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Sophie smoothed her hand over the map she’d created. It lay stretched across a worn kitchen table. They’d managed to rent a house for a few days, allowing all seven of them to stay under one roof so they could devise their plan. “Their weak points are here and here.” She tapped where the general housing was on the picture.
“We could break into teams of two. One group focuses on the houses, setting off explosives to draw attention to the area. The other group goes here.” She swiped her hand to the far end of her map. “This is where they hold their prisoners. And the hospital is right here.” She moved her finger again, tapping on the building that was only a few thousand feet from where the prisoners were kept. “If the distraction is big enough we should be able to get to both buildings, but I’ll warn you most if not all of the shifters at the hospital complex will probably be beyond saving.”
“How many shifters do you think there are?” Theodore asked.
“Between the two facilities, hundreds. The majority will be in the hospital. They’re broken into different wings depending on shifter breed and what experiments are being done. What condition they’re in is anyone’s guess, especially the ones who are in the hospital. But I’m betting if they’re able to fight, they will. If someone had given me a chance to run, I would’ve.” The first chance she’d had to run, she had. Callum, Eden and Xander were the first and only group to ever make any headway, but after speaking with the other couple she knew why. It hadn’t been a stroke of luck. The hunters had allowed it to happen, hoping the pair would complete their bond without anyone else around. Their plan had worked – partially. The couple had found the extra trackers in their arms and successfully evaded the hunters following them.
“What kind of security measures do they have?” Callum asked, drawing her from her thoughts.
Sophie glanced up at Callum. Her heart fluttered at the intent look in his eyes. “The prisoners who are capable of fighting will be held in cells similar to the ones we were in. I was in that wing when Lou was selecting his patients. The exterior of the building has a pin code to get in, but once we’re in it should be easy. It’s just a turnkey lock throughout the rest of the building. We should be able to get them out without issue.”
“What about exterior door locks?” Xander asked. “We’ll need a password. Otherwise we’ll have to blow them up, which will draw unwanted attention to the rescue team.”
Sophie drew in a deep breath. “I have a passcode. Let’s pray they never revoked Lou’s access after his death.” If they’d turned the passcode off then they were royally screwed. She didn’t think they’d shut him out of the system since they weren’t overly concerned with internal security, but there was no way to be certain until they got there.
It was a risk they were going to have to take. No one would be safe as long as the hunters were out there. They might not take all of them out, but they would definitely set them back by taking out their main facility. Baby Serena was the only family she had and she wanted to make sure the infant – hell, any shifter child – had a safe world to grow up in. No one should have to endure the years of captivity and abuse she and Serena had.
“I think this is as good a plan as any,” Nate said as he passed out pieces of paper. “I made a list of supplies for each of us and put the address of a nearby store on each one. We’ll break into groups of two or three. Tess, Theodore, and me, Xander and Eden, and Sophie and Callum. Each of us will buy different components to make homemade bombs. Hopefully by splitting the list down and going to different stores, we won’t draw any unwanted attention to ourselves. Questions?”
Everyone shook their head. Nate nodded at them. “All right, let’s get going. Be back in two hours. We need to set up everything and hit the road if we’re going to do this at dawn tomorrow.”
Sophie stood up and rocked onto the balls of her feet, stretching.
“You ready?” Callum asked as everyone else filed out of the room, setting off to do their errands.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and met his gaze. “I don’t know. In theory it makes sense, but...” She wanted the plan to work, but she knew if they failed she would be a prisoner again. No one would be able to protect her from the hunters this time.
“It will work,” Callum said.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked, wishing she had the hope he did.
“They won’t see it coming. We’ve never gone after them like this before. I’m not sure any shifter has,” Callum said as he strode to her. He reached out, tugging her arms until she was pressed firmly against his solid chest. “We have the true element of surprise.”
Callum was right. She’d never heard of any shifters attacking the hunters, and she’d lived with them for a long time. “It’s still dangerous,” she said. They could die, or worse, be captured.
