Reclaiming the Wolf (Cascade Shifters Book 1) (17 page)

After about thirty seconds, Howard went limp. Sy said to Ginnie, “Open the balcony. The other two should be waiting in the trees outside.”

She moved to the back door and he gave Matt’s side a pat. “Good job, Matt. Once the other two come in, they can watch over the wolf-shifter while you get dressed. I need you to help me search the place for Howard’s laptop and any other promising clues.”

While he kept the wolf-shifter pinned under his body, Matt released his grip on Howard’s jaw and gave a low chirp just as two adult cougars trotted across the floor. Sy stood up and looked at the two DarkStalker cougars that had just entered the apartment. “Okay, while it’s unlikely he’ll wake up, I want you two to watch over the wolf while Ginnie, Matt, and I search the place. Make a sound if he moves.”

The two cougars nodded and Sy turned to Ginnie. “I want you to search the kitchen.” Matt finished shifting back to his human form. He was naked, but shifters didn’t pay much attention to that. “Matt, take the bedroom. I’ll search the living room.”

His clan members nodded and Sy went to work.

~~~

Kaya sat in the car, rubbing her temples, and resisted looking at the clock on the stereo console for the hundredth time. Even in her slightly unwell state, her wolf was pacing and itching to go join the fight to capture Kevin Howard so they could try to find a way to save GreyFire. An alpha’s duty was to protect the pack.

But the human-half of Kaya knew better. Taking a sick wolf into battle would end up getting multiple people killed.

She only hoped Sy was successful. His reasoning about how Kaya showing up unannounced at Kevin’s door could make the wolf-shifter suspicious, and possibly reach out to his contact at Markgen before talking with her, made sense.

This would be the first real test of how her wolf handled letting the cougar-shifter briefly take charge, and also to see how Sy handled stepping in when needed and handing the reins back to her afterward. If he couldn’t transfer the power and decisions back, she would die a little inside because she’d have no choice but to push him away.

Her wolf snarled; she didn’t like the idea of letting the male cougar-shifter go.

Kaya smiled at that. Her wolf had refused more than a few wolf-shifters from her clan, but seemed intent on keeping the feline nearby. Oh, how her uncle would’ve had a heart attack at that revelation.

Movement at the apartment tower’s entrance caught her eye. A tall woman with red hair peeked out, looked around, and strode with the grace of a cat toward where Kaya was sitting in the car. The woman unlocked the doors with the electronic key lock, opened the driver’s side door, and slid in. She closed the door and said, “I’m Ginnie from DarkStalker. Sy’s waiting with Kevin Howard, and he sent me to drive over to collect them.” She looked Kaya in the eye. “May I drive your car?”

Ginnie’s brown eyes were steady, belying her role as a soldier or sentry for DarkStalker. Neither half of Kaya sensed a threat, and since her head was pounding even worse now, she nodded and said, “Go ahead.”

The woman nodded, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled the car into the street.

Two minutes later, Ginnie stopped in front of the building entrance and exited the car. Rather than risk being caught on any of the security cameras, or worse, losing her balance when she stood up due to her pounding head, Kaya stayed inside.

The rear door opened and despite the mixture of feline and wolf scents that bombarded her nose, it was Sy’s masculine scent she picked out first. She turned in her seat and he met her eyes, a triumphant look in his. “Hey, Kaya. Guess what the cat brought in?”

She groaned at his joke. “Putting aside your corny joke, are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Just a second.”

Sy maneuvered the unconscious wolf into the car, his wonderful muscles bunching and flexing with the effort, just as someone else opened the trunk and she heard something tossed inside. With Kevin strapped in, Sy allowed a male in cougar form to jump into the backseat. No doubt, to act as a guard on the off chance Kevin woke up.

The rear door slammed closed, and a second later, Sy opened the driver’s side door and slid in. Not caring about the cougar watching them in the backseat, he took hold of her neck and pulled her close for a gentle kiss. Then he said, “Now I can talk.”

