Stolen Birthright Ch. 65-72

I was shaking with fear; my mind was running through the possibilities and all of them sucked.

I was having a hard time coming up with one that didn't end in my death, the death of my family, even my Pack. The Cartel was known for its brutal methods, they wouldn't stop at just me. They would kill everyone I loved in front of me first. Then there was the CIA, which apparently didn't need my services again, plus the whole US Government which still had shoot on sight orders out for us.

Craig climbed onto the bed with me, pulling me into his arms as I started to cry on his chest. He was fisting his hands and fighting off a shift; his wolf was panicking, which didn't help my cat at all. He buried his nose in my hair, sniffing deeply to calm down. When he had pushed his wolf back, he looked up at Al again. "What can we do?"

He closed his eyes, no one spoke for a couple of minutes. Finally, Al looked up again. "She needs to die, in a very public fashion."

If I wasn't holding him down, there was no doubt Craig would have attacked him. I nuzzled his neck to calm him down, I knew he wouldn't say that and leave it. "What are you thinking," I said.

"If we do nothing, the Cartel eventually finds out about her. They will come here and try to kill her, and it will be a bloodbath. Our entire Pack will die to protect you, Ella, and if we shift to do so it endangers us all. We can't wait for them, we have to give them a chance to kill you themselves, but at a time and place of our choosing." Craig was glaring at him, probably counting the ways he could kill him. "Then we fake your death in a way they can't refute. Once you are dead, then the real fun begins."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you aren't going to like it, but here's my idea."

Three days later, the modifications to my fishing boat were in place and Craig was ready. I was in my bikini with a light cover, driving towards the northeast corner of the island. The coordinates were fed into the navigation system so the autopilot could handle things. It was late afternoon, and this morning a call had been placed by one of our employees to the Cartel hotline. He told them he had seen her, she was fishing in the area and gave them my current location and the name of my fishing boat. We were just waiting for them to arrive.

Michael Campbell and Josh were about thirty miles east of me, keeping an eye to the sky and the waters so I could get some warning. The Cartel didn't mess around; I got a call, there was a helicopter on the way, and there were armed men in it. I pushed the throttles up and got the boat to maximum speed; we had picked my loiter location so I could get to the waypoint in a short time for an aircraft, a longer time for a boat. I went down below, making sure everything was set and I grabbed my M-4 rifle. Unlike the civilian semiautomatic version, down here on the black market we could buy the good stuff.

I moved to the front of the center island as the twenty-four-foot boat crashed through the swell. I could see the white and blue helicopter rapidly approaching, and the two men leaning out the doors. They were attached with harnesses inside the helicopter, while their feet rested on the skids. They were carrying shorter firearms, probably HK sub-machine guns. I rested the stock on the windshield and tried to keep my legs loose as the boat bounced. Once they got to within 200 yards, I opened up.

They did too, a strafing run that sprayed bullets near me but did not hit me. It was just as tough to fire accurately from a helicopter, and as they passed over I had a feeling neither of us did any damage. I ran to the helm to put the center console between us. Sneaking a look at the GPS, I could see we were getting close.

I swapped to a full magazine and slid the bolt home. The helicopter was racing back, and I opened up again, this time aiming a little higher. They two men opened up on me, and as we were trading rounds the boat drove over the waypoint and the charges blew.

Al had warned me this would hurt, and he was right. The low power charge on the plate under my feet went first, launching me up and back just before the main charges blew.

Al had put extra gasoline in containers below, so when the shaped charges went the fireball was impressive. That was my thought as I tumbled backwards through the air. I took a deep breath just before I hit the water, leaving the pyrotechnics behind.

I shook my head as I went underwater, clearing my head. I swam down, needing to get to the bottom which was thirty feet below in this area. I had almost made it down when Craig pulled me to him, placing the scuba breather in my mouth. Together we went down to the bottom, where he helped me put on a mask and fins.

He took the triple air tank from the bottom and helped put it on me, adjusting the straps. Once I was ready, Craig released the short tether that the freshly killed wild boar was attached to, plunging his knife into it a few times. The blood floated up along with it until the tether stopped about ten feet below the water. I could see the blacktip sharks already moving in, and bigger ones were sure to come.

