Shifting Loyalty (District Shifters Book 2)

by Lola Gabriel

  She saw Brianna first, huddled on the ground, her knees pulled up to her chin, her arms wrapped around them. She rocked back and forth, making a keening sound so full of fear, Raina could almost feel it herself. Chester and Logan were back in human form, circling each other. They both ignored the smoke and the flames, but from the burning in her lungs, Raina believed they didn’t have long before the smoke became the biggest threat to their lives.

  She looked across the floor, searching for her dropped sword. She made a low moan when she saw how far away from her it was. She would have to wait until her leg healed before she could get to it. Her moan caught the attention of both Logan and Chester, and at the same exact second, they saw the sword and dived for it.

  14

  Logan could feel Raina’s pain inside of himself, coupled with the most intense anger he had ever felt in his life. When he had seen Chester swiping Raina to one side with his claws, he thought that was the angriest he could get, but when he had heard her leg break as she struck the wall, he had seen red.

  His bear had threatened to overwhelm him, and he had almost let it. The only thing that had stopped him from turning was the knowledge that if he succumbed to it when the call was this strong, he wouldn’t be able to come back to himself. He would be a bear forever. And then he would lose Raina.

  Chester was human again, too, and the pair of them stood facing each other for a second, both of them trying to judge the best moment to attack the other, waiting for their opponent to make a mistake and let their guard down. Logan didn’t take his eyes off Chester’s but he was aware of Raina lying on the ground, her back against the wall to his left, trying to heal, and Brianna to his right, terror overwhelming her and leaving her rocking back and forth, unable to process what she was seeing.

  As Logan and Chester continued to eye each other, tensed up and waiting for just the right moment, Logan grew more and more on edge. Smoke was fast filling the room, and although the fire wasn’t spreading as quickly as he had feared it would, it was still becoming a major problem. Chester didn’t seem in the least bit fazed by it, since it wasn’t affecting him in the way it was affecting the others. It would still burn him if he got too close to it, but his respiratory system was different to theirs, the system of a dragon, allowing him to breathe in the smoke-filled air as easily as if it were clean, fresh air. Logan’s situation was more precarious than Chester’s. Time was on Chester’s side. He didn’t really need to attack Logan. He just had to keep him at arm’s length until the smoke made him pass out. The smoke wouldn’t kill Logan or Raina, but if they were unconscious, Chester could easily escape.

  Logan heard Raina moan, and his head automatically turned in her direction, although he still kept one watchful eye on Chester. She was on the ground, her hand outstretched, reaching for the Ure sword. She must have dropped it when Chester swatted her aside. Logan had run at Chester the second he swiped at Raina, and this move had distracted both of them enough for them not to notice the dropped sword.

  Chester was looking where Logan was, and then their eyes met for a split second before they both lunged towards the sword. Logan was closest to it, and he felt glee in the pit of his stomach. He was going to be the one to get the sword, and then he would make Chester pay for everything he had done—for the things he had done to Brianna and every other unwilling woman he had abducted. For hurting Raina.

  Logan reached out, his fingers wrapping tightly around the handle of the sword. He straightened up and spun around, ready to take Chester down. Chester hadn’t been more than a half step behind him, and he was going to be right on him as he turned. Logan raised the sword above his head and frowned in surprise as he brought it down onto thin air. Chester wasn’t behind him anymore.

  “Looking for me?” Chester asked through the smoke with a cold smile that made Logan’s insides shrivel up.

  Chester had seen exactly the same thing as Logan. He was too far away to get to the sword before Logan could, and instead of wasting his time going for it, he had changed course and grabbed the terrified Brianna. He clutched her against his body, using her to shield himself.

  “Drop the sword or I kill the girl,” Chester said, the amused tone gone from his voice. He was no longer messing around. Logan could hear Brianna coughing and choking in Chester’s arms. Raina was doing the same where she still lay against the wall. Logan’s lungs were burning, his chest raw. Tears filled his stinging eyes, his body’s defense against the heat that made his corneas ache.

  If Logan gave Chester the sword, they were all dead. If he didn’t, Chester would kill Brianna and likely escape. He could make a run at Chester now and end him, but Chester would not hesitate to follow through on his threat and kill Brianna. As much as Logan wanted to punish him and avenge Raina, he wouldn’t do it at the cost of Brianna’s life. He tried to think of a fourth scenario, one where he had the upper hand, and no one ended up dead except for Chester.

  He was taking too long to decide, but the smoke was getting to him, dulling his wits, and he couldn’t think of any other options. Chester obviously didn’t like to be kept waiting. His next action forced Logan’s hand, just like Chester had known it would.

  Chester brought forth his dragon claws on one hand and pressed them against Brianna’s throat. Brianna’s whimpers turned to sobs of fear. Logan didn’t know if Chester planned to use his claws to kill her or turn her into a dragon shifter, but he couldn’t let either of those things happen while he still had a choice. He dropped the sword, wincing at the loud clatter it made as it fell at his feet. He held his hands up, showing Chester his empty palms. Chester smiled coldly and retracted his claws. Logan was far from relaxing, but he felt momentarily better to see the claws gone from Brianna’s throat. Her sobs had turned back into whimpers.

