Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series

by Glenna Sinclair

  “Fucking giants?” Richard was the first to breathe. “Monsters? You’ve got to be shitting me, Pete. Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”

  Immediately the other members of the group, both shifter and human alike, burst into a frenzied discussion about what their pack leader had been holding back from them over the last year.

  I didn’t hear any of it, though. I was too busy getting up from my chair and striding for the sliding glass door.

  Chapter Six – Peter

  This was exactly what I hadn’t wanted. Crazy discussions about crazy possibilities that barely had even a glimmer of likelihood to them. We had a group of people coming to kill us, people who knew how to kill shifters. All this talk of fantastical crap didn’t do a damn bit of good, especially when this was all going to come down to hot lead and discipline.

  “God-fucking-dammit!” Frank nearly roared, his thick Texas twang adding its special sauce to his swearing.

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Richard was saying to Jessica. “This is all news to me, too, babe.”

  “Okay, okay,” I called over the din of voices as I stood up. I gave Jake a look, and he rose right alongside me. “Everyone, please give me a moment to explain myself. There was a reason I held this back from you, and this is precisely it.”

  “We’re all ears,” Elise said, her bushel of black hair bobbing around like crazy.

  The idea of having to explain myself really stuck in my craw. I was used to being taken at my word and having my decisions honored—not second-guessed in front of everyone by someone that was outside my pack. And, as much as I loved Vanessa, she wasn’t a member of Frost Security.

  Even worse, Mary and Vanessa had both disappeared inside the house just after dropping this little hot potato of a bombshell in my lap.

  “First of all,” I started as all eyes turned to me, “Jake and I took Mary and Vanessa’s claims very seriously. I told you months ago, back when I first revealed that there were hunters after us, that I’d been tracking them since I got back stateside, didn’t I? Well, verifying these claims about giants and everything was part of that.”

  Jake nodded along with me. “We checked everywhere. We couldn’t find anything. Shit, I found more stuff about Sasquatch and us than I did about any kind of giants like they both described.”

  “And you know the rules on intel,” I reminded my men, and informed their mates. “If it’s unsubstantiated and not pertinent to the mission, I’m not going to release it. I don’t want you all jumping at shadows, especially not when we have more than enough legitimate threats to concern us. That’s just not my style, never has been, nor will it ever be.”

  “So what is it, then?” Lacy asked. “They both just imagined this crazy stuff?”

  Jake and I both shrugged at the same time, but I was the one to speak. “I do believe there’s some truth to what they saw. I think they do legitimately have a commander who’s a really big guy of German ancestry. That seems perfectly reasonable.”

  “This other stuff, though,” Jessica piped up from the back, “that Vanessa was talking about. The immortals, people alive since before World War II?”

  “We couldn’t verify it in any shape, form, or fashion. Lacy’s research on Jaeger-Tech hadn’t picked up on anything like that. She did heavy intelligence analysis to find anything off— financial records, family lineages, and strange birth certificates. She didn’t mention anything out of the ordinary, and I didn’t push her to look for a pattern she wasn’t seeing. So we’ve just put it on the backburner as an unsubstantiated claim. I mean, this all sounds loopy, doesn’t it? Absolutely crazy?”

  The ten remaining partygoers looked at me, their faces a mixture of shock and worry.

  “So,” Richard began from where he’d moved over next to his wife, “do we have a plan for dealing with some kind of threat like this?”

  I couldn’t help but snort. “Like some magic beans? Or an ax to chop down his beanstalk before he can come after us?”

  He frowned a little, maybe at his own response of fear to the information he’d just been presented with.

  My heart sank and I winced. I shouldn’t have said something like that. He was, after all, acting from a place of protectiveness over his mate. “Sorry, Murdoch,” I said. “That wasn’t an adequate response. To answer your question, no, we don’t have anything in place to deal with an unexpected threat like that. But if he’s human, we’ll deal with him the same way as any other combatant we encounter.”

  “Grandma?” Lacy whispered. “You okay?”

  I looked over, checking on the two Richter women.

  Genevieve hadn’t spoken a word since Vanessa had her little subdued outburst and thrown the crowd into a tizzy, and I’d almost forgotten she was here. Her face was chalk white, paler even than normal, like she’d seen a ghost.

  “Grandma?” Lacy asked again worriedly.

  “Peter,” Gen said, her voice sounding a little hollow. “I think I may know something that might help.”

  Chapter Seven – Vanessa

  “Mary?” I asked, gently knocking on her bedroom door. “Mind if I come in?”

  I heard a sniffle from the other side of the door. “Peter’s not with you, is he?”

  I frowned, sighing a little as I leaned closer. “No, he’s outside with the others still, fielding questions.”

  “Yeah,” she said after a short moment, “you can come in.”

  I pushed open the door and, leaving it ajar, looked over her room.

  Having kept our interactions mostly to the safe house in the mountains, this was only my third or fourth time inside Peter’s home and my first time inside Mary’s room. It was more or less what I expected any teenager’s room to look, even down to the posters on her wall. I mean, sure, I didn’t recognize any of the pop stars, but I barely recognized the ones that were popular when I was her age.

