by Marla Monroe
Neither of the two big males moved from their spot next to the table. Instead, power radiated off of them, filling the room until it was nearly suffocating. She began to wonder if they would lose control with her rejection and attack her. She’d never heard of that happening before, but then she’d never known of a mate to refuse the mating before.
The lynx fought her for control, not understanding Serenity’s choice one bit. She’d agreed with her when they’d been back in her home den where the males had little to offer her. Now, it seemed that the finicky feline had changed her mind. With her lynx battling her from within and the two massive bears pouring out their power on the outside, Serenity felt as if she were about to implode from all the power directed at her. Real fear began to seep into her bloodstream and drift from her pores.
She saw the instant the bears became aware of it. Their nostrils flared as their lips drew back to expose their sharpened teeth while they breathed in her fear. Something changed in their eyes. She’d pushed them too far. They were going to tear her apart for denying them as her mates. She hadn’t outrun her fate after all. She’d just changed the location of her demise.
“Ours,” Creed growled.
“Safe,” Shayne added in a slightly less harsh voice.
“Mate,” Creed said. “Our mate.”
Serenity didn’t dare say anything to set them off again. She’d let them settle down then talk with them under calmer circumstances. This was not a good time.
The doorbell rang, startling her so that she jumped with a slight shriek. The two males lifted their noses and frowned.
“Wild dog, female,” Creed said. “Do you know her?”
Serenity had to make herself think. Her heart raced to the point of pain. What was going on? She’d rarely had any visitors at her house in the years she’d lived there, and now she had not only two huge male bears in her kitchen but an unknown female wild dog at her front door. Had the cosmos hiccupped or something?
She shook her head but turned and walked into the living area to answer the door. The female at the door knocked again before she got there. Whatever was going on it seemed to be urgent. She unlocked the multiple deadbolts and swung the door open wide, aware that she had two overly cautious bears at her back.
Before she managed to ask the female standing there with wild multi-shaded hair what she needed, the wild dog rushed inside and slammed the door behind her.
“They’ve figured out who you are. You’ve got to get out of here. They’re coming for you.”
Chapter Four
Shayne stepped up in front of his brother. “Who’s coming for her? Why?”
“How do you know me? I’ve never met you before,” Serenity said, taking a step back. Large, warm hands settled lightly on her shoulders.
“I’m Wren Angles. I live in town with my pack. We’ve been staying off the radar ever since we noticed that over the last few months strangers have been moving in and staying but not putting down permanent roots. Some are renting cheap hotel rooms by the week. They all meet up in a roundabout way at Phill’s bar every Friday night.” Wren’s words tumbled out of her so fast it was difficult to follow her.
“Slow down,” Creed said in a much more controlled voice. “Tell us who they are.”
“Rouge Hunters. They’re not the ones the government sanctions to hunt down shifters who’ve murdered humans. These are shifter haters. They believe that all shifters should either be killed or locked up. They’ve figured out that Serenity is a shifter and plan to come get her.” Wren looked back and forth between them all. “You’ve got to hide her before it’s too late.”
“Nothing will happen to her. She is ours. We’ll protect her with our lives,” Shayne assured the little female. Wren stood an inch shorter than their mate, but seemed just as fierce as Serenity appeared to be.
“How do you know they are aware of Serenity being a shifter?” Creed asked.
“I’m really good at hiding my shifter abilities, so I’ve been spying on them. I’m a bartender there on Friday nights when they meet. Since I’m a shifter, I can pretty much hear everything they say,” she told them.
“Why didn’t you tell Serenity about this before now? It’s Sunday already,” Shayne asked.
The female all but stomped her foot at them. “Look. You’re wasting time drilling me when you should be getting her to safety. We can discuss the particulars later.”
“Talk,” Creed growled.
The little wild dog growled right back at Creed, clearly unimpressed by his attempt at menacing her. Instead, she bared her teeth and looked to Serenity.
“Look. I know you don’t know me, but I’m telling you the truth. Your life is in danger. I was working last night when they all showed up and sat at the back of the room. They normally didn’t meet on Saturday nights. I was delivering a round of drinks when I overheard them verify that you were a shifter based on something someone saw you do. I don’t know what it was or when it was, but they’ve outed you. You need to hide while we all figure out how to get them to leave the area.”
“How do you know me and where to find me?” Serenity asked. Shayne began to feel the prickles of unease as they stood there talking.
“I saw you for the first time in the grocery store today. That older woman you were talking to said your name when she introduced you to her friends. From the description I overheard on Saturday night, I knew you were the one. I tried to follow you to your car but saw two of them watching you several rows over. Then those two showed up, and the men disappeared. I followed you but had a difficult time carrying my clothes and running at the same time. I just managed to get dressed and locate your car again, so I knew I had the right house. Now. Are you going to believe me and hide, or wait around and let them catch up with you?” Wren stuck her hands on her hips and glared at them.
Shayne felt that glare all the way to his toes. She was deadly serious. The dangerous feeling grew stronger.
“Creed,” he began.
