by A. C. Arthur
Rome’s house was large; each room inside seemed like the size of her entire dwelling in the Gungi. The den was no different, with its dark-brown-carpeted floor and chocolate-brown leather furniture. It was almost a replica of the game room where she and Kalina had gone through the glass doors to seek some semblance of freedom. But instead of the pool table, there was a huge bar, and along the walls were bookshelves instead of pictures. At the door were two guards. She’d never seen them before, but they looked muscled and fierce as they stared straight ahead. And finally, putting a tray with a coffee carafe and cups on a wood table, was Baxter.
Ary had been watching the older man since she’d seen him emerge from the trees. His face looked solemn, locked. He spoke clear and concisely, giving orders as to what was to be done with the shifter body and how the search for others was to play out. It wasn’t until Rome arrived that Baxter took his usual place behind the faction leader. Even then, Ary looked on with intrigue as Rome consulted with the older man even though he was the leader. It was a weird relationship these two had.
Actually, as she sat back in the chair that on any other day, to any other person, might be extremely comfortable, her gaze settled over every shifter in this room. There was a connection here, a deep one that she almost felt she were breaching somehow. It was apparent they all belonged together; they were a team. Ary had never been a part of a team, not one that worked toward the same goals, she realized now. That made her think of her father, of the man who’d raised and trained her and ultimately betrayed her. She wondered how he could have done what he did and what that really meant for her and her future.
“How the hell did he get on the property?” X said, slamming his hand against the keyboard. He was searching his database, trying to identify the shifter who’d been killed.
“I suspect he came from the highway, Mr. Xavier.”
Again, Baxter was speaking in that low, even tone he had.
“But he had to know the house was here, else why even stop in this vicinity?” Rome asked.
Kalina cleared her throat and sat forward in her chair. “I have a theory on that,” she said and waited until everyone’s eyes fell on her. “Mel, the female shifter who was working with Sabar to capture me, picked me up here last month. She had another shifter with her, and they had a driver. That would make our location common knowledge to the Rogues now.”
“Did you recognize the Rogue?” X asked her.
Kalina shook her head. “No. His scent wasn’t familiar. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t with Sabar that night.”
Nick cursed. “We killed the cheetah that had been a part of the original threesome who stalked you. The other jaguar along with Mel, you shot. Now Baxter’s killed a different one. Where’s Sabar and the Rogue that escaped that night?”
“He would be the one closest to Sabar,” Baxter said, standing perfectly still in the center of the room. His long arms extended in front of him, hands clasped neatly. He still wore the black suit and white shirt he’d been wearing when he shot the shifter, and managed to look as if he were heading out to a nice dinner, instead of a debriefing about killing shifters. “It was careless to come onto this property, and to do so alone made it just stupid. He was not given an order to come here, I am sure of that.”
“So he acted alone. You’re right, that was stupid,” Nick said. “And it got his punk ass killed!”
Baxter nodded. “You are correct, Mr. Dominick. But think about this: Why would he be so stupid? What made him stop on the highway, shift, and enter the copse of trees?”
“We did,” Ary said quietly. “He scented us running.”
The look Nick gave her would have burned holes through any other woman. Ary straightened her back and looked away from him quickly. She didn’t like what she was feeling from his direction: Coupled with his rage was a strange heat that she swore made her even edgier as she tried to sit still.
Almost simultaneously Rome spun around, glaring at Ary and Kalina. “You went out without telling me or Baxter.”
It wasn’t a question, because everyone in the room already knew the answer. And it wasn’t a statement that anyone could comment on. It seemed, to Ary, that it was more like an accusation. And she didn’t like it.
But if she thought the heated glare coming from Rome was disconcerting, the continuous angry vibes rolling off Nick toward her was the grand finale. She tried not to look at him, definitely did not want to catch his gaze. He was at a place she didn’t think she’d ever seen him before. A place she wasn’t sure she wanted to visit, despite her the gripes she had with him from earlier.
“I needed to run,” Ary spoke up in their defense.
“We thought it was safe,” Kalina added. “He shouldn’t have known we were out there.”
“Unless he was watching the house,” Nick offered. “He would remember you, Kalina. And Sabar is probably still looking for you.”
Nick looked at Ary then, and she moved uncomfortably in the chair. His cat’s eyes held her gaze. Everyone in this room who was a cat had looked on with the eyes of their beast. That was just a hint how bad this situation really was.
Ary licked her lips, refusing to look away from him this time no matter how desperately she wanted to. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Do not underestimate him. He would recognize Kalina’s scent, but another would have been more alluring. Sabar has been working a long time to start this war. He knows more than we want him to,” Baxter stated.
“What do you mean, another would have been more alluring?” Nick asked, his lips drawing into a thin line, his brow wrinkling to the point Ary thought it would never straighten again.
Baxter looked to Ary, then to Nick. “It would be wise for you to pay more attention to your mate, sir.”
The sentence was a little cryptic but brought all attention suddenly to Ary. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment as she shifted in that damn chair once more.
