Chapter 6
Chapter Six
KARL
Karl stood just outside the back door, cradling a coffee he didn’t really want.
He’d debriefed Colby and Tom, briefed Christian and Dave, and he’d watched Leon slinking around their property.
Tight shirt and tighter jeans, moving with a cat’s grace and not giving away by sign or gesture what he was thinking—he was frustrating as hell.
Karl wanted to grab hold of him, and shake him out of his imperturbability.
Just get him to react like a normal person, not like a—a cat.
Leon had checked in with Karl—and that annoyed him even more, that he couldn’t legitimately find fault with the damn cat—and let him know his plans for the morning, the places he’d be inspecting. Not that Karl needed that information to track him.
He was still glaring at Leon’s lean figure, prowling around the barn, when the back door opened behind him.
“Karl. You got a minute?” Matt asked.
Karl turned. “Sure.”
Matt led the way to the den, where Luna stood at the window. She gave a brief smile, and he nodded in return. She hadn’t shown up for breakfast with the pack, and even now, although polite, she was self-contained and remote. Just like her damn brother.
“We won’t keep you long,” Matt said, gesturing for him to take a seat as he sat in his usual chair. Karl remained standing, needing to be ready to respond to any threat. “We’re contingency planning, worst case stuff, and want to run a few scenarios.”
“We know it’s unlikely,” Luna added, “but if the human population turns against shifters, we want to be ready. It’s especially urgent for the smaller prides and packs, the ones without training or fallback points.”
Karl nodded. “You’re talking civilian evac.”
“Yes,” Luna said simply. “Matt said you have experience we could use.”
“You need load calculations, escape routes, caching. Silent travel protocols. You need to know how long people can stay off-grid before the solution becomes as bad as the problem.”
Matt nodded, his mouth tight. “We’re just shaping ideas right now, but I want expert guidance on what we should be considering.”
Karl stepped forward and looked over the map spread on the desk, with a blue dot representing every pack.
A few black dots stood out between them.
Cat prides, presumably, though from what he knew of cats, they didn’t all live in prides.
And even when they did, it wasn’t the same.
Prides were looser than packs, more like a network of people who shared territory and occasionally got along. A pack—when done right—was family.
Cats were too independent, which meant they had no one to rely on when things went to hell. It was why they didn’t care when they gave the orders that sent others into hell.
He shook off the unsettling memory. “Depends if you want to go for larger fallback sites, which would be easier to set up and defend but would be more discoverable, or to have shifters disappear into the communities and country around them.” He glanced up and held Matt’s eyes.
“And that depends on whether this is going to be a blip in shifter and non-shifter relations, or a new normal.”
Matt looked suddenly ten years older. God, Karl wouldn’t have wanted the choices that had weighed on his shoulders—protect his mate, and potentially cause problems for every shifter in the country, or spend the rest of his life waiting for Jesse to be snatched by people with resources he couldn’t defend against. Which would probably end up in trouble for every shifter anyway.
“Let’s game out both scenarios,” Luna said, her calmness somehow reassuring rather than annoying. Yeah, she’d definitely learned to hide the worst of her cat traits.
“Okay, well, whichever option we’re talking about, you’ll want as many sites as possible near the borders in case they need to get out of the country.”
Luna nodded slowly. “We’d thought of that. Not everyone could get that far, though.”
“Sure. Which means the other regional sites—some should be remote, and others urban.” He tapped his knuckle lightly on the map. “You want options so that no one path becomes predictable.”
Matt leaned forward. “What about actual locations? What kind of sites would you choose?”
Karl hesitated just a breath. “Not obvious shelters.”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
“I mean not places people would expect someone on the run to use, like abandoned cabins or barns. You want ordinary and unremarkable. Vacation rentals no one’s touched in a year, or houses that’ve been on the market forever, with working locks.
Quiet places no one checks because they’re not abandoned.
And because they’re just there, the way they’ve been for a while, no one sees them anymore. ”
Luna’s voice was very quiet. “Hide in plain sight.”
