PROLOUGE
The Unveiling
Sitting in a recliner with a cup of hot tea cooling in her hands, Kalina watched the television screen as if she expected something to jump through it at any moment. She was still a bit stiff as the stiches in her side healed. Beside her in another chair Ary sat close, rubbing her hand over Kalina’s back in an effort to keep her and the baby she was carrying calm.
“He’s alright,” Ary said slowly, her gaze also intent on the television screen. “They’re all coming back to us, Kalina. You cannot think otherwise.”
“They’re everywhere,” Kalina said softly. “Just everywhere and they’re killing whatever is in their way. Humans and shifters.”
In the corner, as was his favorite spot in any room that he occupied, Baxter held Shya in his arms, rubbing his chin along the little girl’s soft ebony curls. She’d flourished so much in the weeks since the blood transfusion from Ezra. Her chubby cheeks were the highlight of her cherub-like face, she had a smooth heavily-creamed coffee complexion and hazel brown eyes. She’d even grown two teeth at the bottom front of her mouth and now held tight to the spirit filled stick that had been converted into a rattle Baxter had given her the day she was born. Magdalena had given him the stick when he’d first left the Gungi to travel to the states with the Reynolds family. It was for protection, strength and solace, so Baxter had given it to Shya as the first born of the newest shifter generation. The Seer had already sent another spirited object for the first child of the Assembly Leader upon its birth.
Watching Kalina as she worked her fingers together, released and started the process again, Baxter wondered if that would come to fruition. The First Female looked tired after the injuries and subsequent surgery she’d endured because of the car accident. She’d lost a little weight but Ary assured them all that the baby inside her still thrived.
“There’s so much death,” Kalina whispered. “So much hate.”
Ary sighed. “I know. I know. But Rome is a good leader. He’ll get them all out of there. I know he will.”
But even to Baxter’s ears she did not sound confident.
In the next few minutes the mood in the tunnels shifted quickly. The first SUVs came barreling into the parking area. Calls came in rushed screams over the intercom system that had been installed into each room and the hallways of the tunnel. “Medical assistance needed! Medical assistance ASAP!”
Ary immediately rose from where she was seated. “You stay right here,” she told Kalina. “Do not move. I’ll come get you if it’s Rome.”
Kalina had already come to the edge of her seat, about to get up.
“Baxter, make her stay,” Ary called to him.
Baxter moved slowly from the corner, going to kneel in front of the First Female. “I need you to hold Shya, while I make sure all is well. Sit back and hold the baby,” he told her.
She looked up at him in a way that said she knew exactly what he was doing and wasn’t fooled one bit, but she did take Shya into her arms, cuddling the little girl close to her chest. Standing, Baxter nodded to Ary and watched the curandero rush from the room to take care of the wounded.
Within the next hour more trucks came in with more wounded Shadow Shifters, some already dead.
When Kalina thought she would go out of her mind, and Shya had fallen asleep in her lap, she stood. With a resigned sigh and no knowledge of exactly how much time had passed, she lay Shya in the cradle that had been brought down for her. As she stood, still fighting back the tears of dread, a hand touched her shoulder. Tears fell as she exhaled slowly, her entire body filling with warmth at his touch.
“Meu companheiro,” he said in his deep voice and Kalina’s shoulders began to shake. “Don’t. Please don’t cry,” Rome said, turning Kalina to face him.
She fell into his embrace, holding onto him so tightly she thought she might actually break him, or her arms, in the process. “I was so afraid,” she whispered into his shirt. “So afraid for you and for everyone.”
He rubbed his hands down the back of her head, then cupped her face and tilted her head until she stared up at him. “I am safe and I am here. I love you,” he told her, letting one hand slip down to rub over her protruding belly.
Kalina nodded. “You are safe and I love you.”
“Rome’s called a meeting in half an hour,” Eli said after he and Nivea had walked from their truck to the room one of the guard’s had directed them too. It was sparsely decorated with just a bed, one table and one chair, but the bathroom had a shower and they were told their clothes had been brought down here. “We have just enough time to grab a quick shower, stop by the infirmary to check on Ezra and then get to the meeting on time.”
He continued to talk, not sure why it was so imperative to keep moving. Especially when he knew Nivea had come in and sat on the edge of the bed, remaining very quiet.
“Jax called me on the eband to say that Ezra’s already in surgery. Ary’s working on him,” he said while pulling clothes from one of the bins that had been labeled with his name. “I want to get down there as soon as possible.”
Nivea still didn’t speak.
