“No you didn’t, Mei. We owe you more than we can ever repay. You did exactly as you should have.” Anton’s warm words were heartfelt. He sounded as if he meant exactly what he said.
Without meaning to, Mei searched his thoughts and found nothing but appreciation, and a sense of compassion for a young woman forced to kill. She sniffed and took the tissue Oliver offered her.
She still couldn’t meet Anton’s eyes. He had no idea she saw his thoughts so clearly.
Oliver squeezed her waist. Then he tilted his head and gazed steadily at his packmates. “Does either one of you have any idea what the hell is going on?”
Anton shook his head. When he spoke, his voice vibrated with a depth of anger Mei’d never heard from him before. He was usually so calm, so unaffected by the world around him. Unless, of course, it had something to do with his mate…or his child.
“Not yet,” he said. “But don’t worry. We will. Stefan, can you give Alex to Mei?” Anton carefully put his sleeping daughter back in her crib and led the others out into the hallway. He stood for a moment, staring at the floor as if gathering his thoughts.
When he raised his head, his amber eyes glowed. Anger created an almost palpable aura around him. “We have a busy night ahead of us. There are four more bodies to dispose of. We need to figure out who the hell these bastards are, and why they’re after us. And then we have to notify the other packs.”
He took a deep breath and let it out, as if forcing himself to remain calm. “Until we know more, we have to assume this isn’t merely an attack against our group. It might be aimed at all of us.”
Chapter 3
San Francisco, California
Tianna Mason walked slowly between Eve Reynolds and Lisa Quinn, her arms filled with a lavish bouquet of red and white roses, her amber eyes filled with tears. Tala Quinn followed behind, her head bowed.
Lisa, both packmate and lover, slipped an arm around Tia’s waist in silent support. Eve glanced at Lisa and frowned. She and Adam had met most of the members of the San Francisco pack only a couple mornings ago. They’d been invited down from Anton’s Montana home by Tala, Mik, and AJ, who hoped to recruit them to work for Pack Dynamics, the secretive Chanku agency based in San Francisco.
This solemn trip to Golden Gate Park had been unexpected. Eve still wasn’t certain why she’d been asked to come along, nor did she know why they were here.
Their somber procession passed by the Japanese Tea Gardens and crossed an open stretch of green grass. Trees swayed in the gentle breeze and Eve heard the sound of laughter from children playing near a small lake.
They stopped at the edge of the grass where a tangle of shrubs grew thick and green. The morning fog had burned away, but the air was cool. Eve shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She’d expected warmer temperatures this late in the summer, but it was actually cooler here in San Francisco than it had been up north in Montana.
She stayed to the back of the small group, curious, wondering if anyone would explain the reason they were here. Tia knelt down and plucked some wild clover away from what appeared to be a small slab of white marble. There was nothing written on it, though the symbol of a wolf had been etched into the stone.
Tia carefully set her bouquet on top of the stone, touched the petals with her fingers, and then stood up. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Eve dug into her pocket and found a clean tissue. Tia took it from her with a grateful smile.
“Thank you.” She wiped her eyes and sighed. “Thank you for coming with me. Eve, I’m sorry. I realized just now that you probably have no idea why we’re even here. What significance this place has.”
Eve shook her head and shrugged. “No, but it obviously means a lot to you. I appreciate your including me. Can you tell me what happened?”
“My mother died here, right on this spot, when I was six years old.” Tia knelt once again and ran her fingers over the white marble and the beautiful bouquet of roses. The other women sat with her, forming a close ring around the marker.
“What happened?” Feeling oddly out of sync, Eve settled her fanny in the cool grass. That was the last thing she’d expected to hear from Tia.
“She was shot and killed by a young rookie cop. He saw a wolf in the park and thought it was after a group of children, so he shot it. He had no idea it was my mother. No idea he was shooting a woman, a wife. Someone’s mom.”
“Oh my God.” Eve touched Tia’s hand. “You poor thing. I’m so sorry.” She gazed at the mass of roses. Then she looked around her, at the beautiful, peaceful surroundings. It was hard to imagine violence in such a tranquil setting.
She turned back to Tia. “What about the cop? I can’t help but think of him, too. He must have felt terrible. Whatever happened to him?”
Tia’s chest rose and fell with her deep breath. “I married him.”
“Luc? You mean your husband killed your mother?”
Tia nodded. “It was a long time ago. He’s lived with the pain of what he did for all these years, but that horrible event led him to my father. Dad realized right away that Luc was one of us. That was the beginning of Pack Dynamics. Finding Luc was the catalyst for Dad to retire from the police force and go in search of more Chanku. He found Mik and AJ next, then Tinker and Jacob Trent.”
Once again, Tia stroked the white marble. “You haven’t met Jake, yet. He’s settled in Maine with Baylor Quinn and Manda, your mate’s sister. I know you’ve met them.”
Tala leaned close and gave Tia a hug. “Mik and AJ told me what happened. I had no idea. It’s hard to lose your mom, especially when you’re so young.”
“At least I had my father.” Tia hugged Tala back.
Before Eve could ask, Tala answered her unspoken question. “My father caught my mother with another man. He shot and killed both of them.” She said it so matter-of-factly, but there were tears in her eyes when she glanced over at her sister, Lisa, and added in a bare whisper, “Baylor and I testified against him at the trial, but it was Lisa’s testimony that really put him in jail. She was there when it happened. It was pretty ugly.”
Lisa reached out and took Tala’s hand in hers. “We were old enough to be on our own,” she said, “but it was really tough for a lot of years.”
“How awful.” Eve touched Lisa’s free hand.
Lisa nodded and actually smiled. “You’ll find most of us have had pretty unsettled childhoods. All of us who are shapeshifters now had mothers who carried the Chanku gene, but they never knew. Only Camille, Tia’s mom, understood why she was the way she was, but she died before she could pass on her knowledge to Tia.”
Lisa shook her head slowly from side to side, as if the memories were too painful to dwell upon. “Just think about your mom, our mom. Remember how unhappy you were before you found out you were Chanku? How unsettled? The drives and the unmet needs our mothers lived with must have been devastating for them. The knowledge there was something powerful missing in their lives.”
She glanced away, beyond the four of them, and stared into the distance. Then she turned her attention back to Eve. “What’s your mother like?”
Eve glanced down and studied her bare toes through her sandals “I have no idea. I was orphaned as an infant and raised in foster care. I don’t remember my mother.” She’d always felt so alone. Who was the woman who had borne her and then died? What had she been like? What would Eve’s life have been like if her mother had survived?
She rarely told anyone her story, but Lisa’s simple explanation made so much sense. “I never thought of what her life might have been like. Never even wondered what