"Paycen!"
The man turned at the familiar voice. He barely had time to catch Shawn as she ran towards him. She was crying with snot running down her face. He didn't understand a word she was saying, but when he saw Deuce and Cougar carrying Abby out, he understood. He cradled her to his chest as he walked around to make sure all the children were accounted for.
The police had the men in custody. Abby had done a good job of binding the first ones and not killing the last ones. The kids were shaken up but none of them were hurt. Parents were coming out the wazoo to pick their children up. Many of them stopped to thank Paycen and his friends as they cleaned up.
Keldin was handling things on the media end. Since they had come out to the world, the media had been dogging them. They always seemed to be at a crime scene when the media showed up so they had to talk to them. Emery and Keldin were the best ones to handle the media.
"Paycen," Shawn said. He tilted his head to look at her. "Where are they taking Abby?"
"They'll take her home and remove the bullet. Deuce will heal her then she'll rest for a couple of days," he replied as she shimmied down his side. He took her hand and walked with her around the parking lot.
"Where is my mom?"
"She's at the station. I wouldn't let her come." After he talked to someone else, he led her away from the group. "I need to ask you something and I want you to be honest." Shawn nodded. "Who started the fire that was protecting you when I came in?"
"I think I did."
"You did? How?"
"Abby had been shot and she couldn't move. She told me to run but I didn't want to leave her alone. I kept thinking that I didn't want her to die. The next thing I knew there was a ring of fire around us." Shawn wiped the tears that threatened to spill down her face. "I was so scared."
Paycen gripped her hands and pulled them to his lips. "Don't cry, Shawn. You did really well. I'm proud of you."
Shawn sniffled then buried her head in his shoulder. Paycen felt her tug at his heart strings. He made a mental note of how this girl made him feel. He felt like a father when he was with her. It steeled his determination to be with this girl's mother no matter what. Many men didn't want to take on the responsibility of a woman's child from another man.
Paycen's stepfather set a prime example of a man who was the complete opposite. He had taken him under his wing and showed him what it meant to be a man. When he found out that Paycen was special, he made sure that he understood that his power was to be used for good. When he died, Paycen had lost his composure.
"Paycen." The man stood up with the girl pressed to his chest. Keldin smiled and shook his head slightly. "You can go home. I think I have it handled here."
"Where's Emery?" he asked.
"He went back to the station to brief Aiden and Mikey. He should meet you at the house later. Deuce said Abby lost a lot of blood so he's going to need give her a transfusion. I want you to head back to help him."
He nodded then frowned. "What happened to Alex's group? Weren't they supposed to come back?"
"Tyler called them back to Alex's office. He must have found something."
"I have a bad feeling, Keldin. I think something much more sinister is going on here. If they've used Alex's files to find everyone, this means it's bigger than all of us."
"It has been bigger since the very beginning. But it means Arin isn't the only one involved. I think there might be a coup if we're not careful." Keldin watched his friend for a long while. "Paycen, bind Anna to you. It's the only way to keep her safe."
Paycen closed his eyes and nodded. Keldin was right. To protect Anna and Shawn he was going to have to make them his family. He already thought they were family. Now he knew that Shawn was one of them, he felt the urge to train her in the ways he had been trained.
Keldin patted him on the back then walked away. Paycen adjusted his grip on Shawn then walked towards the darkest area of the school. He whispered to the girl then disappeared.
***
Anna burst through the door to the house and was intent on finding her daughter. When she heard that the school had been attacked, she had begged to go with the team to stop them. Paycen had said no and Aiden had grabbed her to hold her back. She said she had to learn to trust Paycen with her daughter. She did trust Paycen with Shawn but no one had ever attacked the little girl.
It had taken a couple of hours for information to come in. Abby had been the one to get many of the kids out of the building before shots were fired. She had also been the only casualty. She had protected everyone she could. It wasn't until later that Anna found out that Abby had protected Shawn. That meant the bullet had been intended for her daughter.
She had had to stay at the station until the guys were processed and questioned. Her captain had told her not to interfere. She had stood back and listened to everything that was said and left unsaid. She had watched as Aiden and Mikey took over the interrogation. The men didn't say much but they didn't have to.
