Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  --and meanwhile they'd do what to the girl?

  And all the while he felt the heat rise, the hackles along his back rise, fur along his spine, his face still felt human, his jaw human, his teeth not fangs, his hands, held flexed wide open, were hands.

  He was bigger. Stronger. His heart pounded hard and fast.

  The rage filled him.

  The doors burst open.

  There were four of them. Four huge thugs, the same men he'd seen before, the ones he'd found interchangeable and he'd watched them but not close enough.

  Somehow he hadn't expected quite so many musclebound types to be on the captures. He'd expected guns. Maybe more of the type of man who stepped out from behind the hired muscle, his face schooled to boredom but Holden saw the light of sadistic glee in his eyes. The man Holden was looking at got off on causing pain. He'd do what he was doing even if there was no personal gain involved.

  "Daddy!" Dani's voice echoed in the room. She sounded terrified and furious.

  He hoped the fury would carry her through. He wouldn't have told her what he planned even if there was time. It needed to look like she really thought he was out, and she hadn't seen the changes in his body, distracted by the sounds of the men coming down outside metal stairs.

  Holden held onto human by a thread.

  They carried a variety of weapons. Dave and Jeff carried tranquilizer guns like zoo officials would.

  Stuart and Sam carried riot guns.

  Walter Sjoberg carried a Dirty Harry gun that looked heavy enough to throw the tall, thin man off balance. Now he looked at Dani and grinned, his eyes flinty cold, the smile malicious.

  "You did a good job with this one, baby. He's one of the Tyrells." The fake smile vanished and he turned his attention on Holden, his lip curling. "Fucking freak." He nodded, and the goons with the tranquilizer guns raised them.

  Dani stepped in front of Holden, her arms out, as if she could block everything. All they had to do was circle the cage and they'd be behind Holden.

  He didn't think it mattered. They'd probably shoot her if they had to. Even if they just used the tranquilizers on her, she might be hurt – Holden was considerably bigger than she was and had a totally different constitution. A dose of drugs meant for him and given to her might be deadly.

  He moved her easily, shoving her out of the way. To keep her safe. And because with her right next to him, his new size had to show.

  She bounced back to him like a boomerang. This time clinging. "Daddy, don't! Don't do this! Please, what if I – "

  Sjoberg didn't even bother looking at her. Just snarled, "Take him down."

  Holden sensed the man behind him, focusing through the bars of the cage. He let his frustration with Dani crescendo into rage and shoved her hard away from him this time.

  Her eyes were on his when she fell. Holden let no emotion show. Later, if there was a later, she'd understand.

  In that second, he saw fury and concern and something that confused him: hope.

  Then he'd looked away and whirled on the man behind him. Too late. The gun barked with a hiss of compressed air and the dart sank into his thigh.

  Holden squeezed his eyes shut, called up all his attention and felt the drug sliding through him. Some of it.

  Not enough. The rage was beating it back. Like adrenaline overcoming a nighttime sleep aid when an emergency happens.

  He sank to one knee. He roared.

  Outside the cage, three of the goons looked uncomfortable. The fourth, Dave, leered at Dani.

  You'll be first, Holden thought. Then he locked bear eyes on Walter Sjoberg and sank down into exaggerated stillness.

  The last of the shift rippled through him. He was grizzly, lying still on the bars on the bottom of the cage.

  Waiting to see what would happen.

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  They shot him!

  But the horror was tempered. She'd seen something in Holden's face right before he fell. About the time the harmless crush started – about the time she'd never have been able to talk to him if she met him because she wanted to too much – Dani had started riding seriously, wanting to compete. She'd spent her time watching all her heroes – live, on television, in videos. She watched Brianna Jackson, who'd roomed with Eddie Tyrell's girlfriend Dakota, and she watched each and every Tyrell, the way they competed, the way they trained.

  She knew that, for Holden Tyrell, right before he went into any physical challenge, his eyes closed, just for a second, like he was running internal systems checks, making certain everything was good to go.

  He'd just done that.

  He's not out.

  If her father and the others knew – no, just her father, the others wouldn't understand the subtlety – looked at Holden, he'd probably figure out the bear was faking it.

  Once again, her father's outrageous arrogance played in her favor. Now all she had to do was pretend she didn't know and that she was afraid when they came into the cage after her.

