Sergeant Bear (Shifters at Law Book 4)

by Sophie Stern

  “Joyce is gone,” he says. “I thought maybe she’d gone to grab some tools for the coffeemaker, but she’s just gone. The back door was open, and there were footprints.”

  He took her.

  I can’t believe it, but he took her.

  Fucking Logan took my mate, and he is going to pay for this if it’s the last thing he does.

  “I shifted and scented the area. Definitely a male, but I’ve never met Logan so I can’t be sure it’s him,” Oliver says.

  “Oh, it’s him, all right,” I growl. It’s taking all of my energy not to shift into my bear form. I can’t yet. Not just yet. Soon we’ll find him and I’ll tear Logan to fucking shreds, but I have to stay in control until then.

  “I’ve got it!” Matthew comes running inside at that point. He, too, is naked, but he’s holding a cardboard tube in his hand: the kind that holds documents. It’s covered in slime and slobber, so I know he shifted to get this, too.

  “Thanks, man.” I take the documents and spread them out on the desk while I try not to panic.

  My mate.

  He’s taken my mate.

  I’ve only just found her, only just connected with her, and now it’s all on the line. How the hell am I going to get her back? There’s no doubt in my mind that I will because I have to. I have to get her back. Joyce is my everything. She’s my sun and my stars. She is my moon. I need her like I need my next breath.

  I don’t know how I’ve managed to live this long without her because Joyce?

  Joyce is incredible.

  “Where’s Joyce? Should we wait for her?” Matthew asks, looking around.

  “He took her,” I grit out. I crash my fist onto the desk, and everything shakes. I can’t control my anger for much longer. Soon I’ll have no choice but to shift. Soon I’m going to go crazy.

  He has my mate.

  That fucking maniac has my mate, and all I can think is that I should have gone with her to make the coffee. I should have been by her side and then he wouldn’t have been able to grab her.

  Obviously, he’s been watching her, waiting. He’s been looking for an opportunity to take her, to make her his. Apparently, Joyce was right all along. Logan did want her.

  What was Charlene, then?

  A substitute?

  My heart races as I realize what this means.

  Logan doesn’t need two girls.

  If Charlene really was a replacement for Joyce, why would he keep her around now? If she’s still alive, she won’t be for long because now Logan has the real thing. He’s got Joyce. He’s got her, and if Charlene has been around this entire time, we don’t have much time to save her.

  The clock is ticking.

  Chapter 9

  Joyce

  This is it.

  This is how it all ends.

  It’s best to go out with a bang, right? Well, no matter what happens, no one can say I didn’t have a flair for the dramatic.

  As it turns out, I think this is pretty much the most dramatic thing that’s ever happened to me, and that’s saying something.

  Before Logan, my life was fun and interesting and strange. I had a normal job, yeah, but when I wasn’t at work?

  I was living.

  I was traveling and exploring and learning.

  I was doing all sorts of different things, like taking trips and classes. I was hanging out with new people and developing my friendships and growing as a person.

  I was moving.

  My life had passion.

  And then something happened. I got sucked into this weird relationship with Logan Smith, and everything sort of just fizzled. Everything just sort of died down a little bit. Everything just sort of stopped.

  I can’t pinpoint exactly when things changed with him. Maybe it was because I was obsessed with hanging out with him when he wasn’t teaching. I stopped doing extra stuff on the weekends because I was busy with Logan. Then after the breakup, I threw myself back into my former crazy routine. I thought everything would be fine, but it wasn’t.

  He did something.

  He took Charlene Hill, and then he took my spirit.

  I shouldn’t have lost myself after she went missing. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have been so weak that a man could have been the reason I seemed to grow uncomfortably complacent, yet I did. I gave up on doing anything for myself and instead became obsessed with finding her.

  Well, I hope I’m happy with what’s happened to me because he’s got me. He’s finally captured me. He’s conquered his prize.

  I’m laying on the ground and my wrists are tied behind my back. I haven’t moved because I want to figure out as much information as possible before I let Logan know I’m awake. How much space do I have to move? How big of an area am I in? I can’t tell with my eyes closed. Eventually, I’m going to have to open them.

  I’m nervous that he’s here watching me. I sniff the air quietly, trying to catch a whiff of his scent, but I smell nothing. Then again, there’s a stinky gag in my mouth, so that could be affecting my sense of smell. I’m not sure.

  Finally, I open my eyes and I realize I shouldn’t have worried. The room is completely pitch black. It’s dark, and even with my shifter eyesight, I can’t really tell what’s going on down here.

  Where am I?

  Where has he taken me?

  Why did he take me now, after all of that time?

  And most importantly, what is going to happen to me?

  I don’t want to let him keep me.

  I won’t give him the satisfaction.

  Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll try. He’ll do anything in his power to do exactly what he wants to do to me, but he didn’t count on something: my mate mark.

  I’m mated to Wyatt Dixon now, and we have an unbreakable bond. Nothing in the damn world is going to stop my mate from finding me now. Nothing. No matter how far away Logan takes me, no matter how much he hurts me, he’ll never be able to stop Wyatt from tearing apart the whole world to find me.

