Abandoned Treasure
Reasonable Men

Stanley Biggs’ POV

North Moccasin Mountains Ranch, Montana

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

“They’re taking a hell of a risk coming up here,” Julie said as we watched the Ford Explorer pull up in front of our home.

“I have to think he wouldn’t be here if it isn’t important,” my son Bobby said as he stood on my other side.

“We’ll replace out in a bit. Isra’s phone calls and messages didn’t indicate anything was wrong, just that we’d be getting a visitor soon,” I replied.

The car came to a stop, and I smiled as I saw the young woman get out and run up the steps. She ran up the stairs and jumped into my arms. “Jade!”

She kissed my cheek as I hugged her tightly. “Hi, Stanley.”

Her scent was off, but I attributed it to being at home with Nathan around. I let her down just in time to see the driver’s door open, and I froze when I saw who it was. “Nathan?”

“Good to see you all again,” he replied. He grabbed a bag out of the back seat while Bobby ran down to greet him.

“Jade, what the hell,” Julie said as she backed off the energetic hug. “You’re pregnant?”

I looked at her with wide eyes. “Who’s the father?”

“I am,” Nathan said as he got to the steps. He pulled his jacket and shirt aside, exposing a mating bite. “We’re mates.”

“Impossible,” I said. “Jade’s a clouded leopard, and they don’t HAVE mates.”

Jade pulled her shirt aside to expose her bite. “Yes, we can,” she told me. “We share a mind link and everything.”

It was a lot to take in at once. “Come on inside,” I told them. “I want to hear this story. Bobby, get your grandmother. She’ll want to hear this.”

Nathan had Jade on his lap with Georgina on one side and Julie on the other as they told the story. “I found out I was pregnant two weeks after I returned to Stanford,” Jade said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

“Cats only ovulate when the male stimulates them to release an egg,” I said. “How is it even possible?”

Jade blushed. “Nathan’s much MORE than the males I’ve used in previous heats. His jumbo size must have been enough to trigger me. We only did it in animal forms once, though it took hours before his knot let us separate.”

“He kept up with your heat? Isra says your heat is three days of constant sex.”

“It was. We met and mated in our fur before I could stop it. Nathan’s wolf knew, and my cat didn’t argue. He tied us together and bit me, and I bit him back. After that first time, we spent the rest in human form because I can’t get pregnant that way.”

“But he’d already triggered an egg.”

“I triggered her until she begged me for rest,” Nathan said with a smirk as he hugged her from behind. She smacked his hand, but her blush told the story. “I can’t explain it. I never expected to replace a second chance mate as a rogue, much less in another shifter species. We’re mates, and we’re having a baby. Luna has a plan that she’s not filling me in on. We have no idea how this pregnancy thing will work. Will our child be a clouded leopard, a wolf, or some weird mix between the two? Will our child be infertile like some cross-bred species?”

I looked at my Mom. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

She nodded. “My grandmother told me about one a long time ago. It was in California during the Civil War. A werewolf male and a mountain lion female fell in love, and she got pregnant.”

“What happened to the child,” Nathan asked.

“His Pack found out. Dozens of his former friends surrounded their mountain cabin and set it on fire. They burned alive before she was even showing.”

Jade started to cry, and Nathan pulled her back and wrapped her in his arms. “I’m already kill-on-sight,” he told her. “What are they going to do? Put me on double-secret hit lists?”

“You have to be even more careful now,” I told them. “What are your living arrangements?”

“I’m in an apartment near Stanford,” Jade said.

“I’m still living with Isra, but my wolf doesn’t like being away from his mate,” Nathan added.

“It will only get worse as she begins to show,” Georgina concluded. “Jade, you need to move home, or Nathan needs to live with you.”

“I’m in my senior year at Stanford. I can’t go home now,” Jade protested.

“Then the two of you replace a way to live together while she is at school. It won’t be easy with her around thousands of males her age, Nathan. You’ll have to live like you did in Great Falls. Stay home and out of sight. Jade, have you scented other shifters at school?”

“No. I’ve scented a few of the Sons up towards the City, though. I stay clear of them.”

The Sons of Tezcatlipoca were an anomaly in the shifter world. Most of us stayed away from humans, though a few cat shifters like Jade found ways to hide among them in bigger cities. The motorcycle gang’s senior leadership was all Jaguar shifters, but their club’s membership was Hispanic humans. They ruled with their strength, cunning, and extraordinary senses. They had chapters in all the major cities of the Southwest and funded themselves by running drugs. “You’ll have to give them a wide berth. Don’t go farther north than necessary, and stay off the freeways.”

