by A. C. Arthur
“She thinks this will make us stronger,” Sabar told Darel a couple of minutes after he’d left Bianca in the bedroom.
Darel had grumbled. “Can you trust her?”
A laugh rumbled in his chest. Sabar looked up to the ceiling, his bedroom was just above them. “You know I don’t fully trust anybody. But just think of how much power we’ll have with our new drug on the streets and an army of Rogues with no fear, no past, no inhibitions.”
“Too much, too soon, isn’t always the best route,” Darel said with a nod. He’d been standing near the fireplace that wasn’t lit, staring into the dark pit.
“I’ll be the judge of how fast we move. You just focus on getting the product out on the streets and watching my money. If you’re still thinking about using those strippers as dealers, they’d better be good at keeping numbers. The first time they’re short, they’re dead.”
Darel nodded. “I know the drill.”
“Good. Then let’s get in here and watch what the hell’s going on with this holy man Bianca brought me.”
Now they were standing near the door of the room, just beyond a double row of candles and hopefully out of the line of fire, so to speak.
“So what’s this all about?” Darel asked while they watched the short man engulfed in shadows moving about the room.
The male inside looked as if he was preparing, putting candles here, taking things out of a huge duffel bag, and placing them in allotted spots. Whatever he did was done in complete silence. If Darel hadn’t been staring directly at him, he’d have never known the man was moving about. He was wearing a loincloth and nothing else, clothing-wise. Around his neck was a rope of what Darel thought might be bones. At his ankles were smaller bands of bones that didn’t even clink when he moved. And straight through his chin was a longer, thicker bone that looked too painful and too disgusting for Darel to continue to stare. It was eerie how silent things were and yet how alive they felt.
To say he didn’t like what was happening here was an understatement. But Darel knew better than to keep going against Sabar. The fact that he was the lone survivor of their original foursome meant something. And despite what Sabar said, Darel knew the Rogue had at least a minuscule amount of trust in him, or else he’d never allow him to run the drug trade almost exclusively on his own. After Gabriel’s death, Darel would directly supervise Norbert and the dealers. He was Sabar’s number one Rogue, and he liked that position. So much so that he’d keep his mouth shut and his eyes open where the mysterious Bianca was concerned.
“His name is Yuri and he’s a shaman. For a fee he was willing to come here to do us this favor,” a female voice said, sending warning spikes up and down Darel’s spine.
Speak of the devil.
“He will perform an ayahuasca ceremony, an infusion of sorts, which will alter the minds of each of the shifters we’ve selected,” Bianca continued.
“Why do we want to alter their minds?” Darel asked.
Behind him he felt Sabar stiffen. “So they’ll do exactly as I say instead of going off on their own like Gabriel and that cheetah we had before. I need total submission to take down each of the Factions; I can’t be all over the world at one time. These new Rogues will be able to travel, making our new regime among the shifters a reality.”
That sounded good, but Darel still had reservations. Instead of speaking them again he figured it might be best just to watch and see what happened. Maybe this little experiment wouldn’t work; after all, they weren’t in the jungle. They were in Sabar’s house in the middle of the city. How successful could a holistic jungle ceremony be?
* * *
Six shifters were ushered into the room and lined up in the center. Around them double rows of candles were lit. Yuri and another who was dressed just like him moved in a circle around the shifters. The shorter male used a rattle, shaking it in rhythm. Yuri lit incense. Smoke filled the room, quickly creating a warm buzz throughout.
Once Yuri stood in front of the shifters, he motioned for them all to go down on their knees. It was weird to see this array of strong jaguar shifters doing as the thin, wiry human male directed. Darel stood, hands clasped in front of him, eyes focused on the center of the room.
The shorter male presented Yuri with a bowl. Steady streams of steam swirled as Yuri took it in his palms and put it to his lips. He drank, tilting his head back until it was finished. Meanwhile, as he drank, the smaller male walked to the shifters, touching each on the shoulder and motioning for them to tilt their heads back similar to Yuri.
“He is drinking the ayahuasca. This will allow him to see into the soul of each shifter,” Bianca whispered.
“And see that they’re all evil,” Darel muttered.
“Or see their possibilities,” Sabar added.
Yuri walked from one shifter to the next, touching each on the forehead with the palm of his hand. The room seemed to fill with more smoke streams, the smell of incense permeating the air. Then Yuri stopped at one shifter and touched his chin. The shifter’s mouth immediately opened and Yuri bent forward, breathing smoke into the shifter’s mouth.
Darel wanted to vomit at the sight. A man putting his lips on another man’s lips wasn’t cool with him, at all. The fact that this smoke seemed to simply be sitting inside Yuri’s body was another deal he didn’t want to know about.
“I’m done,” he said, moving past Sabar and using his nocturnal vision to see toward the door. Out in the hallway he took a deep steadying breath.
He wasn’t sure about what was going on in that room, not sure at all. But there was no talking Sabar down once he’d decided on something. Darel just hoped this was something they wouldn’t all live to regret.
* * *
“We’ve got the truck at a garage in the city. Prints and scents are being lifted and run through X’s new database as we speak,” Eli said as they sat at the long table in Rome’s conference room.
