Jade Crew: Fallen Bear (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Ridgeback Bears Book 7)

by Amelia Jade

  Evan wondered if it was open to him, however. Garrett had sent him the text, telling him to be there. But that didn’t mean he was truly welcome inside. Not after all that he had done.

  “Why is it that these first steps are never easy?” he muttered with a wry smile. The entire drive back from Emily’s grave had been uplifting. It was as if his ability to finally recognize his own idiocy had been all that his memory of Emily was looking for. Evan knew he had a lot of apologizing to do, and it would be a long time before he could forgive himself. But he could finally begin to move on from his past, to prove to himself and those around him that he was a better person now.

  His hand paused against the smooth-sanded wood of the swing door that would take him inside. He knew this was it. He was committed, and no matter the judgment passed upon him by those inside, he would not be able to avoid it. Knowing that despite Garrett’s invitation Ferro and the others might still choose to ostracize him, to blame him—and rightly so in many cases—made it a lot harder to tip the balance of his weight and continue heading forward. It would be so easy to just back away, get in his truck, and go back to the apartments. That was what part of him wanted to do.

  But it wasn’t what he was going to let himself do.

  Steeling himself for the reaction he knew was coming, Evan pushed forward and into the bar that had at one time been his second home, even if he hadn’t deserved it.

  Conversation stopped. A hushed silence fell over the entire bar as he stood there in the entranceway, framed in the darkness of the night outside.

  Someone coughed.

  Glasses clinked noisily as shifters put their beers down in surprise.

  Nobody spoke.

  Evan wasn’t sure what to do. He could feel his cheeks heating in embarrassment, but still he held his position, waiting for a reaction of some sort.

  To his utter shock, it didn’t come from either group of shifters. Neither the Emeralds nor the Jades made a move. Both Ajax and Garrett were watching, but they weren’t looking at him. They were busy gauging the reaction of their crew to see how the other shifters took his return to the Tongue & Flame.

  It was Ferro who reacted first, reaching under the bar into his mini-fridge and pulling out a bottle of his house brew. A flick of his wrist divested it of the cap, and—after setting out a coaster!—he placed it on the solid mahogany bar in front of him. He caught Evan’s eyes, nodded once, and then returned to cleaning another section of bar.

  Without any further hesitation Evan stood up straight and strode through the bar until he reached the beer. Sitting down on a nearby stool he grunted a thanks to Ferro and took his first pull in months of the delicious beer.

  “Some things never change,” he said, sighing in contentment as the liquid amber left his taste buds tingling.

  He looked around behind him at the bar. Despite Ferro’s gesture of welcome, signaling to the others that he was allowed to stay, the room was still filled with tension.

  “And some things do,” he muttered to himself.

  “Not all change is permanent,” a voice said to his right.

  Evan looked up in surprise as Ajax, Alpha of the Emerald Crew, took the stool next to him, the solid oak frame barely creaking as his massive bulk settled into it. Before Evan could open his mouth, Ajax looked expectantly beyond him. Turning, he saw Garrett approaching them. The two Alphas sat on either side of them, and without having to be asked Ferro came and deposited two fresh beers for them.

  “Whole gang’s here,” he said to Garrett at last, nodding at the cluster of Jade Crew shifters and their mates who lounged on and around the chairs to his left.

  “Mm-hmm,” Garrett agreed, taking a long drink.

  Evan looked around, noting all the familiar faces both from his former crew and that of the Emeralds. So many people he knew. His eyes narrowed and he looked around the bar some more, looking for another familiar—if never happy—face that he didn’t see.

  “Where’s Luthor? He’s always here,” he asked. “That guy seemed attached at the hip to Ferro!”

  The two shifters on either side of him stiffened.

  “What? What did I say?” he asked, looking back and forth at them rapidly. Something he had said had just set them off.

  “Luthor is...” Ajax paused as he thought about his next words.

