by Amelia Jade
In the back seat Jared was busy calling anyone he could, warning them to get the hell out of town. Evan didn’t think that the shifters would hurt the human population unless provoked. That would call attention to the area, attention that Luthor did not want. That left the shifter population of Origin. While most of them were employed in one capacity or another by the Mining Consortium, there were a number who were not. Evan doubted many of them would have the chance to escape. Still, they had to try.
He took a corner sharply, pushing the gas down as the truck straightened out.
“Shit!” he swore, slamming on the brakes. “Hold on!” he yelled, his right arm flying out to hold Victoria back in a sentimental but ultimately useless effort.
Thankfully there was no need as she was also prepared and braced herself for the abrupt stop.
“Alternate route,” he said as a two pairs of headlights gunned it in their direction.
“Good idea,” Victoria said quickly, keeping an eye on the oncoming attackers as Evan looked over his shoulder, backing the truck around the corner. “They’re coming faster now. They must have recognized that we’re shifters.”
“I’m going,” he told her, his voice strained as he gunned the truck forward, having oriented it to the new direction.
“Go faster,” she urged.
The lights were getting brighter in the rearview mirror, and he could almost make out some of the figures behind the bright glare.
“Yep, I agree,” he said hastily, pushing the pedal to the floor.
The big V8 engine roared throatily and after a second the truck lurched forward, picking up speed rapidly.
He jerked as Victoria’s hand crept across the center console and took his hand off the wheel. Giving it a tight squeeze he risked a glance over at her, putting a reassuring smile on his face.
“We’ll be okay.” He said it almost as much for his benefit as hers.
He felt her fingers tighten ever so slightly around his, which brought a happy feeling within.
They raced through town, heading for the other side and the road up to Ridgeback Lodge. No more lights appeared behind them, but the two trucks following them did not relent. He thought they were going to be content to follow him all the way to his destination without trying to stop them.
Just as he began to assume this was the case and relaxed slightly, they left the confines of town and buildings gave way to trees on either side. As if waiting for that cue, the two trucks gunned their engines and began to pull up alongside him.
“This isn’t good,” he muttered.
“They’re going to try and pincer us, or spin us out,” Jared said, his thoughts mirroring Evan’s.
“Are Matthew and the others through already?” He knew Jared had been texting some of the others, keeping tabs on each other.
“Yeah, they’re up into the mountains already,” he confirmed. “They didn’t run into any trouble.”
“Lucky for them,” Evan muttered, though he didn’t mean anything with the sarcasm. He was just more focused on his driving. The road was about to get really winding, preventing him from going too fast. Not that he was positive he could outrun them to begin with.
“I’m going to try something, but if it doesn’t work, we’re likely going to be stuck and forced to fight,” he said angrily, upset with himself for getting them into the situation they were in.
Without warning, one of the attacking trucks slammed into the side of theirs, toward the rear on the left.
“Too late,” he cried, slamming on the brakes as the other truck angled in toward them.
He managed to avoid getting crunched between them both, but now they were in front of him, between where he was and where he needed to go. Even as he watched, shifters piled out and charged toward them.
“We gotta fight!” he yelled, tumbling out of the truck and preparing to change.
There were three of them against six attackers. Bad odds, but not the worst possible. Having the driver stay in each vehicle certainly helped, cutting their numbers by a quarter.
“Use the same tactic that got you here in the first place!” he yelled at Victoria, hoping she would understand what he wanted.
When she had first come in to the Valley, whoever was watching and intercepting the newcomers had decided she wasn’t a shifter because she was female. Evan was hoping that if she didn’t shift right away now, her sudden appearance might catch the attackers by surprise.
He couldn’t wait to see, however, as huge, snarling, angry-looking grizzly bears began to burst forth from within them, surging forward on all fours. Evan sneered, knowing he could take several of them. They weren’t that big. He summoned his bear, landing on all fours with smooth ease. Jared had done the same thing on the other side of the truck.
The biggest problem now was the momentum behind their charge. That needed to be stopped. Evan drew himself up on all fours and let loose with a deafening roar, challenging them all to single combat as he poured all the anger and rage that he felt at what they were doing into it.
Not all of the attackers stopped, but over half of them faltered in their charge as they realized they were up against a powerful Alpha bear. It wasn’t much of an opening, however, but it was an opening. The pair of them charged forward. Their enemies had split their numbers to come after each of them equally. Evan used the sudden uncertainty to his advantage and instead of trying to pick one target, he simply used his body like a bowling ball and slammed into the group, going right through them. The two outside turned to try and hit him, but they were too slow. The middle shifter was the smallest of the three, and he didn’t try to finesse his attack. He got low underneath the other bear and simply charged forward and up at the same time.
The smaller enemy flipped and Evan’s jaw darted in, latching onto the soft, exposed flesh under the attacker’s head. Teeth dug deep and the metallic tang of iron flooded his mouth as he viciously ripped as much flesh as he could in passing. In a blink he was past, and one of the bears was down, clawing at its throat as blood poured from his wounds. Evan knew it wasn’t necessarily a mortal blow, but it would keep the shifter out of the rest of this fight at a minimum.