We powered up the diver propulsion vehicle and let it pull us away from the burning and disintegrating boat above us. I could hear the helicopter circling around, but the light was low enough they couldn't see us down here. No one could hold their breath that long, and as I took a last look, I could see the sharks tearing the pig apart. We set a course of 020 and settled in, conserving our air and energy as we crossed the four miles of open water at a comfortable depth.

It took two hours until we reached the reef at Isla Bayoneta, a smaller, uninhabited island across the channel from our home. We shut down the propulsion vehicle and put the tanks and gear with it, Craig would come back later when things calmed down to get it back. We waited until the helicopter was out of sight before we swam to the shore and climbed onto the quiet beach.

"I hate this part of the plan," I said as I sat there. "I don't want to be isolated from you."

He pulled me into his lap and scented my neck before nuzzling at his mating bite. "I don't either, but it's the only way to be safe. No one can see you, ever, and you can't be anywhere near us." He put his hands on my belly, listening to the heartbeat of our child. "Until we know who burned us and we can figure out a way to bring you out safely, you have to remain here. Safe."

"In panther form?"

"Yes... we can't risk building anything here, and no one can ever see you. Fishermen and explorers sometimes come her overnight. We can't have tracks, sightings or communications."

I leaned back into him, trying to memorize my last feel of him for Luna knows how long. "At least there is the mind link this time." The island was in visual range, and easily within range of the Pack bond. They could still talk to me, I could still talk to my mate and my boys and my people, unlike the isolation at Fort Detrick.

"I or one of the Pack members will stop in once in a while, pretending to be exploring or having a picnic. We will leave behind water and food if you need It, although these islands are overrun with boars too." I snickered at this, we had made a serious dent in the population of our island. "Now off with the bikini, I have to take everything."

"You just want to see me naked," I said as I stood up and gave him a sultry look.

"Yes," he smirked, "and I have something before you before I go." He stood up, dropping his swimsuit behind on the sand as he went. I licked my lips as I looked over his body, he was getting hotter with every year, while I was getting fatter and rounded with the baby. I could see from his physical reaction that he found me attractive still, as if the feelings over the bond weren't enough.

My cat wanted to play, and I let her take charge. She quickly shifted and bolted for the trees, her tail high with her arousal evident. Craig shifted and took off after me. I darted between the trees; I was agile, but I couldn't match his speed. It didn't take long before he pushed me to the ground, his teeth holding my neck.

I stilled under him, raising my head in submission to him. He kept the grip as his back legs pushed forward; eager to take him, I raised my hips and moved my tail out of the way. His bright red tip poked around until he found my slit, then with a strong push he drove home. I roared in pleasure as he growled for me to stay in place.

Once he was fully seated, he backed out and started to pound into me with a vengeance. I could feel his knot forming, and before it got too big he pushed it home. It was uncomfortable at first, but once it was seated it felt amazing. We were too excited, too frantic to make it last long and our animal sides didn't care. He went faster and faster until I broke over him, shuddering in pleasure and causing him to blast my insides with his sticky essence.

I was tied to him, so he settled down next to me. Over the course of the night, we made love again and again, until it was time for him to go. Al and Josh had arranged to pick him and the gear up just before sunrise, so they could be out of there before the Cartel or the Panamanian Navy arrived at the attack site.

I watched as he shifted into human form again, putting his trunks back on. Josh waded ashore with some jugs of water and hid them behind the trees. Together, they waded into the surf as my cat draped herself over a tree branch. They brought up the scuba gear and loaded it up, then with one final wave they turned and sped away.

I was alone.

The plan had gone off without a hitch. Our Pack had a member who was on a beach at the nearest part of the island, and he had a camera with a telephoto lens and video. He recorded the entire attack and the aftermath, all the way to when the helicopter left again. Josh leaked it to a local news station, and pretty soon it was all over the networks and world news. Black Ker, the notorious thief and assassin, the fresh-faced North Dakota ranch girl who became the world's most wanted criminal, was dead. Killed by Cartel gunmen off the islands in Panama.

