“No.” Dahlia’s voice came out deep and dark from her jaguar throat. “No one wanted him to die. One of the last batches he made went wrong and a barrel exploded. Part of it hit him on the head and killed him. It was an accident.”
She prowled closer to Harper. “I will live with the guilt of what I have done every day, Harper Bachmann. But I will not let you take this away from me. Your family destroyed mine. Now, I’m going to rule right alongside you. No more bowing down. I’m part of this now.”
Her voice rang through Harper’s body. No, that was something else.
Harper cried out as everything inside her seemed to shake. She could feel that something was about to burst out of her but was terrified to let it out. “No! Oh no, what’s happening?”
Dahlia and the men looked at her with open mouths as she felt a deluge pour down between her legs. Her water had broken. The child inside of her was anxious to come out, to escape this awful situation, and she heard her own voice take on a pitch she’d never used before.
“Grey! Grey, help me!”
Outside the door of the silo, a metallic, crashing sound rang through the room. All of the shifters and Alliance members fell in the doorway as a massive tangle of arms and legs. Bachmann’s armed guard quickly raised his gun and took aim. She threw herself at him so that he shot up into the air, and the bullet whizzed right by her ear.
“You dumb whore!” He quickly went to reload but, she knocked the bullets out of his hand. “Stop that!” He slapped her across the face, and she screamed, not from the slap but from the pain of her child pushing its way out of her.
Grey and Alex led the charge. Someone shoved Harper, and she fell to the ground. Once she was down, she couldn’t get up, and Dahlia ran to her and grabbed her ankle in her mouth. The jaguar pulled her quickly to the side as Harper’s body bounced over rocks and hardened dirt.
“Stop! Dahlia, please, I thought you were my friend.”
The shifter didn’t answer. She kept going until they were far from the fray, right at the side of the curved wall. The jaguar dropped Harper’s ankle, then walked up to look her in the eye. Harper was breathing hard and the need to push was more than she could stand, but seeing that horrible gaze up close made her forget everything else that was happening.
“I will not kill a mother,” Dahlia said softly, then ran off to fight the intruders.
Harper’s body was pulled taut with pain. She arched backward and screamed, but her cries were lost to the sound of the fight.
The ground rocked as the corrugated metal ceiling twisted and turned above her. A fresh wave of pain ripped through her, and Harper promptly passed out.
Meanwhile, Grey and his group were wide awake.
The shifters attacked with any means they could. Emily charged Bachmann right at the ankles, slashing at his Achilles tendon with her tusks. Grey flew for the shooter’s eyes, scratching at them as he fumbled for his gun. Larissa went after the third man with the help of Alliance security, but Dahlia was right behind them. The two faced off and were about to dive at one another when the rifle went off and shot at the barrels. Booze spilled out everywhere.
“Damn it!” Bachmann turned to run to his product, but his legs were too badly injured. He fell to the ground and started to crawl his way over. Grey left the shooter, whose eyes were too bloody to be of any use to him, and quickly shifted back to human. Before anyone could react, he quickly grabbed the gun and pointed it at Bachmann.
“Stop right there!”
At the sight of the gun pointed at her boss, Dahlia slammed into Grey from behind. The shock of her weight made him fire, and the bullet went right into Bachmann’s gut. His body jumped from the force of the shot, and then blood poured out of him and seeped into the ground.
Grey rolled over and found Dahlia on top of him. “You fool,” she purred. “You should have stayed with your little halfling. Now you’ll never get a chance to meet that new baby of yours.”
She opened her giant mouth to bite his throat, and a battle cry came out of her as a Grey looked at her shining fangs. Drool stretched across the inside of her mouth and vibrated with the force of her growl.
Then, she jumped as if something had burned her. Her leg was bleeding. Grey looked and saw Emily, still in boar form, attacking the jaguar from behind.
“Stupid little pig!” she cried and rolled off of Grey to face her attacker. As soon as she did, Grey grabbed the gun and aimed at her leg. He put his finger on the trigger and shot.
Dahlia collapsed, breathing fast, as she also bled into the ground from where the bullet had grazed her hip. From across the silo, Grey heard Alex call to him.
“Grey! You had better get over here. Harper needs you.”
He ran over, gun in hand, and kneeled next to the unconscious Harper. “Sweetheart,” he smacked her face a little, “can you hear me?”
Alex grabbed his hand. “She’s out. Let’s get this baby.”
Grey nodded and leaned down to get Harper’s clothes out of the way. The rest of the group slowly made their way over. Larissa was quick to push the men out of the way and take Grey’s place.
“Are you going to greet your baby with a gun in your hand? Go and guard Dahlia and the other two. I’ll bring this baby into the world.”
Emily kneeled down to help her as well as a few of the Alliance members. Together, they gently pulled Harper’s baby from her womb and brought it into the world. It was a girl. The baby came out as a human, but all the shifters could smell the feathers hiding just below the surface, waiting to come out.
