A. Arthur - Shifter's Claim

“Those people that came to get me, they took me to the hospital and waited while I got fixed up,” Malik told her. “Then they took me back to Mama’s house and told me a nurse would come by to check on me and give me more pain pills if I needed them. You know the hospital wouldn’t give me a prescription.”

Priya nodded her agreement with the hospital’s decision. The last thing Malik needed was to become addicted to another drug.

“Then last night that nice girl came back with these plane tickets. She said you’d been hurt and that we should come and see you, to make you feel better,” Karen finished.

Priya’s hands shook as she listened to them, nodding. “That was very nice of them,” she said. “Very nice indeed.”

“The guy, I think his name is Eli, he said he might have a job for me at one of his barbershops. You know, as soon as I get myself cleaned up.”

Priya didn’t know who Eli was, but she presumed he was a shadow and that he too, was acting on Bas’s command. A part of her wanted to pick up the phone and call him to thank him once more. There was also the hope that the call would lead to a visit from Bas, and maybe, just maybe … No, it was foolish and she wouldn’t put herself through that again. This was the way Bas wanted things and she had to respect that, no matter how much it hurt.

“That would be great, Malik,” she told her brother.

“He’ll get cleaned up,” Karen began, reaching out a hand to take Malik’s in hers, then threading her fingers through Priya’s. “He’s going to get that job and you’re going to get better and come home and we’ll be just like we were before.”

Malik smiled, bending down to kiss his mother’s weathered cheek. Priya smiled also, reveling in the joy of having her family here and safe. Her life would be as it was before, only improved because Malik would be better and Karen would be happier. As for Priya, she would be just fine, she would have her job and her friend Lolo, just as she’d had before she’d met Bas. Before she’d known about Shadow Shifters and their secret society.

“So, what, are you like her personal Santa Claus now?” Rome asked from behind.

Bas stood at the hospital room door, looking through the narrow window at the reunion between Priya and her family. He’d called Nivea the day he left Priya in the hospital and asked her to check on Karen and Malik Drake. Sending the airline tickets was an afterthought, a consolation to Priya for all the unnecessary pain he’d caused her.

And none of it had soothed his guilt. Not until she hugged her brother and closed her eyes to the emotion of having him safe in her arms. Then Bas had felt satisfied, and almost happy himself.

“She deserves it after all she’s been through,” he said without turning to face his longtime friend.

“Eli told me about her brother and where they found him.”

Bas nodded. Eli had called him the morning after he and Nivea had found Malik Drake and given him more news he didn’t want to hear. “I was going to call a meeting before you left to go back home.”

“I can understand that things have been a little unsteady out here,” Rome said. “But I have to admit I’m trying like hell not to be bent out of shape with all your secrecy. Why didn’t you just tell me why she was hunting down the story? I could’ve helped sooner.”

At that Bas did turn. He walked past Rome to the waiting room down the hall from Priya’s room, stopping in front of a row of empty chairs.

“The moment she came here she became my problem. I needed to deal with her on my own,” he told Rome, who was already shaking his head in disagreement.

“To be quite honest, she’s been your problem since day one at that hotel,” Rome told him. “You’ve been protecting her ever since.”

Bas didn’t argue with that fact. “I knew she wasn’t going to stop until she got hurt. I couldn’t let that happen,” he said then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rather, I didn’t want to let that happen. I guess in the end I couldn’t really stop it.”

“You couldn’t stop falling in love with her or claiming her as your companheiro ?”

No, Bas thought. He was not going there, especially not with Rome, not here and definitely not now.

“Eli told you about the rogues and the owner of the house where he found Malik?” he asked, changing the subject.

Rome gave a slight smile, then nodded as if agreeing not to push Bas any further than he wanted to go. “Yeah, he told me. Bianca Adani is listed as the property owner.”

Bas nodded. “Which begs the question of why rogues were forcing Priya to expose us. All they had to do was shift in public and the task would be done.”

“That wouldn’t prove I was a shifter or that more existed and were trying to form a democracy here. Whoever was behind this wanted Priya to expose everything about the tribes, not just one side. And they definitely wanted me and my reputation to come crashing down with the story.”

“So this is all about you?” Bas asked. “And they call me the conceited one.”

Rome chuckled then, soliciting a grin from Bas.

“It’s about all of us and everything we stand for. Somebody doesn’t like it and doesn’t want us to succeed,” Rome told Bas.

After a few moments of silence Bas looked to Rome again. “He’s dead, Rome,” he said slowly.

Rome slipped his hands into his front pants pockets, shrugging as he said, “We have no proof of that.”

And they didn’t, which meant there was a good chance the rumor wasn’t true. And if that was the case, the situation with the shadows and the humans had just gotten ten times worse.

Washington, D.C.

Four weeks later

The latest shipment of guns had been late, but the savior drug was pulling in massive amounts of money each week. Enough so that Darel not only had a house in S.E. that they used for their headquarters, but he’d also purchased his own personal condo for times when he needed to get away from the day job. A month ago he’d been at full staff, in two locations. Now, he was only working one, not sure he should trust anyone to start again on the West Coast.

He’d sent one of his best fighters out there with Palermo and both of them had ended up dead. In fact, the entire crew out there had been wiped out, no doubt by those meddling shadows. But that was okay, Darel planned to keep right on building up his clientele on the East Coast. When it was time to venture out he would know, but for now, it was time to simply enjoy his money and the power he was gaining on the streets by keeping his workers armed sufficiently.

Darel paused the moment he walked through the door of his condo. Something wasn’t right. All of his furniture was where it should be, the entertainment center covering one wall in the living room with the couch and love seat facing that way, and the desk that ran along a side wall with the picture of Mount Rushmore hanging above it. Darel didn’t give a damn about the national monument, it was for humans, not him. But the picture was large enough to cover the hole in the wall that afforded him an unfettered view into his bedroom on the other side. The bedroom where he could hear someone.

Only three people knew about this place and one of them Darel didn’t trust as far as he could spit. Bianca had come into his life months ago with a haze of suspicion hovering around her. Seducing Sabar had been a part of a bigger plan for her, Darel had sensed that the moment he saw her. And he’d tried to warn Sabar, who, unfortunately, was too damned arrogant to heed the advice. That was when Darel decided to take matters into his own hands and now, as he came to a stop in the doorway of his bedroom, he would deal with the repercussions of that decision.