me, making me jump out of my skin, much to the girls’ glee. Rabbit they used to call me at school, always jumping, always running away. “The alphas are ready for us, Shan.”
Their eyes went to goo when he placed a kiss on top of my head, entirely oblivious to my fate. Nevertheless, he turned me around and steered me towards the senior men, people moving out the way as we passed. Kids called out to me, wanting me to stop and play with them. I waved and smiled and felt like a prisoner on the way to the scaffold. That was only reinforced when I came to stand before the pack.
The shifters moved from wherever they were to stand together, united. The younger men sat at the feet of the alphas, while the men coming up, like Rob, took position behind them, several generations standing strong, as they had for centuries. Silence fell automatically over the crowd, even the kids going quiet, even if it was just due to being hissed at by mums or aunties. Rob moved around until he stood between the pack and the rest of the family, the link between them.
“We got some information today, something that we knew had to be shared with everyone. You all know Shannon, Moira’s girl. She grew up with our kids, kept to her grandmother’s ways, but never used that twist she has against us.”
There was some mumbling about that.
“You’ve all seen how the prison on the ridge was turned into this…Capricorn Institute.” Rob spat on the grass. “The council turned down our bid for it because someone had deeper pockets. Today, we found out why.”
He surveyed the crowd slowly, as if meeting the eyes of every person assembled. “Shannon was taken inside. The man who runs the place wants to employ the staff at the vets, buy Wilson out. The place is a sperm bank, supposed to be for rare predators, to try and make sure they don’t go extinct, but…”
The crowd hung on his every word.
“Every single one of the animals in there is a shifter.” The mumbling got louder, more insistent now. “They’ve got facilities in there to keep shifters caged, to drug them and take sperm samples. Machines to clone animals, to mess with their DNA. They brought a shifter breeding facility here to our land. But all those sperm samples? What are they for? They’re only one half of the equation.”
Rob’s eyes slid to me, so everyone else’s did as well. My rabbit heart beat fast at that, but Jai’s hand kept me where I was, something people noted. There was more muttering about that.
“She spoke to several shifters there with that twist of hers, mind to mind.” That put the cat among the pigeons, the chatter growing. It took one of the old men to thump his cane on the ground for quiet to return. “Saw how they caught them, how they got brought here. What they want. They want her, to make more of them, of us.”
“Looks like Jai’s on the job already,” one guy said, the crowd around him erupting into laughter, breaking some of the tension.
“And if he is? The alphas have approved Shannon as his mate. They want shifters in a valley full of them? Will these men sit up in their place on the hill and let that opportunity go? Or will they come in the night for us? Our kids?”
That was it. Pack families had their differences, some groups rarely mixing with the others, but this was one thing they held dear—kids. They were the future, the focus of everything. People moved instinctively, creating barriers around the kids, hiding them behind their legs, despite their attempts to see what was going on.
“Maybe.”
Just one word, but everyone turned at that, their focus sharpened, their mouths closing. One of the alphas, Rusty, spoke the word, his mouth buried under a great big beard, his hands wrapped around his cane.
Rob deflated somewhat, stepping back and out of the man’s line of sight.
“I’ve seen you grow, little rabbit girl,” Rusty said, looking my way, my eyes dropping down to the ground. “Moira was a strong woman, had a power we don’t see often. I know young Rob and Jai have their ideas, but you, you’re still an outsider girl, not raised like ours are. Seen plenty of strong outsiders, promise everything, but deliver…” His gnarled hands opened to show how much they’d actually done. “Your Jai argued long and hard for