Page 5 of The Reluctant Mate (Shifters of the Three Rivers #5)
Chapter five
Derek
M y phone buzzed, Armeen’s name flashing across it. I answered on the second ring, my eyes flicking to the dot on the screen in front of me showing the tracker I’d put on Sofia’s car. She’d gone to the market this morning and then parked it outside the block opposite hers, so I knew she was delivering groceries to the Patterson apartment.
“Tell me you have something,” I said.
“You know, most people answer the phone with a ‘good morning,’ or at the very least a ‘hello,’” Armeen’s familiar drawl came down the line. He’d been a contact I’d made in the Syrian army intelligence when I was in the army. After I got discharged, we’d kept in touch, hitting each other up for intel whenever the need arose.
“Have you got something?”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re too busy or too much of a hard-ass for the niceties, I get it. Fine. I’ve been asking around about Kane. I got nothing so far, not even a whisper.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting back frustration. “Keep looking. It was his scent in that cabin, Armeen. I’d stake my life on it.”
“Maybe that’s the problem.” He paused, and I could picture him leaning back in his chair, feet up on his desk like always. “You’ve been chasing Kane’s ghost for years. You ordered the airstrike yourself—”
“There was no body, no confirmation,” I cut him off. After Harris had died in my arms, I’d called in an airstrike and pulled the rest of the team out before it hit. I’d thought at the time that we’d got him. There’d been no trace of Kane since then, not until I found his scent in the cabin, along with all those photos of Sofia. “You know better than anyone the resources Kane had. He could have survived, gone underground, created a cover.”
“I do. But something’s not adding up here, Shaw. You said yourself that the cabin was being used by military guys who were trafficking humans. The Pack that they were working with was rabidly anti-human. They wanted to enslave humans. So why would Kane—a human, one who hated Shifters—work with them? Why help traffic his own kind?”
It was a question I had no answer to, something that had been playing on my mind for weeks now.
“Shaw, you know I respect you, but maybe you’ve chased Kane’s ghost long enough. Maybe it’s time to move on. Live your life, man.”
I couldn’t accept that. Not when every instinct I had told me Kane was involved, that he was a danger to Sofia.
“This isn’t about me. Kane was there; I know it. This is about making sure he can’t hurt anyone else. Keep searching. Call me if you get anything.”
I heard Armeen sigh before he replied, “Will do.”
I hung up and pulled out everything I had on Project Dusk, the operation Kane had been running when I called in the airstrike. I overlaid them on the three screens on what had been the dining room wall. I’d installed them after Ryan moved to the Alpha House, Sam left to work for the Wolf Council, and Mason moved to the Bridgetown Pack.
Most of my work as Pack Beta was done at the enforcers’ building at the entrance to what used to be the Alpha Compound. After Mai and Ryan tore down the walls of the Compound, it was more like a large cul-de-sac, with Pack members able to come and go as they pleased. Ryan and I had been skeptical at first, but Mai was right; the whole Pack felt more connected now that there wasn’t a physical separation between those safe in the Compound and those outside of it.
Now, when I walked the two hundred meters to work each day, I’d be just as likely to pass enforcers training as the bakery owner bringing her six-year-old daughter to see Mai and Ryan’s kitten before school. Even though I worked elsewhere, here, in the house I used to share with my three brothers, was where I kept my research on Kane.
I stared at the screens, flicking through documents I’d read a hundred times. I knew the answer had to be in here, somewhere. I just couldn’t see it.
Yet, my wolf nudged.
Yet , I agreed. We’d get him. We had to. Failure was not an option.
I got up, stretched, and headed to the kitchen to make some coffee. The coffee maker hummed, the only sound besides my breathing in the room that at this time of the day should have had Ryan’s tapping at his laptop, Mason’s constant phone calls, and Sam’s running commentary on everything.
Coffee in hand, I walked back to the dining room. I stood in the doorway, staring at the screens. Victor Kane had been a promising human officer in army intelligence. A rising star who could have made it to Major General, if the rumors were to be believed. He was charismatic, smart, and commanded respect and unwavering loyalty among those he served with, in particular the humans under his command. That should have been a warning sign, but no one picked up on it until it was too late.
That was the thing about Kane—he never made waves, never said anything outright that could get him flagged, but his influence ran deep. He appealed to those who felt like they were being left behind. He talked about the good old days when humans held all the cards, before the Equal Species Act, before the Boston Peace Accords that established the peace between Shifters and humans.
