Green Bearets: Jarvis (A Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Base Camp Bears Book 3)

by Amelia Jade

  She was still alive, and it was beating strong.

  “She hasn’t been tranquilized,” he told Ava, even as the woman shifted back to her human form.

  “Look at her head,” the RAF team leader said, pointing to two huge lumps. “Massive trauma.”

  “What do I do?” Jarvis asked as he stared down at the limp body of his mate.

  His mate. Yes, she was that, and more. And he’d never had the chance to tell her, to be completely truthful with Carrie, to reveal to her just how he felt.

  And now, as he took in the horrific injuries to her head, he realized he might never get the opportunity. He was completely out of his depth here. Injuries to humans were not something he had training in. All Green Bearets received extensive knowledge on how to set bones, as that was the most common injury amongst shifters.

  But this wasn’t a broken bone, or even a ripped and torn skin type of injury. Those he could deal with. This was mental, blows to her head. She was probably in some sort of coma.

  “I’m surprised she’s made it this far,” Ava said. “I’ve studied more about trauma to humans than I might normally like to admit, but this is bad, Jarvis. She could be bleeding into her brain, which will kill her in a very short period of time if something isn’t done to relieve the pressure.”

  Jarvis looked at her sharply at the admission of studying human bodily injury. Why would the Pegasi need to know that?

  But just as quickly his attention returned to Carrie. “Can we get her to a human hospital? You could fly her there.”

  Ava shook her head. “She’d never make it. The altitude changes alone might kill her.”

  The shifter woman hesitated.

  “What?” Jarvis pressed. “What is it? Don’t hold back on me!”

  Ava closed her eyes, her face screwed up. “No, it’s not a good idea.”

  “Tell me, dammit!” he roared, anger welling up inside of him as he grasped for straws, anything to help save his Carrie.

  “You could try turning her,” Ava whispered as she bowed her head.

  “Are you nuts?” Jarvis hissed. “She’s near death already and you want me to Turn her?”

  Ava looked up at him, her bright green eyes ablaze with anger that she returned tenfold. “You asked me what to do. Not the other way around. I gave you the only damn idea I could think of that might save her life! I’m not sure why you’re so damned concerned about one measly human, but it is not my fault!”

  Jarvis reared back, caught off guard by the outburst. He’d been so caught up in Carrie, that he’d forgotten Ava had no idea he knew the woman.

  Not only knew her, but was in love with her.

  “This is Carrie,” he said softly, his tone apologetic. “She is my mate.”

  Ava’s eyes widened in shock and sadness. “Oh no. No. Jarvis, I’m so sorry. I had no idea!”

  “Nor should you have,” he said, hanging his head.

  He took several deep, steadying breaths to return his blood pressure to normal.

  “Turning her is the only thing likely to succeed, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Ava nodded. “She’s going to either die, or become a vegetable otherwise. By the time a human ground ambulance could transport her to a hospital—a true hospital, not the clinic they have in Cloud Lake—the damage would be irreversible. The odds of her surviving that are slimmer than those of her surviving being Turned. By a lot.”

  Jarvis scratched the side of his head. “Fuck.”

  The single word seemed to sum up his fear and frustration all in one four-letter word.

  “If you’re going to do it, you must do it now,” Ava urged. “Time is running out. It might already be too late.”

  “I know!” he said, his hands shaking. He was forced to set Carrie’s head down. “But what if she hates me for it? If she won’t forgive me for doing this against her will?”

  “Then she will leave you, and it will be as if she died, except you will know that she is alive. That pain might hurt you more, but the knowledge that you saved her will help you sleep at night.”

  Jarvis frowned. “How did you become so wise?”

  She shrugged. “When you’ve lived for eleven decades, you get that way. How do you think I feel around some of the dragons?”

  The big bear shifter actually surprised himself with a laugh as he stood up and backed away from Carrie, giving himself some room.

  “I will help you,” Ava promised. “She will survive, and she will not run wild.”

  Jarvis nodded, appreciative of her words as he let the change flow through him.

  Turning a human was a dangerous proposition. The implanting of his shifter DNA within her blood would cause Carrie to go into a feverish state, where her body temperature could rise precipitously if she couldn’t fight it off.

  After that, however, the shifter animal would manifest itself within the human’s mind. In most cases where this happened, the human was trained beforehand, instructed on how to build a prison, a cage for the beast.

  But he couldn’t do that with Carrie. She was effectively brain dead at the moment, and Jarvis and Ava were banking on the turning and the presence of another entity within her mind to spur Carrie back to wakefulness, to jolt her mind back into gear.

  The biggest danger, he thought—approaching her in his animal form—was that Carrie would never find a way to trap the bear, to make it a slave to her human side, the strong side. If she didn’t do that, she would become a feral, a wild shifter.

  If that happened, he would be forced to kill her himself. Wild shifters caused too much destruction to the natural order of things. They were not permitted, and were a danger to both humans and shifters alike, due to their superior strength, speed, and healing.

  With a silent prayer to any god or gods that might be listening, Jarvis opened his powerful jaws and sunk his teeth deep into Carrie’s neck.

