Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six) (11 page)

Grim and Grant looked at one another for a long moment, some unspoken truth hanging between them, undecipherable to her. At least for now.

“We’re okay,” Grant said, speaking for both of them.

Kelis couldn’t help but chuckle. They were playing the game she had set up and she couldn’t fault them for it.

“So what? You’re saying that if you had a house full of kids and a doting wife then you’d suddenly find yourself happy?”

It felt a little bit ridiculous, but she was positively hanging off every word either of them spoke after that question.

“I don’t know,” Grant said. “Maybe.”

“Hell yes,” Grim answered, absolute certainty ringing in his voice. “We’re supposed to have a family. A clan, a pack, a whatever, something to belong to. Cougars are sort of lonely shifters, but I know as well as Grant does that we’re not like that. We’re Alpha twins. That changes a whole fucking lot. Yes, I would be pretty damn happy with a family and it’s chewing me up that I don’t have one yet,” Grim said, looking right at Kelis.

His expression was somber, but his eyes blazed. He was definitely telling the truth, and when she glanced at Grant, she saw the same fire reflected in him. Her words gurgled in her throat, some sort of a whimper coming out as endless guilt and worry bubbled up all at once.

I can’t do this anymore! I have to tell them,
she thought, desperation ringing in the back of her head.
What can Spade do? He can’t keep them from their kids forever.

Or could he?

She put that out of her mind, grabbing for her beer and emptying it in one long gulp. Slamming it on the table, she stood up, full of determination and knowing exactly what she was doing for the first time that day. Maybe for the first time in a long time.

“Come on. Let’s go,” she said, putting as much authority into her voice as years of bossing around grunts had given her.

“What? Where? We’re not even done eating yet,” Grim asked, though she was pleased to notice that both of them were getting up already, grabbing for their jackets.

“I need to show you two something. But you got to… never mind. You’ll see when we get there,” she sighed, choosing to let the situation speak for itself.

Grant plucked two onion rings out of the basket and Grim grabbed his half-eaten burger, devouring it with two bites. It looked like the only reason they’d been using a knife and a fork to begin with was to make her feel like she wasn’t in the company of two big men with the appetites of a pack of wolves. She chuckled at that, heading through the crowded bar toward the front door.

Everything will be okay,
she chanted in her head, trying to make herself believe it through sheer force of will.

It had to be. In fact, it
had
to be better than okay. She needed it and she knew now that they did too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Grant

Grant walked in step with Kelis, who was practically running. Her cheeks flushed with excitement and whenever Grant’s eyes met Grim’s, the same question was echoed in his. What the hell was going on here?

They’d tried to ask her, but she’d told them to wait, that it wasn’t far. That they’d see. So that was fine, Grant figured. He knew the moment she said her goodbyes for the evening both he and Grim would go and fall into the closest tequila bottle. Walking through San Francisco in the late evening with her, smelling her scent—sweeter than it used to be, in his opinion—and getting to revel in her presence was good enough for him.

They took a trolley and after a few stops, stepped off. She led them to a tall brick house, pausing at the stairs leading up to the apartment building for a moment.

“You two need to promise me you won’t freak out,” she said, giving them both a look that could have meant anything from a stern warning to desperate pleading as far as Grant was concerned.

He frowned, but nodded carefully.

“Okay. We won’t freak out. Right, Grim?”

“Sure. You hiding a dead body in there or something?” Grim asked dubiously, trying to lighten the mood.

“No,” she mumbled, but she didn’t sound that convincing.

She bit her lip in that cute way that she did and hiked up the stairs, Grant and Grim in tow. Kelis’s steps were fast as she moved through the long hallways and up narrow staircases to the third floor, where a long corridor looped behind a corner.

Grant definitely liked the view he had behind her as she was going up the stairs, but her steps seemed to slow down as they stepped into the hall, until she ground to a halt.

“What is it?” he asked, receiving a quick shushing and a raised hand from Kelis.

Then he felt it too. His hackles raised and his eyes narrowed, and as he looked over to Grim, he could already see his brother reaching for the knife he kept in his boot. Grant slipped a hand into his jacket and pulled out his own pocket knife. There was something in the air. It was probably just a feeling for Kelis, but Grant could smell them.
Wolves
.

She stood still for a moment, listening, while the Aldrochs did the same. As Grant was about to make a move forward, she burst into a sudden run, faster than Grant would have expected her to.

“Shit,” he muttered, casting a look at Grim.

His brother seemed to share the sentiment.

She whipped around the corner a step or two ahead of Grant, but he caught up with her as she burst in through an open door, straight into one of the apartments. As soon as Grant got to the door, his world shifted and changed, a lump in his throat. Three men dressed in their usual black, with bright blue eyes and blond hair, hovering over the tied-up body of an elderly woman, who was on the ground squealing into her gag.

“Get the fuck off of her!” Kelis snarled, and she was on the man closest to the woman, a fist up and ready to punch the guy’s lights out.

Grant went for the next man, becoming swiftly aware that while he and Grim were armed with knives, these fuckers had guns. He took hold of the man’s wrist, twisting it behind him painfully before he could grab for his sidearm, but the bastard was fast and there wasn’t a lot of space to conduct their brawl. Grant slammed his elbow into the guy’s nose with a satisfying crack before someone grabbed him by the scruff of his jacket and threw him back.

