Mila

“So what do we do now?”

The six of them were sitting or leaning against the walls in the cabin. As it turned out, the exact cabin she’d rented before had been given to someone else for the week, but another one had been available.

They were all laid out the same, so it didn’t matter. They had privacy, and they were also hours away from the city, firmly ensconced in nature. She eyed the shifters.

Kean and Gavin were leaning against the far wall, looking to their older brothers for support. Neither of them had contributed much to the discussion, deferring mostly to what Kassian and Pierce said.

The two elder brothers, who also happened to be the ringleaders she gathered, were sitting at the two other chairs arrayed around the small table. Neither of them had an immediate answer to her question.

Pierce did though. She eyed her mate as he spoke—it was still weird to think of him as that, but she couldn’t deny the connection they felt—admiring the way he didn’t back down in the presence of his older brothers, men he had deferred to for much of his life.

It had been two days since their escape from the Institute, and they’d spent most of that time recovering and explaining to the others what had happened during the interval between them being taken, and she and Pierce coming to their rescue. Nobody had spoken much about the next steps. But it was time. Something had to be finalized; they couldn’t stay there forever.

“We should find out more about this Institute. We may not be the only ones they had imprisoned,” Pierce was saying.

“Screw the Institute. Let’s go back to Cadia. This isn’t our fight.” Kassian’s eyes were hard as he looked around at the others, daring anyone to challenge him.

“Considering they involved us, I’d say it is our fight,” Pierce shot back.

“Tell that to your girlfriend,” Kassian spat. “She’s the one who kidnapped us.”

Pierce’s growl filled the room. “Mila was only acting on orders. Orders which she then disobeyed to rescue your dumb ass. So stop being such a dick.”

Kassian looked ready to stand up and fight Pierce, who was lounging against the kitchen counter looking nonplussed about the whole thing.

“We don’t know anything about the Institute,” Gavin said, breaking into the conversation at last with something that neither went against Kassian, nor supported Pierce. “All we know is what Mila could tell us. That they’re powerful, with a lot of fingers in various parts of the government, but not a huge amount of actual personnel or resources. They operate on the backs of others. But that could mean a lot of trouble if we go after them.”

Kean pushed off the wall. Mila watched, fascinated as the younger brothers began to speak, almost as if inspired by Pierce’s mini-rebellion.

“The Institute came after us. Sure, we gave them a bloody nose. But they’re not going to stop. They wanted us to eventually come to like them. To want to work with them. We never found out why, but there has to be a reason for it. Something. They already had those other shifters allied with them.”

“I don’t like the idea of Kronum being allied with the humans,” Pierce put in, referencing the small shifter territory to the east of Longhorne, on the opposite side of the human city as Cadia.

Mila took it all in. “I don’t think Kronum is allied with them. I have no proof, but I’m willing to bet that they just kidnapped a few shifters from there, like they did with you, and eventually turned them into allies.”

Pierce snarled silently at the thought. “They’ll keep trying to take more shifters if we don’t do something about it.”

“What are we going to do, Pierce?” Maximus said at last. “We know where one of their buildings are, and they’re likely to vacate it now that we’ve escaped from the facility. We have nothing to go on, no intelligence, no way to bring them to heel. We can’t kill them, so all we can do is knock ‘em unconscious. That doesn’t stop them.”

Pierce opened his mouth to speak, but Mila whirled as someone else spoke first.

“Perhaps I can help with that.”

The shifters were on their feet in an instant, and Pierce was suddenly between Mila and the speaker. She hadn’t even seen him move.

“Who are you?” her mate said, his voice a deep-throated growl that she’d come to realize meant he was ready to fight.

Something told her that wasn’t the right instinct just then though.

So Mila, against a large portion of logic, gently stepped in front of Pierce, so that she could see the stranger.

“My name is Madison Kerber,” said the blonde woman standing in the doorway.

Mila regarded her and her above-average height, piercing blue eyes. The woman was dressed for efficiency, not fashion. Boots suitable for athletic activity—including combat—came up to just below her knees and were tucked into a pair of dark blue pants made of something sturdier than denim. A dark-brown utility belt was buckled around her waist, barely visible under the long jacket she wore, also obscuring much of the black form-fitting shirt underneath as well.

It was an impressive look, all sharp lines and neat cuts. Nor was it something that she’d just donned either. Mila could see that she wore the clothing comfortably, was used to it, and moved within it like an animal in its own skin.

One of the other shifters made a strangled noise, but Mila tuned him out, focusing on the woman who had managed to sneak up not only on her, but on six alert shifters as well. That was no mean feat.

“Is that name supposed to mean something?” she asked, trying not to sound too snarky.

The woman was keeping her hands away from her sides and standing very still, not exuding any threat warnings at all. She clearly knew she was standing on very slippery water.

“Probably not,” Madison replied. “In fact, you likely know nothing about me or who I work for.”

“Then why should we care?” Pierce asked, speaking before Mila could voice the same question.

“Because I represent a group who wants to take down the Institute just as badly as you do.”

Maximus, who had moved up next to Pierce, snickered lightly. “Lady, you are barking up the wrong tree. We’re not interested in taking on the Institute.”

The blonde eyed Maximus skeptically, and then slowly—very slowly—reached into the left pocket of her jacket, using only two fingers. When she emerged, they held nothing but a piece of paper.

“When you change your mind, call me,” she said. A flick of her wrist sent the card whirling across the room, where Pierce snatched it out of mid-air with contemptuous ease.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Madison smiled knowingly, offered a mild curtsy, and then backed out of the door.

There was nothing but silence for the first few minutes. Then someone breathed deeply.

“Who was she?” Kean asked dreamily.

“Keener Kean is in love again,” Kassian said with a snort. “Though this time I think he’s met his match.”

The other shifters chuckled. Mila just assumed that meant Kean often found himself obsessing over random women who walked into his life, with little to no luck at wooing them.

Pierce was slowly turning the card over in his hand.

“Well, that was interesting,” he said at last.

Mila watched him pocket the card, a thoughtful expression on his face.