Chapter 8

Naomi has been distant with me as of late. I can't blame her for it. Her clipped tone and shortened email responses began the day I denied her muffin offering. It wasn't personal; I merely felt it was important to establish a boundary between us, given that I'm her superior. It was foolish of me to partake in the weed cupcakes, despite my mouth salivating even now at the memory. But we were sharing personal details about ourselves, in her home, while our inhibitions were lowered because of the drugs, and we were steps away from her bed. Upon reflection, it felt wrong. I should've told her as much, but it felt easier to keep the past in the past and not call attention to it.

Two weeks have passed since then, and it seems she's carrying a grudge. When I ask for a coffee from the kitchen, it's either cold, or she forgets to add sugar. Considering she prepared my coffee precisely the way I like it during her first week, this seems intentional.

It's not just the coffee, either. I noticed her station wagon in the garage, still in the same spot, and offered to drive her home one night. She said she'd rather run home. When I pointed out that it was raining heavily and a thunderstorm was expected to roll in, she said, "Yep. Still prefer to run."

I know she runs fast due to her vampire speed, but that felt petty.

The quality of her work has not suffered because of this, which is a pleasant surprise. In fact, the clients are getting used to interacting with her, and her rapport with them is nothing short of stellar.

The boundary I set feels more like an impenetrable wall than a line in the sand, and I'm not sure how to fix it.

I like Naomi. She seems to understand me better than most. Plus, she's brilliant and kind. If she weren't my assistant, I might even describe her as breathtakingly beautiful, with a laugh that could melt entire glaciers. She is my assistant, however, and such observations are improper.

It's probably for the best. She sees me as an asshole, and she's right. I'm not built for camaraderie of any kind. I was genetically modified to be a heartless, highly skilled assassin. It's the only thing I've ever been good at. A change of planet doesn't mean I'll become someone else. I may not be able to use my skills on this planet, but my personality remains the same.

"Where have you been?" Mylo asks when I enter the house and kick off my shoes by the door.

"At work. Where else would I be?"

"Of course," he says with a sneer. "Your big important job in the tall building where you have meetings and sign contracts." He crosses his arms over his chest, thankfully hiding a particularly hideous sweater with big birds scattered all over it. "Did you get my text?"

I brush past him on my way to the fridge and down half a bottle of water before I decide to respond. "You know I don't read your texts. They're filled with insults."

"Not all of them."

I narrow my gaze. "Too many of them."

"Agree to disagree."

The house is abnormally quiet given how many people tend to be hanging out here since my brothers started collecting mates. "Where is everyone?"

"At Vanessa's," he says. "Harper and Luka are in town with the boys. Ryan too. Checking on the baby. I don't know where Zev is. Luka said he went to get tacos for lunch, but we haven't seen him since."

Why am I not surprised that Mylo appears so glib about Zev's disappearance? If it isn't within the pages of a book or related to his precious library, he doesn't take it seriously. "Has anyone called him? Do we know he's alive and well?"

He scoffs at my questions. "Calm down. I'm sure he's fine. He's a big boy."

That may be true, but Zev is still the youngest among us, and when I look at him, I see the bone-deep scars of abuse he endured from our handlers. His different-colored eyes hold pain and fear. He needs protecting, no matter how many centuries old he gets.

"If you don't care that our brother could be lying lifeless in a shallow grave, then neither will I."

Mylo laughs. It's the coarse, arrogant laugh I only hear when we bicker. "You think a draxilio with the ability to communicate with machines is going to be bested by a human and tossed into a shallow grave? Even an entire army couldn't take him down. I'd bet on Samantha's life that he'll outlive us all."

I've grown tired of my brother, but more than anything, I'm just tired. Throwing my laptop bag over my shoulder, I head for the stairs. "I'll be sure to let your mate know that you're making wagers with her life. She'll love that. Goodnight, Mylo."

"Wait a minute," he calls out. "We haven't had a meeting in a while. I know it's been hard to get everyone in the same room lately…"

Because everyone but me is happily mated, moving out, and building families of their own. Even Zev has found his match, which is not something I thought I'd ever see. "And?"

"Have you been exposing yourself to your assigned form of media? Reality TV? What have you learned lately?"

These meetings. I find them abhorrent, and not only because I have the worst assignment. "Why must we continue this charade?" I ask with a sigh. "I understand why we needed them in the beginning. We were new to this planet and needed to learn more about humans and their culture. It was a good idea, brother. It was." I don't like giving Mylo praise, but in this instance, I suppose he deserves it. "Now, however, it seems these meetings are a waste of time. Besides, I learn from the humans I've hired. The ones I'm surrounded by most of my waking hours. The rest of you have public-facing jobs or mates to ask should a puzzling aspect of life occur."

