Chapter Thirteen

Kassian

Gregory pulled the big vehicle—he’d called it a Jeep—to a stop.

Kassian didn’t wait; he was already sliding out of the seat. Not because he was eager to observe his surroundings, but because he was trying not to be sick.

“Who the hell taught you to drive!” he grumbled, planting one hand on the column of the building they’d stopped in front of. A sidewalk wrapped around the front of it, and the columns held a roof that extended to give shelter to the walkway.

“Nobody,” Gregory said snidely. “I taught myself. Why, is anything wrong?”

“Anything? Try everything,” he snapped. “You’re a maniac.”

Gregory just snorted. “Well, if you hadn’t been such a crybaby, we could have been here ages ago.”

The bear shifter just tossed up a middle finger and walked inside. The ride had been bad, yes. Gregory couldn’t drive in a straight line, nor did he know how to stop or accelerate smoothly the way most humans seemed to be able to do intuitively. As a result, Kassian felt like he’d just spent an hour being batted around by a pair of dragons playing tennis with his body. Everywhere hurt, and his stomach was still violently threatening to empty its contents. But all of that was better than the alternative.

He might have hated driving with the gryphon, but there was no way in hell that Kassian was going to get on his back and let the damn beast fly him out here. No way, no how. Wasn’t happening.

Emerging from the bathroom a few minutes later, feeling much more refreshed, he stopped by the vehicle where Gregory was still waiting.

“I’m curious about something,” he said.

The gryphon indicated he should continue.

“For us, going into the city is a horrific ordeal. Even being inside one of these is a challenge,” he dented the metal outer covering of the car by slamming his fist down into it. “Yet you have no problems driving it, and my brother fought some bear shifters in the city itself who didn’t seem to be affected by it. So what gives?”

Gregory just shrugged. “Kronum is much closer to Longhorne City than Cadia. We spent lots of time going back and forth. Technology and cities is nothing new to us. We were exposed to it as young kids. So I guess it’s one of those nature versus nurture type of questions.”

Kassian gave him a look, not sure if he was more surprised at the sudden word vomit from the quiet shifter, or the fact that there had been so much contact between Kronum and the humans.

“I suppose. So, where’s this supposed to happen here?” He looked around. They were parked at a refueling station. Gregory said he would fill them up before they headed back, while Kassian sat in the vehicle.

“No. Over there.” Gregory pointed across the street.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Kassian raged. “No. Not happening. I’m not doing it! That’s bullshit. They don’t deserve that. I’ll do the job, but that…that’s just evil.”

The gryphon’s face tightened. “You will do it there, or your brother dies.”

“How the hell am I supposed to get this guy to go there?” he asked, keeping his rage under control as best he could. Maybe he could find a way to show that the target would never find himself in such a place.

“His son attends here,” Gregory said quietly. “He picks him up every day after school.”

Kassian whirled on the gryphon shifter. His rage built itself into a towering inferno faster than lightning. Fingers like steel wrapped around the other shifter’s throat, and he slammed him into the side of the Jeep.

“You bastards,” he hissed, shaking with fury. “You want me to kill a man in front of his offspring?” Fingers tightened, his eyes blazing. The world around him had become tinged with red. “What kind of people are you working for?”

Gregory just stared at him. Then slowly he reached up to his neck with one hand. He wrapped his fingers around Kassian’s index finger and slowly peeled it away as if it were nothing more than a limp noodle. Then he followed suit with his other fingers, until the bear shifter jerked his hand back to avoid a broken bone.

“We do what we must,” he said coolly, rubbing his neck once, then giving himself a shake and pretending like the incident had never happened. “You’ll understand in time.”

“Like hell I will,” he growled, fighting hard to keep himself under control. He couldn’t lose his temper now. The gryphon would break him in half like a cracker, without giving it a second glance. If he wanted to stand a chance at defeating the more powerful shifter, he needed his brothers with him. It would take a team effort.

“How are you not bothered by all of this?” he asked once he’d gotten a hold of himself. “Why is it all you shifters from Kronum are actually aiding the Institute? You’re not even forced into it!”

Gregory just stared at him. “You are so shortsighted,” he said, sounding annoyed.

Good. I hope I make you so annoyed you roll over and die you worthless sack of shit.

“Enlighten me,” he replied sarcastically.

“Humans do not live long. This Institute is a short-lived fad. It will die out with the director. Others may try to continue the cause, but they will fail. So I see a few of our kind die. Sad, yes. But, I get wealth beyond imagining that I will have centuries to turn into more, using these silly humans’ fiscal systems against them.”

Kassian’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? You’re all bought off? That’s it? The grand trick?”

Gregory shot him a look. “Don’t act so high and mighty with me. I know what those tattoos represent. I know who the ‘Blackjack Bears’ are,” he sneered. “You’re not above material wealth and doing whatever it takes to get it. So don’t you dare take the high road with me.”

A fist slammed into Kassian’s stomach, and he fell to the ground, emptying its contents all over the hot asphalt. As his body jerked in time with his stomach, Kassian felt the world closing in around him.

The gryphon was right. Getting rich was the name of the game. He’d been playing it his entire life. Once his eyes stopped watering they fell to the tattoo on his right forearm. The red heart-shaped icon emblazoned there was a reminder of that. Of the things they had done to earn that nickname.

But nothing that Kassian had done in the past could hold a candle to what the Institute was trying to do. He’d done things he regretted, things that, in hindsight, he might have tried to do differently. People had suffered, and some had even died, yes. But his actions hadn’t threatened the species as a whole. Just certain groups and individuals. That was completely different!

