by Amelia Jade
Was she his mate? The person he would spend the rest of his life with? Hopefully they would have a cub or two one day, and grow old together. Was love a powerful enough word to encompass all that? After all, he loved Gabriel and Raphael. It was a different type of love, a brotherly one, but he loved them nonetheless.
Unexpectedly his bear snarled and conveyed its annoyance. He chuckled aloud.
“What is it?” Sydney asked, turning to look at him.
“I love you,” he told her yet again, basking in the delight that erupted in her eyes.
There was no hesitation on her part this time. “I love you too, Uriel,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“How do you feel about being a bear shifter’s mate?” he asked.
“Are you serious?” She looked stunned, as if she couldn’t believe he had just said it.
“Completely. Now that I can communicate with my bear again, I’m getting the idea that it thinks I’m an idiot for waiting this long to realize that you’re my mate, my one.”
“Long?” she snorted. “It hasn’t even been two weeks.”
He blushed, knowing that humans normally took much longer to decide such things. That wasn’t the way it worked for shifters though. You either were, or you weren’t. There wasn’t a period of years where they fell in love with each other. It was a simple recognition, and then acceptance.
The trucks roared to life as they began to move, engines snorting and growling as the operators sent them rumbling up the sharp turn that led from the cavern opening up to the parking lot. The shifters inside nodded or waved at the two of them, and then moments later, they were out of sight.
“So, what do you say?” he said, turning back to Sydney with a grin.
“I say that there’s been something special about you since the day you walked into my office and assumed because I was a woman, I wasn’t a doctor.”
“How long are you going to hold that against me?” he protested, throwing his hands up in the air.
She smiled wide, then her hands rose up and pulled his face down to hers, where she planted a fierce kiss on his lips.
“For the rest of my life,” she said softly. “I do believe that’s what being mated to a shifter requires, right?”
He nodded slowly.
“Well, welcome to being mated to a human. First up, holding grudges,” she said with a laugh, and kissed him again.
Uriel rolled his eyes and picked her up once more. “I look forward to learning everything I can about you. Especially...” he smiled evilly, the look growing as she stared at him nervously, “your biggest weakness.”
Sydney relaxed. “I don’t have any weaknesses,” she said haughtily, fighting to keep her face straight.
“Is that so?” Uriel asked, giving her an out.
She shook her head. “Nope, none.”
“Not even this?” he asked, his arm sliding up from where it had been wrapped around her waist. The moment his fingertips touched her armpit he began to wiggle them.
Sydney shrieked. “No! Stop it! Not fair!” She beat at him with her hands in impotent rage while he gave her the biggest shit-eating grin he could summon.
“Give up?” he asked politely.
“You’re going to pay for that,” she promised.
“Whatever you say, Doc,” he quipped, ducking below the blow she sent toward his head.
“Now come on, let’s go inside and get some food, shall we?” he said, bending down and picking her up by the waist so she fell over his shoulder.
“Put me down you oaf!” she yelped. “You’re going to give me a concussion, knocking my head against the tree branches up here.”
He didn’t stop.
“Must be the lack of air up here. It’s make you dumb,” she said dryly, settling in for the ride as Uriel chuckled beneath her. “Barbarian,” she muttered.
“Very well milady, you have insulted me beyond repair. You may walk,” he said, and dumped her into a snowdrift.
“Ooooh,” she said, shaking with fake anger as he pulled her out of it.
“I love you too,” he said and gave her a kiss.
“You’re lucky I have dry clothes here,” she snorted, but allowed herself to be pulled in tight to his waist, using his body heat to warm her up.
A shout from the cavern opening drew their attention. The words were muffled but the tone was urgent.
He glanced over at Sydney, but she was already untangling herself from him.
“Sounds like you’re needed,” she said. Another shout came again, this time clearly calling for Uriel. “Go on.”
He planted a kiss on her forehead and took off for the opening.
“What is it?” he asked as a trainee came up to him with a note.
“The Emeralds are reporting they are under attack by a large number of unknown bears. They’re currently barricaded in their mine, but they aren’t sure how long they can last.”
“Shit,” Uriel swore, his mind racing frantically. “Where did Gabriel and the others go?”
“Marcel and the Ruby Crew called in a pickup,” Norman, the trainee, said.
“Not good. That’s in the complete opposite direction. They’ll be way up the mountain now. Gabriel will never make it.”
Norman nodded seriously.
“Fucking impeccable timing,” Uriel complained aloud. Even as he did though, his brain was racing. There was no time and he needed to act decisively. He considered several options before settling on his decision.
“Okay, grab the others,” he told Norman.
He saw Third Team assembling already. Norman was part of Second team, but they weren’t on call and would be scattered around the base most likely.
“You wait for your team and take a truck. Make sure you notify Gabriel if you haven’t already. Get there as fast as you can,” he said to Norman.
“Second team, with me,” he said and the bears leapt up to follow him to a corner of the cavern. Uriel snagged his bag from a nearby rack as he did.
“Sorry to be rude, but whoever is the worst combatant stays behind,” Uriel ordered. “There’s only room for four, not five.” Each team of trainees had four members in it.
