Oscar returned to his armchair and leaned toward her, his body now visibly tense. “You need to be extremely careful, Aspen. If the SEA learns you’re a Myriad, they’ll come after you with everything they’ve got. You should know I’m now sworn to protect you. My pack, Skye, the doctor—all Shrouds—we’re sworn to keep you safe, no matter the cost to our own lives.”
Aspen cringed at the thought of someone risking their life for hers. Her life wasn’t more important than anyone else’s. No wonder the doctor was so grumpy. Tonight’s events made sense now. Tora must have seen her yellow eyes when they shook hands in the hospital and figured out she was a Myriad. That’s why Tora circled her when they met, just like Oscar had. That’s probably also why she’d made the decision to help. It wasn’t Skye she was protecting. It was Aspen.
“I’m no more important than you, Skye, Tora, or anyone else,” she argued. “Besides, I don’t need your protection. You know I can take care of myself.”
“That’s the law of our people, Aspen. You’re one of us. And as a Myriad, you’re the last of your kind and extremely valuable. You have a duty to every Shroud on this earth to do whatever it takes to stay alive.”
“You’re a Myriad?” Skye asked, stepping into the living room. “Like…whoa.” She made the gesture—along with rather impressive sound effects—of her mind being blown.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t even know how to shapeshift yet.”
No longer confined to the body of a lioness, the doctor stepped forward. “You don’t know how to shapeshift?” Tora was wearing the same blue hospital scrubs and charcoal gray Adidas sneakers from earlier. Dr. Madigan was stitched in black thread on the breast pocket of her white lab coat.
A new question arose in Aspen’s mind. How did Skye and the doctor shift back into their clothes? “Welcome back from the dead. And thanks for this, by the way.” Aspen pointed to the goose egg on her head. “Oscar here was just telling me I’m the chosen one. You’re required by law to protect me, not give me a concussion.”
Ignoring Aspen altogether, Tora directed her question to Oscar from across the room. “How can she be a Myriad if she’s never even shapeshifted?”
Oscar briefed Tora and Skye on his recent revelations as they both settled on the sofa across from Aspen. She studied each of them as they sat in rapt attention.
Tora’s posture was rigid as she listened with the expression of a professional poker player. Her hair was still braided down her back with several loose curls tucked behind one ear. Makeup-free, she was the embodiment of fresh-faced radiance and raw beauty. Amber-gold eyes were her most striking feature. Aspen let her eyes roam Tora’s body. Her legs were crossed at the thigh, her arms folded protectively across her chest. Even in hospital scrubs, her lean frame and feminine curves were visible. She was both elegant and fierce, all in one breath.
Skye, on the other hand, was an open book as she leaned forward, her expression full of hope, innocence, and wonder. Watching the girl, Aspen was reminded of the feeling she had as they shared candy on the rooftop earlier that evening. There was something special about Skye, something that transcended their shared traumas and shapeshifting abilities. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was exactly, but her instincts insisted it was there. She also felt strongly that it—whatever it was—would be revealed soon.
Aspen let her gaze fall away and return to Oscar as he finished relaying her story. The room grew quiet as they processed his words.
Tora was the first to break the silence. “We need to relocate. Tonight.”
“Why?” Aspen asked. “No one knows I came here.”
“The SEA knows you have Skye. By now, they’ve figured out Oscar adopted you. They’re following the trail and figuring out exactly who you are as we speak. This will be one of the first places they visit.”
Oscar nodded in agreement. “She’s right. They’re coming for all of us, whether we like it or not. We need to get you someplace safe.”
“I can take you to a sanctuary a few hours from here,” Tora offered. “You’ll be safe there. We should leave tonight.”
“Fine. But where I go, Skye goes. She stays with me.” Aspen couldn’t explain it, but she was overcome with a powerful maternal instinct toward Skye. Like a lightning bolt illuminating the dark night sky, she saw her purpose clearly for the first time: she needed to protect the girl at all costs. Skye was not only special, but she was important somehow in the big picture.
Tora uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Now’s not the time to let sentiment cloud your judgment.”
Aspen met her fiery gaze head on. “I’m not.”
“Then give me a reason for your request.”
“It’s not a request. And I don’t need to give you a reason for anything.” Aspen couldn’t believe she’d willingly relinquished her Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to this woman.
