It all went smoother than expected—something that baffled Dean, considering how last-minute everything had been and how it almost got ruined by the early arrival of one of the shifters. To his relief, it wasn’t a shifter he knew and Dean was still able to give the all clear to the arriving group it was safe to come.
To his dismay, the others who barged in were familiar.
He counted them as nine in total, minus the one he just killed in the clearing. They were relatively calmer than that last guy, and he studied each one and tried to determine who the leader was in this little troop.
There was a shifter in the middle, broader than the others, holding his shoulders with pride and looking aloof. It reminded Dean of himself, and he decided that this was one to watch out for in case things went awry.
Then Dean looked a little bit to the left, and a very familiar sight turned his calm to anger.
The man was as blond as he was, but taller. He had Dean’s gold-hued eyes, not as bright but definitely specks of it, a by-product of equally golden-eyed parents that he could still remember when he was living in the shifter world—parents who were kind to him and gave him things that his father couldn’t give, because his father was too busy being an elder: things like time and attention.
Yes, he knew this man well.
This man was his cousin, Sean Williams.
The knowledge of that sent an ache in his heart, but he brushed it away as he observed them. Beside him, Indigo was equally quiet. She was back in her regular form as a woman, covered by a cloak that blended with the color of the forest. She didn’t move a muscle, her dark eyes following the movement of the shifters as they took one step after another forward.
In her hand was a remote to activate all the traps.
They timed it. When the shifters reached the same clearing that the dead shifter had been in earlier, Dean stepped forward and proceeded to greet them in Peter form, waving the guard away and guiding them in a certain direction—right into the trap they set. He counted the steps in his head while he made conversation, saying all the things Peter would have said to them and affecting his manner.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched his cousin study him intensely.
The man knew something was off.
Dean forced his shoulders not to tense and kept moving. The seconds ticked by in his head, just as he knew it ticked by in Indigo’s. He smirked at the shifters and told them they were right on time.
Then he dove out of the clearing in lighting speed, avoiding the traps in a split second.
Yells started, followed by screams from all sides of the island. He heard the agony in them as they were shot in every direction by needles filled with potions—ones that could numb out humans and make them unconscious. Double dosages mixed with another potion were shot at the shifters, to make them dizzy and unable to shift. Dean took out swords he stole from the auction collection, forged by cave goblins. He pointed them in the direction of the shifters, every muscle in his body taut and ready to move in case one of the shifters withstood the assault.
But no one did. One by one, he watched as they all swayed on their feet, making choking noises before they crashed on top of each other to the ground. He watched Sean meet his eyes as he swayed last, confusion and partial recognition in the man’s gaze before his eyes rolled back.
Then he was down for the count, too.
Dean set his swords aside and began the next process: tying everyone with special strings, again infused with magic to make sure they didn’t get away. Indigo was no longer in her spot, and he followed her a few minutes later as she checked on the men and removed their weapons from them before running towards the prison area. He heard her whisper words and saw her move her hands, watched as she helped a vampire step out—the same vampire that he watched being auctioned. Then she did the same for others, and she and the vampire tried to communicate with them that they were leaving.
The last stop was Mrs. Cortez, who was sleeping in her room with her guard lover. They had those needles shot in them, too, and they wouldn’t be waking up soon. Dean took time to dress her naked form up before he tied the two. Then he called Kasper this time instead of texting.
“Mission accomplished.”
“Mission accomplished, too,” Kasper said on the other end, his breathing hard as he’d just been in a fight. Maybe he was. “Jack, Yeri and Jillian are good on their end, too.”
“Jillian?”
“Yes. Everyone did their job, Dean. Hurry the hell back here. We need to do this fast.”
“I’m on it.”
Dean hung up. Then he was rounding the enemies up.
Most of the prisoners helped one another get the unconscious people in the cages they were in before. There were some almost-eruptions of violence, but Indigo was surprisingly good at handling that part, making him realize that perhaps that sort of thing happened a lot in her bars. When everyone was loaded in, with the shifters separated from the humans, they loaded them all up in the boats available. They took all the recording equipment they set up and cleaned the island of any supernatural traces.
Then they were out of there.
The island became invisible once the boats sailed away. Dean watched as the designated New York pier got nearer and nearer, then watched the unconscious shifters in their cage. He took note of the broadest man who acted like a leader, studying him.
Someone sat beside him on one of the barrels. Dean turned his head in Indigo’s direction, watching as she eyed the shifters, too.
“There’s something I need to do. Can you help me wake one of them up?”
Her gaze turned to him, and she searched his face for a few seconds before finally nodding her head. They released the broad man from the cage, and Indigo worked her magic on him and slowly revived him from his state.
When he opened his eyes and made a move to fight back, Dean’s foot was on his neck in an instant. They eyed each other stubbornly, with the shifter voicing the beginnings of a roar.
“Your hands and legs are tied by special strings,” Dean murmured. “If you try to shift, it will cut you to pieces.”
The shifter’s eyes widened.
“Peter? What the hell?”
Quietly, Indigo stepped forward and slid a palm up Dean’s face. He could feel the scars falling away, and it was confirmed by the widening of the shifter’s eyes as he looked dumbfounded.
Yes. This man definitely recognized him.
“You’re supposed to be in Manhattan,” the man blurted out. “We kept track!”
Jack and Kasper probably placed a dummy there. Dean nodded his head. “And now I’m here.” He leaned his weight into his foot, watching as the man choked and tried to curse out. But it ended up in an almost violent cough. “Tell me, how long has my father been involved in this?”
The man’s eyes widened again. He tried shaking his head, but Dean pushed harder until he could no longer move.
