by Amelia Jade
Hope.
It was faint and weak, like a heart that was barely beating, but nonetheless it was there. He stoked it slightly, giving it just enough fuel to stay alive as he walked down the hallway to Andrew’s office, his fist raising to knock on the door. He never got the chance though.
The door was hanging open. A quick peek inside told him what seemed obvious. Andrew wasn’t there; the office was vacant.
“Shit,” he swore, moving out to the lobby, looking for the guard—what was his name? Hector that was it—but no one was there either. A quick check of the breakroom told him that no one was there either.
“Well fuck,” he cursed unhappily. Something must have happened that required their attention.
Harden knew his questions weren’t all that time-sensitive. Another hour wouldn’t make or break it; the answers would still be the same. But he wanted to ask them nonetheless, to hear Andrew tell him that yes, there was a way he could live in Cloud Lake. There had to be. There were several rumors of various groups of shifters having taken residence in the town. They didn’t frequent the embassy, he knew that, but the rumors wouldn’t be there if there weren’t some truth behind them.
Leaning against the welcome desk, he stared out the twin double doors at the front of the motel and beyond, at the town of Cloud Lake, ten thousand strong or so. Well, 10,300 now, I suppose. I wonder how the humans are adapting to such a large influx of population all at once.
Probably fairly well, he decided after a minute. The women were all spending funds provided to them by Cadia. They weren’t taking jobs from “locals,” and they had already been responsible for a huge boom in purchasing of construction materials, even if the labor had been done by the shifters, plenty of humans had still been involved. Shifters could work with concrete, but pouring roads was foreign to them. All the streets in Cadia were cobblestone. Well worked, enough to give the Romans pause to appreciate, but cobblestone nonetheless.
An idea struck him as he stood staring through the glass panes. If he was going to live here, he may as well get to know the town itself. What it was like, how it was laid out, where the places to go were, where the places to avoid happened to be. All he’d heard about were several pubs and two strip joints. The pubs could be good, but he no longer felt any draw toward the strip joints. Not when he had Erika.
“You know what, it’s time to go exploring,” he announced to himself, and strode out into the late afternoon sun.
Shimmying down the stairs, he decided to head right instead of left. Everyone always went left out of the Embassy. So today he went right, determined to explore some of the town he’d never seen before. Which wouldn’t be hard. During the week he’d only ventured out a couple of times, not wanting to risk running into Erika or other trouble. But by going right, away from the core of the town, he doubted he’d run into nearly as many issues. No shifters went that way, and Erika and the other women all lived on the exact opposite end of town. No, he should be safe.
The shop fronts swiftly gave way to residential neighborhoods, one after another, a miniature suburbia. But they were beautiful in their own way. Curved streets, sprawling lawns, and towering trees. Parks dotted the landscape frequently enough that one would never have to walk more than a few minutes to reach an open green space or a forested woodlot.
“Picturesque.” He was stopped in front of one particular park and forest combination, admiring the swooping contours of its perimeter, the way it avoided being just a square or rectangle.
Walking through it, he enjoyed the scents, relaxing even more once he reached the protective canopy of the forest, striding between the tree trunks, oblivious to his surroundings. It was short-lived—the woodlot only being a several hundred feet across—but it was still a nice little slice of home in the middle of a town. Emerging on the other side he found himself in an older neighborhood. The houses were smaller, the lots closer together, and the streets tighter. Things still looked maintained, just a little more worn.
At one point he passed a little side street between rows of houses, one used only for cars to access garages that were located in the rear of the buildings. He came to an abrupt halt, however, as a large figure ducked out of sight. Reversing his steps, he turned and headed down the side street, trying to convince himself he’d been seeing things.
Harden reached the location where he thought he’d spied someone. Turning in a circle he tested the air, his nostrils flaring wide as he registered the scent. A bear shifter had just been there! Not one he recognized, which meant it wasn’t the guy from Angelo’s crew, but there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that he’d just seen a bear shifter duck through the street.
Turning on his heel, he dashed off after it. What was a bear shifter doing in this part of town? Was he even supposed to be here? It wasn’t anyone that he’d met before. And at this point, Harden thought he knew all the shifters who were staying in the city. There weren’t many of them, and they were all like him, staying at the Embassy on extended passes.
So who was this?
The scent grew stronger as he closed in on his prey, but as he crept through another alley, having come to a small commercial zone within the residential areas, a stray cat was startled by his passing, letting out a shrill MRROW! as it scattered the trash can it was exploring and ran off.
In front of him he heard a sound. Harden took off in pursuit of his quarry. He was closing on them when out of nowhere a huge shape loomed up out of the shadows of a dumpster and tackled him to the ground. He got a brief glimpse of a huge bear shifter with a buzz cut, and what looked like a joker tattoo sticking out from under the tight sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Who are you?” the voice of his attacker snarled, pushing his face into the pavement as he pinned him down. “Why are you following me?”
