Chuckling, Byron looped his arm through hers and in a courtly manner escorted her to the family room. Inside, the room was a circus. Every chair and sofa had someone sitting on it.
All of the Alpha Unit was there, cleaned up from the fight. They stood around discussing what happened with Gerard. Adam was reclining, his eyes closed on the chaise lounge and at his side Adelaide fussed over him. Beth, Meryn and Mina sat next to the men, peppering them with questions. Rheia looked around until she spotted Penny. The small girl sat in Jaxon's lap while he and Noah read her a story.
Colton looked up from Adelaide's side and he grimaced. He quickly crossed the room and kissed her on the cheek. "I am so sorry, my love, but Adelaide is like a second mother to me ..." he started.
Rheia went up on tip toe and kissed him. "It's okay, I understand. I got to meet Marius and see Byron again."
Colton shook Byron's hand and nodded to Marius. Byron turned to Aiden. "What happened out there son?"
The room quieted and all eyes turned to Aiden. He turned to his father. "The ferals attacked Adam to set a trap. They made sure the injury was severe enough that he couldn't be moved, but wouldn't kill him right away, so Rheia would have to go to the clinic. When we got there, the leader gave the order to attack and to find the slides." Aiden turned to Rheia. "Do you know what slides he was talking about? Because whatever they are, they were willing to fight and die, down to the last man."
Rheia stared, then remembered the small travel microscope case that lay forgotten at the bottom of her coat pocket. "Oh my gosh, yes. I have the slides I got from Adam the second day I was here, they're of the Mystery Man."
Colton shook his head. "Why would they attack now? Adam's had those slides for weeks, they could have taken them at any time from the clinic. The body, too, for that matter."
"What changed?" Meryn asked.
Rheia snorted. "The body went from being normal to a pile a goo."
"Then what?" Beth asked.
Rheia thought about it. "Then I collected a sample from the goo form, we opened the windows to air out the room, then Aiden and Adam called the council while we came back here."
Beth turned to Byron. "Did anyone else outside the council know that we had the body?"
Byron shook his head, then paled, realizing what that could possibly mean. "It's not possible. I refuse to believe that any council member would betray our people," he said, adamantly.
Meryn pursed her lips. "That may not be the case Dad. Adam's office phone could have been tapped."
Darian crossed his arms. "It makes sense. All of this started after Aiden and Adam made that phone call."
Meryn pulled out a legal pad and began to make notes. "So, chronologically. Elena and Brian are killed, Penny goes to live with Rheia, a year later ferals attack Rheia's house. Why?"
Rheia was about to answer then looked over to where her daughter sat. "Pumpkin Dumpling, why don't you go color on Uncle Aiden's wall for a bit, okay?" She knew they were about to discuss some pretty horrific things; her four year old daughter did not need to listen in.
Penny nodded and hopped off of Jaxon's lap, she grabbed her backpack and headed towards Aiden's office. When Rheia heard the door shut she turned back to the rest of the room. "Marco believes the reason why the ferals attacked was because of a news article written the week before. In it, the reporter links the murders of Penny's parents to more recent murders in the area and lists Penny as a survivor and possible witness. It also mentioned that Penny was adopted by a local surgeon."
"Bastard," Colton grumbled.
Rheia grinned at him. "I'm pretty sure my brothers paid him a visit."
Meryn took notes. "So after a year the ferals get intel that Penny survived and what? Could ID them? That doesn't sound right. Even if she could identify them, so what?"
"We're missing something," Gavriel said, leaning against the wall.
Meryn twisted the pen in her hand. "Let's keep moving. So, Penny and Rheia move here and then the clinic is ransacked and the gooey body is taken. After that, the ferals try to get to Rheia at the clinic but are subdued by Colton and Gamma. After that, ferals attack the Carmichael home, but according to Gerard and Mina, everyone was a target, not just Penny. Finally, Adam is attacked at the clinic as a trap to get to Rheia, because they believe she has these all important slides."
Beth reached up and took Gavriel's hand. "It's not over, is it? Even though you killed all the ferals at the clinic, it's not over yet?"