  … actually, that part wasn't that hard.

  "What are you going to do?"

  Her voice was shrill. Her hands shook as she spread her arms in front of Holden, as if she stood a chance of keeping the four men off of him.

  Dave picked her up easily, pulling her off Holden. His hands brushed her breasts, and her crotch, manhandling her as he yanked her to her feet. He threw her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, his hands very close to places she didn't want them.

  Dani fought against him, screaming for her father. She knew the ultimate destination for the shifters. She didn't know what happened in between and this wasn't how she'd meant to find out.

  "Daddy! Daddy, stop them! Please, help me, Da – "

  Her voice broke off with a pained squeak. Someone had grabbed a mass of her hair and yanked her head up. Dani sucked in a breath.

  And let it out again.

  Her father stood right in front of her, one hand up and apparently buried in her hair up to her scalp.

  "Shut the fuck up, little girl." His breath was 150 proof. His eyes were rattlesnake cold, and dead. Her father had frightened her before. His rages. The way he treated her mother despite the fact he loved her.

  He scared her because she stood no chance of getting Lisa or her mother away from him. It wasn't just money. Walter Sjoberg had the usual hold over his family, the kind of Stockholm Syndrome abused families fell into.

  Even now, her fingers curling into claws, wanting to scratch his face and gouge at his eyes, she held back. He still had Lisa. He still had Dani's mom.

  He still held all the cards.

  The smug, asshole smile on his face said he knew that.

  What he didn't know was that Holden wasn't out. The chance she and Holden might have was so slim as to nearly not exist. But an unbound bear who could move against humans who might just relax their guard? Better chance than most of the shifters had.

  She went on pleading. Begging. She'd been stupid. She'd reacted stupidly. She'd panicked. She was sorry. Please let her go. Please!

  She didn't expect anything in return. Instead, she was just giving him what he expected. It worked. Walter snarled, "Get them in the truck," and dropped her hair at the same time. He wheeled on his heel and stalked away, leaving the others to bring the bear.

  And his daughter.

  The back of the panel truck was unpadded corrugated steel. Dani scrambled from where she was dropped to cower against the paneled side. Dave grinned at her, a look that left little to her imagination. Sam had come with them. Stu and Jeff were following in another vehicle, she guessed. Didn't matter – they had a tranq gun and a riot gun between them. More than enough, especially with the bear unconscious.

  Her father rode in the cab of the truck. That didn't surprise her. He might insist on every luxury possible – if for no other reason than to prove he could afford and deserved such luxuries – but when it came to money, he rode herd on whatever he had to.

  Holden had given no
sign whatsoever of consciousness. Nothing.

  She was starting to worry he really was out.

  The sudden sunlight in the back of the truck was blinding. The doors crashed open and there were guns leveled at Dani and the bear. She had to assume the guns were in part for her because she was the only one awake. At least that's what they assumed.

  If they were afraid of her, it was because she might make enough noise to be heard. They definitely weren't afraid she'd suddenly become a 1000 pound mass of claws, teeth and death. She was still a tall, thin, helpless woman.

  Let them believe it. And let them look away long enough for her to get to the phone in her back pocket. For all Dave's manhandling her and touching her ass, he hadn't felt the phone in her pocket. She could set the recording device.

  She'd had it on during the attack in the arena facility, when Holden had come to her rescue. She'd had it on again in the cell in the instant her father's men had burst in. But it had to have timed out by now.

  "Come quietly, princess," her father said coldly. He stood at the back of the truck, staring in at her.

  She hated it when he called her that.

  Dani stood and made her way to the edge of the truck and jumped down before Dave could grab at her. Feet on the asphalt, she stood still, giving no one any reason to touch her.

  No one did, but Sam kept the gun leveled on her while Dave and Jeff went into the truck and swore until they forced Holden's body onto a reinforced gurney. Walter grabbed her arm then, his own gun in his right hand, held down along his leg. His left hand curled around her biceps hard enough she could instantly feel her heart beating there.

  Dani darted a look around her, blinking. Abandoned desert. This looked like an abandoned military base, maybe something from the 50s. Low concrete buildings that looked like desert outcroppings. She tried and failed to remember if there was anything like this close to town.