  “Wise choice,” Chester said. “Now kick it over here.”

  Logan had a split second to act, and he glanced at Raina out of the side of his eye. She gave him a barely perceptible nod. He had finally been presented with another option.

  He let his bear loose at the same time he kicked the sword towards Raina. He didn’t have time to see whether she managed to grab it or even if she could walk yet. He just had to put his faith in her, hoping that her nod meant she was healed and could do this. He didn’t stop to think any further than that. He just pounced towards Chester and Brianna. Brianna gave a terrified yelping sound. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, and her body went limp in Chester’s arms. Her slumping body was no longer useful to Chester as a shield, so he released her, and she crumpled to the ground.

  Logan cheered inside. His main worry about this had been getting Brianna safely out of the way, and Chester had done that for him. Logan leapt, pushing himself into the air. He collided with Chester, who was mid-turn. He raked his claws across Chester’s chest. Chester roared in anger and pain, and a plume of flames flew from his mouth, singeing Logan’s fur and burning one of his arms. He was thrown to the side as Chester shoved him off him and got to his feet. He narrowed his reptilian eyes and began to advance on Logan slowly, enjoying the moment now.

  Small flickers of fire came from his nostrils, and more smoke filled the air. Logan turned back to his human form as more of his fur singed away. He threw his arms up to protect his face, though he didn’t know how much good that would do if Chester let loose another plume of raging fire.

  Chester was almost upon him now. He made a last-minute declaration to Raina, telling her inside of his head how much he loved her and that he was sorry for letting her down. As Logan finished the thought, accepting his fate and lowering his arms, his mouth fell open in surprise as Chester’s eyes changed, turning back to human. He let out a screech of agony.

  His human eyes were filled with shock and pain as Raina jabbed the sword into his back. He turned around quickly, reaching out to grab Raina, but he was too late. She was ready for his move and ducked beneath his flailing hands. Then she sprang up, swinging the sword in a powerful arc. It connected with Chester’s neck, an
d Logan winced as thick blood poured from the wound. Rain kept going, and Chester’s head flew from his shoulders. It landed on the ground and rolled a few meters, coming to a stop against the smoldering couch.

  “We did it,” Raina said to no one in particular. A smile spread across her face. Logan got to his feet, ignoring the pain from his burnt arm. He moved to Raina’s side and kissed her.

  “No. You did it,” he said. He looked around, holding Raina against him. As Chester took his last breath, the fire around them sputtered out. The room was a mess of blood and charred furniture, but it was nothing Logan couldn’t fix.

  A wailing sound from the ground caught Logan’s attention, and he remembered Brianna. She was conscious again, on her feet, backing away from Logan and Raina with a terrified look on her face. Logan followed her gaze and saw her looking at Chester’s decapitated head. He thought he knew what she was thinking. That for him and Raina to do that, they were worse than Chester. He could imagine the utter terror she was feeling.

  “It’s okay,” he said gently. He took a step towards her, and she backed away, her eyes wide and staring.

  “Let me talk to her,” Raina said. Logan nodded. He had no idea how to reach Brianna without traumatizing her even more.

  “I’ll clean up in here and go and talk to the manager,” he said.

  15

  Raina waited until Logan went through to the bathroom to find something to use to clean the blood up, and then she slowly took a step towards Brianna. Brianna instantly backed away from her, and Raina realized she was still holding the Ure sword. She bent down slowly and put it on the ground before straightening back up, holding up her empty hands for Brianna to see.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said gently. “Brianna, Logan and I just risked our lives to save yours. You can trust us.”

  “I… Stay back,” Brianna muttered. It was the first words she had spoken since Chester had brought her here. There was a certain fire to her words that reassured Raina that she would be alright if she could just get through to her and make her see she was safe now. “Who are you? What are you?” Brianna demanded.

  “My name is Raina Delaney. I’m a bear shifter,” Raina explained calmly.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Brianna said softly.

  Raina stepped towards her again, and Brianna took another step back, leaving her pressed against the wall. Raina had to get the girl to calm down so she could get some answers from her.

  “Brianna, listen to me. I’m two and a half centuries old, and you’ve just watched me take down a dragon. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead by now. I promise I don’t want to harm you. I just want to talk to you. Please. Come and sit out on the balcony with me and let’s talk like civilized people.”

  The truth of her words seemed to reach Brianna in a way her gentle reassurances hadn’t. Brianna nodded her head. She stood up from the wall, and even though her steps were a little shaky, she moved to the glass doors and slid them open. Raina followed her out into the cool night. Brianna sat down at the table and looked out over the city. Raina sat down beside her.

  “What the hell just happened?” Brianna asked.

  “This is going to be a lot to take in, but basically, Chester, the dragon, abducted you to sell you on to an immortal shifter. The buyer would have then turned you into a shifter, and you would have become his mate. Or wife, in human terms. Think human trafficking crossed with a forced arranged marriage, but with shifters involved,” Raina said.

  It wasn’t a perfect explanation—in fact, it was far from it, but it was the quick version, which Raina thought Brianna might be able to understand even in her current state of utter disbelief. A shiver went through Brianna.