The tone was that of someone in charge, someone used to being obeyed and having their commands followed. Harden wasn’t feeling in the mood to fall in line though.
“You first,” he forced out.
The knee on his head ground down harder and he was forced to suppress a whimper of pain.
“I’m not going to ask again. Why were you following me?”
An extra jolt on his neck made him yelp in pain. “Okay, okay. Relax. I was just out exploring the town, and thought I saw a shifter on the side street back there.” He waved vaguely in the direction with one hand, unable to really see where he was pointing. “So I followed you. Couldn’t catch up. Then you tackled me. Here we are. Ta-da.”
The pressure relented slightly, enough that he was no longer worried about the bear shifter sneezing and breaking his neck.
“Thanks,” he wheezed.
“What do you wanna do, M—”
“No names,” the big one holding him down snarled as another figure approached.
Harden tried to look around, but the person was out of his line of sight.
“Why were you out wandering the city?” the first one, M, asked. “Everyone just goes to the strip clubs or the bars. Nobody comes to this part of town.”
“Because I don’t care about those,” he said truthfully. “Well, maybe the bars a bit, but I wanted to get a feel for the rest of the city. What it’s like to be here.”
“Why?”
“Living in Cadia isn’t an option.”
Someone barked a laugh, and Harden suddenly realized there were more than just two people in the alleyway.
“Right. Try again. Cadia is lovely. It’s perfect. Plenty of open spaces, lots of land for everyone.”
“Sure,” he muttered sarcastically. “If you’re welcome there.”
“You got kicked out?”
“Not so much. Listen, can I at least sit up, my neck muscles are starting to cramp. I’m no threat to all of you. I’m just a wandering wolf shifter.”
And I can’t even shift.
There was a momentary hesitation as his captor considered it, and then the knee on his neck vanished.
“Thanks.” He sat up, massagin
g the muscles that had been screaming in protest, trying to soothe them.
“So why aren’t you allowed in Cadia?” the leader asked.
Harden peered up at him, but the afternoon sun was shining right down the alleyway, blinding him from seeing more than just outlines.
“I’m not from there,” he said bluntly.
Almost as one he saw the group lift their noses to the air. There were three of them. They tested the air, then he saw them stiffen visibly. Not sure what was going on, Harden prepared himself to run.
“Do we know you?” the leader asked.
“Uh, I don’t know. I can’t really see your faces, and I don’t think I recognized your scent,” he said.
The leader, the one with the joker tattoo on his arm, moved around until he was no longer blocked out by the sun.
Harden felt his jaw drop. He would recognize that face anywhere.
“Maximus?” he gasped. “Maximus Koche? Holy shit!”
“I recognize you,” he said. “But I…I can’t place it.”
Harden grinned. “Probably because the last time you saw me I was a broken heap of bones and little more, bathing in my own stench.”
A moment later recognition split their faces. “Harden! The Kronum Resistance guys!” The smiles were accompanied by back slaps and “How do you do’s?” as they reacquainted themselves with each other.
“Damn, it’s good to see you,” he said.
“Likewise,” Maximus agreed.
“I didn’t realize you guys were in Cloud Lake. I thought you were back in Cadia.”
Maximus shook his head and gestured for Harden to follow as they talked. He fell in step next to the big bear shifter, recalling the last time he’d run in to him. It wasn’t something he would likely ever forget. A broken and mangled ruin, his bones so destroyed it would take surgery to fix them, he’d been lying in a jail cell near his brothers in the Resistance. Nobody had cleaned it in days. All he’d had to survive on was a bowl of tepid water and a straw. It was torture at its finest, excruciating pain even to move his head enough to be able to sip the water.
Then, out of the darkness had come five angels. The Koche brothers. They had rescued him and the other survivors from that hellhole and brought them to Cadia, where he’d eventually recovered from his ordeal. But they’d never seen each other since.
“So you guys live here,” he repeated, thrilled at the knowledge.
“We do. Andrew the ambassador helped us set it up. We bought some land on the outskirts of town, which is where you now are, in case you hadn’t realized it, and built some properties for us and our mates. We keep out of the core, away from the normal shifter haunts, so that we don’t run into any issues. It’s nicer that way.”
The commercial zone had a bar in it, and they entered, the Koches all waving politely to the bartender. Harden followed suit, wanting to make a good impression, in hopes that maybe he would frequent the place one day.
“That sounds amazing. How?”
“We bought it and built it really. Andrew turned a blind eye, and we told the neighbors they could count on us for anything they really needed. It’s been pretty much smooth sailing ever since. We do odd jobs, repairs and such as best we can. Anything that doesn’t really involve modern technology,” Maximus said with a laugh.
Harden joined them. Shifters and technology were not a mix. He’d had a hard enough time figuring out the cell phones he’d bought with his meager funds to be able to talk to Erika.
“So, you aren’t welcome in Cadia, but you want to stay in Cloud Lake,” Maximus said while the other two brothers—he thought their names were Kassian and Gavin—got beers for everyone. “About right?”