“It is. You don’t have to do this, you know? Anyone can type in Lou’s code,” Callum said, pulling back so he could tilt her chin up. “We could make arrangements for us to go back to Sanctuary so we can be safe. Then we could look after your niece. I’m sure you’re anxious to meet her.”
Sophie looked away for a moment, then met his eyes again. It was tempting to take his offer. The idea that he would turn tail and return to Sanctuary without question was thoughtful, but she couldn’t do it. “I do have to do this. Hunters have taken so much from me – from my family – from everyone. We’ll never be safe if we don’t do something. My niece could live as a prisoner like her mother did, suffering the same fate if we don’t do this. I won’t allow that to happen. I know Lou’s code and the way around the facility. I have to go.”
He nodded, then leaned forward and placed a kiss against her forehead. She closed her eyes and relaxed into his embrace again.
“When this is over, we’ll go to Sanctuary so you can meet Serena. I know you want to go there now, but I admire your courage to stay and see this through,” Callum said.
She squeezed her eyes shut as a fleeting thought raced through her. If they failed, or if she died, she’d never see the infant. That wasn’t going to happen. She was determined to hold the child in her arms and be a parent to the baby, ensuring that Serena’s daughter had a happy and full life.
“We’re going to get through this together,” Callum said as if he’d read her mind. She believed his words. When she was with him she felt strong, like she could do anything.
It was a long moment before Callum finally released her from his embrace. “Come on, we should get going.”
“Let’s do this.” She gave herself a mental shake then went into the front room, grabbing her jacket from a hook on the wall. Callum opened the door and motioned for her to go first.
“Have you ever done anything like this before?” Sophie asked as she stepped out into the icy air. She hugged herself, the cold biting into her despite the jacket she wore.
“Not quite like this. But Nate, Xander, and myself have been in some bad spots before.” Callum slipped his hand into hers and together they bounded down the front steps.
“Have you ever,” she inhaled and lowered her voice, “made bombs before?”
“No. It’s something we learned before going out on rescue missions, one of the older council members used to work in the nuclear physics field. He’s the one that taught us, but we never thought we’d have to use it. I think all shifters prefer to fight in their animal form than to use crude human tactics. But in an instance like this, where we are grossly outnumbered, we have to consider alternatives.”
“So what exactly do you do?” Sophie asked, realizing she had no idea how Sanctuary worked.
“There’s a small team of us at Sanctuary that answers distress calls. We meet up with communities or shifters who are under attack and rescue them, bringing them back to Sanctuary or helping them relocate to someplace safer when possible,” Callum said.
“Sounds very noble.” And dangerous, she added in her head.
“I lost my entire family. I don’t want others to suffer the same way that I did.”
“Are there many teams?” she asked, casting a quick glance at Callum.
“No. Nate, Xander, and I make up one of about five teams. Most people choose to stay in the comfort of Sanctuary’s walls, too afraid to go back out.”
“Why? Why don’t we fight back?” Sophie asked as they rounded a corner. Most of the shifters she’d observed under Lou’s care begged instead of fighting against the horrific experiments. It had always puzzled her that no one ever tried to fight back. Maybe that was why the wolf had taken Lou by surprise, he’d gotten too used to submissive patients that he hadn’t even thought to restrain his murderer.
“Up until the past decade or so, the tactic of going to ground and hiding worked for a lot of shifters. I think so many still think they can run and hide to avoid a confrontation. Even if we could convince people to fight, I fear our numbers have dwindled too much to make much of a difference.”
“Is it that bad?” Sophie asked quietly. There had seemed to be no shortage of shifter prisoners at the facilities she was held at.
“I think so. Sanctuary is the largest community I know of, but even still, we’re only a few hundred. It seems the hunters have grown rapidly in numbers.”
