by Lila Jean
He bolted toward the smell, the bag still in his mouth, careful to slow once he neared the source of the aroma. Ears pinned to his head, he crouched behind a bush, peeking into a small clearing in the trees to find a man’s body sprawled across the grass.
Shit.
Zane scanned the tree line, but he was alone. No scents, no people nearby. He crept closer, circling the body as he adjusted the bag in his mouth. Blood pooled in the grass, and there was so much. The man had been mauled to death, torn to shreds, all except the face, which was perfectly intact, as though intentionally left that way.
Zane froze in place, horrified as he realized this was one of the missing diplomats. A dragon shifter named Rogers, the first to go missing all those months back. Zane had memorized the face from his research and the pictures tacked in with Killian’s notes on the subject.
Rogers. A missing diplomat. Found dead.
Shit!
For a moment, Zane simply stared at the face, not quite believing that it would be one of the men he and Killian had been tenaciously searching for over the last several months. To find him here, in France, while they were in hiding, it was too coincidental, too perfect.
It had to be a setup.
Deep in the forest, someone yelled. The revving roar of dirt bike engines cut through the quiet trees. Zane’s enhanced senses picked up the distant sound of men arguing, breaking foliage, the shuffle of boots over dirt. A search party, no doubt coming on an “anonymous” tip. If they found him here, it wouldn’t look good, even if he revealed his identity. They would think he had killed Rogers, and there would be little he could do to convince the ensuing mob otherwise.
He bolted into the woods in the opposite direction, headed for Tina and the brotherhood, eager to share these latest developments with them, but he had to be careful. With the police on his tail, every step mattered.
As he left the corpse in his wake, the thud of footsteps filled the quiet forest, no doubt as the police stumbled upon the body. Men yelled something about a trail, and the sound of engines rumbling through the woods after him set Zane’s heart pounding in his chest.
He had studied the maps of the area surrounding their remote farmhouse extensively, and there were no creeks or rivers to hide his scent. The safehouse was the only house within a two-mile radius of farmland and forests, and eventually, the police would be able to follow his trail, which meant Zane had a desperately important choice to make. Either he could lead the police away from the safehouse, or he could return in the hopes that, by getting there fast enough, he could get everyone out before the cops closed in.
A dirt bike droned, closer and closer, no doubt a scout sent out ahead of the dogs to search for suspicious parties, and there was little more suspicious than a massive white tiger holding a blue backpack, running through the woods in a French province.
Damn it.
Zane slowed, dropping his backpack momentarily, his mind already made up, and waited for the dirt bike to round a bend in the trees. He had to lead the police away, do everything in his power to buy enough time for him to call and warn Tina and the brotherhood. Zane hated to hurt an innocent man, much less a cop, but he would do his best to hold back.
When the policeman raced down the worn dirt path, Zane pounced, knocking the man off his bike. The dirt bike’s handles shook back and forth, the front tire twisting as the dirt bike continued forward and smashed into a tree, the back tire lifting off the ground as it slid along the dirt. Beneath Zane, the policeman screamed, hands in front of his face as he panicked. Zane roared, baring his teeth, threatening the man while doing his best not to actually hurt him. With his enhanced strength, courtesy of Damara’s magic and his time in Tina’s bed, even the tiniest flick of his paw could crush this frail human’s body. Carefully, with almost ludicrous gentleness, he pushed away from the man and bit the tires, the metal crunching beneath his teeth like a cracker and twisting effortlessly in his jaws. The man screamed again, pushing away, kicking up dirt as his back pressed against a nearby tree, his eyes wide as he watched Zane with horror.
That should do it. His tail twitched eagerly. Come get me.
Zane bolted into the forest, cutting a path through the trees that led away from the farmhouse, running as fast as his powerful legs would carry him as his mind raced with worry.
Someone had found them and planted a body dangerously close to the safehouse. Somehow, some way, powerfully dangerous people were hot on their trail, and this would have a bloody ending. He just hoped against hope that the blood didn’t belong to the people he loved most.
11
Tina
Tina shoved Zane’s computers into bags, hoping she didn’t wreck them in her hasty retreat from the house. Anthony helped her, moving a million times faster thanks to his enhanced speed, packing most of their few possessions in relative minutes as she tried to hustle them out of the French safehouse. Zane’s call had been hurried and frantic, and they had to get to the rendezvous point as fast as possible.
“Flynn!” she shouted, eager to get them the hell out of there. “We have to go!”
“Gone, darling,” he said tensely, appearing in the doorway, gesturing for her to follow him.
“They’re just humans.” Draven shoved some clothes into a backpack and swung it over his shoulders. “We can easily take them. Why are we running?”
“Because we don’t want to be found,” Tina said impatiently as he took her bag of Zane’s equipment. “And because killing cops won’t make us look very good, will it?”
“Touché.” Draven slung the equipment bag over his shoulder as well. “All right, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Killian’s in the van already.” Flynn nodded, gesturing again for them to leave. “I figured the impenetrable eagle shifter should probably be the getaway driver, in case they open fire.”
