Kassian

It started the same way it always did.

“They said they’ll contact us,” Kean said forcefully.

Kassian glared at his younger brother, reiterating his own point. “I know what they said. I can read the message just as easily as you can.”

His index finger stabbed across the room angrily as he spoke, pointing at where the white Polaroid photo of their eldest brother sat on top of the red terra-cotta kitchen counter. Kassian didn’t need to have it in his hand to know what was scrawled on the back.

Don’t do anything rash, or this is the best condition you’ll ever see him in. If you see him.

I’ll be in touch. – D.B.

The initials stood for Director Burnatawiz, their nemesis and head of the Institute, a massive organization dedicated to the genocide of the shifter races for the betterment of the humans. That was the crazy part of it all. The Institute didn’t dislike shifters. Didn’t hate them even. The head of it, the director, had simply done some math, relied on false assumptions of shifters, and come to the conclusion that eventually shifters would outnumber humans, and their superior DNA would wipe them out.

He intended to get there first, in the name of Homo sapiens everywhere.

And he had their brother. The picture itself was of a beaten and abused Maximus, secured to a solid-steel chair. Part of his long hair had been shorn away, revealing a huge scar. Whether from an incision as part of torture, or suffered during a fight, nobody knew. They hadn’t had a chance to talk to him.

After their last encounter with the director, he’d left them the photo. That had been over a week ago. Tensions were rising, and they were starting to spill over. Kassian wanted to go after the Institute. To find Maximus. The others preached caution.

He grimaced. They were timid. Afraid. And he couldn’t blame them.

“Are you really willing to risk Maximus’s life so carelessly?” Pierce, the youngest brother, asked coldly.

Kassian stood up so quickly his chair flew backward, shattering into dozens of pieces as the rigid plastic impacted upon the wall with considerable force.

“Are you all really that blind?” he sneered, his oversized feet slamming into the ground as he thudded his way toward the door.

The metal of the door itself protested his passage, but he managed to rein in his angered shifter strength long enough that he didn’t send it pinwheeling away. The last thing he wanted just then was to have to stick around and repair it.

The motel itself was a U-shaped affair, though the sides of the building were far too short to be proportional. There was a large concrete area in the center of it for parking. The whole opening faced a two-lane roadway. Occasionally cars passed by on it. They were well out into the country though, so as to prevent him and his brothers from having to deal with the pressures of the city.

Their bears didn’t handle it so well.

Kassian’s long strides, powered by legs the size of tree trunks, quickly carried him out of the interior section of the motel and around the side. There was roughly one hundred feet of cleared forest on all sides of the motel. After that, the forest began in earnest. He headed straight back away from the road. There was a clearing he knew of, perhaps fifteen minutes’ walk into the forest. At his current angry pace, it was likely no more than ten minutes away.

There Kassian hoped to gain some peace.

How could they not understand?

Yes, going after Maximus might bring death down upon their older brother. Kassian was no idiot; he could do the math just as well as his brothers. But that meant he also knew the other half of the equation. The director would never release Maximus to them. If they got him back, then he had no leverage over them. Why would he give up such a powerful piece? Even if he pretended to, it would probably just be so that he could get rid of all five brothers in one fell swoop somehow.

So the only option left to them was to go on the offensive. Work to track Maximus down, and break him out of where he was being held. Then the brothers could do what they did best, and enact a scorched earth policy on anything Institute-related.

His smile became a visage straight out of a nightmare as he grinned at that prospect.

Before that could happen though, he’d need to convince the others to go after Maximus. He shouldered aside an errant branch nearly six inches in diameter, the green wood simply snapping off and falling to the ground as he refused to relent, exerting more force than it could handle.

It angered him that they weren’t willing to do so. After all, Maximus was the eldest. He had been there for all his brothers, Kassian included, when they needed him. It was he who’d taught them how to shift, to control their bears. Maximus had been the one to lead them on their various escapades and capers, making each of them fabulously wealthy—albeit at the expense of others. When one of them had gotten in trouble, Maximus had always been there, putting himself in harm’s way if it meant getting one of his brothers to safety.

Now that he was the one in need of help though, none of them were willing to provide it. Kassian was enraged by their hesitation. He understood that it wasn’t an ideal course of action. But a better one didn’t exist!

The forest opened up in front of him, and Kassian slowed as he entered his preferred clearing. Off to the left, nearly fifty feet off the top of a massive tree lay on its side, a remnant of an earlier fight between him and one of his brothers. As he crossed the clearing, the wind—idle for most of the day—picked up.

Kassian straightened as it brought with it an unfamiliar scent. No. Scents. A further testing of the air told him what he’d suspected. A wolfpack was nearby. They weren’t feral wolves either. No, they were shifters. He was being watched.

“What do you want?” he said into the forest.