The team universally selected one member who stepped back from the vehicle Uriel had led them to. Opening the trunk, Uriel selected his sash again from the bag, and grabbed two guns this time, stowing the rest away. After the first fight he’d decided he wanted a backup and had gone to the small armory to request a second. Both were loaded and ready.
The engine fired up and he and the first team of shifters took off. The modified ATV engine roared, and not for the first time Uriel was glad he had upgraded it quite heavily. It carried the four shifters across the snow with ease.
“We’ll cut through the forest and get there faster than if we took a vehicle,” he told them, yelling over the wind as it whipped through the open cockpit.
The four treads spun, throwing up a huge rooster tail of snow behind them as he raced along, taking the most direct route to the Emerald Crew’s mine shaft. Although the forest was thick, part of Uriel’s job was knowing the terrain nearby and he effortlessly guided them around the trees, rocks, and other obstacles presented to them. A normal “as fast as possible” trip to the Emeralds via truck in the summer with good weather was about fifteen to twenty minutes.
He wrenched the steering wheel sideways as they entered the Emerald clearing in eleven minutes. The shifters piled out. There were tracks everywhere, but no signs of bears.
“They must be in the shaft,” he said, and the four of them began to jog forward. Once they closed the distance to twenty feet, he felt more than saw his men shift. The sound of four big paws crunching snow was also much different than two feet. The group crept closer, until they could adjust their eyes and see down into the shaft. There was nobody watching for their approach, but they could hear the sounds of a struggle echoing up from below.
Surging forward they flowed over the ground, transitioning from
snow to hard rock easily, never stopping as they charged to the aid of their friends. The farther down they descended, the more vicious the noises became. Roars of triumph and howls of pain reverberated off the walls, creating a cacophony of noises that made it hard to tell where exactly they were coming from.
Eventually the noises grew to a crescendo and the four slowed, approaching a near ninety-degree bend in the corner. The light was dim there, but with his bear back on board, Uriel could make use of its senses to see just fine. He motioned the others to stop, and pressed himself against the left-hand wall. The uneven stone poked him in all sorts of places as he tried to push himself deep into the rock. The tunnel curved away to the right, and he inched closer.
Slowly he peered around the corner. The shaft widened here as well, and what he saw beyond was unbelievable.
The Emerald Crew had found several large pieces of metal and were currently using those as a barrier. Behind it stood several of the shifters, wielding the giant pickaxes they used in everyday life. They only had two, however, and couldn’t cover the entire length of the barrier.
What looked to be an equal number of bears and men faced them from Uriel’s side of the barrier, and they constantly tried to push themselves over it, suffering horrific wounds in the process. He could see numerous fresh scars where the bears were simply waiting to heal before trying again.
As he watched, four bears spread out and charged at the barrier, followed by three more in the spaces between them. Two of them were hit hard with devastating blows to the body from the wickedly spiked pickaxes, but they just roared in pain and pulled back. This time one of them even managed to wrench the embedded weapon out of the grip of the Emerald who was holding it.
There was no time for him to coordinate with his backup. The barrier was falling even as he watched. Uriel snatched the gun from his side, hoping the bears would know what to do. His arm came up like a robot and he methodically began pumping two darts apiece into the bears as fast as he could. The gun ran dry and he dropped it, grabbing the backup and resuming firing.
Two darts wasn’t enough to take them down, but the tranquilizer was fast-acting enough that it disoriented them for a good thirty seconds if he hit them with both shots. His finger tightened around the trigger again. And again. And again. He ejected another spent case and fumbled his way through a reload. The arm came up and pumped out more darts.
The Sentinels he had brought with him—and after today they truly would be Sentinels in name, no longer trainees, but baptized in the blood of their enemies—rushed forward, working as a team to take down the bears that Uriel had hit first, ensuring that they would never rise again.
“Up and at them!” Uriel heard a powerful voice shout from behind the barricade.
It was Ajax he realized, and even as he watched the Alpha of the Emeralds leap forward, his bear erupting mid-air as he cleared the barrier and slammed into one of the attackers. A giant paw swept upward in a very convincing mimicry of a human-style uppercut. The claws that tore the throat out of his target were different though. Without even reacting to the spray of blood that coated him Ajax turned to his next opponent. More Emerald bears were flowing over the barrier and the fight was now joined in earnest.
Uriel had to be much more careful with his shots now, and as he reloaded yet again, he started using only one dart per target. It did nothing more than affect his targets for a split second, but that was enough for their opponents to gain the upper hand.
“We need prisoners!” Uriel shouted in the midst of the fight. He couldn’t see much—there were too many bodies blocking the few yellow lights, and at least one of those was now coated in blood, but there was still enough light to make out the majority of what was occurring. The fight was mostly over, though one of the bears nearest him managed to disentangle itself and make an escape for the surface.
Uriel’s arm tracked the fugitive and he emptied the remainder of his clip into the bear. Seven darts stitched their way down the flank of the bear and his legs went out from under him. The giant beast still had momentum that slid it across the floor where it crashed heavily into a wall. Just to be sure it stayed down, Uriel reloaded and hit it with another half dozen darts.
