One Week Later

Eagle Creek, Colorado had two dingy motels and one restaurant that Mel felt safe enough eating at. It wasn't the clientele she was concerned about - it was the food. And she'd been known to eat her kills bloody when she ran as a cat. But a woman in human skin had to have some standards. Krista and Bob were already at their table. It was the one in the furthest corner, on the opposite side of the room from both the bar and the bathroom.

The Eagle Creek Bar and Grille – the second E, of course, made the place classy – was a small affair. Perhaps twenty tables and a sturdy bar fitted with a dozen stools. It could accommodate the residents of the town just fine, but the campers who tromped through on their way up into the mountains would probably not see the charm. Mel didn't see it herself either, but it was better than microwaved ramen from the gas station.

At seven on a Tuesday night the place was crowded. All but one table were full and the waitresses all bustled around, serving drinks and slinging food like nobody's business. From the back and forth with the customers, all of those waitresses had worked here for some time and many of the customers were regulars. In a town this size, they'd have to be.

The gruff man behind the bar was a shapeshifter, probably a cat. And if Mel had to guess, so was the family of four at the table closest to the window. But both children were pre-shift. Almost no shapeshifters were hit by the change until they were well into their teens. But the parents weren't mates. Not if the father's eyes glued to her own chest were any indication.

Everyone else was human. She could tell by looking. With the perfume she wore, it was impossible to distinguish by scent. A handicap, but worth it since it would make it difficult for the pack here to tell that she was a shapeshifter. Cash register at the front, safe probably kept in back, maybe bolted to the floor if they were smart. She could clear them out of a few grand in minutes, but it wasn't worth it. Not when they'd be in town for weeks and had plenty of cash to burn.

She saw Krista huff impatiently, her arms crossing in front of her. The woman embodied the word pixie. Barely five feet tall with short, spiky brown hair and skin that practically glowed bronze, she looked like some sort of punk forest nymph. And knowing exactly how hard she could punch, Mel knew she'd never tell the woman that.

Bob, on the other hand, was... Bob. They'd worked a couple of jobs together before she went on her own, and he was the first call she made once she needed a team for herself. But if someone asked her to describe him, even while she was looking straight at him, she couldn't. He was a man, with brown, or was it black, maybe blond hair, and eyes... the eyes were where they belonged, along with a nose and mouth. She thought his skin was dark, but couldn't quite describe the tone. It had to be a perception spell, but she never felt that pinprick of magic that any normal witch gave off. But when it came down to it, she always knew he was Bob and that he was there for her. Nothing else needed in her book.

She slid into the booth opposite her partners. At her nod, Krista activated a sound deflecting ward. It would distort everything they said so that no one around them could understand the substance of their conversation, but they'd still hear the murmur of their voices. No one ever questioned it and the magic was so subtle that not even Mel, with her highly attuned senses, could get a fix on it.

"So, why did you want us here?" Krista asked. "I thought teamwork wasn't your game anymore." There was an edge to her voice, and Mel knew it was warranted.

"Tina brought me the job." Krista's eyebrows shot up even as her lip curled, so Mel continued. "And there's no way in hell I can do it alone. I don't trust anyone more than the two of you to help me get this done."

"The Scarlet Emerald?" Bob asked, his voice as even as ever. "Do you think I have a death wish, Kitty?"

Mel's hand fisted at the nickname. He must have been really pissed off. "Yes. And in payment you can have any item from my collection you want. One each." She'd split her stash in half and give it all away for a shot at Ava. But it didn't need to come to that.

"And you had to bring us into shifter territory to make the offer?" Krista didn't look satisfied. "The two of us probably broke three treaties just flying here, let alone sitting in a bar thirteen miles from King Cat's castle!" If it weren't for the need for discretion the younger woman would have smacked her fist against the table. "This is manipulative bullshit, Mellie, don't pull it on me. If you want me for a job, just ask."

Bob didn't say anything, but he nodded in agreement.

Mel took a moment, and tried to let the tension out of her shoulders. "Will you help me steal the Scarlet Emerald? I can't do it without you." It didn't even hurt to say it, not to Bob and Krista. That was a surprise.

Her partners shared a smirk. "And that diamond as big as Bob's fist?"