“We need to rethink our strategy where Sabar’s concerned. It’s obvious he’s moving fast to achieve his goal,” Rome stated. “I want this place locked down tight. Guards at every entrance and walking the grounds twenty-four seven. Send someone to your homes to get your things,” he added, looking to Nick and X before either of them could speak.
“And nobody,” he concluded, looking pointedly at Kalina and Ary, “nobody leaves without informing me and without taking a guard with them. Are we clear?”
Kalina nodded. Ary hesitated only momentarily then nodded as well. It wasn’t wise to go against the FL. She hadn’t been here that long, but she could sense that.
“First thing tomorrow, Kalina and I will visit a location she found for what we’re tentatively calling Havenway. If it suits my qualifications we’ll have construction immediately started and move in as soon as possible. Everyone who doesn’t stay there needs to make sure their homes are totally protected.”
Rome had continued speaking, not leaving room for any interruptions or contributions.
“Now that this location has been breached—” He paused, sharp teeth elongated, claws detracting from his fingertips. “—Kalina and I will need to relocate. The women need more protection.”
X stood. “We’ll take care of it,” he vowed, looking directly at Rome.
Nick dropped the stress balls to the floor and went to stand on the other side of Rome.
“I’ll meet with the guards and map out new security in the morning,” he said with a nod.
They looked dark and dangerous and impenetrable, the three of them, standing strong together. They’d die for one another, Ary thought in those moments they stood there. They’d die protecting the Shadow Shifters.
She was in awe of them as she watched. And dangerously close to shifting again and roaring with impatience if whatever the weird sensations inside her were decided it was time to take charge. On shaky legs she stood. She would have walked out of the room alone, but Nick quickly stepped in front of her. He extended a hand, and Ary looked down at it.<
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His scent was strong and like a potion to her as she swooned toward him. The war began in earnest against the part of her that wanted to fall into his arms and pray he had a cure for whatever was ailing her—and the part that screamed for freedom, for the right to come and go as she pleased, to make her own decisions. She wanted to scream, possibly to run away again, but knew neither action was the answer.
She found herself extending her hand, until her palm was warmly fit against his. Instantly his fingers wrapped around hers and he almost pulled her out of the room. It took every bit of pride Ary had to keep from falling and being dragged. Instead she moved her feet as quickly as possible to keep up with him.
Chapter 23
“Keep your fucking mouth shut!” Sabar yelled into the beet-red face of Senator-elect Ralph Kensington.
“I don’t think you’re the one with the control here,” Kensington shot back, even though the beads of sweat rolling down his face and the tangy, citrus-like scent of fear overruled the fake bravado in his voice. “Seems to me I got a secret you want kept.”
Just last month Ralph Kensington had held a fund-raiser to announce his run for the Senate. The announcement came five weeks after the death of Senator Mark Baines and his daughter—two deaths that were necessary to let everyone know that Sabar was now running the show in this town. Instead of starting off his campaign, Kensington had been elected to take Baines’s place for the remainder of this term. Rumors of Kensington’s unprofessional and illegal connection with his former boss Bob Slakeman, a defense weapons specialist, had surfaced but apparently hadn’t been strong enough to keep Kensington out of office.
Now the obese and frankly offensive man was sitting in a high-backed leather office chair that had wheels on it. After a shuffle of his feet, he was able to back away from Sabar’s fierce growl.
“You don’t want to play with me, old man! Believe me when I say I’ve got all the control,” Sabar told him, his claws emerging without warning.
“Shit! I knew it. You’re animals!” he spit. Then he chuckled. “This is gonna be big.”
Lifting a hand, Kensington wiped his forehead and looked from Sabar to Darel, who stood guard at the door.
“Now, you want me to keep my mouth shut about your … your kind, I guess. And you want weapons from Slakeman. Well, well, well.”
Sabar growled, using one clawed hand to toss tendrils of his dreadlocks out of his face. The Rogues didn’t really need weapons. They were already killing machines. But Sabar was thinking globally; he was thinking of the future evolution of the Rogues. They would have to be more than animalistic killers to truly rule here. He recognized and wasn’t afraid of that fact.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten how long it took your man to pay up the last time I hit him off with a supply. Now this time you’re gonna give me exactly what I want or you’ll have the shortest senatorial term ever.”
“How much are you willing to pay for both my silence and the weapons?” Kensington asked, taking a cigar from a box to his left. Pudgy fingers grabbed the cutter and sliced the edge of the cigar off in one clean sweep. Putting it to his mouth, he talked around the stogy. “Way I see it, I’ve gotta get a cut. Especially since you took away my play toy.”
Sabar didn’t bother to address that issue. Melanie Keys was a Rogue whom he’d planted at Rome Reynolds’s law firm to spy on the FL. She was also fucking Kensington’s brains out in exchange for his connections to some of the lowest, but politically best-connected, scum in DC. She’d been killed when Kalina’s capture had gone bust. Unfortunately, it seemed Kensington had fallen hard for the cat.
“I’ll pay for the weapons, but your silence, you’re going to do that as a personal favor to me,” Sabar told him.
Kensington pulled the stogy from his lips and chuckled, his rotund midsection vibrating with the effort. “And what makes you so sure about that? Huh? Why would I want to help you—an animal, a stinking-ass drug dealer?”