  “We don’t know where he is,” Garrett said, speaking into the silence. “And that’s the problem.”

  The serious nature of their voices told Evan that whatever was going on, it was bad news.

  “Things haven’t gone well since I was put away, have they?” he asked softly.

  Garrett and Ajax looked at each other before responding at the same time. “No.”

  Evan opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, grabbed his beer, and downed the rest of it. “Okay,” he said, taking a preparatory breath. “How bad is it?”

  Ajax nodded at Garrett, inviting him to explain.

  “The short and long of it is we’re going up against one of the first dragons, a veritable army of shifters, and we have absolutely no idea what their plan is.”

  Evan blinked. “Oh, is that all?” he asked, meeting Garrett’s eyes while at the same time taking the fresh beer Ferro was just setting out. Without pausing he upended the entire thing.

  Then he did the same to the next one.

  “Okay, details,” he said.

  So they told him. Evan felt his eyebrows rise as they outlined everything that had happened, and all that they had learned. He was just as surprised as the others had been that Luthor was the one behind all their troubles. For longer than anyone had realized, he had secretly been orchestrating everything, the shadowy presence behind all the troubles in Genesis Valley.

  His blood boiled when they revealed that it was Luthor who had not only sourced the drugs that Evan had been using, but also the one who pushed the others to try it. If he hadn’t been one hundred percent about joining in the fight for the Valley before, he was then.

  And there was no mistaking it. That was why they had called him there.

  “You want us to fight for you,” he said at last, still trying to come to terms with all the new information.

  “No,” Ajax said. He had let Garrett do most of the talking, but he spoke up then. “We do not want you to fight for us. Rather, we want you to fight with us.”

  Evan nodded thoughtfully. It wasn’t a huge difference in wording, but it was a night and day difference in meaning.

  “So if I say no, you’re not going to put me back in jail?”

  Ajax smiled wryly. “No, not unless you give us a reason to. And frankly, if you do that, it’s likely the Kedyns won’t give you any more chances.”

  “Right,” he said, though his tone told them he wasn’t contemplating that. “Do the Kedyns even know I’m out? Where have they been through all of this?”

  “They’re with us,” Garrett said, referring to the twin gryphon shifters, Marcus and Valen Kedyn, who owned Lionshead Mining Consortium and most of Genesis Valley as a whole.

  “Really?” Evan was surprised. The Kedyns were not a pair that had struck him as being willing to step in.

  “Valen actually interceded on our behalf when Luthor sent in his pet bat shifter,” Ajax explained, then proceeded to tell Evan all about that adventure as well.

  “I have missed a lot,” he said, digesting even more information. “What’s his game plan now that we know who he is?”

  “Luthor is one of the first dragons,” Ajax said. “He thinks that dragons should rightfully be the top species on earth, and he’s aiming to ensure that happens.”

  Evan considered that for a moment. “He’s going to need a lot more dragons than that. Plus, isn’t the Dragon Council kinda sorta against that? I’m assuming something has happened to them as well, so that we can’t just whistle them up?”

  Garrett nodded. “Exactly. They aren’t responding to any communications, and nobody knows where to find them.”

  “So we’r
e on our own,” he said with a grimace.

  “We’re on our own,” Garrett confirmed.

  “Isn’t that swell,” Evan said, taking another long drink. “What happens if we fight with you?” He would talk to his crew first, but he knew they would follow him if he asked them to.

  “For now, just hang tight. We’re not sure what their next move is, though we know it’s going to happen any day now.”

  Evan saw Garrett’s eyes flick briefly to Ferro, and wondered what that was all about.

  “In fact, if it sticks to what we were told, then it could happen tomorrow.”

  What had that glance been all about? Was Ferro now somehow involved in the situation? He probably shouldn’t ask, but at the same time, they were asking him to put his life and the lives of his crew on the line. They had a right to know.

  “What about Ferro?” he asked, tilting his head in the direction of the bartender.

