by Selena Scott
“Okay.” Linc nodded solemnly. “That’s why it smells like Anton in here.”
“What?”
“I smell the chemicals that the bad guys used on Anton. Sometimes he smells like this. Maxim said it’s because it’s a part of him now, but that he’s not a bad guy, he’s a good guy.”
“Right.” Ivy tried to keep her voice calm but her heart was absolutely racing. She’d known that Navuka had tortured and experimented on Anton, but she hadn’t known that even a decade later he was still experiencing the effects of it. There was no chance in literal hell that Ivy was letting her kid go through this. Nope. She would set this truck on fire with herself still in it before she let that happen. She thought fast.
“Here’s the plan, ace. When this truck stops and they go to let us out, I’m gonna distract them. Your job, your only job, is to run as fast as you can into the woods, in your human form. You’re gonna run that way.” Ivy pointed back over her shoulder. “That’s where Spokane is. When you can’t smell these chemicals or any of these people anymore, you shift into your bear form. Okay? You’ll be faster that way. You shift and you keep running until you smell any of the Malashoviks. And then you get safe and tell them what happened, okay?”
Linc looked at her, his eyes squinting up like they always did. “Okay, but I don’t need to wait until I smell them. If I’m a bear, then I can talk to them.”
“Oh my God! Ace! You’re a little genius. I totally forgot about that.” They could speak through one another’s minds when they were in bear form. Her mind raced as she started to recalculate her plan. “How far does it transmit? Never mind. We’re just gonna try it. Okay. We stick to the old plan, the one I just described. But first, you’re gonna shift, right now, as quietly as you can, and you’re gonna try to tell Maxim where we are in your head. It’s a long shot that he’s in bear form and even longer that he’ll be able to hear you at this distance, but we gotta try.”
***
Besides Ivy’s car, pulled over to the side of the road, there was nothing to mark a disturbance. In fact, an old trash bag had been taped over the broken windows of the car and the hood had been popped. It looked like any old junker abandoned by an owner.
Maxim and his brothers stayed hidden at the edge of the woods in their bear forms. Eyeing the scene. Or lack thereof.
Maxim swallowed back the roar that was gathering in his throat. He didn’t understand. He and his brothers had assembled in the woods less than ten minutes after he’d called them. They’d sprinted the distance down 195, looking for any sign of Ivy. Or of Navuka, which they were certain was the cause of all of it. But now, they get to her car and there’s no sign of where they’d gone?
“Why isn’t there a trail of any kind?” Danil asked. “This doesn’t make any sense. They’d absolutely leave a trail for us to follow to wherever they’re taking them. Wherever it is they have some big ambushing trap for us.”
Anton, usually so quiet in his bear form, sniffed at the ground, sat back on his haunches. “Because this isn’t a trap. They aren’t hoping to lure us. They’re hoping to lose us.”
“But-”
“Linc,” Maxim realized with a deadening in his heart. “They don’t want us. Or Anton anymore. They want Linc.”
“Christ,” Emin went back on his haunches as well. “They must have realized that Glory was too old for any of the experiments to really take effect when they had her. They needed a younger shifter.”
“They used to be trying to get me back,” Anton murmured. “But now they’re starting from scratch.”
“On a cub,” Danil spit in disgust.
“On Linc.” Maxim could barely stomach the thought. “We need anything. A spare scent, any small disturbance, anything to mark where they’ve gone.”
The brothers spread out, using their superior senses to track any small clue or sign or scent. But each passing second became more grim as the light fell and Ivy and Linc got farther away.
Maxim tried not to let the desperation he felt distract him. He needed laser focus. Twenty minutes later, the brothers gathered up again. Luckily the light was failing now and less and less cars were on the road. They’d been able to explore every inch of her car, of the road around it.
“I definitely caught the scent of chemicals,” Danil told the group.
“And armored cars and the smell of military equipment,” Emin supplied. “Farther back on the road. But they seem to have continued that way without any sign of Linc or Ivy. I don’t think they made it back that way.”
