Chapter Four

Rosie

The cash in hand, her self-shame at an all-time high, Rosie went to the front office to rent the room Kassian had indicated. She hated the way he’d looked at her when she’d said she had no money. There had been anger in his eyes. She was pretty sure she knew why as well. She’d fucked up, badly.

First, she’d shown up wanting to fight, without any way to actually contribute. Then, as a result of that, she’d inadvertently led the Institute to the brothers. Now she’d had to take their money to find a place to stay.

One day she would pay her own way. It was a vow Rosie had made to herself long ago. It didn’t seem to be coming true though. Now in her early thirties, she was beginning to come to the conclusion that she would never have the means to provide for herself. It was a devastating realization, and the look she’d received from Kassian only helped to amplify it.

Which was exactly why she wanted to fight the Institute. They were preying on women just like her. Down and out, unlucky, dejected, hopeless, and ultimately vulnerable. It was a despicable practice, taking advantage of such people, and one that Rosie wanted to stop.

“Here you are,” the proprietor said, handing her over a key attached to a ring. The ring itself had a huge rectangular piece of plastic attached to it with the number “18” scrawled in black marker on it.

Eyeing the massive contraption, Rosie smiled at the elderly man. “Thank you.”

“Enjoy your stay, dear,” he said jovially, waving to her as she exited the little office.

I’ll try.

So far it hadn’t been off to a very good start though. It was actually sort of amazing that Kassian had invited her to stay at all. He hadn’t emerged from his room yet, and the last thing she felt like doing at that point was knocking on their door again. Which meant she entered her little suite, the small backpack of her belongings slinging off her shoulders and falling onto the white comforter on the bed, and slumped into a chair. Now all there was to do was wait.

Rosie’s head slumped back, until her eyes were staring unfocused at the yellowed popcorn ceiling, wondering if the marks were simply from age, smoke stains, or signs of a water leak. It could be all three, actually. What a charming little place she’d wound up in.

Was this what you imagined when you decided to come and sign up to fight? It’s not going to be glitzy or glamorous.

Not that Rosie had ever lived that sort of lifestyle. If she was truthful with herself, this was actually in better shape than many of the other places she’d lived in over the years. So why had she been expecting so much better?

Because you knew that shifters are wealthy.

It was a good point. She’d heard through all sorts of places that many shifters were considered quite wealthy by human standards, thanks to longer lifespans, and diligent efforts by prior generations. Which raised the question: why were they staying in such a shitty motel?

Before she could answer that question, a noise distracted her. Focusing on it, Rosie went still. The wall across from the bed was filled with a scritching noise. Cautiously she rose and headed toward the source.

“Lovely. Rats,” she muttered, positive that’s what she was hearing.

Putting her ear up to the wall, she listened hard. But the sound had stopped. Maybe the rat had moved on? Frowning, Rosie pressed her ear closer. She could almost hear…voices. Yes! There were definitely voices. Maybe she was just hearing the shifters talking on the other side. It sounded like they were trying to say something.

Something like…

“Sss, d, ear. Aww?” she muttered aloud to herself.

There was a knock on the wall. She jumped in surprise, letting out a rather high-pitched noise. Someone knocked again. Rosie knocked back. Then there was the voice again.

“Sand…ear…All?”

What the hell? Sand ear all?

What could they be trying to tell her? Rosie knocked on the wall again, to show she was still there. Why couldn’t they just come and knock on her door?

“Stand…ear…all!”

“Stand ear what?”

Then suddenly she got it.

Stand Clear of Wall.

Rosie threw herself away from the wall a second before a section of it came crashing down into her room as a huge figure pushed his way through the newfound opening.

Kassian regarded her steadily from her position on the floor beside the bed. “Whatcha doing down there?”

Coming to her feet in a flash, she slammed a finger into his chest. It rebounded off something that felt like steel, but she suppressed the urge to wince. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked angrily, keeping her voice down from a yell through sheer force of will only. Yelling would have felt much more appropriate just then, but she didn’t want to cause a scene.

“Opening up your room to ours,” he said, eying the layout. “It’s much smaller.”

Rosie sighed, trying to keep her cool. “Kassian,” she ground out. “Why the hell didn’t you just come and knock on the door to tell me that you were tearing down one of the walls? You know, like a normal person.”

“I’m a shifter,” he replied, as if that should have been enough explanation.

It wasn’t.

“Try again,” she prompted.

“Because,” he explained. “We’re going to hope that perhaps nobody pegged you as talking to us. That way, you can perhaps leave without being stopped. Unlike us. If we’re constantly going back and forth between your room and ours, one of the watchers will see it eventually. Right now we’re fairly positive they’re just ensuring we don’t leave, not actually spying on our every move.”

“Oh.” She closed her mouth, her anger still present, but now without a target. What he’d said had made sense.

Kassian began to brush the drywall dust off him.

“Here,” she muttered, going to the sink in the bathroom, wetting a cloth and bringing it to him. “Let me.”

With slow, deliberate motions, she began to wipe his exposed skin down. She patted down his pants until they were clean, and then had him sit, so she could better attack his arms, neck and head.

“You’re a mess,” she remarked, working away slowly, having to rinse the cloth fairly frequently.

“It’s a messy job,” he replied, his voice relaxed and calm.

Her fingers ran across his skin, feeling the tautness of it and the muscles that it strained to keep within its bounds. There was so much that she thought it was going to tear through the skin at any moment.

His back cleaned off, she moved slowly around to the front of him. His heavily hooded chestnut eyes followed her. Not her hands, as she might have expected, but her face. He watched her reactions as she worked on him. It was slightly unnerving, and yet Rosie also enjoyed it. He didn’t stare creepily, but instead with interest and caring.