  Ajax shook his head. “No. He won’t say why, but Ferro is sitting this one out.”

  Evan frowned. “We’re fucked then. Without a dragon of our own, we’re toast. Especially if we’re going up against a fucking First dragon. This is suicide!” He kept his voice low, so as not to alarm anyone else.

  “We have to try,” Ajax said with calm confidence. “We might lose, true. But we will lose if we don’t try. And not only will we lose, but so will everyone else. If Luthor—or Mirrnolax, if our suspicions are correct on his true name—wins this fight, then he will have what he needs.”

  Suddenly Evan understood.

  “The Dragon Stones.” He swore rather more loudly than he intended. “He’ll be able to create an army.”

  The two Alphas nodded.

  “We understand if you’d prefer not to get involved,” Ajax began, but Evan waved him off.

  This was not a fight he could avoid. Not if he was going to call himself a good man, a label he desperately wished he could apply to himself, and that others may in turn use to describe him. But more than that, this was his home. Nobody was going to take that away from Evan Mosier. Not without a fight.

  “Ahh fuck. I should probably have been ended by now, if we’re being brutally honest. This place gave me a second, third, and even a fourth chance to do something with my life. This may as well be it,” he said, shaking his head at how nonchalant his response sounded.

  “Glad to have you with us,” Garrett said, leaving the “after everything that’s gone on” unspoken. Both of them knew it was there, but neither of them wanted it said.

  Evan simply nodded. He was having a hard time believing the way that Garrett and Ajax were treating him. They had told him it would be a fresh start, but he hadn’t truly believed they could make it seem so easy, as if everything that had gone before them truly did not matter any longer. But true to their word, they were acting like he had done no wrong.

  It was a strange feeling to have their trust. But it was also a feeling he realized he liked. Knowing that others trusted him once more, especially his peers, was heartening. Maybe he could make something of himself after all.

  You just have to survive the coming days first, his inner voice said sarcastically. And Victoria.

  The last thought caused a smile to break out across his face. Then he began to laugh.

  “Oh man, I am so dead,” he said with a chuckle.

  “What do you mean?” Ajax asked curiously.

  “Victoria is going to kill me.

  Chapter Seven

  Victoria

  Her window overlooked the parking lot of the apartment complex the still-unnamed crew occupied. There were only a couple of dozen spots, making the few trucks that had been returned to the other members of the crew look lonely and forlorn as she gazed out over the cracked and broken surface.

  After Evan had followed her to the park and confronted her in the cluster of trees, she had walked aimlessly for some time, her mind elsewhere, not focused on anything in front of her besides ensuring she didn’t walk into anyone or anything. The thought of danger didn’t even cross her mind. Her sheer size deterred most people, and for those that didn’t... well, they’d learn quite quickly that female bear shifters have quite the temper.

  Victoria snorted at that understatement. Hers had a short fuse, but she was practically an angel compared to some of the other females she had come across in her travels. She could not fathom why the men in their lives chose to stay with them, but thankfully it hadn’t been her problem.

  Below, lights turned into the parking lot from the street and the shape of Evan’s truck resolved itself out of the darkness as it came within the glow of lights from the building. Her heart began to thud against the walls of her chest as she saw him step from the vehicle.

  He’s so gorgeous, she thought, biting her lip as she saw his arm flex slightly through the thin material of his T-shirt as he pushed the door closed. Her eyes tracked downward to his rear as he walked off to the side of the building, affording her a glimpse of his tight, muscular ass.

  Her mind’s eye filled in the details his clothing blocked from the night they had shared together.

  It was last night. Stop acting like it was so long ago! You clearly have some feelings for him, so why is that so difficult to admit?

  It wasn’t hard to admit to herself. Even admitting it to Evan wasn’t that challenging, though it would be a little more nerve-racking. No, it wasn’t the feelings that scared Victoria. It was everything associated with them, including the speed of all the changes in her life.

