Fever Claim (The Sigma Menace)

by Marie Johnston

  Even with his past, Jace hadn’t seen carnage like this before. He’d sensed the honesty in Kaitlyn’s emotional turmoil. She was confused, distraught, and terrified. Was it possible a woman in her late twenties could not know what she was?

  Chapter Four

  The hair on Jace’s arms rose the same time he sensed others in the area. He turned to sprint back to Cassie when a scream tore through the air. He ran out of the building, resisting the change that wanted to take over, unwilling to scare Cassie away before he had a chance to explain to her what he was. He sensed multiple other males in the vicinity, all like him.

  He rounded the back of the trailer and skidded to a stop, before he could make a bad situation worse. Cassie was on the ground, eyes wide, panicked, with her back pressed tight to the building. Two men, dressed head to toe in black, weapons strapped all over their bodies, stood with guns pointed on a very scared, very large reddish-brown… wolf. Kaitlyn.

  Her teeth bared, she snarled as she swung her head toward Jace. She didn’t lunge toward him or the two men, but held her ground in front of Cassie, protecting her. She sniffed the air in Jace’s direction and satisfied with what she smelled, she swung back to face to the two men, a low growl rumbling.

  Jace raised his hands up to show both Kaitlyn and the men that he had no intention of any sudden movements. He knew the men, recognized them from the club, and knew what they did for a living.

  “Kaitlyn,” he spoke slowly, quietly. Her hearing would be extremely sensitive and overwhelmed. “Try to calm yourself. Cassie’s okay. She’s not hurt. These guys help our kind. They can help you understand what we are.”

  Kaitlyn’s heaving flanks slowed. He was getting through to her. Cassie’s brows drew together in confusion. He was sure she saw her friend change into the beast before her, but her mind had refused to register that the beast and Kaitlyn were one and the same.

  He glanced toward the men, the one he knew as Bennett nodded almost imperceptibly. Kaitlyn growled and Jace continued. “We can help you. I won’t let anyone hurt Cassie. We need you tell us what happened. You need to calm down, so you can talk to us.”

  Jace assumed that if Kaitlyn didn’t know what she was, she wouldn’t know how to transform back to her human form. If he could get her to calm down, realize neither she nor Cassie were in any immediate danger, perhaps she would turn back. Then he could get to Cassie’s side and find out why the hell the Guardians were here and what the fuck he and his mate were dragged into.

  “Just breathe, Kaitlyn.” No one moved, all eyes were on the great red wolf before them. Werewolves, or “shifters” as they preferred to be called, were larger than the average wolf, and Kaitlyn’s back stood well above waist height. Her form filled out with lean muscle, her green eyes reflecting light from the shadow of the trailer.

  The wolf’s eyes dropped shut and she collapsed to the ground. Cassie gasped and backed up further, watching as red fur transformed to smooth, creamy skin and long auburn hair. Kaitlyn, lay there, out cold.

  Seeing her friend passed out in front of her encouraged Cassie to peel herself off the wall and scramble forward, regardless that the strange men still had guns drawn. She leaned over Kaitlyn and shook her shoulders gently. “Kaitlyn? Are you okay? Hey, wake up.” She gently moved the hair off the unconscious woman’s face, hoping she’d come to.

  Jace approached Cassie, her roiling emotions driving his own inner beast to the surface seeking to protect her. Bennett aimed his weapon at Jace, but that didn’t stop him. He glared at Bennett. “Don’t try to keep me from her.”

  The other man, the one called Mercury, asked, “Which one’s yours, the human or the shifter?”

  Cassie looked up at Jace kneeling down between her and the guns the men had trained on his back, fear and confusion staining her features.

  “What’s going on? What just happened?” Her voice, shaky at the beginning, got stronger. “Who are those guys?”

  “They’re protectors of our people. They’ll want to talk to us. Help Kaitlyn.”

  “I’ve seen them before at the club.” She looked over his shoulder, distrust in her eyes. The two Guardians remained still, letting the situation play out before taking any action. She looked back at him, the look of distrust remained. “What did they mean human or shifter?”

  Petty as it was, he wanted to growl and snarl at Mercury and Bennett. She’d noticed them at the club. Of course, she did. All the women did. He’d had to put up seeing her with her ex, he didn’t need her to notice anyone else.