“They had a reproductive initiative twenty-five years or so ago. I remember reading about it in some of Lou’s paperwork.” The hunters had been ordered to procreate at all costs. It had worked, too. There were thousands of hunters near her and Callum’s age.
“Fantastic. Not only are we being killed, but I’m not sure how reproduction works across different species of shifters,” Callum said.
Sophie drew in a deep breath. “Lou wondered this, too. He let me read his notes a lot to make sure they made sense before he presented it to his superiors. He’d come across several mated couples of different species. It was his conclusion that as long as the female had her heat cycle, she could still conceive. Shifter DNA is similar across all species due to our combined human DNA. The only difference is the strand that marks us with our animal counterpart. He thought that a true mated pair would create offspring. The child would inherit one of the shifter traits from its parents. For example if we were to, uh, have children, one could be a bear and the other a tiger. It would just depend on which gene the child inherited.”
“Interesting,” Callum said.
“Yeah.” If she and Callum did complete the bond, they could have little bears or tigers running around. Her thoughts drifted to little Serena. She already had an infant to take care of. Even if Callum accepted their bond and wanted to explore it, there was still the issue of Serena. Would he want to care for a child that wasn’t his own?
“We’re here,” Callum said, drawing her out of her thoughts as he led them under an awning and into a small convenience store.
One thing at a time, she thought. First they had to finish off the hunter compound, than she could worry about her future with Callum.
***
Callum carefully poured the powder into the plastic bottle in front of him. The kitchen table where he worked was nowhere near big enough for everything, but they were making it work. He and the guys were working on making the bombs while Sophie and the other women went to pick up dinner from a carryout down the street.
If they weren’t still in the mass of the city he would be nervous letting them go alone. Hunters traveled in groups and there were only three of them, but with millions of people around, hunters wouldn’t do anything to draw attention. If there was one thing hunters and shifters agreed upon, it was keeping their community a secret.
“So, you and the tiger, huh?” Xander started as he twisted the lid on a bottle and carefully set into a box on the floor.
“Yeah. We haven’t completed the bond yet,” he said as he finished his bottle.
“Why not?” Xander asked.
“Not everyone is like you and Eden,” Nate said with a roll of his eyes. “When you’re not expecting it to happen, it’s kind of a shock.”
Callum nodded his head in agreement. It had been a good surprise, but one nevertheless. “I’d pretty much assumed I’d live a life of solitude. I don’t know of any other bear shifters. But I’m glad it happened. She’s a good person who’s been through a lot. I just hope that I can keep her safe and make her happy.”
“Did you ever find out how long she was with the hunters?” Xander asked.
Callum gnashed his teeth together. His hands trembling with anger as he recalled her words. “Since she was a kid. They abducted her and her sister and killed the rest of her family. She was with the hunters for years,” he said with a growl. He prepped another bottle. The hunters were going to get what was coming to them for hurting her.
“You’re sure she’s really on our side, right?” Xander’s voice dropped, but his eyes darted up to meet Callum’s.
Callum bristled at the question, even though in the back of his mind he knew it was a valid concern for his friend. “You may have seen her sister, but you don’t know what they did to her. Sophie hates them just as much as any of us. I think it’s safe to say she’s suffered more by their hands than any of us, even considering what we’ve lost.”
“I agree,” Theodore said, joining the conversation for the first time. “I’m pretty good at reading people, and I don’t sense any deception from her.”
“And this Lou guy she talks about? He’s not going to be a problem, is he?” Nate asked.
Callum looked between his two friends. “He’s dead.” The man might have been decent to Sophie, but Callum was glad he was already deceased. After everything, they couldn’t afford to leave any hunters alive.
“Good,” Xander said.
“So, what’s stopping you from completing the bond?” Theodore asked, changing the subject.
Callum stopped what he was doing and looked at the Theodore. “It came as a surprise to us both. I don’t want to push her. She’s been so sheltered her whole life and everything that’s happening now is new, different, and exciting. I’d hate for her to have any regrets by rushing into anything.”
