Reclaiming the Wolf (Cascade Shifters Book 1) (3 page)

Luckily, Kaya was used to Erika’s whipping from one topic to another, and didn’t bat an eye at the sudden change of topic. She picked up the file her friend had brought, opened it, and said, “Okay, walk me through the proposed bids.”

Erika had just started to go over the expected profit margins when the phone on her desk started ringing. She glanced down at the screen and saw the name of one of her most experienced sentries currently on duty. Since he wouldn’t call unless something important had happened, Kaya picked up the receiver and said, “Tell me what’s up, Jonathan.”

On the other end of the line, Jonathan said, “I found some intruders near Marker 12. All three of them smell like cougars, which is fine, I can handle that. But they have some sort of bag with them and any time I try to inspect it, they growl at me and tell me not to open it.”

“There must be something else, or you wouldn’t have called me. What aren’t you telling me?”

Jonathan’s voice became tight. “One of the cougars is Sylas Murray, and he says the bag might contain the beginnings of an epidemic. He wants to talk with you.”

Kaya leaned back in her chair. Regardless of whatever she felt about Sy, she knew Kian, the cougar-shifters’ clan leader, would only have sent him to GreyFire’s land if it was important.

She ignored Erika’s quizzical look and took a deep breath before she answered, “Give him the phone.”

“I locked him and his two cougar friends inside the sentry shelter. Give me a second.”

As she waited for Jonathan to unlock the door and go inside, she steeled herself for the upcoming conversation with Sy. She might be clan leader of the biggest wolf-shifter pack on the west coast, but her stomach churned with nervousness at the thought of talking with the man she’d once loved enough to consider leaving her clan behind for.

Would he be civil? Or kind? Or had the army hardened him and completely changed the teasing, cocky man of her teenage years into a stranger? There was so much she didn’t know about him anymore.

But she shouldn’t care. She needed to sound strong, cool, and collected. The last thing she wanted was for Sylas Murray to know how much she’d thought of him over the years. At least the conversation was over the phone. It was much easier to keep her voice steady that way.

Erika was frowning at her, but luckily Jonathan’s voice came back over the line and she could put up a hand to stall Erika’s questions. Jonathan said, “Okay, here’s the cougar bastard.”

She smiled at his tone. Knowing her clan had her back gave her the necessary courage to remain calm when Sy’s voice came on the line. “Kaya?”

She’d always loved the deepness of his voice, but time had added a bit of gravel to it as well. “Yes, it’s me. Now tell me why you’re trespassing on my land and babbling about some epidemic.”

The line was silent a second before Sy replied, “I think you’ve taken this clan leader thing a little too seriously.”

She growled. Apparently, Sy was one of those shifter males who didn’t take kindly to a woman being in charge. He never would’ve said that to his brother or the male leader of the bears.

Well, screw him. She was going to pull out her alphaness and not hold back. “I don’t care what you think. Tell me why you’re on my land, or I’ll have Jonathan call the law enforcement liaisons and they’ll cart your ass off to jail.”

“Hey, part of the reason I’m here is to try to save all your asses, so you should try being a little nicer to me.”