  “You’re the human, Kaitlyn’s the shifter. As you saw, she’s what you’d know as a werewolf.” He paused to gauge her reaction, debating on whether to confess his genetic makeup now, also.

  “Werewolves aren’t…” She caught herself, unable deny what she witnessed. She looked at Kaitlyn, the concern for her friend returning, processing the events of the last several minutes.

  Kaitlyn moaned. “I think she’s coming around,” Cassie said. “We need to cover her up.”

  “Don’t worry on our account,” Bennett drawled from behind him, “nudity doesn’t bother our kind much. In fact, we prefer it.”

  “Well, I don’t want her nude around you,” Cassie snapped.

  “Nothing we haven’t seen before,” muttered Mercury.

  Jace shot him a dark look knowing full well Mercury had seen plenty of Kaitlyn before. Bennett, too. At the same time. He hoped Cassie hadn’t heard, but she was reaching over to pick up Kaitlyn’s dress. It’d been ripped off in the transformation.

  “This is no good,” she decided. “I have blankets from winter in my car. We can use one of those.” She looked expectantly at him.

  Remaining kneeling in front of her, he dug her keys out. “Heads up!” Without looking, he threw them behind him toward Mercury. “Why don’t you go grab the blanket.”

  Mercury snagged the keys out of the air. “What the fuck, dude?”

  “I’m not leaving them. And it’d be better if there were less of you around when she wakes fully up.” He nodded toward Kaitlyn who was groaning, her eyes rolling around behind her lids, her fingers starting to twitch. “She knows I’m not a threat.”

  Bennett lowered his weapon, but didn’t holster it. “Go ahead, Mercury. I don’t want her shifting again and if the blanket helps, we’d better have it. I’ll radio the commander and let him know we’ll meet him where their car’s at when she’s fully with it.”

  Mercury slipped his weapon, a tranq gun from what Jace could tell, back into its spot on his hip. The thickset man stalked away glaring at Jace, his dark eyes reflecting like a pool of molten iron, until he was almost out of sight. Right before he turned around the corner of the trailer, he flipped Jace the bird, who just smirked. Dickhead.

  Bennett snorted at the brief exchange and spoke quietly into his radio comm, and Cassie rubbed Kaitlyn’s shoulder. To comfort her friend or herself?

  “Are they human or shifter?” Cassie asked quietly.

  “Shifter,” Jace said, dreading her next question.

  “And you? Human or shifter.”

  “Shifter.”

  Paling, Cassie nodded, avoiding his gaze. Did she believe at all what she saw, what he just told her? She opened her mouth to say something, but Kaitlyn moaned and opened her eyes.

  “Cassie? What happened?” As the memories flooded back, Kaitlyn sat up quickly, noticed she was naked, and there were still others around besides Cassie, and curled in on herself. “I didn’t kill anyone again, did I?” she whispered.

  Cassie shook her head and Mercury came around the corner carrying a blanket with floral designs that seemed absurd in this situation. Jace was afraid she would shift seeing him again, but guessed that since this time he was holding a granny blanket instead of a tranq gun, that sat better with her.

  Mercury dropped the blanket to her lap. “Cover up and let’s go.”

  Cassie wrapped the blanket around her and then helped her stand. Jace hovered, wanting to help his mate out, but
unwilling to touch any section of Kaitlyn’s bare body.

  “Let’s go back to the car and get you home,” Cassie murmured to Kaitlyn.

  “Y’all aren’t going home. You need to come with us,” Bennett said.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re taking them?” Jace growled.

  “Where the fuck we say we’re going,” Mercury replied, smugly.

  “We’ll take them, and you, to the compound for questioning. We’re going to need to talk to them both. And this is your warning, Miller,” Bennett said, calling Jace by his last name. “We’ll let you stay with your woman, but if you cause any problems, we’ll knock you out.” He patted the gun he’d just holstered.

  Mercury grinned, resting his hand on the tranq gun strapped to his side.

  “You do anything more than chat with her, I’ll tear you and your compound apart,” Jace threatened.

  Mercury barked out a laugh. “What’s wrong, Miller? Afraid it’ll remind you of prison?”