“He also said your sisters were doing well,” Eli continued. “I asked about your parents, too.”
“Stop,” she said softly. “Just stop.”
Eli did. He turned to face her and wanted to hit something, curse, or simply collapse at how sullen and helpless she looked at that very moment. Instead, he summoned the strength to go to her, sitting on the bed and wrapping one arm around her.
“It’s done,” he said. “We can’t go back and change it. We tried to stop it, but it’s done.”
Tears streamed from her eyes. Eli didn’t look at her but he could smell them, salty and sad and something clenched inside his chest tightly.
“They’re dying,” she told him. “I saw Pete die. That white lion took him down.” Her breath hitched and more tears fell. “We couldn’t stop it.”
“No,” Eli told her. “We couldn’t.”
“What will happen now?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “I really don’t know the answer to that question, Nivea.”
Then Eli moved and he lifted Nivea onto his lap, wrapping one strong arm around her waist, using his other to lift her face and cup her cheek. “All I know right here and right now is that I love you more than life itself. And I don’t ever want to lose you, not in battle, not because of some disagreement or lack of communication. I just want you, always.”
She looked at him through eyes blurred by tears, human eyes that had seen and experienced far too much in her young life. And he wanted to give her the world. Of course he didn’t know which world that would be, but Eli didn’t care. All he knew was that he was looking at his future, his life, the reason why he’d survived all that he had.
“I love you,” he told her again, touching his lips softly to hers. “I love you.”
She sighed into his kiss, whispering over his lips in response, “I love you, too.”
“We have not been able to contact Cole,” Rome said solemnly as he stood in front of what was left of his leadership team. “It is too soon to send a team out to search for him, but we will first thing in the morning. Ezra is in critical condition. Zach and a number of others are dead.”
At the table, Eli reached for Nivea’s hand. He’d seen his brother with tubes running all over him, eyes closed as he lay in the medically induced coma that Ary assured Eli would help him heal even faster than shifters normally did. It had taken a part of him to see his other half lying so still as if he were already dead, but he’d flattened his hand on his twin’s chest and felt his heart still beating. Nivea had stood right by his side, as Dawn had covered Eli’s hand with her own. For as much as Eli had been against his brother mating a human, he was at that moment happy that Ezra had found someone to love him the way he deserved to be loved. So he did not move when her hand rested on top of his and when Nivea leaned in, adding her hand on top of Dawn’s, his heart had swelled.
“We have been exposed,” Rome continued. “The humans now know without a doubt that there are Shadow Shifters living in this world with them. There will be repercussions for that revelation and there will most likely be more death.”
It was a solemn declaration, but one that was true nonetheless.
Nick and Ary stood stoically just behind Rome. Kalina sat in a chair to his right. Jax was ever present next to the First Female. X and Caprise who had sustained a pretty violent looking gash at her neck, stood to Rome’s other side, forming what, to Eli, would always be an impenetrable alliance. Baxter and Elder Alamar were all the way to the back, looking as grief stricken as the others felt.
“I’ll organize the recovery teams to go out at first light to search for the others that are missing,” Eli volunteered, wanting to take some of the stress off the Assembly Leader’s shoulders.
“I’ll help with that,” Bas said, speaking for the first time since returning to the tunnels and learning that Cole was missing.
“I’m going out to look for him myself,” Jace told the room in a tone that dared anyone to speak against him.
Nobody argued.
They would all go out to look for the Faction Leader.
“Right now it’s best if we try to get some rest,” Rome told them. “Teams will be assigned and briefed at five a.m. Then we’ll go out to search for survivors.”
“That’s not a good idea,” a new voice sounded throughout the room.
All eyes went to the man now standing in the doorway, the human that was familiar to some. He was surrounded by two shifters that had what looked like a death grip on his arms.
Nivea immediately stood. “What are you doing here?”
X and Nick both moved to the doorway to confront Agent Dorian Wilson.
“That’s a damned good question,” Nick said, staring into the man’s face.
“I was given directions,” Dorian told them. “By Rayna.”
“That bitch!” Nivea whispered and Caprise nodded her agreement.
“Hear what I have to say first,” Dorian insisted, his gaze seeking and resting on Rome. “You want to hear this before you decide how to proceed.”
At eleven a.m. on a Saturday morning, Eli walked behind his Assembly Leader as Roman Reynolds, Nick Delgado, Xavier Santos Markland, Sebastian Perry, Priya Drake and Agent Dorian Wilson were escorted into the Oval Office.
