Protect and Serve Shifting Forces (8 page)

“No. You’re right. Damn it, I hate when you’re right.”

The bright glow of the full moon lights up the river as the incoming breeze clears the fog. Dad is gone from the clearing. It’s a good thing we didn’t try to fly over. “Stay here while I check it out.”

“Too late, Kender.” The distinctive click of a poly-rifle sounds from under the canopy of trees. Turner steps into the clearing, his weapon trained on Aurora. Several members of my old team have their rifles pointed toward us as well. I know there’s got to be at least ten or fifteen others hidden in the forest with us in their sites.

“Aurora here is my guest, though she hasn’t been real cooperative. I suggest you don’t do anything stupid. I wouldn’t want to have to put a hole through your little wife -- or mate -- or whatever you paras call your sluts.”

“I’ll kill you, you son-of-a-bitch!” Varick lunges toward Turner, but I block him, holding him back.

With a whisper, I shove him behind me. “He’s trying to provoke us, Varick. Keep your cool. Neither of us can do Aurora any good if we’re dead. It’s me he wants.”

“But she’s hurt! Can’t you see she’s bleeding?” He moves again, trying to go to her. I don’t blame him, but this isn’t the time. The clicks of several rifles reinforces my belief.

“She’s standing and conscious. We can work with that.”

“Are you going to whisper to your phoenix boyfriend there all night, Kender? I didn’t know you liked boys, but it seems there are a lot of things you neglected to tell me.” Turner’s jeering sounds so different from the man I grew to respect in the military -- the man who led an army against the rogues threatening innocent citizens. But I’m no longer his ally -- now I’m the enemy.

“Promise me you’ll take care of her, Varick.”

“Don’t do it, man.” His choked whisper cuts into me. True friendship comes at the oddest times.

“Kender, turn yourself over to me and I’ll let her go. I’ve already called for reinforcements. They’re on standby. Since your little town here seems to be an underground haven for rogue paranormals, it’ll just take one phone call for me to destroy it all.”

Aurora’s bruised face blanches at Turner’s threat, making the blood dripping from her forehead stand out that much more in the silver light of the moon. She shakes her head at me, mouthing “No.”

“
Promise me
, Varick. No matter what happens.”

“Of course I will, Kender. She’s our mate.” The firm resolve in his voice steadies me.

I pause, taking in my surroundings and counting the overwhelming odds against us. We don’t stand a chance against so many. I step forward, hands in the air. There’s really no choice. Her safety and the safety of the town come first. They’ll always come first.

“Fine, Sgt. Turner. I’ll come with you. Let her go and have the reinforcements stand down. It’s not worth hurting innocent people just to get back at me.”

The sergeant motions to a couple of the men -- ones I don’t recognize -- to cuff my hands behind my back. “Just to get back at you? You flatter yourself, Kender. You’re only a means to an end.”

“Let Aurora go, Sarge. She’s nothing to you. Hurting her won’t bring your son back.”

Varick stands in the moonlight by the stream. He clenches his fists, energy rising around his body. He looks just like he did when I first saw him, standing in that city street, right before shifting.

I shake my head and mouth the words
You promised
to him. He settles, but only slightly.

“You’re right. Hurting her won’t bring my son back. But it’ll kill you, and right now, that sounds pretty damned good.” He steps toward me, getting right in my face, his features contorted with rage. “Then again, she’s just a girl. Maybe you prefer fucking animals to humans.”

“I am not just a girl!” Aurora drops to the ground, grabbing a hefty river rock and pitching it at Turner’s head with frightening accuracy. His eyes roll back in his head as he falls.

In a furious explosion of activity, the clearing lights up with fire and the deadly report of weaponry. Varick has already shifted, attacking the nearest riflemen with a deadly rage that defies the gentle side of him I’ve come to know. His burning image lights the clearing to an almost daylight brightness, flames bouncing off the stream in eerie reflections.

I let my gryphon surge, shifting with a force and rage that pours through my blood in a cold, calculating desire for revenge. With a gust of wind under my wings and the keening cry of a gryphon calling for reinforcements, I rush into the air to attack.

