by Cecilia Lane
Callum was already moving across the center when Judah and one of his deputies took their first step to his porch.
Cole leaned against one of the wood columns. “You here to bring me breakfast, Judah? Can’t see why you’d be here so early otherwise.”
Judah made a face. “My hands are tied. You know I wouldn’t do this otherwise.”
“Do what? What’s going on?” Callum demanded, pushing past Judah to take a stand with Cole.
Rylee took that moment to appear. She’d thrown on jeans and still wore his shirt, but her hair was as messy as when she woke. Fear and anxiety didn’t just waft off her. It rose in thick clouds that set his bear on murderous edge.
Judah took one look in her direction and Cole let out a low growl. So much for a quiet bear. The monster in him wanted out. It needed to get between Rylee and every single male that’d come to his den.
“Cole Strathorn, you’re going to need to come with me.” Judah grasped his cuffs. “You’re under arrest for the murder of human Maxwell Baker. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and may be used against you.”
“Cole, I order you not to lose your shit,” Callum hissed. “We’ll get this cleared up.” A wave of power washed over him and grabbed hold of his bear.
Don’t lose his shit? Fucking hilarious. He pushed against grasp Callum had over him. Pushed and shoved at it. Fuck his brother. Fuck his alpha. They weren’t going to pin a murder on him.
“That’s bullshit!” Cole spat. “I haven’t gone near those camps since the last fire.”
“When? When did this happen? He was with me all night!” Rylee yelled. Judah and Callum both winced at the sudden noise piercing their sensitive ears. Cole was too numb to care.
“Judah!” Callum shouted over the noise of Rylee still screaming her head off about the injustice of it all and the others of the Strathorn clan backing her up. “What happened?”
Judah continued with the spiel and snapped the silver cuffs around his wrists. Cole could feel his bear rampaging in his head, but there was nothing the beast could do. Silver locked him inside even better than Cole ever managed. The psychopath was roaring and demanding blood and Cole couldn’t fault him one bit, especially when he caught sight of a new vehicle pulling up behind the police cruisers.
Major Assface Delano strode forward like he owned the place, flanked by men with huge weapons slung across their chests. He showed all the swagger of a man scared of his surroundings but backed up by a high caliber weapon. Coward couldn’t even face the clan himself. He sent Judah to do the work and had a backup squad waiting in his truck.
A snarl ripped out of Cole. Maybe it was good he was cuffed. He wouldn’t be able to hold himself back. He wanted to tear the man to pieces.
He was going to burn the cabin down and rebuild if he ever got free. The man’s boots on his porch were tainting his home.
Delano smirked like he’d won. He leaned close enough to almost press his nose against Cole’s. Just a little closer, asshole, Cole begged. I’ll rip your fucking throat out.
Delano spoke over Judah’s attempt at a calm recitation of rights. “Your boy has a problem with humans, doesn’t he? Just can’t stand ‘em in his territory. We got a dead college kid all mauled up and I know from personal experience how this one lashes out.”
White fury was the only thing that kept Cole’s mouth shut. He wouldn’t give Delano the satisfaction of seeing him break. Judah could drive him down to the police department, lawyers would be called, and Delano’s trick would fizzle into nothing. He couldn’t have done shit when Rylee was with him all night.
And then, when the man least expected it, he’d have what little brain he possessed removed from his body.
“I’ll be taking him now,” Delano announced with the smugness of a man who didn’t know he was dead.
Cole stiffened. “Fuck that. No,” he snarled.
Delano’s eyes were full of hate when he nodded to his goons to grab hold of a shoulder each. “Outside your territory is outside your jurisdiction. I got the local PD asking for my help. Seems I’m not the only one who doesn’t trust these small town wannabes not to let you go around the corner. To keep the civilians safe, you’re coming with me.”
Rylee pushed herself between men that towered over her. Anger replaced the fear, and her eyes flashed dangerously. “You can’t do this!”
