Boarlander Silverback (Boarlander Bears Book 3) (11 page)

“What did Harrison mean by C-Team?” Alison asked, holding on tighter around Kirk’s neck as he carried her on his back through Boarlander woods. Her flip-flops dangled from her fingers and bounced against his chest with every step he took.

“C-Team used to be a Gray Back thing. They were wild. Still are, but the mates in Grayland Mobile Park have at least got them settled enough to hit their lumber numbers. But before Mason and I came to help out, Harrison lost a lot of his crew, and they fell way behind on their work.”

“How did he lose his crew?”

“Clinton.”

He didn’t offer more explanation than that, so she asked, “So they are the C-Team because the Boarlanders don’t hit their numbers?”

“Yeah, but we will dig ourselves out of C-Team status if we can just get through a damned week without fightin’.”

“But you said you’ll need to fight more now.”

“Not like this. Clinton is convinced ladies in the trailer park are some kind of jinx. He was really bad before Audrey battled for her place here. He has bounced from crew to crew, and it ain’t the crews’ faults he can’t adjust. His head is a mess, and his bear matches. I know he hurt your feelings back there, but trust me when I say he has been downright tame about you being in the trailer park. About you being claimed.”

“That does make me feel a little better. I thought he just hated me.”

Kirk snorted. “He hates everyone on the outside. On the inside, though, he feels more than he lets on. Most days, you’ll want to shoot his ass. But he’ll have one day in ten where he does something that makes him seem almost…redeemable.”

“You’re wrong, asshole,” Clinton said as he strode around them. “I ain’t redeemable, fuck you very much.”

Kirk didn’t even flinch at the vitriol in his voice. The muscled, sandy blond-haired man stomped away in front of them but slowed, then stopped. He turned, his eyes sparking with anger, but he dropped his gaze to the ground and growled, “You hear him?”

“Who?” Kirk asked.

Clinton jerked his light gray eyes to Alison, then back to the ground. “You should cover up your mark.” He hesitated another moment, then spun and strode off down the trail toward the trailer park.

Kirk set her down immediately and backed her into the brush behind a thick trunk of an Aspen. He peeled off his shirt. “Here, put this on,” he murmured low, checking the trail around the tree.

“What’s happening?”

“Someone’s yelling up ahead. Sounds like your partner.”

“Shit,” she whispered as she struggled into his light gray, oversize shirt. It hung down to her knees. Finn could not find out about her mark. She had only known him for a couple of weeks, but he was anti-shifter, plain as day. And if he was a by-the-book cop, he would turn her into their superiors the moment he saw her claiming mark, no matter that they were partners. And she had no doubt in her mind that law enforcement would make an example of them. It would be the first shifter offense they enforced. She and Kirk could both be locked up.

“Holman!” Finn yelled through the woods.

Kirk cupped her cheeks and lifted his brows as he leveled her a look. “It’ll be okay. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” He leaned down and kissed her, pushed his tongue past her lips once, then disengaged and rested his forehead against hers. “You feel different.”

She closed her eyes and sighed as a feeling of utter safety slipped over her again. With a smile, she whispered, “So do you.”

“Holman!”

She let off a human growl and made her way back to the trail. Finn was coming in and fast. Harrison followed at a distance, his eyes wild and blue, and his jaw clenched. Up ahead, Clinton squatted down, stripping pine needles off a branch, his body placed between Alison and her pissed-off looking partner.

“Close enough,” Clinton barked out.

“It’s okay, Clinton,” she said, squeezing his shoulder as she passed. “What are you doing here?” she asked Finn.

His mouth flopped open, and his face turned red, the color of his hair. “Are you fucking kidding me? What am I doing here? What are
you
doing here? And in that?” He waved to her giant T-shirt. “This is against the rules!”

“What rules?”

“You know…fraternizing with…with…”

“The enemy? They aren’t an enemy. We’re supposed to be working beside them, and I’m off-duty. Who I choose to hang out with in my downtime is my choice.”