Nick had called this late-afternoon meeting after his visits to the morgue and the new Havenway property. As head of security for the Faction, it was his job to map out how Havenway as well as the FL’s home and family would be protected. Preliminary maps had been drawn up of the Havenway location, roads in and out and the entire perimeter hundreds of feet out into Arlington. Older blueprints of Rome’s estate were also spread out on the table.
In total there were twenty shifters in the room at present: Nick, Eli, Ezra, and seventeen guards who would carry out whatever plans they came up with. They were preparing for war, and Nick’s adrenaline flowed like a river.
“That’s good. Bring me the results as soon as you have them. And keep the truck, we might need it later,” Nick told Eli.
The shifter—identical to his brother Ezra, who was older by fifteen seconds—nodded and leaned over the table, pulling one of the blueprints closer for his own scrutiny.
“We need to layer the protection here by the highway. This is where the shifter came in,” Eli told everyone in the room.
“There are cameras there already. Motion lights would be a good addition. And sensors,” Nick said.
“Heat sensors, since shifters naturally have a high body temperature,” Ezra added.
Nick rubbed a hand down the back of his head. “Let’s aim for something targeted to shifters. I don’t want a sensor going off if a deer crosses into the trees.”
Ezra nodded and wrote on the legal pad he had in front of him. “Okay, so we want specific body temperature, maybe scent, too. Our scent doesn’t match any other animals—or humans for that matter.”
“Right,” Nick agreed. “What about personal patrols? Right now Jax is assigned to the First Female.” That was Kalina’s title now. The moment she became joined with Rome, she’d assumed it. Their human civil ceremony of marriage had happened within hours of their return to the States. Now her protection was just as high-priority as Rome’s.
“And I put Leo on Ary,” Eli told Nick.
Nick nodded. Leo Arrington was a good shifter. He c
ame from a family of guards and was trained well. Nick knew; he’d trained the guy himself. Ary was in good hands.
“I’ll stay with you when you go back to your apartment,” Ezra told him.
“And I’ll stay with the FL” was Eli’s reply.
“Zach’s going with X,” Ezra said, nodding toward the six-foot-nine Brazilian shifter with the crew cut standing four men down at the table.
He nodded to Nick. “Wherever he goes, I’m going with him,” Zach said, his heavy accent making the words almost indecipherable.
“I want a rotating detail around the premises here. We’ll need at least a hundred more guards at Havenway to start. Here’s the preliminary layout of the facility. FL and First Female are going to stay in this section of rooms. Construction’s already been ordered to insulate these walls with steel and soundproof barriers. The locks will be programmed into a computer. X is going to take care of that. But the FL’s locks will be on a separate mainframe. We’ll have the medical facility here. I want these walls insulated as well and cameras throughout.”
He didn’t want Ary out of his sight at all, but Nick knew that was going to be next to impossible to achieve. He had his law-firm business to attend to, and she would have her career. The thought was not to smother her, but to keep her safe. It was a hard pill for him to swallow, but he’d gotten her message loud and clear.
“We can set the medical center up on a separate mainframe as well.”
That was Tobias, who worked with X sometimes on the computer stuff and was getting pretty good at it.
“Good idea,” Nick complimented the young shifter.
Two hours into the meeting Nick felt like they’d mapped out good preliminary plans to keep a blanket over the high-ranking shifters until Havenway was fully operational. He wanted to talk about weaponry and different defense mechanisms but figured he’d run that by Rome and X first.
He was just about to tell everyone they could leave when the door opened. In came a draft of sweet musky scent, and the entire room of shifters turned, muscles bunched, mouths salivating.
“She’s begging to be let out of this prison she thinks she’s in,” X said.
When Nick looked to the door he was shocked and more than a little annoyed to see X with his hand tightly around his sister’s bicep. Caprise struggled against him to no avail. Her struggle raised her shirt so that half her midsection was showing; the floral swirls of a tattoo on her right hip were just barely visible.
“Meeting dismissed,” Nick said tightly, already smelling the scent of arousal in half the shifters there.
Eli and Ezra stayed in the room, moving to stand behind Nick as they were probably smart enough to sense his annoyance. Lord knew they’d been around him long enough to recognize the warning signs.
“Holding me here is illegal,” Caprise said with a frown as the other shifters moved past her to get out of the room.
Only one had been stupid enough to stop and openly stare at her and that damn tattoo. Before Nick could say a word, X growled.
“Keep it moving!” he yelled at the shifter, who quickly took the hint and moved a little faster to the exit.
X slammed the door and released a cursing Caprise.
“I don’t have to stay here if I don’t want to!” she yelled.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Nick asked, pushing aside two chairs to get to where she was standing. “You said you were looking for an apartment.”
“More like breaking into yours,” X replied, leaning his bulky frame against the door. That was a warning for Caprise not to even think about a getaway.
The highly volatile glare she tossed X’s way said she didn’t give a damn where he stood.
“What’s he talking about, Caprise?” Nick asked in what he considered a very calm voice, even though his temples throbbed at what the thought of her answer might be.
Caprise sighed. “I needed a place to stay. I knocked and you didn’t answer. I picked the lock. End of story.”
