Chapter 7 - Meeting Of The Cause

Flint dragged ass into Resperanza’s basement barracks the next morning. Goldie’s door hadn’t opened all night. Jameson had texted thirty minutes ago that Aven’s buddy Rafe, a Lio who Flint had never met, had replaced Flint on watch. Flint grumbled at the idea of a shifter he didn’t know watching the two women, but J had said he was a Lio, the term of respect given to big cat shifters who didn’t allow their shadows free reign. Riot was not a Lio. Would never be, as far as Flint was concerned.

Voices came from the common room and Flint headed that way. The conversation got clearer as Flint got closer. He turned a corner and caught sight of Aven’s back as the eagle spoke to Jameson in that sharp way of his. “I can’t get a bead on him. Anyone else, I can tell right away. Unless they’re professionals, and even then it doesn’t take long. But the Steward, he’s a mystery. Fucking vortex, brother. Watch your step.”

Flint entered the room and both males turned to greet him. Aven was a ranger like Jameson, in Pisgah National Forest to the northeast. But since J was the District Ranger, Aven worked for him, and as an eagle he was an invaluable member of The Cause. He had the typical sharp profile of a raptor, with his aquiline nose and pointed chin, along with the standard lack of respect for limitations shared by all those who hunted from high above. Flint answered the eagle’s hello with a yawn and a wave.

Mission accomplished, Aven scooped up the lightweight plastic pod that held his belongings in a fashion his eagle could carry. Unlike most shifters who made use of the specially-scented caches of clothing that dotted the forest around Five Hills, rangers like J and Aven often needed to travel with their uniforms. And Aven being a raptor who could get to downed hikers in dicey locations that others never could, he needed his on him at all times. So he and J had tinkered and engineered and come up with the pod.

Flint shrugged. Most of the clothes in the stashes didn’t fit him, anyway, on the rare occasion he’d had to use them. Maybe the occasional set of sweats he could stretch to fit, but they were always too short. I wonder if Aven could whip me up a bearpack; like a backpack, but for bears.

Oblivious to Flint’s thoughts, Aven aimed for the outside door, opened it wide, then stopped and took two steps back, making room for Carick to come inside, before heading out with a clack of his teeth and a meaningful look back at Jameson.

But J was walking to the bottom of the stairs with purpose, and in a moment Flint saw why. Cora appeared and took Jameson’s hand, staying glued to his side as they made their way to stools at the bar nestled in a corner of the large room.

Cora met Flint’s eye for just a moment before flushing and glancing away. Yep, still awkward. They were all having a hard time with what had happened. Awkwardness was a natural side effect when your friend’s girl sucked on your fingers like they were miniature dicks, vampire haze or not. Jameson would not make the mistake of not being around when Cora needed him again.

Flint shifted his gaze on to Carick, the Steward, one of the few people Flint had ever met who were bigger than he was. Carick stood around seven feet tall and was thick as a tree. His wide shoulders, muscular torso, and legs like marble columns added to an air of command that radiated off him in aggressive waves.

Flint didn’t know his whole story, but he knew the Steward had been asleep in the forest for over one hundred-fifty years and still only had a sprinkling of gray at the temples of his closely-shaved dark hair. He was also the only authority they had on switches, vampires, and everything Cause-related. He was out of date and distressingly single-minded, but they needed him.

The outside door to the barracks’ common room opened again and in came Flint’s brother, Bryce, with Dario, a wolf.

Dario lifted his chin in a nod to Carick. “That file was everything we had.”

Dario was a cop in the Five Hills PD and their inside male to make sure law enforcement didn’t get too close to what The Cause was up to, especially once vampire bodies started showing up.

Humans were food to vampires, shifters and switches were enemies to vampires. And that was all there was to it, but they still had to stay off of the law enforcement radar.

Carick gave a nod. Dario returned it, then made his way to the fully-stocked fridge behind the bar for a drink. Bryce ambled in the same direction, walking close enough to Flint where he stood by the hallway for them to bump fists.

Not so little, Flint’s little brother stood well over six feet with the wide shoulders and muscular bulk typical of bears, especially grizzlies like them. But he still had the ruddy cheeks and tousled hair that kept him looking every bit as young as his twenty-five years. He was a good kid and Flint was proud of him.

Last Flint had talked to Bryce, a bit of evening texting after Flint had settled in at the motel, Bryce had been on something of a rescue mission. Flint sat at the bar and asked his brother about it. “That last family get off the river okay last night?”

Bryce’s grin was cocky. “Shit, yeah, man. I’m taking big sis out tonight to celebrate. Hey, muffins!” Flint hadn’t noticed the basket on the bar. They smelled good.

Bryce underhand-tossed Flint a muffin, biting into one and mumbling around the mouthful. “Damn, these are good.” He turned back to the bar and grabbed another, looking at Cora and Jameson. “Cora, you shouldn’t have. No, actually, you should. I’m still traumatized after Saturday.”

Bryce had also been there when Cora’s Undoing of that vampire, Garner, had gotten a little out of hand. Completely out of hand. None of them had expected what happened.

Cora sat on a barstool, Jameson right up next to her. She smirked weakly, her sarcasm still not back in place since that night. Not around them. Him, Flint, and Riot. They’d all been there and Cora had been ready to have them all for dinner. “If they’re edible, that’s the first clue I didn’t make them.”