“It’s worse than that,” I said. “I helped the Sons in San Francisco with some smuggling operations while I was a Pack wolf. They needed help getting past the Donner Pack. They know my scent and my face, and I’m sure they’ve heard I’m dead now.”

“They can’t get a whiff of either of you now that you’re mated. You can’t hide the cat in your scent or the wolf in hers. The Sons are as bad as the Packs about species superiority. They’ll kill you just for existing. Use Nathan’s money to get out of your apartment and into something better hidden. What are your plans after graduation?”

“She’s going to be huge by then,” Georgina said as she tapped on her phone. “Are cat shifter pregnancies as long as human ones?”

“He’s a big boy, and I’m tiny,” Jade replied. “I’ll run out of room after eight months. That puts it right around final exams. The timing sucks.”

“It is what it is,” Georgina replied. “What does your Mom say will happen when you give birth?”

“Cats are solitary and give birth alone,” Jade replied. “Predators and other cats are dangers to the mother and kitten, so we create a safe place for birth and weaning. The mother will shift if she feels threatened, and the kitten will shift into the same form as her mother.”

“Yeah, hospital births are out,” Nathan added. “If things work out, we’ll head back to Shell so Mom can help out.”

“That’s great if the baby waits, but what if it doesn’t?”

“I guess I need to watch some YouTube videos on delivering babies.”

Georgina shook her head. “I could use a West Coast visit. I’ll get Bobby to drive me out and stay with you starting in May. If you make it to the end of your finals, Nathan can drive us back to Shell, and you can have the baby at home.”

“You’d do that for me?” Jade was leaking tears again.

Georgina patted her leg. “Of course. Delivering babies is the best part of my life.”

The women were full of baby talk, so I waved for Nathan and Bobby to join me in my office. I went straight to the jugular. “How do you expect to support a mate and family while remaining hidden from the world? Are you nuts?”

“I didn’t expect Jade’s heat to catch, Stanley. I’ve got an idea, but I need to talk about something else first.” I told them about Art’s disappearance and the two other recent events. “Something is going on with the Packs, which means the Council is involved somehow.”

“I’ve had my suspicions as well,” I replied. “It could be coincidence.”

“Or not. You’ve got the Chairman’s number. Can you replace out if their policy towards rogues and other shifters is changing?”

I leaned back in my chair. “I could, but then what?”

“That’s the part Jade and I will help with,” I said. “The bulletin board we use now is crap. Half of us don’t use it because it isn’t secure, and the other half are careful about what they say. We can’t risk the Packs or the NSA tracking us through it. Jade and I want to replace it with something more secure and useful.” I explained the concept of the Oracle. “Numbered identities, so no using names. Military-grade encryption on emails and chats. Jade and I are a phone bank, allowing people to call from safe numbers and give or retrieve messages. Anonymous accounts like gift cards and reloadable Visa cards to move money. We use mailbox stores and post office boxes instead of addresses to move things. We can pass warnings, activity reports, or intelligence gained on the Packs without tipping our hand to anyone.”

“Intelligence?”

Nathan nodded. “We’ve been far too passive with the Packs, and that’s allowed them to isolate and attack us without consequence. The only way it stops is if we work together, and without coordination, we’re too fractured for that. We will collect, analyze, and disseminate what we know about the Packs and their activities. It’s the only way to stop them.”

“That could start a war,” I replied. “We are too spread out to take the Council on.”

“That is our strength,” Nathan replied. “We’re too dispersed and mobile to wipe out while they remain in their compounds. They are vulnerable when they leave their compounds. Make the Chairman understand that war will come if they continue their actions, and their survival isn’t assured.”

“They know they can take us in a straight-up fight, even united under a single leadership.”

I thought about it for a bit. “If I go to the Chairman, that makes me a target. They will think I’m the leader of this insurrection.”

“No, it makes you the concerned, mature leader who hears things he doesn’t like and is trying to stop them. You’re trying to head off a war that will kill people on both sides. If direct action is required, it will occur far from you first to draw suspicion away. The Council Chairman is out east, after all.”

I did have some goodwill with the Chairman, and maybe it was time to use it. No one would win a war. “Fine. I’ll do it, but not until after you two are gone. If they come after me, I don’t want you within a hundred miles.” Nathan quickly agreed. “Now, tell me how we go about gaining this intelligence.”