Unfortunately, telepathy wasn't going to be held up in a court of law. It might hold up in their courts but not in the United States court systems. Although when they did say something, they knew whether they were lying on not.
When she was finally released, Emery had returned to the station to pick her up. They drove a few miles out of town then parked their car. Emery tucked her under his shoulder then ripped her from that space. She was getting used to it.
Anna walked into the living room and stopped. Paycen was draped across the couch asleep with Shawn splayed out across his chest. The scene tugged at her heart strings. This man had not only taken her daughter from an attack but he allowed her to sleep on him.
Laughter bubbled up as she realized Serge was asleep on top of the couch. The dog wanted to be close to the people he loved most. His tail started thumping when she buried her hand in his fur. He looked up at her with soulful eyes. He looked really happy even though he barely fit on the back of the couch.
"That's a scene if I ever saw one," Emery said as he walked into the living room.
Anna nodded. "How does he fit?"
"Who? The dog or the man?"
"Both." They shared a laugh.
Emery poked Paycen in the face. "You're lover's here. Get up."
Slowly Paycen's eyes opened. Anna saw the bright green of his eyes as they registered where he was. He blinked a couple of times then looked down. He snorted in laughter the shimmied a little bit. Shawn didn't move. He stretched then threw his legs over the couch. As he sat up, he pulled the girl to his chest so she wouldn't fall. He made an annoyed sound when Serge flopped down on his back. When the dog settled on the couch, he laid the little girl down with her head on the dog's back.
"Serge, stay," he ordered. The dog thumped his tail the laid his head down.
Anna watched the dog drop his head and curl around the girl. The adults walked to the kitchen. Emery went directly to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of tea. After pouring three cups, he slid them on the island.
The second they sat down at the island, Anna knew something was wrong. Paycen and Emery were both quiet. By now Emery would be rattling off something at top notch speeds. They seemed to be waiting on something. When she heard the pop, she knew they had been waiting on someone. Tyler walked around the corner and pulled himself up onto the counter.
"I finished the background checks. I know what's going on," he said quietly.
In that moment Anna knew he was talking to her. She sat down in the vacant stool and watched the three men. They refused to look at her and she knew it was really bad. She looked from Tyler's face to the folder in his hands. Without asking she took it from him and flipped it open.
Tyler watched the woman read the file carefully. She kept her face calm so he couldn't read her emotions on the surface. Mentally she was falling apart. The men let her read without saying a word. There was nothing they could say that would make her feel better.
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Louis Octavian Martin joined the military when he was eighteen years old. He was a Level 3 Dark Lighter of the Golden Faction. Dark Lighters are very rare. They can suck the light out of wherever they are. It makes it easier for our groups to move around if it is dark because we have such great night vision. Louis was immediately tossed into Special Forces with a team like our teams. They became like brothers. They defended each other," Tyler explained.
"I met Louis when he was twenty."
"Then you got married a year later. Shawn was born not long after that. Those months that he was gone, Louis was doing under the table jobs for us. He was one of the best Dark Lighters to ever come out of the Golden Court. His biggest job was taking out a crime lord that had been bound and determined to take us down. He was a great asset."
"Why didn't he tell me he was one of you? Why did I have to find out four years after his death?"
"He didn't want you to know because he knew you weren't the one he was intended for. You saw what we see when we find our mates. He didn't have that glow but he loved you and he loved your daughter. She meant everything to him. He didn't tell you because he didn't want you to get involved. He knew what would happen."
"And it did, didn't it?" Tyler nodded silently. "What happened?"
"That crime lord? He dispatched a couple of guys. They were our kind but they were corrupt. They overtook Louis and killed him. They did it in such a way that it looked like he died of natural causes. He was murdered, Anna."
That was when she lost it. She toppled the stool as she stood up quickly. She was vaguely aware of the tears falling from her eyes. She heard a loud sob escape her throat but there was nothing she could do to hold it in. The pain in her heart was worse than labor when she had Shawn. Louis had been killed because he had done something he was ordered to do. How could people be so cruel? How could they take away a wonderful person?
She was highly aware when someone touched her. Paycen wrapped her in his arms and held her as she tried not to scream. She didn't want to wake her daughter.