She gave him a playful pat and reluctantly, he moved away to start the car. As he pulled out onto the street, she said, “So?”

“Well, there wasn’t any bottle with ‘Antidote’ written on it, but we did take his laptop, cell phone, briefcase, and a few files we found in his apartment.” He glanced at Kaya. “I was thinking, once we switch cars, we could take it all back to GreyFire and assign a team to help look through everything. That would speed up the process. What do you think?”

The question was asking her permission. Her wolf wanted to lick his face in gratitude for all but handing power back into her hands.

Aware of their audience in the backseat, however, she cleared her throat and said, “That’s exactly what I would’ve done. I can set things in motion on the drive up, if you don’t mind driving?”

Sy’s eyes were back on the road, but she saw the smile on his face. She could tell he was itching to tease her, but true to his word, he didn’t embarrass her, even if it was his clan member and not hers in the back seat. “No. But how would you feel about letting Matt back there, along with Ginnie, the redhead from earlier, take Howard up in a separate car? I’d rather divide up and lessen the risk of an attack if for some reason someone decides to track Howard’s cell phone or computer.”

And he left unsaid the other big reason—to prevent anyone from seeing how sick she would become.

She wasn’t used to someone looking out for her, and it felt...nice. She didn’t doubt for a second that Sy would take care of her once her fever showed up.

Focus, Kaya.
She wasn’t about to worry if she’d ever wake up or not once that happened. She was awake now, and she had things to do. She said, “I can give your team the location of a remote sentry shelter at the edge of GreyFire’s land. That way, if someone is tracking the bastard, they’ll see Kevin’s on GreyFire’s land, but they won’t find the heart of my den.” She turned to look into Matt’s blue cougar eyes. “Provided, first, that Matt doesn’t mind working with the wolves. Shake your head if you don’t mind doing so.”

The cougar tilted his head in the feline way for a second to study her, but while his blue gaze was strong, she was stronger. Eventually, he blinked and then he shook his head.

Kaya smiled. “Good.” She turned back toward Sy. “Let me call Kian and double-check that it’s okay to borrow his clan members for a spell.”

As she took out her phone and started dialing, Sy reached out and gave her thigh a squeeze. She looked over at him. His eyes were full of approval and something tender, and the sight made her heart skip a beat.

He is ours
, her wolf said inside her head. And yes, Kaya agreed. Sylas Murray was theirs, and no matter how sick she became, she was going to fight her damnedest to get well again so she could tell him that. Then, to make up for too many years apart, she would ask him to fuck her until she couldn’t stand, and she knew he would do it, too. With Sy, she’d never have to worry about someone only wanting her because of her position, let alone worry about a man treating her as a fragile thing about to break. Despite the fact they’d only reconnected less than a week ago, he knew her better than just about anyone else.

She was falling for him again.

Kian’s voice came over the phone and she reluctantly broke her gaze to concentrate on what the other clan leader was saying. She needed to get everything going in both the GreyFire and DarkStalker clans while she still had the ability to do so.

Chapter Fifteen

For the hundredth time, Sy resisted the urge to pull over the car, move Kaya into his lap, and try to soothe her. She’d fallen asleep about an hour ago, and ever since, she had been moving and twitching in her seat, as if she were fighting off a nightmare.

He’d tried talking to her, switching on relaxing music, and even caressing her with his free hand, but none of that had worked. He was pretty confident he knew why.

The virus was starting to attack Kaya with full force.

His inner cat growled. He wanted something tangible to fight off to protect their wolf-shifter. The animal-half of him didn’t understand this invisible enemy. Of course, his human-half did, and it scared the living shit out of him.

Kaya could die.

Sy gripped the steering wheel tighter, and tried to calm down his inner cougar. If the cat didn’t get his irritation under control, Sy wouldn’t be able to use his brain as effectively to take care of the wolves and, more importantly, Kaya.