“But they’re…”

“They’re what? Shifters? I know you weren’t about to say suspects or criminals.
Know
you weren’t. They haven’t done anything wrong.”

“So killing an entire government agency isn’t doing anything wrong?”

“No proof,” Clinton said blandly.

“Are you talking about IESA?” she asked. “The undercover government agency that went rogue? The agency that got their dumb asses videotaped by Cora Keller and exposed to the world because of their messy assassination attempts? The agency not even the government will publicly claim? Sorry Finn, but your assumptions about these people were wrong. If IESA agents are missing, it’s because the shifters up here were defending themselves.”

“Which should be brought to light in court to see who is really guilty.”

“A trial the government would never let see the light of day, Finn! They aren’t dragging IESA out to expose all the illegal, unethical, horrible shit they did! If the IESA met their end here, the shifters did the government a damned favor.”

“And again, no proof,” Kirk said. His voice had cooled. “I don’t recall any IESA agents storming these mountains. Don’t remember them trying to wipe out every shifter here. Don’t remember them coming after innocent men, women, and children. Don’t remember them raising some of the people here in a testing facility, torturing kids, running experiments, scarring the survivors. That’s all rumors and hearsay.” Kirk’s voice had gone hollow, as if he didn’t care if Finn believed him or not. “If you want to back the attempted massacre of an entire species, probably do that somewhere else so you don’t get your heart plucked from your chest here.”

With every word Kirk had spoken, Alison had grown sicker and sicker. Testing facilities? That hadn’t even been mentioned in Cora Keller’s attack on the agency. The shifters here had gone through so much more than she, or likely anyone else, realized. And yet here they were, accepting her as Kirk’s claim, even though she was human.

Finn was so wrong in his assumption that the shifters were the bad guys.

“My mate is bringing home barbecue later, and we’re gonna have some beer and throw some horseshoes if you want to stay and join us,” Harrison gritted out. “Since you are working right alongside of us, it might benefit you to get to know us, like Ally is doing.”

“You mean Officer Holman,” Finn ground out, his eyes narrowed on the alpha.

“No, I mean Ally. She’s a friend here and plenty welcome to spend time in Damon’s mountains to do her job because she made the effort to get to know us and secure that open invite. You still don’t have Damon’s permission to be on his land unescorted, so if you want the same privileges Ally has, you should make more of an effort to get us to trust you. Sitting up in your little cabin glaring at us as we drive by isn’t gonna do you any favors.”

Finn had donned his uniform to come up here, and he crossed his arms over his chest as he inhaled deeply, eyes on her. “Look, Holman, I’m your partner. You know what it’s like to lose a partner, don’t you?”

Alison closed her eyes against the pain of the memory of Riggs gasping for air on the floor. “Yeah.” Her voice cracked on the word.

“Well, you’re my partner, and I’ve called you ten damned times.”

“My phone is sitting in the front seat of the truck.”

“Great, but can you see why I was worried? Last I saw, you were fishtailing out of our post, headed for these mountains, and you didn’t call me for backup, but you also didn’t pick up the phone to let me know you were all right.”

And now she felt like shit. “I’m really sorry. It didn’t work like that undercover. It was every man for himself, and I didn’t think about your side of it.”

“Well, next time call me and let me know what you’re doing so I don’t just sit down there thinking you’re up here bleeding out or something.” He cast a quick narrow-eyed glance to Harrison. “And no, I don’t want a beer.”

Harrison pursed his lips and nodded. “Then you’ll have to get out of my territory.” With a quick flick of his fingers, he gestured Finn back toward the trailer park.

Kirk gripped Alison’s waist and gave her a quick kiss on the side of the head as they followed the others through the woods. Finn narrowed his eyes at them but was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Partner or not, he had no say in who she dated.

“You look ridiculous and completely unprofessional,” he grumbled as she stepped into line with him.

