Andria
“They’re wolf shifters,” he said, as if it were matter-of-fact.
“Right. Wolf shifters. Um. Just how many different types of shifters are there?”
He looked at his brothers. “Good question. This is news to us as well. To our knowledge, there have only ever been dragon shifters. Perhaps as we dragons left the world, falling into sleep, another species of shifter rose to fill the gap?”
Andria looked around at the other two, noting the similarities between them as they nodded in agreement with Cowl. “These are your brothers, aren’t they?”
“Yeah. That one’s Ivore”—he pronounced it Eye-vor—"he’s the middle. The one with the ponytail is Caine. He’s big bro.”
Caine rolled his eyes.
Andria said hello. “Okay, next question.”
“Sure.”
“Why am I not freaking out? Why does this seem not all that out of the ordinary?”
Cowl chuckled. “You saw me change into a dragon. Wolves at least exist already. It’s not as far-fetched for this to be possible, after already having seen what I can change into.” He turned to look at the room.
For the first time she got a glimpse of his head where he’d been hit with the pipe. “Oh my God, Cowl. Your head.”
He shied away as she tried to look at it closer. “Please don’t touch it. I tried that already, and I blacked out. I don’t think that’ll happen again, but…let’s not take our chances.”
She nodded fearfully. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll heal. It’s just going to be a weak spot for a while. They hit me pretty damn hard with the pipe.” He shrugged, looking at the carnage. “But I think I got them back.”
Andria leaned into his chest, happy to be able to hold him. He was a calming point for her, like the eye of a hurricane, keeping her grounded and at ease despite the chaos surrounding them.
“All this time, Jake and his family were shifters. I still can’t believe it.”
“Me neither.” Cowl held her tight, but she could sense he was looking at his brothers. “This changes everything.”
“Does it?”
“Well, it makes a lot of things clearer.” He kissed the top of her head. “You said that the actions lately of Jake and his family were not what you were used to. Well, that would be the shifter in them acting.”
“What do you mean? The shifter in them? Had the wolf part been taking over, is that why he had been looking so terrible lately?”
“Image is everything to a shifter. This trial, that’s a big deal in this time, right?”
Andria nodded. “Yes, everyone knows about it.”
“Right. So this is about reputation. If there are other shifters out there, they’ll know about it. Hear about it. If Jack is expelled from school and sent to prison, well, the Malkin family will have lost face. A lot of it. Their name dragged through the mud. If they’re as powerful as you say they are, it stands to reason that they’re also powerful in the shifter community. If this goes through, they stand to become much weaker afterward. So, in their eyes, anything is worth stopping you, even violence. There was only one thing they didn’t count on.”
“What’s that?”
“Me.”
She shivered. All of that had been going on, and she hadn’t known. “And here I thought he’d just become a drug addict.”
Cowl didn’t say anything in response, but something about the silence was telling on its own.
“What is it, Cowl? What aren’t you telling me?” She looked at him, then at his brothers, all of whom had grim looks on their faces.
“A lot,” he said slowly. “About why we’re really in Barton City. I wasn’t going to, but I’m not sure we have a choice now.”
A chill ran down her spine. Cowl sounded more solemn and worried than at any point since she’d met the big man.
“Cowl, you’re scaring me.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here. There’s a military unit on its way from Fort Banner outside the city. They’ll round them up and take them.”
As if to emphasize his point, another man walked through the doorway. He was tall like the others, with a thick mane of black hair tied back. He wore a form-fitting black outfit that looked almost like a flightsuit.
“Vanek,” Cowl said with a nod of his head.
The newcomer surveyed the scene. “They’re infected, aren’t they?”
“Pretty sure, yes. They were taking a lot of purple pills. That was my first clue. I think we need to take them in, find out just what’s going on.”
Vanek nodded in agreement. “The Steel Scales will handle it from here. Thank you, you’ve done well. Go home.”
Andria let Cowl lead her from the room after they shook hands. She yelped and plastered herself into Cowl’s side as she nearly walked into the side of a massive suit of metal armor. It moved deftly out of her way, a metallic voice coming from a speaker that apologized.
There were three other similar suits spread out around the rest of the warehouse, all of which were facing outward. Guarding it. Two other men with the look of dragons to them walked the perimeter as well.
“Cowl, what’s going on?”
“Those men back there are infected with something not of our world,” he stated. “It makes them do bad things, and it also kills them. We don’t know how it’s spreading, but someone has been in contact with a being from another planet and is spreading it.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No. It only infects shifters, and it’s not airborne. As far as we can tell, it can’t spread from host to host. Each person has to be infected individually.”
Andria got it. “The drugs. That’s how it’s spreading.”
“It seems so. We fought and killed an infected dragon a few weeks back. We knew there was someone else out there, but we didn’t know who. Now we have a lead.”
“Jake isn’t a dealer,” she said immediately. “He’s not that type of guy.”
“No,” Cowl agreed. “But what about his father?”
Andria had no answer for that. They walked a few more paces.
“Wait. Did you just say that aliens exist?”