He landed against a wall, but got back on his feet before he had any real time to crumple to the floor, flipping the knife in his hand so the blade was facing down. Grim was caught between two of them, punches to the gut being used to try and subdue him, as Kelis was having a hell of a time keeping the third guy from getting his gun. Growling, Grant yanked the head of one of the guys on Grim back and thrust the knife into the delicate flesh, blood bursting out of the gaping wound like a waterfall.

The man gasped and gagged, collapsing on his knees, and Grant forgot all about him. Seeing the death of one of his partners in crime, the man keeping Kelis busy kicked her off. She painfully landed on a table, cracking it and tumbling to the floor along with the splinters of the broken wood. He burst past Grant before he could get ahold of him, and when Grant looked to Grim, he found his brother pulling his long switchblade out of the chest of the blue-eyed adversary, the man’s eyes already getting glassy.

“Come on, let’s go get him,” Grant hissed, running to the door.

He could see an open window at the end of the hallway that had certainly been closed before and he mumbled a few choice expletives.

“Grant, no!” Kelis voice called, rooting him in place. “I might need you here! Please don’t go!”

It was that little moment of standing still that made Grant realize why he’d felt such a sudden and inexplicable change when he stepped into the apartment. It had nothing to do with The Arctics or whatever reason it was that they were there in the first place, but the smell. The scent of something very familiar, something so basic and raw that it was decoded into his DNA, and he couldn’t mistake it for something else even if he tried.

The scent that he now realized had been hanging onto Kelis the entire time was the reason why she smelled so inexplicably sweet to him.

The smell of cubs.
His
cubs.

Grant looked back into the room, confusion muddled on his face. His gaze rolled from the two dead agents, to his brother looking just as confused, to Kelis getting up off the floor and trying to untie the woman. Grim’s mouth was slightly parted, his gaze clear but racked with emotion.

Is this what I think this is?

Shaking out of his reverie, Grant stepped back in, slamming the door shut so no snooping neighbors could get a view of the scene unfurling in the apartment. He sniffed at the air, nostrils flaring slightly, and his eyes flashed gold at the same moment as Grim’s did. As if driven by the same power, both brothers went for a door past the table that Kelis had smashed through, the pleasant but unremarkable cream walls of the room looking scathingly out of place considering the roar of feelings battling for prominence within Grant.

“Grim, Grant, wait!” Kelis called, but they didn’t listen.

It was Grim who pushed down the door handle and stepped into the room first, Grant on his heels. The room was small, quiet, shades drawn. Two side-by-side cribs were the centerpiece of the room, and when the Aldroch twins walked up to them, Grant’s heart beating out of his chest, they could have been knocked over by the slightest gust of wind.

Grant dropped his knife with a click while Grim had the good sense of flipping his shut and pushing it in his pocket. Together, they stared at the two sleeping boys, cherubic faces blissful and unaware, though both seemed to stir a little as the strong scent of their fathers wafted into their little noses.

Kelis came up behind them, hurried steps betraying a heavily thudding heart in her chest as well. She stopped a few steps behind Grant and he didn’t turn to acknowledge her. He simply stared at the boys. A million questions rose in his chest and a thousand were answered, with just as many coming to him again as soon as the former were dealt with. How, when, and so on, but most importantly why? Why had she hidden this? Why had she hidden
them
?

Is it because she didn’t trust us to take care of our young?
a voice inside of him asked, urging discontent and making his cougar growl low and dangerous.

The boys were perfect. More than perfect, really—completely flawless. They were obviously twins and the more Grant looked at them, the more he knew they had to be his and Grim’s. The facial lines were far too similar, as well as the unruly mops of blond hair and the way their little hands fisted in the blanket, showing a sure grip. If that hadn’t been enough, then there was the smell, of course, marking them as Aldroch and no one else. Grant’s cougar knew and it could not be argued with. Especially when the evidence was so clear.

“I’m so sorry,” Kelis whispered behind him, her voice frail and shuddering.

Slowly, Grant turned, flicking a look at Grim, the gold dissipating in their eyes as they turned to face the mother of their firstborn sons. His throat seemed to collapse on itself and the first sound he made was a strangled gargle, more beast than man.

“Why?” Grim asked, apparently having more faculties and sense at that moment than Grant did.

A surprise if there ever was one.

“It’s… it’s a very long story,” she said, hesitating for a moment.

It all made sense now, in a way. Why she looked different, why her curves seemed rounder and more appetizing. Why she had left the Corps. But of course, it didn’t explain what business she had with The Firm, or with Spade. Immediately, Grant assumed the worst. It was a reasonable reaction, seeing as he was rarely wrong when it came to the company.

“Did they make you do this, make you hide them from us?” Grant demanded, suddenly very much in command of his own voice again.

Her eyes shimmered with tears and her ruby lips parted slightly, words promising to spill. Before she said anything, though, Grant’s ears twitched with the first ragged breaths of a baby awakening. A second later, a cry rattled through the room, one that made him smile instead of frown. The boy had strong lungs. Like an Aldroch should. When his brother joined in, Grant couldn’t help but chuckle, and Grim grinned, looking at the babies protesting loudly at being stirred.