“Good call.” Tina hurried out the door, brushing past a window, and a silhouette outside caught her eye. She paused, pulling back the sheer curtain to peek outside, only to find a black van racing down the farmhouse’s long driveway. A man in a black helmet and dark sunglasses drove, the sun’s glare on the windshield obscuring his face. Three police cars raced after him, their tires kicking up dust along the old gravel road.
“Shit,” she muttered.
Behind her, Draven pressed his chest against her back and lifted the curtain farther, joining her. “Damn it. We have company.”
“Get in the car!” Flynn shouted, holding open the door to the backyard as he waved for her and the others to run out back, where the van waited.
Tina ran through, Draven hot on her heels as Anthony came up the rear, no doubt scanning the windows to ensure they were safe. She paused by the can’s sliding door to make sure everyone got in, but Draven didn’t give her the chance. Effortlessly, her dragon shifter lifted her in the air and set her inside.
“Draven, what—”
“Sorry boss.” He kissed her cheek. “I’m not about to let you get hurt waiting for the others to get here.”
“Don’t you dare do that again.” She huffed, scowling at her dragon. “Killian, get us going.”
“She’s right.” Flynn threw open the passenger side door and jumped in, the van jostling as the muscular demigod threw himself inside. “We’ve got to go. An armed van’s coming, ten seconds away.”
“Roger.” Killian started the van, the car engine rumbling to life.
“I’ll distract them.” Anthony ran up to the open door, his gaze settling on Tina. “I’m faster than this van. I can—”
“Not a chance,” Tina interrupted. “Get in.”
“But—”
“They’re armed, Anthony, and we have to assume they are after me more than you.” She gave him a deadly serious glare. “You’re fast, but it’s not going to distract them unless I’m on your back. Get in.”
“Let’s go!” Flynn roared.
Anthony groaned in frustration and dove into the van, giving Draven barely a second to close
the van door as Killian peeled out.
“Stay down!” her eagle shifter shouted.
The tires crunched over gravel as the van accelerated around the house, and Tina caught the briefest glimpse of a dozen men in bulletproof vests and helmets, each carrying massive rifles, running toward the front of the house. One of them turned his gun toward the van, and she dropped to the floor between the seats, Draven’s warm body falling on top of hers as he cradled her head.
Gunshots rattled the van, and glass shattered, falling on her exposed hands like rain. With a sudden jerk, the van swerved, and her forearm landed hard on the seat in front of her. Pain splintered up her arm, and she couldn’t help but yell out in pain. She gritted her teeth as the van continued to race along, shifting this way and that, jostling what was quickly starting to feel like a broken bone. Hopefully, it was just sprained, but damn it all it hurt like hell. With the splintering sting in her hand and the thrum of her pulse in her ears, she tried to block out the pain as shouts of men and rattling gunfire filtered through the shattered window.
“Damn it!” Tina grunted, wincing with pain at her injury. “They’re not even bothering with a pursuit?” The van swerved, probably to miss something in the road she couldn’t see, and she grabbed onto Draven for support. “Want kind of police team just opens fire?”
“One that’s been paid to do what they’re told,” Flynn said, gritting his teeth. “One that doesn’t care about collateral damage.”
“Flynn, give them hell!” Draven shouted. “Use your lightning!”
“No, don’t!” Tina interjected, shifting her gaze up toward the demigod in the passenger seat. He leaned back toward them, taking cover with his head between the two front seats, looking at her. She shook her head. “If they see your power, they’ll know it’s us. Right now, we don’t know if they have our identities. If we can get away without showing our powers, we need to.”
“Right.” Flynn nodded.
“Tina, listen.” Draven sat slightly upright, just far enough for them to see each other more clearly, an intense expression on his face as he pleaded with her. “We need to—”
The van hit a bump in the road, making her wounded arm blister with pain, and the side door slid open. For a moment, Tina had a clear view of the distant police van, probably thirty feet away, and the armed officers lined alongside it, guns raised toward her and the men she loved most. The police cars were turning around in the driveway, lights flashing, no doubt ready to give chase.
“Get down!” With her good hand, Tina grabbed the handle and slammed the door shut, changing her position and pulling Draven’s head toward the floor to get him out of the line of fire. Seconds later, bullets riddled the van, one of them striking the space where Draven’s head had been seconds before.
That was the last straw for her. No one threatened her men, and no one endangered their lives.
“I take it back,” she seethed to Flynn, giving him the order to attack. “Do it. Try not to kill anyone, but damn it, make them stop firing and destroy their cars if possible.”
“Done.”
Flynn’s head disappeared from between the seats, no doubt so he could get a view of his targets. Seconds later, the sky darkened, thunder rumbling overhead as the van sped away. Seconds later, a crack of blinding lightning flashed in the dark sky as Flynn used the powers Damara had given him, controlling several tremendous bolts of electricity as it struck the ground. The gunshots stopped, and Flynn breathed a sigh of relief.
Tina peeked through one of the windows to find the cars motionless in the driveway, the farmhouse receding into the distance, smoke billowing from the car engines as dazed policeman fell out of the vehicles. The armed soldiers by the van lay on the ground, some nursing their heads as they slowly sat up, their guns on the grass around them.
