by Amelia Jade
Stone Bear: Phoenix
Stone Bears Book 2
By Amelia Jade
Stone Bear: Phoenix
Copyright @ 2016 by Amelia Jade
First Electronic Publication: March 2016
Amelia Jade
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.
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Stone Bear: Phoenix
Chapter One
Uriel
He was sulking. There was no other way to describe it.
Uriel fumbled with the zipper on his lunchbox. He squeezed the soft-sided blue container between his legs, trying to get it to open. The zipper was caught.
“Stupid fucking design,” he muttered, yanking harder on the flimsy metal. It didn’t change a thing; the container stayed closed, denying the contents it held within.
“Do you—”
“No, I fucking don’t,” he growled angrily at Raphael’s outstretched hand.
He was going to do this himself. There was no other choice. If he couldn’t learn to do simple tasks like this on his own, then Uriel knew he would quickly find himself overwhelmed by the world at large. It wasn’t like his situation was going to change anytime soon. Or ever.
“Why won’t you let us help you?” Gabriel asked, not for the first time. It was a well-worn conversation between them. The two Stone Bears clearly hated seeing him struggling with things that shouldn’t pose a problem. That much he knew. But Uriel didn’t want their help, and he especially did not want their pity. He was still alive, and mostly whole. There were others out there about whom he could not say the same.
“I lost an arm, Gabriel. I’m not paralyzed or invalid. I need to learn how to fend for myself. I will not be helpless,” he snarled, more at himself than the other two.
“It would be a lot easier if you got some help along the way,” Raphael said under his breath, turning back to his own lunch.
Metal snapped and shortly after a blue object flew across the cavern as Uriel took out his frustration on the lunchbox. The remnant of the zipper in his hand quickly followed.
He sensed Gabriel looking at him for a long moment before the leader of the Stone Bears got up and retrieved the lunchbox. His deft fingers—from both hands Uriel noted sullenly—quickly and easily slid open the remnants of the zipper. Without a word he put it in Uriel’s lap.
At least he didn’t open the containers for me. His friend and boss had done that for him once, and it made Uriel feel less than useless. Not that he felt much better after his little tantrum just now.
They were sitting in the open-air cavern that housed the Stone Bears’ equipment, vehicles, and numerous other supplies for the large mansion complex set high into the mountains above Genesis Valley. Winter was in full force, and snow swirled in the entrance, but it never got far. The entrance wasn’t exposed to the majority of the weather, since it was obstructed by the sharp turn of the road that led up to it. The asphalt surface pivoted ninety degrees to the right as soon as it exited the cavern, making a complete 180-degree turn as it ascended to the main level. The extreme turn ensured that solid walls of rock sheltered the opening from the worst of the snow and other weather.
The vaulted ceiling ran up into the darkness, past the heights where light could reach. Veins of quartz and other non-essential minerals ran up the walls that were hewn straight from the earth, without any manmade covering, although a composite floor had been installed at some point in the past.
It had become the de facto meeting place for the Stone Bears as well. They were careful to still hold routine meetings in their office, but they had become convinced that someone was likely to be listening in on them from there. Out here, in the huge cavern, they could speak in relative confidence with each other.
Right now, however, they were silent, each reflecting on the events of the past few months. Especially the fight that had occurred in this very space only two weeks past. It had been a rather bloodless fight as far as those things went in Genesis Valley. Plenty of injuries, but in the end, nobody had died because of the intervention of one of the most powerful shifters in the valley.
Valen Kedyn had ignored whatever threat was being held above his and his twin brother Marcus’s head to save the lives of Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and more than half a dozen of their friends. They had been confronted perhaps ten steps from where Uriel now sat, by a powerful enemy who had threatened to end them all without breaking a sweat.
“I wonder where Valen is now,” he said aloud.
The others looked at him sharply. They hadn’t discussed it at all in the intervening time, and Uriel decided that enough was enough.
“Uriel…” Gabriel warned, but he shook his head at his boss.
“No, it’s time we talked about what happened, and also what’s going to happen next,” he said firmly.
Raphael sighed, likely expecting an argument between Uriel and Gabriel on the topic. The two had butted heads recently over some of the leader’s decisions. Uriel felt that Gabriel was becoming a bit too cautious now that he had found a mate. The counterargument was that Uriel had become reckless ever since he had lost his arm.
Gabriel surprised both of them this time by nodding in agreement.
“There’s no point in speculating where Valen went,” he said before continuing. “But you’re right, we should talk about what’s going to happen next. We need to plan and be ready for as many outcomes as possible.”
