Forever's Fight (8 page)

“Forever Creek,” Blake answered.

“We’ve taken over an old ski resort. The main building is a castle with five stories, so there’s plenty of room for my family and anyone else who needs a safe place,” Patrick explained, keeping his eyes on the road. “It’s roughly three hours outside of Denver, Colorado. Now that the resort is no longer functioning, the town has closed down. All the residents have had to move, but that was a long time ago. It’s safe, I promise.”

“The town was Forever, and the resort before it was shut down was Forever Creek Ski Resort. It’s set just outside of the White River National Forest and the nearest town is Parachute, Colorado, which has less than a thousand residents, so it’s a good place for us,” Blake added.

“That’s the old resort that looks like a castle, isn’t it? I think I’ve seen it.”

He nodded. “You’re going to be safe there. No one could stumble upon us. In all the time we’ve been there, we’ve never seen anyone else nearby. I know you’re scared, but you’re going to be fine. I’ll protect you.”
With my dying breath, I’ll protect you, my mate.

“You mentioned a sister, Jade. How many other siblings are there? Is there anyone else at the castle?”

“Besides Blake and me, there’s Austin, Luke, Chase, and Jade. Jade’s the only woman, so she’ll be excited to have another female around. As for anyone other than us O’Reilly siblings, not at the moment. You’ll be the first, but I suspect two more will be joining us shortly.”

“Two more? How do you know you can trust them? What if the government sends a spy?” Trepidation was creeping into her voice again.

“We’re like human lie detectors.” Blake stifled a yawn. “No one could deceive us long enough to learn anything or even convince us to bring them here if we didn’t believe they were completely truthful and trustworthy.”

“Get some sleep, Blake.” As his brother put his head back against the headrest, Patrick glanced back into the rearview mirror at her. “If you’re thinking about Dean, he’s angry, scared, and unwilling to trust, but he’d never do anything to harm me or my family. Otherwise, we’d have never invited him to Forever Creek. His anger is of the result of fear and what happened to him. He doesn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I don’t know what happened to him…what he saw…but I swear he’s a good man. He’d want to help if he could.” She sighed. “But I guess he just won’t. Damn it. Something is off with him, and I left him. He could get himself killed because of this.”

“What he does or doesn’t do isn’t your fault. You’re his sister, not his mother. If he didn’t want to come with us, you couldn’t have made him.” He wanted to pull the car over, slip into the backseat, and wrap his arm around her. “What we can do is be there when he’s ready. Blake gave him a way to reach us, now we just have to wait.”

“What if he never calls? Then what do I do? Just assume he’s dead or keep holding out hope that he’ll come back?”

“Keep hoping until you have undeniable proof.”

“How am I supposed to do that when I know the chances of him getting killed? Especially with him out there all alone.”

“Take it one day at a time.” Now that the road was no longer curvy, he was able to put his foot down on the gas pedal and hopefully make up some of the time that had been lost while they had been detained with the wolves. “I know it’s not easy, and I wish I could tell you that it will get easier, but it doesn’t. I know because the night before we went into hiding, my father went out for a stroll and never returned. We don’t know if he’s alive or dead.”

Blake had been silent, his eyes closed as if he were asleep. Now, he spoke. “If he was captured for one of the labs, then he’s dead. Even so, we all hope. It’s against the odds that he’s alive, but we still hope. Maybe he’s in one of the shifter camps.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My brother Luke set up a forum for shifters. It allows us to share information, follow up on leads, get help, pretty much anything we might need.” Patrick paused for a moment as another car pulled out of a driveway, but when it turned in the opposite direction, he let out a sigh of relief. “It was Jade’s idea to do a missing persons section, and she does what she can to help reunite families who have lost loved ones or at the very least give them closures. I think she wanted to start it to find anything she could about our father, and even with the time that has passed, she searches relentlessly for any trace of what might have happened to him.”

“I’m sure it’s hard not knowing what happened. Has she found anything?”

“Nothing. We might never know.”