Mel knew exactly what she was talking about. It had taken six months of planning to boost it. "It's yours." She looked at Bob.

He shrugged, "I'm sure I'll think of something." He would, he always did.

She leaned forward, elbows on the table. She could almost hear her mother's voice yelling at her to move them. "It's going to be tricky. No blueprints on record, no details of the security system. And they're shapeshifters, which means they're about twenty times harder to steal from than anyone else, except maybe a coven-protected compound."

Krista bristled at the assessment. "Try stealing from a coven without someone to break wards."

"There's nothing on file with the county?" Bob asked.

Mel smiled, "According to the records, Mr. Torres lives in a 1,400 square foot, two-story house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms." She pulled a folder from her bag and set out the photos on the table in front of them.

Castle wasn't quite the correct term for Torres' compound. It was far too modern. Everything was straight lines and cement, the windows small on the ground level and slightly larger beginning at the fourth story. The entire thing rose as high as the trees around it, and luckily the trees came nearly all the way to the actual building. From a defensive perspective it was a stupid decision, but a cat couldn't resist the call of the woods.

"Clearly the county has falsified records." She looked at Krista. "How can you get me in?"

While Krista would punch anyone who looked at her wrong, her true talent was reconnaissance and tactical magic. "I've got something. I'll need two hours, should be able to get a passable interior."

Perfect. "When can you get started?"

Krista smiled. "Tonight. I've been wanting to use this baby for months." Krista loved to create magical devices that could infiltrate even the most secure locations.

Mel shivered and looked around. A man in a leather jacket had just walked through the door. It felt like a live wire touched right to her chest, among other places, when she looked at him. Just the force of him was primal. She wrenched her head back. "Looks like the big guy's here. Can you move now? I'll buy you some time to get set up." With the alpha gone, the danger of casing the place would be minimal. If anyone could do it, Krista and Bob could.

Her co-conspirators shared a glance and had a silent conversation, expressions flashing so quickly that Mel couldn't determine their meaning. It wasn't telepathic, they'd simply worked together for so long that some conversations didn't need to happen out loud. Bob finally nodded. Krista said, "Give us as much time as you can, but keep him here for at least twenty minutes. We'll rendezvous at the cabin in three hours." Mel nodded. She'd rented out a nice vacation cabin for the month in the outskirts of town, just over the county line from Luke Torres' territory. If he asked the right people about the heist he'd eventually figure out who did it, but she didn't want to make it as easy as checking the ledger of the two motels in town.

Krista brought down the ward and the scent of the cats who'd just entered nearly overwhelmed her, but she kept her expression neutral. Bob and Krista slipped out and Mel didn't watch them go. Her eyes turned to the alpha.

She had work to do.

***

Something was wrong in ECs. Luke felt it the moment he walked through the door. Upon first glance, everything seemed normal. Nearly everyone in the place lived in town, though he spotted the small family who were staying at Sid's Motel on their way through the mountains. But they were fine, completely human and unaware that there were any people who weren't.

He hit up the bar where Sinclair was wiping off the shiny surface. "Any news?"

The man's beard covered half of his face and hung down several inches. It hid a nasty mess of scars and obscured his jawline enough to hide the fact that his face had once been beaten in. It also made him look closer to sixty than thirty, but that was his own business. "Vince and the others are out back taking a smoke. They've got a table. Haven't started nothing since they got here."

Just the group he needed to see. Vince Hardy and company were exactly the kind of little shits he didn't need to be dealing with right now. "And our guests?"

Sinclair's beard shifted as he grinned, "Which ones?"

That gave Luke pause. Someone must have rolled into town after he got his update. As crazy as it sounded, with the summit coming up in two weeks he needed security on lockdown. No strangers in town that he didn't know about, no surprises. "I know about the family."

Sinclair nodded to the booth in the far back of the room. "Three folks. Think they're human but couldn't get a clear read. Must just be passing through. No room rented."

Luke looked over to where his man pointed. A tiny woman sat beside a towering man, and both sat across from a red head. The only thing he could see were her full, curly locks. Even then, just seeing them was a punch to the gut. He tightened his fist and took a deep breath. Sure, it had been awhile, but the sight of her hair shouldn't have put him on edge.