  Many humans she’d talked to were under the impression that mates simply found each other, and boom, that was it. They knew they were fated and were in love from day one without any problems, living in a paradise of emotion and happiness.

  “Ha!” she said out loud at the lunacy of that thought. It was so much more complex than that, because she wasn’t the sole being inhabiting her body. Her bear had a personality and thought process all to its self. Most of the time, it was content to reside within her, and to take orders when she asked it to appear.

  Sometimes it chafed against her mental control, but unless she was distracted, like earlier, it was rarely able to actually take physical control of her body. But it could still feel, have wants, needs, and desires… like her bear did for Evan. It wanted him badly in more than just a physical sense. It recognized something within him, something that she couldn’t see. Whatever it was, it made her bear at ease with him. That was part of finding a mate.

  But there was also the human part of her, and it was far, far slower to befriend, let alone fall in love. She couldn’t deny an interest in Evan, but she was also—in some aspects at least—just human. Sexual wants and needs were a normal part of life, and he was extremely easy on the eyes. After their mutual slip of judgment the night before, she also knew he was extremely fun in bed.

  Her body tingled at the memory.

  Knock. Knock.

  The knuckles rasping against the door startled her back to the present. Blinking away her thoughts she headed toward the door, bracing herself for her talk with Evan.

  “Hey,” Matthew said from the doorway, much to her surprise.

  “Uh, hi,” she said, stopping the door in its tracks. She had been in the process of throwing it wide open to let Evan in so that they could talk, but now that it wasn’t him, she kept her hand on it instead. Matthew seemed like an okay guy, but she didn’t know him nearly as well as she did Evan, or even as well as Evan knew him.

  “Look,” he said, shifting from side to side awkwardly. “I just wanted to let you know, that uh, we, I mean, me and the other guys, we talked and uh, we think you’re pretty all right,” he finished, his shoulders seeming to sag slightly as he finished speaking the words.

  Her mood brightened. “Really?”

  Matthew nodded. “Yeah. I know we don’t really know each other all that well, but uh, what we’ve seen, we think so.”

  “Thank you,” she said, completely sincere in her words as well. She knew it was hard for others
to welcome someone into their group, especially when it was a female, shifter or not, who was coming onto a bear crew.

  “We’re having a beer downstairs if you want to come join us,” he said.

  “The meeting room?” she asked, remembering the big open space they had discovered on the floor below them.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Give me a minute, and I’ll be down to join you,” she said with a smile. “Thanks for the invite, Matthew.”

  He smiled, dipped his head, and disappeared from her doorway.

  “Nice guy,” she said to herself after the door was closed. She moved over to the bag near her mattress. It was still unpacked. A sign of her decision to stay, she wondered, or of her laziness?

  Shrugging her shoulders and figuring it was likely an equal mixture, she grabbed a fresh pair of socks and pulled the pink cotton onto her feet.

  Nothing wrong with being a little girly from time to time, she thought.

  She grabbed a zip-up hoodie from her pile of clothing as well, tugged on some shoes, and headed down the flight of stairs.

  “Party’s here!” she said sarcastically as she pushed the door open.

  Voices raised in greeting and laughter greeted her as the other four shifters sat around in a circle.

  “Hey, where did you guys find actual furniture?” she exclaimed at the sight of the folding chairs they were lounging on.

  “In one of the storage rooms,” Jared said, pointing behind her.

  “Nice,” she said, snagging one of the free ones and flipping it around backward so she could rest herself on the backrest of it. “I’m totally stealing this for my room until I can get some real furniture in there.”

  The others nodded, and William tossed her a bottle of beer. She snagged it mid-air and expertly twisted the cap off in one smooth motion.

  “Ahh,” she said, smacking her lips together after taking a nice sip. It was nicely chilled as well, just what she needed.

  “Welcome to the family,” Matthew said, raising his beer in her direction. The others chimed in and lifted their drinks as well.