“Maybe not knowing is for the best.” Blake readjusted in his seat. “I’m not sure Jade could handle knowing he was tortured in one of the labs until he died. She would take that harder than all of us, considering what she’s been through.”

“Dad knew how bad things were getting when he decided to go out for that stroll. He should have stayed in, and then he’d still be with us.”
He’d be running the pride instead of me.
Patrick had been thrust into the role of Alpha over their pride long before he should have been.

The loss of their father had made the family look to him on what to do. He remembered the following day, when they woke up to find Dad gone. They had waited as long as they could to see if he’d return, but as hours passed and the uproar in their town grew worse, he had no choice but to order them to leave.

If they had waited even an hour longer, they might not have made it. One of Austin’s contacts later told them a team of law enforcement officers had come through town, going door to door, checking out each of the residents. They had tried to determine who were shifters and who weren’t. In the end, a number of families and residents had been taken into custody for additional questioning.

Did he regret his decision to force his family to stick with the plan? For the most part, no. There was too much danger there for them to linger. A small part of him wondered if his father had ever made it back to their old house. If he had, what did he think when he arrived and they were gone? Would he have come to Forever Creek looking for them? It was crazy to think like that. After all, they would have found him by now if that were the case. It was more likely he was dead, and Patrick hoped he hadn’t suffered.

Blake’s right, maybe it’s best we never know.

Clarissa tossed her coat and shoulder bag at the foot of the king size bed. She stood in the middle of the beautiful room, trying to take it all in. The warm brown walls brought out the gold comforter on the bed. On either side of the bed, the wrought iron lamps with their black shades and gold swirls cast a glow, lighting the room. On the other side of the bed was a small sitting area, with two chairs and a small coffee table.

Even though Patrick had mention the castle had been closed down for years, everything was very luxurious. All of the furniture remained in place as if the resort had never closed. The castle was stunning, and each room she saw lived up to anything she could have expected. The O’Reilly siblings had put a lot of work into the place to bring it back up to standard, and she wondered how much time they’d spent cleaning it when they moved in. Blake had installed solar power as their main source of electricity and heating. Otherwise, since they couldn’t have the electricity through the electric company turned on, they’d have had to lug gallons of gasoline for the back-up generator, and that would have been too suspicious, making it easier for someone to find them.

The siblings had worked together in order to build what they had here. Even though they all tried to make her feel welcome, the sensation of being the odd one out prevailed. She was human, and her new companions were each hiding the form of a lion beneath the surface. Chase, however, did not conceal his lion. When they’d made it to the castle, and Patrick had ushered her inside, and out of the brewing snowstorm, they found Chase stretched out on one of the sofas in the main living area in his lion form.

Even though she knew they had that ability, she hadn’t expected to find him lounging in animal form, purring as he licked his paw. It was too primal for her to truly understand. One thing was for sure, she didn’t want to think about how their bodies went from standing on two feet to four. There had to be unimaginable pain involved in the transformation, and the very thought of it made her stomach churn.

Now that she was here and had met the family, giving them all the information she had, she wondered what would happen next. It was clear Patrick and the others were planning on taking down Hathaway Medical, and as much as she wanted that, she wondered what it meant for her. Once they had their information, and questions answered, they’d have no use for her. Patrick had suggested she help him find something they could use to counteract LUNA, but she suspected he’d be able to do that himself, and that he really didn’t need her help. Could she stay there if she weren’t able to contribute to the fight?

A knock on the door to her room pulled her from her thoughts. “Come in.”

Patrick opened the door and stepped in. “I know you’re tired, but I wanted to check with you before you got into bed to make sure there was nothing you needed.”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t sure that was completely true, but there was nothing he could bring her to make things better. She just wanted to wake up from this nightmare and have the world back to how it was a year ago, when humanity didn’t know about the existence of shifters.

“I’ve got Luke going through the Hathaway Medical computer system. While he’s doing that, Austin and I are going to discuss possible plans for an attack on the facility.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“I’ll sleep soon enough. Right now, I want to talk to Austin about a few things, and get it out of the way.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“I’d really like to believe that.” She sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. “Everything is just so upside down. I’m not sure things will ever smooth out again.”