I wished I could see it, the way he described the explosion it sounded amazing. The fireball, the debris, and you could clearly see me being blown out the back of the boat.

The helicopter hovered overhead for thirty minutes, and no one ever came up. Within ten, you could see the sharks in their feeding frenzy. No one doubted that I had met a grisly end.

My life became a routine; I would sleep during the day in a tall tree, the breeze helping to keep me cool. I would come down in the early evening and get water, there were some pools of rainwater in season to drink from. If I was hungry, I would hunt; I only had to do this every four or five days, since I would gorge myself on the pigs. The meat wouldn't keep in the heat, so I would eat my fill and abandon the rest.

As the months pushed on, I had more and more trouble moving as my belly got bigger with the baby. I was surprised when the labor began; at first I dismissed it, not having any experience with labor in panther form. I figured it out and told Craig, but he would be an hour or so to get here.

He didn't make it.

If I had a choice, I'd take cat form any time. Twenty minutes later, I was biting through the cord and expelling the placenta, which my cat decided would be a tasty post-partum snack. I licked my daughter clean as she lay in the grass; she was beautiful, and I could smell the Alpha Wolf on her.

Ch 66

I was trying to find a position where I could get my daughter to suckle from my breast in cat form when Craig arrived, out of breath. "Oh my, Ella... She's beautiful!" He sat next to me and picked her up, cleaning her with the towel he had over his shoulder. I got up and moved until my head was in his lap, purring deeply as I watched him bond with his girl.

"I'm sorry, it went so fast in this form and I couldn't stop pushing," I said over the mate bond.

"I thought she would be born in panther form since you are in that form," he said. "Didn't you say the young stay with the mothers in the wild for their first years?"

"Yes but she's wolf; I think because I was pregnant before I was changed, she didn't get the panther. Or maybe the wolf part is dominant, I don't know. It doesn't matter, she's Alpha wolf, I could smell that already." Since he already had two adopted sons of Alpha blood, I was happy he had a daughter to spoil now too. "I'm just mad that since she isn't a panther, I have to let you take her back home. She can't even hold her head up to feed from me, and she won't survive the elements out here."

"I'm so sorry it had to be this way, Ella. The boys miss you too, even though they can talk to you they cry at night sometimes because you aren't there to tuck them in." Our baby started to cry, and my nipples started leaking milk. I rolled onto my back and Craig tried to get her to latch on, but with the fur and the smaller nipple size it wasn't working.

"Screw this," I said. He picked her up and held her while I focused on being human again. Bones rearranged and shifted, fur retreated and in moments I was back in human form for the first time in months. I moved to the edge of the grass where I could lean against a tree. "Give her to me," I said. He did, and I placed her to my breast, holding the nipple into her mouth until she latched on and started to pull. We both watched as she ate her first meal, I never tired of the feeling of providing food for my babies.

When she tired, I burped her on my shoulder then switched sides. She ate a little more then fell asleep, so I handed her back to Craig as we sat under the tree. "What should we do about this?"

Craig looked out at the ocean visible through a break in the trees, the moonlight illuminated the beach and the channel. Our island was on the horizon. "I don't know, we put you here for good reason, Ella. I can't risk losing you again."

"It's been months since we faked my death, love. The media coverage has died down, the helicopters and boats aren't showing any more, it seems like everything is back to normal. The Cartel bought it." I put my head in my hands. "I'm tired of missing my family, my Pack. Even my cat is getting tired of being a cat."

We pulled Al and Mark into the conversation over the bond. After explaining the situation, Al summed things up for me. "We could sneak you back here, Ella, but if we do we have to minimize the risk. Under no circumstances can you be seen outside in human form, EVER. Not with satellites, drones and other surveillance. You can be human inside the house with the shades drawn, and change back to cat form to go anywhere. I don't even want the staff to know about you," he said.

"Fine," I said. "At least I can be with my family again."