That still left two bears turning to face him, their movements much more planned, their gazes wary. He took advantage of their hesitation to glance over at Jared. The other bear was surrounded by three enemies. One of them was limping on three legs and the others were covered in wounds, but they were all still up. Victoria appeared ready to change that though, and she glanced over at Evan from where she was currently cowering near the truck, pretending to be helpless. He nodded, telling her the timing was good.
In front of him the shifters came at him again however, and he was forced to divert his focus back to them, ignoring the other fight for the time being. Ambling forward slowly, he tried to lull them into a false sense of security by assuming he wasn’t as fast as he was. In theory he knew it shouldn’t work, but the mind is a funny thing.
The trio circled for a moment, trying to draw the other side into making a mistake. As it turned out, Evan was the one that made the first mistake. He strayed a little too close to the shifter on his left while focusing on the one to his right. The shifter almost in his blind spot darted forward, intent on attacking his side while Evan’s attention was elsewhere.
Which is when Evan sprung his own trap. Instead of turning back to try and fight the attacker, he turned away from him. The quick move left his enemy aimed at his rear leg instead of his front. It was a simple effort for Evan to send his huge rear paw flying at the incoming shifter’s head. The powerful kick hit his opponent full on in the head, rocking his skull to the side and sending the bear falling senseless to the ground.
In a blink, before the unoccupied third enemy could recover, Evan darted straight at him. Getting in close for the straight-up brawl, he used his overwhelming size and power to quickly overpower his enemy. Huge fists battered his enemy’s head as he rained down blow after blow. Skin parted and blood f
lowed beneath his onslaught.
From the far side of the truck he heard Victoria roar, a mixture of pain and anger.
Evan renewed his attacks with fresh vigor, his rage rising within. He harnessed that energy, batting aside the pathetic attempt at defense from his final foe. Finally the bear keeled over and Evan dropped both of his front paws onto its head, crunching it hard against the pavement with bone-shattering finality.
A quick move to his rear and he locked his jaw onto the throat of his second foe, who was just now beginning to recover from the blow to the head. His powerful teeth sunk deep, and this time as he shook his head, there was no doubt that it was a mortal blow. There was a quick look of shock in the shifter’s eyes before he collapsed limply to the ground.
Evan turned, spitting out the remaining flesh and blood from his mouth as he charged to the far side of the truck. One bear was down, but the other two were retreating toward the trucks, where the drivers had gotten out and shifted.
He wondered why at first, until he heard a screeching behind him.
His hopes sinking, he turned, seeing yet another truck come to a halt. Four more shifters piled out. The odds were now back to more than double their numbers, and while he was in relatively good shape, Victoria was limping heavily and Jared was bleeding profusely from a number of deep wounds.
Hoping to forestall the inevitable, he shifted back to his human form.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he shouted. “You can still choose not to serve him.”
Laughter came almost immediately from both in front of him and behind him.
“Yes, yes it does,” one of them replied.
“If you insist,” a voice said.
Evan spun, looking up the mountain in the direction he needed to go. The voice hadn’t come from any of the attackers, but from beyond it. The deep bass rumble carried down the road, catching them all by surprise.
“What the?” One of the attackers followed Evan’s gaze just in time to be practically tossed aside as a magnificent sight appeared before them.
Out of the dark came a full wedge of very large, and very powerful-looking bears. They swept down between the two trucks belonging to the invaders. Individual bears peeled off to dispatch their opponents.
It wasn’t a fight so much as it was a wave of slaughter. The fresh bears combined their energy with surprise, and in seconds there was nobody left alive besides Jared and most importantly to Evan, Victoria.
“Garrett,” he said, recognizing the Jade Crew Alpha.
“Sorry we’re late,” the other replied, shifting back as his name was spoken.
“We’re all still alive,” Evan said with a wry smile, moving over to where Victoria was leaning heavily against his truck.
For now.
Chapter Nine
Victoria
She threw herself down on the mattress, this one covered in a blanket at least. Victoria had hoped that she would be able to go shopping the next day to get some sheets and perhaps a chair of some sort for her own room. She sighed dejectedly as she realized that was never likely to happen.
“Why is this happening to me?” she asked softly, burying her head in her hands. So much was going on lately, and it was making her brain hurt.
The bed wobbled and sunk as Evan lowered his large frame next to her.
Not that everything in her life was stressful. The knowledge that there was something truly special and remarkable going on between them was more exciting than anything she had felt in years. If the two of them survived the oncoming events, she looked forward to finding out just what their bond meant.
That was why she knew she would join the fight, despite the parts of her screaming to flee, pack up, and run away. It would be safer that way, giving her the guarantee of a long life. Of that she had no doubt.
But that long life would be spent alone. Whether Evan survived or not, if she ran, they could never be together. He would never be able to forgive her for running from the biggest fight of his life, to protect his home and those he considered her family. So for the sake of her future, and his, she was going to stay.
