Kean

A trail of destruction followed them inside the perimeter of the facility. The five of them had charged the fence with their bears. Though it might have been made of thick metal chain-link, the posts crumpled easily under the force of nearly two thousand pounds of rampaging animal. An entire chunk of it lay flat, hundreds of feet wide as the brothers tried to make as big a bang as possible.

Now they were back in human form, and doing what they did best.

“Ahh, that was fun!” Pierce cackled as a utility shed collapsed behind him, unable to stand with its walls mostly missing.

“Here, help me,” Kean laughed.

Together they grabbed the ATV he’d taken from its prior occupants, lifted it above their heads, and tossed it through the wall of a nearby building. Metal screamed, and then the engine caught fire.

“Cover!” Kean yelped, and the two of them dove behind the nearest object they could, seconds before the ATV exploded, blowing out the side of the wall even further. Debris landed all around them as Pierce and Kean stood up slowly, admiring their damage.

“Oh,” Pierce said, subdued as the three-story building slowly collapsed.

“Oh.” Kean echoed, equally stunned. Then he grinned. “That was fun!”

“Over there!”

Kean whirled at the shout. A full squad of twelve soldiers were dashing in their direction, raising their weapons.

“Trouble!” he called, and ducked behind cover once again.

“I got this,” Pierce grinned. He stepped out from cover, tranquilizer guns in both hands. Laughing like a maniac, he lifted both weapons and began to fire.

Guards cried out and dove for cover, scattering under the withering fire. As they spread out, Pierce had a harder and harder time keeping them pinned. Finally he was forced to duck back behind the ruins of the shed he’d torn down earlier.

“Your turn, big brother!” he shouted.

Kean made to rise, but as the shouts started anew from the guards, he realized Pierce hadn’t been talking to him. Eventually he came to his feet anyway, his own stolen tranquilizer gun—one of several he had stashed all over his person by that point—tracking the first target he saw.

Which was Gavin, who was scampering along behind the guards, downing them as fast as he could.

“Showoff,” Kean muttered, targeting a guard hidden to Gavin and taking him down before he could shoot the rampaging shifter.

The squad accounted for, Gavin paused, glanced at the huge building they’d toppled.

“It was an accident,” Kean said, shrugging helplessly.

Gavin just stared at him.

“It was mostly an accident,” he said, revising his statement.

His brother grinned, then took off again without saying anything. Kean shook his head and gestured to Pierce. They moved deeper into the facility, becoming more cautious as they went. It wouldn’t be long now before they ran into a lot of coordinated resistance.

“Kean.”

He stopped on the spot as Pierce called out to him, his voice cold.

“Over there,” Pierce indicated.

Kean followed his gaze. What he saw left his stomach in knots. The blood in his veins ran like ice as he approached the figures on the ground.

“This wasn’t you or me,” he said, nudging the three women face-down on the ground, tranquilizer darts in their backs.

“It wasn’t Gavin either,” Pierce said, automatically vouching for their middle brother.

“Maximus,” he hissed, anger surging through him. “What the hell are those two up to?”

The five of them had split up when they entered the facility grounds, the better to spread havoc more thoroughly. Clearly Maximus and Kassian had pushed in faster than him and Pierce. Only now were the younger brothers seeing the results of their efforts.

“We need to stop them,” Kean said at last. “This can’t be allowed to continue. We may have to set these women free at some point. They need to trust us.”

Pierce simply nodded, his eyes hard.

From their left, down the horseshoe from them came the sound of women screaming. The pair exchanged a quick glance, and then took off in that direction. A guard came running out of a building into their path. Kean didn’t even slow down, he simply brought his tranq gun up and sent two darts into the guard as they passed. The force of the impacts stopped him cold, and the black-clad figure crumpled to the ground. By the time he lay still, the brothers were fifty feet farther down the dirt road that ran through the facility.

They rounded the corner of another residence-looking building, to find Kassian and Maximus standing in front of a group of women. To his relief, none of them were lying on the floor. But his anger flared as he saw the way they cowered before his older brothers.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?” he bellowed, coming to a halt, his gun pointed at Maximus.

