Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six) (12 page)

Whatever the reasons Kelis had, some explanations were in order. But regardless of that, Grant knew his life would never be quite the same. And against all odds, he couldn’t have been gladder for it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kelis

Kelis’s heart was in her throat as she watched the Aldroch twins turn around and pick up a baby each, Dylan in Grim’s arms and Dante in Grant’s. The babies hushed immediately in the arms of their daddies, and Kelis couldn’t deny that which she’d already known. That her boys looked a
lot
like their fathers. She just hadn’t realized quite how much before she’d seen them together.

She flicked the light on, the low dimmer casting a glow on the nursery. She had a small apartment, two fairly cramped bedrooms, and a living room-kitchen, now trashed because of her unexpected and unwelcome visitors. Grim and Grant sunk down onto the couch in the corner of the room, their attentions entirely consumed by the babbling and giggling kids in their laps.

Kelis loved the sight before her. It was as she’d always known it should be, her babies with their daddies. It hadn’t been so long since she’d seen the Aldrochs last, but so much had changed in her life that it might as well been a lifetime. It certainly felt like it.

“They’re yours. Dylan and Dante,” she said finally, knowing that they had no doubt of that, but needing to say it for her own sake.

“You don’t say,” Grim gruffed back, chuckling.

“If it looks like an Aldroch and it growls like an Aldroch, it’s probably an Aldroch,” Grant said scruffing his hand through Dante’s already thick head of hair.

“Kelis! What’s going on here?” a strained voice called, belonging to Marta, her nanny.

Kelis gasped, remembering that she’d left the woman heaving in the living room, completely shocked by what had happened to her. Kelis rushed to the door, finding Marta still on the couch, her eyes red and her cheeks burning up.

“Why did they do that to me?” she asked, completely shaken.

“I don’t know, Marta,” Kelis lied, biting her tongue.

She couldn’t tell her mild-mannered babysitter from down the hall that the kids she’d been sitting and constantly cooing over about how
fast
they were developing were something akin to superweapons, wanted by more horrible people than Kelis could count. Or, well, apparently wanted because up to now, Kelis had been sure that the only people who knew about her babies at all were in The Firm. The “good guys.”

“Come on, I’ll take you to your apartment,” she offered softly, taking a step forward.

But Marta’s eyes were now staring fixedly at the two dead bodies on the hardwood floor, blood pooling around them and almost reaching her feet. There was horror in her eyes, real honest to goodness terror, and Kelis doubted any rational words could really get through to her.

“We need to call the police! What if they come back? And who are those… those men with you?!”

God dammit. I didn’t need this.

She snaked out her cellphone from her pocket and ignoring Marta’s barrage of questions, dialed the one number she’d been told to contact in the off chance something like this were to happen. She heard a click on the other end of the line and without expecting a greeting, spoke into the phone, keeping her voice low.

“Kelis Murdoch. Attack at my place of residence. Subjects safe, cleanup needed. Civilian involved, apartment 34A.”

With that, she ended the call in time to see Grant standing behind her, Dante on his hip. His eyes spoke a million words and Kelis could see that he knew what had just transpired. She just wasn’t sure whether he judged her for it or not.

“Marta, you need to go back into your apartment now,” Grant said, his words full of authority, so much so that even Dante was staring at him with wide eyes, hushed into silence. “There will be people coming to talk to you. They will make sure you are safe. The police have been notified.”

Marta tore her eyes away from the gruesome scene and she nodded, very slowly, as if it took a while for the words to get through to her. Kelis walked to her and took her hand, helping her up and past the bodies of the two Arctics agents. She tossed a glance at Grant as she reached the door, but he nodded his approval, and Kelis took Marta back to her apartment. The older woman was shocked into silence, the color now draining from her face.

Kelis had to be thankful that The Arctics had wasted time with tying her up instead of killing her outright, an odd bit of mercy on their side, causing them to still be in the apartment when Kelis and the twins got there. Her insides twisted at the thought of what would have happened if they’d been later, or if the agents had decided to murder Marta in cold blood.

She practically ran back to her apartment, and although it was only a few doors down from Marta’s, every second away from her baby boys was a painful thing to bear at the time. The Aldrochs met her at the door, each carrying a baby bag over their shoulder along with one of the boys, blissfully happy in their fathers’ arms.

“Come on. We’re going back to headquarters,” Grim said, pulling the door shut behind him.

“No objections. We can talk there. A car will be down in a minute,” Grant added, using his free hand to take her hand in his.

A hot, permanent heat radiated through her from the touch, robbing her of words once more. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be touched by one of them, fire and ice, a cacophony of sensations and emotions. Flashbacks of their night together danced behind her eyes and she followed quietly, not arguing, not fussing.

True to their word, there was already a car waiting downstairs, several agents of The Firm that Kelis had never seen before piling out with their gear in tow while Grim, Grant, and Kelis took their places.

The cleanup crew,
she thought wryly, shuddering slightly.

In a few hours, it would be as if nothing at all had happened in her apartment and Marta would be either bought off or made to relocate somewhere where the things she’d seen couldn’t hurt anyone. Her heart went out to the aging Latina woman, but at least she’d survived and without injury to boot.

I hope this doesn’t ruin her life.

