White Tiger (A Shifter's Unbound Novel) (28 page)

“W
hat?” Addie was on her feet, her agitation surging into anger. “You said you had nothing to do with it!”

Zander rose, unfolding with grace. “No, I said there were other Shifter healers in the world and asked what I’d be doing in Canada. I never said it wasn’t me.”

“Splitting hairs.” Jaycee had come up off her chair and was next to Addie. “Polar bears have a lot of hair. Why didn’t you admit it?”

“With Kendrick and all his angry Shifters sitting there?” Zander asked in amazement. “No way. I wanted to live until dinner. I planned to take him aside this morning and tell him, but I didn’t get a chance. Anyway, I had no idea who Lachlan was or what he’d done. All I saw was a Shifter clawed up and bloody, unconscious and unable to speak. I’m a healer. I couldn’t walk away. I patched him up, and when he was well enough, I left him. Had places to go, things to do. I didn’t know what had happened to him. I barely said two words to him and he didn’t talk to me. I didn’t even ask his name.”

“Because of you, Kendrick might get himself killed,” Jaycee flared. “You should have left Lachlan alone to die.”

Zander lost his embarrassed look and became stern. “That’s
not
what healers do. We don’t decide who to save and who to let die. That’s not our job—we save a
life
. Anyway, Kendrick should have dusted him. He didn’t do
his
job.”

“Don’t you dare blame Kendrick for this,” Jaycee said hotly. “You should have told him.”

“Why? It’s ancient history, and I didn’t know the guy had anything to do with Kendrick until I saw him at the fight club last night.”

“How do we know you aren’t with Lachlan?” Jaycee demanded. “I should kill you, just in case—”

Addie stepped in front of her. “Stop it. He says he didn’t know, and I believe him.”

“I didn’t,” Zander said. “I promise you. I’d never seen the guy before. But I know he’s tremendously strong. He’d never have survived otherwise, doesn’t matter how good I am. And I’m good.”

“Glad to hear it,” Addie said, looking Zander up and down. “You can go out to the Shiftertown right now and make sure Kendrick doesn’t die. If he gets a paper cut, you heal him. All right? So get going.”

Zander didn’t move. “You deserve to be pissed off at me, Addie, but I’m not running across Texas and leaving you unprotected. Kendrick told me to look after you. Those are my orders.”

“You keep saying you’re not one of Kendrick’s Shifters,” Addie pointed out. “So why are you obeying him all of a sudden?”

“Because you and his cubs are more precious to him than anything else in the world,” Zander said. “If he lives and you die, he’ll give up. I see that in him. He’s been through so much and he wants this happiness that’s dangling in front of him. He might harm himself—well, after he kills and dusts
me
.”

“If Kendrick dies,
I’m
going to be upset,” Addie said. “Not to mention his cubs and the rest of his Shifters. What do you figure your chances are against all of us?”

Zander’s dark eyes were hard. “You’re saying either way, I’m screwed.”

“Pretty much.”

Zander sat down again with a sweep of his duster, which he kept on despite the hundred degree temperature. “Then I’m staying.”

Addie balled her fists. “No, you—”

The electronic jangle of a phone cut her off. Zander reached into his pocket, frowning, while Addie’s heartbeat escalated to a sickening pace. A phone call meant news, probably bad.

Zander swiped his thumb across the screen. Addie noted absently that while the other Shifters had older model phones, Zander’s was brand new.

“Whoa,” Zander said.

He turned the phone around to show Addie the scarred and bent face of Lachlan.

“Addison,” Lachlan said. He spoke calmly, without hurry. “It’s you I wanted to reach, but your phone seems to have been disconnected. I want to show you something.”

Lachlan turned the phone around. Its camera pointed to a window, through which Addie saw the slightly blurred images of her sister, Ivy, and Ivy’s kids, Tori and Josh. They were in a kitchen, the familiar one of their own house.

Addie’s mouth went dry, her fingers going numb. “You leave them alone!” she yelled, her voice cracking. “Ivy!”