“About right,” he confirmed.
“So who’s the girl?” Maximus grinned.
“What? I never said there was a girl,” he protested.
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Harden,” the eldest Koche brother said with an even bigger smile, enjoying the squirming.
“Of course not,” he sighed. “Her name is Erika. Let me tell you about how perfect she is…”
Chapter Twenty-One
Erika
“It’s not from Harden, you’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, sitting on her couch, arms crossed with irritation.
“Well, whoever it is, they have good taste,” Kelly said, shoving another of the chocolates into her mouth.
“But that’s just it! I don’t know who it is. I have no idea. This is the third thing to show up at my door without a note or a person to go along with it. There were flowers. Then candy. Now chocolates.”
“C’n’y?” Kelly said, her mouth full of gooey chocolate. “’N Oo inn’t ell me?!”
“No, I didn’t tell you. I ate the damn candy on my own,” she said. “I like candy more than chocolate. At least, more than these fancy ones. I like plain stuff, you know that. Fancy food is not my thing.”
“I know,” her friend said, swallowing the latest of her picks from the box of gold-wrapped treats. “I’m not really complaining.”
“You’d better not be,” she shot back with a smile. “But seriously, Kel, what the hell do I do? Harden has been so good about keeping his distance, but if someone sees this, they’ll think it’s him sending it. I could get into trouble, without having even done anything.”
“This is not how the system was designed to be used,” Kelly ranted. “No one was supposed to find themselves exposed to blackmail and threatened with losing their funding and shelter. That’s not how it was supposed to go down.”
“Well, that’s how it’s going down,” she said bitterly.
Her friend put the box down and came to join her on the couch. “It’ll work out, E, it’ll work out.”
“What if it doesn’t?” she asked softly. “I’m not sure I can let him go. It…It hurts to not have him around.” She wiped at her eyes. “I know that sounds ridiculous…I only met him a week ago! But it’s…oh hell, I don’t know how to describe it, Kel, besides saying it hurts. An actual, physical pain, knowing he can’t be in my life.
“Could it be that you two are mates?”
She didn’t respond. It was a question she’d asked herself more often as the week had gone on, and she’d begun to ache for his presence, his touch.
“He hasn’t said anything about it,” she said softly. “I know that’s not necessarily an indication he doesn’t feel that way, but if he knew it, wouldn’t he have said so?”
Kelly laughed. “I highly doubt it. You’ve taken every opportunity to tell him that you will put your child above him, regardless of how much it hurts. I don’t blame you; I would do the same. But why would he expose himself to more pain than necessary by bringing that up and allowing himself to think and feel it?”
Erika didn’t have a response to that. It made too much sense.
“How can I help you to get over him, to move past?” Kelly asked seriously, sitting down next to her. “What’s the plan of attack?”
“I don’t have one,” she admitted. “I…”
Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
“Nothing!” she cried. “Nothing at all.”
Her best friend just stared at her, saying nothing.
“But Harden has an idea that he’s exploring,” she said.
Kelly sighed, her whole body drooping. “No, Erika. You don’t need this! You need to try and get past him, to move on.”
“You were just asking me a second ago if I thought the two of us were mates!” she snapped.
“I know, but…Erika. Come on, girl. Need to face reality. This isn’t going to work between you two.”
“You don’t know that. He’s off finding out now whether or not he’ll be able to live in Cloud Lake, free of Cadian interference. The ambassador is a really nice guy, he says. Maybe he can find a way to help us. But I’m not giving up. Not yet, not until I’ve exhausted every option available to me.”
The phone at her side rang abruptly.
/> “See,” she chortled triumphantly. “Neither is he.”
She picked up the phone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Harden
It was after nine by the time he got back to the Embassy, and he could see the bus parked outside.
Great.
Angelo and the dickbags were back in town. It almost sounded like a really bad wannabe band name. Angelo and the Dickbags. He hoped they got booed off stage.
The trouble started once he walked past the bus and approached the stairs.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here? I don’t remember seeing you get on any of the buses,” Angelo said as he sauntered out from the motel, descending the stairs and stopping Harden before he could reach them. “Do any of you boys remember him being on your bus?”
Other figures emerged from the shadows. Four more.
“I see the band is growing. Have you told them that they’re not actually going to get paid? That you spent all the money on hookers and blow?”
“What?” Angelo snarled. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” he said, waving them off. Although all shifters tended to avoid a lot of human society, he found that Cadia was extra closed off compared to the others. In Kronum he’d been exposed to things like television a bit more than his compatriots here.
“So where have you been then?” Angelo asked, cracking his knuckles in what was supposed to be an intimidating gesture.
Only two cracks sounded.
Harden paused, his eyes on the other’s hands, looking on expectantly. “Oh, are you done?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure.”
Angelo’s eyes lit with anger, but to Harden’s surprise, he restrained himself.
“We’re not here to fight. That would be silly of us. We’re just checking up, making sure that you’re not breaking any of the rules.”