Delano puffed out his chest in a comical attempt at masculinity. He leaned down and nearly pressed his nose to Rylee. That move drew a growl from Cole, and Delano spared him a glance before turning his vicious gaze back on his woman. “You should have gone back to Nevada like you were told.”
Chapter 20
Rylee paced from one end of the room to the other, then spun on her heel and marched back the other direction. The skin of her hands felt irritated with each turn and twist of her fingers, but she couldn’t stop wringing them.
“Rylee, stop,” Leah begged from her spot on the couch. She rubbed at her nose, mirroring the gesture from nearly every other Strathorn clan member in the room. “You’re stinking up the place and making me want to shift.”
Rylee gave her a withering look. Not even the silver of Leah’s eyes could contain her agitation and anger. “Good! Do that, and get Cole back!”
“It’s not that easy,” Callum rumbled. He scrubbed a hand over his face and pushed away from the wall he leaned against to peek outside the windows. There was no movement.
They were waiting impatiently for Olivia to arrive. She’d gathered up a lawyer from inside the town and drove straight to the edge of enclave territory the second she heard one of her citizens had been detained.
Rylee resumed her pacing. A sharp growl made her scurry to find a seat, but even then she couldn’t keep still. She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair and wallowed in the memory of that morning.
It was another hour of waiting before the bear shifters perked to attention. Rylee held her breath until she heard a car approaching. She dug her fingers into her pants to keep from jumping up and pressing her face to the nearest window.
Olivia had barely entered the cabin when she held up a hand demanding silence to the questions bombarding her. “Sit, all of you. And keep your mouths shut. I don’t want to repeat myself.”
With enough grumbling to register on the Richter scale, the Strathorn clan crammed themselves into seats on the couch and the floor. Satisfied, Olivia proceeded with her report. “It’s a precarious situation. The scene of the crime was outside of our territory, which would put Cole under county jurisdiction. They say they have his blood as evidence. But the local cops claim they don’t have a facility capable of holding one superhuman, and they requested aid from the military.”
“One guess who pressured that to happen,” Leah muttered.
Olivia nodded tersely. “As for Delano, his spokesperson cited the obscure laws from the second World War allowing the detention of citizens by military forces. Same line they fed us when they first arrived. That’s where we’re at. Calls have been made up the chain.”
Fuck. Shit. Damn. Rylee didn’t even like to curse but there weren’t any other words that fit the situation. Major Brant Delano had utter control of her world. He’d made his complaints and helped Peter usurp her position for research. And when she thought she’d found her place with Cole, he took that from her, too.
Her heart grew heavy under the weight of her pain. She couldn’t hope to overcome Delano and all his resources. She should just walk away and resume her quiet, unassuming life and forget everything about Bearden.
And the woman she’d been between Peter’s attack and meeting Cole would have done just that. Bearden, and Cole in particular, had changed her. She couldn’t walk away from him. She couldn’t let him suffer whatever Delano had planned for him.
“Oh. Oh my god!” She whirled around to the room full of bears in various stages of anger and sullen fury. She could kick herself for not thinking of it sooner. She’d been too twisted up in knots
to take the time to make the connection. “I think I know what he’s planning!”
The screen door slapped shut and her feet thumped down the steps of Callum’s porch before anyone jumped after her. She raced across the clearing and back into Cole’s cabin. Her laptop. She’d grabbed it and a few other things from her room at the bed and breakfast after her dismissal from the lab yesterday. And if she wasn’t mistaken, her backup of documents was waiting in the bottom of her bag.
She felt a chill recalling the plans laid out. She didn’t think they’d be used, but she could already see how they were falling into place. Delano and Peter both hated the enclave’s unnatural residents. Cole’s alleged murder of a human would be the justification to eradicate the entire enclave.
She shot back out of Cole’s cabin and met up with a jogging and surly Nolan on her way back to Callum’s. Breath heaving in her lungs, she ripped open her bag and dug out the USB drive and laptop.