It wasn’t likely that they were friendly, but stranger things had happened before. He wasn’t about to start a brand-new fight, though he was prepared to finish one if it came his way. Which wouldn’t surprise him. It was rare that wolves and bears got along. Wolves were pack creatures; they preferred numbers. Bears on the other hand, enjoyed socializing, but they weren’t a fan of huge crowds. For a moment, Kassian wondered how a wolfpack would adjust to being in the city…

Before he could think it through, a tall, lanky man with blond hair and a regal-looking nose straight out of a Nordic fairytale appeared. His skin was so white it could be mistaken for ice. Interesting. Arctic wolves. They were a bit of a rarity among shifters. Slightly bigger, slightly faster, and slightly longer-lived than their more normal dire wolf cousins, which composed the majority of wolf shifters. Kassian hoped the rest of the pack were regular shifters. An entire pack of Arctic wolves could be trouble.

“Go back to the hotel,” the man said.

He had eyes and even an entire face as well, but Kassian couldn’t stop staring at that nose. It was calling to him. Begging him. Cajoling him. And all it wanted was one thing. Kassian couldn’t give it to the nose though, as much as it pained him. He had other things to consider at the moment.

“It’s a motel,” he muttered to himself.

“What?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Kassian asked instead.

He could sense some more of the pack around him now, in wolf form. They were expert hunters though, and the thick, nearly virgin forest around him meant that they had plenty of bushes and debris to hide behind. He wouldn’t see them unless they wanted to be seen. There definitely had not been traces of the pack three days ago, when he’d last ventured out into the forest. Nor had any of his brothers said anything. This must be a new development.

Were they moving in?

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” The Nose replied.

It was a poor nickname, but Kassian didn’t care. The thing was huge! Perfectly symmetrical and regal, it was like a caricature gone wrong. Kassian just longed to be able to fulfill its unspoken request to him.

“Actually, it kind of does,” he said, bored.

“Why is that?”

“For starters, because that will determine whether I listen to another word you say,” Kassian drawled. Seriously, was he so blinded by his nostrils that he didn’t realize how this worked? You don’t make a demand or a threat without explaining why.

“My name is Lundgren. I have been…assigned, shall we say, to ensure you stay put.”

Kassian rolled his eyes. “By Director Burnatawiz?”

Lundgren didn’t react.

Well, that confirms that.

“What if I don’t want to go back?’ he asked offhandedly, taunting the wolf, egging him on.

To his credit, the Arctic wolf didn’t seem fazed as he came closer.

Just a little more.

“Then I will make you.”

The nose begged Kassian. It shouted, waving its nostrils back and forth, demanding his attention.

“Oh,” Kassian said, uncaring.

Then he gave the nose what it wanted. His fist rocketed up and impacted square on the peak of the monstrous thing. Cartilage crunched and then bone snapped. Lundgren reeled backward, blood pouring from his mangled snout. His eyes were wide with shock.

“I’ll go back when I’m good and ready,” Kassian pronounced into the deafening silence that followed.

The only sound was the drip, drip, drip of blood as it fell from Lundgren’s face, rustling up leaves as it hit the forest floor with such force and volume it was audible.

“B’ow,” the pale, blond Viking snarled.

It didn’t have quite the same effect with a broken nose. Kassian actually found himself laughing at the sounds that came out. Lundgren waved a hand at the bear shifter. There was a rustle of noise behind Kassian, and he whirled, lashing out with his fist. The blow caught a much-smaller—though small was relative when talking about shifter animals; the wolf was still easily three hundred pounds—shifter square in the head, knocking it to the ground with enough force to shatter its jaw.

“Are we done y—”

The next wolf crashed into Kassian from the side, cutting off his arrogant retort and pulling him to the ground. Even as he fell, the bear shifter turned to face his foe. Huge, powerful hands clamped down on either side of the wolf just below the neck. Squeezing, he pulled the wolf from his body, and then chucked it at Lundgren. Because he was on his back, the throw lacked the full strength he could have imbued into it if he was standing.

But Lundgren was only twenty feet away. At that close range, it didn’t matter. The human and wolf went down in a heap, both of them making yelping noises. Even before they’d collided, Kassian was on his feet. The forest around him was alive now with the sounds of wolves as they yipped and yelped, calling out to each other in a flurry of barks and other noises. His head twisted left and right as he listened. There had to be a dozen or more of them out there. Kassian was in trouble.

He might be bigger than any single wolf. Even two or three he could finish off if they came at him together. An entire wolfpack was a completely different beast, pun aside. They would probably let him go if he retreated toward the motel. Or they might chase him the entire way, he wasn’t sure. It was likely they were under orders not to kill him or any of his brothers.

Luckily, Kassian was under no such rules. He could engage the shifters any way he pleased. A ball of gray-white fur shot from a bush nearby, snapping at his leg. Bad idea.

“You want the leg?” he growled in return. “You got it!” Kassian lashed out with shifter-borne speed, and his foot just barely caught the wolf in the flank, sending it into a tumbling spin.

