The Mating Call: Drekinn Series (19 page)

Calli stepped forward to call to all of her friends who were circling the jaguar. Kade could take care of it, and she wanted to get them all off the street. Someone probably had a new camera pointed on them. Since four who were standing there had targets on their backs, it would be a good idea to lay low right now.

Before she could even open her mouth, a shot rang out. Everyone ducked but Calli, she refused to react and looked for the person who shot. Then she saw him. The man grinned at her, waved and then disappeared around the side of the building. Calli started to run after him when she heard Rissa and Cherri screaming.

"KIKI! FUCK, KIKI!" Rissa cried. Shit, when her friend used the 'f' word, it was serious.

Cherri was kneeling next to the crumpled form on the ground. Calli turned and saw they had secured the jaguar man, and the Enforcers were running with him into the van that was there. Kade howled and shifted. They reached Kiki at the same time, and Calli yelled at her friends. "Cherri, what the fuck, is he gonna be okay?"

Cherri didn't answer her, so she had no clue until Cherri began yelling for transport to the Drekinn building. It was bad. Kade called into the microphone, and they had a shuttle in seconds in front of them, landing on the street. Cherri yelled at Kade and Thomas to carry Kiki to the shuttle. It took two times to get Thomas to snap out of the stunned reaction he had. If she didn't know any better, she could have sworn she saw pain in the man's eyes. Not wasting time worrying about it, she helped with the rest of them carry Kiki to the shuttle.

When she looked down she saw that it was as bad as she thought, Kiki had been shot in the head, but he was still alive, that meant there was a chance. Cherri grimly shut the door after herself as she jumped in and the shuttle took off. The Pack stood and watched the shuttle fly up to the sky and disappear between the buildings.

Chapter 15

Kade and Calli stood in the entrance of the medical wing of the Drekinn building. They had been cleared finally after answering a million questions. Calli was pissed, how could they have failed so epically? Everyone of them knew how to clear a scene, and yet they had stood and not done it. It was her fault; she was the Senior Operative on scene, well that wasn't shifted and biting a jaguar into submission.

Kade had his arms wrapped around her from the back as they leaned together against a wall. She laid her head back on his chest and let out a sigh. It had been nine hours, and still Cherri had not come out. Rissa was pacing the hallway with the others who had gathered here. Thomas was the only one who was missing, and according to Kade he was in the gym, beating the shit out of the dummies. He had requested updates, but so far there had been none.

When she looked down she saw Kiki's blood on her clothes, the rest of them had as much as she did. They hadn't even stopped to clean up, they were focused on getting here. This sucked, she thought. They had a Pack for like three days, and she had already fucked up. How was she ever going to help her mate build anything?

The doors swooshed open and they all looked up expectantly and instead of Cherri, Ms. Praton stood there looking like the old dragon that she was. Wearing her normal mid calf length black business suit from another century, she walked toward them.

"Cherri is still in surgery; it is very delicate, and Kiki has lost a lot of blood, but she is hopeful. The bullet missed the kill spot of a shifter, but it did a lot of damage. She is using everything she has to help him," the old woman said, and they nodded. Rissa then began her pacing again.

"Can I talk to you two for a few minutes please; we have to discuss some things immediately," she said and then walked into the small conference room without waiting for a response.

Kade pushed her toward the door and said to Rissa, "Honey, come and get us if there's any news."

Rissa nodded and Kade gently patted her on the shoulder. She was falling in love with the big oaf already. Calli always thought it would take a long time for her to fall for her mate, but everything that had happened over the last few days had solidified her feelings.

When they entered the room, their boss was standing, looking out the window. Calli and Kade were just exhausted, and they fell into two of the chairs and held hands as they waited for the woman to speak.

When she turned from the window, there was a shimmer, and for a second Calli thought the old woman was going to shift. But instead, she changed from the dumpy old woman to a gorgeous woman with long red hair and porcelain like features that seemed to glow because of their perfection. Her green eyes were bright and clear, nose and mouth perfectly dainty; she looked like a fucking doll. She was taller than she was before, and her clothes had been changed to this classy green power suit.

"Well fuck me sideways," Kade said and Calli hit him on the arm.

"Uh, wanna tell us what the holy hell that was about, Ms. Praton? Although I gotta tell you, it was almost spiritual watching you change. I can tell you I have never been attracted to women before, but you are like the perfect woman; I think I could actually turn for you." Calli said honestly, and then Kade hit her in the arm.

The woman laughed, and it was sexy; Calli pointed at the woman and then looked at Kade as if to say, see? Her match laughed and shook his head, yep, not enough sleep, they were fucking hallucinating. And they were taking things way to calmly.

"Calli and Kade, what you see must never leave this room," Ms. Praton started and Calli held up her hand.

"You know, we have heard that phrase a lot in the last few days, and I'm starting to get pissed about it. Why the fuck do we have all these secrets? It's like we're in an old spy movie, I mean, really. Who the fuck am I gonna tell? My best friends who would never betray us? Oh wait, my family who apparently is into secrets as well. No, it must be the fucking shifters and magical people we keep adding to our Pack, which we knew nothing about until yesterday, officially. Excuse me for having a little melt down here, but seriously? We just saw our Pack member shot in the head, and all the other shit that has happened, like having a fuckin' bull's eye on my back. And our boss changes from like a sweet grandma to a fuckin' beauty queen, how was that even possible? And why is my voice so high, I sound like freaking Trixi Mouse." Calli finished, and her mate was kneeling before her.

