by Bianca D'Arc
The bear only growled, in obvious pain as it lay panting on the floor. It glared at Maria over Jesse’s shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” she tried. “I didn’t know you were a shifter. I’ve only met one before. If I’d known, I would’ve done this differently. I’m really, really sorry.”
The bear sniffed in her direction, then focused his nose and his gaze on the werewolf in front of her.
“She’s on the level.” Jesse looked at the lock holding the cage closed. “You lock them in, Doc?” His tone was full of condemnation, and she felt just awful, but she had her reasons.
“It’s to protect them. I had problems once before with someone trying to steal the animals in the middle of the night. Some of my patients are worth a lot of money on the exotic-animal black market.” She reached into her pocket and produced the key, handing it to Jesse.
“If you use simple latches, we can shift form and let ourselves out if we get caught in our fur by mistake. Of course, a full-grown grizzly shifter could probably break this little lock, no problem, but an injured youngster? No wonder he’s mad at you.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated herself, but she couldn’t help it. She felt like a villain. Lower than pond scum. She inhaled and realized there was the faint scent of magical shifter pine around the bear, but it was so obscured by the other scents that she wasn’t too surprised she’d missed it.
Jesse unlocked the small metal fastener and unlatched the cage.
“Stand back, Doc, just in case he’s not quite with us. Pain and fever tend to bring out our wild sides.”
Taking his advice, Maria retreated a few steps. The young bear lurched to his feet and growled. Jesse reached right into the cage and held his hand out to the bear, daring greatly, in Maria’s opinion.
“Come on, sport. I’m not the enemy. Your people and mine have been allied for centuries. I’ll help you, if I can.” The bear swiped at the back of Jesse’s hand with his tongue. Maria gasped when she saw its mouth open and then sighed when she realized it was tasting Jesse, not biting him. “Who shot you, son?” Jesse’s voice crooned, speaking to calm the young bear. “I’m Major Jesse Moore. My brother, Jason, is the Alpha of the Wyoming wolf Pack. I was Special Forces and I came here tracking Venifucus agents who kidnapped a wolf child last week. We got him back. We took care of him—a young boy maybe just a bit younger than you. They kidnapped him and strapped a bomb to his chest, but we rescued him and he’s fine now, back with his parents. Me and my men—that’s what we do. We protect the Pack and other shifters. Anyone on the side of Light who needs us. And we’ll help you too, young bear of the Grizzly Clan. You have my word on it.”
The bear went still, seeming to measure Jesse’s words. Maria didn’t realize she was holding her breath until the bear nodded slightly, moving forward, out of the cage.
“How do you want to do this, sport?” Jesse was still talking to the bear who moved beside him. “If it was me, I’d want someplace soft to land when I retook my skin. How about we find you a bed where you can recuperate in more civilized style?” Jesse’s teasing grin seemed to catch the bear’s attention. It moved its head up and down, as if nodding agreement. Jesse turned to her. “How about your guest room? When he shifts, he’s going to be naked and weak. It’d be easier to let him shift on or near the bed.”
On the one hand, Maria felt terribly guilty to have caged a shifter. Of course, she only had this man’s words—and the actions of the young bear—to convince her the grizzly actually could take human form. All the evidence pointed toward the bear being one of those rare, magical beings who could shapeshift, and Maria would be worse than negligent to make the youngster stay in the barn if he really was what she now believed he was.
Mind made up, she led the way toward the door, even if she was a little uneasy at the thought of a bear entering her home. He’d be human soon enough, or so she believed. She hoped she was right about this. Otherwise, if this was some kind of practical joke, Jesse Moore was going to be so dead, he wouldn’t know what hit him, Special Forces or not.
As she passed the tray by the door, she paused. “Um…what about the meat?”
Jesse was about ten feet behind her with the slow-moving bear. The young grizzly was sort of hopping on two hind feet and only one front paw, holding the other paw to his chest, clearly in pain. Jesse shrugged, strode forward and grabbed the tray. Then he turned back to the bear.
“Do you want any of this?” he asked the bear point blank.
The juvenile sniffed at the tray and then shook his head. At that point, Maria knew for certain this was no ordinary bear.
“I didn’t think so.” Jesse walked over to her and handed the tray to her. “Maybe you can salvage some of this for your other patients. The antibiotics give the meat a funny smell. I can see why he wouldn’t trust you enough right now to eat it. Shifters have learned to be very cautious when dealing with regular humans.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, feeling it down to her bones. She couldn’t imagine what horrible things had been done to shifters by regular folk who thought they were just animals. Being locked up. Hunted. Tranquilized. Just as the grizzly had been when it arrived on her doorstep. She turned and fled toward the house, carrying the tray.
She looked back over her shoulder just once, to realize why Jesse had wanted both hands free. His gun was slung across his body, the strap making a diagonal line across his impressive chest while the black metal of the firearm rested across his back. He crouched low at the bear’s side, offering it support and helping it cross the distance between the barn and the house. She couldn’t hear the words he spoke to the youngster, but she saw his lips moving and sensed he offered encouragement and perhaps some comfort to the creature. She turned back to the house, knowing the young male was in good hands.
