by Amelia Jade
She had made it, against all odds. With a sigh of relief, she began to climb her way onto the trailer while the truck fell behind. The cables ripped free from their anchor points on the flatbed as the cargo truck began to wobble and then flipped on its side, the uncontrolled path of it taking out two of the SUVs that had been trailing them as well.
A thud forced her to look up just as one of the shifters completed his leap from the top of the truck to the trailer, landing right in front of her.
Uh-oh.
Chapter Nineteen
Ajax
Ajax rocked backward, stars exploding across his vision at the force of the blow.
If he’d had any doubts that they were up against the Extremis squad, they were extinguished now. The man wasn’t a shifter, and no human could hit him that hard.
Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it—Ajax had a lot of experience being hit, and hit hard.
He tumbled to the floor, that was unavoidable, but even as his bear fell he rolled over and kicked out with his hind legs, the huge claws there opening another of the squad from neck to navel in a gruesome fashion that promised a swift death.
With four downed by his own hand, and three of them now going for Ari, the odds were only three to one in favor of his enemies. Those weren’t very fair odds for them at all. The agents seemed to know it, and they began to back away, spreading out. That would be their only hope. In such an enclosed space, he would only be able to face one, possibly two of them at any given time.
He snarled angrily and accepted those odds, charging at the man nearest the big rig itself. Although he couldn’t see him, Ajax sensed the agent leaping in the air from behind him. He ignored him, his single-mindedness ensuring that the serum-empowered man in front of him went down, and did so hard.
Ajax howled as a knife dug deep into his back, puncturing through his thick skin with ease as the shifter used the force of his leap to plunge it up to the hilt. His cry intensified as the shifter twisted it. He bucked and tried to shake the man off, but he held on stubbornly to the knife, the motion only sending more waves of pain through Ajax’s body.
In his struggle to dislodge the man on his back, Ajax saw Ari leap from the truck, falling just short of the flatbed. His heart stopped as he saw the distance she had to cross, but the power of her jump was stronger than he would have expected, and she managed to get her hands on the side of the trailer.
The knife being ripped from his back jolted Ajax back to the present.
Big mistake buddy, he thought, and immediately dropped into a roll. The man on his back fell off, exposing himself to Ajax’s jaws as he bounced back to his feet in a lithe move for the big bear. The man screamed as massive teeth closed around his neck, ripping the tender flesh away in a spray of blood.
Ajax spit the remnants from his mouth and roared his challenge to the agent now standing over Arianna.
The move distracted the man long enough for her to reach up, grab his leg, and pull him off the trailer.
His eyes widened at the strength in her arms, but he didn’t have time to watch as the final two men came at him. Behind them Ajax saw the cargo truck flip and roll, taking out two of the three trailing SUVs that were too slow to get out of the way. There was a form still on the roof of the truck that tried to leap free, but it was too little too late, and he disappeared into the maelstrom of metal and glass of the collision.
Arianna finally managed to board the trailer and she moved to stand next to Ajax. By that time he had shifted back. He quickly embraced her, never taking his eyes off the duo of agents still remaining.
“Ajax, you’re bleeding. Badly,” Arianna said worriedly.
“It’ll be fine,” he said, though he wasn’t sure about the truth of that statement. He had lost a lot of blood, and was feeling sluggish. The wound itself wasn’t fatal, but the effects of it might prove deadly against the remainder of the Extremis team.
“Umm, Ajax?”
“I see them,” he said dully.
The last SUV was pulling up alongside the flatbed, disgorging four more men. They moved with the same grace of the agents facing them.
More Extremis.
They were outmatched, even with the apparent powers Arianna had been graced with. If he was unwounded things would have been different. But the wound had been deep, and he had lost a lot of blood. Even now he was having a hard time staying on his feet. The world swayed in front of him.
“I love you,” he said, his voice sounding slurred. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”
Arianna held him tight, unable to reply as their end approached.
Ajax blinked.
Was he hallucinating? He could have sworn there were five agents. Now he only saw six. No, seven. But, why were they fighting each other?
Right. The rest of the plan. We must have reached them.
Ajax sunk down to the flatbed with Arianna by his side, arms around him, as four figures leapt aboard the rear of the flatbed and dispatched the agents with murderous efficiency. They worked as a team, their coordination perfect. The agents didn’t stand a chance.
“Um, who are they?” Arianna asked nervously from his side.
“Friends,” he said with a smile. “Jared, Connor, Justin, Josh,” he said, pointing at each one in turn. “They,” he told her happily, “are part of a program from back home, called the Sentinel program. I called them and had them wait at the city’s outskirts for us. I thought we might need some backup.”
“How did they get on board though?” she asked.
A pickup roared alongside them. At the wheel was Benji, who gave them a wave. In the rear they saw the third SUV ram nose-first into the concrete divider.
“Oh,” she said, giving her half-brother a wave.