“The man and the woman were here. The two who experimented on me.” Anton could feel the pain and dread radiating off of Maxim and he almost didn’t want to tell him. Wanted to spare him the truth. But he couldn’t lie. Not when every second counted against Linc and Ivy’s lives. “Sergei and Lana. Sergei fell here, by the car. I scented his blood. He was dragged. By Lana, I think. To here.” He paced about twenty feet from the car. “Linc and Ivy were dragged as well. To here. But then their scent disappears.”
“Into a vehicle of some kind,” Danil guessed.
Maxim studied the tread left in the squishy grass on the side of the road. “Big. Military grade. Armored car,” he guessed.
Headlights approached from down the road and the four brothers disappeared back into the dark of the forest.
Maxim used his claws and tore an old dead tree right from the ground. He tossed it aside. This was utterly maddening. To know so much of what happened except the key piece of information. Which direction they were heading.
He’d never forgive himself if- No. He wouldn’t even allow himself the thought. Couldn’t afford it.
He just had to think. He just had to-
“Papa?”
Maxim’s giant, grizzly head snapped up as his brothers all turned to look at him. They could hear it, too, in their heads. Communicating as a bear shifter. Linc’s voice so small and far away and quiet. But there. Definitely there.
“Linc? Are you there? Are you okay?”
“We’re okay! Mama says to tell you that we’re in a black truck. We’re not moving very fast.”
Maxim forced himself to concentrate instead of melting into a pile of relieved bear.
“She says it feels like we’re on a gravel road and that we can hear bushes and trees scratching the side of the truck because it’s a small road.”
“Okay. Good. More. Tell me more,” Maxim pleaded with the boy. This was good. They would be able to use all this information.
“She says she thinks we’re going northwest.”
“Good girl,” Danil mumbled. And he was right. She was a smart-ass lady for figuring out which direction they were going.
“Okay, Linc,” Anton spoke now. “Can you smell anything in particular? Anything that could tell us where you are?”
“It’s hard to smell over the chemicals.”
All four of the brothers felt a tightening in their chests. They knew what those chemicals smelled like. They knew what they could do to a shifter. What they’d done to Anton.
“Try, Linc. We need more clues.”
“Okay. I smell… horses? I think. And popcorn. And maybe a bull.” His voice was getting farther and farther away. So quiet now they could barely hear him.
“I love you, Linc,” Maxim choked out. He had to say it. “And I love your Mama.”
“We love you,” Linc said, before his little voice was swallowed up by the distance.
“Horses, popcorn and a bull?” Emin asked, frustration lining his tone. “What the hell-”
“I know where they are,” Danil interrupted. “They’re outside of Ritzville. The rodeo. Dora dragged me over there a few nights ago. I know the road they’re on.”
***
Well, they’d done the best they could, Ivy supposed. Linc said he’d told the brothers everything that she’d told him to. There was some small amount of hope. And now all there was to do was rest. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. But she needed Linc at his best if
he was gonna be running as fast as he could through the forest.
She’d thanked her insane mommy habits when she’d found a cheese stick and a granola bar in her pocket. So at least he’d had some sort of dinner. Now she was rubbing his back as he laid across her lap. She thanked God when his breaths got even.
As a five-year-old, he wasn’t particularly fast. But she had hope now that Maxim would find him in the woods. He knew the general location of where they were.
Ivy didn’t hold out any hope that these Navuka assholes would keep her alive any longer than they had to, but she thought that Linc stood a chance. He just needed to get away far enough toward Spokane that Maxim could track him.
The thought gave her a moment’s worth of comfort. Linc would grow up without her. And the thought made her sick. But he’d have Maxim. The most deeply loving man in the history of the world.
She would do everything she could to make that happen. She wasn’t sure how, but she was going to create a hell of a diversion so her little bear cub could get away. Blaze of glory and all that.
More settled now that she had a semblance of a plan, Ivy let her head rest back on the metal side of the truck, her only comfort that, though they were moving, they were not moving fast at all. This road must really be a piece of shit. Or really unused. It was bumpy as hell, anyways.