“We went swimming at the falls,” Kirk said in a deep, rough tone. “It ain’t like she’s naked.”

Finn offered him a dirty look, then sighed and arced his attention to Alison. “Look, I get the draw. It’s lonely as fuck up here. Why do you think I’m always down in Saratoga? But you aren’t even wearing your damned badge.”

“Finn, I’m not cut from the same cloth as you. You worked in a precinct with rules, dress codes, and organization. That was never my work environment. If I wore a badge, it would’ve gotten me shot, and my dress code was street clothes because a uniform would—”

“Get you shot. Yeah, I get it. I’ve worked around undercover cops, you know? They would come into our precinct every once in a while, dressed down, inconspicuous, but you could always tell by their eyes they weren’t just someone there to report a crime. They all had that haunted, hard look. I made you as an undercover cop the second I saw you at the airport.”

“You did not.”

“I swear I did. Also when I tried to look you up in the system, I could barely find anything on you. I had to ask around Chicago to get the scoop on you.”

“Had to,” she muttered sarcastically.

“This wasn’t my choice either, you know? I was used to being on the streets, and then I came to play shifter babysitter up in the wilderness with a partner I knew nothing about.” Finn shook his head.

“What did you learn about her?” Kirk asked.

“Ha!” Finn gave him a pointed look. “I see those fuckin’ lovey dovey looks you’re giving her, but don’t be fooled. She’s a pit viper.”

“And yet somehow that makes her more attractive to me,” Kirk murmured.

Finn snorted. “Shifters. You know what they used to call her?”

“Finn, shut up.” Alison didn’t know why he was so damned talkative all the sudden. He’d come in here pissed off, and now he was a Chatty-Cathy. She was seriously stifling the urge to punch him in the mouth-hole right now.

“What did they call her?” Clinton asked from behind them.

“Ghost.”

Mother fucker, whoever he’d tracked down to dish dirt on her was going to get an earful from her.

“Why Ghost?” Mason asked from where he leaned on the corner of a trailer as they came out of the tree line.

“Because she was quiet. They say she could blend in anywhere, melt through walls.”

“I thought you just worked in that drug house,” Kirk said, confusion in his voice.

“In Chicago?” Finn asked, tossing her a wicked glare. “Nah. She worked for years undercover before that, changing her hair, changing her name, living where they told her to with no complaints. She thrived. A real chameleon. She made a dent in drug trafficking wherever they assigned her. Cartels, drug lords, dealers…no one even know what hit ’em.” Finn crossed his arms as they came to a stop on the edge of the evening shadows stretching from the trees. “I almost didn’t believe my sources because you don’t make any sense. Too soft spoken. Not the right personality for a cop. No bravado, and for the life of me, I haven’t been able to wrench out a single war story from you.”

“Finn, please stop,” she murmured, feeling naked and exposed.

“But now it makes perfect sense. You’re unassuming. No one would ever guess you’re the Ghost. Quiet, observant, taking notes and names, calculating, always calculating.” Finn’s smile had turned to a grimace. “And then you had your break.”

“Enough,” Kirk said.

“What break?” Clinton asked.

“A psychotic episode, they called it. The Ghost killed a suspect, and with her bare hands.”

“Because he murdered another undercover agent right in front of me.” And because he was going to violate her, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell anyone that part except Kirk.

Finn’s eyes were full of hate now. “She strangled him. She needed him to keep her cover and blow that entire operation right off the map, but she listened to his last, gasping, dying breaths as she choked the life out of—”

“I said enough!” Kirk barked out. He jerked his chin toward Finn’s cruiser. “Get the fuck out.”

Finn cocked his head and glared at Kirk. “I miss the smog of the city. The noise. The people. The overcrowded sidewalks. It’s too quiet out here, but a woman like Alison Holman can adapt to any environment to get what she wants.” Finn turned and strode off for his cruiser. “Good luck figuring out her intentions, Shifter,” he called. “No one can really know a ghost.”