An Alpha's Thunder (Water Bear Shifters 3) by Sloane Meyers Page B

she wanted to keep eavesdropping on them. But if they knew they were being spied on, they would probably stop talking.
    The bartender set a beer refill down in front of Caroline, and she nodded at him in acknowledgement, then turned her attention back to the men, who were now looking at a second glossy photograph.
    “This is Ben Harrington, the copilot for the crew,” the older man said. Then he slid two more photographs across the table. “This is Brett Smith, the rescue swimmer, and Lance Bowman, the flight technician.”
    “All bears?” the younger man asked.
    “We think so,” the older man replied.
    Caroline’s eyes widened and she choked on her beer as she saw the men peering over a photograph of Lance. She coughed violently, trying not to look at the men and worried that she had just made it obvious that she was watching them.
    “Are you okay, miss?” one of the men asked, raising an eyebrow in her direction.
    Caroline nodded. “Just swallowed wrong. Sorry to disturb you,” she said. Then she turned completely around so her back was facing them. She hated not being able to watch out of the corner of her eye, but she felt like she had already drawn too much attention to herself. She needed to make it very clear to them that she really had just choked on her beer, and that she wasn’t interested at all in whatever they were doing.
    “So what are we going to do about it?” the younger man asked. He had dropped his voice so low that Caroline was again holding her breath trying to hear them.
    “We have two choices, as far as I can tell. We can try to capture them, and take them to Alaska for use as test subjects. Or we can eliminate them here. I’m inclined to just kill them off here, because they seem dangerous. Kevin was one of our best intel guys. He was always super careful, and they still somehow managed to get rid of him. My guess is he’s at the bottom of the ocean right now.”
    Caroline sat frozen in her seat, her eyes wide. This had just gone from an amusing eavesdropping session on some crazed lunatics to a very serious matter. Kill them off? Were these guys really going to try to kill Lance and his crew? Caroline took a chance on shifting in her seat again, moving just far enough over that she could see the men in her peripheral vision. They didn’t appear to be joking, as far as she could tell. And they must be crazy. Who else would sit there talking about shifters and killing people off in the middle of a public bar? Sure, the place was mostly empty, but it was still a public place. And Caroline was sitting only a few feet away from them. She must not look very threatening, with her hair in a messy bun and her outfit of plain old blue jeans and a simple black t-shirt. She had a ratty canvass messenger bag sitting on the barstool next to her that had been serving as her purse for the last several months. She probably looked like a college dropout with no money. Caroline sighed at the thought. She actually wasn’t a college dropout, because she’d never attended a single college class. You can’t drop out of a race you didn’t even start. And she wasn’t poor, although she’d started out that way. She just didn’t see the need to get all dressed up and fancy to come to a dive bar.
    Caroline took a few deep breaths, trying to steady her racing heart. She kept listening to the men, but they weren’t talking at the moment. The older one, who seemed to be somewhat in charge, was leaning back in his seat and stroking his chin thoughtfully.
    “Do you disagree with killing them?” he asked the younger man, seeming to want an honest answer.
    The younger man shook his head. “No. I don’t disagree. In fact, I think it’s pointless to try to get these new shifters up to Alaska. We have plenty of polar bear shifters up there to choose from if we want to run tests on the viruses. Better to get rid of these guys and get them out of the way before they stir up a fuss. But you’re sure they’re