“Things will look brighter after a good night’s sleep. If you need anything, I’m just two doors down on the right. Room five hundred and fifteen. Luke is also right across the hall in his office, which is attached to his bedroom. He’s normally always in there, day or night, working away.”

“Does everyone have bedrooms on this floor?”

He nodded. “We’re all right here in the center of the building. Jade’s across the hall from me, with Austin and Blake on the other side.”

“What about Chase? Should I expect to see his lion form strolling the halls?” She didn’t want to open her door to see a lion wandering by.

“His room is between us, but I’ve asked him to be cautious of where he is when he’s in his lion form. At least until you’ve grown more comfortable around us.”

She ran her hands down her thighs. “I know you said that even when you shift, you still function as a human but seeing a big lion still springs fear through me. Irrational, maybe, but it’s still hard to adjust to.”

He crossed the distance and squatted before her. “I understand, and we will do everything we can to help you adjust to this. We want you to feel comfortable here. This is now your home, for as long as you need or want it to be.”

“Need.” She shook her head. “I’ve been giving this some thought and I realized I’ll never be able to have a real life again. I should have just let them kill me. Everything I worked for is gone, just like that. Not to mention the mess with Dean.”

“Hey now, angel.” He cupped the side of her face, rubbing his thumb over her cheekbone. “Things are going to get better, I promise. Eventually, Dean’s going to come around.”

“Maybe, but I deserted my position, turned information over to you. I’d never get a position as a scientist again. I gave up so much, thinking I would have a better position at Hathaway Medical, that I’d be able to do more, to change more. In the end—”

“Have you considered that in the end it might have brought you just where you’re supposed to be?”

“Why?” She looked up at him, gaining eye contact. “Because you think I’m your mate? Or because you want to use the information I have to take down another lab?”

“My angel has claws of her own.” He smirked. “But what I meant was, you’re doing the right thing instead of falling in line with what the government wants. You’re standing up for those who can’t do it themselves. You saw what happened during one of the experiments, and you decided you weren’t going to stand by and let this happen.”

“Then I should have rushed down there and stopped it. Instead, I cowered in my office.”

“You’d have only ended up getting yourself killed if you had done that. Instead, you gathered all the information that you could and saved yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He took hold of her hand. “There’s nothing wrong with living to fight another day.”

“What if the person they were experimenting on is dead now because I did nothing? His blood is on my hands.”

“No, angel.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “That is not your fault. His blood is on
their
hands. Even if he’s dead, you wouldn’t have been able to stop it. Instead, there would have been two dead. Being here now, you can help, and because of you, we’ll have the information we need to take them down.”

“Sometimes it seems like whatever I do isn’t the right thing. I was so appalled at what happened, what I had gotten myself into. How did I not know what was happening there? I had been there numerous times for interviews, and two tours before I finally accepted the position. I should have seen there was something going on behind closed doors.”

“They’d have kept it hidden until they had you on board. Even now, I’m sure there are people who have worked for the company for years who don’t know. They started out as a legit business, and even if there are some questionable practices behind the doors, the employees might not want to see it. You can’t make someone see something they want to be blind to.”

She nodded and thought back to the beginning of her time there. “There were things I should have questioned. Like how they have a strict rule with employees leaving at five o’clock on Fridays. No overtime, especially on the weekends. I now know it’s because they spend the weekend focusing on their experiments. They still do them during the week, but on weekends they can do it without having to worry they’ll be interrupted or someone would hear the shifters howling. The howls and growls laced with pain and fear…I’ll never be able to forget it.”

“I know, angel, I know.” He rose off the floor and sat next to her on the bed. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, keeping hold of her other hand. “I wish I could tell you that one day you’ll forget, but I’m afraid it will always be with you. There will come a day when you don’t hear them every time you close your eyes, but then you’ll see or hear something and everything will come flooding back like it just happened.”