"Honey, take a deep breath, we're going to sort this all out." Kade said, taking her face in his hands and talking softly to her. At least, Ms. Praton had the smarts to stay away from her. Calli wasn't sure what was going on, but she was certain she was going over the edge. This was all becoming too much.

Finding her mate, great, finding out they have a Pack together, uh, a little overwhelming. Discovering they have some sort of mystical purpose, teetering on the edge. Watching Kiki get shot in the head by Mr. Twisted, she was sure pushed her over the edge, but now? She was bathing in craziness, and not sure she really wanted to come out. No one would blame her for pulling out the old gun and going, to use an old term 'postal', although in the recent years they called it by another name, 'bysu' which in some freaking language means 'gun'. Too many foreigners were moving here.

Calli focused on her mate, and she took deep breaths, holy shit, she was having a panic attack. Calli had never had one before, and she was certainly not prepared to have one now. It was crazy. Finally, she was set and prepared to listen to what the old woman had to say, shit, she wasn't old anymore, now how was she going to refer to her?

"Uh, sorry," Calli said and her mate took his spot next to her and held her hands tightly, as if he was holding her sanity in the palms of his hands, and he refused to let go.

Ms. Praton smiled at them and said, "It's okay, I shocked Brooks when I did this for the first time, but only Brooks knows what I truly look like. So if we could just keep it between us. I know it is hard to distinguish between my two forms. But as you can tell, dragons can use glamour to change their appearance. I learned a long time ago the older version of myself seems to be taken more seriously by the humans."

Calli looked at Kade and frowned, "Do wolves have any cool things like that, I can only shift, what the hell, glamour?"

Ms. Praton laughed, "Dragon magic. Though I think, you will find that over the last hundred years or so, some wolves have managed to figure out how to tap into other powers, like glamour, and shape shifting while in your human shape. Each of us has a little magic in us. We just have to find it to tap into it. But that's not why we are here or why I am showing you my real self."

Calli stopped the envious moment she was having about Ms. Praton having cool powers and listened to what the beautiful woman was saying.

"It was decided a long time ago by the Council of the Chosen to reveal ourselves to the humans. The documentation has not been found about how it all came about, but we are looking. Many people were involved, so finding all their information takes time. What we do know, and what I remember, is when it changes. There was some catalyst that changed the human thinking, another thing we are still trying to pinpoint. But the ways of our people have been changed drastically by the human laws to fit what they want. It seems the time has come for us to take back our old ways and figure out why the humans essentially turned against us. When you two found each other and were mates, it set off a series of events that we can't stop, nor control. This Pack is just the beginning, but no other will form until we figure out what is going on. Your Pack is the key," Ms. Praton said.

Kade looked at her warily and said, "I don't get it, why us?"

"You are the descendants of the Chosen and the first in your line to mate with each other. Your ancestors were powerful, and so will you be. The Chosen changed our world, as you will change the new world. We need to figure out what happened to the old Packs, and other magical communities. How this all came about. Then we have to fix it. So we have a lot of work ahead of us, and the humans must not know that you have formed a Pack, for now, we are putting your building under Drekinn property to hide the fact that you are all living together. We are calling the building a housing for Enforcers. You have to accept our members as they come, many of them are descendants also, but they will have the power we need to make this change again," Ms. Praton warned and looked at both of them.

"And you keep saying 'we', why?" Calli said slowly.

Ms. Praton took a deep breath and looked at them closely. "Though Praton is sort of my family name, I am a descendant of one of the Chosen also. So therefore part of your Pack as well, my name is Pillar, and I am related to Trinity, Lagon and Blaze of the Chosen. I am not as old as I appear to be, and I hate to tell you all that I am not the first Ms. Praton. There have been several before me, this is a family business started by ancestor's years ago with the approval of the Chosen Council. They had to establish communities in different countries in order to make the reveal Worldwide go as smoothly as possible. So the Council appointed Ambassadors to many of the different races. The Drekinn Company was first designed to help with the reveal. It did its job for many years, and the Council half owned the company. We abided by their rules and laws."

"Damnit, you have to move in too?" Calli said and flung her hand around. "That is just creepy, how are we going to introduce Ms. Praton to the Pack?"

"You don't, I will continue to be Ms. Praton at work, but at home I will be Pillar," she said.

Calli growled in frustration, "We seem to keep adding more people to a Pack that we have not even really claimed."

Pillar cleared her throat, "That was another thing I wanted to talk to you about. This is delicate, so let me say I am sorry, first of all. But you two need to claim each other, like now."

Kade looked at her with confusion and then anger, "I will not force my mate to claim me, unless she is ready. This is bullshit. I will go along with anything but this. My mate asked for time to get to know each other, and that is what she is gonna get."

Calli felt her heart swell at his words; she already knew she loved him. Just because of his actions today. But she was of course waiting for the right time to ask him to drop trow and claim her. Calli laughed to herself, that would probably shock the shit out of him.

She stood up and went to the man, she would spend the rest of her life with and placed her hand on his arm, "What is your favorite color?"

"Huh, what, why do you want to know?" Kade asked looking at her and frowning. He probably thought she had gone off the deep end again.

"Just answer the question," she said softly.

"Fine, red, my favorite color is red," Kade said with an exasperated tone.

"Mine is purple," she said and Kade's look softened, and he said, "I know."