Uriel felt his eyebrows begin to rise, but he pulled them back down, forcing himself to conceal his surprise. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to the fact that Gabriel had changed his mind. Instead, he needed to simply continue the conversation.
“I think it’s clear we threw their plans into disarray after Valen ended Victor.” The others nodded in agreement.
Gabriel spoke next. “They’ve tried to come after the miners, and now they’ve tried to come after us. Neither have proven to be as vulnerable as they may have hoped. The real question is, where will they strike next?”
There was a phantom twinge of pain from the arm he no longer had when Gabriel talked about being vulnerable. The Stone Bears weren’t as strong as they used to be. The incident at Gabriel’s cabin had proven that. Uriel knew if he had been whole, the goons that had been sent after him and Kierra Valcke wouldn’t have stood a chance. In his current condition, however, there had been very little he could have done.
Hell, I can’t even
shift, he thought miserably to himself.
“They’ll probably try to come through me,” he said grumpily, his early determination to focus on the conversation forgotten. “We all know I couldn’t stop them.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Gabriel exploded, finally losing his patience with the junior Stone Bear. “If you would just go to the doctor for help, they could help you learn how to be yourself again. But you’re too stubborn and too afraid to admit how useless you are right now. I can’t make you go, but I will forbid you from participating in any important conversations until you can focus on everything else.”
Uriel stared as his boss ripped him a new one, doing his best not to crumple externally like he felt his soul doing on the inside.
“I love you Uriel, but you’re not being any help to us right now. If you can’t help physically, nobody is going to hold that against you. But by God man, you can at least help us intellectually. You have a smart brain on your head that we could use. But right now you’re a hindrance in that department as well.”
Jaw clenched, Uriel sat still, his lunch long forgotten. Gabriel’s words ran through his head. Ever since his injury, Uriel had been wallowing in his own self-pity. He knew that, but he just hadn’t been able to get himself past his own failures. But this was the first time Gabriel had lost his temper over it. The first time he had been called out. Now it was clear he wasn’t hurting just himself, but he was letting down his friends. And it wasn’t because of his inability to shift and fight, but because he was refusing to seek help for his injury.
He stood up, snagging his lunchbox in his one remaining hand as it started to tumble from his lap.
“Look, Uriel,” Gabriel said, spreading his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
He shook his head. “Actually yes, yes you did Gabriel.” He set his lunchbox down on the crate he had been sitting on and headed for the door back into the complex. “Yes you did,” he echoed in a soft voice.
“Where are you going?” Raphael called out.
“Where I should have gone from the start,” he said confidently, shouldering his way through the door.
He came to an intersection that had signs indicating what was down each hallway.
Administration. Left.
Main Entrance. Left.
Medical. Right.
He went right, descending into the fully equipped medical suite within the Lionshead Mining Consortium head office. Uriel had only been there once. He had been rushed into the doctor’s office, his shoulder doing its best to heal after his arm had been ripped clean off by a pair of shifters. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered that fateful night, but he pushed it into a dark corner of his mind.
The trembling increased as he neared the room where he had awoken. Putting his head down, he lengthened his strides until he was clear of it. The next room was labeled as a washroom. He slowed, approaching the next door as he read the sign.
S. Hightower – Physiotherapist
That was the office he was looking for. It was the place he needed to go. Steeling the shredded remains of his courage and dignity, he raised his left—and only—hand, slowly curling it into a fist. It hovered inches away from the door for several long seconds as he fought his inner terror at the monumental challenge he was about to undertake if his hand descended.
The door opened.
A woman jumped back from the door, dropping a folder in surprise as she yelped in distress.
For a very long and very awkward moment Uriel did nothing. He remained upright, his lone arm in the air as his eyes tracked the woman. The only part of his body that moved were his eyes. Even his head refused to tilt downward.
Then in a rush, as if someone had finally hit the “Play” button again, he inhaled deeply and began to fumble for his words. “Sorry,” he said quietly, dropping into a squat to grab some of the papers that had ended up near his feet.
“It’s okay,” she said politely. “I was just surprised. I hadn’t expected anyone to be there. One of those freak occurrences.”
He nodded. “I probably would have dropped something too, you know, if my free hand had been carrying anything.”
The woman at first looked shocked at his biting comment, and then to his surprise, she laughed.
Even more surprising, he laughed. And it felt good.
Who was this woman? Uriel hadn’t been able to joke about his injury to anyone, not even his closest friends. Yet this woman, whom he had known for all of thirty seconds, was pulling lighthearted comments like that from him? Shaking his head, he handed her the papers and stood up.
That was when he got his second shock. She stood up. And up. And up.