To his right, Pierce followed suit, targeting Kassian.

The other two spun to face the sudden outburst. Maximus had a wild, almost feral look to his face, while Kassian, though still showing no signs of regret, looked slightly more under control. Neither of them moved as they realized that the two guns focused on them were unwavering, barrels leveled and extremely still.

“I said,” Kean repeated when neither of them spoke, “what is going on here?” He kept his voice much lower this time, now that he had everyone’s attention.

There was still no response, just burning anger deep within Maximus eyes that bespoke a wildness that Kean was afraid might never dissipate.

“Why are you tranquilizing the women?” he asked, his voice harder than steel.

Maximus spat in his direction. “They’re a threat,” he said, speaking at last.

Kean snorted sarcastically. “Come on, Maximus, even you can’t think I’ll believe that. The Great Maximus Koche,” he mocked, “threatened by a couple of 120-pound women? Human women? I should laugh in your face.”

His brother bristled, but Kean simply tightened his finger a little further around the trigger. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You fucked up, you got caught, and now you’re embarrassed and mad about it. I get it. So here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go back. Destroy whatever you want along the way, but you are to neither tranquilize, harm, nor terrorize any of the women here. Do anything short of extreme bodily harm or killing the guards. But leave. The women. Alone.” The last word came out like ice.

Maximus tensed, and for a long moment Kean thought he was going to rush him. But then Kassian reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Come on M, let’s go.”

The eldest Koche brother threw his arm aside with a loud growl and stomped off. Kassian didn’t glance back at him or Pierce as he followed, heading back the way they had come.

Kean sagged as soon as they were out of sight.

“Sorry,” he said, both to Pierce, for forcing him to take a stand against their brothers, and to the women.

Pierce just shrugged and watched their back. “It was the right thing to do.”

“You can go now,” Kean said to the women. “We’re not here for you.”

One of the women, who looked less frightened then the others, looked at him strangely. “We know that. What we don’t know is why are you here?”

Kean fumbled over his answer for a moment. How did they know the shifters weren’t there for them? They could just as easily have been coming to rescue the women as they were Raven. So why didn’t she seem upset about that either?

Unless…

“We’re here for one of our friends. The Institute took them prisoner.”

“A male then?”

Kean frowned. “Umm, yes? How do you know that? We could be here for one of you.”

The women glanced behind him. Kean turned to see more guards heading their way. They didn’t have much time.

“But we don’t need rescuing,” she said, backing away toward the door inside the nearest dormitory building that the other women had fled into. “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about any prisoners, but the Institute wouldn’t do that.”

She turned and ran.

“Wait!” Kean said, jogging after her.

“Kean, we need to go,” Pierce said warningly as he started to target the guards and either take them out, or send them ducking for cover.

“I’ll be right there!” he said, catching up to the women as she pulled the door open. “Wait, please.”

She turned to look back at him. “I need to go. Let me go, please. You’re going to get me in trouble.”

“I will,” he assured her.

“Kean!” Pierce shouted.

“Hold on!” he hollered, turning back to the woman. “Why are you here?”

She looked at him funny, as if Kean should have already known the answer. “To save everyone, of course. To help you survive. To help us survive.”

Then she slipped inside and was gone.

“KEAN!”

“WHAT?” he roared, turning and pulling a second tranquilizer gun—one of his last—from a strap around his neck.

He launched a fusillade of darts at an onrushing group of guards. Three of the four jerked and fell over. The last flung himself down immediately, avoiding the hailstorm of metal. Unfortunately, that also made him immobile. Kean lined him up, and then put a dart in his side as the guard tried to roll for cover.

“There’s more coming,” Pierce shouted. “At least two squads. They’re forming up down by the road entrance.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Time to go then I suppose. We can’t tangle with that many. I’m running out of darts.” Kean tossed one of his empty guns aside.

“We could always relieve these guards of theirs?” Pierce suggested, peering around the corner of the building and taking out two more guards as they approached.

“How many left awake?”

“Three, by my count.”

“Okay, cover me,” Kean said.

Without waiting for confirmation he dashed around the corner, charging the oncoming guards.