Zander glared into the phone, looking more furious than Addie had ever seen him. “You just made a big mistake,” he snarled at Lachlan and snapped off the phone.

Addie lunged for it. “No! He’ll hurt them.”

Ben was up, tight with anger. “No he won’t. We won’t let him.”

“I’m with you,” Zander said. He swung around, already walking away.

Jaycee leapt after him and grabbed at his coat. “Hello? Can you say
trap
?”

Zander shook her off. “I know it’s a trap. But are you willing to sacrifice those kids to not spring it?”

“And how did he know to call
your
number?” Jaycee continued.

Zander scowled. “I don’t know. Maybe he asked someone.”

“Or maybe you’re working with him, like I said,” Jaycee went on. “You healed him, he showed up here, he calls you when he has a threat.”

“I told you—I didn’t know anything about him, and I never saw him again after he was awake and alive.”

“Yeah?” Jaycee stepped to him. “How can you just walk away from patients you heal? You have to form some kind of bond with them—what you do is Goddess magic, like the Guardians have. Are you saying you get inside someone like that to heal them and you feel
nothing
?”

“Of course I feel something!” Zander shouted. The air shook as his bear growl burst out of him. “Why do you think I’m so crazy? If I hang around and take that person into my heart, I’d be more nuts than I already am. And when I
can’t
save them? When they die no matter what I do—how do you think
that
makes me feel?”

He glared at Jaycee and she glared back at him but she began to falter. Ben strode off down the porch.

“While you’re arguing, that bastard has Addie’s family. Are you coming with me to crush him or not?”

Zander’s anguish drained out of him from one heartbeat to the next and he swung around after Ben.

Addie ran after them, reaching Zander’s motorcycle at the same time he did. “I’m going with you.”

Zander opened his mouth to argue, his dark eyes still filled with anger and sorrow, then he closed it, understanding.

“All right.”

Behind them Jaycee started to splutter. Addison ignored her. She knew that between Jaycee and Ben, they’d arrange for the cubs to be safe. The cubs were becoming her family, but Ivy and her kids were
Addie’s
family, and she’d never abandon them to their fate.

*   *   *

K
endrick had never lived in a house in a Shiftertown. He knew of Shifter clans’ propensity to hoard valuables through the years—though his Shifters had always kept their prized possessions in safe places around the world, while
living simply and traveling light. Because they didn’t wear Collars, Kendrick’s Shifters could usually use banks or highly secure storage facilities without a problem.

Collared Shifters didn’t have the luxury of anonymity or of traveling anytime they wanted to, so they’d built secret places in their homes to keep their valuables. Each clan had its own treasures, which they kept from humans’ notice.

The San Antonio Shiftertown leader’s house was small, at least aboveground. The single floor held a living room and a kitchen, plus a narrow hall that led to bedrooms.

A door in the hallway led to a closet that housed a false wall. Tiger depressed a catch that opened the wall to reveal stairs descending into a chill basement—the way to this Shiftertown’s store of treasure.

Kendrick had to take off his sword to go through the low doorway and down the cramped stairs. At the bottom, another false wall gave way to reveal lit paneled corridors that led a long way underground. The walls bore faded rectangular patches, all regular and evenly spaced. Kendrick touched one.

“Dylan’s stash,” he murmured.

Tiger gave him a questioning look.

“Ben told me the Shifters he’d overheard said they wanted to find Dylan’s ‘stash’,” Kendrick explained. “He must have meant the treasures of Dylan’s clan—some Shifters collect artwork.” Artwork, precious stones, and historic pieces kept their value through the centuries, while currency and investments might go up or down or vanish altogether. Regardless of how much paper money was worth, someone would always want a Rembrandt.

“Most of it is down there,” Tiger said, pointing to the darkness at the end of the hall.

“Of course it is.” Kendrick hadn’t slung the sword over his back again, and now he loosened it in its sheath.

He and Tiger continued down the hall toward the gloom. Rooms opened out onto the corridor, but Kendrick heard nothing behind them, scented nothing. Apparently neither did Tiger. Tiger was scanning the walls, taking in scent, stopping to listen.