She threw open the broken back door to the kitchen and deposited the meat on the counter on her way through toward the guest room on the first floor. She’d converted the small room to a bedroom when her grandmother had come to stay for a while. It had been easier to let the old woman sleep on the first floor than to subject the poor dear to the stairs.
Maria was glad of it now as she stripped the flowered bedspread from the twin mattress. It had clean white sheets and good pillows. Aside from the rather feminine, flowery wall paper and furnishings, the young man she expected the bear to become would be comfortable. He’d even have his own small bathroom just off the kitchen and easy access to the refrigerator once he was up and around.
She heard the unmistakable click of claws on the kitchen linoleum. Taking a deep breath for courage, she stood her ground at the side of the bed, waiting for Jesse and his bear friend to enter the small room.
The bear entered first, looking around and then settling his gaze on her. She gulped, unable to hide a little tremor at the condemnation she read in his dark eyes.
Rather than apologize again, she stepped away from the bed, which was placed in the center of the room. The bear limped painfully over to the other side of the bed and stopped, turning his back to her.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked Jesse as he filled the doorway.
“Shifters aren’t usually shy.” His lips quirked in a grin that made her hot just thinking what he might not be shy about. “It’s up to him, but it’d be good to have you here in case he starts to bleed when he goes human. These bodies are more fragile in many ways than our furry counterparts. But sometimes the magic of shifting itself helps heal things that otherwise would take much longer, and grizzlies are said to be among the most magical of our kind. So it’s show time, sport,” Jesse addressed the young bear. “Show us what you got.”
Maria felt a tingle against her skin, almost like a static charge all over her body. Magic, she thought. She’d felt that sensation only a few times before in her life, when her nona did her magic. Maria’s breath caught as the bear’s body began to elongate within a shimmering golden-brown mist. A moment later, the bear was gone and a young man s
tood in his place.
A very naked and battered young man. And he was bleeding.
“Oh, crap,” the boy said as he slid toward the bed, falling into unconsciousness. Jesse was there to catch him even as Maria jumped forward. He laid the kid gently on the bed and covered him with the sheet.
“Damn,” Jesse said softly. “This guy’s been through the wringer. We should probably redress the wound while he’s out. Shifters don’t handle pain medication well. The normal doses for humans aren’t strong enough, so to get any kind of numbing effect, we need dangerously high doses. Alcohol is the usual anesthetic of choice, but this one is a little too young and in too bad shape to risk getting him drunk.”
“Agreed.” Maria sprang into action, going to the nearby hall closet to get supplies. “Could you run some warm water? There’s a basin on the shelf in there.”
While she was in the hall, she heard the water in the bathroom sink running, though she hadn’t heard Jesse move past her to get into the tiny bathroom. The man moved like a wraith.
When she went back into the room a moment later, Jesse was already there, cleaning the area around the wound in the young man’s chest with a wet washcloth. It was clear he knew what to do.
“Seen a lot of gunshot wounds in your line of work?” she asked, only half joking.
“Too many,” he answered in a tone that made her smile go away. He wasn’t kidding around. It had been insensitive of her to try to make light of something so serious. Seemed like she was screwing up left and right with these people.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, concentrating on her work.
When the kid had been in bear form, she was in her element. She’d taken the bullet out, stitched him up and not thought twice about it. But when faced with a human patient, she was feeling a lot less sure of herself. Thankfully, the surgery had already been done.
“Are things in the same place, more or less from one form to another?” she had to ask. The ramifications of her surgery were just now occurring to her.
“Mostly. I’m more familiar with wolves, you understand,” Jesse answered as he kept working, very efficient in his movements so he didn’t jar the patient. “What did you diagnose when he was a bear?”
“The bullet came very close to his lung, but luckily it didn’t penetrate. I believe it glanced off a rib and that caused it to stop short of causing more serious injury. Not that this isn’t serious.” She examined the wound closely. What she saw brought her up short. “This is far more healed than it should be.”
“Shifting can sometimes speed things up a bit,” Jesse said nonchalantly. Maria was impressed. The wound was nearly sealed. It was still an angry red, but the sutures she’d put in weren’t really necessary anymore. He was bleeding from a new tear near the suture line, probably made while walking here. Even as she watched, the bleeding slowed and finally stopped.
“I used dissolving sutures, but I think I should take these out.” She bathed the wound thoroughly, clearing away old blood and revealing the much-improved wound.
“Do that now, while he’s still out. He doesn’t need the stitches anymore. They’re only getting in the way of his natural healing.”
“Good point.” Maria got out the supplies she’d need to pick out the stitches.
“What about his arm? This looks like it was pretty deep.” Jesse had continued working, checking all the obvious wounds.
“I had some butterfly bandages on that. I guess they must’ve come off when he changed.” She reached into the first aid kit she’d brought in from the hall closet. “It’s okay. I have more.”
They worked together. Jesse bathed the gash on the youngster’s arm, quietly cleaning and disinfecting the deep red slash. It looked like a knife cut to Maria. She watched Jesse’s work while she snipped and pulled on the stitches.
