Feral Northern Shifters 2

come with me.”
“Is Ethan okay?” Bram sat down.
“He’s alive, so we’ll work with that. They have him in a room. He won’t shift, he won’t eat. He goes nuts if anyone tries to talk to him. They actually don’t want a psycho-cat.” Trey paused. “And I’ve planted the idea that they may not have a shifter at all, only a cougar.”
Bram choked. “They’ll buy that?”
“Depends on how long Ethan can hold out. Unlike his time with you, they have no one who dares go in that room and coax him to turn human. But we have to hurry.”
“Don’t they know anything about shifters?”
“Most of them don’t.” Trey slammed a drink down beside Bram’s plate of bacon and eggs. “I’m the expert and a fount of disinformation, when necessary. You’re going to be my assistant.”
Bram frowned. “Will they know we’re wolves?”
“Not you, there’s no reason.”
“But they’ll assume?”
“No, because only one knows of my true nature, and he likes keeping that secret to himself.” Trey didn’t look entirely pleased by this, more resigned. Having been with his pack his entire life, Bram didn’t know what it was like for a human to know about a shifter. Trey sighed before he elaborated. “One of the benefits of these slightly shady organizations that are sort-of-government-approved-but-not-really is that different parts of the organization don’t always play well together. The players like to have secrets and to call in favors. I’m calling one in now and Kingley will pay it.”
Kingley . Bram would remember that name. He shoveled in more food. “Liam coming?”
“No. He’s going to hold the fort here while we drive eight hours. Not much faster to fly and I hate flying.”
“Okay.” When Bram was finished eating he voiced the question that had been plaguing him since Ethan was run off the road. “How the hell did they find him? Was it through me?”
Trey’s gaze was measured. “There are very clever tracking devices these days. It seems Doug gave Ethan one in a drink and it’s been swimming around in his stomach ever since. He just had to alert these people at a time of his choosing.”
Bram thought he might throw up. “I helped make Ethan finish those drinks.”
“You didn’t know.” Trey shrugged as if it were of no consequence. “Bram, look at me.” This time Bram obeyed. “We don’t have time for self-recrimination, okay? You don’t, and I don’t. I’m the one who offered Doug information on cats in the first place, remember? I thought I could trust him to use the information wisely. I thought he was doing okay as alpha of the Winter pack. I was wrong.”
Bram nodded. Somehow the fact that Trey too felt like shit made the burden a little easier to bear. He tried to unclench his fist. “But…I don’t understand. Why didn’t Doug notify these people months ago, right after Ethan and I escaped?”
“That’s easy for me to answer.” Trey’s smile was twisted. “We alphas understand each other too well. Doug would have wanted to keep control of the situation as long as possible. He hoped to find Ethan the old-fashioned way, without their help, and haul him back into the pack compound. Better than having to admit he’d been outsmarted by his omega. Face is important, especially in dealing with these guys who despise shapeshifters.”
Great, they were going to visit people who despised shifters and held Ethan captive in their prison.
Trey continued, “Doug was trying to increase his currency, not decrease it. And then, once I arrived, he had no chance to contact anyone. Till now.”
“Till now,” Bram echoed, and he swallowed the lump in his throat.
“Bram,” Trey said softly. “We need to go.”
He nodded and rose.
Fifteen minutes later they were out the door, in the car and driving towards Ethan.
The rage rolled through him, and Ethan, for the first time in his life, knew he could become a killer. Somewhere between the drugs and the walls, Ethan could barely see straight he was so angry.
    He prowled the small room, snarling, and he didn’t eat their fucking food or drink their fucking drinks and a godawful voice came into the room and he didn’t even register the words.
They put him out with some regularity. Maybe they hoped he’d shift under the influence, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not with this fury engulfing him, his cat wild and locked on to him like never before.
Time passed and Ethan couldn’t measure anything, not even the number of times he