Behind him Nick heard a snicker. He didn’t turn around to see which twin had lost his battle with self-control.
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
She shrugged. “Forgot the number.”
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. If this were any other shifter at any other time, it might be funny. But now was not the time for Caprise to be gallivanting around town, picking locks and whatever else she might be up to. Because now, more than ever, Nick suspected something wasn’t quite right where his baby sister was concerned.
“Fine. I won’t press charges. But X is right, you can’t leave this house,” he told her and steeled himself for the onslaught.
Nobody, and Nick meant absolutely nobody, in this entire world could throw a temper tantrum like Caprise Delgado.
Her eyes narrowed, hands going to her hips as she squared her shoulders and subsequently pushed her breasts farther out. Throats cleared throughout the room, with the exception of Nick who only glared at her, wishing he could yank down one of those thick brocade drapes and wrap it tightly around her body.
“I’m a grown woman. I will come and go as I please and neither you nor the goons who follow you and Rome around like you’re some kind of gods can stop me.”
“Caprise, this is not a game. There’s some serious shit going on out there. You could get killed,” Nick told her.
“I tried to explain that to her, but she’s got one hard-ass head,” X added from his perch at the door.
Her eyes shot to him. “Shut up,” she snapped. “Fine, there’s stuff going on in your little shifter world, I guess. So I’ll just stay at your house. But I can’t stay here.”
“You don’t have a choice,” X told her. “Rogues are out there and they’re hunting us.”
“You!” she yelled at X. “Do not control me!”
Nick sighed, tossing a pleading look at his friend and fellow commanding officer. He knew where X was coming from and agreed with him wholeheartedly: Caprise could not go out unprotected. At the same time, he loved his sister and didn’t want to even consider the fact that she might run and be gone another five years if he didn’t at least act like he was on her side. The scent of fear still lingered around her, and until Nick found out what that was about, he wanted her close.
“You don’t have to be on lockdown, Caprise. But you will have to travel with a guard.” Before she could protest, Nick held up a hand. “All of us are walking with a shadow now so don’t give me grief on this. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“I’m fine,” she said, looking away from him. “I’ve been fine for a long time now.”
Nick stepped closer, put his hands on her shoulders. “And I’d like to keep you that way. So do me a favor, let X find you a guard. You can go about your business during the day and at night come back to stay here with the other females.”
“What other females?” she said, shooting him a questioning glare.
Nick couldn’t have thought of a better time for Ary to knock on the door.
“It’s me, Ary,” she said when X didn’t move to open it.
Nick nodded toward him, and he let her in.
“Hi,” she said, stepping in tentatively. “Am I interrupting something?”
She was watching him closely, tension filling the air. It was then that Nick realized his hands were on Caprise, another female, and his mate was staring right at him.
“Aryiola Serino, this is my sister, Caprise,” he said and hoped it was fast enough to calm Ary’s rising temper.
Her smile said it was. “Hi, Caprise. It’s nice to see you again.” She crossed the room and extended her hand.
To Nick’s shock Caprise managed her own smile, and it looked genuine. “So you’re the one who’s changed my brother’s scent and I daresay some of his attitude.”
The females shook hands. Nick looked at X, who was already shaking his head. He got the feeling the odds against him had just shifted.
Chapter 27
Three weeks later
This seemed like as good a place as any to test the allegiance of his newest enforcers. Sabar sat in the back of his Hummer with Bianca at his side. Darel thought it was more important to stay with Norbert, who’d been a little shaky lately, and oversee the deliveries of their product to the new dealers he’d recruited than to attend this little initiation. And only because Sabar could see the logic in that did he allow the shifter to make such a decision on his own.
They’d pulled onto the busy street known as Pennsylvania Avenue and double-parked beside three cars. The truck in front of them housed two of his original shifter enforcers and four of the ones who’d attended the shaman’s ceremony.
Sabar checked his watch and looked at Bianca.
“Three seconds,” she said to him, a wide smile spreading across her face.
His hand rested on her bare knee, moving upward to caress her thigh since the dress she wore was so fucking short. He loved looking at her body, which she showed every chance she had. Her breasts were abundant and almost drooped right out of the low-cut blouse she wore. His dick was getting harder by the moment. But he wanted to be here, he wanted to see the success of his new enforcers. Once they had what they’d come for he’d fuck Bianca again. Maybe right here in the backseat or on the floor in his living room, in front of the fire. It didn’t matter where, as long as he could sink his length inside her again. Soon.
He’d stopped thinking about why she’d left Boden or what would happen if Boden found out where she was. Sabar knew his former captor well. He would find Bianca because nothing would be more important to him than that right now. And when he came, Sabar would be ready for him. As for Bianca, she wasn’t going anywhere until Sabar was ready to let her fine ass go. Judging by his feelings for the female, that would be the day after never.
The doors opened on the truck in front of them, and out stepped four men dressed in all black. Their physical features were different, the coloring of their cats as versatile as the humans walking right past them. They didn’t use masks because what people would remember about them wasn’t going to appear in any police lineup. With long strides, they walked into the front rotating glass doors of the Rigory National Bank.
