There’s a swift knock on my door before Kane enters. He closes the door behind him then walks over to my liquor cabinet. He raises two shot glasses and my favorite bottle of whiskey in the air. I nod my head in agreement and he fills them to the rim. Walking back over to me, he hands me one then takes the seat in front of my desk. We both silently salute each other before downing our shots. The liquid fire races its way through my bloodstream. I take a puff of my cigar and prepare myself to inform my VP of what all I’ve been dealing with.
“Are you trying to keep me in suspense as to why you’ve summoned me to your office, Blaze?” he inquires, eyebrows raised high.
“No, but this shit is tough. It’s a very touchy topic to speak on. Chief Anderson has reached out to me about women who’ve come up missing in our town. Just so happens, that Glory’s friend from work, Angela, her daugher, Maritsa, seems to be one of the young girls who’ve vanished.”
“Christ,” Kane harshly states. “How many women are we talking about here?”
“Worldwide, or just our town? Kane, we have over a handful of girls from our town alone. Wanna know the worst part of it all?”
“There’s more than just missing women we need to contend with? Isn’t it bad enough that women are vanishing out of the thin blue air?” He harrumphs, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Glory did a facial recognition on Maritsa through Google. Wanna know what she discovered?” It’s not really a question I’m putting out to him, it’s me biding my time, trying not to lose my shit at what’s been discovered.
“Fucking hell, Blaze, spit it out already, would ya?”
“She discovered Maritsa’s face on a site, a site that specifically caters to shifters. Find your mate, is the site’s name.”
“Excuse the holy hell out of me! What the fuck did you just say? Please tell me shifters are not kidnapping innocent women from the streets!”
“Wish I could, Kane. These women are being auctioned off to the highest bidder for turning and breeding purposes. Human women are being turned into animals against their will.”
“That’s preposterous, Blaze. Turning humans is against shifter law. It’s only acceptable and permitted as long as the human is a mate. What the fuck are we going to do to put an end to this?”
“I’ll tell ya what we’re gonna do, Kane. We’re going to take them down from the inside out.”
“How?” he bewilderedly asks me.
“That, my friend, is what we’re going to figure out. We need to get someone inside. Someone who’s either already there who’s willing to lend a helping hand to us, or someone that’s not already affiliated with them who we believe can infiltrate them.”
“We need to get Decoder on this, as quickly as possible, Blaze.”
“I sent him the facial recognition that Glory did, and sent him the site she found. He’s secretly working on it. I had him put all other projects on hold… for now.”
Kane is an anomaly in our group. We made special accomodations for him to hold an officer patch. See, he’s a jaguar, same family, different species all together. He proved himself invaluable to our club. He saved my life and the lives of several officers from other chapters once upon a time. We had a special vote and gave him a pass on not being born the ‘acceptable’ feline to hold a position. It initially caused waves, but he’s earned his place and showed us that he’ll always go above and beyond for our club. It wasn’t a popular decision, it was one we all had to fight for; but at the end of the day, our brothers would lay their lives on the line to protect him. He climbed the ranks like we all did, and earned his patch through hard work and dedication.
“Then let’s get Bolt in here and fill him in. As the SAA he needs to know in order to protect the club when this blows up. And believe me, brother… things are about to get downright dirty.”
“The fuck!” Bolt roars in anguish when he is given all the facts. “Human women being kidnapped, turned and bred! It goes against the shifter code of honor. We have to put an end to this sooner rather than later, Blaze.”
“We know, Bolt, and we will. Now settle your ass down before you fry us all. Your fingers are zapping with energy,” I state, as I look at his hands and notice tinges of lightning streaks dancing from the tips of his fingers.
“I’m gonna turn them all to ash,” Bolt angrily states. “It’s men like this that give shifters a bad reputation. It’s why we hold our secrets close and don’t share them with the public. They’d fear us and want to use us for scientific experiments. These are the animals that cause fear to wrack our bodies when we find mates who happen to be human. Folklore has them already skeptical of us, but these situations breed fear in humans. We’d all be burned at the damn stake like the witches of Salem if it’s discovered our kind is behind these missing women.”
“Keep your zapping to yourself over there, boyo,” Kane pointedly looks at Bolt. He looks ready to jump and haul ass at a moment's notice if Bolt’s fingers begin to produce more energetic, lengthy streaks than the tiny zaps of electricity that are dancing from finger to finger. Bolt shakes his hands in the air, then closes his eyes and concentrates on pulling the currents back into his body. When he has control of himself, he opens his eyes and nods his head at me.
“I’m good,” he promises. “Now, we need to find out who all is inside and