“A little flier,” Larissa said, smiling. She looked at the sleeping Harper and moved a hair out of her face. “Sleep now, mama. You’ll need your rest.” She pulled off her shirt and wrapped the baby in the worn cloth. Just a few feet away, Bachmann breathed his last breath. Dahlia, the shooter, and the third man were taken prisoner by the security guards and marched out. Grey came over to join them, no gun this time.
“Here she is, papa,” Larissa said, handing him his new infant. “What are you going to name her?”
He looked down into the sleeping girl’s face, looked around at the blood-stained dirt and the destroyed barrels.
“I don’t want to name her today,” he said. “I’d rather get her home safe with her mother.”
With the help of the group, he took his family home.
Epilogue
Harper didn’t wake from that deep, dark sleep for the rest of the day. Larissa, Emily, and the others got her into bed and then stayed to help Grey bathe and swaddle his child. He settled into a rocking chair to help soothe her.
“She needs to let that baby have some milk as soon as she wakes up,” Larissa told him.
“I know.” He looked at his daughter’s face and thought of Dahlia’s children. For her crimes, Dahlia would be separated out from the rest of the population for the next year. Together, they would have to find a new space for the next big settlement and start to plan it out. They weren’t allowed back until their sentence was complete.
“Hey,” he asked the group, “what’s going to happen to Dahlia’s children?”
Maria, one of the Alliance fighters, spoke up. “They can come with me. We’ve taken in lots of children over the years. We’ll make room for them.”
Emily heard that and perked up. “How about adults?”
“Sorry?”
She moved over to Maria. “Do you think maybe I could join the Alliance? I’ve been on my own for a long time, and it’s very…um, it’s lonely. I’m a hard worker, and I’m good with the little ones.”
Maria patted her hand. “I’m sure you would be very welcome.”
Grey thanked everyone for their help and for accommodating another family. “I’m sure you’re all exhausted. Feel free to stretch out and sleep here.”
“Emily and I also have houses nearby. We have plenty of space.” She stood and led the way out. “I’m sure Grey needs a moment with his new daughter.”
Everyone came and said
a quick goodbye to father and daughter, then stepped out. Soon, Grey was alone with the tiny, grunting baby in his arms. He looked at her pink, pinched face.
“Daughter,” he repeated. “My daughter. This is my daughter.” The words made him feel like his chest had been pulled open to reveal everything inside, all his doubts and fears. He could also feel his courage and his love pouring out. All of it was there, side by side, mixed together. He gasped and sobbed for a second, and the sound startled the baby.
“Oh, shh. Shh. I’m so sorry I woke you,” he whispered. “You should go back to sleep.” But the little girl ignored him, and the crying continued.
“What’s happening?”
It was Harper from her bed. Father and daughter moved over to her, and she looked around blinking, uncertain where she was.
“Grey? Grey, how are we here?”
“Don’t worry. You’re fine. You passed out. We all made it out okay.”
“And my uncle?”
He paused as the baby persisted in wailing. Grey shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”
Harper nodded, got her bearings, and then sat up and reached for her daughter. “Here, give her to me.” Grey passed the baby to her, and she held the little one in her arms and rocked her back and forth.
The child quieted, and the three of them sat there together on the bed for a while, not speaking. Soon, the baby was asleep again, and Harper leaned down to touch her nose to her daughter’s face.
“So,” she said.
“Yeah,” Grey breathed. “She’s here.”
“She is.” Harper adjusted the baby’s blanket a little and then smiled up at Grey. “Who delivered her?”
“Larissa,” he told her. “She was a champ. She had our little darling out in minutes.”
Harper smiled at the thought of her most eccentric friend diving between her legs to pull out a newborn. “Did anyone help?”
“Nearly everyone. I was pretty useless, so I just stood by. But I was the first to hold her.”
The two new parents smiled down at their little angel as the baby let out a little sneeze. The sound thrilled them. When the little girl yawned, they were fascinated.
“Wow.”
“I know.”
Harper looked at her partner, her lover, now the father of her child. “So,” she said, “what shall we name her?”
He looked at his daughter and then his partner and breathed in deeply. “How about we name her something in memory of the old world. Something to keep our history alive.”
“Oh, Grey, no.” Harper clucked at him and then gave her daughter a kiss. “This girl was born in a battle. She’s a fighter. She needs a name that reflects the warrior inside her.”
He nodded. He thought of that horrible scene, the blood that poured into the earth, “What about Rose?”
Harper looked at her child again. “Rose,” she said, trying it out. “Rose. Little Rose B. Wiseman.”
Grey looked at her in surprise. “No Bachmann? Just B?”
She nodded and leaned against him. “The name Bachmann needs to go away. For good. Rose will be the first of my family to be free from it. It’s the best gift I can give her.”
Grey kissed Harper’s head, smelled her hair, and squeezed her shoulder to hold her closer to him. She held their baby close to her body as the little one slept. Together, they formed a family that no one would ever break apart, a group with a love so deep that the world would never see its equal.
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Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7) Page 63