“Fate doesn’t mess up. If you guys have the mark, she’s the only woman you’re ever going to love,” Theodore said.
“The leopard shifters are pretty big advocates for true pairings,” Nate explained. “They’ve seen more of them then anyone at Sanctuary has.”
“Probably because we don’t put restrictions on who can and cannot be together,” Theodore said.
Xander sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face before setting another bottle in the box. “I think the council is finally moving in the right direction.”
Nate put his hand on Xander’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I hope so, for all our sakes.”
“How did your pairings go over with everyone back home?” Callum asked curiously. He didn’t have any family on the council like the two wolves did, but he knew interspecies dating was prohibited.
“Not well,” Xander said beneath his breath. “My parents plotted to kill Eden.”
“I’m sorry,” Callum said.
“Me too,” Nate said as he picked up another bottle. “My parents were surprisingly okay with it for the most part. It’s going to take my mom some time, but she’s coming around. I think her problem is more with the feud with the cats than it being an interspecies relationship. And Tess’ family, well...” He trailed off and motioned to Theodore.
Theodore grinned and clapped Nate on the back. “We couldn’t be happier that our sister found true love.”
Callum chuckled and went back to work on his project. He’d lost count of how many bombs they’d put together, he just hoped it would be enough to have the effect they wanted.
“What did your mom have to say when you told her the plan?” Xander asked, changing the subject yet again.
Nate blew out a breath. “She wasn’t thrilled by it. In fact, she told me to abort and come straight home. She thinks we’re on our way back to Sanctuary.”
“You didn’t tell her we were going through with it?” Xander asked.
Nate shook his head. “She ordered us back before I could finish telling her about it. You know my mom. When she sets her mind to something, it’s hard to change it.”
“Are you sure you still want to do this?” Theodore asked.
“We have to do this,” Nate said. “Tess is right. If we go back to Sanctuary, it could be weeks or longer before we gather people to come back. Who knows what could happen in that time. Now is the time to strike when they are least suspecting it.”
Nate put both hands on the table and looked down at it. “If anyone wants to go back, I’ll understand. This isn’t sanctioned, and there likely won’t be a rescue if this goes horribly wrong.”
Callum finished pouring the powder into his bottle as he contemplated his response. His words to Sophie earlier and her response resounded in his mind. “We’re all in this together. It has to end, and I have a good feeling about this plan.”
“We’ll only get one shot at this, let’s make this count,” Theodore said.
“This should be more than just a rescue mission. We should destroy the entire town. Rescue the shifters we can and burn everything to the ground,” Xander said.
“We’ll need to do three groups for that, then,” Nate said. “Theodore, Tess, and I will handle the distraction, but then two of you will have to lead the prisoners to the rendezvous the other two will have to set off more explosions to level the city.”
“Callum and I will handle destroying the city,” Xander said. He met Callum’s gaze. “If that’s okay with you.”
Callum inclined his head.
“We don’t have enough bombs,” Nate said as he looked at their small stash.
“We don’t need more,” Xander said. “There are some mason jars in the cupboard. If we fill them up with gas, it should help make sure the fire from the initial explosions spreads to the rest of the buildings.”
“I doubt either woman is going to like it,” Theodore said quietly.
“I know,” Xander said. “But Eden isn’t trained for fighting like Callum and I are, and Sophie is the one who knows the facility the best. We’ll rescue the shifters from the prison and then split up. Callum and I will spread the gas and visit the hospital. If it’s like the one Eden and I went to, there won’t be anyone to save. It’s what makes sense.”
It did make sense. Hopefully Sophie and Eden would agree. He had no idea if he was making the right choice or not, but he could only hope. Sophie was his true mate. Whether they were fully ready to admit it or not, there was no way he was letting anything happen to her. The only way to ensure her safety was to end the hunters once and for all. Hopefully they’d both walk away from the fight unscathed, along with their friends.