A piece of rock from the ceiling fell onto Uriel’s head, no doubt dislodged by the escapee headbutting the wall as he collapsed. Irritated, Uriel emptied the rest of his next clip into the bear as well.
“That ought to keep him down for a bit,” he muttered, striding forward to where Ajax was extricating himself from the charnel house that had become his mine. “Sorry we took so long to get here,” he said, gripping Ajax’s forearm in greeting. He looked around, taking a quick mental count of the shifters he saw moving. “Any losses?” he asked grimly.
Ajax shook his head. “Miraculously no. It should have been far worse, but two of my men were taking a cart full of debris to the surface, and saw the attackers before they even entered the mine. We managed to retreat down here and form a barrier after calling for help.”
Uriel whistled slowly. “Wow. Luck indeed.” He shook his head in disbelief at the way they had emerged from the attack unscathed. “How many prisoners did we get?”
Ajax took a quick tally from his men. “Three, including the one you put to sleep,” he said with a chuckle, gesturing at the dozen plus darts sticking out from the side of the bear.
“Well, let’s see what we can find out,” Uriel said and strode forward to where two bears were being held against their will.
“They won’t shift back, sorry,” one of the Emeralds said apologetically.
Uriel looked at the one struggling less. “Talk to us, or we’ll rip your claws out one by one and stick them into your eyes until you do.” His voice was ice, frozen hard and uncompromising. The shifter didn’t move. “You threatened my friends, my family, and my loved ones. Don’t think for two seconds I give a shit about you or any pain we might inflict on you,” he growled.
The bear eyes flicked rapidly back and forth between him and Ajax, but the Emerald Alpha’s face was made of the same stone they mined—hard and unyielding. He must have seen something in the two of them, because a second later a large man was lying in the spot his bear had been seconds before.
“Better,” Uriel said, crouching down in front of him. The other captive tried to wrench his way free and attack, but Ajax’s foot was quicker and he caught the attacker hard in the side of the head with a swift kick, and the shifter collapsed in a heap, unconscious.
“Now,” Uriel resumed conversationally. “What say you tell us who you are, and who sent you?”
“Fuck you,” the shifter spat.
“Are you that eager to die?” Ajax asked calmly.
“If I must, I will. We do as the True Form wishes.”
Both Uriel and Ajax looked at each other. They had recognized the capital letters the prisoner had put on that title.
“The True Form?” he asked.
“You’re pathetic,” the prisoner said, laughing. “That is why you all must die. You don’t recognize how unworthy you are. L—” The shifter caught himself and started again. “Our leader is of the True Form, and he will not cease until only those who recognize the purity of the True Form are left.”
Uriel rolled his eyes. “This sounds like some kind of crazy zealot,” he commented to Ajax. “Wants to eliminate any who don’t match his idea of ‘perfection.’” He was ignoring the prisoner on purpose, making up wild accusations in hopes that their prisoner might snap and reveal more to them. He wasn’t sure if Ajax would pick up on his tactic, but he had a feeling the sharp Alpha would see what he was doing and follow along.
“But what is the True Form?” Ajax asked. “Is this a human trying to eliminate us shifters?” he asked Uriel, as they ignored the prisoner for a moment. “Seems ironic that he would use other shifters to do that.”
The prisoner snarled and strained against the Emerald bears who were holding him in place. “Humans could never stand up to lowlifes like you and I
, let alone the True Form,” the prisoner said, before dissolving into a fit of laughter.
“That’s enough,” Uriel said to the guards, and he turned away as they snapped their prisoner’s neck.
“Did you catch that?” Ajax asked.
“Yeah, he referred to us and him as lower than this True Form person.”
Uriel snorted. “What a ridiculous name.” He shook his head, focusing back on what they had learned. “Still, tells us a lot. Whoever—or whatever—this person is, they consider themselves above us, and are shifters. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of options, now does it?”
Ajax nodded. “Now what type of shifter do we know that might be arrogant enough to consider itself perfection above others?” He asked the question, but they both knew the answer.
“I fucking hate dragons,” Uriel muttered.
“Can you tell us any more?” he asked the second prisoner, who still had yet to shift back. The bear ignored them.
“End him,” Ajax commanded and the Emeralds gladly disposed of yet another attacker. That left only the one Uriel had knocked out cold.
“I’ll ensure this one gets transferred to the jail,” Uriel said to Ajax. He was eager to leave, to get back to the LMC office and be with Sydney.
“I can handle that for you,” came a deep voice.
The two looked up to see Gabriel coming down the mine shaft, surrounded by all the remaining trainees.
“Good to see you Gabriel,” Ajax said and the two exchanged greetings.
“How did the pickup go with Marcel?” Uriel asked.
Gabriel’s eyes flared. “There was no pickup. They never even called. Someone must have called in and faked it somehow.”
Uriel felt something click in his brain.
“Really?” he asked slowly. “Can I speak to you for a second?” He didn’t wait for an answer, pulling Gabriel deeper into the mine, until they rounded the hard turn and were out of earshot of the others.
“Who told you that there was a call up there?”
“Norman,” Gabriel said slowly.
“Did you ask him for the authentication codes from Marcel?”