They crossed the room with solemn footsteps, their feet moving softly over the United States of America Presidential seal painted on the floor. Coming to a stop, Eli made sure to count each member of the Secret Service in the room. Their job was to guard President Wilson Reed, just as Eli’s was to guard Rome.
The President looked grim as he stared at Rome.
“You lied to me,” was the first thing the older man said, his glasses pushed up high on his face.
“I never lied,” Rome countered. “I did not tell you what you did not need to know.”
Wilson slammed his palms down on his desk. “I didn’t need to know that there were damned animals roaming around my country? Are you kidding me?”
“First,” Rome began. “The animals you refer to are housed in a zoo. What have been walking and mingling amongst the humans for hundreds of years are called Shadow Shifters. And up until last night you had no idea we existed.”
“That’s exactly what my problem with you is Reynolds! I allied myself with you. I supported you and your firm and the charities you reached out to.”
Rome interrupted. “Because those were the right things to do. I have always been an upstanding citizen, a successful lawyer and a contributor to this community as well as others. There was no need for you not to offer your support just because you had no knowledge of my DNA.”
“Don’t give me that smooth-ass lawyer crap! You should have told me!” Wilson was clearly outraged and he was afraid.
Sweat pricked his forehead and his hands shook after he’d slammed them on the desk, so he pulled them down to his lap instead. He was afraid of the shifters that had seemingly invaded his office.
When in truth, it was Priya and Dorian who had arranged for the private meeting as a form of damage control for the United States Government—to whom many countries were now looking at with thoughts of terrorism against their citizens, as last night’s attack involved several of their highest dignitaries. And for the shifters whose true nature had finally been unveiled… The President’s staff had jumped at this opportunity, but Rome had insisted it be a private meeting instead of a nationally-televised press conference.
“Now I want you to tell me where the rest of your kind are hiding and what you all plan to do now that you’re here,” Wilson told Rome.
The Assembly Leader shook his head. None of them had been overly optimistic about the human government being able to come to amicable terms with the shifters. That had been one of their greatest fears with exposure. But they’d agreed to the meeting, agreed with Dorian that it looked better for them, and it put forth the peaceful approach the agent now believed the shifters needed to take.
Dorian’s appearance had also been a huge question. But the agent had explained how he met Rayna and how the Lormenian shifter had wanted to help the Shadows by exposing and killing Boden. She’d wanted her sister’s safety, but she’d also wanted them to be able to live cohesively with the humans in this world. She’d left him a letter with the directions to the tunnels—which she knew because she’d been there to help them work on the construction—and she’d told him that if she did not return to the hotel by a certain time that night that he should assume that she was dead and get to Rome as quickly as possible. The agent had done just that.
“We are a peaceful species,” Rome told the President. “What happened last night was not our fault.”
“Big ass cats jumping over cars, biting and killing people, that’s not your fault?” Wilson inquired “When I’ve been told that you are yourself one of the big cats.”
Rome paused a moment, the room going completely silent as everyone waited for his response.
“Yes. I am one of the big cats. I am the Stateside Assembly Leader of the Shadow Shifters,” Rome said with confidence and pride.
Wilson stood then, squaring his shoulders so that his stance mimicked Rome’s.
“Then I command you to release the names and locations of every member of this species. I demand to know where every one of you are hiding so that we can deal with you appropriately,” Wilson said without hesitation, his angry gaze locked with Rome’s.
“I will not do that,” Rome told him calmly. “There’s no reason for any of us not responsible for last night’s fiasco to be, as you put it “dealt with”. And furthermore, I will not stand for the persecution and execution of my kind.”
Wilson nodded as if in resignation, before saying, “Then you have made the United States and possibly the entire world your enemy.”
Rome’s reply was immediate and was said just seconds before the Assembly Leader turned and left the room, his team following dutifully behind him.
“No, Mr. President. It is my goal to work with the humans, with your government, so that there will be no need for any of us to be enemies,” Rome said seriously. “You knew my parents. You know what type of man I am. You know what I stand for and what I believe. There is no reason for us to work against each other here. The Shadow Shifters simply want peace.”
Wilson Reed looked from one of his advisors to the next, then back to Rome and the others who stood with him. He sighed heavily, smoothing down his tie as he lowered himself slowly into his seat.
“I only want peace for my country,” the President said to Roman. “Can you promise that from your people?”
“We only want peace as well,” Rome told him. “So yes, I can promise you that. And if we all work together peace and harmony shall be what we have.”