Karl nodded. “Exactly. Keep your stockpiling purchases spread thin and random—nothing with a digital footprint, not even a credit card. But don’t use piles of cash in a local store, either.
We need silence, with no pattern and no trail.
And we have to train people to think like prey, without panicking like prey.
” He huffed an unamused laugh. “At least wolf nature is on our side there.”
Luna’s silence was somehow deafening.
“As is cat nature, of course,” he added, with only the merest suggestion of grudging acknowledgement.
Matt asked, “How many people can you realistically move like this?”
Not enough. Not nearly enough, that was for sure.
“It depends. To start with, are they moving as wolves or cats, or as humans? Let’s say some at least will be in human form, because no matter how well prepared people are, there are some items that they just won’t leave behind.
” Even if it cost them their lives. He’d read of people in airplane crashes burning because they stopped to get their belongings out of the overhead locker. He’d seen worse himself.
“You could easily move dozens that way. Maybe a hundred, if they’re trained and disciplined. But if you’re moving elders and kids, and people with mobility or medical needs, you’re not going to keep everyone off radar indefinitely.”
Luna’s expression didn’t change. “What happens then?”
Karl looked her in the eye. “Then someone makes noise in the wrong direction and creates a trail. Bleeds out time for the rest.”
The silence that followed was not a comfortable one.
Matt finally spoke. “We don’t want to go this route. But if we have to, I’d rather be prepared than scrambling.”
Karl inclined his head slightly. “Then you’ll need drills. Codes and staging plans that can flex without notice.”
Luna nodded, face unreadable. “We’ll work them through with you, if you’re willing.”
Karl’s answer came without hesitation. “Yeah. I’m in.”
LEON
Leon prowled in cat form, moving with silent precision.
Damp leaves softened the ground beneath his paws, and the low clouds above were heavy with a promise of rain that hadn’t quite materialized.
He was double-checking a sector Joaquim and Ava had cleared.
Leon didn’t believe in trusting without verifying.
That might not make him the most popular cat around, double-checking their work, but he was never going to be that anyway. Better to be resented than to let his sister come to harm.
A wolf was moving through the trees on a diverging course with him. Its quietness and subtlety surprised him, and he paused an instant, scenting the air, wondering which of the wolves it was. Christian.
Now that was a surprise. When Karl had introduced them earlier, Christian had been all quivering aggression, looking for offense.
While normally Leon would love to have obliged, he decided that it would get under the wolf’s skin even more if he gave him no excuse for a fight.
He’d been right—when Christian had stalked off, disappointed, he’d practically been able to see clouds of steam coming out of his ears, like a cartoon.
But now, Christian was being careful and quiet.
Perhaps Karl had better control over his people than Leon had thought. Though he still hadn’t gotten over the way wolves had been lounging around relaxing when they had Luna on site.
No matter how watchful he was, Christian hadn’t spotted Leon, who’d been careful to stay downwind. Which, if Leon were fair, might not be entirely Christian’s fault. He’d be expecting a cougar, not a black jaguar, almost impossible to see in the deep shadow beneath the trees.
That was the thing about being the only jaguar in a pride of cougars—he stood out, and not in a good way. Different look, different everything. No one said it out loud, but he knew what they saw when he shifted. What he reminded them of.
Once in a while, though—like now—it worked in his favor.
He shook his shoulders, tension sliding off like water, then ran a smoothing lick over one paw.
Just because he was invisible didn’t mean he had to be less than perfect.
If people were going to stare, at least he’d give them something pretty to look at.
He pricked his ears as he heard something approaching. He’d seen a few chipmunks and a couple of deer, but whatever was headed his way was making a lot more noise, practically blundering along. Making a swift decision, he climbed the nearest tree and lay along the branch across the path.
He could now see what was making all that commotion. A gray wolf trotted into view, and Leon narrowed his eyes. The wolf was way too relaxed, his tongue lolling, body loose and happy. Not a single glance cast to the shadows, no caution in his steps. Like he didn’t expect danger.
Leon’s muscles bunched. With the silence of a shadow, he dropped from the branch above the trail and landed squarely on the wolf’s back. The impact sent them both to the ground in a flurry of fur.