My father suddenly appears behind one of the snipers in human form, snapping the man’s neck with an efficient twist. With a wink, he disappears back into the trees, his dark clothing blending into the shadows. I notice the number of weapons and enemies pitted against us has diminished since I first took count.

I slam down onto one of my former team members, crushing him with the sheer force of gravity and my body weight as he draws a bead on Aurora.
No fucking way are you hurting my mate
! He goes down in a screaming, bloody mess of bones.

My sweet, demure little mate grabs a rifle from one of the downed men, checks for ammunition and fires. She takes out two men in less than a minute with swift, lethal accuracy.
That’s my girl
!

I rise again, using all of my shifter senses to locate the hidden snipers. Following the faint rustle of leaves, I see a sniper in a nearby tree, aiming for the clearing and waiting for a shot. Wrenching him off the limb in my talons, I fly higher, and then let him drop to his death.

“No! Get down!” Varick shouts from the other side of the clearing. He flies with blazing speed to where my father emerges from the shadows near him. The single report of a poly-rifle blasts from somewhere on the ground, just as Varick reaches my dad in a flying tackle. They both go down in the trees, but I can’t tell if they’ve been hit.

Before I can even take a breath, two more shots ring out. Sergeant Turner slumps down against the tree he’d pulled himself up against. His mouth moves in silent agony, blood welling from within to spill down the side of his face. The vacant stare of his eyes turns glassy as he falls over, dead from two gunshots in the ten-ring of his chest.

Aurora runs toward where Varick and my dad went down, dropping her rifle on the way. I land first to find my dad holding Varick’s chest, trying to staunch the blood. “Get help, Kender, fast! He’s not going to last long.”

Varick grabs my hand, preventing me from leaving just as Aurora slides to a stop, kneeling on the ground next to him, tears running down her face. “Why, Varick?”

He meets my eyes, and then his hand drops back to the ground. With a shuddering breath, he whispers as his eyes close, “Family.”

Aurora’s Blog (12)

Five Years Later…

“Kender, come get your son out of the tree! Damn it, how am I supposed to work when he’s flying around like that? I swear, it’s like I gave birth to one of those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz since he learned how to shift.”

Kender comes up behind me, sliding his arms around my waist, nipping at my neck in the way that makes me melt every time. “Yeah, but he’s
our
monkey. And you know you love every minute of it.”
God, his voice just drips with sexy
.

“I do, but don’t tell everyone. You’ll ruin my reputation as a bad ass activist. Will you get him down out of the tree now, so I can finish writing my speech?” With a smile, I watch as he shifts, flying to the top of the tree where our son Griff perches, stretching his wings with naughty delight. They talk for a few minutes, and then come down, landing on the lawn behind the cabin.

It’s changed a lot since I first came here. It’s been expanded over the years to accommodate our growing family, but it still holds the precious memories of what we had. The hard, intense mating that bound me to Kender and Varick was so fleeting, and the three of us had so little time together before the battle that changed everything.

“Thank you, honey.” I give Kender a kiss, and lightly rub our son on his tawny head. “Griff, go play with Kenna, will you? I want to talk to your father.”

“Okay, Mom.” He runs into the house and down the hall. A bedroom door slams, followed by a familiar, high-pitched wail of rage.

I muffle my groan in Kender’s shirt, shaking my head.

“Don’t forget, my parents asked to take them for the night. We can try for number three if you’d like.” He pulls me into his arms, winding his fingers in my hair to kiss me, his tongue playing alongside mine in a familiar battle.

With a chuckle, I set the now crumpled paper with my speech written on it back down on the patio table. “You’re just a glutton for punishment, aren’t you? Don’t you have a campaign to run or something? Last I heard, it takes a little more than just putting your name on a ballot to become a senator. You need votes or something.”

“Mmm, can I have your vote, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know if you can get her vote, but you sure as hell aren’t getting mine. Get your hands off my wife!” With a laugh, Varick comes around the side of the house, sweeping me into his arms and twirling me around in a circle.

“Varick, put me down! You’re going to tear your uniform!”

“I’ll just have to get another one then. I know how much it turns you on, baby.”