Wasn’t it?

He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he totally missed the way the street around them had gone quiet. Aside from the refueling station where they were parked, their entire side of the street was nothing but fields. The school was across the street and about a hundred or so yards down it as well. Everything else was on the far side of the school from them.

“Stand up,” Gregory said. “It’s time to go.”

“What?” he groaned, his stomach still not happy with him.

“Time to go, Kassian. Now.”

He noted the change in the gryphon’s voice. The shifter was expecting trouble. Forcing himself to his feet, he glanced around the area. The kids at the school were all still inside, thankfully. There were no cars on the streets, and even the few pedestrians he’d seen earlier had disappeared.

“What’s going on?” he asked cautiously. They were in a little town somewhere between Kronum and Longhorne, that was all he knew. It was small enough that it barely registered upon Kassian’s bear. It wasn’t much bigger than the town of Cadia. A size he was used to, and comfortable with.

“Trouble. Get in the Jeep.”

“No. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

The gryphon snarled, turning on him, but even as his eyes tried to impale him, Kassian saw them flick behind him.

“Down!” Gregory shouted.

Kassian dove down and to the left without hesitation. A figure tore through the space he’d been located in less than a second later, heading right for the gryphon.

He never made it. The gryphon slapped him away with a casual backhand that snapped the attacker’s neck and sent him flying. He hit a pile of clear jugs filled with blue liquid. Several jugs burst and they coated the dead body with fluid. It took Kassian a moment longer to realize that had been a wolf shifter.

What the fuck was going on here?

He stood, just in time to defend himself from another wolf shifter.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, angrily deflecting blows. He didn’t want to dispatch his attacker just yet. Not until he knew more about who they were. Kassian doubted that they had any idea who he was. But they were attacking him furiously anyway. Which likely meant they were associating him with Gregory. So whoever they were, they might be his allies.

“Fuck you,” the youthful shifter barked.

“You idiot,” Kassian growled. “I’m not here on my own free will. That dickhead is blackmailing me.”

The wolf shifter hesitated at those words, and in that moment Kassian overpowered him, taking him to the ground. “My name is Kassian Koche. I’m going to knock you out now, but remember the name, and know that my brothers and I are not your enemies.”

He didn’t wait for the inevitable protest before he delivered a vicious right hook to the young man’s head, rendering him unconscious.

Rising, he turned to see what was going on. Gregory was in the midst of a circle of shifters, some dead, some still alive. Though the longer he waited, the more the ratio was trending in favor of the corpses. None of the attackers had the strength, or the power to take him on individually, and they weren’t operating as a team either.

Kassian waded in to the fight, leveling the assembled shifters left and right. Two wolves and a tiger went down before they even realized he was among them. A lion shifter whirled at the sudden commotion, and by the time Kassian got to him, the element of surprise was over. The two went down in a tangle, the lion getting the initial upper hand.

“We need to keep fighting,” he grunted out quietly. “But know that I am not your enemy.”

“Anyone who works with Gregory is our enemy.”

His attacker spoke with an authority the young wolf hadn’t had. Older, and perhaps wiser. Perhaps he would listen to what Kassian had to say.

“How does being blackmailed into doing something factor in to that equation?” he asked, grunting as the lion shifter hit him hard in the head with a forearm, opening a gash on his cheek.

“What do you mean?”

It was an interesting dichotomy, the pair of them still fighting each other with all of their strength, but also talking through it. Kassian had never been in quite such a situation before.

“They have my brother. If I don’t do something, they’re going to kill him.”

The lion shifter didn’t reply right away.

“You’re losing too many men,” Kassian ground out as another dead body hit the pavement nearby. “Retreat. I have an idea that might help us both. I’ll be in touch, here. Keep a guard out.”

The lion shifter rolled under Kassian, brought his legs up, and kicked out. Caught off guard by the sudden move, Kassian flew back through the air, landing hard on his back.

“Fall back!” The call came loud and clear through the commotion.

His vision was still spinning, but he was fairly positive he saw the attacking shifters melt away. The sounds of combat stopped, and he knew then that he wasn’t hallucinating. The fight was over.

Had he just made new allies? What the hell had just happened?

Gregory was looking around at the corpses of the shifters he’d so callously slain. With a sniff borne of derision he stepped over the contorted body of one young-looking wolf shifter and approached Kassian.

“Are you harmed?”

“I’ll be fine,” he snapped, trying to sound angry over the entire episode. “What the hell was that?”

The gryphon wasn’t looking at him any longer, instead he was scanning the premises nearby. “Nothing.”

“Like hell it was. Next you’re going to tell me these bodies aren’t real either, aren’t you? Do I really look that stupid?”

“Yes.”

Kassian seethed. He knew the other shifter was just trying to egg him on with that sort of answer. Instead of giving him what he wanted, he chose the other path, and simply fell silent, waiting for Gregory to speak again.

“They’re the dregs of Kronum,” he said dispassionately. “The youth, the confused, the idealistic. Those who think they can change the world if they just try hard enough. But they are misguided and ill-informed. Their plans are ill-conceived, and they often lose far more than they gain.”

But they’re still resisting your arrogant ass. And that means they’re not failing completely.

It sounded like the Kronum shifters just needed some guidance. An experienced helping hand, perhaps. Their plans needed to be more effective. Perhaps more…explosive. Kassian looked around at the location they resided in. Fuel was flammable, he’d been told that much. And they were surrounded by thousands of gallons of it. The Kronum Resistance just needed to think more deviously.

A plan began to form in his head.