The Trials of Gregg (2 page)

Gregg thought about pushing the issue, but decided to let it slide. Since the bastard did neglect her and pretend she didn’t exist, she was due some rage of her own. Gregg wasn’t about to deny her that.

“You should just go to Daniel and tell him what is going on,” Tiffy said.

Gregg shook his head. “I can’t do that. He’s still your legal guardian. If they kick him out, he has every right to take you with him.”

Tiffy made a raspberry noise. “Like he would do that. He hates me.”

Ah, but he would.
For Almont had threatened to do just that the last time Gregg had threatened to turn Almont into Daniel. Almont knew that Gregg loved Tiffy and would do anything to protect her. So Almont was using that as blackmail against Gregg to keep his silence. It was the only reason why Gregg continued to live there and take all the verbal abuse and hatred spewed his way on a daily basis. If it hadn’t been for Tiffy, Gregg would have moved out a long time ago and left Almont to rot.

“It’s still a risk we can’t take.” Gregg sat down on the bed next to Tiffy and put his arm around her shoulders. “But don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Aren’t we always?”

“I don’t know how you can call this fine?” She looked down at her uneaten food. “All the kids at school make fun of me for having a drunk for a dad. The sad thing is they don’t even know he pretends I don’t exist, and he is always saying awful things to you. If they knew that, it would make it even worse.”

“Well, we’ll just have to make sure nobody ever finds out then. Won’t we?” Gregg asked. “We’ve managed to keep it a secret this long, haven’t we?”

She gave a timid nod. “I guess.”

“And we’ll keep on keeping it a secret. Don’t worry, Tiffy, I’ll make sure that you’re protected.”

Gregg would, too, no matter the cost.

John sat in the back of the military vehicle, his heart hammering hard as he wondered just how in the hell he had gotten himself in this mess. More importantly, he wondered how in the hell he was going to get himself out of it.

All of it because he had been stupid enough to get knocked unconscious during a training exercise and accidentally shifted into his Lion form. Thus giving away to everybody that he wasn’t a human after all, but one of the freaky shifters everybody had just recently discovered and were raising a huge stink about.

As for John, he’d known about shifters for around four years. That had been the first time he’d shifted. He hadn’t known what was going on at the time. The pain had been awful—so awful he’d thought he was dying. Instead, he found himself transformed into a Lion. At that time, he’d thought he’d been the only one of his kind.

He’d never spoken to anybody about his secret. Although it had explained to him why his reflexes were always faster than others and why he was stronger than everybody else. Over the years, he’d learned to control his shifting, so he could do it at will, and it didn’t hurt anymore.

Then the big reveal had happened. The one where everybody in the world had found out there were shifters all over the place, living among humans. When people started to freak out, some of them even going so far as to hunt down and kill shifters, the last thing John wanted to do was raise his hands and admit he was one of them.

But now his secret was out, and there was no way of putting the cat back in the bag. It was out, claws and all, and John was going to have to deal with the repercussions. He only wished he knew what they were going to be. Were they taking him to some lab to study him? Or someplace to quietly eliminate him? Anything was possible, and the guards in the back with him weren’t talking at all.

John fisted his hands, straining his wrists inside the handcuffs. He’d been warned they were specially designed for shifters, and if he shifted, they would expand to fit his new Lion girth. That meant that, either way, John was screwed.

“Is anybody going to tell me where we’re going?” John asked for the millionth time.

“You’ll find out once we get there,” the man from the front seat said.

John was really beginning to hate that guy. He’d been there since John had woken up and hadn’t left his side since. Talk about being a pain in the ass. This guy took the grand prize. For whatever reason, he seemed to be in charge of all things shifter-related as far as the government went.

In John’s opinion, the guy seemed awfully young to be in charge. He didn’t look to be a day over twenty-five. He might have even been considered cute if he weren’t such an asshole. With blond hair that had darker streaks of brown in it and blue eyes, he had the whole surfer-boy look down pat. That was aside from the fact this guy had a military cut and seemed so uptight one would think somebody had shoved a rod up his ass.

