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“You’re the one who put those bruises on her?” Kotori demanded, as if he hadn’t heard her. Another slam on the wall brought a stain of blood. Shiya’s stomach somersaulted.
“He didn’t do it,” she shouted.
Kotori dropped the man to the floor. Shiya thought she heard a bone snapping when he hit. When he didn’t move, she bent to check his pulse. Her heart thundered out of control. Kotori had already killed him.
“Who?”
She swallowed and looked up at her lover.
“Who?” he repeated. He reached down and pulled her to her feet, but his touch was nothing like what he’d done to Kasen’s man. Kotori’s grasp on her arm remained gentle. She wondered at how he could go from strangling a man to handling her with care. Her hands shook, and her knees seemed about to give at any second, but she didn’t fear Kotori. What she did fear was telling him it was Kasen who put the cuffs on. Her brother was all kinds of a bastard, but she couldn’t let Kotori kill him.
“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t intentional.”
Kotori narrowed his eyes and raised her chin. She shivered at the darkness she saw there. “Anyone who hurts you does not get to live.”
Staring up at him, all of a sudden, she knew the truth about what had happened to her mother. One of them, her mother, or her dad, maybe Kasen, had killed the shifter’s mate. The wolf that attacked Kotori had been defending his rights to kill the man who had touched his mate. Kotori had only seen her bruises. If for some reason she’d been killed . . . The shifters weren’t fully animal, but they weren’t fully human either. They lived by their own rules, and she understood why that would terrify humans who knew of their existence.
How would she distract him from insisting she tell him? More growls erupted outside the cabin, along with the clink of steel on steel. Kotori hadn’t come alone. He shifted and started out of the cabin, and she picked up the knife to follow. The makeshift compound was in an uproar. Polar bears attacked men in several areas. Men in animal skin clothing and mukluk boots held small curved blades as they fought Kasen’s men. Their darker skin and long black hair pegged them as Tlingit, Kotori’s people.
The scent of blood permeated the air, and it stained the snow in too many spots. Shiya scanned them for Birk. This was her fault. If she’d never slept with them, never asked to get out into the field . . .
When her feet began to freeze, she looked down and winced, remembering her boots had been taken away. At another cabin, she heard her brother’s cry and ran in through the open door. Birk and Kasen faced off. Her brother’s right hand hung at an awkward angle, but he’d switched his weapon to the left. A gun lay discarded, and she figured Birk had disarmed him earlier.
“Kasen, give up,” she demanded. “If you and your people leave Alaska, we can end this fighting.”
Her brother sneered. “They all deserve to be killed. You saw them out there, didn’t you? There are more shifters here than your two lovers, and every one of those men are carriers. I can guarantee you that. Besides, they cut down too many of my men. I can’t let that slide.”
“You started this!” She took a step closer to her brother, but Birk reached out and snatched her back. In one fluid motion, he whipped her around him and thrust her in Kotori’s direction. Kotori held her close to his side, and she couldn’t make him let go no matter how hard she struggled.
“And I’m going to finish it.” Kasen feinted left and went right to drive his knife into Birk’s side. Birk blocked the move and sent Kasen flying backward. Her brother smacked into the side of a table and doubled over. He spit out blood and dragged a hand over his mouth.
Shiya searched her mind for a way to stop this. “If you don’t back off, he’s going to kill you. They’ll kill all of you. I’m willing to bet you’ve never come against this many shifters and carriers at once. You’re out of your element here, Kasen. Kotori’s family are used to the climate, and they don’t interact much with those on the outside.”
Her brother sneered again. “Meaning they’re wilder than the animals we’ve come across before. They deserve to be wiped off this planet.”
Kotori moved up to Birk’s side. Where he’d calmed down some after finding her, she saw his rage resurface. She had to end this, or they would bury her brother just as they did her mother.
“If you don’t stop, I’m going to wipe out every piece of information you have on the shifters, every contact, every lead.”
Kasen swore. “That can be gotten back.”
“Ten years’ worth? In how long?”
He seemed to debate over it. Her threat didn’t hold much water. All Kasen needed to do was contact her dad or someone else at their headquarters and get an IT person to change the access. In seconds, they could lock her out of the system and back everything up.
“Kasen!”
Shiya jumped, and all of them turned toward the new voice in the doorway. She couldn’t believe her dad stood there, as calm as if he’d been out taking an evening stroll. His angry gaze locked on Kasen.
“Please explain to me why you have my daughter in the midst of all this fighting.”
“Daddy, I’m fine.” She tried not to draw his focus on her feet.
“Dad, I—” Kasen began.
“Outside! I want a full report!” Her father spun on his heel, and it was as if both sides agreed to back off for now. Shiya noted from the doorway that all fighting in and outside of the cabin halted. Polar bears melted into the trees, camouflaged by the white snow. Kasen rushed to the edge of the cleared area, frustration obvious in the set of his shoulders and his clenched fists.
“Dad, you know they’re shifters, right?” Kasen demanded.