Jameson hugged Cora to his side and kissed the top of her head. “Nobody needs you to cook.”

Flint sank his teeth into his muffin. It was better than any muffin he’d had before. He caught the texture of walnuts and dried cherries, a fluffy, cake-y crumb, and a hint of... was that zucchini? So moist. “I need the recipe,” he said.

Ryder and Shiloh stalked in the room. They were twin brother and sister, leopards, tough as hell. Might be the only cats Flint would ever call Lio. The Meow Twins, as he called them in his head for now, didn’t fuck around.

Riot stalked in and ignored them all.

That’s right, pussycat. Just keep walking.

Riot made his way to the twins, his only friends, as far as Flint could tell. Riot barely talked, and Ryder never talked. Instead of three blind mice, the had two mute cats. Brilliant.

Riot stood to grab a muffin before returning to his place against the wall. Flint spied Cora looking at the big cat, blushing furiously, looking away, and then her eyes being drawn to him once more. I get it, Cora. All I can see now is his Free Willy, too.

At the Undoing, Riot had ended up naked, because he’d shifted, and for a few dicey minutes Cora had made it bluntly obvious that she would use his body every which way she could, whether he agreed or not.

Flint, Bryce, and Riot had found themselves in the position of being sexually harassed by a switch in the midst of her first Prowl, and with no idea how to handle it. Now Cora seemed as mortified by her behavior as they had been surprised by it. Another kink for them to work out, no pun intended.

Carick called their attention from the center of the room. “Shifters and switch,” he said, holding the remote in his hand and pointing it at the oversized television. He pressed a button. “Watch,” he said simply.

A shaky cellphone video started on the TV. The frame showed Bryce leaning heavily on the door of a port-o-john that was rocking back and forth, grunts and thumps coming from inside. Bryce was assuring all the humans passing by that there was nothing wrong.

Flint’s stomach clenched. Someone had caught them on video the night of the Undoing. Shit. And still he almost laughed at the expression on Bryce’s face. Poor cub had been completely out of his depth.

Carick wheeled on Bryce, standing frozen at the bar with a muffin halfway to his mouth and a deeper than usual flush on his ruddy cheeks. “Why did you not let the switch hunt?”

Bryce blinked and stammered out a reply. “We were in the middle of the Squash Festival, hundreds of people, if she had gone after Garner then- I was trying to protect her.”

Carick’s dark irises blackened, shining like beetle’s wings, his jaw clenching. His voice was quiet, dangerous. “You endangered her mental health. A switch locked into the hunt and unable to engage her enemy feels incredible pain.” He raised his eyebrows to Cora, still tucked under Jameson’s arm, with an expression that said he wanted her to speak.

Cora took a breath. “Yeah. It was horrible. I hurt everywhere. All I could think about was getting to Garner to make it go away. I knew that would work.” She lifted her hands, palms out, to display scabbed fingers. “I ripped my hands to shreds. But it’s not Bryce’s fault. None of us knew that would happen, and I was totally out of control.”

“Plus you stabbed my favorite pants, so you kind of deserved it,” Bryce said, trying to make up with Cora in his silly way.

Cora smiled at him. Flint couldn’t help but wonder, as weird as this must be for Cora, how it felt from Jameson’s perspective to know that his woman had been ready to give all three of them a ride they wouldn’t forget, if he hadn’t shown up in time. So far J had been a lot cooler than Flint would have been in his situation, but that was nothing new. Hell, maybe if he lived to be one hundred-fifty-eight, he’d be as chill as J was, too.

But then Carick was older than any of them even knew and he sure as hell wasn’t swimming in patience. The Steward loomed over Bryce still, a glare in his glittering eyes.

From against the wall, Shiloh spoke up. “We can use that.”

All eyes turned to the lone female shifter in the room. Amongst the bears, wolves, big cats, and raptors, females shifters were hard to come by, and Flint wasn’t sure why. Maybe because switches were always female, and not having enough available males to serve them was a danger all its own.

Shiloh’s hair was platinum, almost white, and the exotic planes of her face added a sharpness that was only accentuated by the leanly ripped muscles of her body. A snow leopard when she shifted, Shiloh was in many ways the polar opposite of her twin. Ryder was a clouded leopard with black hair, long limbs, and a tendency towards absolute silence. Shiloh did the talking for both of them.

She pushed off the wall and directed her words to Cora, not even glancing at the males around her or seeming to care that she’d pre-empted the Steward. Over the last few weeks Flint had gotten the distinct impression that Shiloh did shit like that on purpose. “Cora, you can’t help but chase a vampire, right? Even if it gets you hurt?”

Cora swallowed once, nodding, sitting up straighter and letting Jameson’s arm slide down her shoulders. “Right. I literally cannot think of anything else but sticking my knife in them. And after that, any others I can find. Once he was dead, everything got worse for me. I hurt even more.”

Shiloh nodded along as Cora spoke. “That’s how we find them.”

But before they could take the thought further, Riot busted in. “Find them? Yogi had one in his car last night.”

Every head in the room swiveled in Flint’s direction.

Fucking cats.