  All I have to do is wait and believe and be patient.

  Everything is going to be just fine.

  “I know you’re awake,” a deep voice says, and I try to shift. If I could just shift, I would be able to see in the darkness. “And don’t bother trying to shift,” he adds. “The drugs I gave you will make that quite difficult. All that will happen is you’ll get a terrible headache.”

  Sure, now he warns me.

  The searing pain that shoots through my head is unbearable, and I can’t help the groan that escapes my lips.

  Logan just laughs, and he turns on a light, revealing himself.

  I wonder how I could have ever dated this monster.

  That’s the thing about relationships, isn’t it? We all have these ideas of what it means to be in a relationship, of what it means to be with someone. We have these preconceived notions of what our partner is like, when in reality, they could be something completely different. We want them to fit into our molds, though, so we make all of these justifications about how the relationship is totally fine.

  Totally, completely fine.

  But it’s not.

  It’s not fine.

  This isn’t fine.

  Logan isn’t fine.

  Logan is fucking insane, and he’s got me locked up in a…basement?

  I try to look around, but the pain in my head is making it difficult. I’m on a cold floor and despite the light bulb hanging in the center of the room, I can’t really tell where we are.

  “Cozy, isn’t it?” He says. “Charlie and I have had quite a bit of fun down here. Haven’t we, Charlie?” And then I see her. Charlie. She’s still alive. She’s in the corner of my eye, but I try to fight the pain and wiggle around so I can actually look at her. She’s bound like me: tied up on the floor with her hands behind her back.

  Her eyes are wide.

  She’s surprised to see me.

  He walked to Charlie and strokes her cheek. Charlie doesn’t flinch, bu
t her eyes are screaming at me. She’s gagged, too, which explains why she hasn’t yelled or called for help. Maybe she tried when he first took her. Maybe he made it impossible.

  Where are we?

  I want to scream my questions, but I can’t. Instead, I lay silently on the floor while Logan talks to Charlie for a little while, and then he comes back to me.

  “I was just saying goodbye,” he says. I look over at Charlie, and there are tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Goodbye?

  And then I realize what he’s saying.

  Of course he’s saying goodbye.

  He’s got me now.

  After all of this time, Logan has finally captured his prize. Charlie really was a substitute for me, and now he doesn’t need her anymore. He’s going to kill Charlie. She was alive and fine and we would have found her eventually, but I just had to go out on the back step alone. I just had to do it and now, I’ve sped up his timeline.

  Great.

  I close my eyes, and even though I’m fighting it, a tear slips out.

  Come on, Wyatt. Find me. Save me. I love you.

  Chapter 10

  Wyatt

  “Look at this,” Matthew points to the blueprints for the college. They’re spread out on the table. He runs his fingers over the floor plan.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The school was remodeled twelve years ago,” he says. “These are the original plans for the building.” Then Matthew pulls out a second blueprint. “And these are the new plans with the modifications.”

  “So what’s different?” Landon asks as we gather around Matthew.

  “They mostly made small modifications, like converting a large classroom into two smaller ones. Over here, the school actually added on an entire room to create a large lecture hall.”

  “I’ve been there,” Ronan says. “It’s nice.”

  “Also not relevant,” I growl under my breath, but he takes the hint and shuts up. I’m losing my patience, and I shouldn’t be. It’s just that my mate’s life is on the line. This is about me and Joyce and Charlene Hill. This is about finding the girl we’ve been searching for. It’s about finding my mate before that monster lays a hand on her.

  “This is the part that’s weird,” Matthew says. He touches the library section on the blueprints. “There used to be an extra stairway to the basement in the library. It was a sort of emergency exit, but it was closed off.”

  “I didn’t know the college had a basement,” Ronan says.

  “They don’t, at least not the full size they used to. There was a mold problem, so most of the basement was actually sealed off from the main areas. It was simpler to just seal it off than actually deal with the musty smell in the basement classrooms.”

  “So you’re telling me that half of the basement is sealed off behind a new wall?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And it’s accessible through the library.”

  “Yeah, it should be, you know,” Matthew says, and he points to the blueprints again. “It looks like it from these, but we need to look at it visually in order to determine whether it’s still accessible. Do you want to call and see if you can get a warrant?”

  “No time,” I say, and I take off running out of the house. I climb into my car and take off down the road, not bothering to wait for the rest of the crew. It doesn’t matter because they come barreling out of the house and start running down the street behind me: a wolf, a bear, a tiger, and a…dragon? At least, I thought I saw a dragon before it vanished.

  Fucking monsters. I shake my head. So Matthew can go invisible. That explains how he was able to get the blueprints for the college so quickly. That’s a fun little trick. Not many dragons can actually become invisible, so he’s a lucky one. Sometime, when I’m not busy trying to save Joyce’s life, I’ll have to ask him about that.

  I turn on my lights and blaze through town. Soon I’m pulling into the parking lot of the community college. I don’t bother parking. I just stop my car in front of the main building and run inside.

  “Um, can I help you, officer?” A young woman comes out of the administration office and looks at me, confused.