  Jace’s heart stopped. Motherfucker! Cassie’s jaw dropped, Kaitlyn looked questioningly at him, her curiosity at the sudden turn of conversation momentarily distracting her from the men with guns and passing out naked.

  Cassie’s arms wrapped protectively around Kaitlyn, who clutched the blanket closely around her. Cassie had recovered from the prison announcement and Jace would bet she was regretting who she let drive her home last night. She and Kaitlyn began a slow walk in the direction of her car. Jace and the other two men moved along at the same speed.

  “Let me talk with Cassie first. And I’ll be with her when you talk with her,” he told Bennett.

  Bennett, always the more easygoing one, shrugged and said, “Not up to me, Miller, but I’ll pass on your request to Commander Fitzsimmons.”

  Rhys Fitzsimmons was the Guardian pack commander for the West Creek area. Jace didn’t know how the Guardians divided themselves up geographically, but each major pack area had its own Lycan Guardian pack assigned to protect the shifters and their secrets. Jace knew the commander from the club. The Guardians hung out there on their downtime. It was a good place to keep up on pack gossip, catch wind of anything that might be going down, and fulfill the increased sexual needs unmated Guardians had. The last part excluded the commander. Jace only knew him as all business, all the time.

  That’s all Jace could do for now. Hope the Guardians would let him talk with Cassie first. Hope she’d listen. But he’d die before he left her side.

  ***

  Cassie walked slowly next to Kaitlyn as she picked her way barefoot over the rocks and gravel. They were almost to her Honda, following the big guy, Mercury. Cassie mentally snorted. All three men were big. But Mercury, though not quite as tall, was wider than the other two with a large muscular back and a V-taper most men would envy. His looks fit his name, if that was his real name. He was still over six feet tall, with a short military haircut. His hair was almost black but when light reflected off it, it looked…well, like mercury. His eyes were so dark they also looked black. But when Jace pissed him off, they changed. Like a cat’s eyes in the dark, the reflected light gave them a shine… again, like mercury. Like Jace, Mercury wasn’t classically handsome, but the rugged manliness of his features emanated raw sensuality, she bet he was like catnip for women. Well, she actually knew that for a fact since she’d seen him heading into a room back in The Den, the one all the jelly girls came from.

  The thought of Jace led her back down a path she wasn’t sure her mind was ready to travel. His presence was comforting, disconcerting, arousing, and even more disconcerting that it was arousing. So she’d brought an ex-con home. She’d wait and reserve judgment until she found out what he did time for. He might be like Martha Stewart, a little insider trading, for all she knew. She’d sat across from a few sociopaths in her short career, digging around their minds, and her gut didn’t tell her Jace was mentally unstable and volatile. Since he started pouring drinks for her last night, he’d been thoughtful and protective. He was supposed to be a one-nighter to boost her damaged ego, her walk on the wild side. She would have never had a second thought that she wasn’t the same to him, except maybe his walk was on the extremely tame side. After their talk in her kitchen, and then back behind that trailer where he’d made it clear to the Guardians she was his, she wasn’t sure what he was to her.

  Her mind finished working through what was normal about her current situation and now it settled on the large, red wolf that was Kaitlyn. The change happened so fast, and she’d been distracted by the men quietly appearing, seemingly out of nowhere, she feared Kaitlyn disappeared and was afraid of the giant beast snarling in front of her. But she saw every nanosecond when the wolf transitioned back into Kaitlyn. As much as she’d like to tell herself it wasn’t real, between what the guys were saying, and Kaitlyn’s story, there was only so much she could deny.

  “Hold up,” the other Guardian said when they reached her car. “We’ll wait for the commander.”

  With perfect timing, the commander came strolling out of the warehouse. Even from a distance, he was a man who commanded respect and demanded obedience. He was even taller than his two teammates, almost as broad as Mercury, and to say he had a stern expression would have been an understatement. He had reddish-blond hair, but it was trimmed close to the scalp like Mercury’s, not kept longer so it could be tousled stylishly like the other Guardian wore his, the one whose name she didn’t know. No, Cassie was sure there was nothing frivolous about this man. The commander walked with such power and assurance, with the air of ultimate authority, there was no mistaking who was in charge.