Nowhere did they see or sense any hostages, other Shifters—anyone. They were alone down here.

The ordinary-looking door at the end of the hall opened to reveal a steel door behind it with a coded lock. While the rest of the house appeared to have been built in the seventies, this door looked to be brand-new, the keypad lock state-of-the-art. Dylan must have installed it as soon as the old leader had died.

“Know the combination?” Kendrick asked.

“No.” Tiger moved past Kendrick and let his finger hover over the keypad. “But . . .” He hesitated a few seconds, then touched numbers.

The lock clicked, and the door opened.

“Remind me to ask you how you did that,” Kendrick said as they peered into the room.

It was dark. Kendrick’s Shifter vision saw plenty of shapes but he couldn’t make out anything clearly. Tiger, on the other hand, scanned the room as though he saw everything without a problem.

“Light switch there,” he said, pointing a little way down the wall. “If you need it.”

Tiger didn’t sound superior; he was stating a fact. Kendrick moved toward the switch, which was a push button, and pressed it.

Lights flickered to life. By them, Kendrick saw that every cabinet door was either open or hanging broken from its hinges, and that glass cases that had decorated the middle of the room had been smashed. Any valuables that they’d housed were gone.

“Dylan needs to see this,” Kendrick said, turning.

Tiger was just inside the doorway, looking around. As soon as Kendrick swung back to him, Tiger jerked his head up, peering sharply at the ceiling.

The big man shouted,
“No!”
then a sharp, grating sound cut off the word.

The main door was set back in an alcove. From the top of this alcove, a solid metal door screeched downward, cutting Kendrick from the entrance, and Tiger.

The door was a single, smooth sheet, no handles, keypads or anything on it. Tiger slammed into it from the other side, but the door stayed in place, not budging.

All the lights in the treasure room went out. The darkness was complete, even to Kendrick’s Shifter vision.

He drew his sword, hearing it but not seeing the flash of the blade or flicker of runes. Tiger thumped the door from the other side again, and then there was nothing.

Kendrick was alone in the dark and the silence.

*   *   *

A
ddie had never shot through the town of Loneview so fast in her life. Zander was riding far over the speed limit—if the local police wanted an easy ticket, they’d have it today.

Not that Zander would bother to stop for them. Addie clung to him as they zoomed past the town square, Zander following her bellowed directions to her house.

Ben came behind them on another motorcycle, riding with Jaycee. She was taking seriously her commitment to not leave Addie alone for a single moment. She’d made arrangements for the strongest of the Shifters left at the ranch, and Charlie, to take care of the cubs.

Ivy’s house loomed up in the heat of the afternoon. Addie’s heart thumped as Zander halted in front of the familiar Bermuda grass yard with the live oak tree, Josh’s bike resting against the garage door.

Addie was scrambling off the motorcycle before Zander shut it down. She ran for the front door, but Jaycee caught her, spinning her back.

“Don’t even go in there before we check it out,” Jaycee said sharply. “Don’t be a too-stupid-to-live heroine.”

“My
sister
and her kids are in there!” Addie yelled. “With that
monster
.”

Jaycee’s grip on Addie’s arms tightened. “Addie, he’s just a Shifter. Zander and I are plenty tough enough to fight him, and I’m guessing Ben can do something to help, or Kendrick wouldn’t have left him with us. Plus Zander’s a polar bear, and they’re just
big
. We’ll take care of this.”

“Lachlan is a Shifter with a love for firearms,” Addie pointed out. “It won’t matter how strong or fast you are if you have bullets in your body.”

“We can also surround him and take him down, no matter what weapon he has.” Jaycee’s words were low and rapid. “But you don’t go rushing in when you don’t know what’s waiting for you.”

Addie forced herself to acknowledge the truth of this. Still, it was very difficult for her to remain hidden behind the thick bole of the tree while Zander disappeared around to the back of the house, Ben went to the side window, and Jaycee approached the front door.