by Cecilia Lane
There was no walking away from her. Closing her off and pretending he could let her go wasn’t an option. He cared too much.
He’d murder every last cat that laid a hand on her, starting with the ones that had jumped her in the park. After that, once she could live without looking over her shoulder, then he would hear out her choice.
Everly wasn’t like his birth clan. She wasn’t choosing to not make a fuss or to let someone else shoulder her pain. Everly wasn’t abandoning him. She actively put herself on his side and promised to fix his world.
She was everything, and she would live even if he had to murder the entire world to make it so.
Chapter 23
Everly screwed her eyes closed as tightly as possible and wished for the escape of her dream. In her dream, there was space to move around. She could stretch her arms over her head and not touch the soft ceiling of the camper. Rolling over would bring her right into the chest of the man she wanted to touch at that moment. He gave her hope and safety, neither of which existed in her reality.
A hand slapped against the side of the bunk. “Up!” her mother commanded.
Suppressing the growl of her cat, Everly scooted to the edge of the bunk and lowered herself to the floor. She grabbed her clothes and made her way into the bathroom without a word or raising her eyes. Both would get her in trouble, even inside her home.
Everly splashed water on her face, tied up her hair, and dressed for the day of hard labor, making sure to hide her communication to the outside world close to her chest. There wasn’t time for anything else. From sunup till sunset, she was expected to work. It was her penance for causing others to be hurt in the brawl. She was the lowest ranking member of the pride and expected to do the jobs no one wanted.
She served penance, all right. Just not the one they assumed.
Straightening, Everly glanced at herself in the mirror. Bags lined her defiant eyes. Her hair looked limp and unhealthy. Yellow, faded bruises from not jumping quick enough at a barked order colored her cheek.
She looked better than her first night, but it was a small comfort. She’d been bled by nearly everyone, knocked down, and told not to get up. Wade had made his final decision to allow her back in the pride while she curled in a ball and tried to ignore her pain. They had broken her body, but they hadn’t killed her rage.
Sawyer would kill them all if he knew what she was up to. He’d throw her over his shoulder and lug her back to his cabin to prevent her from making the deal.
If he’d been in any position to dictate terms. What she did, she did for him.
Sometimes the reminder was enough to tamp down the overwhelming sense of fury. That emotion was a constant in her life. It took for a separation from the deep pains to realize how much they colored her past. Stepping back into the pride slipped her into an ill-fitting role she wanted to escape and needed to endure.
Inaction ate up precious minutes while she steeled herself for the day. Misery etched itself into every inch of her frame. Better that than the claws and fangs she wanted to bare. Her cat howled when she reached to fold open the paneled bathroom door. She didn’t offer any comfort to her animal. Their time with the pride was the price she paid for her mistakes.
Everly stared at her feet and didn’t raise her eyes to her parents eating their breakfast. She took the piece of toast laid out for her and went straight for the door. Work called, and she wanted to avoid extra punishments.
“Everly.”
She shut her eyes for a brief second and lowered her meager breakfast. She turned, keeping her gaze pinned to the floor. Her father was one of the strictest in the pride about her perceived attitude. She had no right to look any of them in the eyes after causing the fight with the bears.
The snarl of her cat wasn’t easily brushed aside.
“You’ll clean the outside of the camper today. The windows have spots from last time.” Casual anger floated in his scent, daring her to challenge him.
No objection. No reaction. She would find her evidence and set herself free. Wade and his supporters would see justice for their crimes. Sawyer and his clan would be released from the SEA facility.
Everly nodded and proceeded out the door to her first task of the day: hauling the trash from every camper to the campground’s dumpster.
There were advantages to her bottom standing. She enjoyed access to nearly every camper. Cleaning the insides from top to bottom allowed her time to search for solid evidence to hand over to the SEA. So far, she’d found nothing of interest.
They wanted names of future targets or evidence linking the pride to previous victims. Fingerprints on explosives. Pictures of Wade with a bomb in each hand. The impossible, basically, and she had nothing but gut feeling.
Wade and the pride sent the bomb to the Strathorns. Her father admitted it. If they were willing to blow up one clan that crossed them, they were willing to hurt others. Proof was hidden somewhere.
Except there were no chemicals to be found. No jars of silver shards existed. Parcels ready to be stuffed full of death and destruction weren’t piled away in corners. She’d searched each camper, except one.
Everly pretended to dig a rock out of her shoe on one of her trips to the dumpster. At the far edge of the camp was a popup no one approached. The tiny space wasn’t much bigger than the cages at the SEA holding facility and always towed behind Wade’s giant RV.
With all the other living quarters swept clean, it was the last place for Everly to check. She just wasn’t sure how to get inside and come out breathing. The Oracle lived there and only Wade ever entered.
Everly tried to puzzle out a way to get near without drawing notice as she cleaned and cooked in silence and visible meekness. Storming in would see her caught. Wade’s visits were sporadic, and she didn’t want to be inside when he barged through the door. She needed to wait until he found elsewhere to be, then sneak inside.
