time to wait.”
He closed his eyes and concentrated, moving his magic through the metal as he searched for the weak point. Finally he found it, and the shackles popped open with a satisfying clack, allowing Raina to slump down to the floor for the first time.
“God,” she gasped. “That feels so much better.” She just lay there for a few moments, soaking up the feeling of not having her joints constantly struggling under the pressure of her body weight.
“No time for that,” Cole said, nudging her with his foot. “We’ve got to get out of this cell.”
“And how exactly do we do that?” Raina asked, struggling to her aching feet. “I’ve tried prodding at the bars, and their impossible to break through with the spell on them.”
“Yes, well you’re approaching the problem all wrong,” Cole said briskly. “It’s not about attacking the cell, it’s about attacking the spell itself that’s sealing us in.” He clasped hands with her. “My magic is just different enough that I should be able to do it, but I’ll need a boost from you to make it happen.”
Raina looked up into his eyes. She could see that he was both determined and sincere. A thousand questions blazed on the tip of her tongue, but there was only one that really mattered right now. “You’re sure this is going to work?”
“It had better, or else we’re fucked.”
“Good point.”
Raina sucked in a breath and closed her eyes so she could concentrate. Letting out her breath slowly, she flowed her magical energy into him and allowed him to start pulling on it, binding it with his own into the spell that he was chanting. She could feel the power building in the air all around them, concentrating into one small, brightly lit ball that pulsed, faster and faster and faster, until it exploded like a supernova, ricocheting in all directions. Some of it passed through Raina, leaving her jittery and breathless, but the rest of it went straight through the containment spell, and she could feel it shatter like glass.
When she opened her eyes again, Cole was already working at the lock. He turned to look at her dumbfounded expression, his own grim as the door swung open behind him. “Let’s get moving.”
* * *
Cole ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, throwing all caution and stealth to the wind, as he hurtled through the corridors with Raina hot on his heels. Every single shifter they came across was simply blasted away, either by Cole or Raina, with a combination of magic and brute force bleeding, with aggression and anxiety. Heart-pumping fear raced through Cole’s veins, fear for San Francisco, fear for the success of the mission – but really, most of all, fear for Angela.
When he’d watched them drag her away earlier, without knowing if he would ever see her again, he’d realized that he was completely, irrevocably in love with her. And that, more than ever, it was paramount he get to tell her that before it was too late.
“No,” he heard Angela sobbing as he approached a set of double doors. “No, Garrison, you can’t! Please, I’ll do anything!”
A red haze burst over Cole’s vision as he barreled through the doors. Every person in the room turned to look at them, all wearing varying degrees of shock on their faces, especially Garrison, who didn’t look at all happy to see him. Up on the screen spread across the wall was a live feed of Angela’s precinct, and a cold certainty settled upon him as he realized what Garrison was up to.
“It’s too late for you to stop me now!” Garrison yelled wildly, pointing at one of the shifters at the desks. “Give the order you idiot! Give it now!”
Before the man could say anything, Cole pointed a finger at the rows of desks with their computer consoles and shot a stream of fire in that direction. Instantly every computer went up in smoke, and the shifters at the desk threw themselves back from their chairs, putting as much distance from the fire as possible. The one who was supposed to give the go-ahead caught the worst of the flames and dropped to the ground, screaming and rolling frantically across the carpet to put it out.
“You bastard!” Garrison shrieked, his face mottled with fury. His eyes glowed orange, and he began to shift. “I won’t let you get away with this!”
Cole considered throwing a ball of fire at him. He really did. But he felt Angela’s eyes on him from behind, and he knew he couldn’t do that to another family member of hers, not right in front of her. So he did what any self-respecting guy would do, and punched Garrison in the face before he’d finished shifting.
The guy went straight down to the ground, without a single sound.
“Anyone else?” Cole hissed, conjuring another ball of flame.
Everyone else in the place scattered, even the two shaven goons, though they hesitated for a moment before looking down at their fallen Chieftain, and deciding to follow suit.
“Well that was rather disappointing,” Raina remarked. Cole turned around to see her undoing Angela’s restraints. His heart lightened as he saw the pure joy burst across Angela’s face as she embraced her friend.
“Oh God, thank God you’re safe,” Angela said, rocking her friend back and forth as she hugged her tight.
“It’s all thanks to you, you know,” Raina said with a smile. “You, and the hunky guy standing behind me. He yours?”
“I’m not sure,” Angela said slowly, disengaging herself from her friend. She moved cautiously toward Cole, a question in her eyes. “Though I have to say we all owe a huge debt to him. If not for him, we would have lost all the precincts today, and not just one.”
Cole winced. “He blew up one of them?”
Angela nodded, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “All those innocent people…” she whispered.
“Hey, hey.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “At least we saved the others, right? And your partner, right? And we’re all still alive, right?” He kissed her at the end of each question.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” she said, giving him a watery smile.
“Good.” And then he kissed her again, and he kept kissing her until he forgot where he was, even who he was, until he forgot everything, except the woman in his arms who made him feel more alive and loved and wanted than anyone in his life.
“I love you,” he finally whispered against her lips, when he could go no farther without stripping her clothes off and taking her on the floor – something he couldn’t do, given the circumstances.
“I love you too.”
Her luscious lips curved into a grin. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Epilogue
Some time later.
When Angela finally parked her motorcycle at the curb, and headed up the stairs, she was pleasantly exhausted. Today had been satisfying; as they’d finally finished processing all the rebel shifters they’d rounded up, including her brother who had given up more information on the rebels. Admittedly it had been for a lighter sentence, but the last two times she’d seen him he’d been less crazed, less fanatical, and she’d caught glimpses of the old Garrison in him. He’d even agreed to let their parents visit him a few times – something she was hoping might help ground him into a new reality, and steer him away from trouble.
A memorial had been held for those who’d died at the precinct, and Raina had been one of the speakers even though she wasn’t a high-ranking official. She’d expressed her condolences to the victims of the families, and had connected with the audience via her own harrowing story, inspiring more sympathy than bitterness amongst the crowd, which would go a long way in helping to improve public relations. Or at least that was what the Commander had said.
Oh well. At least he and Raina were on speaking terms.
Angela’s nose twitched as she stepped out of the elevator and caught the scent of chicken marsala. The scent grew stronger as she approached her apartment, followed by a familiar, delicious masculine scent, and her mood lifted even further as she opened the door.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Cole looked up from the dining table, where he was setting out what looked like a full three-course meal. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say to you?” he said, arching a brow. “Seeing as how you just walked in?”
Angela shrugged, taking in the apron he wore over his dark green t-shirt and jeans. He was barefoot, his hair freshly washed. “I see you’ve been here awhile,” she said, hanging her jacket up on the coat rack as she shut the door behind her. “Didn’t think to shoot me a text?”
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