“This,” she panted. “This is what is being planned. Delano wants to destroy this place.”
She shook her hair back from her face and adjusted her glasses. A few quick clicks on the keyboard brought up the document she needed. She was so keyed up she didn’t even feel a trace of nerves with the large men crowding and jostling for position behind her.
She read through the document again, predicting what they were reading by the grunts and ground teeth. Justification for provocation. Nonessential and civilian evacuation. Communication jamming and power cutting. Infiltration. Eradication.
“You’re just now bringing this to our attention?” Callum asked in a low, dangerous voice.
Rylee twisted and found faces in various stages of anger staring back at her. Olivia appeared to be the only one not wishing to rip her open at that moment, so she switched her attention back to Callum.
He was alpha to the entire clan and brother to the man that’d been taken. She could only imagine the difficult position he was in. Wanting to protect all of his people. Wanting to save his brother. What was the right move when the choice to save one might mean destruction for the others? And when that one was his own flesh and blood?
“I didn’t think it would come to this,” she murmured. “I thought it was the same sort of planning that’s done for everything. Alien invasions? Running the country from planes after a nuclear attack? Why do you think the president and vice president aren’t allowed to travel on the same planes? Because plans for some devastating tragedy are in a binder somewhere.”
She squared her shoulders and met Callum’s eyes. “You came out of nowhere. An entire town where people are actual storied creatures from horror movies. I know you’re not a threat. I assume most people will arrive at that same conclusion. But you have to admit that it’s a shock. And people are reassured when plans are in place to keep them safe.” She pointed to the screen. “These plans aren’t bad. It’s the manufacturing evidence to kick start them that’s evil. I think that’s what Delano has done.”
While she watched, the wifi signal vanished. She surged to her feet and pat down her pockets, searching for her cell. “Phones. Phones! Check your signals. Now!”
She snatched her phone off the coffee table where she’d left it. No signal bars were available, but she tried connecting a call anyway. Dead air answered her.
Slowly, she pulled the phone from her ear and pointed to one of the steps. “If this isn’t a fluke, water and power will be next.” Her eyes searched for Olivia. “Did you see any other camps?”
Olivia made a face. “We weren’t allowed close enough.”
“Fuck!” The word exploded from Callum’s mouth. His words were tight. “We need to get word out and stop this madness before it begins.”
“Who can we trust?” Sawyer demanded.
Leah cleared her throat, and all eyes turned to her. “That reporter is sitting in the civilian camps. The one that did the interview with Jamin? She didn’t go running when he revealed us and she’s been trying to get more of us on the record. She’d probably drown in her own drool at the chance to report on this.”
“Good. Good.” Olivia nodded. “Now we just need to pray she can be found if the roads are packed with people. If not, there has to be someone willing to publish that information. We need to be loud and get everyone’s attention. I want the media reporting on this from coast to coast so the people above Delano can’t ignore this. We will not die in silence.”
Callum nodded and turned to Nolan. “Go to Gideon and the Bloodwings. We need to get that drive out of here.”
“How? How will that help? They aren’t going to let anyone cross the border.”
“We have dragons,” Leah said, as if that explained everything.
“Oh.” Rylee’s fingers shook as she copied the contents to her desktop. She’d seen enough disasters with lab work not backed up to let the only copy out of her sight. Done, she ejected the drive and handed it over, still not quite believing an explanation of dragons. Nolan was out the door as soon as his hand closed around the plastic case.
The plan of being loud was a good start, but it wouldn’t be enough. Delano could pass materials off to start a hidden war using her research. A tip-off to a militia here, a few rousing speeches to the wrong sort of folk there, and hatred could spread like wildfire. She couldn’t let them have tools to aid in their destruction.
She took a deep breath and made her announcement. “I need to get inside Delano’s camp.”