Back then, Shifters were barred from government positions, military leadership roles, even certain private sector jobs. Kane painted it as a golden age when humans were in their rightful place. He’d talk about how Shifters were taking over with our strength, speed, and enhanced senses, that in reality, we were one step above dogs, that we couldn’t be trusted with power or put into decision-making positions. He talked about the future if humans failed to act, a world where humans were reduced to supporting roles. But there was still time to stop it.
He promised his followers he’d restore the natural order—code for putting humans back on top and making sure Shifters were cut out of the job market. That it was essential because Shifters were a threat to the proper way of life.
Kane built a tight-knit, loyal network around him, and little by little, we saw the changes in morale. The humans in the different units started keeping more to themselves. Conversations stopped when Shifters entered the room. By the time they realized Kane was recruiting his own army, it was already too late. One day, he was a decorated officer with an impeccable record. The next, he and over one hundred other soldiers went dark. Off the grid.
Before Kane, we didn’t think about who was human and who was Shifter—we just got the job done. We trained together, deployed together, covered each other’s six. We lived by the same code: complete the mission, protect the unit, serve something bigger than ourselves. We had our differences, sure, but out there, it didn’t matter. The team. The objective. The mission. That was the foundation of everything.
Kane shattered that. Bringing him down became our top priority for those of us left, but he’d disappear every time we got close.
It was only after the airstrike that I thought took Kane out that we’d uncovered Project Dusk. Project Dusk had been designed to shift the balance of power once and for all. Kane had been trying to turn Shifters human. The initial test subjects—captured werewolves—showed promising results in the beginning. Their ability to Shift slowed, their regenerative properties dulled. But Kane hadn’t been able to perfect the formula.
I took another sip as an email notification popped up on my laptop. It was the daily email from Ava, one of our enforcers who I’d tasked with compiling all mentions of ripple incidents in the media and sending them round to everyone.
Ripple.
The parallels were there. Could ripple be a refined version of what Kane and his people were developing in Project Dusk? A way to get rid of the Shifter threat?
I opened my laptop and started mapping the connections. Kane’s scent at the cabin had pointed to his involvement with Tristan’s Pack, but it had always seemed bizarre—a human working with Shifters who wanted to enslave humans made no sense. But what if Kane wasn’t trafficking the humans? What if he was pretending to, but then set them free and recruited them? Who better to enlist against us than humans who had been abused and sold as slaves by Shifters?
My phone was in my hand before I finished the thought. AJ picked up on the third ring.
“Shaw?”
“Hey. I need to know if you’ve found any new leads on Mina.”
AJ was a bear Shifter whose fated mate was human. It was rare, but occasionally, the Moon Goddess paired us up with someone from a different species. Tristan had found out and held Mina hostage, forcing AJ to work for him. When Tristan kidnapped Shya, Mason and I had recruited AJ and persuaded him to turn on Tristan. We’d never have been able to find Shya if it hadn’t been for him. We’d promised to help AJ free Mina, but when we got to Tristan’s camp, she’d already been sold by the same military guys whose cabin had held Sofia’s photos. AJ had been searching for her ever since.
“Nothing new.” The pain in his voice was raw. “Trail’s cold.”
“What if we’ve been looking in the wrong places?” I stood, pacing as thoughts crystallized. “What if the humans the military guys picked up weren’t being trafficked? What if they were recruiting them?”
Silence stretched over the line. “What are you talking about?”
I brought him up to speed about Kane and my theory.
“It could explain why we can’t find any trace of them in trafficking circles. Fuck, Shaw! I don’t know whether to be happy I have a new lead to chase down or freaked that she might be part of some anti-Shifter conspiracy. She’s my fated mate, for fuck’s sake! If she is signed up to this, how the hell do I persuade her that Shifters aren’t evil?”
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. You know I’ll help in any way I can. In the meantime, can you look for any new anti-Shifter groups, especially ones with military precision in their operations?”
“Yeah. I’ll be in touch.”
I ended the call as my eyes went back to the tracker on Sofia’s car. She’d set off from Mrs. Patterson’s but had pulled over three streets away. I knew she was supposed to see Mai this morning, and Sofia wouldn’t want to be late for that.
What the hell is she doing?