  Wherever they were, the asphalt was cracked and springing up with sticker-filled green weeds. The buildings were old, cinderblock with the kind of wire-reinforced windows that elementary schools used to have. Chain link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the compound. The gates had already shut.

  Walter yanked her by the arm then, and Dani stumbled into step beside him. The men wheeled the bear off in front of them.

  From the buildings ahead of them came a rumble of male voices cheering.

  Dani began to shake.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven

  Holden hung onto consciousness through rage and burgeoning fear. Even in bear form he knew fear for others and for himself.

  The place he was being taken smelled wrong. It smelled of blood and fear and death. There were sounds from the facility he could hear as soon as the panel truck opened. Sounds of animals fighting for their lives.

  Sounds of animals being killed.

  Straps held him to the gurney but they were just to stop the 1,000 pound bear from tumbling off. Not to hold him on it. No straps could do that.

  His head ached, a pounding, rattling ache that he'd experienced in the arena right before Dave appeared, calling him boss and making nice in a slimy, insubstantial way. Probably something Holden had eaten or had to drink before the actual setup with Dani had been drugged. Easier, he supposed, than the risky attack on the girl. Appealing to the chivalrous nature of the shifters to try and rescue an apparent victim was a good ruse. But it depended on no one else being around when it happened. A handful of cowboys, shifters or not, rushing to the rescue would mean the hired muscle went down.

  Admin in the league working against shifters probably wouldn't care except for the time and expense of finding new thugs. He'd bet none of the thugs ever arrested would be bailed out and that none of them knew enough about who'd hired them to be a threat.

  He tested the straps again. They were threads compared to his muscle. He could break them so easily. But staying still on the gurney, not even twitching? That was hard.

  He heard the three of them grabbing Dani and hauling her down the ramp behind the stretcher. He heard the screaming from the arena. He smelled the blood and death.

  He began to understand what was happening and where he was being taken.

  "How much did you give him?"

  Sjoberg's voice came from above him. He sounded irritable in the extreme. Wherever they were, it was inside but not yet directly beside the place from which the terror and emotions washed up. Darker where they were, and cooler than the truck or outside. If he had to guess, he'd say backstage somewhere.

  Damn it, he wanted to open his eyes. Dani had made several short exclamations of pain as the men forced her along. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to stop this. He wanted to see what was happening and make that stop.

  But stopping it – finding the organization responsible, bringing down some of the kingpins – that was more important than immediate needs.

  Apparently he'd played his unconsciousness card too long. Sjoberg was becoming irritated. Must be time for Holden to groan and shift and try to free himself.

  Holden did all those things. Instantly the muzzle of one of the riot guns knocked into the back of his head.

  "Don't knock him out, idiot," Dave's voice said.

  Sam or Stuart, whoever held the gun, said something indistinguishable.

  A foot nudged Holden hard in the thigh. "Wakey, wakey, bear. We have a surprise for you."

  No, they didn't.

  He'd already figured out what it was he was hearing.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  Dani gagged on the stench of the place. Once they'd come inside the doors were all locked anyway. Her father had instantly flung her away from him, pointed at one of the private boxes rigged in the arena and told her to get out of the way and shut the fuck up.

  She hadn't said anything. She didn't bother saying so. No one had taken her phone and she wanted to keep it that way. The private box gave her a birds eye view of something she didn't want to see. But at least that way she could get all the evidence she needed and send it on to every one of her friends as fast as she could.

  Photos. Sound recordings. Her notes. All the names she could find.

  To do that she had to look into the pit.

  Ten feet deep, the edges of it filled with razor wire and broken glass to keep the combatants in the center of the ring where they could be easily seen.

  Seen by the gamblers grouped around the edges of the pit, safely out of reach, or watching from bleachers in the abandoned complex's sports arena.

  Betting. Avid faces, sweating in the heat and with excitement.

  Watching humans shifted by fear and need to animals, fighting each other.

  To the death.

  Human dogfighting.

  Shifter dogfighting.

  The arena was rank with the smells of slaughter.

  Dani hadn't told Holden everything she knew. The fact that she'd been attracted to him for years, knew his public persona to be honest and full of integrity meant nothing. Her father didn't come across as a dogfight ringleader either.