Page 51 of A Lion's Heart
Gold had been leaning against the back wall, one foot flat on the wall, hands at his sides. While Keller had stood with his legs spread, hands on his hips the moment Decan approached. They’d used the secure comlink Keller had provided to schedule this private meeting. So far, after Keller’s check of the Central Headquarters bunker, he’d found that this was the only place in the entire facility that had no camera coverage. That was most likely because the only doors down here were magnetically sealed and code and key operated. So the Shadows didn’t fear anyone would break into the storage rooms, nor did they think any shifters would come down here to meet and plan what was sure to be seen as the biggest betrayal to Roman Reynolds and his reign in all of shifter history.
“We had a lead on Mackey,” Gold stated. “Keller called me and I went to back him up.”
“You left Nisa and Kyss,” Decan told him.
“They weren’t his assignment,” Keller cut in.
Decan looked at the cougar with narrowed eyes. “I have a cover here and thanks to me, so does Gold. You’re the outsider, Keller. They don’t even know you’re back from the sea voyage.”
“That proves how dedicated I am to this mission. They’ll know what I want them to know about me, when I want them to know it,” Keller said evenly.
“Nisa’s going to figure out how you got into her system and when she does, she’s immediately going to zero in on you as a possible culprit in the break-in of those classified docks on her holodeck. So don’t get too cocky,” Decan said in a tone that was as irritated as he felt.
His shoulders were aching and for a moment while he’d walked down here he’d thought it might be related to carrying Nisa last night. Of course he’d frowned on that thought because there was no way a six-foot five-inch shifter who weighted two hundred and forty-seven pounds and could lift double that amount, should have had any problem lifting a female who weighed no more than one hundred and thirty pounds. Besides, the pain would have begun sooner if it were because of carrying her. It had just begun as he’d left his room and headed this way.
“And she’ll be wrong,” Keller replied nonchalantly. “Still, by the time she does all that, we’ll have achieved our revenge and the Assembly Leader will be so beholden to us he wouldn’t dare think of punishing me,” Keller said confidently.
Gold smirked and said, “Mackey was on his phone when we caught up with him on the first floor of the building last night.”
If there were one thing Decan knew about his friend, it was that he was goal-oriented. Once Gold set his mind to something, there was no going back. Killing Ewen Mackey and bringing down the Ruling Cabinet for what they’d done to his parents, was something Gold had worked toward all his adult life. Decan was happy to be totally on board with helping his friend and exorcising his own demons at the same time.
“And what happened next?” Decan asked, turning his attention completely to Gold.
“The bastard was on the phone planning the next murder,” Keller interrupted again. “He never paused in his conversation or even turned to see us as we came up behind him. I could have attacked him right then and ended this!”
And Decan knew that’s precisely what Keller wanted to do. Hell, if he walked up on Ewen Mackey he’d want to kill first and deal with consequences later too. Ewen Mackey and his sadistic friends ran the SICs throughout the world. They trapped, caught and caged shifters and then tortured them to get whatever information from them they could before finally killing them. That fire that broke out a year ago, sending everyone in the camps into a chaotic state, was the best thing to ever happen to Decan. It was also the scariest.
“We have to do it the right way,” Decan insisted. “It’ll be quicker if we had the entire Ruling Cabinet together.”
“How are we going to do that? They’ve no doubt been on guard since their family members were targeted. And after last night, I’m almost positive they won’t be leaving the comfort of their homes for a while,” Gold said.
Decan shook his head. “No. Ewen Mackey is an arrogant bastard. I heard him too many times in the SIC taunting the shifters and giving orders for unspeakable things to be done to anyone who dared disobey him. He’s evil and twisted and of all the people and different species on this earth, he’s the one not fit to live.”
Which is why Decan was going to kill him.
And he was going to do it in the same heartless way that Mackey had killed Marlee—a knife through his back. Or in Decan’s case, the large incisors of his lion piercing through the bastard’s spine.
“He’s going to continue on as if nothing happened last night. Sure, he’s going to up patrols and pick up anyone they even remotely believe is a shifter and throw them into another SIC or kill them right there on the street. But, he’s also going to demand his cabinet members come out and continue their own specific brands of torture and disrespect to humans and shifters alike,” just to prove his point.
“So when do we strike?” Keller asked. “Full moon’s in three nights.”
“We’re not wolves, we don’t need the full moon,” Gold stated.
“No. He’s right,” Decan said. “Ever since that supermoon nineteen years ago, the world has literally been out of whack. The weather, the other beings now surfacing—”
“Yeah, like that big ass black wolf that broke through the window last night. Who the hell was that and how did he know we were there?” Gold asked.
Decan didn’t want to say too much about Blaez Trekas, not even to his two closest friends. He felt like he could trust the lycan, but if what Blaez had told him was true and he’d been helping Cole Linden to hunt humans and save shifters since the Unveiling, then there had to be something in that for the lycan. The fact that Cole had disappeared once again in an explosion in Sedona was suspicious. The lycan thought so too.
“The full moon can strengthen some creatures and weaken others,” Decan said. “That’s what we learned in school.”
“They did not teach supernatural shit in the human public school system,” Gold quipped.
“No,” Decan told him. “That was the class taught by the old shaman in the Serfin complex near San Antonio. He taught me all about other species in this world and in other realms. Most people in the class with me thought it was all a myth, and at first I’d considered it might be. But then I saw that big ass black wolf last night and realized that everything the shaman had said was true.”
Gold nodded. “So what now?”
“Now, we go above ground the night of the full moon. We corner Mackey and make him assemble his band of killers and then we get rid of them all. It’s that simple,” Keller stated.