"Well, we better pack up your stuff and get ready to go then." I looked at him like he'd grown two heads, I'd been living alone here with nothing. "Oh yeah. Come on, I'll bring her to the boat with me and you can hide under the tarp." I shifted and followed him back the trail to the beach; when he called, I ran out and jumped into the boat, hiding under some fishing gear and a tarp in the bow. The moon was still out as he pushed the boat off the sand and fired up the engine. Luckily, my little girl sleeps deep, and didn't even wake up to the noise and the motion around her.

"You know, we need to think of a name for her," I said.

"I was so convinced it would be a boy, I didn't think much about it. We could name her after someone we lost in the war."

I nodded, I was thinking the same way. "I know the name is old-fashioned, but my mother died protecting me, and her name was Emmanuelle. We called her Emma for short."

"I like it, the old names are making a comeback. She would have loved to help you raise your babies, Ella." I was glad the cat form couldn't cry, I was getting a little emotional.

"How about Alice for a middle name?"

"After my oldest cousin's mate?" Doug and Remi's oldest son, David, was mated to her and she had died in the initial attack with most of the Johnson Pack leadership.

"Yes, I can't think of a woman other than Olivia on my side that I'd want to name our daughter after." I nodded my head. "All right, we'll announce her to the Pack as Emmanuelle Alice Black. I'll get Al to start working on a birth certificate and passport for her when we get back.

Two plus years later

My three babies were curled up with me on my large bed, Craig had gone down earlier to get us breakfast. Emmanuelle was tucked up under my left arm, her warm breath blowing on my shoulder as she twitched in her sleep. Her older brothers, Mitchell and Darryl, were on her right side. Darryl's arm was over my rounded stomach, occasionally moving as the twins moved around inside me. Six months along, and I was huge again. I was exceedingly fertile, apparently.

Once Emma was weaned, I had my first heat as a panther. It was interesting, I must say- if Craig hadn't been there for it I would have grabbed any male to screw me, the drive to procreate was so strong. Craig and I ran in our animal forms to a remote beach, where he made love to me as often as he could stand. When he couldn't stand, I rode him. Three days of constant sex later, we dragged ourselves back home with me being pregnant again.

"Breakfast is ready," Craig said as he poked his head in. Waking my babies, I watched as he put Emma on his hip and the boys followed him out, smiling as they went. I quickly did my business and dressed, meeting them downstairs where Craig had a plate waiting for me. "Good morning, love. How are the twins treating you?"

"Like my bladder is a speed bag," I said. I dug into my breakfast, looking around the table. Mark and Olivia were on the other side, their oldest girls Elanor and Elizabeth to their right, fourteen-month-old Alex in a high chair on the left, and adopted son Tony and daughter Tina on the other side of him. The two of them would be turning ten soon, and were going to be strong cats. After the wolfsbane took their wolves away at the beginning of the war, they asked for and received their panthers when Al bit them last year. I loved their forms, they were matching spotted panthers like Al, but lighter in color, just not as light as Olivia was. There were now five cats on the island, something that would never happen in the wild where the cats are so territorial. It was the wolf influence that allowed it to happen.

The triplet girls with Tom and Shelley were still human, we wanted them to be older before we changed them since their wolves had caused trouble. Mark's parents had been offered the change, and even the choice of panther or wolf. So far they had refused, preferring to remain human until their girls were changed.

We were just finishing up when Al told us over the bond to turn the news on. "BLACK KER ALIVE, STRIKES AGAIN" was the headline on the news crawl. We watched in fascination as the story went on; Ker had penetrated the security of a museum in Brussels and stole a painting, it was worth millions of dollars on the black market. Her calling card had been left behind, and only a quick glimpse of a woman in all black was caught on security video. A week earlier, a Russian oligarch had been killed in his Black Sea estate. Ker had been blamed there too, but the reports were scoffed at until this proof.

Al walked in as we continued to watch. "This isn't good, Ella." He looked up at the screen. "This puts you back in the crosshairs as far as I'm concerned. Until Ker is caught, you're in danger."

I sighed. "Well, this sucks. Don't tell me I have to go back to the other island." I put my hand over my belly, I didn't want to have these babies alone.

Craig took my hand. "I think we just need to be more careful. We might see some surveillance looking for you, so I think you need to stay in our rooms. Even being down here in the dining room could be dangerous if they get a look."