Passion's Prey

Baxter continued when Alamar grew silent. “He speaks of the different tribes—the Topetenia, the Lormenia, the Croesteriia, the Bosinia, and the Serfins. We were all once a community of shifters, a group of those that were different. It was those differences that kept us together but ultimately pulled us apart.”

X sat up, leaning his arms on the table as he watched Baxter coming closer. Everything about the man was still the same, and yet it was different. X wasn’t looking at a devoted employee of the Reynolds family any longer. No, what he was seeing right here, right now, was a revelation. One that was going to either make or break Rome, judging from the wary look on his friend’s face.

“You’re saying that cougars, cheetahs, lions, tigers, and jaguars once lived together,” Kalina clarified. “Somewhere in a South American rain forest there was a legion of shape shifters that eventually separated and migrated to other parts of the world.”

Baxter nodded. “The ones who saw this as an inevitability made a plan: Within each tribe a different shifter was placed. Overseers is what we are called.”

“Sonofabitch!” Nick roared. “You’re a goddamn shifter?”

Baxter showed absolutely no reaction to Nick’s outburst. “My father lived in a village near the Gungi. He was a shaman and helped the curanderos from time to time. I grew up with your parents, Mr. Roman. When they moved to the States I asked to come with them. That is when the Elders made me an Overseer,” Baxter stated simply.

As simply as if all that he’d said, all they’d both said would be swallowed and this meeting would go on without pause.

X was already shaking his head. “What about the other Overseers—are they shifters or humans?”

“I am the only human Overseer. It is so because of my father’s abilities and his dedication to the tribe. Others are shifters but they will not shift. Our job is to watch, to teach, to preserve,” Baxter continued.

“To lie and betray,” Nick said. “You’ve been lying to Rome and his family for years.”

“No!” Alamar’s voice echoed throughout the room. “What we do is not an untruth. We have been watching and waiting for the division in our tribes to stretch wider and it has finally begun. No longer are we even fighting on our own grounds. We have moved to these places that are highly populated with humans. We are endangering yet another species and it must stop before there are no more,” the Elder said with vehemence. “No more of any species.”

The room grew silent. Absolutely no one spoke. Kalina had reached for Rome’s hand, clasping it within hers. Ary’s hand rubbed her protruding belly as Nick’s larger hand soon covered hers to make the same comforting gesture. Beside him X could hear Caprise’s slow intake of breath, even slower release. She was absorbing all this information. Taking it in as slowly as she could so as not to become overwhelmed. This had to be even harder for her, the one who did not want to be a shifter. When he turned to her, to do what he wasn’t quite sure, X was a little startled to see her watching Baxter.

She gave the man a close look, a careful scrutiny that couldn’t be easy to undergo. But when X turned his gaze to Baxter, he saw the man leveling his stare at her just as evenly. Almost as if they were communicating on some eerie level.

“So what’s going on now, the drug war this Sabar character is orchestrating, the death and cruelty being left in his path, it was all pre-ordained,” Caprise said to Baxter.

“There was no way to tell in what variation the battle would come. But yes, we knew it would happen someday,” he replied.

She continued to stare at him as if there were some sort of recognition. Until finally she shook her head and cleared her throat. “So what now? How do we stop them?” was Caprise’s next question.

It caught X off guard because last time he checked Caprise wasn’t into the shifter thing and didn’t want to hear about the Assembly at all. Sure, she’d come to this meeting, but he figured that was more out of curiosity than anything else. Now he was sensing something different.

“We find Sabar and kill him,” Rome said with finality. “I’m not about to let this escalate. We take their leader and they’ll scramble, hopefully back to whichever region they’ve come from. But they will not invade our Zones without a fight.”

Nick nodded his approval.

X’s phone rang at that moment. He looked down to see the number was a familiar one. “I’ve got to take this,” he announced, pushing his chair back and leaving the room.

All eyes seemed to fall to Caprise in his absence. She knew what they were thinking: that she was his mate and that all was well with them. They didn’t have a clue. She’d begun to accept the mating thing, since the companheiro calor was so strong she almost couldn’t scent anything else when X was near. But there was still a distance between them, one she thought she’d been close to closing only to be slapped in the face with a note and his disappearance.

Of course he’d returned later that day in a foul mood, giving out orders as if everyone within hearing distance were under his command. That was sort of true, but she didn’t have to like it. One of his orders was that she remain with him at all times. She wasn’t receiving a new guard because X was taking the job. It was crazy even though Zach was big and strong enough to guard them both. Kalina and Ary had advised her to let X have his lead for a while. They all knew he was going through something. But Caprise was getting damn tired of waiting to figure out what.

The Baxter issue seemed to be tabled, for now. Rome had announced that he would speak to Baxter and Alamar privately. He didn’t look at all pleased with these new developments but moved on because he had no other choice.

When the FLs began talking about training and Nick added his opinions about assigning teams and strategies, Caprise excused herself and left the meeting as well. She hadn’t really expected X to be right in the next room. He’d left at least fifteen minutes ago; surely he would have gone farther. But here he was, sitting on one of the dark cherrywood chairs at the table Kalina used for her work area. His elbows were propped on the table, his head lowered, cradled in his hands.

Rage circled him like a storm cloud, its scent clogging Caprise’s throat as she closed the door to the conference room behind her. She went to him immediately but didn’t touch him. She just stood behind the chair watching as his muscled back rose and fell with the rhythm of his breathing.

“What is it?” she asked finally.

“Go back inside with Nick,” he said, pushing the chair out from under him and thrusting his cell phone into his pocket.

“I asked you a question,” she continued, walking right behind him.

He turned so fast she bumped right into his massive chest. He grasped her arms and pushed her back. “Not now, Caprise. You do not want to be near me right now.”

His eyes were so dark Caprise could only describe them as black. He held her so tight she wanted to gasp at the pain.

“I’m not leaving you,” she said in a quiet voice. “Whatever it is, we can deal with it together.”

“No!” he shouted. “It’s my problem. I’ll deal with it alone.”

Behind her, Caprise heard the door open. Of course Nick would hear X yelling and of course he’d come barreling through the door first.

“What the hell’s going on?” he asked.

X let her go so fast she stumbled. Kalina moved quickly to keep her from falling. As for X, he still stood there looking like some sadistic maniac about to go the hell off. Still Caprise moved to his side. She looked at Nick and said in as calm a voice as she could muster, “It’s fine. He’s fine.”

“The hell he is,” Nick said, taking a step closer. “What’s going on, X?”

X shook his head and looked away. “I’m just gonna go for a while. I’ll be back later.”

“We’ll come with you,” Rome said, standing beside Nick.

Again X was shaking his head. “No. I gotta do this alone.”

“I’m going with you,” Caprise said.

“You’re staying here with Nick,” X said.

She shook her head. “I’m not. Either I’m riding in that truck with you to wherever it is you’re going or I’m