Her eyes were heavy. Adrenaline sure took a hell of a lot out of you. And she was drifting uneasily when suddenly she and Linc were sliding, unrestrained, across the slick metal floor of the truck.
Panicked voices shouted as they came to a complete stop. Ivy was instantly on her feet.
“Wake up, ace,” she whispered as she held her boy in her arms. “This might be it, okay? The moment where I tell you to run. And you run, okay? You run right in the direction I point and shift when you can’t smell me anymore. And then you keep running and wait for Maxim to find you. Maxim will find you, okay, baby? I love you, ace.”
Tears were clouding her vision and Ivy angrily blinked them away. She wouldn’t let herself be weak. She needed fury, not sadness.
“Maxim will find you,” she repeated. “I love you. You promise me you’ll run as fast as you can.”
Linc blinked sleepily up at her, confusion lining his face. “Okay, Mama. I’ll run. But Maxim is here already.”
“What?” Ivy asked, thinking Linc must have been having a dream about him.
“I can smell him,” Linc whispered. “He’s-”
Her little boy’s words were cut right off as the back doors of the truck were damn near ripped off the hinges. The diffused evening light spilled into the truck, and Ivy squinted against it. But she’d never forget what she saw. The silhouette of a bear, gigantic, furious. His huge paws tearing open the truck, searching the dim light until he saw what he’d come for.
“Papa!” Linc shouted and wiggled down from Ivy’s arms. He almost beat Ivy to Maxim. Almost.
She buried her face in the thick fur at Maxim’s giant neck. He smelled of the forest and of himself and of home. She’d never felt safer or more protected than she did in that moment, burying her face in grizzly bear.
Which was why she wasn’t ready for the bang that nearly popped her eardrums. Or the stiffening of the bear against her body. Ivy leaped back, taking Linc with her. She could smell gunpowder on the air.
Maxim’s bear stumbled back, falling down onto all fours. Ivy was horrified to see a gaping, bleeding hole directly in his back.
“No,” she whispered, shoving Linc behind her. Rushing forward, she caught sight of a woman lowering a handgun.
The same dickhead lady who’d shoved Linc into the back of this truck in the first place. And now she’d shot Maxim?
Oh, this bitch was about to say goodnight.
Ivy lunged forward, jumping down out of the truck. She slammed the truck door behind her, locking Linc in. The woman easily switched her gun from Maxim to Ivy.
“Oh, that’ll be quite enough.” Her voice had a hint of an accent. Ivy was ready to rip that accent right out of her mouth, along with her tongue.
Men jumped out of the truck that had apparently been following them. They were dressed in SWAT gear and had high powered rifles sweeping the woods. If Ivy had any guess, it was that the rest of the Malashovik brothers were out there, trying to find their opening.
Maxim’s labored breath had Ivy stepping back, one eye on the gun. She groped backwards with her hands until she felt his muzzle. Ivy knelt next to him, risking a glance at his precious bear face. He didn’t look good.
Goddamn it. Ivy needed to get Maxim help, she needed to get Linc the hell away from here, and she needed to not get dead. She needed some fucking backup!
“Lana,” a familiar voice sounded from behind her.
Ivy sucked in her breath as Anton stepped out of the woods in his human form.
Lana cocked her head to one side in curiosity. She spoke in their native Belarusian. “You face me in your human form, Anton? I never would have thought you’d be that vulnerable in front of me again.” Her eyes skated down his naked form. “Well, you’ve certainly… grown since you were a teenager.”
Anton ignored her. “What do you want with a child, Lana?” He nodded his head toward the truck where Linc was.
“You of all people know the answer to that.”
“You want to waste your time developing a child when you could have your already fine-tuned weapon at your disposal?” He waved a hand over his body dismissively. As if he could barely bear to think about what he was offering her.