They stared each other down. Neither she nor Tora budged.
Oscar cleared his throat. “What is it you’re not telling us, Aspen?”
Good old Oscar. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, as usual. She broke the stare down and diverted her attention to him. “You said Myriads have unique abilities.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“I know Skye’s important. I don’t know why yet, but I’m supposed to keep her with me. Protect her. That’s my purpose. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” Those words would hit home with Oscar. He knew her better than anyone. She wasn’t prone to irrational thinking. She approached everything in life with a combination of integrity, heart, and common sense. Some of that was innate, but most of it had been planted in her by Oscar’s steady guidance over the years. He had unwittingly molded her in his image. She was proud to be the person he’d helped to create.
“Copy that,” he said without hesitation. “Skye stays with you.”
Skye stood from the sofa and joined Aspen on the love seat. “My mom started teaching me how to shift just before my eighth birthday. We kept it a secret from my dad—he didn’t want us doing anything that would make us a target for humans. But your mom never got the chance to teach you.” The girl looked to Oscar and then to Tora. “One of us has to teach her.”
“On that note”—Oscar stood abruptly—“I need to check in with my pack.” Obviously steering clear of the conversation, he made a clean getaway to the kitchen. Aspen heard the door slam shut as he exited abruptly from the house.
“Why do I get the feeling he doesn’t want to teach me how to shapeshift?” Aspen asked, trying to figure out what was going on. “How hard can it be?”
Skye and Tora exchanged a knowing look.
“It’s not that it’s hard exactly,” Skye volunteered. “Definitely takes a lot of practice. It’s just that…”
“It’s a very intimate experience,” Tora finished for her. “Traditionally, a mother assumes all training for her daughter, and a father does the same for his son.”
“What if there isn’t a mother?” Aspen asked.
“Then it falls to an aunt or a grandmother.”
“What if there isn’t an aunt or a grandmother?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of such a thing happening.”
“Well, I need to start somewhere.” Aspen thought for a moment. “Can I teach myself? Maybe there’s a book I can read.”
“This can’t be learned by reading a book,” Tora explained. “It must be taught, skin to skin.”
Aspen raised an eyebrow. “As in…naked?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Aspen was beginning to grasp the dilemma. “Is there another way I can learn how to shift? Without getting naked?”
Tora shook her head. “No. That’s the only way.” She turned to the girl with a sigh. “Skye, can you please give us a moment?”
“Don’t worry, Aspen.” Skye set a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “We’ll figure something out.”
She watched the girl disappear into the kitchen. “What are we talking here? Like, full-body naked or just down-to-your-undergarments naked?”
“Both teacher and student are fully disrobed.”
“And what about the skin to skin part?” she asked suspiciously. “What parts are skin to skin?”
“Full body contact is required for each shapeshifting lesson,” Tora said calmly. “It’s a totally platonic experience.”
Shapeshifting sounded a lot more complicated than she’d imagined. No wonder Oscar had bailed. She didn’t blame him.
“I’ll volunteer to take charge of your training. We’ll start first thing tomorrow.”
The sooner she got started, the better. Her people were being slaughtered. If there was something she could do to stop it, she was all in. She couldn’t explain it, but she could feel their silent cries for mercy somewhere deep inside her own body. She centered her gaze on Tora. “Why you?” she asked.
“Oscar’s a man, and Skye’s too young. I’m the most logical choice,” Tora said matter-of-factly.
She was about to vehemently protest that there must be another Shroud out there somewhere who could train her—she’d put an ad on craigslist if she had to—when the sound of a rapidly firing automatic weapon broke her train of thought.
Tora bolted from the sofa in a flash. She had already shifted into a lioness by the time Aspen had her weapon drawn.
“Skye!” Aspen shouted toward the kitchen as the sound of an automatic weapon continued to assault her ears in short consistent bursts.
“I’m okay!” Skye yelled back.
She thought of Oscar outside with his pack. As worried as she was for him, she knew he could take care of himself. Her main focus right now was getting the girl to safety. Staying low, she made her way to the kitchen and found Skye underneath the table. “Are you hurt?”
The girl shook her head.
Tora came up alongside them, still in lioness form.