Inside held its own problems. Would the Oracle scream out for help or let her stay without a word? No one had seen the woman in years, so it was impossible to judge what she would perceive as a threat.
Lost in her thoughts, Everly pulled up short when a pair of shabby sneakers stopped in front of her. Each time someone stopped her brought a surge of fear. Did they know what game she played? Had she blown her cover?
She kept her eyes on the ground and let her nose do all the identifying. Emery.
Everly dared to peek at her sister through hooded lids and hair brushed forward. She wanted to pull Em aside and ask what the hell happened, but never got a chance. Even when she scrubbed down Wade’s RV, he stayed and watched and made sure the sisters didn’t whisper together.
They certainly would not have a deep conversation in the middle of the pride.
“Laundry needs to be done, Everly.” Em lifted her chin and raised her voice. “And you better not spill bleach again, or you’ll be wearing nothing for the rest of your penance.”
Everly knew her sister needed to save face. She was the alpha’s mate and the sister to a traitor. Others would see her silence as support and try to bring her down. Em was only protecting herself.
Didn’t sting any less.
Emery was the center of the storm that blew Everly back into the pride. Either she cried real tears or was forced to make the call that summoned Everly. When questioned, she lied for Wade and said he had nothing to do with the brawl.
Everly understood why Em would do it. Even if her tears were real and she wanted to leave, she’d been caught. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for her. All she could do was protect herself.
That understanding didn’t lessen anger of Sawyer and his people sitting in Shiftermax while Wade remained free to continue his mistreatment of others.
Even at the calmest moments, Everly felt like she walked a knife’s edge between plunging straight into righteous fury and hopeless despair.
She had to keep placing one foot in front of the other. Another life and hope for love waited for her. She
would survive.
Wade’s scent clashed with Em’s. His was slick and foul under the persistent wash of rainforest air. Her sister stepped back to give her mate space and took the last of the slightly sweet and flowery smell with her.
Rage slammed into Everly’s chest even before her panther could react. Anger defined all her interactions with Wade. Moments not spent searching for evidence against him were used to contemplate slaying him without bringing disaster on herself. But like the evidence that didn’t appear, she was no closer to figuring out a way to kill the man and keep her head attached to her body.
Wade reached out and grabbed Everly’s cheeks with more bite than necessary. “Your punishment will end soon. Won’t that be wonderful for us both? I can’t lower myself with you like this, but you’ll be ready by the time the full moon comes again.”
No. No, no, no! Everly screamed inside her head. She was supposed to have more time. One didn’t go from a traitor to the pride to the alpha’s second mate within short weeks. There were more places to dig for information.
The pulsing in her ears was her own panicked and enraged heartbeat, she realized. Only an iron will and desire to live kept her standing in place. The surrounding predators would give chase if she spun on her heels and ran.
And Sawyer would still be locked up, and Wade would still be free.
Wade wasn’t her mate. Sawyer needed her help. She wanted to get back to him and find a place in his world. He was the man her heart desired, not the one who ordered her to clean his boots and birth his heirs.
Everly lowered her eyes and didn’t say a word, unsure if Wade wanted a response or not. She made the right call; he stepped away and called out to the rest of the pride. “Keep on with your tasks. I’ll be gone for the rest of the afternoon.”
A miracle!
With Wade gone, the rest of the pride relaxed, if it could be called that. While the Strathorns cooked out and joked around, tension never left the pride. They observed one another constantly, no doubt taking notes to whisper and report and try to better their standings.
Everly watched and waited for her opportunity. One hour passed. She started laundry for Emery. Another hour. She sprayed down her family’s camper and scrubbed the invisible spots her father insisted existed. Her private rebellion came in the form of drawing dicks with the spray of the hose.
Everly began to think she wouldn’t get a chance to sneak into the popup when finally, all eyes seemed turned away.
She laid down the hose and kept the camper between herself and the jaguars lurking on the other side. A bag of trash served as her excuse in case someone questioned where she headed.
Desperation clawed at her throat as she cracked the door wide enough to let her inside. If she was found out by the others, Wade would know as soon as he returned. If she didn’t find any evidence, the SEA wouldn’t honor their end of the bargain.
She was running out of time. Risk was necessary. She would not be saddled with Wade for the rest of her life.
The interior was neat, but dusty. Someone once cared for the insides and had long since lost the will to keep up with any housework. A bed covered with masses of blankets and pillows commanded the majority of the space.
Movement froze Everly in her inspection. A shape she assumed was just another lump of blankets shifted and a woman with nearly all the color drained from her skin wobbled upright.
Chains bound her wrists together. She was tall and skinny, and her facial features were more pointed and feline than even the jaguars.
But her scent was unlike anything Everly had smelled before. Light and bubbly, even under the thick dust of the room.
Sleepy eyes set far into her skull blinked at Everly. Her loose shirt slipped her shoulder free and revealed an old claiming bite. “Are you the newest replacement for me?”
Inside her head, Everly’s panther circled cautiously. The woman was a threat, even chained up. One shout would ruin them. Under that first assessment was a trust that both human and animal leaned into.