She took an intrigued step back now, the gun slipping an inch or two from her target. “You offer yourself freely? Well, I’ll be damned. Sergei’s plan was the one to work after all. I don’t particularly care to experiment on you anymore, Anton. But if you’re offering, well-”
Lana’s breath whooshed out as Ivy launched herself full tilt at her. The gun arced through the air. Ivy ignored the shouts, the screams behind her as she straddled Lana and socked her right in the face. Lana screamed in rage and pain as she slapped at Ivy. But Ivy had been in a fight before, and little slaps weren’t gonna slow her much at all. She punched the reprehensible beast a second time and a third.
“Mama!”
Only her son’s plaintive scream was going to keep Ivy from tearing Lana’s eyes out. She scrambled up, leaving the woman whimpering in the dirt.
Linc was gripping the side of the truck as one of the uniformed guards was trying to yank him out. Ivy was two steps toward them when the man was easily swatted aside by Emin’s bear.
Danil was charging the other armed truck, barreling through the guards and snapping their rifles like twigs. Emin set Linc carefully in the back of the truck and fell to all fours, sniffing at Maxim.
Maxim was breathing heavily, his eyes wide with pain. Oh, Jesus. Ivy fell next to him as well. Totally unsure what to do besides trace her hands over his muzzle. He needed a doctor immediately.
She watched as the gigantic bear’s eyes went from wide with pain to narrowed, determined slits. She turned to see what he was looking at.
“Mama!” Linc screamed again as the truck he was still in the back of started pulling away.
Ivy glanced behind her and saw that Lana was gone. She must have gotten back in the driver’s seat.
“No!” Ivy screamed, sprinting forward toward the truck that was already flying down the road. But she was bowled aside as a bear lunged past her.
Ivy watched in complete amazement as Maxim, still bleeding from his gunshot wound, barreled down the road, easily catching the accelerating truck. Jamming his great claws into the floor of the truck, and planting his back feet, the truck instantly halted its progress.
Ivy watched in horror as the engine screamed and the wheels kicked up dust. The wound on Maxim’s back tore open even further as he strained against the vehicle. But seconds later, Emin was there and Danil, too. Anton sprinted around the side of the truck and ripped the driver’s side door open.
Grabbing Lana, he toss
ed her easily out of the truck and the engine immediately stopped revving.
Anton turned to her. “If my brother wasn’t bleeding out right now, believe me, I would end you. Slowly. As slowly as you tortured me.”
He slammed his way into the truck.
Behind, Maxim collapsed to the ground, the last of his strength used to stop the truck. Danil and Emin wasted no time in hoisting him up into the back. There wasn’t room for three full-grown grizzlies, so they shifted.
“Ivy, take Linc up front and tell Anton we’re ready to go. We can’t waste any time,” Danil ordered.
“Hell no,” she snapped. She picked up Linc, gave him a quick squeeze just to make sure he was okay, and slammed him into Emin’s arms. “I’m not leaving Maxim.”
“But,” Emin’s eyes widened in horror. “He’s crying.”
And indeed, poor Linc was crying weakly, his arms like a vice around Emin’s neck.
“Yeah, well, he just watched his dad get shot in the back. So there’s gonna be some tears. Deal with it, Emin. We’ve gotta get the hell out of here.”
Emin nodded, hitching Linc onto his hip and swinging down, firmly closing the truck doors behind him. Within seconds, Anton was pulling away, heading toward the highway.
“They’re not gonna treat a bear at the hospital, Danil.” Ivy braced herself against the wall and fell to her knees beside Maxim.
“I know. We have to get him to shift. It’s gonna be bad, Ivy. Really painful.”
But she was already tuning out Danil. She fell to her side, mirroring Maxim’s position on the floor of the racing truck.
“You gotta shift for me, baby. Okay? You can do it. Just like how you talked ace through it that first time. You scream if you have to, okay? You can do it.”
The night got deeper, quieter all around them as Ivy’s voice took Maxim all the way through the pain and into the other side.
EPILOGUE
One Month Later
“I’m fine! I’m fine,” Maxim grumbled as Ivy automatically shoved her shoulder under his armpit and helped drag him up from bed. Maxim’s bed. Their bed.