Chapter Twelve

N icole lurched up in bed and looked over to Jaryn's side of the bed. She could have sworn she'd just heard his voice. He wasn't beside her, and her heart thudded as she remembered why. She closed her eyes and opened their link.

"Jaryn? Love?"

There was nothing. No calm presence. None of the warmth she normally felt from Jaryn's presence. Something was very wrong. She knew it deep in her soul. Something had happened to her mate. She scrambled out of the bed and ran across the floor of their bedroom. Nicole yanked open the bedroom door and raced out into the living room.

"Cooper!"

The guest room door slammed against the wall and a nearly naked mountain of muscle thundered into the living room with a gun at the ready. Cooper scanned the room, obviously looking for the threat. When no immediate danger became evident, he came over to where she stood.

"What's wrong, Nicole?"

"It's Jaryn. Something is wrong. I can feel it."

Cooper disappeared into the bedroom and returned a moment later with a pair of jeans pulled on, unsnapped at the hips. He was tugging on a shirt while simultaneously unfolding his comm-unit. He attached the remote to his ear and keyed in the sequence to connect him to Shaun via the secured link they'd set up in case of an emergency.

"Give me a status," he barked.

Nicole watched Cooper, but the blasted man gave nothing away as he spoke with Jaryn's second in command. Was her mate injured? Was he dead? Why couldn't she feel him anymore? She paced the living room. The restlessness that had plagued her all week was back in full force. She made her way over to the glass wall that looked out onto the pack lands. She couldn't see the moon with the heavy cloud cover that was currently spewing fat snowflakes towards the ground. Apparently, the storm they'd predicted had arrived in the couple of hours since she'd gone to bed. However, Nicole still felt the moon's presence high in the sky. She lifted her hand and placed it on the cool glass, as if to touch the hidden orb that somehow beckoned to her. Her other hand rubbed the back of her neck, and her fingertip encountered the mysterious scar. Her eyes caught a flash of movement outside. It was big and dark, but with the snow blowing, she couldn't really make out any detail. Maybe it was nothing, but then again…

"Cooper?"

"In a minute, Nicole."

She saw another flash this time and knew it wasn't the snow playing tricks on her eyes. "Cooper, there's someone out there."

She heard the unmistakable sound of Cooper chambering a round into his weapon. "Get away from the window!"

Jaryn had taken her out into the field recently and taught her how to shoot one of the semi-automatic pistols he kept at the house, telling her it was for her protection. To her surprise, she'd proven to be an excellent shot and not the least bit intimidated by the weapon.

"It's one-way glass, Coop. Even a supernatural wolf can't see me." She kept her eyes trained on the meadow. Every outcropping of rock and blade of grass sticking up through the snow seemed magnified. "There it is again! I… I don't know who… I'm not familiar with the animal side of everyone in the pack."

"I said get away from the glass, Nicole." Cooper came over to the wall and pushed Nicole behind him. He stared out the window for a moment, then took her hand and pulled her into Jaryn's office. Nicole sat in the large chair behind Jaryn's desk while Cooper went over to the bookshelf on the far side of the room. She stared at him as he started tapping the spines of the books. What the hell was he looking for? Did he want to do a little light reading now? Nicole's eyes widened as the digital photo album on the third shelf came to life and Cooper placed his hand against the glowing screen. She heard a beep, then the shelf swung inwards.

"Holy shit," she whispered.

She jumped up and came around the side of the desk, staring at the space where a wall had been moments ago.

"What are you waiting for? Get in here!"

She followed Cooper's voice and stepped deeper into the rabbit hole than she'd ventured before. There was a glow about the space and Nicole realized it came from the wall, which wasn't really a wall, but one huge smart board. There were also a couple of E- spheres with individual tablets running on the long built-in workbench. Cooper sat in a chair and tapped away at a laser keyboard. It took a second for Nicole to process what she was seeing. The image on the wall was all the land surrounding her and Jaryn's home. It was as though they had a three hundred and sixty degree view around the house. There was some type of red grid flashing across the image, as though it was searching for something—or maybe someone, in this case.

"Gotcha!" Cooper whispered.

The red grid came to a standstill and took the shape of a wolf. Nicole wrapped her arms around her middle. She turned and noticed that the wall to her right held a line of weapons. Everything from a basic pistol—similar to what Jaryn had taught her to shoot—to something that looked liked it belonged on the battlefield a world away.

Oh my God Jaryn, what is all this?

"I'm going to kill that fucker," Cooper growled.

"What? Jesus Christ, Coop! What the hell is all this? What's going on? Who's out there?" Cooper stood and came over to Nicole. He placed his hands on her shoulders. The simple touch helped ground her, and Nicole felt the panic that had threatened to consume her reduce to a simmer.

"Everything is going to be fine." He pointed to the wall that now showed a close-up of a wolf with a white snout sitting on their front porch. "That's Jeff. He probably came to pass on some more information about the men in lockup."

"At one in the morning? In a snowstorm? As a wolf?"

Nicole wasn't a suspicious person by nature, but something was making her bullshit meter ping like crazy.

"He just came off shift, and as you heard him say, he actually prefers being in his wolf form. It's not unusual to see him out running no matter what the weather or time of day. Considering the circumstances, this wasn't the smartest move he's ever made, but then again, Jeff isn't known for being a genius.

"Then why is he your deputy?"

"Because he's very intuitive and has amazing reflexes. Let me go out there and see what he wants. However, I will not screw up again, so to be on the safe side, I want you to stay in here." He went over to the wall and took down a pistol. He checked to make sure there was a full magazine, then gave it to Nicole. "You know how to use this, right?"

