Judge: Mating Fever: Shifters Forever Worlds (Barely After Dark Book 3)

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J
udge del Cruz
followed in his older brothers’ footsteps, serving in the Shifter Compliance Unit. He never thought much about returning to the mountain range where he spent so much of his teen years. Those were the happiest days of his life, but being an Enforcer allows him to stay too busy to dwell on any of his past.

But the call to return to Bear Canyon Mountain Range is too powerful. So he packs up, ready to see his own cabin at the top of the range.

W
hat he didn’t plan
on, seeing, the curvy bootilicious Alanna—Lani— who pushes his buttons, in all the wrong ways—and yet by damn, in all the right ones too!

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v. 2

M
ac stirred
. Something woke her up. What was it?

She heard it again.

A phone vibrating.

Lance’s phone.

Lance lunged for the nightstand. “Sorry, I was hoping to keep from waking you.”

“It’s okay.”

Lance’s expression changed. She couldn’t pin it. He swiped a finger across the screen and put the phone to his ear. “Judge.”

He paused, then, “What the hell do you mean, AWOL?”

“Judge? Judge.” He set the phone down. “Connection lost. I should call Cross.”

He paused, then, “Line’s busy.”

A
lanna Meyers
, Lani to those who were close to her, willed the queasiness away. Will though she might, she had no luck. The persistent urge to upchuck the nonexistent contents of her stomach didn’t go away.

She cursed herself for her impulsive nature.

I shouldn’t be impulsive, should I?

Did being an Intuitive make her more prone to rash acts?

Some poster child for her kind, she was.

Four years ago, when she’d applied and made it to the Shifter Council Compliance Unit, she’d been hailed as a poster child for her type.

Lani was an Intuitive.

Intuitives and shifters didn’t work together. The relationships between the two paranormals had been strained for centuries.

A treaty had put the bad blood aside—at least on the surface, and allowed for both the shifter community and the Intuitive community to work together. One of the conditions the treaty declared was that Intuitives could work within the Shifter Council’s Special Operations units—including the Compliance Unit.

Word had it, applications would be considered.

Lani and her best friend Pepper applied for appointment. Only two.

Of the entire Intuitive community only one got in.

Lani.

Poster child for the Intuitives. She’d made it in, passed the rigorous testing with flying colors. Her parents had been thrilled to no end that Lani, their middle child with no aspirations to speak of, no goals or dreams, had made it to the SCCU.

No, she wasn’t an Enforcer—of course not. Only shifters could be Enforcers. But she’d made it in and they’d created a special position for her—Compliance Unit Consultant.

It had taken the Intuitive community years to get to the point where shifters would accept their skillset as valuable—and now they had.

And I’ve just fucked it all up completely by walking out.

Could they consider her AWOL? She wasn’t technically a shifter. She wasn’t an Enforcer.

Yeah, but I did sign that damned contract.

Yes, she had signed it.

She’d signed on for a four-year term, just like the shifters did.

And I had a month to go.

She’d sent it up in flames with one sudden, life-altering decision.

But I had to go. I had to leave.

And nothing could convince Lani she’d been mistaken for leaving.

Even if she was wrong for doing it.

“
F
ucking cell phones
. You’d think we’d become advanced enough to not lose signal when we hit valleys.” Judge del Cruz slapped the phone down on the seat of his new pickup truck.

He bought the truck after he’d landed at the airport a couple hours ago. He had the dealer meet him at baggage claim and give him a ride to the dealership. There, Judge paid cash for a new pickup. It was new to him, though not exactly brand new.

Now he was on his way home.

Home.

His cabin. He’d waited four years, patiently serving his time in the Shifter Council Compliance Unit. That time was done. Judge had a whole year off. Time to decompress. A year to decide if he wanted to go back.

Big decision. One he wasn’t ready to deal with just yet. And luckily, didn’t have to.

He surveyed the sight before him. He was two valleys and one set of mountains away from Bear Canyon Valley and his own cabin on the mountain range.

Bear Canyon Mountain Range. Three mountains. Three peaks. Three brothers. One peak for each brother. Cross had Crag’s Peak. Lance had Devil’s Horn. Judge took Dragon’s Point. The name of the place had always called to him. Dragon’s Point.

He’d told the old shifter they called Griz that he wanted to put a home at the top.

“You’re a grizzly shifter,” Griz said and laughed.

“Do dragon shifters even exist?” His younger self asked Griz.

This brought another laugh from Griz. “Dragons are in fairy tales. Everyone knows that.”

So are werewolves and other shifters—but we exist,
had been Judge’s last thought on the matter. But old Griz, or fate, had somehow made it so his brothers picked the other peaks. How it worked out so well, Judge never knew. By all rights, as the youngest, and as the last one to pick, he never expected to have Dragon’s Point.

And yet he did. He’d set up his cabin. He’d even put together Lance’s cabin for him. The one he hadn’t messed with was Cross’s. Judge knew why. Oh, yeah, he knew about Cross’s communication room. He knew that Cross was a lot higher in the Compliance Unit hierarchy than he let on. But Cross was too tightlipped to disclose.