  Carrie jerked and screamed. It was not a painless process. He was literally tearing open her skin with several-inch-long teeth.

  Blood flowed into his jaws and over his lips as he pulled away, immediately pushing his bear aside and returning to his human form as Carrie jerked and twisted in Ava’s hands. His DNA began to flow through her, converting her human cells to something…else.

  Jarvis fell to his knees at her side, wiping his mouth clean as he caressed her cheek with his hand.

  “Come on, Carrie. Fight it. You can do it.”

  He looked up, meeting Ava’s eyes.

  All they could do now was wait.

  Wait and hope.

  ***

  Carrie

  Pain.

  As she wandered through the gray fog, Carrie felt it wash over her.

  Agony.

  Torture.

  Distress.

  Throbbing.

  Anguish.

  Torment.

  Suffering.

  It washed over her like a wave, forcing her to her knees.

  She screamed, the sound reverberating off the fog until it filled the air, assaulting her ears painfully, the sonic echoes so strong it slapped Carrie to the ground, beating her down.

  It bruised her head and ripped at her neck, hitting her violently until her head ached and her neck actually began to bleed, the sound so intense it was splitting her skin open.

  It wasn’t real.

  Carrie knew that, somehow.

  “It feels so real,” she moaned aloud, holding her neck to try and slow the bleeding.

  She looked down, expecting to see red fluids leaking through her fingers as her life slowly drained from her.

  But the pale skin of her hands was clean, unmarked by anything.

  “What the hell?” she muttered.

  Something weird was going on.

  In the distance, the sun began to rise.

  “Finally,” she grumbled.

  In seconds the mist began to dissipate like morning fog, revealing the dusty brown landscape around her.

  She was in the middle of a desert.
>
  “How lovely.”

  The sun kept rising, much too fast to be normal. At this rate, it would be setting in less than ten minutes.

  Carrie turned to look at the far horizon.

  There another sun was just creeping into the sky.

  “Okayyyy. Now shit’s just getting weird,” she muttered.

  Behind this sun another, much bigger one appeared, its curvature easily ten times the size of the first.

  The fog disappeared into the sky as the temperature continued to rise.

  “Three suns. Well, that’s just fucked.”

  Carrie needed shade, and water.

  And fast.

  But in all directions the land just stretched away, a flat plain with nothing she could use to cover herself.

  By now the two little suns were high in the sky, while the oversized ball of light was perhaps a third of the way over the horizon. The air was beginning to heat up, making it harder to breathe.

  Carrie took a half dozen steps in random directions, trying to see if her perspective changed, but nothing revealed itself to her.

  The moisture in her skin began to heat up and evaporate, slowly drying her out. If she didn’t find shade and water shortly, she was going to die of dehydration at a minimum. At worst, she was going to be cooked alive.

  Neither option appealed to her.

  “Think, woman. Think. There has to be a way out of here.”

  Carrie looked around her once more, but there was nothing. She couldn’t go to any of the compass points. Nor could she fly out of there.

  Her eyes dropped as hope fled, coming to rest on the sand below her feet.

  Sand.

  Sand was loose.

  Perhaps she needed to go down.

  Jumping frantically on the idea, Carrie dropped to her knees and began scooping sand away, ignoring the blistering heat on her hands as the hot granules burned her.

  The killer sun was almost halfway into the sky now, and she was getting exhausted. Her hole was only a few feet deep at best, nowhere near deep enough to save her.

  “This would be so much easier with a shovel,” she complained.

  Her hands jerked with added weight.

  Carrie stared as a shovel appeared in them.

  “What the hell?”

  She looked around, but there was still nobody there.

  “Can I just wish for things? I wish for a huge umbrella and a water cooler!”

  Nothing happened.

  “Figures.”

  Still, a shovel was better than nothing. Carrie, renewed by her odds increasing ever so slightly, went back to work. Shovels of sand flew and her pit grew quickly as the loose sand provided no resistance to her efforts. Two feet deep. Three. Five. The ground was getting noticeably cooler the lower she went.

  By now the mammoth star was directly overhead, and the skin on her back was beginning to blister and burn from the exposure.

  But still Carrie kept digging. She wasn’t going to give up. With the shovel she had hope, and the promise of cooler climates below. She just had to dig far enough.

  “Dig!” she shouted, her voice raspy as it came out through dried and cracked lips, the moisture in her skin all but gone by this point.

  And yet still Carrie dug.

  Ten feet.

  Twelve.

  “Come on!” she shouted at herself, shovel after shovel of sand flying up out of her pit.

  Thirteen feet.

  Skin on her head and neck began to shrivel and turn black as it burned.

  “No. I am not dying like this!” she said, raising the shovel over her head and slamming it down into the sand below her.

  The ground gave way abruptly beneath her and Carrie plunged into darkness. She landed in a pool of water, the sudden sting making her scream.

  The cool liquid seeped into her body, repairing much of the damage even as she swam toward shore, the land illuminated by the sunlight entering her hidden cavern.

  By the time she managed to reach shore, Carrie felt not just rejuvenated, but alive. Power in her body, strength, and energy she’d never felt before seemed to flow through her as the water continued its healing effects.