Kaya pinched the bridge of her nose. “Now is not the time to challenge me, Sylas. Unlike the games when we were teenagers, I can win this one. This is your last chance to tell me why the fuck you’re on GreyFire’s land.”

~~~

Sy wished Kaya was standing in front of him so he could give her his best glare. The woman took things more seriously than his twin brother, which was saying something. Since Kian’s recent recovery, his brother had spent most of his days hashing out details with his mate about how to improve the clan’s future and stability.

Remembering his brother, Sy took a deep breath and focused on his mission. He’d promised to see this through, and “clan leader mode” Kaya or not, he would do it. “Earlier this week, three mentally unstable wolf-shifters attacked Kian and Trinity. I don’t know if they are yours or not, but something was wrong with them. Their eyes glowed purple.”

“Purple?”

“We don’t know much about wolf-shifter biology, but I’m guessing from your tone this isn’t normal.”

“Just because I’ve never heard of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. What’s in the bag you won’t let Jonathan investigate?”

He eyed the large black bag being protected by his two clan members. “When Kian was attacked—he’s fine, thanks for asking by the way—he killed two of them in self-defense. Our other clan members trapped the remaining wolf, but it refuses to shift back into human form. We need to know what caused their insanity and weird symptoms in case there are more purple-eyed wolves roaming the mountains. To do that, I brought one of the dead wolf-shifters to GreyFire because we need your help.”

Each of the shifter clans had focused on specializing in one area, mostly to remain competitive. Until recently, very few shifters had gone to college. The DarkStalker cougar-shifters had become stellar engineers, but lacked sufficient skills in the medical sciences, which GreyFire excelled at. He was confident Kaya would help them, but he had no idea at what price.

Her voice came back on the line. “Let’s say I help you. What’s in it for GreyFire?”

“If this sickness is contagious, we need to find a way to stop it from spreading. I’m sure an epidemic is the last thing you want.”

He could hear something squeak on the other end of the line, as if Kaya were leaning forward in her chair. “Has anyone from your clan showed symptoms? If you’ve infected Jonathan, or any other of my clan members, by coming here without thinking things through, then consider the truce between our clans over.”

He’d threatened the truce once before, almost eleven years ago. “Well, then let’s just hope my luck hasn’t changed from the last time I nearly broke the truce.”

“Nice to hear you view breaking my heart as a lucky escape.”

Fuck, he hadn’t intended for it to come out that way. He’d been doing so well up until now. “Kaya—”

“No, don’t go there. I don’t need your apologies or pity. Just tell me if there have been any symptoms inside your clan.”

He was dying to ask her why she’d brushed him off without a word all those years ago, but decided getting Kaya to agree to help them was more important right now. “It’s been nearly four days since the attack, and no one’s shown any symptoms, not even Kian, who was bitten several times by the infected wolves.”

“That’s all well and good, but what about you and your people? Or even the bag you brought the dead shifter in?”

Sy was starting to understand just how little she viewed his intelligence these days. “I may be many things, but I’m not an idiot. My people and I were tested thoroughly, but nothing showed up. Also, the FierceRiver tigers in India designed the bag we brought with us. Not even the Ebola virus could escape once that thing is sealed up. As an added precaution, the outside of the bag was thoroughly disinfected before we left home.”

The FierceRiver tigers rivaled GreyFire’s skills in medical science. He knew Kaya would trust the bag to do its job, but would she trust him and his clan? As one of Kian’s inner circle of guardians, it was his job to oversee anything his brother couldn’t do himself. It was the only reason he’d agreed to step foot on GreyFire’s land.

He’d tried to warn his brother about Kaya hating him. He just hoped his brother had been right about how Kaya would take care of her clan and not focus on what had happened between them in the past.

Deep down, however, he was a little disappointed he couldn’t be doing this in person. He was curious to see what an older version of Kaya Alexie looked like.

Since she still hadn’t answered him, he said, “Well? Are you going to help us or not?”

After another second, she growled into the line, and he nearly smiled. “I had put you on mute to discuss things with my second-in-command. Unlike you, some of us like to think things through first.”

She was referring to him leaving her, but he wasn’t rising to the bait this time. “So, what did you come up with?”

“You’re going to stay there with Jonathan until a biohazard team can retrieve the wolf. Then you’re going to leave and wait for my call.”

“I’m not going home until I know the results.”

“Sy, you staying on my land isn’t going to accomplish anything. Go home. I’ll call Kian when I have something to report.”

There was a reason his brother had made him promise to stay until they knew the results. Their truce with the wolves was tentative at best, and while he wanted to believe Kaya ran things differently, the previous GreyFire leader had kept important information from DarkStalker in the past.

On one occasion, when a group of illegal human poachers had come to the area, that lack of information had ended up taking the life of a mother cougar-shifter and her two cubs.

He quickly assessed the situation and decided there was only one way to ensure he stayed on GreyFire’s land. Sy shifted his weight and lowered the phone before spinning around and landing an uppercut to Jonathan’s jaw. Thanks to Sy’s faster feline reflexes, the wolf didn’t have time to brace himself and the punch landed clean. Jonathan fell to the ground unconscious.

His two clan members merely stared at him in curiosity, knowing he only would have punched out the wolf with a good reason. Sy put the phone back to his ear to hear Kaya saying, “Sy? What’s going on? Sylas? Are you there?”

He flexed his hand and said, “I just punched out your sentry, so now you’re going to have to detain me. I’ll be waiting.”

With that, he clicked off the phone and went to work on securing the wolf’s hands behind him. He couldn’t let the sentry escape before he was sure he and his two clan members could stay.

Chapter Three

Two days later, as the last GreyFire researcher left her office, Kaya let out a sigh of relief. Whatever had affected the dead wolf-shifter was no longer contagious, at least as long as no one came into contact with the dead wolf’s stool. And since everything related to that wolf-shifter was locked up tight in the infectious diseases research wing, her clan was safe. For now.

Yet there was still the risk of other infected wolves roaming GreyFire’s land, especially since they didn’t yet know what had caused the wolf’s eyes to turn purple or what made them go insane. Her sentries had searched the mountain, but had come up with nothing.

She needed access to both the location where the attack with the sick wolves had taken place and to the rest of DarkStalker’s land, but the cougars’ leader, Kian, had given her the worst possible answer. He couldn’t spare any of his other clan members right now. If she wanted to investigate the place where the attack had happened and/or visit the remaining purple-eyed wolf on his land, she’d have to ask Sy to guide her.

Oh, and she could only bring two people from her clan with her.

She understood Kian’s caution considering the relations between her uncle and DarkStalker’s former leader. They had not been friendly with one another. However, she was determined to work hard to change the old perceptions and to start building trust between them. That way, if something happened again in the future, both of their clans would be prepared.

In addition, if they were extremely lucky, they might one day get ShadowClaw, the bear-shifter clan in the Cascade Mountains, to trust them both too.

However, her grand schemes would have to wait. For now, she needed to talk with Sylas.

She had put off questioning him as long as possible, but with the immediate threat taken care of and Sy and his people deemed “clean” of infection, she had no excuse to avoid talking with him. She was clan leader; her past didn’t matter. Only the future well-being of her clan was important.

It was time to set things straight.

Leaving her office, she maneuvered the web of corridors carved out of the stone of the mountain, careful to take a path that would steer clear of Erika or any of Kaya’s other commanders. It’d taken her time to work up her nerve to talk with her ex, and being sidetracked might make her lose it.

As she moved through the corridors, she ran her hand against the smooth, cool rock that made up most of the walls of her clan’s home. GreyFire hadn’t always lived in rooms carved out of the mountains. At one time, they’d been forced to eke out an existence in the woods.

But after World War II, each shifter clan had been granted a parcel of land to call home. While their original living spaces had been crude, the advancement of technology now allowed the shifters of the Cascades to power their small subterranean cities inside the mountains via geothermal energy.

Still, as she finally hit the cool air of late-September, the wolf inside of Kaya wanted to howl at finally being outside.

All too often, her clan duties kept her cooped up. She itched to shift and go for a run, but that would require shedding her clothes. The last thing she wanted was to be naked when she faced Sy face-to-face for the first time in more than a decade.