Her friends got up and left before he could even could even consider listening in to what they were saying. She stayed behind. He watched the other two leave out the main exit, and it seemed like the red head didn't plan to follow. He turned back to Sinclair. "When did they come in?"

The bartender shrugged, "Half hour, hour ago maybe? Ordered drinks but no meal. Just been talking. I got Lucy on their table but she said they weren't saying anything fishy. I'll keep an eye out."

"You do that."

Vince and his friends came back in and Luke nearly gagged from the smell of tobacco. How any werecat could smoke cigarettes confounded him. The tiniest whiff and it felt like his nostrils were burning. But idiot kids would always be idiot kids. Vince Hardy was one of those lowlife kids who'd been given everything and chose to do nothing with it. He pissed away his trust fund on booze and fancy shit and couldn't hammer a box together to save his life. But Luke didn't get to kick him out of the pack for being a stupid kid. Though he did take a bit more satisfaction in his punishment than he should have.

He stood at the bar and waited for Vince to see him. The kid was taking up as much space as he could. He nearly leaned into the red head's booth to look down her shirt. His lime green polo shirt offended Luke's eyes, and he had to have spent half an hour spiking his blond hair up just enough to make it look tousled. Vince looked exactly like a jerk with money should look, and it only made him more popular.

After more than two minutes of fooling around, Vince finally started paying attention to his surroundings and saw his alpha leaning casually against the bar. His face paled and two spots of red dotted his cheeks. Luke had to hold back a smile. The kid knew that he'd fucked up if Luke was going to talk to him on the same day of the incident.

He maintained eye contact for several seconds before turning around and walking out of the bar. Vince and friends would follow him. They knew the rules.

Luke didn't wait in the parking lot. There were too many regular people in town who had no idea of the monsters that lived among them. He walked around the side of the small brick building and waited just past the tall wooden fence that separated the back of the restaurant from view of the road. In the summer they'd put out chairs and tables for vacationers to enjoy the beautiful Colorado weather. But now that fall was easing in, the tables were stacked to the side and would only be put up at special request. It made it the perfect place for meetings like this.

Vince sneaked back first, his head down and shoulders slumped. He leaned back against the fence and said nothing. Luke just waited. Nearly a minute passed before Henry and Mick joined them. All three boys waited for the alpha to speak. Luke let them stew in silence for several minutes. They were fucking up his life and he didn't care to make things easy for them.

Only after he saw a bead of sweat form on Vince's forehead did he speak. "Do you have an explanation?"

If possible, Vince's shoulders sunk even further. Any more and he'd be bent completely forward. "She wasn't using it," he mumbled.

Luke made a sweeping motion with his hand. "Do you see any snow on the ground?" He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.

Vince gulped and his friends winced. "No, sir."

"Did you hear sounds of distress from inside Rinna's garage? Perhaps a scared puppy?" He leaned close, just inches from the kid's face.

"No, sir."

"So would you care to explain to me why you stole a woman's snow mobile and attempted to drive it down the street, causing thousands of dollars in damage?" He ended on the slightest growl and was satisfied when Vince whimpered, the sound barely escaping the kid's throat.

Both Henry and Mick kept their heads down, refusing to make eye contact or defend their friend. Vince said nothing in his own defense.

"You all go to school and come home. If you have jobs, you do those. Each of you will owe Rinna $500 to cover the damages and you will work on her property every weekend until Christmas. If you want to do anything else, you ask me first. I catch you disobeying, and it's confinement to my place anytime you're not at work, at school, or asleep. Got it?" These three may have been nearing adulthood, but they still counted as children in the pack. They were lucky - if any one of them had been just a year older the punishment could have been much worse. And now, to drive the point home: "Do any of you know what's happening in a couple of weeks?" He let the question hang, watching the boys.

Henry finally looked up and gave a jerky nod. "The summit."

"Exactly." At least they weren't completely clueless. "First time in a century that vampires will be in this territory without a war. Don't fuck it up." Luke left them there. The kids were either going to follow his orders or not, and if they didn't, he'd deal with it. But right now he needed a drink, a woman, or a fight. He'd take any one of those, but his mind drifted back to that red head inside and he figured a drink and a woman sounded like a nice combination.