Mylo's mouth forms a hard line. He's disappointed in my response. That's nothing new. Out of the five of us, Mylo and I are the most likely to come to blows. I continue climbing the steps to my wing of the house, eager to end this day. As I reach the top, I call down, "All reality TV shows are aggressively boring, with one exception: Survivor. That's what I've learned. Oh, and one more thing. Value."

He jerks his head back, puzzled. "Value? What the f..." Then his eyes widen in dismay. "Is that today's Wordle?"

I laugh as I walk down the hall to my room.

"I had two more guesses left!" he shouts. "Fuck you, Kyan."

"Eh, fuck you too."

I get an hour of restful slumber before the tossing and turning begins. It continues long enough to force me out of bed, and that's when I call Yvonne. She answers after one ring.

"Hi, Yvonne. Glad you're awake." It's no surprise she's still awake. Her main form of sustenance is energy drinks. "Gather the recruits and meet me at the western corner of Nottingcook Forest in Bow." Adrenaline pumps through my blood as I picture how the rest of my night will unfold. It won't be restful, but it will be deeply satisfying. "I'm bringing the recruits their first live target."

* * *

I arrive before Yvonne and the guys, which gives me time to shift back into my flightless form just outside the tree line on the edge of Nottingcook Forest and heave the unconscious body of the target over my shoulder. Once I head deeper into the woods and find a suitable clearing, I toss him to the ground and prop him up against a tree.

"Kyan," Yvonne says as she approaches, the recruits trailing close behind her. Though, with her accent, it sounds more like "kay-yawn." She chuckles as her gaze drops to the man with the bag over his head. "This is it?"

"Yes. This is tonight's target."

"Did you knock him out on purpose?" Rex asks. Doubt flashes across his face as he runs his fingers through his unruly beard. "I thought we were going to hunt. This doesn't seem like much of a challenge."

I kick the man lightly in the hip, and he lets out a muffled groan. "We won't begin until he awakens, I assure you. And no, I did nothing to this man apart from binding his hands and covering his mouth and eyes. The moment I unmasked before him and he saw my horns and blue skin, he fainted."

Julian, the Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake shifter, clears his throat, and in his surprisingly quiet, smooth voice, asks, "Why him? Do we get to learn anything about our targets beforehand?"

"Certainly. I didn't form this pack to engage in senseless killing," I begin. "Our primary objective in our work together is to deliver justice to those who have not been held accountable for their crimes. The system in which we are expected to coexist with humans is irreparably broken, allowing politicians, those who hold wealth or status, members of law enforcement, and religious and community leaders to receive minimal punishments, or more frequently, no punishment at all, for the ways they abuse their power and harm others. Our targets will not be limited to those in positions of power. Unfortunately, even the common criminal is able to avoid a prison sentence, so long as he is male and has skin the color of snow."

"With respect, boss," Owen, the jaguar shifter, says, "there are only four of us, and shit like this happens all over the world. Are we expected to take out every shady motherfucker who gets away with abuse? We're shifters, not superheroes."

A collective chuckle spreads throughout the group, rousing our target enough for him to make panicked moans from beneath the tape I used to cover his mouth. I take the opportunity to remove the bag from his head and lift the blindfold from his eyes.

"I'd like you all to meet Elias Billington III."

Elias's eyes widen in horror as he takes in the group of large, burly men in front of him.

"Elias here has quite the storied past." I turn to our target. "Don't you, Elias?"

I pull my phone out of my pocket to refer to the rap sheet I made when I started researching him.

"He has been a Catholic priest for over thirty years and has been accused of sexual abuse by twelve young boys across three states. The church apparently conducted their own investigations following each accusation and determined that instead of laicizing him, they would instead transfer him to a different parish. The boys he hurt, and their respective families, were given no justice." A steady growl fills the air as I scroll further down the page. "That's not all. Elias's niece came out when she was fifteen, and he immediately had her sent to a conversion camp. The day after she returned home from said camp, she unalived herself."

Elias whimpers as the growls spread through the group, and he looks up at me with desperation etched on his horrible face.

I step toward the recruits. "The system in place to protect the most vulnerable among us from this kind of abuse allowed this monster to continue his insidious behavior without even a slap on the wrist."

"Sick fuck," Derek, the werewolf, says through gritted teeth.

"I realize you aren't superheroes," I tell them. "And I certainly have no plans to eradicate all sources of evil from the entire planet. That's not possible. What we can do, though, is use the unique abilities we possess to improve the lives of people around us. Particularly those who have suffered at the hands of unchecked abusers. I believe the proper term for us would be vigilantes." I point to Elias. "This man is still a priest. What's to stop him from hurting another child? Nothing."

Owen rubs a hand down his face. "Look, I get what you're saying, and obviously this dude deserves to die."

Elias moans in protest.

"But we don't even have fucking rights," Owen continues. "Like, we have to walk around all fucking day as if the best parts of ourselves don't exist, because of what humans will do to us if they find out. Why should we be risking our asses to make life safer for them?"