Aspen crawled out from under the table to latch the dead bolt on the kitchen door. It wouldn’t keep the bad guys out forever, but it would slow them down. She crawled back and looked from Tora to Skye. “There’s a window in the attic. That’s the highest and safest point in the house right now. I’ll take you up there so you can fly out of this mess. Let’s go.” She grabbed Skye’s forearm and started pulling her along.
“I can’t,” Skye said, not budging. “Our laws say I’m supposed to protect you.”
Aspen glanced down at her uniform and thought for a moment. Who was she to argue about following the law? Rapid gunfire outside was suddenly interrupted by the heart-wrenching sound of a high-pitched yelp. One of the wolves had been hit. Her stomach somersaulted at the thought of losing Oscar.
“You’re right,” Aspen said, wiping a smudge of leftover whipped cream from Skye’s chin. “New plan. Go upstairs and fly out from a window. Swoop down and take every weapon you can from the bad guys, just like you did with the dart gun. But be careful. At least one of their weapons is fully automatic. It’s big and can do a lot of damage but less accurate when it comes to hitting a target.” She turned to the lioness. “I’ll take the front. You take the back. We take out as many bad guys as we can. Agreed?”
“But you can’t shift yet,” Skye protested.
“Maybe not. But as a police officer, this is my weapon of choice.” The Glock felt solid and familiar in her hands. “Until I get my teeth and claws,” she added, trying to muster a reassuring smile for the girl.
A longer spray of gunfire outside made her stomach do another series of flips. From what she could tell, there was only one automatic weapon at play. “Go for the largest gun first,” she told Skye.
Skye followed her to the stairs leading to the second floor of the house. The girl fled up the stairs two at a time and vanished around the corner. Aspen looked back at the lioness with a check-in glance. The lioness nodded and headed off toward the kitchen at a gallop.
Aspen was poised to exit through the front door of the house. She hesitated. How would Tora manage to open the locked kitchen door to get outside? She considered going back to help her when she heard something large crash through one of the kitchen windows. Apparently, the doctor had already found a solution on her own…without the need for opposable thumbs.
Ducking down low, Aspen threw the door open and dove headfirst behind some bushes. Bullets sailed through the air around her before she even hit the ground. How many SEA soldiers were there? She had heard just one fully automatic weapon, but maybe that was a tactic to lure her outside and get her to think they stood a fighting chance of escaping alive.
Did these soldiers have every exit and window covered? She couldn’t risk letting Skye open a window to find out. A white owl against the dark night sky would make an easy target. But she had no way of knowing which side of the house Skye would choose. Given the girl’s loyalty and protective nature, she would probably choose the side of the house from which Aspen had exited.
Without giving it a second thought, she took a deep breath, rolled from the bushes, and sprinted across the front yard toward the source of the gunfire. A moving target was harder to hit than a sitting one. With any luck, she would draw the attention away from Skye and give her the precious few seconds she needed to escape.
* * *
Tora galloped across the kitchen, leaped up, and squeezed her eyes shut as she crashed through the window above the sink. Confident her thick fur would protect her from glass shards, she landed, unscathed, on the cold ground in pitch-black darkness. Her lioness eyes adjusted. Seeing at night had never been a problem for her.
Forced to assess her surroundings at lightning speed, she was on the move in microseconds as she evaded bullets aimed in her direction. She was intuitively aware of two wolves nearby. Fortunately, identifying friend versus foe was easy. Anyone in human form was now fair game.
She quickly honed in on the soldier shooting from the tree line and immediately recognized his weapon of choice: a Remington R-25 semiautomatic. She knew from experience this particular rifle was a favorite of humans because it was built to take down big game. Tora loathed this weapon. It had taken the lives of more than a few of her colleagues, friends, and family over the years.
She sensed the wolves were already stalking him from both sides. Tunnel vision kicked in as she charged at a full gallop. Covering thirty feet with every stride, she was on top of him in seconds.
The wolves arrived at the same time with calculated precision. They clamped powerful jaws around his forearms and bit down into his flesh. One on each side, the wolves held his arms away from his body as she reared up and tore into his throat.
Releasing his lifeless body, she was instantly aware of a second soldier who had taken up position behind the first, about ten yards out. Rifle cocked, he took aim at her and fired.