  As he approached, Jace crowded closer behind her, always protective. His presence was welcome since the approach of Commander Fitzsimmons made her realize that her wishes about what happened next were not in her hands. Sure, she could run but how far would she get? She was fast, but she only had two legs. She was at the mercy of these men now and it wasn’t only her future at risk, it was Kaitlyn’s, too. She’d known Kaitlyn half her life. They were so close she thought she knew everything about her. She was pretty sure her friend would’ve mentioned, “Hey, this one time, I turned into a big fucking wolf.”

  “Bennett,” Commander Fitzsimmons said when he got closer, “you and Mercury use the car to take the ladies back to the compound.”

  Cassie felt, and the same time heard, the low rumble from behind her.

  “I stay with Cassie,” Jace demanded. “She’s mine.”

  The commander’s eyes flicked back and forth between her and Jace, and he subtly lifted his nose like he was catching a whiff of something. Of course he was a shifter, too, and Jace really had been scenting for trouble when they’d first arrived. What the commander was scenting now, she wasn’t sure, as she was apparently the oddball human in this group.

  “And, I’m not leaving Kaitlyn.” Cassie chimed in, unwilling to leave her friend alone with armed men.

  Commander Fitzsimmons raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Miller, do you plan to cause any problems for Bennett on the way to our facilities?”

  “Only if you plan on hurting her in any way. And hurting Kaitlyn would hurt her.”

  “Miss Savoy,” Commander Fitzsimmons turned his intense hazel stare to Kaitlyn, “do you plan on disrupting the trip to our facilities?”

  All heads turned to Kaitlyn. She met his stare boldly, thinking for a bit. “What are your plans for me?”

  “Miss Savoy, we’d only like to talk.” The commander’s voice was gentler than he used on Jace. “And to help you. It’s… unusual for one of our kind to go unknown and unnoticed, unshifted for so long. We will teach you.”

  “And the men in there,” Kaitlyn nodded toward the warehouse, “I killed them, right?”

  Commander Fitzsimmons nodded.

  She paused, letting the confirmation sink in. “What will you do to me for that?”

  “Those men were going to kill you. Probably torture you first for information. They do that to our kind—hunt us. As far I’m concern
ed, you saved yourself and saved us some work. Mercury and I will stay, and take care of them.”

  “Why’d they want to kill me?” Kaitlyn asked.

  “Allow us to escort you and your friends to the safety of our facility so we can fill you in.”

  Kaitlyn glanced at Cassie who just shrugged. Their only choice was between running and fighting. Kaitlyn was a superb fighter, and Cassie loved to run, but against these men, neither woman could fight nor run to freedom. To Cassie’s trained eye, the commander was genuine and the other two hadn’t hurt them yet. Cassie wanted answers about Kaitlyn and Jace, and this was the less violent way.

  “Mr. Miller, you drive. Bennett will give you the directions.” With that, the commander turned and strode back to the warehouse, making not a sound. Mercury silently followed.

  Chapter Five

  The Guardian headquarters was an impressive compound tucked away deep in the woods. Anyone who happened upon it would think an eccentric millionaire built out here for privacy. The main two-story building was a cross between old-world mansion and rustic cabin, built from a combination of log and rock on the exterior. The center was a giant A-frame with enormous windows looking out into the woods. Cassie was blown away by the grandeur of the estate.

  Large cottonwoods were spread throughout the property as if the log mansion and the accompanying buildings were built around them. A log-built garage connected the dwelling by an intricate breezeway that could be open to the elements or closed during the winter months. Behind those, there was more, much more, but she could not make any of it out past the main house. From what she did see, there appeared to be smaller more rustic cabins scattered in the hills around the primary property.

  It’d been a quiet trip. Other than Bennett’s driving instructions, no one said a word. What would be the point to ask questions? She couldn’t talk to Kaitlyn privately, she wanted to hear Jace’s story without an audience, and she doubted Bennett would answer anything. So she stared out the window, trying to ignore the heat of Jace’s body next to her in the tiny car. If she turned to look at her ex-con sitting there, dangerously handsome, she’d start seeing images of him naked and not care what he’d done to spend time in prison.