“Arianna?” he said, pulling on her sleeve.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to sleep now,” he said, and slumped over into her arms, a smile upon his lips.
They had done their job.
Chapter Twenty
Arianna
“You know what I don’t understand?” she asked tiredly.
“What?” Ajax asked from the seat next to her.
“How did Benji get out, get to your friends?”
“It took you this long to ask?” he teased.
“I’ve been a little tired,” she said grumpily, though her cheeks tugged upward as his hand caressed her leg gently.
“Same way we did,” Ajax told her with a smile. “Just the night before.”
She had wondered where he had been all that day. Now she knew.
“We’re here,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.
Arianna sat up a little straighter in her chair as the big rig crested the hill they had been climbing.
Before her was a spread of verdant forest that threatened to take her breath away. In the distance off to the right, the sun crept up over a line of hills, bathing the valley before them in yellow-orange brilliance. Even as she watched, the trees seemed to burst to life as birds took to the air, huge flocks whirling and diving with a coordination that made it hard to believe the form was composed of thousands of individual minds.
“Oh wow,” she breathed, her head turning to the left, where a row of mountains reached up for the sky, the snow-capped peaks threatening to disappear into the clouds, if there had been any that day.
Nestled at the foot of the mountains she could make out a small village set into the forest. It was surrounded on all sides by trees, with only the occasional break for what appeared to be a farmer’s field. Even amongst the buildings of human habitation she could see numerous tree growths. The residents clearly cared about the forest.
“That must be Origin,” she said with a nod toward the buildings.
“It is,” Ajax confirmed wearily. “Welcome to Genesis Valley,” he said.
Despite the well-earned weariness in his voice, Arianna could pick up a sense of pride as well. This was his home, and he was eager to show it off
to her. To Arianna, it was okay if he was proud of his home and the people in it. From the tidbits he’d told her, the people there had been through a lot, and they deserved that pride and faith. Part of her was interested to meet some of them. She had heard a lot about them over the past few days.
After the climactic battle on the flatbed, the group had commandeered the big rig for their own uses. The mysterious agency’s bribery of the police forces had ensured that they wouldn’t be followed, and that the mess would all be dealt with, with little news coverage despite the destruction.
It should have boggled her mind, but after years as a conspiracy theorist writer, that was the sort of thing she lived for. A part of her—from the life before the recent changes—would have been over the moon to know the truth behind what she was sure would be termed an “unfortunate series of accidents.” Something like that would have provided rent and food for several months when she broke the real story online.
There was no going back now. Not for her, nor for the rest of the escapees. Ajax had led a charge across the country with a single-mindedness that had scared her as he drove the little convoy farther and farther each day. They had to stop frequently to fuel both the big rig and the motorhome that Flint had procured for the others, but Ajax had insisted that they never stop driving. They had stopped to switch drivers, but otherwise they had driven straight for almost two days.
Now they were here at last.
“What now?” she asked quietly as the truck descended into the valley, the little town quickly approaching. No more than an hour, she figured, and they would be there.
“Now we get there, turn the escapees over to the Mining Consortium and let them figure out what’s going on,” he said confidently.
“Is that all?” she asked, frowning. Ajax didn’t seem like the type to just shirk responsibility like that. True, he had done far more than his share, but still…
“Of course not,” he told her. “I don’t have anything written down yet, but I had an idea that I wanted to bounce off you.” He shrugged. “I was going to wait until we got to my place, had a shower, a proper sleep, and several big meals, but I can tell you now if you’d like?”
“Please,” she all but begged. “Anything to take my mind off of the changes going on.”
Ajax frowned. She knew he didn’t like when she acted unsure about the differences going on inside of her, but how could she expect him to understand? Arianna was no longer human. She also wasn’t a shifter. A new breed of humans, with many of the strengths of a shifter, but without the inner animal to contend with. It was scary, especially for her, as she had to go through the process of learning how to deal with it.
At least they had arrived on a likely reason why she had been able to adapt to it, like the Extremis team they had faced. It boiled down to her lineage. Her half-brother Benji was a shifter. They had the same father, so the shifter DNA was within her, but like with most female children of two full-blooded shifter parents, the female child was rarely a shifter.
It was that blood though, that latent DNA, that had somehow bonded with the serum the Agency—they had taken to calling it the Agency with a capital “A” for lack of a better name—had injected into her. They had been elated at first to discover their findings, even if it was purely hypothetical.
The unfortunate part was, it was clear that the Agency had figured it out as well. Whether they had just gotten lucky through trial and error with their Extremis team, or if they had figured it out beforehand, they must know by now. A shadow war was coming to the shifter world, and she dreaded what that might entail. Ajax promised her that Genesis Valley was safe, and that she would have nothing to worry about, but Arianna still worried. Not only for her, but for the shifters out there that didn’t know what was about to happen.
They were going to be hunted down and eliminated. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. Ajax had told her about the group that had founded them, this “Order.” That the Order had been destroyed. That didn’t seem to matter to the mysterious J, the leader of the Agency. He seemed intent on the death of any shifter, no matter the race.