He’d forgotten how fast wolves were. Reaching down as he retreated from the clearing, Kassian ripped two thick branches off the downed top of the tree. He whirled them around his hands, testing their balance.

Another wolf came at him, and a branch moved so fast through the air it began to whistle, before shattering itself on the top of the animal’s skull, dropping it like a stone. It wasn’t dead, but it was out of the fight. That was all that mattered to Kassian.

Now that they knew he was retreating, they came at him faster, and from multiple directions at once. His other stick was quickly reduced to splinters, breaking a foreleg of a wolf that was too slow to get away. Kassian wasn’t emerging unscathed though. His legs were a mess of wounds, the sharp teeth of his foes tearing through the thick, tough material of his black tactical pants. His right arm was dripping blood profusely from a long opening on his tricep, and his back felt like he’d just stood at a whipping post.

But he was closing in on the motel, and that was all that mattered. He hoped. If the wolves kept coming though, they were going to be in for a rather rude surprise. The forest parted and he emerged into the field out behind the motel.

“Okay, back you go!” he shouted, taunting the wolves with his assumption that they were to pursue him no further.

Half a dozen of them charged him at once.

“Oh fuck,” he muttered. Thankfully his brain and his mouth could often operate at odds with each other. He was already doing what he figured the wolves would least expect. Kassian ran right at them, bellowing at the top of his lungs. The wolves skidded to a halt, unsure of what that meant, and wary of the fact that he’d yet to actually shift into his bear form.

“Fucking pussies,” he spat derogatorily.

One wolf looked over its shoulder at the forest. Another half a dozen wolves pushed out of the brush. The head snapped around to face Kassian once more, and he could have sworn the damn canine was smiling at him.

“You’re gonna pay for that,” he said, leveling his finger, marking the black speckled pattern on the light gray fur. It wouldn’t be today, but Kassian had a feeling its day would come.

That didn’t seem to deter the wolves though. They spread out into an arc in front of him and continued to advance. Kassian kept backpedaling toward the motel. In his mind, he was summoning his brothers. The window had been open when he left. How deaf were they!

There was a sound from behind him, and when he realized what it was, Kassian stopped retreating and smiled. The wolves were no longer looking past him, but behind him, and above him.

Above? What the hell?

Kassian didn’t want to look. The less opportunity to strike he presented the wolves, the better.

“Get out of here,” he said, shooing them away, making the motion as condescending as he could.

Lundgren walked from the woods, holding his broken nose. One of the gray sleeves from his cotton T-shirt was torn off and pressed to his face. He pulled it away to speak and Kassian saw a large pool of blood soaked up into it.

“S’ay ou’ o’b da foreb,” he called.

“You say what forehead?” Kassian called, purposefully misinterpreting him.

Lundgren gave him the finger.

Kassian grinned. “Aww, come on now. That’s no way to make friends.”

The arctic wolf glared at him, tried to whistle, but when all he did was spray blood around him, he clapped his hands to get the attention of the wolves, and the pack disappeared back into the forest. Only once the last of the furry assholes had disappeared did he allow himself to turn around.

His three brothers were all standing on the roof. Oh, so that’s why they were looking up.

“Why are you up there?” he asked, curious.

“Came out the front door. It was faster to go up and over than around,” Gavin, the middle brother, said from his stance ranging out to Kassian’s right. His tone made it sound like it was such an obvious reason Kassian should have picked up on it.

He snarled at his brother. “Sorry, I was a little bit busy realizing we’re under surveillance to think through what you’d done.”

Gavin just grinned, turned on his heel and disappeared onto the other side of the motel roof.

“What the hell was that all about?” Pierce asked, calmly stepping off the edge of the roof and dropping the twelve feet or so to the ground. His legs barely bent underneath him as they absorbed the impact with ease.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Kassian admitted. “But if I had to make an educated guess, I would say that Director Bumhole wants to ensure that we don’t pack our bags and hightail it out of town.”

With that he walked past Pierce, vaulted up onto the roof, ignoring Kean who was still looking out into the woods, and headed back into the room. The others followed him in rapid order, the door closing, securing the brothers and the three human women inside.

Kassian didn’t even so much as glance at his brothers’ mates as he moved into the kitchen, ripping open a package of Summer sausage and shoving some of it into his mouth with abandon. After a fight like that, he needed to eat to replenish the energy spent, as well as to fuel the healing he needed. It wasn’t much, but if he didn’t eat, his body would take it from his natural reserves instead, which he didn’t want to happen. He had a bad feeling he was going to need them all soon.

The room had gone quiet as everyone digested what they’d just discovered. So when the door began to shake on its hinges from someone banging furiously on it, everyone jumped. Even Kassian. His blood ran cold.

It had to be the Institute come calling. Maybe the wolves were there because the director himself was nearby. Could this be the contact they’d been waiting for, for so long? Had Director Burnatawiz finally approached them to try and blackmail them over Maximus?

Kassian swallowed hard as Gavin went to the door and pulled it open.