“Yeah. We need to go.” Creed nodded his head toward the kitchen. “While Creed grabs your perishables, you need to pack a bag for a few days until we can figure out what to do, Serenity.”
“I’m not leaving my home. I have a job to do. I can’t just walk away like that,” she said.
Shayne hesitated for a second, but then turned and left them to handle his mate while he gathered anything that might not make it for a week. He could hear their voices in a low murmur but resisted the temptation to listen in. He needed to stay focused on his job for the moment. He could find out what was going on later.
As soon as he’d repacked her dated food in their Jeep, Shayne hurried back to the front of the house to find it empty. Following his nose, he located Creed in what must have been her office, dismantling some computer equipment.
“Need some help?” he asked.
“Yeah. Grab those and take them out to the Jeep. I’ll bring this when I finish getting it unhooked. Serenity and Wren are in her bedroom packing. At least I hope that’s where they are right now.”
“I’ll check on them when I get back from carrying this out,” he said, hoisting the equipment and carrying it back out to their vehicle.
Stepping into his mate’s bedroom was a step into heaven. Her scent permeated everything in the room, right down to the paint on the walls and the finish on the wood floors. He wanted to roll around on her bed to cover himself in her scent, but refrained, reminding himself that he could do that with the real thing soon enough. They would soon have her in their den.
“Do you have anything ready that I can go ahead and carry out?” he asked from the doorway.
Serenity turned toward him, and for an instant, he saw fear in her eyes before she covered it up with an irritated scowl.
“That suitcase is ready. I’m almost finished with the rest,” she said.
Shayne could see Wren in the bathroom filling a case of sorts with all the things women used in the bathroom. The case wasn’t as large as a suitcase bu
t did look large compared to the small shaving kit he carried when they traveled. Shaking his head at the secrets of being a woman, he carried the heavy, packed suitcase out of the bedroom toward the kitchen and the back door. He met Creed returning from the Jeep.
“Did you get everything she needed out of the office?” he asked.
Creed frowned. “Almost. One more trip, and I’ll have it. What about her things from the bedroom?”
“There’s two more that I’m aware of. One is a smaller version of the one she is packing now. The little wild dog is packing it out of the bathroom.” Shayne grinned at the exasperated expression his brother exhibited at the mention of the wild dog. Someone had rubbed him the wrong way.
“I’ll go hurry them along,” Creed said with a soft growl in his words.
Shayne just nodded and continued to the Jeep. Somehow he didn’t think anyone could hurry their mate if she didn’t want to be hurried. He couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. They were going to have a fight on their hands with her, and life would never be dull as long as she was in their den. He meant to make sure she remained in their den as long as there was breath in his body.
Just as he walked back into the kitchen, he heard the argument in full swing growing closer by the second. He remained where he stood in the middle of the kitchen and waited. Wren entered the room first with an amused expression on her face with Serenity in a not very serene mood right behind her.
“I’m not going home with you. You can’t make me. That’s kidnapping. I plan to go to either Flat Head or Echo Lake. I can rent a place there until this blows over. They’ll get tired of looking for an easy target and move on eventually. Then I can come back home.” She glared at Creed as he walked through the door carrying a suitcase in one hand and the odd-looking round case that had come from the bathroom in the other.
Shayne walked around the two females and took the cases from his brother so he had his hands free. He knew his brother. The poor male was not far from picking up their mate and throwing her over his shoulder. He wanted to be sure he was out of screaming distance when that happened. A female’s enraged screams tended to be shrill on a shifter’s hearing. He didn’t envy his brother’s position one bit in that moment. No doubt his ears would be ringing for hours afterward.
Just as he closed the jeep’s back end after shoving the cases inside, the hair on the back of his neck lifted. They were already here. As normally as possible, Shayne walked through the small walkway and back inside the house. Without waiting to see what was going on, he growled to get their attention. Everyone’s head snapped toward his warning of danger.
“They’re already here. I can sense them outside. We need to go, and we can’t go home until we’re sure they aren’t following us or watching the area.”
“Fuck.” Creed stared at the two women. “Don’t struggle, or we’ll all end up dead.”
“Struggle?” they both asked in unison with a question clear in their eyes.
He grabbed the female wild dog just as Creed picked up Serenity, throwing their mate over his back. Shayne followed suit and led the way outside through the walkway to the Jeep. To his surprise, neither female made a noise in protest. In fact, the wild dog female remained completely still and limp as he raced around the front of the vehicle and opened the back door, shoving her inside before slamming the door and climbing in the front passenger side. His door closed at the same time that Creed’s did. When he turned around, it was to see both females hunched down in the back.
Nothing happened as his brother started the engine and backed them out of the garage. It wasn’t until they drove down the drive and reached the street that anything out of the ordinary happened. As they raced down the road, a Humvee turned down the road heading in their direction.
“Stay down,” he called back to them. “They’re coming up the street now. Maybe they don’t realize you’re with us.”