  Eyes distant and misty, Mary was seated on the edge of her messy bed, which was a wad of blankets and sheets pulled up entirely from the mattress. Other than that, though, her room was almost entirely spotless. Not a single book or pen was out of place, and no piece of paper on her desk unruffled without intention.

  “Nice bed,” I commented as I crossed the floor and stopped next to her.

  “Peter’s gotten me into the habit of making it every morning,” she said without looking at me. “He doesn’t ground me or anything if I don’t. It’s just something I do now.”

  I glanced down at her bed, at the bird’s nest of linen. A mild rebellion from a girl who clearly loved and respected her adopted father. “Mind if I sit?” I asked.

  “Sure,” she said with a listless shrug, her voice still tinged with emotion from outside. “Be my guest.”

  I gingerly sat down next to her, biting my bottom lip as I considered what to do next. The last time I’d had any long-term interactions with girls Mary’s age, shifter or human, I’d actually been her age. And the longer I was alive, the further away that time seemed to get. Like you were driving in a car and looking at that experience in a rearview mirror, all the while with the distance slowly growing greater and greater.

  What should I do? Should I comfort her? Should I commiserate about how Peter had disregarded me, too? Would that make things between them better or worse? Because making things worse was the last thing I wanted. She and I weren’t exactly close or anything, either, and I had the feeling she felt a little standoffish because of my history with her adopted father.

  I knew what Mary had gone through—losing her pack and her family in one foul night—and so did Peter. Driving a wedge between them, or inadvertently helping a fissure to form, was the furthest thing from my mind. That’s not what I’d come to Enchanted Rock for, or even into Mary’s room.

  “Did you…” Mary began, but quickly trailed off, her words fading away for a moment.

  Not wanting to put words in her mouth or rush her, I didn’t reply.

  She took another breath, though, and started again
. “Were you there when they killed your family? I know Peter wasn’t. Did you see the giant, then?”

  I bit my lower lip as I thought back to that night—the night that sometimes came to me in my dreams, blotting out all my nocturnal thoughts and turning them as dark as the abyss.

  “I’d snuck out,” I said, “to go to a drive-in movie the next town over, one that Peter and I used to go to when we’d all lived together as part of the pack. I didn’t see any of what happened because they were too fast, just the flames in the sky and the fire trucks.”

  She frowned a little. “It was the same for me. I had a date with a guy from school. We’d gone out that night, but when I saw the flames from the distance, I jumped out of the car and shifted so I could get there faster without him.”

  “Is that when you saw him? The giant, I mean?”

  She nodded gravely. “They had guns, Vanessa. And that…man.”

  “I know, sweetie. I saw him at a facility in Oregon,” I said as I put an arm around her thin shoulders, trying to be supportive.

  She didn’t tense up at my gesture, but seemed only to relax a little.

  “He chased after me, and I only barely got away from him,” I continued, squeezing her shoulder.

  She sniffled a little, wiping the back of her hand across her nose. “And Peter didn’t believe either of us.”

  I took a deep breath, considering how I could go with this. Peter just wasn’t the type to believe anything he couldn’t see, touch, or taste. Even though he was a shifter, and according to science shouldn’t even exist, he still had trouble believing in the impossible.

  “Well,” I said, very carefully, “he did investigate the giant’s existence. He just couldn’t verify it, so he’s choosing not to base his strategy on it, or to get everyone worked up over something.”

  “Worked up?” she asked, laughing a little. “Is that what we are?”

  “Poor choice of words, I guess.”

  “So you’re saying he didn’t believe me. He didn’t believe either of us.”

  My mind drifted back to when Peter and I first realized we were true mates. At first, we were like any kids that were closely knitted together by family friends, as close as children could be without being actual siblings. But then, years after my parents had left to help with another pack and left me there with the Frosts, I’d begun to realize how I really, truly felt about the most important man in my life. Still, though, Peter had seemed incredulous about the idea that shifters could just know who their mate was. It had taken quite a bit of convincing by his father before he really believed it.

  “Oh, Mary, you have no idea,” I said, laughing a little as I shook my head, clearly remembering the look on Peter’s face when he’d finally admitted mates were real and that I was his. “You have no idea. I’ve known Peter a long time, and there are many things he didn’t believe at first.”

  “But you’re his mate, right?” she asked, turning to look at me. Her tears had dried, but her eyes were still puffy and bloodshot from her crying. “Why didn’t he believe you, at least?”

  That had been a point of contention in my own mind since I’d arrived in Enchanted Rock, but I didn’t want her to know that in case it inflamed her own lingering anger at him. Instead, I just shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  “But doesn’t it piss you off?”

  I laughed. “Of course it does. And why wouldn’t it? But right now I’m just trying to be happy that I’ve actually got a chance to be pissed off at him for the first time in fifteen years. That, right there, is almost enough to make me forgive him for being an idiot.”

  “Almost?”

  “Almost,” I said, smiling as I squeezed her shoulder again.

  Outside, the furor had seemed to die down a little, everyone settling in and listening to my mate’s explanation for why he went about things the way he had.

  “Do you think he’s upset with us?” she asked after a moment.