  “Wait. Let me get this straight. Dragons, werewolves, they’re all real?” she stuttered, an eyebrow raised.

  Raina nodded. “Yes. And bear shifters, vampires, witches. All of the legends.”

  “And they abduct humans and force them to marry them?”

  “There’s a bit more to it, but yes, some immortals do that,” Raina confirmed.

  Brianna gave a soft laugh. “You know, there’s this voice inside of me telling me I’ve flipped out and I’m delirious in the nuthouse somewhere. But I’m not, am I?”

  “No. This is real,” Raina said.

  “So Chester wanted to sell me or whatever. Why did you care enough to almost die to save me?”

  “Not all immortal creatures are the bad guys, Brianna. In fact, most of them are normal people just like you, just trying to make their way in the world. I don’t agree with Matchmaking, which is what this entire process is called, and I don’t want to be someone who just sits around moaning about it. Instead, I go out hunting Matchmakers and ending them.”

  Brianna nodded as if this was the most normal thing in the world to be hearing.

  “You were pretty badass in there.” She smiled. “Thank you for saving me, by the way. And I’m sorry I was wary of you. But it’s not every day you see shit like that going down.”

  It was Raina’s turn to give a soft laugh. “No, I guess it isn’t,” she agreed.

  “So, this is going to take a while to sink in, but given some time to process it all, I think I can make sense of it. But there’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Brianna said. Raina nodded for her to go on. “Why me? I mean, I’m nothing special. I’m just a normal twenty-five-year-old who came to the city to have their dreams shattered.” Brianna gave a laugh when she saw Raina’s look of confusion. “I was going to be a singer. I came here to get my big break, but all I got was broken.”

  “Only certain women can be turned immortal successfully. They carry a certain protein in their blood. Does the word Sanmere mean anything to you?” Raina asked. Brianna shook her head. “Sanmere is the protein that allows you to be made immortal. Chester had to somehow know you carry it.”

  “Would a blood test reveal it?” Brianna asked, sitting up straighter all of a sudden.

  Raina nodded. She felt her heart speeding up a bit. She was about to learn one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Matchmakers: how they found their victims.

  “I was feeling a bit run down,” Brianna said. “I thought maybe I was a little anemic, so I went to the doctor. He took a blood test, but Chester got to me before I even got the results back.”

  “That has to be it,” Raina said. “The doctor had to be working with Chester. Oh, my God, that’s how they do it.”

  She felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. This was going to make her mission so much easier now. She could stay on top of the news, watch for patterns of women disappearing, and then all she had to do was scope out nearby doctors, hospitals, and labs. Raina realized she was grinning, and she forced her excitement down a notch. She could celebrate later.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive, but you have no idea how much easier you have made it for me to find the next Matchmaker and end them.”

  “Women do this, too?” Brianna asked, shocked.

  Raina nodded. “Yes. Apparently, having zero morals is an equal opportunities line of employment,” she said bitterly.

  Brianna laughed, a sound that actually had genuine humor in it. The two women sat quietly for a moment. Raina gave Brianna the chance to process some of what she had told her. She must have had a thousand questions, but overall, she was taking it all surprisingly well.

  “So what happens to me now?” Brianna asked, suddenly suspicious. “You’re not just going to let me walk away from here knowing what I know, are you?”

  “Even if you talked, who would believe you?” Raina said.

  Brianna considered this and then smiled. “No one.”

  “I would ask you not to tell people. We immortals live alongside humans in relative peace, but there are humans that find out about the immortals and make it their life work to hunt us. Plus, you don’t want people thinking you’re crazy, do you?”

  “I won’t tell a soul, I s
wear,” Brianna said. “But am I in danger? Will Chester’s people come looking for me now?”

  Raina shook her head slowly. “No. Chester was the ringleader. Now that he’s gone, his minions will move on. He would have only had a few trusted people who knew the true nature of his business, and I ended two of them a couple of days ago. And the doctor will have been paid handsomely to only give the blood test results directly to Chester. No one else except for Logan and I know you have Sanmere in your blood, and we won’t be telling anyone. So you have two choices. You can retain this knowledge and live with the truth, or I can have someone erase your memories of this, and you can carry on with your life without this hanging over you.”

  “I don’t want my memory erased,” Brianna said quickly. “I know it’s a lot to take in, and maybe I’m stupid for not just taking the easy option and letting myself forget this ever happened, but if one of these types has found me, others might. And now I know, I can be a lot more careful about who I let test my blood.”

  “That’s a wise choice,” Raina said.

  Logan poked his head out of the door. “Is everything okay? Are you alright, Brianna?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” Brianna nodded. “So you were going to buy me, huh?”

  Logan blushed.

  “No,” Raina said, giving a Logan a look that told him to go along with this. “Logan only pretended he wanted to buy you to lure Chester to us.”

  “Clever,” Brianna said.

  “I’ve cleaned up all of the blood and disposed of Chester’s body. I’ve spoken to the manager of the hotel and apologized for the damage to the room. I’ve given him a check big enough to ensure he doesn’t care,” Logan said, changing the subject quickly.

  “How on earth did you explain the fire damage?” Brianna asked.