Dark times were descending over the shifters, and she knew that they would need all the help they could get. Perhaps this plan of Ajax’s would work to help people like her half-brother, who were not fighters the way Ajax was. They couldn’t possibly hope to resist on their own.
Ajax let his frown die away and instead began to talk. “I’m going to ask Valen to send the Sentinels, or at least some of them, to help Flint. They have the training his organization will need, to go toe-to-toe with the Agency. In addition, the shifters they help escape will need a place to go. In return for their freedom the Sentinels will bring them to Genesis Valley. Here they can be protected, and can help us.”
He stopped abruptly, looking at her.
He’s waiting for your input.
That was something she loved about Ajax. He always invited her opinion, and even better, he listened.
“That sounds quite ingenious actually,” she admitted. “Reluctant as I am to fuel your ego any more, I must admit the truth.” She looked away innocently as he shot her a hurt look. “The Sentinels and the funds you promised him will help Flint do a lot of good. I wish I knew why he was so intent on helping us, but beggars cannot be choosers I suppose.”
Ajax didn’t reply.
“What?” she pressed. “Did he tell you?”
“No,” the big shifter responded. “But I did ask Jared to keep an eye on him, and to figure that mystery out, if things go the way we hope.”
The Sentinels had accompanied them part of the way, but at Ajax’s urging they had turned back, heading back to King City with instructions to seek out Flint. Arianna had agreed with that decision. Valen might not agree to the alliance, but Ajax had a strong feeling he would, and she believed him.
“Well, it sounds like you’ve gotten everything taken care of,” she teased.
“Almost,” came the cryptic reply.
She waited for him to explain, but he didn’t.
***
Several hours later, with the shifter refugees dispersed and cared for, and the reunions and introductions of far too many people for her remember over with, the pair retired to Ajax’s place. The thought of it sounded relaxing, but her nerves were at an all-time high.
It was time for her to meet his Crew.
She swallowed hard as they passed under a beautiful hand-carved sign that read Silverlake Resort. This was it. Now or never, she was going to meet them. The ones that called Ajax their leader.
No, that wasn’t right, she corrected. They called him their Alpha.
“Ajax,” she said softly.
He glanced over at her from behind the wheel of the pickup. They had traded the big rig in for a much more practical-sized vehicle before ascending the mountain to meet the Kedyn brothers, who she now knew owned practically the entire valley through their company Lionshead Mining.
So many people to remember.
“Yes?” he asked when she didn’t immediately respond.
“I’m nervous. What if they don’t like me?”
Ajax laughed, but he didn’t dismiss her fears. “I can’t see how they would. You are just too perfect for them.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “But what if they do?”
Her head bobbed as Ajax shrugged. “That is their prerogative, love. I can’t force someone to like someone else. That’s not the mark of a leader. But they will respect you, and they will be kind to you. But I wouldn’t worry.”
“Why not? You sound so confident about it.” She didn’t understand how he could be so serene about introducing her to his extended family.
Ajax worked his jaw. “I don’t know quite how to put it,” he admitted. “Saying that ‘shifters seem to attract a certain type of woman’ is a little, uh, brutish, I guess,” he laughed. “But our mates tend to be similar. Strong-willed and smart, able to get along well with other men and women, to better t
he crews as a whole.”
He shrugged again. “You fit that, even if you don’t wholly believe it yourself.”
She frowned, but her rebuttal was lost as they emerged from the winding road in the forest.
“Oh Ajax,” she gasped. “It’s beautiful.”
The trees thinned as they approached a lake she hadn’t known actually existed, having thought Silverlake was just a name. Built in and amidst the trees were a number of log cabins, beautifully designed to flow with the forest, tucked in amongst small copses of trees.
A big central campfire dominated an open space to her left, around which several small children ran shrieking from each other, chased by a big dog whose tail swished back and forth frantically.
To her right, several men stood around an extra-long barbecue, tending meat even as they watched her arrival, beers in hand.
The sun was high and glittering across the caps of the waves on the lake, the reflection dancing amid the leaves of the trees to create a kaleidoscope of color and light that gave the whole place a good vibe.
“Perhaps you were right,” she said softly. Anyone who lived here couldn’t hate. That would be impossible.
Ajax slipped out of his side and strode around to her door, opening it for her even as she continued to stare.
“I could live here,” she told him, taking his hand as she hopped down, even if she didn’t need it.
“I was hoping you would say that,” he told her, leading her toward the gathering of people near where the food was being prepared.
“Ajax,” one of the men said, stepping forward. “Good to see you.”
Something flashed through air, clinking as Ajax snagged it mid-flight. He turned his wrist swiftly and raised the beer to his lips.
“Ahh,” he said after a sip. “Thank you Cedric.”
“You’re welcome, but it was meant for her,” the big man said. “I figure she needs it after putting up with you for as long as she has.”
