Harden
The two of them eventually got out of bed, showered—again—and got dressed. Erika’s clothes were dry by now, no sign of stains from the previous night. He put on a new outfit. The blood-stained clothing he’d worn had gone straight to the trash. It had just been too soaked to bother trying to save. The only thing he’d kept had been the boots. They would clean up. In the meantime he was forced to wear his dress shoes, creating a rather odd ensemble.
“I’m nervous,” Erika said, slipping her hand into his as they exited the room and began walking down the double-wide corridor toward the staircases.
“Me too, but I don’t think we really have much to worry about. Andrew is a good man, fair and trustworthy. I may have to accept punishment for shifting within the city, but I suspect it won’t be much. Especially if no one complained.”
“I hope so.”
“It will be okay my love, my mate. We’ve made it through the hard part.”
She looked up at him, confusion wrought on her face. “What? How can you say that? Aren’t his parents or whoever going to be furious that you killed their son? Aren’t they going to come after you with a vengeance?”
Harden thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
Erika goggled at him. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to explain this one to me. It must be another little ‘quirk’ of shifter society that I don’t understand. They’re just going to let it slide?”
“No, I don’t think so.” He smiled mysteriously.
“You had better start making sense, mister, or you’re not going to be having any more of what happened this morning.”
Harden put on a distraught face, but he wasn’t worried. Erika had enjoyed herself just as much as he. They were too in love to hold out on each other. But still, he took pity on her. She didn’t know what he’d discovered the other night.
“I went in search of answers to my questions about living in Cloud Lake, but outside of Cadian jurisdiction, for the most part.”
“I thought you were going to go talk to Andrew about that?”
“I was.” And so he told her his story about the office being empty, and how he had gone out wandering into the streets of Cloud Lake.
“Wait, you came across the same people that rescued you from the Institute?”
He nodded quickly. “I know. What the hell are the odds of that?”
“Pretty minute,” she agreed thoughtfully. “You’re thinking that Andrew is going to set up something like that for us?”
“Something like that,” he said, dodging her playful swat.
“You’re holding out on me, mister,” she said with a pout.
Harden grinned. “Maybe a little. Come on my love,” he said, dragging her hand after his and descending the stairs.
There were more guards on duty this time he noticed. To his knowledge Andrew only had three available to him, so the others must be volunteers. Many of the bear shifters in town were members of the Green Bearets, the military arm of the bear shifters. It probably wasn’t hard to find volunteers.
The pair made their way into Andrew’s office, only pausing at the door long enough to knock and listen for the terse “enter” that swiftly followed. Andrew was sitting at his desk, nothing in front of him. He’d been waiting for them. The unimpressed look on his face gave Harden pause, and he wondered if perhaps something had come up, an unexpected change of plans.
“Sit,” Andrew said, gesturing for them to sit in the chairs facing his desk.
Harden guided Erika to a seat and made sure she was comfortable before he sat carefully, listening to the wood creak under him. It held steady though, and he tried to affect an air of relaxation that he didn’t truly feel. The gryphon shifter was making him nervous. Things were supposed to go smoothly, he’d been assured of it.
Behind them he heard footsteps. Gray entered the room, nodding first at Andrew and then in Harden and Erika’s direction. He took up a post at the door, hands clasped in front of him.
“What’s going on?” Erika asked, sensing the tension in the room, though it wasn’t exactly a miraculous feat. The small four-sided space practically seethed with it.
Andrew leaned forward on his desk and steepled his fingers together in front of him like the roof of a house. “This whole debacle has made my life tough,” he said without preamble. “You’ve made me enemies. Enemies who won’t rest now. Angelo was well connected. His brother Al is going to make things incredibly difficult for me now, and will likely mount a campaign to come for my job.”
Harden opened his mouth to apologize, but Andrew kept speaking.
“Don’t,” he said. “I have no regrets about what I did. I just needed someone new to complain to. Gray is sick and tired of listening to me.”
The bear shifter standing guard smiled thinly.
“Besides, it will be some time before they mount an attack on me. I will hopefully have a chance to mount a defense and solidify my position here.” He snorted. “They screwed the pooch by making this position out to be a powerless one of exile. So they’ll have to undermine that lingering viewpoint back home before they come after me.”
“Either way, we’re sorry that you’re going to catch flak for it,” Erika said from at his side, speaking before he could gather his thoughts.