“No,” she blurted. Her stomach twisted in disgust. No wonder Wade allowed no one near, if her assumptions were correct. He didn’t want Everly to be his second mate; he wanted her to be the third. The woman was no jaguar, and certainly no shifter. “I don’t want to be.”
“Then you must hurry. He has such plans. They make my head hurt and my heart ache. I wish I had dreamt then what I dream of now.”
This was the Oracle. She was old and frail. Wade kept a fae woman chained and twisted her predictions around to suit him. Everly had so many questions, she didn’t know where to begin. “How— Who—”
“I was just a woman, once. And he, a man. Fae and shifter pairings weren’t allowed by my people, so he stole me away to begin our happy ending.” A lazy smile crossed her lips and Everly could almost see the life that could have been.
“What happened?” It seemed obvious where Wade found his rules on matings.
Hypocrite.
“We used to be happy when it was just us. Then he found others. Tied them to us. He was never meant to lead. Power stole the goodness inside him. One by one, he put them under his spell and drove us all a little closer to madness.” Her eyes sharpened. “Do you know what happens when an alpha goes mad, Everly Mather? Do you know how those under him suffer?”
Everly took a step forward. She couldn’t just leave the woman there. “Let me help you.”
The chains clanked with her movement. She pulled aside her skirts and revealed a drawer under the bed. “This is how you’re meant to help. I’ve dreamt it for so long.”
Everly knelt, not taking her eyes off the Oracle. She reached forward and pulled, expecting the drawer to resist. It slid out with the ease of frequent use.
Only at the fae’s nod did she break eye contact and peer inside.
Maps and photos were stacked in a neat pile in one corner. Plastic containers organized all the components and wires and other bits she had no idea how to identify. The most damning was a list of names and addresses she found in the stack of papers. Of the ones that were crossed off, she recognized three from the SEA’s files.
The evidence existed. Even knowing what to expect, it was still a shock. She held the knowledge in the logical part of her brain, but the emotional side felt the punch.
Two of the names chilled her to the bone. More Strathorn lives hung in the balance. Meghan and Gray were targets.
Her father’s hateful words about mouthy cunts made a whole lot more sense. Meghan was outspoken about the lives and challenges supernaturals faced. That she was a woman and speaking up for shifters probably pissed off a whole lot of people. How dare a little lady have thoughts of her own or interfere with man things.
Wade was as bad as Sawyer predicted. Maybe the others. Her father certainly knew of some crimes. They were murderers. They hid in plain sight as well as their animals hid in jungles, and they had equally deadly tendencies.
Everly dug into her bra and pulled out the tiny phone given to her by the agents using her as their spy. She powered it up and trembled as the loading screen ticked through its process. Then she took photo after photo and let the pictures do the talking she couldn’t.
When she was done, she stared at the woman Wade said guided their pride. She wanted to know more, like how they came together and where Wade went wrong. What, if anything, could have been done to stop him? What words did she say, and what did he hear? Everly opened her mouth, but the Oracle only smiled.
“Go. Now. Before it’s too late.” The Oracle caressed her cheek. “You know the path you need to take. Don’t doubt it for a second longer.”
Taking a deep breath, Everly pushed herself back outside and shut the woman away.
The wait was agonizing. She didn’t know when the SEA would act. They promised immediately, but she didn’t have any faith in an organization that would blackmail a woman into ferreting out information. What if they judged her evidence lacking? She’d have no way of knowing. Her orders were to remain
with the pride to avoid spooking the others into action.
And no matter where her jumbled thoughts landed, a glance toward the popup made her chest hurt and her cat growl.
Just after sunset, Wade returned from whatever errands he needed to run. A loud thought wondered if he sent another package to a new victim. Everly bit back her growl and desire for blood. She couldn’t act yet.
She tracked him as he jumped out of his truck and headed straight for the popup.
Crap! Everly’s cat growled and hissed and tried to steal her body to run in any direction. The force of the desire and the terrible sendings of her blood and death knocked the air out of her lungs and nearly gave the panther the control she needed. Everly yanked hard on the beast before fur sprouted along her limbs.
He’d know she entered. Her scent, faded over the afternoon, was still where it shouldn’t have been. If he guessed why she’d entered, if the Oracle gave up what she revealed...
Everly backed hard into the side of another camper and slid her gaze sideways. Her eyes squinted on a strange glint reflecting in the night.
The first gunshot rang through the night.
She flung herself to the ground and squeezed under the camper. Shouted orders and snarls of big cats filled the night. Boots ran this way and that, more than she could count. There were far more SEA agents than there were members of the pride. A good thing, too, because the males were instantly on the attack.
The first human to fall had his throat torn out. A spray of bullets found their home in the jaguar crouched over his kill.
Nearby, the door to the popup banged open and Wade strode into the night. He took one look at the violence and ducked around the camper she hid under.
Everly’s heart pounded at the sound of cracking bone. The scent of fur and rain overpowered the oily scent of the man as his jaguar took hold. She expected him to join the battle, help his people, but she lost track of him with the thud of boots running past her head and the next push of cats against humans.