Everyone looked at her like she’d grown a second head. She thought it just as likely.
“My home facility already has my notes and preliminary findings. Any samples I collected were to be kept inside the enclave or at a mobile lab inside Delano’s camp, per the agreement allowing me here. Those samples need to be destroyed. I won’t have them used for nefarious purposes.” With only one way they could have gotten Cole’s blood, her work was already being used to harm.
Leah gave her a long, considering look while objections rose up all around them. Arguments were made for her leaving—getting out of danger, being another voice to support their claims—or staying—no telling what’s planned inside that camp, Delano’s monstrous nature. She kept silent through them all. They could argue till they were blue in the face. She was still going to find a way to destroy any samples Delano and Peter stole.
Leah raised her voice to be heard above all the others. There was no friendliness in her silver eyes. “Can you do it?”
“There is no other option. I’m the only human that’s been allowed through. Anyone else will be recognized as an enclave resident and not allowed one inch across the border.”
Leah looked like she wanted to say more. Rylee could hear the words. The other woman meant if she could keep herself together in the situation. Rylee didn’t care. Her words still stood regardless of interpretation.
After a beat, Leah nodded. “I have something for you to give Cole if you can manage. Tell him we’re coming for him.”
“And what happens then?” Rylee asked.
She expected Leah or Callum to answer, but it was Olivia who stepped forward. “Then everyone able to defend their homes will prepare to fight.” Her grin showed too many teeth. “You’re not the only one with contingency plans, human.”
Chapter 21
The camp had grown overnight. Cole didn’t need his eyes to be certain. More voices and more smells. They couldn’t hide those from him with a blindfold.
Canvas rustled and parted. He could sense where the air thickened against the tent walls feet from where he stood. Hearts beat in four corners. The tang of unease was sharp enough to taste.
The simple handcuffs from Judah were changed to thick shackles around his wrists and ankles. Silver, still. He wanted to laugh. The thickness of the metal didn’t matter. It was the silver that did the trick. Chains probably made the puny humans feel safer from the beast at the top of the fucking food chain.
“String him up,” Delano ordered with a touch of glee in his voice.
That wasn�
�t good. Nor was the sudden jerking of his arms overhead. Chains pulled at him, links clanking together and raising his hands inch by inch. Cole felt the stretch in his muscles. Then he rose up on his toes.
“That’s good. Tie him off and leave us,” Delano commanded again.
Another clanking, another rustle of canvas, and the nearest heartbeats reduced down to one.
Cole traced that sound as it circled him, tilting his head from side to side for maximum effect. Delano had him strung up like a hunted deer, but he wasn’t about to submit. The man needed to know how easily he could be hunted. Would be, just as soon as he got free. Delano and that asshole Peter would be torn to pieces.
Delano’s scent of body odor and used cigars sliced through the air a second before the blindfold was ripped away from Cole’s face. He blinked at the sudden light, adjusting quickly.
Delano snatched his chin between his fingers and gave him a look worthy of any trader eyeballing a prospective horse. “Your murder comes at just the right time. Word came down that the blockade was to be eased around this hellhole. You and I both know that can’t happen.”
“You and I both know I didn’t do shit. So why don’t you let me go, pack up your toy soldiers, and leave,” Cole growled.
Delano smirked. “We have your DNA all over the crime scene.”
“What is this? You’re so bored babysitting us you had to make your own police procedural?” He rolled his eyes to the canvas roof above him. Oh, Rylee. He should never have let her take samples from him. “Believe me. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave my blood behind.”
Delano ignored him and took out a cigar from a pocket. He stuffed one end between his lips and grinned. “You’re going to admit what you did to that boy. And then we’re going to make sure it never happens again.”
“Well, that doesn’t exactly sound legal.” Cole shrugged as much as he could with his arms hauled over his head. “What are you getting out of all this? A little revenge because I kicked your ass? Let me loose, we’ll go another round.”