  “With us?” I asked, shaking my head. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t think he’s upset at you for anything. Why would he be?”

  “Well, everyone started asking questions and getting angry at Peter partly because of me.”

  “Only because you told the truth,” I said. “Why would he be upset at you for telling your version of events? And, besides, if he is upset with you, he’ll get over it. Now, me on the other hand…” I sighed.

  She reached up and patted my hand in a sign of solidarity.

  Chapter Eight – Peter

  “I’ve never told a living soul about this, but I met Jasper Davis when I was about Lacy’s age and living out in San Francisco. Maybe a little younger, actually. I’ve never told anyone, because I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” Gen said, her small hands tightly clasped around the beer bottle in front of her. “At least, that’s what he called himself. I don’t know if he’s changed his name since then or not. I ended up seeing him almost three decades later when I was in Denver with Lacy’s grandfather for vacation, but by that time, he barely recognized me. I recognized him, though, that was for sure. You see, Jasper hadn’t really changed much. Other than his name, like I said.”

  We’d all gathered around to listen to her story, one that I’d never heard before. Now, as Gen began to unravel the tale from her youth, I realized that I hardly knew anything about this older woman who’d so easily accepted the fact that Richard and I were shifters when she first discovered our secret.

  “To start with, Jasper and I were lovers.”

  “Geez, Gammy,” Lacy teased. “You little hussy.”

  Gen shot her granddaughter a look. “I was young and stupid. And, besides, it was a different time back then. I’d moved out there in the late 60s, wanted to go be a hippy flower child and protest the war. I ended up just getting high and partying all the time, though. I’d be there for maybe a year or so, living in Haight-Ashbury, when I met him. Handsome, early twenties, always with the best hash and weed and, well, other things. He had the sexiest French accent I’d ever heard, despite how ridiculously un-French his name was.” She shot Lacy a death glare. “Not a word.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” Lacy replied as she set her beer bottle back down. “Promise.”

  Just then, Vanessa and Mary rejoined us on the deck, and Gen paused as we all turned to look at them. The evidence of Mary’s tears was still clear, but it looked like my mate had been able to soothe her troubled spirits.

  “Don’t mind us,” Vanessa said smoothly before leading Mary over to grab the two remaining chairs from the kitchen table. They brought them over and settled into the little group we’d formed around Gen.

  Mentally, I kicked myself for having been the one to cause her distress. All this could have been avoided if I had just been open about what intel we had and why we weren’t going to rely on information I couldn’t confirm.

  But what was done was done. As Vanessa and I exchanged nods, I knew things had settled down a little bit, for which I was grateful. I was probably still in the doghouse with my mate over having not told her about Mary seeing the giant, too, but at least she didn’t look like she was going to murder or maim me anymore.

  Which was certainly an improvement.

  Gen continued her story as both Vanessa and Mary settled in.

  “Jasper and I dated off and on while he lived there. Sure, we dated other people, too, mainly because we didn’t want to get tied down. Like I said, it was a different time. He was the most intelligent man I’d ever met, and seemed so cultured and worldly, even if he was hanging out with all of us flower children. He’d talk about the past like he’d been there, like he’d lived in London during the time of America’s independence or France’s revolution.”

  She paused, taking another drink of beer.

  “Jasper said he was on vacation, but I was pretty sure he was actually on the run. Always looking over his shoulder, never wanting to talk to anyone he thought was on the take. And, believe me, there were plenty of them back then. You
never knew who might be working for the feds back then, keeping tabs on people involved in protests.”

  “You protested the war?” Richard asked, smiling a little. “Kind of surprising considering the company you’re keeping.”

  “The war,” she replied, “wasn’t the soldiers. Mostly, I didn’t want anyone else’s brothers or cousins being shipped off to Vietnam for something I personally didn’t agree with, and didn’t see how it protected my freedoms.” She gave a little wave of her hand and took a drink of her beer. “But what I was doing out there didn’t matter. All that stuff is behind us now and we finally stitched our nation back together—more or less, I guess. What matters was Jasper and what happened that night we went out to the Tenderloin district to a little jazz bar he knew.”

  She licked her lips, clearly unsettled as she thought back to that night almost fifty years ago.

  “Jasper had taken me out on a date, the first one we’d been on in a while, to see the great saxophonist he thought I just had to listen to. I was never really into jazz or anything—I was always more or a rock and roll kind of girl—but I went along with him because, well, he was Jasper. And—I’m not ashamed to say it—when Jasper wanted to take you somewhere he went all out. He kept the cash and everything else flowing, and you knew you were going to have a great time.”

  I cleared my throat as I leaned forward, elbows on the table. I watched her face intensely, entranced as she told this story of her life for the first time.

  The look on her face was torn, her eyes dancing at the memory of the dazzling Jasper, and her face still white as snow at the notion she might know someone who had anything to do with this.

  “Jasper and I danced, listened to music, had our drinks. The Tenderloin is the worst neighborhood in San Francisco, you understand, and things weren’t any different back then, that was for sure. Jasper, as usual, was flashing around his money, tipping the waitresses and bartenders much better than he should have, especially considering how he looked.”