Shayne didn’t turn to make sure they followed his directions so as not to tip off anyone in the approaching Humvee that there might be someone in their back seat. He saw Creed’s eyes check the rearview mirror though. He seemed satisfied, so Shayne trusted that they were behaving.
As they passed the other vehicle, the tinted windows kept them from seeing inside even with their enhanced eyesight. He felt sure by how the tires appeared that there were more than three or four men inside.
“They stopped at the bottom of her driveway,” Creed told them. “Don’t get up yet. They can still see us. It looks like they are blocking the drive to keep you from trying to escape if you decide to make a run for it.”
“That wouldn’t have slowed me down. I’d have gone through the yard,” Serenity huffed out with a slight growl to her voice.
Shayne couldn’t stop a snort at that. “More than likely they would have caught you unawares and captured you. There were probably more than five men in that thing. They’d have surrounded the house and caught you no matter which door or window you went out.”
“Idiot. I wouldn’t have gone out the normal way. I’ve been living there for several years and had escape plans in place. I have an underground tunnel that leads to the garage, and one that leads deeper into the woods. I’m not stupid or helpless,” she hissed from the back floorboard.
Shayne winced, looking over at his brother. The other bear didn’t look very pleased either. They were digging their graves with their mate. She was on the defensive already. With the present turn of events, they were only reinforcing her belief that they thought her incapable of protecting herself. Of course, Creed, the big oaf, pretty much believed that from what he’d said earlier that day. How were they ever going to win her acceptance in the middle of something like this? Their bears would never allow her out of their sights now and would be overbearing bastards before it was over with to keep her safe. Her safety was all they would live for right now, no matter what it took to ensure it. He sighed and resumed watching for a tail.
* * * *
What was going on? She’d lived by herself for years in that house and had never given away anything about her nature when she was in public. Now she had crazies after her and two mates that turned into bears all in the space of twenty-four hours. How had that happened?
Shayne started talking to someone about what was going on. Evidently he’d called someone because he wouldn’t rehash everything to Creed when the other bear had been right there with them. Who was he talking to? What did he expect them to do with all the information he was giving the other party?
She looked over to where the wild dog female crouched next to her wearing a scowl of her own. She obviously hadn’t expected to get caught up in the mess when she’d raced to warn her about the Rogue Hunters. Wren was pretty with her odd-colored hair and pert nose that turned up slightly at the end. Her hazel eyes seemed to swirl with color when she was mad as they were doing now, and her variegated brown and gold hair hung forward over her shoulders like a thick curtain.
“So the first time you’d ever seen me was at the grocery today?” Serenity asked.
“Yeah. I’ve lived here all my life and only met a few other shifters out this way. The area is too remote and gets so cold in the winter that few shifters are comfortable this far north,” she said.
“Shifters have become soft and too dependent on technology and the comforts they have since The Awakening,” Creed snarled from the front seat.
“You sound like my da,” Wren mumbled.
Serenity heard Shayne’s snort from the front seat. “I kind of agree with him. My den back home had gotten to the point that they spent so much time with humans that they were adopting a lot of their nasty habits.”
“Is that why you left—moved here?” Shayne asked.
She started to ignore him, but figured now was a good time to make sure they understood her stance on mating while they were stuck up front and she had Wren back there with her. The sudden tightening of her skin as her lynx made her displeasure known reminded her that she cou
ldn’t protect herself from her cat.
“No. I left because I refused to mate with any of the males in my den, and the Rufus, the alpha leader of our chain, had decided that he would choose for me. I refused to accept his choice as well and left.” It had been much more than that, but she wasn’t about to tell them the entire sordid story. She didn’t know any of them well enough to bare her soul to them.
“He would have forced you to accept a male you didn’t want?” Creed’s voice still had that growly quality to it while his brother’s had calmed somewhat.
“Yes. It wasn’t uncommon for him to choose mates in our den. I hated that and had already decided that once I was old enough to support myself, I was going to leave. He started harping at my parents to push me to select a mate. He liked the females to all be mated by the time they were eighteen. My parents refused to force me to choose so young. He let it go for a few years, but as soon as I turned eighteen, he insisted I choose my mate and get on with the business of producing more cubs. I’m not a baby factory.” It had infuriated Serenity to be told it was what she was born to do, care for her mate and have his cubs.
“Why don’t you want cubs, Serenity?” Wren asked.
“It’s not that I don’t want them. It’s that I want to make that decision for myself and not be forced to have them to strengthen the den and improve my mate’s standing to the Rufus. A lot of the females in my den were abused by their mates because they didn’t stay pregnant and give them lots of sons. No male will ever lift a hand to me. I’ll scratch his eyes out if he tries,” she said with a hiss.
“Your Rufus wasn’t a good leader. Females are to be cherished, never abused,” Creed said in that growly voice of his. Serenity was beginning to wonder if that wasn’t his normal sound.
“Yeah, well tell that to the Rufus. I left. I hated leaving my parents and brothers, but I knew I would end up dead if I had stayed. The first cat to touch me like that would have known just how well my brothers taught me to fight. They would have tried to declaw me, and I would have fought them over it.”