It was a different sight than what she’d come to expect from him. Almost like he was opening up to her, now that they were both alone, and not in any sort of danger. Her fingers continued to brush against his skin, feeling the slight electrical tingle every time she did. The tension was noticeable, and for a long moment after she washed his face, Rosie had the biggest urge to kiss his thick, rose colored lips.

She was cleaning him off, and yet it was driving her wild. Kassian didn’t seem to be reacting at all, besides to express his thanks and relief at being clean. But there was none of the tension or pressure she was experiencing evident in his voice or his body. Was it so entirely one-sided?

Wait. Is what one-sided? Get a hold of yourself, girl. This is a friend, nothing else. You can’t let anything happen.

“So does this mean you’re going to let me help?” she asked at last, setting the cloth aside. “You’re as clean as you’re going to get without a shower.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

Rosie shrugged it off, standing back from where he sat, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. The part of it that was still standing at least.

“We’ll see if we can find a way for you to help,” he told her. “But I make no promises, understood? If we say you’re not to do something, then you don’t do it. Otherwise, we leave you behind.”

“Got it,” she said. “Thank you. I promise I won’t run off or anything. I just need to do something. The Institute has to be stopped. They can’t be allowed to breed your kind out of existence.”

Kassian nodded firmly. “It’ll take them centuries, probably. But they’ve already started, which none of us expected. They think big, I have to give them that.”

Rosie nodded. She knew that by combining male shifter DNA with female human DNA, the Institute were creating half-breeds. Unable to shift, but with slightly better health, healing, and strength. Not enough to truly be noticeable, but half-breeds comprised a lot of the best athletes and brightest minds in the human world, though not many were aware of it. They were still far more human than shifter. In time though, as the Institute eliminated shifters and brought the survivors into forced breeding camps, they would be able to do away with all the female shifters, and eventually the entire human population would be half-breed. Then they would get rid of the males as well. It was a long-term, rigorously planned genocide that was disguised as an effort to strengthen the human race.

No wonder so many vulnerable people were falling for it. Hell, it appeared even other shifters were falling for it, not understanding the long-term goals of the Institute. A chilly thought occurred to her. Maybe they understood the goals, and just didn’t care. They knew nothing would happen in their lifetime, and so were more interested in making a profit for themselves, so they could enjoy what time they had left.

Disgusting.

“I can’t believe I fell for it,” she said, only realizing when Kassian looked up at her that she’d spoken out loud.

“Fell for what?” he asked gruffly.

Rosie looked away, once again ashamed of herself.

“Hey.” His voice was just as deep, but some of the bite to it had faded. “It’s okay. Umm. You can tell me?”

If Rosie were watching Kassian from the outside looking in, instead of being a participant, she probably would have found his attempt to be comforting absolutely hysterical.

“You don’t have much experience being the tender one, do you?” she asked, looking at him from the corner of her vision.

After a long pause he shook his head. “That’s Keeny and Pipsqueak’s job.”

“Who?”

He waved his hand angrily. “Kean and Pierce. My younger brothers. They’re the ones with a nice streak in them.”

Her shame pushed to the side, Rosie twisted herself back against the wall to regard Kassian once more. “You aren’t nice?”

Shoulders the width of a bus rose and fell like the swells of a wave on the ocean. “It was never a necessary thing.”

Interesting. “Why not?”

He glared up at her. “What is this, a conversation or an interrogation?”

Rosie knew she was supposed to be intimidated by the look and the sudden bite in his tone. But she’d dealt with big talkers before. Kassian might get angry, but she had nothing to worry about from him. He wasn’t going to harm her.

“A conversation.” She leaned toward him. “Trust me, you don’t want to sit through one of my interrogations.”

The look on Kassian’s face as he tried to process whether she was joking or serious was priceless. The one that replaced it as she snickered…not so much. “Okay, okay, sorry,” she said. “I guess we don’t know each other’s sense of humor well enough for that.”

“Yet.”

Her eyebrows rose at the finality of that word. “Pardon?”

Kassian pushed himself off from the bed and headed toward the other room, ignoring her.

“Hey, excuse me!” she called, stepping through the makeshift opening, into what appeared to be the kitchen at the back of their room.

It was much larger than hers, she realized, stepping around the fridge that was in the middle of the floor. A glance behind her showed that the hole they’d punched through the room was actually behind the fridge. The electrical was off to the side, allowing a clear passage. Well isn’t that clever. They can hide the hole by putting the fridge back into place.

She reached out to grab Kassian by the shoulder to get an answer from him, but her hand froze in mid-air as someone knocked at the door. Kassian went rigid, and all the other shifters inhaled sharply, looking at one another.

“I take it that anyone knocking is likely to be an enemy,” she stated quietly.

Kassian just nodded. “You need to go.”

“What? No!” she protested, keeping her voice to a hiss.

For a moment Kassian looked like he was going to argue with her, but then he threw his hands in the air and stormed into the bedroom, closed off as it was from the rest of the space. One of the other shifters moved past her and pushed the fridge back into place, hiding all trace of the hole.

Then the tallest of them pointed at her. “Down,” he said, his stern face indicating he would take no argument.

None of the others looked ready to intervene, so she did as she was told, ducking down into a crouch on the floor, hidden from the front door by the counter peninsula. She thought about shuffling to the end and peeking around it, but decided she’d better not. Her right shoulder resting against one of the doors, she sat quietly, taking slow, quiet breaths, and listened as best she could.

The newcomer knocked again.

Are you going to answer it?!

She heard Kassian exit the bedroom, and moments later the door swung open.