He still loomed above her, but she was unbelievably tall. There was no way she wasn’t an inch or two over six feet. Her forehead was practically at his lip height. If he were to hold her in his arms, her head would rest perfectly on his chest.
“So, what can I do for you?” she asked, interrupting his fantasy.
Without looking down, her hands jogged the file folder so that the papers sat in it properly. Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and Uriel did his best to maintain a straight face. The eyes screamed intelligence to him. It was difficult to describe how and why, but that was the first word that came to mind. He had never before realized how attractive that was to him, but the evidence was quite clear that he did like it.
“Actually,” he said with a polite grimace, not wanting to disappoint her since he wasn’t actually looking for her. “I was looking for Doctor Hightower.”
He received an arched eyebrow in return.
“Are you now?” she asked.
Uriel nodded. “Is he around by chance?”
The woman across from him crossed her arms, still holding the file folder, and said nothing. Her eyes did glance down toward her chest for a brief moment.
Not wanting to be rude, he tried to keep his eyes from doing the same, but she was wearing a white coat and a purple shirt with a very shallow V-neck to it. There was little in the way of skin showing, he realized. There was, however, a nametag attached to the coat.
“Oh,” he managed to croak out through his suddenly dry and embarrassed mouth.
Sydney Hightower. The letters were written in plain block writing.
“What can I do for you?” she asked somewhat smugly.
Uriel closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to acknowledge his rudeness. “My apologies, Doctor,” he said seriously. “I clearly did not give you the credit you deserved by assuming that you couldn’t be the person I was looking for. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“I’ll try, but it might cost extra,” she said. “By the way, you don’t have to call me ‘Doctor.’ I have my PhD, but I’m not a medical doctor per se.”
Was that a sparkle in her eye, or just the light reflecting off it? He wasn’t sure, and Uriel was not going to test that limit again anytime soon.
Sydney turned and waved him into her office, retreating behind her desk. Feeling chagrined, he followed after her.
The office was actually rather more spacious than it had looked like from the outside. Bookshelves lined the right-hand wall, filled with medical journals and textbooks. Her desk was straight ahead from the door, but immediately to his left he noticed an examination table. The left-hand side of the room was mostly blank except for a few poster, but there was a door, through which he glimpsed a much larger room filled with exercise equipment.
“A PhD? That seems a bit more on the theoretical side of the education spectrum for such a hands-on job, no?” he asked sincerely. He would have figured some sort of practical certification would be necessary.
Sydney looked at him for a moment, trying to discern his meaning. Eventually her pursed lips pulled back into a smile, divining his true meaning. “It’s four years of study in a hands-on situation, believe it or not. Would you accuse a chemist who invented a new compound for their PhD of not having done something practical?” she
challenged gently.
Bowing his head, he acknowledged defeat as gracefully as he could. Her hand waved him to the chair opposite her desk and he obeyed, sliding into its stiff fabric. The one she sat in was made of soft brown leather, likely forming a much more comfortable seat than the one she reserved for guests.
“Do you normally only see people you hate?” he asked before she could speak up.
“You’d be surprised,” she told him with a grin. “The chair bothering you?”
He blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”
Her smile widened. “It’s a common complaint. Before you ask, it’s so uncomfortable so that people don’t come in here and waste my time. There’s an epidemic of people who have normal aches and pains who feel like they need my help, when really they just need to realize that everyone hurts. A sore knee doesn’t mean you blew out your ACL,” she finished with a snort.
Uriel nodded. “Sick and tired of people wanting to be coddled?” he asked with a knowing smile.
Sydney didn’t have to respond; the sarcastic eyeroll told him exactly how she felt.
“I completely understand.”
“Anyway,” Sydney said, shaking her head gently and focusing back on the present. “I keep the chair uncomfortable because I know if someone truly needs my help, then they won’t give a damn about the comfort. So,” her eyes narrowed in focus at him, “do you want my help Uriel?”
Now there was a loaded question. Uriel did not mention aloud how she had switched from referring to others who needed her help, to asking if he wanted her help. Nor did he say anything about how she knew his name. After all, there could only be so many shifters walking around with one arm who might come to see her. He wasn’t going to question the intellect he could see burning behind the hazel eyes that were staring at him intently.
Answering her question wasn’t as easy as he wanted it to be. Uriel tried to force his mouth open, to give her a nonchalant “yeah” or “yes.” He didn’t want it to be a big ordeal that he was here. But no matter how hard he tried, his jaw stayed clamped closed. Pain shot down the arm he didn’t have as he tried to force the words out yet again. The harder he tried, the more he felt pain from a limb he no longer had.