“Tell. Me,” Dean murmured coolly. “Tell me, or I will break every last bone in your body until you’re only left with a beating heart.”
Beside him, Indigo stilled. Realization hit him like a ton of bricks that he was probably describing her own torture. His mouth automatically clamped shut, and frustration hit him at the thought.
Then, before he could change tactics, the shifter spit. It landed on Indigo’s foot, and her nose wrinkled.
“Your father’s a fool,” the shifter snarled. “Too distracted to know anything’s going on beyond his ego. Too high up his damn throne to see his kind has rebelled and wants him gone.”
His own body stilled. “Then why is he signing all email transactions for deliveries?”
The shifter spat again, this time landing on the boat’s deck. Then he smirked, confirming a certain suspicion.
Dean’s heart pounded in his chest at the sudden revelation. The relief came that his father wasn’t involved, and clarity followed.
How could he doubt his father, an elder who only thought for the good of their kind and the shifter world in general? Who put it above everything else? The man had dedicated all his life to keeping their world protected, but these monsters…they used his name in transactions to frame him.
To de-throne him, maybe.
But who wanted to take over?
“Why tell me all this when you can make me believe my innocent father is the culprit?” Dean asked.
“Because I want you to know your father is a damn coward,” the shifter hissed. “And that he’s not worthy to be an elder. He sits there cowering on that throne while lions remain equal in the shifter world. We are meant to be the top of the food chain! Not equals. We are rulers, not equals.”
No. He was not a coward.
He was using his power fairly, as a lion shifter should. As any shfter should.
The realization that his father really was innocent surged inside him. Frustrated at how he had easily been swayed by Kasper’s news before, he pinned the shifter deeper to the ground, intending to break his neck right then and there—or watch him choke.
A hand settled on his arm, both a comfort and a warning.
“We’re not like these men, Dean,” Indigo muttered. “We’re not like black witches, either.”
That hit him close to home, even while the urge to kill almost darkened his vision. His beast wanted to come out, but he fought it back.
When he was calmer, he looked at the shifter again. “Then tell me who did it.”
The shifter didn’t speak. But the glance he gave the cage gave him away, and so did the glint in his eyes.
“Speak!” Dean growled.
“Sean should have been the elder!” the shifter roared back. “He knows what we need! Power! Your father is a bastard who should die!”
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The hurt came and pounded against Dean’s chest.
Slowly, he removed his foot and watched the shifter struggling to take huge gulps of air.
Indigo got busy doing some sign language, and the vampire stepped forward and dragged the man back in the cage, where Indigo then put a sleeping spell on him. Dean looked out at the river, letting the breeze calm him down as the city lights twinkled brightly. A few more minutes, and they would be able to dock. He read his phone for the location of where Kasper was waiting before replying his confirmation.
Indigo stepped beside him again, watching the lights with him.
“Did you get the answer you needed?”
There was silence.
Then he nodded. “Yes.”
Before she could ask any further questions, Dean backed a few steps and turned around. Then he moved away, clearly wanting to be alone for those few minutes—wanting to take in the fact that while his father wasn’t the suspect, his cousin was.
Because his cousin wanted his father’s power.
Dean sighed.
There would be a grand mess as soon as they docked, and he would be right in the middle of it.
*****
It was Jack and Jillian, along with a few crocodile shifters, who waited for them on the pier and guided the cages to an empty warehouse in SoHo, where they already sorted out the other captured enemies. The humans would stay here with the evidence edited to remove any magic signs, and the evidence would be delivered to the local police, who could then assess the situation and what these people were involved in: smuggling of goods and slavery auctions. The cage containing the shifters was loaded into a container semi, and it was Dean who drove it straight to the gallery, where he found Kasper and Yeri waiting inside. Half of the otherworldly creatures disappeared once they docked, but a few remained, including some fairies and the vampire, who refused to leave Indigo’s side and signed that he would help them until the very end.
A streak of jealousy flashed inside Dean, but he pushed it back down and focused on the matter at hand.
Jealousy had no place here.
They gathered the evidence, printing what they could and hiding the rest for safekeeping since electricity didn’t work in the shifter world. Then they opened the portal through Dean’s device, stepping inside a painting that looked like the marketplace, where Xian was waiting. He brought a lot of his crocodile shifters in to keep cover, and everything was in place.
The vampire said his goodbyes to Indigo, then gave Dean a warning look that he was yet to figure out. Then he and the fairies were gone, and Xian was opening another portal using a black stone, where they all stepped in.
Then they were in shifter world.
It was probably a sight to behold: unconscious lion shifters tied inside a cage, with crocodile shifters wheeling the cage forward. Dean led the walk, followed by Xian and Indigo. The initial guards of their world, different kinds of shifters, stared at the procession in shock. One stepped up—a panther shifter—and attempted to question them, but Dean gave him a look of pure steel and asked for the elders’ audience.
Because the cage was huge, they couldn’t get inside the usual meeting place with elders, which was the log cabin where Dean had initially met with his father. They went to a field in an isolated area instead, where they waited. A few minutes later, the shifter guards came with the elders and surrounded Dean and his team, the elders’ cloaks and masks in place. There were red streaks drawn on the masks to show what tribe they belonged in. Someone obviously told them an outsider was here—Indigo—as they took the time to cover themselves up.
“What is this?” the lion elder—Dean Williams II—asked. “Why is our kind caged? Dean?”
Dean took a deep, inward breath. Then he turned to his father. “We’ve done it, sir.”
“Done what?”
Silence prevailed.
Then Dean spoke the words out. “We’ve taken down the bounty hunter ring.”