The Awakening: Britton (Entangled Covet) (2 page)

Carnal Ridge to replace Britton. Since then, she’d dedicated her life to covering up any shifter involvement

in human cases. She then arrested the perps to face the High Council’s judgment, which was based on rigid

laws created thousands of years ago to ensure that their existence would never become known to humans.

To say the least, her curiosity was piqued at the two councilmen’s sudden appearance.

After she walked in and closed the door behind her, she turned to find Councilman Seeder pacing the

room, his hands clasped behind his back. Her tension spiked. Being the second in command, Seeder was

typically the calmer of the two. On the other hand, Elder Harwood, who always had an air of authority

about him, sat in a chair with his elbow resting on the table, his mouth cupped in his palm, staring at the

wall—as though his world were imploding around him.

Since Harwood controlled the shifter world, nothing she was about to hear could be good.

“Councilmen, you wished to see me?”

The elder gave a start before glancing up at her. “Calhoun. Yes.” He waved his hands toward the glass

windows. “Get the shades, would you?”

The ominous feeling inside growing, she swallowed. After she went to the window, she met Roy’s

concerned gaze as she twisted the blinds closed. Taking a steadying breath, she turned. “What can I do for

you?”

“There’s been an event—”

“An event!” Seeder burst out, his lanky frame shaking. “This is
not
an event. This is a catastrophe!”

“David,” Harwood said between clenched teeth. “You need to calm down.”

“Calm down? I
told
you this would happen. The
entire
council told you. But you didn’t listen. You

caused this, and now we are all in jeopardy because of it.”

“I have a position to uphold.”

“You have a species to protect, which you are failing miserably at.”

As fascinating as it was to watch two councilmen going at it—they never showed friction in public—she

wasn’t getting any closer to the reason they were here. “What happened?”

Seeder exhaled harshly before yanking out a chair and slumping in it. “World Shifters has been

breached. Samantha Mills’s son has been taken.”

“Holy. Shit.” Not a very professional response, but in all her years in law enforcement, nothing had ever

shocked her more. World Shifters was a living facility for the children who suffered from the shifter

mutation—a genetic defect within the shifting genes. Typically shifters did not shift for the first time until

their eighteenth birthday, which gave the human side time to establish dominance over the animal side.

With the mutation, the beast could control the shift from the second the baby wailed its way into life. The

result was a child capable of shifting at any moment into an animal that couldn’t be controlled. Temper

tantrums could be deadly. “When?”

“A little over an hour ago. They set off small explosives as decoys. Enough to cause some chaos within

the compound. Then they got into Charlie’s dorm and blew out the wall so they could escape. It was over

within minutes.”

She pulled out a chair and sat. “Who took responsibility?”

“No one yet. But this arrived about twenty minutes ago.” Harwood slid over a yellow package. After

retrieving her gloves from her pocket and slipping them on, she took out the note.

The council has until 4:00 p.m. Sunday to release Samantha Mills and revise the current laws on

mutated shifters. If you do not comply with these demands, we will make shifters known to the human

world by introducing it to Charlie.

Having a hard time believing what she was reading, she reread the missive. The Samantha Mills

conviction had been a sore spot within the shifter community for the last six months. After the mother had

been arrested for hiding her mutated child instead of registering him with the council—as strictly required

by shifter law—everyone knew she would suffer some kind of consequences for her decision. She
had
put

both the shifter and human communities at risk—but life in prison?
Life?
All because she hadn’t wanted to

be separated from her child and only allowed to see him once a year on his birthday? The council’s verdict

had been a turning point in a lot of younger shifters’ and half-shifters’ attitudes toward the council,

churning up waves of frustration and anger at its perceived heartlessness. Protests had run rampant, but

they had all been peaceful, held within shifter law. This…this kidnapping and extortion was unimaginable,

and put everyone at risk—in a far worse way than Samantha ever had.

At least the perpetrators were giving the High Council a week to comply with their demands.

The time frame showed they understood that revising the laws couldn’t happen overnight. It
wouldn’t

happen overnight. For the kidnappers to get what they wanted, the High Council would have to exhaust all

other options first.

Which meant these people knew she would be coming for them.

“There’s more,” Seeder warned.

“More?”

The elder slid an iPad across the table. “A reminder about what’s at stake—as if we needed one.”

A video was already loaded. She touched the play button in the middle of the screen. A little four-year-

old towheaded boy was sitting off by himself on the leaf-covered ground. Trees surrounded him. There

was no sound from anyone other than the little boy asking if he could see his mommy now, saying over

and over that he missed her, and that Gina said his mommy wouldn’t be able to visit him for a very long

time.

At the sorrow in the child’s voice, she clenched her teeth against the anger—and guilt—that swelled

inside her. From the get-go, she’d hated this case. Hated her part in it. But her job was to uphold shifter law,

and Samantha Mills had broken it.

On the video the child’s body began to shake, and a split second later, his clothes shredded around an

emerging wolf twice the size of the boy. The animal bared its teeth, growling, then leaped off-screen. A

scream came from the background, snarling, gnashing. More screams.

“Can’t get him to change… Tranquilize him…,” a voice called.

The video ended.

Val laid the iPad on the table and rubbed her forehead. Unfortunately, tranquilizing children when their

beast became aggressive was the only way to stop that kind of situation from escalating to something far

worse—to keep the victim, or the child, from being killed.