"This is pissing me off! I feel like I'm missing pieces to the puzzle." Meryn scribbled back and forth on her notes.
"I know how you feel. I told Radek the same thing earlier. It's like the pieces aren't fitting together right." Rheia crossed her arms frowning.
Adelaide sipped her tea then set the cup down on the saucer. "I may not know about reports or surgery, but I have raised four boys." Everyone turned to look at her. "I remember this once Adam and Aiden were assembling an intricate battle scene puzzle, but they couldn't make anything fit. They argued for hours; it was nerve wracking."
Aiden blushed. "That's a nice story, Mother; what was your point?"
Adelaide looked at Aiden then over to Adam and sighed. "I really thought I taught you better than that. Do you remember why you had such a hard time putting the puzzle together?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Adam glared at Ben. "It was because Ben dumped his puzzle in with ours in a rush to go out and play."
Meryn gasped. "Adelaide you're a genius."
Rheia chuckled. "Good one, Lady McKenzie."
The men all stared at each other with blank expressions.
Adelaide smiled at Rheia. "Please dear, call me Adelaide, I practically helped raise Colton, he's family."
Aiden leaned down next to Meryn. "What?" he whispered.
Meryn rolled her eyes. "We've all been assuming that everything is connected. That the that the ferals who went after Rheia and the ones who stole the body are connected, what if they aren't? What if the puzzle pieces aren't fitting together because there are two separate puzzles?"
Aiden stood and smiled at the unit members. "Our women are amazing."
Gavriel and Colton nodded in agreement.
Rheia sat down on the arm of one of the chairs. "So back to the initial attack, why would they go after Penny?"
Mina waved her hand in the air. "Maybe for the same reason they went after my Elena, because Penny is half chameleon."
Meryn and Beth exchanged dubious looks. "Mina, I don't think that's the reason why."
Mina looked around. "Why else would she be attacked? Chameleon's are extremely rare. Some shifters hope their children mate with us so that their grandchildren and their bloodline gain our abilities."
Meryn held up her hands forming a 'T'. "Okay, timeout. What do you mean Penny is only half chameleon?"
Rheia stared at Mina. She was wondering the same thing, she had always assumed she was chameleon like her mother.
Mina blinked. "Didn't I tell you? Elena was pregnant when she left Lycaonia. Penny is the child she had with her wolf boyfriend."
"No wonder she was able to get past the units during the training drill," Colton said looking a bit shell shocked.
Meryn's head whipped back to Mina. "When you say chameleons are rare, how rare?"
Mina sighed. "We're almost extinct. That's why we pushed Elena to try and find a mate among other chameleon families. How ironic that she did exactly what we wanted in the end. Since her mate ended up being a chameleon, their baby, had they lived would have been the first pure blooded chameleon shifter born in a decade."
Meryn let the legal pad drop and scrambled for her laptop. "No, no, no, no, oh no," Meryn muttered under her breath as her computer booted up.
Rheia stood. "What did you figure out?"
Meryn tapped away and then the color began to drain out of her face. She swayed a bit in her chair. Ryuu and Aiden were instantly at her side. "Meryn, what?" Aiden demanded.
Meryn shook her h
ead as if trying to erase what she'd seen. "After breakfast, while you guys had your showdown at the clinic I ran a wider search. All of the US, going back twenty years, you know, a huge sample, just in case." She swallowed hard. "I know why chameleons are so rare. They've slowly been hunted to extinction." She flipped her laptop around to show a map of the US. Red dots were scattered everywhere. "Over eighty-five percent of all reported paranormal murders in the past twenty years have been chameleons." Meryn began to shake so hard Rheia thought she was going to hurt herself. Suddenly, she stood. "Excuse me." Covering her mouth she ran from the room. Rheia stood and darted out right behind her.
Sure enough she headed straight for the bathroom. Rheia held her hair back as Meryn threw up her breakfast. She rubbed her back and wet a washcloth to lay across the back of her neck.