When they pulled into what looked to be an old auto factory, John’s stomach clenched. This could not be good. Only bad things happened in places like that. John had seen enough movies to know that. He was nobody’s fool.

He fought hard to keep the fear off his face. He’d be damned if he gave these bastards the satisfaction of knowing they bested him. When the time came for the anal probe, now that’s when he’d fight. He sure wasn’t going to take that one without a fight.

When they went through so many security checkpoints that it made Fort Knox look like a joke, it only confirmed John’s suspicion. They were taking him to some top-secret lab where they planned to experiment on him. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be a gentle probing kind of testing, either. No, it would be the mean rip-you-open-without-anesthesia kind. After all, he’d heard it said time and again over the past few months that shifters weren’t real humans, so they shouldn’t be treated as such.

Finally, the vehicle came to a lurching stop. The man from the front got out and came to the rear. “Get out.”

When the guards moved to get up, the man said, “Not you, just John.”

As John got to his feet, he heard one of the guards grumble, “Man, are we ever going to see the inside of that place?”

“I know. I hear it’s really cool in there,” another one whispered back.

John almost tripped over his feet. Here he was, about to go into some horrible place, and the guards were pissed because they didn’t get a chance to go lookie-loo? If he hadn’t been shackled, he would have been half tempted to punch both of them. As it was, he just settled for a dirty look and a small snarl.

The leader let out a sigh and made a come-on gesture with his hand. “Let’s get going. Mitchell is waiting for us.”

Who in the hell was Mitchell? The head doctor or something? The guy was probably on the other side of the doors, nearly wetting himself at the chance to get at John’s insides. Yippy skippy, let the fun begin.

John hopped down from the back of the truck, then followed the leader to a set of doors that had a pair of guards outside. As soon as they approached, one of the guards smiled at the leader.

“Hey, General. Nice to see you. Is this the lost shifter you called us about?”

General?
John actually shook his head to make sure his ears were clear. There was no way in hell that somebody this young could be an actual general. It was just impossible. But then again, John could change into a full-grown Lion, so who was he to talk about what could and couldn’t happen in the world?

“This would be the one,” the general said.

They were allowed inside the building. John didn’t know what to expect, but what he saw certainly wasn’t it. The place looked like some high-end CIA operation. There were several people in black fatigue-like uniforms rushing around. They all had a red paw-print patch on the shoulder. Off to one side were several computer stations, all of them manned by other uniformed people. Large monitors were mounted to the walls. They showed news from all over the world, plus other kinds of data.

Yet the place didn’t have a sterile feeling. Far from it. It still managed to give off a somewhat homey feel. The floors were all hardwood and the walls were painted a warm brown. As John glanced around, he had the first spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, he might be okay.

A Goth-looking man approached them. He had a uniform on, but he’d made some obvious modifications to it. There were numerous chains hanging from the uniform, and the sleeves were cut off, showing off an impressive set of muscles. He had his dark hair spiked up, and there were blue streaks running through it.

“Carson! It’s great to see you,” the general said with a huge smile.

It was all John could do not to gape. He didn’t know that the general even knew how to smile. John had seriously believed the guy was like the Grumpy Cat and had a frown forever frozen in place.

“It’s good to see you, too, Spencer,” Carson said as he shook the general’s hand.

Spencer?
So that was the name of the man who had been making the past few hours of John’s life a living hell. Well, to be fair, the man hadn’t been exactly mean. He hadn’t beaten John or anything. All he’d done was handcuff John and said that they’d be going for a little ride. But still, the guy could have been a little more forthcoming with information.

“So you think this is one of our lost kitties?” Carson asked as he eyed John up and down.

“Yeah, I saw him shift right in front of me.”

Carson moved in real close, right into John’s personal space, and sniffed loudly. “Ah, we have a Lion here.”

“How do you know that?” John asked, shocked.

Carson pointed to his nose. “You reek of it, dude.”