It wasn’t the first time that Kelis had felt that nagging feeling of worry and doubt hit her, like everything she did ended up hurting someone. Her squad, her family, her friends, or even the fathers of her baby boys—it seemed that there could be no right choice, only wrong ones. She missed Grant’s touch immediately as she took her seat in the car, falling against the upholstery, willing all of this to be a horrible, emotionally confusing rollercoaster.

But it wasn’t.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kelis

The ride to headquarters was spent mostly in silence, only the boys sometimes saying a word or two, surprising their fathers with their wealth of vocabulary at an age where most shifter kids said only one word if at that. She could see the frowns on Grant’s and Grim’s faces as they quietly doing the math, trying to figure out why the boys in their laps seemed to about three times as old as they should have been. The truth was going to be a hell of a surprise to them.

It was only when they all made it back to Squad Six’s room that the tension seemed to dissipate a little. The kids had fallen asleep during the drive and now with no one else around for a moment, Kelis thought it time to speak her truth. She knew that in a bit, she’d be drowning under explanations and probably the worst conversation she could possibly have would be heading her way too—Spade was sure to have heard about this already.

“They did make me hide the boys from you, yes,” she started, choosing to stand while Grim and Grant sat down, setting the babies to sleep on one of the cots between them. “But there’s more.”

“Start from the beginning,” Grim said, his voice almost stoic.

They both looked at her, worn, as confused as she was, but calm. Far calmer than she thought she would have been if the tables were turned, if she’d found that something of such high importance was being hidden from her by a person or people that she thought had been loyal to her.

“Take your time,” Grant added, nodding.

“Okay,” Kelis said with a sigh, leaning against the single windowsill in the room, overlooking a dark and empty courtyard. “I never made it back to the Corps. I never went on that mission. I got pregnant.”

She quieted for a moment, glazing over the conversation she’d had with Spade, not wishing to remember the way he’d overpowered her in a second. And it definitely wasn’t something she should tell the twins, lest they go and shoot the intelligence officer down where he stood. Knowing Spade, he’d just come back to haunt them from the dead.

“Spade recruited me right out of that mission. Said we had a spot for people like me, but I later figured out why he wanted me. It was because of that gas, the fact that I’d ingested it and that I was a human. Honestly, I think he was the one who got me on that airplane to begin with, but he’d never admit as much, obviously.”

She sighed, grazing her teeth over her lower lip. Grim’s hand was gently resting on Dylan’s tummy and Dante rolled himself over on his front, his sweet little face the picture of peace. He was a hellion when he was awake though, so the transformation always amused Kelis.

“I went into basic training for The Firm, and got kicked out of it three days into it when the blood tests got back. I think you guys weren’t even back from your next mission then when Spade told me that I was not to tell anyone about my pregnancy, especially not you two. He didn’t make me swear on it, just said that if I did, I’d learn to regret it. He dropped the names of all of my siblings in casual conversation, like he had guns trained to their heads.”

Grant snarled at that, a guttural noise that she could easily decipher. Spade was an ass, a dangerous man with hazardous goals. Making a woman hide a pregnancy from the fathers of her babies was well within his realm of expertise.

“I got put into this odd stasis-like existence. I did some jobs for The Firm, but their first interest was the pregnancy. It progressed fast. Really fast. Too fast. And when I had the boys, they were far more developed than they should have been. It keeps going on even now. They’re stronger by a good margin than they should be, they’re developing so fast… the doctors are convinced it’s because I breathed in that gas, but not too much of it. The right amount, as they keep saying. It changed something in me, made me able to have shifter babies who are… better.”

“Fuck,” Grim muttered, disbelief on his features. “That’s… I don’t even know what that is. The Arctics have done some fucked-up shit, but I never thought they were this far with it all. Genetic engineering on this scale? But are the boys okay? I mean, are they… healthy?”

Honest concern was evident on him and it warmed her heart. That was her first worry too, always.

“Yes, they’re fine. Better than fine. They’re perfect, in every way. The thing is, The Firm doesn’t think that The Arctics have managed to have these kind of results themselves. I get the feeling that The Firm has been testing too, but I don’t know, I don’t have any proof. Right now, Dylan and Dante are unique. We thought The Arctics had no clue about them, that’s why I could live off the compound. I wanted to give them a normal life, you know? But after today…”

She trailed off, something cold gripping her heart. The thought of losing her boys was horrifying.

“After today, you won’t be out of our sight,” Grant said firmly, his gaze tense. “Nor will the boys.”

She allowed a small smile to spread on her lips, feeling a lovely bit of warmth pool in her stomach as well. Since walking into them not too many hours ago, she’d been battling with conflicting emotions, trying to make sense of what she really felt. Excitement, yes, and plenty of lust. But the time apart had made her appreciate the few stolen moments she’d had together with the Aldrochs back in that bunker, the memories having kept her safe while everything around her was going to hell.

So could she now enjoy it again, when they were truly around her, wanting to be there? Somehow, she had to fear that life would get in the way as it had so far.

“You have missions,” she said softly, trying to hide the blush of excitement on her cheeks.

“These are our kids. We can’t leave if we think they’re in danger,” Grim said, determination ringing in his voice.

“The situation isn’t ideal,” Grant said evenly, getting a smirk from Grim. “But this is what it is. We’ll make it work. If The Arctics know that Dylan and Dante exist, we can be sure that they won’t stop at anything to get them. So you won’t be safe without someone standing guard, someone watching your six. You know that, right?”