“That’s appreciated, but not the reason we’re having this meeting, now is it?”
Harden shook his head, giving Erika’s hand a silencing squeeze as she started to speak again. He hated to cut her off, but she didn’t know everything just yet. For that matter, neither did Andrew.
“No, it’s not,” he said into the quiet that filled the room. “We need to decide what to do about us.” He tilted his head in Erika’s direction to indicate the both of them.
“Precisely. You’ve caused quite an incident back home. Or will, I suppose, once word reaches them. The phone line back home has mysteriously gone down,” he said with a careless shrug. “Shame. It really is quite temperamental. I’m sure it’ll be fixed in a day or three.”
Harden smiled. Andrew was on their side. The confirmation that he’d delayed word of Angelo’s demise getting back to Cadia itself was all the proof he needed. The odds were fairly good that he would support them, but Harden wasn’t willing to count on anything until he had proof.
“So now, the question remains, what do we do about you?”
“We disappear,” Harden said.
Andrew’s forehead wrinkled in surprise. “Well, that would be convenient. But the two of you are currently subsisting on Cadian funds and mercy, to put it bluntly. What, exactly, is your plan?”
Harden turned in his seat to look at Gray. “Did you make that call like I asked?”
“I did.”
The gryphon shifter looked at his personal guard. “You made a call? Without informing me?”
“Not to Cadia sir,” Gray said, then looked back at Harden.
The wolf shifter nodded his okay, and the bear shifter opened the door, made a gesture, and then held it open as someone else walked into the office. Andrew immediately shook his head, containing his laughter to a few bounces of his shoulders.
“I should have known you would come meddle in the middle of this,” he said, reaching across the table to shake the hand of the giant who had just walked in.
“What’s going on?” Erika asked in confusion, looking around the room.
“Erika,” Harden said. “Meet Maximus Koche. Maximus, meet Erika. My mate.”
“A pleasure,” the walking tank rumbled, taking her hand, his grip dwarfing it. “I have heard much about you. Almost all of it good.”
Erika gave Harden a mock glare for not speaking all good, and the entire room laughed, much of the tension rushing out as they did.
“So why are you here, Maximus?” Andrew asked, leaning back.
“They’re coming with me.”
“Who will shelter and feed them?”
“We will. My brothers and I.” He shrugged. “I seem to be making a habit of rescuing Harden from sticky situations. Wouldn’t want to let him down this time.”
The others shared a laugh at his expense.
“Don’t commit to that just yet,” he said as the noise died down.
Maximus gave him a quizzical glance.
“I need to modify my agreement.”
The huge shifter, his joker tattoo sticking out from under his right sleeve, regarded Harden for several long moments, then he seemed to nod in understanding. “The others.”
“The others,” he confirmed.
“Ummm, hello,” Erika said from next to him. “What others? What agreement?”
Maximus smiled. “I told Harden here that you would come and live with us for a bit, before we could secure you the funds and property to build your own place, with us, on the outskirts of town.”
“You did?” Erika asked, shocked. “That’s unbelievably generous of you.”
The eldest Koche brother smiled. “My brothers and I have been rather lucky, and we are not in need of all of our wealth. We’re not in the habit of giving it away, but this appears to be a worthy cause. If you were back in his homeland, Harden here would shower you with gifts, spoil you, and build you whatever house you wanted. That was cruelly taken from him, despite desperate efforts on his behalf to get it back. This is the least we can do.”
Erika swallowed, and he wrapped an arm around his mate as her emotions got the better of her, robbing her of even a witty comeback.
“Only if the others can come,” Harden said. “Otherwise, thank you for your offer, but I must politely decline.”
Maximus shook his head, chiding him. “You do not truly think I, of all people, would ask you to leave one of your brothers behind?” He nodded. “Of course they are welcome with us.” The shifter turned to regard Andrew. “Make it so. Once they are healthy, bring them to Cloud Lake. We will take care of them and ensure that they don’t garner notice.”
“I’m not sure I can prevent people from finding him or you eventually,” Andrew said. “They might come after you.”
Harden watched Maximus grin, a feral, wicked thing. “Let them try. I’ll remind them of what I did to the last people that threatened my family. I’m sure they can read about the Institute in a history book somewhere.”
“I like him,” Erika said after a second, recovered enough to drop the one-liner.
That’s my girl.