She took the grip in her palm. The weight in her hand somehow reassured her. She flipped the safety to the off position and chambered a round with the slide. Her finger rested on the outside of the trigger guard. She pointed the barrel of the gun towards the floor, then looked up at Cooper. "So are these like magical silver bullets or something?"

He smiled. "No, that silver thing is nothing but an old wives' tale. These are plain old lead. But don't worry, they still hurt enough going in to knock us shifter off our paws. I'll open this door when everything is clear. We set the biometrics so that only Jaryn, Shaun, or I can enter.

Cooper went over to the workstation and started typing on the laser keyboard. "Hey, here's a fun fact. Did you know that the silver myth didn't even become popular in fiction until about a hundred years ago? Every culture has their superstitions about how to combat paranormal creatures. They assume we're derived from a source of evil, and therefore must have vulnerabilities that can kill or cure us. What they forget or simply don't understand is that being a shifter is nothing more than the addition of an extra gene. Unlike vampirism, we're not a viral based species."

"So, are you trying to tell me that nothing can kill a shifter but old age? Come on, even Superman had kryptonite."

"Oh, we can die from traumatic injury or poison or any number of things. But because we have healing abilities when we shift, it's simply harder to achieve." He tapped the keys a few more times. "There, I've locked in the satellite's position so you can monitor what's going on."

"Let me guess," Nicole said, looking at the wall and seeing an overhead view of her house and the land surrounding it. "You three aren't quite as retired as my mate led me to believe."

Cooper shrugged. "For the most part we are. We don't go out on missions anymore, but occasionally we still get a call for some consulting work. This set-up allows us to do that without leaving our homes."

Nicole shook her head and pushed Cooper towards the door. "Go."

Cooper left, and the hidden door closed with the softest of clicks. Nicole didn't exactly like being locked up. It reminded her too much of her time at Adam's compound, but she refused to let the memories raise the panic in her once again. She needed something constructive to do to keep her mind settled. She turned and looked at the wall. It took her a few minutes, but she figured out how to make the image move by zooming and panning across different angles.

She didn't see any movement outside, and Jeff was no longer perched on her porch. It sure would have been nice to see inside the house and what exactly was happening. Too bad the super spy satellite didn't have x-ray vision. Nichole snickered as she drummed her fingers on top of the desk, then jolted when the screen became a mass of colors. She tilted her head and realized that it was the shape of their home. She looked down and saw that her fingers rested on the laser keyboard.

"Oh crap, what have I done now?"

Okay, she could handle this. It appeared as though she'd somehow activated some kind of thermal infrared feature of the link. It wasn't x-ray, but at least she now had some kind of idea of what was happening in her home. The snow falling and land around the house was dark purple, the house itself a kind of greenish color, and there were two shapes moving around—blobs, really, that were somewhere between amber and pink.

"That's probably Cooper and Jeff. Heat makes brighter colors, right?" She looked around the room, which was the size of a large walk-in closet. "Who the hell is going to answer you?"

"So if that's Cooper and Jeff, then I should be…" She looked at the wall again and traced the lines of the house with her eyes. "There." She pointed to the corner of the house. There was no pink blob where she knew Jaryn's office was located. "That's weird." She glanced down at her hands, then looked back at the image on the wall. "Clearly I exist, so where in the world is Nicole?"

Had Jaryn somehow built this secret space out of insulated materials? On the wall, it didn't even look as though this room existed. There was only purple that matched the outdoors. The two pink blobs in the living room weren't moving, so Jeff and Cooper must be talking. Nicole closed her eyes and tried to open her link to Jaryn again.

"Please talk to me, Jaryn. I know something is wrong. Why can't I feel you?"

There was still no response from Jaryn, and her anxiety made it feel as though thousands of tiny firecrackers were going off under her skin. She stood and paced around the sealed room. The gun was heavy in her hand and she flipped the safety back on. If she had to use the weapon, it would be easy enough to flick the switch, but as her nerves climbed higher with each passing second, it was probably safer if she wasn't tapping a deadly weapon ready to fire against her leg.

Nicole looked back towards the wall to see what Jeff and Cooper were up to. They hadn't moved. What the hell were they doing, having tea? There those two men stood, comfortable in her living room, and she was stuck in this vault.

Suddenly, there was an explosion of red on the wall. What the hell was that? One of the pink blobs fell down. Oh shit! It had to have been a gunshot. The red had been the blast of heat expelling from the weapon as it fired. Was it Cooper or was it Jeff? Was whoever had been shot, dead? Cooper had said shifters could heal, but the pink blob wasn't moving. If it was Jeff, then obviously something had gone very wrong. If it was Cooper… oh God, if it was Cooper, would that mean that she'd be stuck in this room forever? It's not as though anyone else knew of her whereabouts. Had Cooper really given his life to protect her?

"Calm down, Nicole. There has to be a way out of here. Your mate would never have built this place without the ability to escape in mind."

She went over to where the door blended seamlessly into the wall. There had to be some type of release mechanism. She didn't see any biometric pad, key code panel, not even a stupid door knob.

"Open sesame?"

Guess voice recognition doesn't work either.

She looked back at the wall. One of the pink blobs moved. It traversed the space of the living room and was moving towards the corner of the house where Jaryn's office was situated.

Her eyes tracked the pink while occasionally flitting back towards the prone shape on her living room floor. Whoever was moving had reached Jaryn's office, and she breathed a sigh of relief when it walked over to the wall behind which she hid.

Yes! Cooper's come to get me out of here.

Nicole turned as she heard a faint click. She smiled while all the time preparing to chew Cooper out for leaving her in here.

"Hey, Nicky! I need you to come with me now."

Her smile evaporated as she stared at Jeff standing in the opening to Jaryn's war room, with a very large gun pointed at her.