"I'm okay," Meryn whispered.
"Of course you are, you're doing beautifully," Rheia said removing the washcloth. "Feel like heading back?"
Meryn shook her head. "Not really, I bet Aiden's lost his shit. I really don't want to deal with him right now."
"I have my son under control Meryn, you can come out," Adelaide's amused voice said from the other side of the door.
Grinning at each other Rheia helped Meryn to stand and they walked out.
Meryn turned to Adelaide. "How is he?"
"I made him sit on his hands in a chair. He'll be fine once he sees you up and around." Adelaide wrapped an arm around Meryn and led them back to the family room.
When they entered Aiden went to stand but Byron cleared his throat. Meryn took pity on her mate and went directly to him. He pulled her into his lap and it looked like he wasn't letting go.
Rheia turned to Beth. "Have they figured it out yet?"
Beth shook her head. "Not unless they're keeping it to themselves."
Colton turned to her. "Please, oh wise women, show us the light."
"Goofball," Rheia said, and nudged him gently in the ribs.
Meryn leaned back against Aiden's chest and closed her eyes. "It means that ferals have been systematically collecting chameleons, for whatever reason, for the past twenty years. It means that they are larger and more organized than we ever feared."
Her words silenced the room.
Adelaide sipped her tea. "And that's just one puzzle. What about the other one?"
Rheia turned and looked at Adam who was trying to get comfortable on the sofa. "Adam had the body for weeks before I showed up. I removed the necklace and it went from solid state to liquid state in the matter of moments. But the ferals didn't know Adam had the body until he contacted the council to report the change."
"Did you notice anything when you looked at the slides?" Beth asked.
Rheia shook her head. "Nothing that Adam didn't explain. The first slide was from a normal paranormal, the second was from our Mystery Man before he, disintegrated. The third was from our Mystery Man after he became goo and the last slide was from a regular feral."
Meryn shrugged. "Does it matter? I mean, dead is dead, right?"
Rheia shook her head. "Not according to Adam. He said, that even after death paranormals decompose slowly, which is why he believed the Mystery Man was a normal paranormal because he was decomposing at the same rate as a paranormal. It only accelerated after the necklace was removed." Rheia stopped as a horrible thought began to take shape in her mind.
Rheia slapped her forehead. "I had it all wrong! But in my defense, it's partially Aiden's fault."
Aiden sputtered. "How ... what's my fault?"
Rheia stood and began pacing back and forth. "At the clinic you told me that the necklace masked the smell of the ferals, making them undetectable. In my mind, I didn't question the necklace further, so we had no idea why the body began to break down, but it's like I just said, the decomposition only accelerated after the necklace was removed. That's why they wanted the slide samples; they knew we would figure it out." She faced the room and realized that not even Meryn was following along.
"Okay. Slide one, normal paranormal right? Slide two, Mystery Man before he went supernova. Adam and I assumed that the cellular decay that we saw was due to the body slowly decaying, because it was an assumption that he was a normal paranormal. Slide three, Mystery Man, the gooey state. All cells were in the process of breaking down simultaneously. Slide four, regular feral, all cells had some form of decay." She took a breath and continued.
"What if the decay we saw in slide two wasn't because he was decomposing slowly like a normal paranormal? What if the decay was there before he put on the necklace? What if he was already a feral and when he put the necklace on it stopped the cellular degradation? That necklace acts as more than just a Glade air freshener, it actually halts cellular decay, that's why there's no smell."
Beth gasped, bringing a hand to her throat. "So if a feral were to put the necklace on right after turning, there would be no way to detect what he was."
Gavriel looked between Aiden and Byron. "It would also explain why we suddenly have different types of ferals. In the past they acted like mindless beasts, relying on brute strength to create terror and cause pain. But we are now seeing them starting to band together, laying traps, and acting with caution."
Rheia nodded. "It makes sense. If the cellular decay is stopped, they would retain higher brain functions."