  “What is going on here?” she asked, turning her hands over as she watched them practically spring back to life in front of her.

  From deep within the cavern a deep, earthquake-like rumbling growl answered her.

  Carrie’s spine went rigid at the sound.

  “H-Hello?” she asked nervously.

  The growl came again, louder this time, shaking loose debris from the ceiling that rained down. Carrie brushed the dust and sand from her hair and face as she strayed closer to the spear of light. She didn’t know if it was in the center of the room or not, but she couldn’t see deep into the shadows—

  Wait.

  Her eyes focused.

  Yes. Yes she could see into the dark. What the hell? She didn’t possess night vision. Not anything like the scale she was able to see in now.

  The growl sounded from behind her once more.

  Carrie spun, her eyes digging deep into the depths of the shadows and darkness, penetrating until she picked out the source of the noise.

  Slowly striding forward out of a blackness too deep for even her to see into, was a huge beast of an animal. A bear, to be specific. It came on toward her warily, growling more and more frequently.

  Carrie stood completely still, not sure what to do. She watched the animal begin to circle her, and she slowly spun with it, matching the turn.

  It was stalking her. The realization came to her about halfway through her turn, but by then, there was nothing she could do.

  The bear looked swung its head to look directly at her, and as they made eye contact, Carrie thought she saw something familiar about the bear.

  “Jarvis?” she called tentatively.

  The bear growled and pawed at the ground angrily.

  “Okay, not Jarvis,” she retracted, holding her hands up.

  But the animal, spurred on by either the sound of her voice, or her calling it Jarvis, was having none of it. It rose up on its hind legs and let loose with a full-fledged roar. The sound slammed off the unseen walls of the cavern and assaulted her ears.

  Carrie almost went to one knee, but something inside of her refused. Her legs bent slightly as she absorbed the force of its challenge, but she didn’t cave. She would not back down. This was just another test, like the light above, and like that, Carrie would not fail this one.

  She opened her mouth and screamed, channeling all her fear, anger and determination into the sound. Her arms splayed wide behind her as she leaned into it, hurling the verbal blow at the bear.

  It staggered under the blow, and Carrie’s spirits soared. She was winning this weird battle!

  Then the bear shook it off and charged.

  “Oh shit!” she exclaimed, throwing herself to the side just before the unnaturally fast beast ran her over.

  Carrie had meant to roll to the side, out of the way of the rampaging beast. Instead, her dive had sent her twenty feet clear across the cavern. She hit the ground and bounced hard, spinning like a log for another ten feet before she came to a halt, her momentum spent.

  “What the hell?”

  Okay. Note to self. You’re stronger in this world too.

  Carrie recovered faster than she would have expected to, and was on her feet before the bear could come around and hunt her down. This time she bounced back and forth on her feet, a new plan in place as she waited for it.

  It was time to find out just how strong she was.

  Preferably without dying during the experiment.

  The bear came at her again, and Carrie waited. With a carefully timed push, she hopped out of the way at the last second. But she managed to stay on her feet and land only several feet to the side.

  The bear tried to turn to hit her, and went down in a tangle of limbs.

  Carrie sprinted at her foe, and just as the bear climbed to its feet, its back
to her, she slammed her fist into the thing’s side. She had to be crazy, thinking that punching a bear would do anything, but it was clear that wherever she was, she was far stronger and faster than any normal human.

  The only weapons around were her fists, and she needed to use them. It was suicidal, but to her astonishment, the bear flipped over and bellowed in pain as something gave way under her blow.

  “Yes!” she hissed, a split second before the hind leg of the bear, now lined up with her, kicked out. The massive paw hit her right in the chest, claws ripping clothing and skin even as she flipped head over heels and went flying across the cavern, landing in a heap.

  The bear was already on its feet chasing after her.

  “This would be so much easier if I had a weapon. A steel bar, perhaps?” she said, looking around.

  She backed away from the bear as it came across the shadowy darkness at her.

  Something clanged as her foot rebounded off it.

  Carrie glanced over her shoulder. There on the floor was a five-foot-long piece of steel perhaps three or four inches thick.

  “Perfect,” she said, snatching it up in a smooth spin as the animal closed in.

  Completing her spin, she swung the bar like a baseball bat. The makeshift weapon slammed into the head of the bear, driving it to the ground. The beast mewled in pain as she reversed her grip and used her strength to pin it to the ground.

  The pole was digging painfully into the bear’s spine at the back of its throat. One good jab and she would break it.

  “Yield!” she shouted, somehow understanding that the bear would get it.

  The animal struggled and Carrie doubled her downward force. The thing’s neck bowed painfully under her pressure, and it went still.

  “Do you yield?” she said, this time with less force and anger.

  The bear didn’t respond.

  “If I let you up, will you attack me?”

  The bear went limp.

  Build it a cave, someplace you can trap it.

  The thought came unbidden to her.

  She looked around. “It’s already in a cave. It’s trapped in here. That’s enough. I won’t imprison it anymore. It has submitted to me. Enough with this! Let me go!”

  And just like that, her eyes flickered open and she was back in the hills north of Cloud Lake, staring up into a pair of extremely concerned light blue eyes.