“Good job, Flynn.” She patted his shoulder, grateful for her dazzling men. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here before their backup arrives.”
12
Zane
Zane paced nervously by a police scanner he’d stolen, walking through the living room at the rendezvous point he had given Tina, a little shack in the woods fifty miles away from the first. He had already lined up their new safehouse, but he had to wait until the van arrived. He listened on the police scanner for news, and though there had been plenty of chatter about the escape and the “freak lightning storm that had come out of nowhere,” thus far no one had any clue as to the identities of Tina and Zane’s brotherhood.
That was the official report, anyway.
With a bit of careful maneuvering, Zane had managed to hack a secure channel run by the local police department, and the news there was grimmer.
Target address will be sent separately, one encrypted email read. Secure all six of them and await further instruction. Should they try to escape, open fire. Remaining balance will be delivered when targets are acquired, alive or dead.
It was a chilling order from a nameless alias he couldn’t trace, and that worried him. He had almost missed this email entirely, as it had been securely sent and, based on the timestamps in the file’s metadata, had been deleted shortly after the Commissaire de Police had read it. If Zane had been any less skillful, he wouldn’t have been able to even recover the corrupted file at all.
Police management had received a sizeable donation to ensure the residents of the farmhouse were escorted to the police station, but it didn’t make sense. No human cell could hold a shifter or a demigod, so it was inevitable that even if caught, the six of them would try to escape.
“Who are you?” Zane rubbed his jaw, grimacing, mind racing as to the mysterious alias who had essentially ordered a hit on them, and he bounced his knee in worry as he waited for his mate and brothers to return. “Who would go to such lengths to get the police to kill us, when there are so many better ways to do it?”
Out front, a door slammed. Zane bolted for a window and carefully peeked outside to find a bullet-riddled van, and as Killian slid out of the driver’s side seat, the door fell off. The eagle shifter groaned and kicked it away, but Zane let out a sigh of relief. He ran outside and threw his arms around his friend.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. Did everyone make it? Did—”
“We’re here, thanks to your warning.” Tina appeared around the van, tenderly holding her arm, as though it were broken.
“I was so worried.” Zane scooped her into his arms, spinning as he held her tight. “What happened to your hand?”
“I thought it was broken, but now I’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain. I’m fine.” She let him examine it as Flynn, Anthony, and Draven appeared from the other side, each of them frazzled and worse for wear, but alive.
“Tell us everything,” Flynn said, shifting into his authority mode, a serious expression on his face. “You cut your call short for good reason.”
“It’s bad.” Zane sighed, releasing Tina and pointing to the side of the shack, toward the new van he’d secured for them. “We can take a moment to recover inside, but we should go soon.”
“I need to get this wrapped up.” Tina nodded to her injured hand.
“Allow me—” Zane gestured toward the shack, but Draven shook his head.
“You update the others while I tend to it.” He set an arm around Tina’s waist and led her inside. “We don’t have much time.”
Though his instinct was to protect his mate, Zane let the dragon shifter lead her inside. “Bathroom, rear of the house,” he said, directing them. “There’s a first aid kit in the cupboard.”
As Zane led the other three princes to the living room, he turned down the police scanner and explained everything he’d found in the woods, as well as the limited information he’d gleaned from the police scanner and secured police channels in their time apart.
“This is bad,” Flynn said, rubbing his eyes. “Can’t we catch a break? Christ.”
“We have to tell Draven about the diplomat.” Anthony crossed his arms, shaking his head slowly
either in disappointment or disgust. “I can’t believe it. I guess Killian was right, that the disappearances stopping just meant things would get worse.”
“In this case, I hate being right,” Killian said with a sigh.
“Agreed.” Zane plopped into an armchair.
“I’ll break the news to Draven,” Flynn said somberly, ever the leader. With a sigh and a nod, he retreated toward the back of the house to find their dragon and Tina.
“Disgusting.” Anthony bristled, and as the demigod left, the wolf shifter began to pace the small living room. “What kind of cowards would frame her? Frame us?”
“Tina’s powerful,” Zane said with a groan. “She has a lot of enemies, a lot of people who want to see her fail. Who want to see her die.”
“Like hell.” A guttural growl built in Anthony’s throat. “That preacher in town is lucky you found him instead of me.”
“Anthony,” Killian said cautiously. “Let’s stick with one war at a time.”
“That didn’t work with the diplomats, did it?” Anthony pointed out the window. “What next? You said it yourself, Zane, that body seemed to be planted. What next? What if they can somehow track us?”
“How could they possibly know?” Killian rubbed his face and the dark bags under his eyes. “Tina doesn’t even tell her High Priestess where we are.”
“We should confirm that,” Anthony said absently, already pacing once more. “Just in case.”
“Tina’s too smart for that, Anthony.” Zane sighed, a little disappointed in the wolf shifter for even suggesting it. “She doesn’t like that priestess, either.”
“I know.” Anthony sighed, rubbing his eyes in frustration. “I get it, I do. It’s just a precaution.”
“Fine, you can ask her.”
Anthony snorted, barely containing his laughter. “Fine.”