“Once the Oracle is up and running, we’ll be able to collect information on the Packs from anyone who calls it in. That’s the passive approach. The active is more interesting.”

“What is that?”

“I’m not the only former Pack wolf who is now independent. Jade and I will build a database of the Packs, including their membership, assets, activities, and contacts. We supplement that by commissioning our people to surveil their activities. Finally, we use Jade to hack their computers and gather information directly from their servers and messages.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“It’s less of a risk than sending our people against theirs. If we can replace out their plans, we can save our people and respond in a way that is to our advantage. We can attack their finances, complicate their lives with human interventions, and use their natural suspicions to sow distrust between the Alphas. The Packs think war is about tooth and claw. We will fight from states away.”

“It all sounds good, but only if we could put a lid on the violence. How are you going to get their attention without enraging the wolf leadership? Some Alphas are short-tempered and will lash out at those nearby, Council or not.”

“Leave that to us. Bitterroot Pack deserves punishment for what they did to me and my late mate. It’s only fitting that they fund the startup of the Oracle system.”

I raised my hands. “I don’t want to know.”

“I will make sure it doesn’t come back on you. I know where Alpha Todd buried the bodies and where they are vulnerable. We will make him pay. I can leave behind evidence that will cause him to blame Pack members for the losses. ”I had to smile at that.“ Jade and I will leave tomorrow after breakfast. We have to act before someone else dies.”

I opened my desk drawer and pulled out three glasses and my bottle of Michter’s ten-year Bourbon. “Best not to drink in front of a pregnant cat,” I said as I poured the amber liquid neat. Holding mine up, I warned them not to slam a drink that retails at over a hundred dollars a bottle. “To Nathan, our friend, new father, and the future Leader of the Resistance!”

We clinked our glasses and took a sip. Things were going to be different now.

I could feel it in my old bones.

I called Chairman Gruber after lunch the next day, giving Nathan and Jade time to make it home to Isra. “Mr. Chairman, it’s Stanley Biggs.”

“What can I do for you, Stanley?”

“You can tell me what happened to Art Dreyfuss.”

“Who?”

“Mountain Lion shifter living near the Utah/Idaho border. He disappeared over a month ago, and people are suspicious your wolves were behind it.”

“Let me get my Chief Enforcer in here.”

“It’s not just Art. A coyote den in Missouri was your doing, and we lost a bear in Michigan. I’m getting calls from nervous people, wondering if they are next.”

“We had reasons to take them out,” Gruber said.

“Like what?”

“I don’t justify my decisions to you,” he said defensively.

“I knew Art. He was a loner who never bothered anyone. What changed?”

Gruber let out a breath. “After some of the issues in the past year, the Council voted to take a more proactive approach with rogues and other shifters. We can’t afford their activities to attract human attention, like what nearly happened on the road outside your den. My Enforcers are taking care of problems before they develop.”

“People aren’t seeing you as proactive. They are seeing you wipe out those who aren’t like you. If they feel threatened, they will start hitting back and hard. That will lead to a war neither of us wants. We can ill afford open warfare while we try to keep our natures hidden.”

“Are you threatening me, Stanley?”

“It’s not a threat, Mr. Chairman. It’s a read on the mood out here. We understand when you go after criminals, rapists, and those going insane. Hell, we report some of them to you! What we can’t have is people thinking you will kill them even though they follow the rules. That’s dangerous for everyone.”

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “What are you proposing?”

“Before taking action, let me know. I’ll contact the shifter leaders in that area and tell them what is happening and why. As long as the cause is just, you won’t have problems with us.”

“And if I refuse? Or you don’t agree with our reasoning?”

“Then perhaps it isn’t necessary to take them out, Mr. Chairman. We are reasonable people, and we can work out our differences. We aren’t asking for more than a valid reason before you take action.”

“I see. Are you now the leader of the others?”

I laughed. “Hardly. You owe me a favor; no one else wanted to talk to you. I was elected spokesman by default. I’m not happy about this either. I want to be left alone, like all the Bears.”

“We can’t always get what we want, Mr. Biggs. I’ll discuss it with my people and let you know.”

It took two weeks for them to agree to the new arrangement. By then, Nathan was in Palo Alto with Jade, and the Bitterroot Pack was wondering where their money went.