“I can’t figure why the bullet hole improved when he shifted, but the arm injury didn’t. It was the less serious of the two wounds,” she observed.
Jesse’s face was grim when she looked up at him.
“I think I know why.” Jesse didn’t elaborate but set about slathering the cut with antibiotic gel he found in her emergency kit, then he expertly used the butterflies to close it up again. “Do you have a blood pressure cuff?”
“Hang on.” She rummaged around in the night stand. Her grandmother had one of those wrist devices her doctor had suggested that she never used. Maria had seen it in here the last time she’d cleaned the room. She flipped open the protective plastic case and checked the batteries before placing the small device on the young man’s wrist. As they waited for the machine to register, she tried to think about what she’d done for the bear when he’d arrived.
“He’d lost a lot of blood when he got here,” she told Jesse. “I gave him a unit of saline and he stabilized.
“Our human forms can often be more delicate than our animals.”
The cuff beeped and Maria bent to look at the results. “Not good.”
“He needs a drip.”
Maria was surprised by Jesse’s knowledge. “I’ve never worked on a human being before.” She paused by the door, already thinking where her closest supplies were and how to get everything they needed as quickly as possible.
“It’s okay. I have. We do all kinds of advanced first aid in the service. Special Forces learns more than most.”
His confidence made her feel a lot better as she scrambled for supplies. Luckily, she had what they needed here in the house and didn’t have to run to any of the outbuildings. She was back in less than a minute, glad to see Jesse had already made preparations.
He took the I.V. kit from her and tore it open, leaving her in no doubt as to his familiarity with the equipment. He placed the needle expertly as she set up the drip. Within moments, life-sustaining fluid was flowing into their patient’s veins, helping his depleted body stabilize. Maria kept monitoring his blood pressure and other vital signs, glad when they started to improve.
“I think he’s out of the woods,” Maria said softly, glad for the slight ease in tension gained from knowing the young man wasn’t going to die on her just yet.
A few minutes later, the kid started coming around. Jesse encouraged him by talking to him and reassuring him. All in all, Jesse impressed the heck out of her. He could be gentle when he wanted to be and didn’t mind letting it show, which said something very significant to her about his character.
Oh, yes. She could grow to like him all too easily. Actually, she was afraid she already had. Darn it.
Chapter Three
“Come on, sport. Can you tell me your name?” Jesse asked one more time.
“Zach,” came the weak reply. The kid was getting stronger by the moment, but he wasn’t quite back with them yet.
“Zach. That’s good. What’s your last name?” Jesse encouraged.
Dark-brown eyes shot open defiantly. “Smith,” he enunciated with a bit of fire.
Jesse laughed. The kid had spirit. He wasn’t trusting them with his real name. At least not his surname, which would help them trace his family. Smart kid. He’d come under fire and, if Jesse didn’t miss his guess, attack by poisonous silver, which meant whoever had come after him knew what he was. The kid had been shot, poisoned and captured, but he still did what he could to protect his family.
“That’s all right, Zach. I’ll do what I can to reassure you that we’re the good guys. Even if the doc didn’t know what you were at first.”
He saw the woman cringe out of the corner of his eye. She’d been apologizing a lot, and he didn’t mean to make her feel worse, but the kid needed to be convinced first, then they could work on the rest of this situation. The presence of the werebear and the nature of his injuries made him wonder if those two cretins last night had been after the doc…or the bear. Either was possible. One thing he knew for sure, this situation had just become a whole lot more complicated.
Even more complicated than when he’d gotten his first good whiff of her alluring scent. He’d known
from that moment this mission was going to test him in ways he’d never been tested before.
He’d wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her senseless. He’d wanted to seduce her and bend her over the kitchen table, flip up that slinky nightie and fuck her brains out. Then do it all again. But he’d refrained. He’d kept his mind on the mission even if the wood in his pants made it hard to walk.
He’d been the model of restraint—half-convincing himself that once he got her back to Wyoming he’d have his chance to woo and ultimately claim her the way his inner wolf was howling to do. He’d been all set to do his very best sales patter on how her cousin and ancestor needed her while he helped her with the wild animals she cared for. Then he’d discovered an even bigger problem under her roof.
No longer was his mission only about Maria Garibaldi. It now had to include the nearly helpless bear shifter who didn’t trust him worth a damn. Not that Jesse blamed the kid. He’d been through hell. No doubt about it. He was wise to be cautious with strangers, even if one was a fellow shifter. Shifters had gone bad and betrayed their own kind before. Not often, but it had been known to happen.
“All right, sport.” Jesse patted the kid’s uninjured arm. “I’m going to make some calls. My brother will be able to get a priority message to the Lords and I might be able to rig some kind of internet call or something so you can see for yourself which side I’m on. Will you give me the chance to do that? I’d hate to have to follow your ass out the window and track you to where you drop from your injuries. In case you didn’t realize it, you’ve been poisoned. That isn’t going to go away easily or quickly.”
The young man glanced down at his arm and Jesse knew he understood. Zach had been sliced with a silver blade. Poisoned as well as injured. All shifters knew the danger of silver.
“I’ll stay for a while. More than that, I can’t promise.”