She rested her head against his shoulder and just sat there. She wasn’t sure for how long, but the comfort she could feel in his embrace made her believe she’d get through this. That, one day, what she witnessed wouldn’t haunt her thoughts and dreams any longer. There was a small ray of hope that was burning deep within the darkness. If only she could get to it, help it grow bigger and brighter, then maybe she’d get through this.

“Some of them overlook things because of the benefits they offer,” she said. Horror rushed through her as she tipped her head back to look at him. “The on-site daycare for their employees…”

“Angel, I don’t understand. What about it? Some hospitals offer that, so it’s not shocking that they would.”

“No, you don’t understand. There’s a file on the system. They’re using the children to control their staff.”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t read the whole file, and honestly, it didn’t sink in completely until now. I read so much of the stuff on their system, trying to take it all just in case they found the computer virus. I think I remembered them threatening to inject the children with something that would turn them into shifters. I know they threatened to experiment on their employees, too. After all, they’d need human test subjects, too.” Her body trembled at the thought of them hurting the children.

“Listen to me, Clarissa, we’re going to stop them. I’ll have Luke find that file because we’re going to need it. Maybe it will help the government see what they’re doing.”

“Those poor children. If they’re turned, Hathaway Medical will keep them in a cage just like the other shifters. There’s no way they’d let the parents take them home.”

“A person cannot be turned into a shifter. We’re born.”

Her eyebrows knitted together as she glanced back at him. “What about bitten? Whatever happens, then surely they could reproduce to infect these children.”

“Sweet angel, you’ve either read too many paranormal books or you’ve listened to too many of the government’s lies.” He rubbed his hand down her arm. “We can’t do that. I bit your neck earlier and you weren’t concerned about it. Why think of it now?”

“You didn’t break the skin.” She rested her head against him. “Oh, hell. I didn’t think about it then, and if that had been true, you could have changed me before I knew what happened.”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t have done it without your permission. Forcing someone to do something against their will isn’t the way to start a mating. The trust would be completely gone before we even began.”

“I can’t even begin to think about this mating situation.” She still couldn’t get past her surprise over the whole thing, but until he walked into her bedroom, she had been able to push it from her thoughts. She hadn’t wanted to face it, but she couldn’t put it off forever. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get tangled deep into the shifter world by mating with him, especially since he seemed determined to begin the war between humans and shifters.

She lifted her head, but couldn’t bring herself to pull completely out of his embrace. It seemed like her body wanted things her mind was warning her against, yet her mind was losing the battle.
It’s just like all those books I read in college. The shifter enters and the woman is to be his. There’s no stopping the mating bond.

She tried to push those thoughts away and focus on the present, instead of some fictional world, but she couldn’t help but wonder how her life had become a paranormal novel. Instead of a romance, it was a thriller with bad men chasing after her.

“Every time I begin to adjust, it seems like there’s something else I don’t know about all of this. Are there any other hidden secrets about your species you’d like to tell me? Anything else like this mating that’s going to jump out at me when I’m not expecting it?”

“Chase would have something smart to say like our children are born in animal form—”

She pulled from his embrace so quickly she almost slipped off the edge of the bed. Her body trembled with the idea of giving birth to a lion cub. She wasn’t an animal, and her body couldn’t deal with the strain of it. “What? You can’t be serious.”

“No, angel. I only meant that my brother would have something like that to say to try to lighten the mood.” He squeezed her hand. “It doesn’t matter if our mates are human or shifters, when they give birth all babies are born in their human form. Normally, around their first birthday, they began to embrace the ability to shift. Even then, it’s difficult for them to control it. Most shifter families with young children have to live in rural areas, so no one spots one of them shifting. It’s the reason most are homeschooled. Though in some clans they have their own schools, depending on the size.”

“How long does it take for you to control your changes?”

“Over the years we grow better at it, but until we make it through puberty it’s touch and go. It’s harder for some but basically it depends on controlling our emotions. High ranking shifters have an easier time of it. Low ranking shifters within a pride can have more trouble controlling their emotions, and therefore their ability to shift, causing them to change forms at inopportune times.”