Meryn stared down at her hands. "So to recap; we have an unknown and growing force of intelligent ferals that cannot be detected by scent who have been operating in secret for at least the past twenty years collecting chameleons to further make them invisible and have only recently grown big enough balls to start attacking unit warrior mates." She looked up and around the room.
"We are so fucked."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mina turned to Meryn. "How did you arrive at the conclusion that they were collecting chameleons for invisibility?"
Meryn shrugged. "Kinda going out on a limb for that one, but it makes sense. We have invisible ferals attacking and they've killed hundreds of chameleons, I'm kinda just connecting the dots at this point."
Mina shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, to use our abilities you have to be born to it."
Keelan stepped away from the wall. "It is possible, if they were using a blood spell."
Mina gripped her mate's hand tight. "No where is safe."
Her words galvanized the men into action. Byron and Aiden stood. Aiden set Meryn down in their chair and kissed her softly. "We need to call a council meeting and contact the other three pillar cities. We have some major decisions to make."
Ryuu left the room heading to the foyer.
Colton leaned down and kissed her forehead. "Gavriel and I will be going with Aiden, Darian and Keelan will stay here. Gamma has also been assigned to patrol around the estate, you'll be safe."
As they went to leave Ryuu walked in holding the brass perimeter charm. He looked at Aiden. "Someone took the perimeter down."
Frowning Aiden looked around the room. "Who'd do that?"
Rheia felt ice slide down her spine. "Where's Penny?"
Colton was already moving, she could hear him yelling as he ran up the stairs. "Penny! Penny, where are you!"
Rheia ran from the room to Aiden's office.
"Rheia!" Colton called out.
"In Aiden's office!"
Colton, Meryn, and Aiden rushed in.
"She was supposed to be right here. She was supposed to be coloring!" Rheia turned to look at the colors and figures on the wall.
"Keelan, Ryuu check the house, top to bottom! Gavriel call Sascha, check to see if they saw anything outside!" Aiden began barking orders as he ran from the room.
Rheia turned to Colton. "Where is she?"
Colton shook his head. "I don't know, but I will find her. I'll start upstairs to see if I can pick up her scent."
Meryn pointed to the drawing. "Do you think she got scared drawing the attack scene from your house and hid?"
Rheia shook her head. "Why would she ta
ke the perimeter down?" She looked down at the drawing. "Besides, that's not our house, we don't have rounded windows." Rheia froze. Why hadn't she realized that earlier, this wasn't something Penny was drawing from her nightmares.
Rheia stared at Meryn and they both turned to look at the rounded window behind Aiden's desk, then down at the drawing. The terrifying figure that was stared back at them, Penny had seen looking into Aiden's office window.
"Colton!" Rheia screamed.
The sound of thundering feet heralded the men as they ran into the room. Colton burst through the doorway looking around for an unseen enemy.
"What?" he asked.
Rheia pointed down at the drawing. "Something has been stalking her outside Aiden's window."
Colton looked at the drawing and blanched. As one, the men left the room at a run, heading outside. Rheia and Meryn followed. As they turned the corner of the house Rheia was just in time to see Colton throw his head back and howl, his body expanding before he burst from his clothing as a giant wolf. He rushed into the woods behind the house, Aiden and the rest of the Alpha Unit right behind him.
Rheia choked back a sob. "Does that mean ... Is she?" She couldn't form the words.
Ryuu wrapped an arm around both Meryn and Rheia's shoulders. "He caught her scent, all we can do now is wait."
Rheia buried her face in her hands and prayed.
*****
Colton ran as fast as he could tracking Penny's scent. When they came to a clearing he heard the sound of a gravelly male voice.
"Come back here you little bitch! You escaped me once, you won't do it again. You better listen to me, I'm your fucking father!" the angry voice snarled. The feral was wearing a necklace; they could neither scent nor see him.
Off to his right he heard Aiden's voice as he approached. "Why do you need a child?" Aiden asked.
Laughter filled the air. "Look at you, fumbling around blind. You can't even see me, I'm invincible! Wearing this necklace hides me from the great nit warriors. If you could only see how much the rules of your society hold you back, you would embrace freedom like I have."