Sabar was on him in seconds, his knees braced on the arms of the chair Kensington sat in. His hands wrapped quickly around the man’s neck, his claws digging into the sweaty flesh hanging there. His teeth had already begun to protrude, so Sabar let his lips peel back until Kensington got a full view of his capabilities.
“Because I’ll rip your goddammn throat out if you don’t.”
Kensington coughed, dropped the stogy, and coughed again.
“Now, I’ll expect to hear from you by the end of the day with delivery dates. Or the fine constituents that elected you to office after Baines’s demise are gonna be looking for a replacement for your fat ass as well!”
Sabar climbed off the now rapidly sweating senator-elect, straightened his hair once more, and rubbed human fingers—bloody at the tips from the quick release and retract of claws—down the front of his shirt and walked around the desk.
“Don’t make me come visit you again” were his parting words to Kensington as he strutted out of the office.
Darel had opened the door for his boss, tossing a pitiful look and smile at Kensington before leaving.
* * *
“Norbert has three cases of the drug ready to go,” Darel told Sabar when they were in the back of one of the five Hummers the Rogue owned. “We can make deliveries throughout the city tonight if you’re ready.”
Sabar looked out the window, pulling his hands together and cracking his knuckles. “You said that stripper bitch was hot as hell for you the other night?”
Darel nodded. “Hot and wet. She wanted to be fucked more than she wanted to breathe.”
“That was obvious after what you did to her,” Sabar quipped.
“I don’t know what that was about. Bitch just came at me afterward. I had to take her down.”
Sabar shrugged. “Do what you have to do,” he said. “Start shipping tonight. We need the capital to pay Slakeman.”
“You think he’s going to come through?”
“Either he will or he’ll die. I get the feeling both Slakeman and Kensington are partial to breathing this smog-filled air, the stupid bastards.”
Both Rogues chuckled in the backseat as they rode from Capitol Hill toward the brownstone. There waited more strippers who’d received their first dosage of Sabar’s savior pills, as he’d taken to calling them.
* * *
“You left the condo without telling me,” Nick started the minute they walked into one of the upstairs bedrooms.
There seemed to be at least half a dozen doors on this floor and a long hallway that she’d watched Rome and Kalina walk down. That would be his side of the house, she surmised. Ary didn’t have much time to look around except to notice the large bed on the far side of the room just feet away from a trio of windows. Furniture was set up on the other side of the room to duplicate a living room; there was a huge flat-screen television on the wall above. Nothing else registered but the sound of Nick’s voice.
“You tried to sneak out again and ended up here, running in the open and almost getting yourself killed! What the hell is wrong with you? You’re not in the Gungi anymore, Ary, you need to think about what you’re doing!”
At her sides, her own fists clenched. They were a smaller version of Nick’s downstairs, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t just as angry as he was.
“I am an adult,” she began with barely restrained anger. “I can come and go as I please.”
“You are a shape shifter in a world of humans. Do you have any idea what could have happened if a human had seen you running in cat form? They would have killed you without a second thought.”
Ary didn’t want to think of that.
“Kalina felt it was safe because we were on Rome’s property. I won’t live in a cage, Nick.”
In no time he was right in her face, his strong hands clasping her arms and lifting until her feet were barely touching the ground. “This isn’t a game, Ary.”
“Let go of me, you big idiot!” Ary bared her teeth and kicked at his legs until he walked a few
steps then tossed her onto the bed.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” he roared, his cat’s eyes glaring down at her.
“I’m not that helpless shifter you left in the Gungi sixteen years ago. I’ve changed. I’ve grown up and I won’t allow you to treat me like some child you were forced to rescue!” she yelled back at him, scrambling until she was on the other side of the bed, staring right back at him with what she was sure were her own cat’s eyes.
“You’re an idiot! Traipsing around a foreign land like you’ve been here all your life. It’s dangerous out there. Sabar is dangerous! He wants to use you for your knowledge, then he’ll kill you as sure as you’re standing there. How the hell do you think that makes me feel?”
It was the nearest thing to her and Ary didn’t think twice before picking up the lamp on the small table beside the bed and hurling it at Nick. “You’re an asshole if you think I’m going to bow down to you just because I’m in your country now! I didn’t ask to be brought here! You decided, now you get to deal with it!”
He ducked out of the lamp’s trajectory and skirted the bed to stand beside her as she raged at him. Ary started swinging before he was close enough to actually receive any of her hits. “I hate you! I hate you!” she yelled.
Inside her body felt like it was on fire, like a volcano bubbling in preparation for eruption. Her claws emerged from her fingers with a painful stretch and as she yelled at Nick, sharp teeth pricked her lips.
He grabbed her flailing arms and pulled her tightly to his chest.
“I was so scared,” he said through his own clenched teeth, lowering his forehead to hers. “I felt you reaching for me, calling to me, and…”
“Let me go!” She continued to struggle, pain prickling her skin at the intense sensations swirling through her. She wanted to break free, to run and to … what? She didn’t know what she wanted to do or what she needed.
“Listen to me,” Nick yelled into her face, his eyes closed, his hands tightening on her wrists. “Listen!”