He had made the final turn onto GreyFire’s land a few minutes ago, which meant they’d be at the den in about twenty minutes. The sooner he could get Kaya to her people, the sooner they could see if they could make her comfortable. He only hoped they were making progress on the cure.

His phone rang. Sy saw it was his brother, so he clicked the receive button on his ear piece, grateful for the distraction. “Yeah, Kian? What’s up?”

“I had one of our people, Rivera, keep an eye on GreyFire’s place in Seattle and someone came to do more than pay a call—they broke into the apartment.”

Good thing they’d searched and stripped the place first. “Tell me the rest.”

“Rivera tailed the middle-aged man back to Markgen, but the man has yet to come back out again.”

“Did Rivera get a picture of this guy?”

“Yeah. It’s a bit grainy, but I’ve sent it to your phone. Can you get Kaya to look at it right now and see if she recognizes him?”

Sy glanced over at the wolf-shifter, who was currently whimpering softly in her seat. He decided his brother had a right to know what was going on. Especially since some of DarkStalker’s people were involved with helping the wolves. “Are you alone right now, Kian?”

Something in Sy’s voice must’ve given away that something wrong because Kian’s voice became concerned. “Yes, it’s just me in my office. What’s up little brother?”

He decided he didn’t have the spirit to argue with his twin brother about him being older by a few minutes. Instead, he took a deep breath and said, “I think Kaya caught the virus.”

Kian’s line went quiet for a second before he replied. “How did it happen? Wasn’t she clean when she left GreyFire?”

“Yes, but somehow a Dr. John Smith at Markgen found a way to infect not just her, but her two researchers as well. We think it was either in the air or the drinks they had while waiting for him.”

“How bad is she?”

Only because Sy was driving did he keep his eyes on the road instead of pulling Kaya into his lap to hold close. “Her fever started a little over an hour ago and she’s now unconscious. I think she’s having nightmares since she keeps whimpering and moving around.” He glanced quickly at Kaya and then back to the road again. “She might die, Kian, and I’m not sure I can save her.”

“That’s the bitch of loving someone, brother—sometimes things are out of your hands and there’s nothing you can do to save them.”

Sy didn’t even try to deny he loved Kaya. Instead, he decided he needed to tell his brother the whole truth. “There’s something else you should know, Kian, before I get to GreyFire and try to contain the situation.”

“Hm?”

“Kaya declared a power share with me.”

Kian was quiet for a few seconds before he said, “You’re full of surprises today, Sylas. You know that once you step on GreyFire’s land and accept the power share that you forfeit your guardian position, as well as you clan membership, with DarkStalker. Are you sure that’s what you want?”

If he accepted the power share on GreyFire’s land, it was final. Per tradition, he’d be kicked out of DarkStalker, maybe for good.

Kaya cried out in the seat beside him. He reached out a hand to rub her leg, and this time she did quiet down a little. Even so, each small cry of pain felt like a knife stabbing into his heart.

As he rubbed his wolf-shifter’s thigh, he knew he couldn’t let her down. Kaya had trusted him enough to declare the power share, and he would see it through if it killed him.

Considering Kaya had an incurable virus, death was a real possibility if her clan ended up blaming Sy for her death.

Don’t think about that.
There was still time to try to save his wolf’s life.

Gripping the steering wheel tight, he said, “Kaya entrusted me with her clan, and I’m not about to screw that up. No matter what it takes, I won’t let her down this time.”

“I think I’m about to shed a tear. My little brother has finally become a man.”

He growled. “Will you ever stop lording those five minutes over me, asshole?”

“Never, my twin.” Sy heard a knock on the other end of the line and Kian’s voice was muted, as if he’d put the phone down. A second later Kian’s voice came back on the line. “Find someone in GreyFire who can identify the picture I sent you as soon as possible and then have someone call me back if you can’t do it.”

“Sure thing. Thanks, Kian.”