“Is somebody going to tell me what in the hell is going on here?” John asked, trying hard to ignore the fact his voice was shaking.

“You’ve just entered a whole new world, and all the rules have changed,” Carson announced with a smirk.

John shook his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Carson simply studied him for a minute. “I’ll let Mitchell explain all that to you. Just…welcome home.”

Welcome home?
What in the hell was that supposed to mean? After talking with Carson, John was more confused than ever before. The general gave a jerk of his head, and John followed him down a long hallway with doors at frequent intervals, appearing to lead into different offices. The general stopped at the last one on the right and knocked.

“Come in,” a deep voice said.

John let out a shiver. There was something about the voice that made him feel fearful, yet comforted at the same time. Which was crazy since the emotions were the polar opposite of each other. But there was no other way to explain them.

They walked into the office. It was big, but looked smaller because of all the piles of paperwork all over the place. If John had to describe it, he would use
organized mess
. It was far from a pigsty, but definitely cluttered.

There was a large man sitting behind the desk. He had more muscles on him than any super hero in a comic book. His hair was speckled with different shades of brown and cut short, and he had brown eyes. Sitting on the edge of the desk was a somewhat smaller man. He had brown, shaggy hair and dark eyes. For some reason, he smelled different to John. It wasn’t an unpleasant odor, just off.

John must have made a face because the smaller man laughed. “I’m a Wolf. That’s why my scent is off. I’m Dean, by the way. Mitchell’s my mate.”

“Your mate?” John echoed stupidly.

“Yeah, Mitchell is the leader of the feline coalition,” Dean said slowly, his brows creasing.

“What feline coalition?”

Mitchell turned to the general. “Spencer, you haven’t told him anything?”

The general held up his hands. “I thought I would leave that up to you.”

“Why is he in handcuffs?” Dean demanded angrily.

“We didn’t want him to get scared and try to run away before we got him here.”

“He wouldn’t have been scared if you had told him the truth from the beginning,” Mitchell growled. “Take those things off him, now.”

When the general rushed to do as Mitchell ordered, John was shocked. John hadn’t thought there was anybody who could intimidate the general. This Mitchell must be one badass. It was a good thing it looked as if he were on John’s side. Or at least, he hoped so.

Once John’s wrists were freed, he rubbed at them, then asked, “So is anybody going to tell me what’s going on?”

“How old are you?” Mitchell asked.

“Twenty-six, but what does that have to do with anything?” John countered.

“That would have made you around three when the mass Raven attack happened,” Mitchell mused. “So it would make sense you wouldn’t remember anything from your life before then. Tell me, were you adopted?”

“No, I grew up in the foster care system,” John said.

What he didn’t add was he had been hard to place because he’d been prone to night terrors and often would keep his caregivers up all night because of his screaming. The nightmares had gone on until John was a teenager. The strange thing was he had never been able to remember what the nightmares were about. He just recalled that it involved birds.

“What’s your full name?” Dean asked.

“John Smith,” John said.

Dean snorted with laughter. “Well, they were very original with that one. They must have been running out of ideas for names when they got to you.”

“Who?” John asked.

“The Hawks. They were the ones who rescued the feline children during the attack and took them to humans to raise,” Mitchell said.

“Let me guess, they never told these humans that the babies were shifters.” John said.

“Nope, they were left in the dark. It wasn’t until recently that even we knew the children had survived. We have become allies with the Hawks, and now they’re helping us find all the lost shifters. One of which is you,” Mitchell said.

The room seemed to spin as the implications of what Mitchell said hit John. He sat down heavily on one of the empty chairs in front of the desk. Now, the
welcome home
comment by Carson suddenly made sense.

“So I’m not being brought here to be experimented on?” John asked.

“No, you are here because this is where you’ve always belonged. You’re one of us, and we take care of our own. If you still want to be a soldier, you can join our rank, or if you don’t, we can find someplace else for you. But don’t worry, you’ll be safe and cared for here. We won’t hurt you. I can promise you that as your leader,” Mitchell said.