“Just because you
can
, Varick, doesn’t mean you
should
.” He laughs as I quote his own words back to him from so long ago. I stroke the badge on the chest of his paramedic uniform, feeling the familiar tingle of desire between my thighs. We almost lost him -- almost lost everything -- in that battle.

Kender’s wild race to bring medical help was successful, but only by the barest margin did our phoenix beat the reaper. Even for a shifter, Varick’s recovery was slow. Just an inch to the left and we would have lost him. So close. Finding out I was pregnant while he was still in the hospital was an even bigger shock.

Once he recovered, Varick went back to being a paramedic. Healing people is his calling, and a town full of paranormals certainly narrows the applicant field. With all his experience, the city was happy to hire him.

After the fiasco of the battle, the media blitz and the political fallout, things are finally starting to change for the better for paranormals. It seems Kender’s family of heroes has a lot of connections in high places. It’s slow, but it’s a start, and we have hope for our family’s future.

“So how about it, sweetheart, are you ready for number three?” Kender’s evil grin promises a wild ride.

“Is he still trying to talk you into another baby?” Varick pulls me against him, his hand sliding inside my waistband, tickling my stomach. “Damn, you know how sexy you are when you’re pregnant, Aurora?” All of Varick’s worry about following in his father’s footsteps turned out to be for nothing. He’s as loyal and protective with our children as he is me.

Kender and he live for the kids -- I’ve never seen such loving parents. It makes me appreciate how special they both are, and gives me a new understanding of what my own parents went through to keep us safe.

“I think I kind of got the hint you guys enjoyed it the first two times. But I’m on the pill, remember?”

“Mmm. Doesn’t mean we can’t practice, right?” I giggle as Kender wraps his arms around me from the front, grinding his hard cock against my pussy.

Varick’s groan as he nibbles my neck sets me off once again as they sandwich me between them, both rocking gently. Turns out, sandwiches are my favorite treat with these two.

“Oh gross! Can’t you three do that somewhere else?” Brianna’s disgusted voice comes from the back door. The accompanying chorus of giggles breaks us apart.
Not in front of the kids
. Griff and Kenna start chasing each other around the backyard, rushing between the three of us and then back into the house. Kenna’s hot-tempered scream sounds again as Griff catches her.

“Aren’t you taking them to your parents’ house for the night, Brianna?” Varick’s hands start wandering again. I chuckle and slap his fingers when they start dipping into my waistband.

“Well, I didn’t come here to watch you three do the nasty.”

“Then I suggest you go quickly.” Kender smiles and takes my hand, leading me into the house.

We kiss the kids goodbye as they follow their aunt to her car, carrying their overnight bags and arguing all the way.

“Griff, leave your sister alone! Why are you always pestering her?”

“Because, Auntie Bri. It’s so much fun to watch her hair smoke when she gets mad!”

The car doors slam and they take off down the driveway, dust flying in their wake.

Breathless and wet with desire, I turn to find myself under the burning gaze of my two sexy men. We’ve been through a lot together, but even after all this time, they turn my furnace past the boiling point.

“Didn’t you boys have something in mind?” I burst into laughter as Varick sweeps me into his arms like some fairy tale hero, almost running for the bedroom, Kender in hot pursuit.

“You’re not going to drop me, are you?” I hold on tight, feeling his muscles as he slips onto the bed, laying me gently against the pillows.

“Never, baby. You’re safe with me.” His eyes meet mine, intense with meaning. The sharp flame of liquid fire rises inside me, stoked by the depth of his emotion.

“She’s only safe until she turns her back, phoenix. Then you’re the Butt Bandit all over again.” Kender chuckles and tosses his clothes into the corner, the soft sound of each piece of fabric hitting the wall ramping up the fierce need building in me.

I can’t help but giggle at the banter, honed to a perfect edge over the years of their playful alpha competitions. Pulling my clothes off, I wonder why they always seem to take so much longer to get naked. I edge my legs apart and slide my fingers against the hot wetness of my pussy, spreading the moisture over my labia and around my clit. Sparks of sensation spread as I circle the bundle of nerves, lifting my hips as I get a head start.

“So what’s wrong with that? I don’t hear her complaining. It’s not like you don’t slide in through the back door whenever you can. I just happen to have more finesse.”