It's a fair question, and one I've asked myself many times, especially after we first landed. My brothers were eager to immerse themselves in the culture in order to find their mates, and almost immediately we discovered how awful these beings are to each other. I haven't lost my pessimism, but I've accepted that humans will be in my life whether I like it or not.

"Unless you're living in closed societies with only other shifters, you will end up with at least one human you care about, and this kind of abuse is so widespread, that one person is likely to have survived some form of it, especially if that human is a woman, and even more so if that form of abuse is sexual assault."

"You have a mate you're trying to avenge or something?" Rex asks.

"No. No, that's not it," I say with a sardonic laugh. "I don't have a mate. My brothers do though. All four of them. Well, my brother Zev is still trying to woo his mate, which I'm sure will happen soon. I care about these women. I do. My brothers deserve the happiness they've found and the comfort of knowing their mates will never know that kind of pain again.

"There is a cop in our town who has been terrorizing our family," I continue, rage heating my blood as I picture Burton's face. "He abuses his power and protects men like this, and the residents of Sudbury have no recourse. I want his reign of terror to end.

"But don't mistake my motives as wholesome and selfless. I'm not a good man. I was made in a lab. My handlers, they didn't want to train a killer. They wanted to build one from scratch. My genetics were altered in such a way that nothing soothes the monster inside me quite like extinguishing a life. What most humans get from taking a bath or reading a book, I get from seeing someone take their last breath."

Julian crosses his arms. "Your brothers weren't modified in a lab?"

"They were, but we were given different dominant traits. Different desires." I lean my shoulder against the tree Elias is leaning against as I recall the struggle to make peace with this dark hunger. "I used to envy their ability to adapt, to become better, softer, for this world and the women they love. I'm not sure why they were able to change, and I can't. I tried denying my true nature after we first arrived. The more I rejected that part of myself, the louder the beast inside my head became.

"Eventually…I don't know. I realized it wasn't about willpower at all." I run a hand through my hair, frustrated by how fresh that ache in my chest feels. The disappointment of realizing I can't change the way I thought I could. "A shark can't sprout wings and fly, no matter how much time he spends watching birds soar above the surface of the water."

"I don't know, man," Owen says. "Who needs wings when you're the baddest motherfucker in the sea?"

Their laughter echoes through the trees, reminding me of why we're here.

"Enough sharing. We have a task to accomplish before the sun rises."

I grab Elias by the forearms and yank him up into a standing position. He sags against the tree, but still remains upright. "Elias, there is a stream about three hundred feet in that direction," I say, gesturing where to go. "If you can make it to the stream, we'll let you live."

He looks in the direction I'm pointing, then holds up his hands, a plea for me to remove the duct tape binding his wrists together.

"Oh, no, no. There's nothing I can do about that, I'm afraid, but your feet are unbound, so you should be able to run without much difficulty. I'll even offer you this," I say, lowering my voice to a whisper as I take in his round shape and short, stumpy legs. "We'll give you a head start of…eh, two minutes."

Tears pour from his eyes as he shakes his head. His fate is clear to him now. His freedom, his choices, his power, they have all been taken away, and there's nothing he can do about it. It's a breathtaking sight.

I pull out my phone and open the timer app.

"You shouldn't waste time crying," I caution him as I give him a pat on the shoulder. "Focus on running."

He starts hyperventilating. Poor old pedophile. He'll probably collapse before he gets fifty feet.

"Annnnnd go!" I shout.

He stumbles, tripping over a fallen branch immediately. After four and a half seconds, he gets to his feet and starts to run.

"Now, who would like to take the lead on this mission?" I ask the recruits. "Any volunteers?"

Rex steps forward. "If I catch him, I get to end him?"

I nod. "Correct. You'll get the wrathenol injection, shift, and the rest of the pack will offer support. They'll shift and follow and help you corner the target for the final blow, if needed. But that blow belongs to you."

He surveys the others, seeking approval. Their nods satisfy him. "Yeah, I'll do it."

"And is there anyone you're seeking justice for tonight, Rex?" I pause. "You don't have to share if you don't want to."

Rex drops his chin to this chest. "My brother, Ritchie. I don't want to get into it, really, but Ritchie's no longer with us, and maybe if a man like Elias, a teacher, were held accountable for his actions, I'd still have my brother."

I press my fist over my heart. "For Ritchie."

In unison, they reply, "For Ritchie."

Yvonne gives Rex his injection, and the recruits undress before they shift into their other forms. He waits for my signal that Elias's head start has come to an end and takes off at incredible speed toward the stream. The rest follow on his heels, and it doesn't take long for Rex to catch up with Elias.

As their celebratory roars and howls reach my ears, a smile tugs at my lips, and my draxilio purrs inside my head. This. This is what I was made for.