Falke’s Captive

have to trust us. We have to have your trust before we can explain.”

She made a face and squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re both fucking insane if you think trust will ever enter my vocabulary where you two are involved.” When she opened her eyes, both brothers were side-by-side. “I’m not the one who broke into your place! I’m not the one who…who b-betrayed—”

“Shh.” Kelan tried to soothe her, still holding her wrist, skimming his thumb over her pulse point. She couldn’t allow him to succeed. “Beth,” he murmured. “Last night you said you could love us.”

She scoffed at her idiotic notions from last night. From this morning.

“Don’t do that,” Kelan said, and she saw pain in his eyes. Not from the crushed balls, but obvious emotional turmoil. It made her bite her tongue.

She hated the tears that trickled down her cheeks.

“We love you,” he said.

“Bullshit.”

“Beth, please—We didn’t want to hurt you. This is bigger than you can possibly imagine. And maybe we should’ve told you how we felt about you before, but whether you believe us or not, it’s true.”

They loved her? Didn’t want to hurt her? “You don’t do this kind of thing to someone you love.”

She could barely push the words out as she cried.

“Will you sit down and let us explain?” Reidar asked. “Please? Five minutes. That’s all.” He glanced at Kelan, who nodded. “And then if you decide you still need to call the police, we’ll sit right here and wait for them.”

This time when she tugged her arm, Kelan let go. She moved to the chair by the table and sat.

“Five minutes. Go.”

“Go ahead, Kel,” Reidar said. “It’ll look stupid since I have pants on.”

She frowned and looked at the clock.

“Beth,” Kelan said, drawing her attention back to him.

She folded her arms defiantly.

He frowned, closed his eyes a brief second, and then looked straight at her. “Remember, I love you.”

Damn tears burned her eyes.

Then a bright light flashed in the room, nearly blinding her. When she blinked away the white spots in her eyes, right where Kelan had been stood a two-hundred pound cougar wearing the Falke collar.

She blinked again, slowly, sure she was seeing things. “Holy shit…”

Chapter Ten

Kelan watched Beth blink, then blink again. Her mouth opened, and she murmured, “Holy shit.”

He’d never given thought to the time he’d reveal himself to his mate—to any woman—to someone who could destroy his family. Just last week it was something so far into the future he hadn’t bothered to contemplate it.

But here it was.

Here she was.

Dear God, he prayed this wasn’t a huge mistake. Taking the wrap for B&E and vandalism would have been simpler than this.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, tried to calm his thudding heart and projected his thoughts into her mind. We are Falke.

Beth gasped, flinched, and her eyes widened. She leaned back slightly and gripped the armrests of the chair.

I was the cougar you tranquilized in the woods and brought to your lab. The one you tagged. I was the one you tracked to the store. But it was my brother Gunnar you tried to shoot when you shot me the second time.

“And this,” Reidar said, stepping beside him, “is the reason why we cannot have our existence known. This is why we protect Falke, because Falke is all of us.”

She closed her eyes tight and pushed her fists against her temples, shaking her head.

I spent hours trapped in a cage. Imprisoned, Beth.

She blinked and stared at him again, still shaking her head. “I—I didn’t…Kelan?”

Yes. I know you didn’t know, didn’t mean to hurt me, and physically, I’m fine, but can you imagine what I went through in that cage? Given raw meat I can’t stand, tagged and studied whether I wanted to be or not, and kept locked up behind bars, wondering what would happen to me next? He tilted his head and held her gaze with steady regard. I know you said you liked cages, but trust me-they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be when you’re put inside one against your will.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her hand rising to cover her mouth.

“We don’t want to be lab rats,” Reidar added. “We just want to live in peace like everyone else.”

Beth glanced back and forth between them. “The cat’s talking in my head.” She looked at Kelan.

“You’re in my head. How can you do that?”

“It’s something we can all do,” Reidar explained. “It’s part of who we are. When in catamount form, we can project our thoughts into the minds of humans so they can hear us.”

“You can do that? What he did?” she asked Reidar. “You’re one of…” She stared at Falke. “All of you?”

Yes. All of us, Kelan said.

“The whole town?”

“No.”

“Just your family then…” She looked at Reidar. “Even Heidi? But she’s a vet. Don’t animals act weird around you or something?”

“She can talk telepathically to us, her family members, but she can’t shift.”

“That’s doesn’t seem fair,” Beth said with a frown.

Who said life was fair? Or easy? Or even fathomable?

Reidar added, “Our best guess is that shape shifting is somehow tied to the Y chromosome, because only males have the ability. Something you would have eventually found out with more testing. Something we can’t have discovered, much less revealed.”

Beth stared at them, at Kelan in particular, and the emotions flitting over her face were varied and sometimes unreadable. Excitement, a little fear, a lot of confusion.

She wants to tell the world about us, Reidar said to him alone.

Beth, Kelan said, directing his thoughts to her, knowing his brother would hear as well. We know you are a scientist, and the discovery of a new species—something that should only exist in fiction-could bring you fame and fortune, but you said your life’s work was to save endangered species from going extinct.

“It is,” she agreed, her tone almost eager. “It could. My God…are you alone? I mean are there others like you?”

Ignoring her curiosity for the moment, Kelan urged her to think for a minute what would happen to us, to our family, to this town even, if you exposed us. He took the steps to close the space between them, sat at her feet and looked up at her. He couldn’t remember begging for anything in his life, but he begged now. Please understand. There are very few of us in the world. We wouldn’t survive the publicity, the experimentation, or the public’s paranoia. You put me in a cage once, and I realize it was because you didn’t know, but now you do.

“I know we’ve damaged your trust in us,” Reidar said, “but can’t you see we had no choice?”

She turned her head to look at Reidar.

“We may not have shown it before, but we’re trusting you,” he continued, “because we believe you meant it when you said you didn’t want to harm Falke or any animal for the sake of science, that your intentions are pure. If you really want to help those who need it—”

“Reidar—”