“Does your heart feel like it’s been worked over with a sledgehammer in the past little bit?” she asked before he could speak again.
“I think I can safely say that’s an understatement. First they told me I was free to go. That in and of itself was a shock. But to be told that I was going to be an Alpha again? Never in my wildest dreams could I have foreseen that happening.”
His arm settled around her, pulling her in to his chest. Victoria didn’t fight it, snuggling up comfortably against his warm skin, feeling the slight scratchiness of the beard he had only trimmed down to stubble.
“But that was nothing compared to what happened next,” he said, his voice soft and heavy with emotion.
“And what happened next?” she asked innocently, pushing herself tighter into his embrace.
His voice didn’t change, and she shivered at the emotion contained within his words.
“And then I looked at you, and everything else suddenly didn’t matter.”
Then his voice lightened as he spoke some more. “Well, more accurately, I looked at your rear end.”
She poked him in the ribs. Hard.
“And just what is that supposed to mean, mister?” she said, though she didn’t move from her position in his embrace.
“Uhh, it means that you have a fabulous heinie?” he joked.
“Well of course, but what else?” She kissed him on the neck.
“It means that I will fight with every last breath in my lungs and every drop of blood in my veins to defend this place, so that I might make it a safer place for you.”
She shivered as he spoke his vow, knowing that he meant it fully and completely. His conviction was admirable and she didn’t begrudge him his desire to fight back against those who threatened them. Victoria just wished she had had a bit more time with him before everything went sideways.
“It’s only been two days,” she said into the comfortable silence. “But I feel like I’ve known you for so much longer. There’s something about you that’s just…perfect. It’s like...” she paused, looking for the right metaphor. “It’s like you’re the final piece of my jigsaw puzzle. Other things look close, but the moment you slide them together you know, you just know, that that’s the way things were meant to be, and nothing else will do.”
He shuffled slightly, and she wondered what he was doing until his lips pressed against her forehead.
“I’ve never felt more at home, at peace, and yet completely alive than I have with you at my side,” he told her. “Two days or two thousand years I could search the rest of this planet, and I know and my bear knows that you’re the one for me,” he told her. “It might seem crazy to part of me, but to my other half, it questions how I’ve waited even this long to tell you.”
She stiffened. “Tell me what?”
“That I love you,” he said softly.
The nerves in his voice were evident, and she didn’t blame him. For anyone else, it would be ludicrous and insane to say that they were in love after barely more than forty-eight hours together. Any human couple would look at them like they were in need of a matching pair of straitjackets. Even a mixed shifter-human couple would normally think they were silly for moving so quickly.
But a bear shifter just knew. And when two of them got together, as rarely as that happened, things just worked, or they didn’t. Victoria had met another pure-shifter couple, though they were wolf shifters, not bears. They were old, approaching the last stages of their life, and yet everywhere they went they held hands, leaned against each other, and a few times she had even caught the old man flirting with his lady, calling her beautiful and buying her flowers. It was the type of lasting love that she had begged and pleaded for with the fates, but had never been granted.
Until now.
“I’m so in love with you Evan Mosier,” she replied, turning and flinging her legs over his
and forcing her way into his lap.
“Come here,” he chuckled and lifted her up onto him. “That’s better,” he said.
She agreed, staring dreamily into his dark brown eyes, becoming lost in them for a moment. Without thinking about it she reached up and ran her hand through his hair.
Evan’s hand ran up her back and into the hair at the back of her skull, sending a tiny shiver down her back.
“Stop that,” she said softly.
“Stop what?” he replied, feigning ignorance.
“That,” she replied, her voice turning almost into a moan as he threaded his fingers through her hair, dragging them lightly along her scalp.
“Why?” he asked, his voice low, rumbling gently in her ear.
“Because it feels good,” she told him, inhaling deeply as he continued to lightly touch her.
“How good?” His voice was almost a purr as he leaned closer.
“Wonderful,” she said, her voice trailing off as his lips made contact with her neck.
Her nipples hardened immediately as his hot breath washed across her skin, the hairs on the back of her neck tingling as goose bumps shot across her exposed skin.
“Good,” he said, moving his touch lower, closer to her collarbone.
Her chest rose and fell rhythmically as blood pulsed through her body. She shuddered as his lips pressed against the slight bump of bone below her neck. His free hand had moved up to caress her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, and she felt his cock stir between his legs.
“Evan.” She whispered it into his ear, nibbling gently on the lobe as she did.
His hands tightened around her and she could feel his body flex under her, all from that one little touch. An aroused, excited smile spread across her face as she bit her lip at his reaction.
Well this is going to be fun.
The sheer, animalistic hunger that had infused their first time wasn’t present now. This was the nervous desire to prove that they were alive after facing near death, mixed with the realization that despite everything trying to tear at them, to keep them apart and focus their attentions elsewhere, that they had found each other. And not only that, but their bond was stronger than ever. It was a heady, intoxicating feeling and she quickly felt her body responding. Heat bloomed from within, focusing itself between her legs as desire for physical contact rose within her.