Probably why he rose so high in the ranks.

Though Judge hadn’t done too badly himself. As for their brother Lance, well, Lance was a different one altogether. Lance wasn’t too interested in rising in the CU. He went, sure, but Judge always wondered if he had an ulterior motive for joining.

He sighed at the thought of his brothers. Would they have grown up differently if they’d had their parents?

As though they were real grizzlies who needed their space, the del Cruz brothers.

I should have called Cross to begin with, not Lance.

Cross, as eldest, and with that badass communication room, could have helped Judge figure out what the hell was going on.

Might as well call Cross.

Cross picked up on the first ring. In the background, Judge could hear Cross’s mate, Ariadne’s soft voice.

Ariadne—the best thing that could have happened to Cross. She’d softened an edge his brother didn’t like to show to anyone. Yeah, Judge knew all about Cross’s softer side. He’d seen the stray animals Cross had helped when they were younger.

But Cross never showed that human side of himself. He’d always had the gruff, rough exterior. But the moment Ariadne entered Cross’s life, a little over a month ago, Judge heard the difference in his brother’s voice.

He’d heard joy. Joy—something the del Cruz brothers never had much of.

Cross picked up on the first ring and stepped right into a conversation with Judge as if they’d been in the middle of a chitchat. “What’s on your mind? Shouldn’t you be pulling in anytime soon? Looking for a dinner invite?”

There it was. That joy in Cross’s voice. There was something else too. If Judge hadn’t talked to Lance two weeks ago, he’d have never known.

Never known the old shifter he’d always known as Griz was actually their uncle.

Never known that Judge and Lance’s father had killed his half-brother, Cross’s father. Then he had been killed in retribution, leaving the boys homeless and orphaned.

All this time, Judge had thought he, Lance, and Cross had the same father. He’d have never known that his and Lance’s father wasn’t exactly a great guy either. That the third brother, Griz was the best one of the bunch.

And after the boys were left fatherless, Griz, who’d been in the Shifter Council Compliance Unit, had learned his brothers’ children were in foster homes, shuffled from one to another, kept only a short time because of their tendencies.

Cross’s bear wanted to kill Lance’s bear. Cross’s bear remembered the day his father had been killed. It wanted retribution from the time they were little and had repeatedly tried to kill Lance.

That got the three boys kicked out from home after home, until they finally ended up in Mae Forester’s care. Then Griz had shown up one day. He’d asked them to keep his existence a secret and he’d been like a father figure to them, coming to each one during rough times.

“Judge.” Cross’s voice brought him back. “I’m guessing you didn’t call for an invite to dinner, then.”

Judge cleared his throat. “Not exactly.”

On the other end of the phone, Judge felt his brother’s tension setting in. Cross had picked up on Judge’s tone.

“Remember Lani?”

“Alanna Meyers, that Lani? From the same CU squad?”

Judge took a deep breath. As far as descriptions went, that barely touched the tip of the iceberg when it came to Lani, at least when it came to Judge’s feelings about her.

“Yeah. That Lani. Got a call from a guy in our squad.” This was a stretch. Lani wasn’t in Judge’s squad anymore. She hadn’t been since
that
morning. “He said she’d gone AWOL.”

“You’re out, though. Right?”

Technically, yes. Judge was out. He had done his four years and was on his one-year furlough. The one year where an Enforcer of the Compliance Unit could decide if he wanted to go back or not.

Judge already knew the answer to that.

“Yeah, I’m on my leave.”

“So why would you be called about her absence without leave?”

He let out a slow exhale, pulled the truck onto the side of the road, the tiny pebbles crunching beneath the truck’s wheels. Judge slipped it into park and took his foot of the brake. Adjusting the angle of the phone against his face, he clenched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.

“I just would…” He didn’t feel like getting into it.

“You just would? Just like that? An Enforcer on furlough would be called because of another squad member’s AWOL?” Suspicion was very obvious in Cross’s tone.

“We were close.” That was all Judge was willing to give up on the matter.

“Close? Fraternizing close? The kind of close that gets you tossed out with a dishonorable mention on your record?”

“I’m not with the CU anymore.”

“You’re still accountable for your behavior.”

The last thing Judge was in the mood for was a damned lecture on his behavior when he was in the unit.

“Come on, Cross. What the fuck. You know I don’t break the rules.”

If one went to hell for lying, Judge knew he’d be headed straight there.

No passing GO, no collecting $200, no nothing. Just straight to jail with my ass.

Especially since I’m guilty.

As if he’d confess to that.

It was one night, for fuck’s sake. One night.

One mistake, if Lani had her say. One mistake that led her to dropping out of their squad and dropping out of sight. Permanently.

“You sure you don’t break rules?” More suspicion in Cross’s tone.

“Fuck it, bro.” Judge swiped to end the phone call with a quick jerk and tossed the damned phone onto the seat, shoved the truck into gear and took off for his cabin.