She was trying to find words, but was having a hell of a time coming up with anything. If humans saw

an event like the one depicted in the video, they would never believe shifters were safe to live among—

which had a ring of truth to it. Normal shifters were as safe as any human. Mutated shifters, especially

children with no control over their beast, were potentially very dangerous.

Children like Charlie. The bastards had played this smart by picking an innocent child who would easily

capture hearts with his sweet smile, but who could then shift into a raging, snarling animal without warning.

On top of that, the fact that the boy was a flipping wolf instead of another, less savage, animal would

feed into every werewolf horror movie humans had ever seen and cause mass pandemonium. A witch hunt

would ensue. And when the humans started to realize that there was no way to identify a half shifter,

especially because the females were beastless, the panic, accusations, and reprisals would only get worse.

“So what’s the plan?” she finally asked.

“For you to find and arrest whoever did this,” Harwood said.

Yeah, she’d already figured that.

Seeder pressed his lips tight and shook his head.

“I take it you don’t agree with that order, Councilman Seeder?” Val asked.

“The entire shifter community knows it is time for reform when it comes to mutant law. Elder Harwood

is the only fool who can’t see it, but he holds all the power.”

True. Nothing could be changed without Harwood’s signature. Taking mutant children from their

parents because they refused to acknowledge how dangerous their children really were was just one of

many archaic laws the council refused to alter. Val personally thought it was time for a clean sweep of the

entire council, but it didn’t work like that. High Council positions had been passed down from the founding

fathers to their firstborn children, and down through the generations. When Harwood died, his daughter

would become the newest member. However, the elder title would pass on to the next oldest shifter—

Councilman Seeder. A few months ago, this wouldn’t have brought any change within their community,

but the councilman’s sudden change in opinion surprised her.

“You were pretty adamant in your support of Harwood during the Mills case. That was only a few

months ago—why the sudden turnaround?”

“Opinions evolve, Detective. I’ve seen the strain this case has had on our community. Seeing things like

that makes a person open his eyes.” He shot a disgusted look over at Harwood.

“What would you have me do, David? Negotiate with them? What then? Word spreads that the council

backed down. What’s to stop the next activist group from doing something similar? Or worse?”

“You should’ve done something about this issue before now.”

“Like what? Invite the parents to live at World Shifters and then have to deal with irate mothers on top

of enraged beasts when we have to tranquilize the animal? They
interfere
. If the parents are involved on a

daily basis we will never get these children ready to mainstream into society. You and the entire council

agreed with me during the trial, so don’t go acting all superior.”

Seeder leaned forward in his chair. “It didn’t have to go this far. We’ve been after you for weeks.”

“And what solutions have you given me? None. You want me to let the children run free? Put everyone

at risk? We’re talking about a mutation that is so rare it only happens in one out of every fifty thousand

births. We don’t have the funding to start reforming laws when the program we already have established is

costing us hand over fist. For
Dea’s
sake, David, I’ve invested my own money into protecting these

children.”

“We messed up when we put Samantha Mills in prison. We need to accept that, Ronald, and rectify it.”

The elder slammed his fist on the table. “It’s too late now. We won’t negotiate with threats.”

Seeing a political spat brewing, Val sat forward. “So, I’m to go after the kid.”

Harwood looked back at her. “Alone, Calhoun. Got it? So far, we’ve been able to keep this completely

under wraps. The compound has been put under a gag order and the explosions weren’t severe enough to

draw outside attention. No one in the community is to learn that the council is being threatened. We must

appear as solidified as ever.” A tight smile came to his lips as he looked at Seeder. “Current disagreements

notwithstanding.”

“Did you bring me anything?” she asked. If they wanted her out in the field ASAP, they would have

brought something of Charlie’s so she could familiarize herself with his unique scent.

Harwood reached down and the rustling of a bag sounded before he produced a white pillow. “This is

Charlie’s.”

After taking the offered evidence, she pressed it to her nose. The clean smell of soap hit her senses first.

She sniffed it again, working past the artificial smell to the organic one.

All shifters and half-shifters had a woodsy, animalistic scent from the shifter DNA in their bodies. After

they were mated, an additional wood-burning smell tinged the fragrance. But she wasn’t after those scents.

She was after the unique one that the boy owned. Like a fingerprint, each shifter, and human for that

matter, had an aroma that was their very own.

Charlie’s had the slightest trace of grass. Fresh-cut, at that.

She slid the pillow back across the table. “Okay. I’ve got him.”

Now she had to sniff out a kid before the humans caught wind of them.

…

Britton splashed cold water on his face, then gripped the sides of the sink, inhaling and exhaling in

measured breaths. Lifting his head, he stared at his reflection. Water dripped off the tip of his nose. His

chin.

He focused on the drops.

The anger…the…ugly, dark, trembling hatred he’d tried to calm for the last twenty minutes by throwing

himself into his files finally eased. Releasing one last, long breath, he straightened and raked his hands

through his hair.

He hated having to go down to the homicide department. Though he hadn’t been part of SPAC for over

four years, he was still a cop, which meant he worked with the detectives on the human cases almost on a

daily basis. Today he’d unfortunately been around when a woman had come in with some leads to a

murder investigation. She’d been so shaken up, he’d escorted her down to homicide himself. Then Raquel