She had already had one trauma today when she saw Abby shot. She didn't need another. Anna buried her face in Paycen's shoulder and wailed it out.
Paycen felt helpless. He had been against telling her because of what had happened to Shawn earlier. He had known this would happen but the others had told him she needed to know. What good was telling a woman her husband had been murdered when she didn't even understand why?
"Finish what you started," he ordered. He was starting to buzz with anger and energy.
Tyler took a deep breath then scratched his head. "It was the crime lord's boys who are after Shawn. They found out that Arin was a former member when he was younger. He had never been arrested so he could become a police officer. They contacted Arin and offered him half a million dollars to take Shawn. They didn't say how to take her. He was the one that came up with everything up until now. Arin's also very skilled with poisons. He poisoned himself to make it look like someone else did."
"Who was the crime lord?" Anna asked as she rubbed her nose. She always snotted when she cried.
"His name was Logan Anderson." The look on her face didn't surprise him. "I take it you know who Logan Anderson is."
"Logan went to school with Louis. They played high school football together. Why would Louis kill him?"
"Louis heard about Logan's feelings towards us. We did research. Logan's grandfather was a member of the old regime. Logan idolized his grandfather for his power over nature. When he hit puberty and realized he wasn't going to be like his grandfather, he turned to hatred. He began to go against us. The night he bombed a building was the last straw. We sent our top team in after him. Louis made the mistake of letting Logan know who was killing him. He made it easier for those loyal to Logan to hunt him down."
"Normally when one of our kind marries a normal human and has kids, the children are like us. It's very rare for it to skip a generation. The gene is so dominant it almost always takes effect," Emery said.
"So because of faulty genetics he wanted to kill all of you?"
"It's happened many times in history."
"And Louis paid the price for something he had done because of your laws?"
"Actually it wasn't our laws that got Louis killed. One of the unspoken rules about being an assassin is never show your target your face. It doesn't matter if you were friends with the person or if you went to school together. If they are on the list of most wanted criminals, we have to assume they're dangerous. Louis broke the first rule when he had compassion," Tyler said.
"At last he had compassion."
Emery stared at Anna. "Aiden had compassion for Tallyn and look what happened."
Anna closed her eyes, very ashamed that she was fighting these guys over the life they knew. Paycen had yet to say anything bad against Louis. She looked up at the man who still held her protectively in his arms. He looked down at her but didn't say anything. She didn't know if he was being quiet so he didn't upset her or if he as just controlling his anger at the whole situation.
Paycen wasn't angry as she thought he was. He was simply letting the guys handle the anger that came from learning that her husband wasn't as squeaky clean as everyone thought. That was always the main reaction when someone found out about their race. Extreme anger then extreme depression, they always went hand in hand. He was waiting for the former to subside then the latter to set in. he'd been through this one too many times.
"Payce," Tyler said. Paycen looked up at his friend. "You need to tell her about Shawn."
That had the woman panicking. "What about Shawn? Is she okay?"
Paycen shot an annoyed look at Tyler then stepped away from Anna. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and hunched his shoulders. This was going to be a fun discussion.
"I'm sure you've read the report. So just recap it for me," he said.
"Umm… Well, the word was that eight men had taken over the school. Abby had been knocked out and bound in a closet. When she got free, she freed the kindergartners and first graders. The gun fight started when she went to free the second graders. As she was freeing Shawn, she took a bullet to the leg. She passed out before the rest of the teams could get there," she said.
Paycen nodded. "What was so different about that scene though?"
Anna racked her brain to figure out what he meant. There really wasn't any difference in the crime scene other than the fact that there…
She stopped her thoughts dead in their tracks and looked up at him. He had a pained look on his face. Her gaze raked over the other two. They weren't surprised at all.
"I thought you said your powers didn't come in until you hit puberty."
"Most of the time they don't, but if a child is under extreme duress, they're more than likely to appear," Tyler said. "Aiden's nephew has been seeing the future since he was eight. He's fifteen now. It's hit or miss recently."
"What do I need to do?"
The guys deferred to Paycen. He nodded and started walking towards the door that led to the beach. Anna noticed that he preferred to be outside when things got too much for him to handle. She followed him without having to be asked.