  “Which way is the library?” I ask, and she points. I take off running. As I move through the building, the control I’ve been holding onto so tightly finally slips away, and I shift.

  My clothes tear as I feel my skin being replaced with fur, and soon I’m running on four legs instead of two. I don’t care. I’m going to get my mate. I didn’t want this to be the way she saw me in my bear form for the first time, but I’ll take it. I just need to get to her before it’s too late. I need to save her. I need to rescue her because I know it’s my fault she was taken.

  I should have protected her better.

  I barge into the library and head for the back wall. The rest of the gang meets up with me and we all stare at the door to the storage closet with eyes wide open. They’ve all shifted back to their human forms and are standing naked beside me as we look at the door.

  Hanging on the front of the closet door is a picture of the front cover of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  How could it have been so simple?

  He’s been taunting us this entire time. He knew where he was going to take Joyce. He’d been planning this: likely even while they were dating. He’d been planning to steal her away and bring her here. Was he trying to see if she could figure it out? Was he just that crazy?

  The librarian runs up behind us. “I’m going to call the police!” She says. Good. We need cops here. I shift back to my human form and look over at her.

  “Do it,” I tell her. “And tell them to bring everyone.”

  “What…what should I say?” The woman’s eyes are wide.

  “Tell them we’ve found Charlene Hill,” I tell her, and then I open the door to the closet. The other men stay close beside me as we step into the storage closet. It doesn’t look like it’s used very much, most likely because the janitor has his own closet elsewhere in the building. This room seems like it’s mostly used to store extra textbooks the library isn’t using, along with random items, like paper towels and old furniture. It’s a wide closet, and the five of us fit easily inside.

  “No staircase,” Matthew murmurs, and we all look around.

  Then I see it.

  A door.

  It’s almost unnoticeable among all the dust and shelving, but there’s definitely a locked door right behind one of the shelves. I almost didn’t see it there. I reach for the knob and turn it, but it’s locked.

  “Give me a second,” Matthew says, and he kneels in front of the door. He shifts his fingers into talons, and he begins to fiddle with the lock.

  “Is this guy for real?” I whisper to the other men, but they just shrug.

  “We just liked his resume,” they say. “We didn’t know he could do all of this.”

  After a minute, there’s a soft click and Matthew stands up. He shifts his hand back and nods.

  “It’s unlocked,” he says.

  I turn the knob and pull the door open. The shelving swings with it, making this the perfect hiding place for a door. When the door is closed, even if Logan is inside the little hiding place, the shelf will be in place. No one will walk into the closet and think he’s in there. They’ll just see a closet.

  This fucker has been hiding in plain sight for far too long. Well, that ends today.

  Ronan silently indicates that he’ll stay behind and guard the door. That means Oliver, Landon, Matthew, and I descend into darkness together. We step quietly, cautiously. When we reach the bottom of the staircase, there’s another door. I place my hand on the door and listen, but I don’t hear anything. I turn the knob and we go through it quietly.

  My eyes adjust to the darkness and sure enough, this part of the basement looks like it’s been completely abandoned. I’m guessing that once it was sealed off, everyone just forgot it even existed. There are a couple of turned-over desks in the hall down here, and years and y
ears of dust has accumulated.

  Hopefully no one sneezes.

  We walk down the hallway, carefully looking for the girls, for Logan, for anything, and then I notice the door at the end of the hallway has a light coming from beneath it.

  Bingo.

  We’ve found them.

  And Logan Hill’s time is up.

  I shift again and go barreling down the hallway. I charge forward, hell bent on one thing: saving Joyce and Charlie.

  I ram through the door, knocking it down, and I instantly launch myself at Logan. He’s standing in the center of the room and barely has time to shift before I hit him, but he does shift. Cougar. He’s a cougar, like Joyce. Of course he is.

  He shrieks as I pin him to the ground, as I sink my teeth into him, as I make sure he’s never going to hurt anyone ever again.

  And then it’s over.

  He’s dead, and everything is going to be okay.

  I turn to see Joyce and Charlene both very much alive. They’re on the cold, hard floor, and their wrists are bound behind their backs, but they’re both alive.

  Everything is going to be okay.

  Everything is going to be fine.

  It’s over.

  Chapter 11

  Joyce

  “And then he came right through the door! He crashed right through it!” I’m telling the story of Wyatt’s gallant to my mother over the phone. She’s been following the story on the news and she can’t believe I was actually involved or that my mate saved my life.

  He’s incredible.

  He’s fantastic.

  And he’s mine.

  I look over at where he’s leaning in the doorway, and I smile up at him. Oh, I’m never going to get tired of seeing that smile.

  “Hey, Mom, I’m going to have to let you go. Love you. I’ll call you soon, okay?” Without waiting for a response, I hang up the phone and rush over to him. We’re both showered and cleaned up, but I’m still reeling from everything that happened today.

  Wyatt doesn’t say a word.

  He doesn’t have to.

  He rescued me from the nightmare, rescued me from everything. Not only did he save me from Logan’s grip, but he rescued me from my obsession with this case. It’s closed now. It’s over and done. Logan is dead and Wyatt and I are mates. We’re together. It’s just him and me and a bright, wonderful future.