He stood up from the woods, covering himself with one hand and waving with the other. The three men saw him and they chuckled. Together, Beth and Clive started to move across the highway, checking both ways that ensure that none of Hudson's men were closing in.
“Forgot an extra change of pants, Xan?” the largest one said. He had short brown hair, the same golden eyes, and tattoos all of the way down his forearms. Beth saw the edges of another tattoo around his neck. She had never been into tattoos, but she could not deny that he was attractive. “And who is this?”
Beth saw that the man was looking at her, intently, sizing her up. Clive got in between them. “She's mine, Marcus.”
“Yours?” Beth retorted.
Marcus let out a loud laugh. “Go ahead. I can't handle her. Let's get going and we'll fill you in. And Clive, put on some pants.”
They piled into the car. Marcus got behind the wheel. Another man, shorter and hairier than the others, climbed into the passenger seat. He turned around and extended his hand. “Name's Track.”
“Track?” Beth asked, sticking out her hand.
“Parents had a sense of humor. It was a bad one, but they still had it.”
Next to her on one side sat Clive. On the other sat the final man that had come to pick them up. He was large, heavily built, and silent. He had dark hair down to his shoulders and a large, black beard. His golden eyes really stood out from his tangled mass of hair. He smiled at her but said nothing.
“That's Jace,” Clive said, leaning in. “He doesn't talk much.”
“I can tell,” Beth said, smiling back at Jace. “Why not?”
“He's the strong, silent type,” Marcus said from the front seat. “Now, the rest of you do the same and listen. Joe's got this all planned out for us. It should go off without a hitch. When you didn't show up last night, Joe started to get worried. He figured that things had went south. Had a couple of the guys scout out your house. They couldn't get close, though, with all of Hudson's men around the place. We were lucky enough that a few of his men went back to his hideout. Our guys followed them. We're going to go meet them now.”
“We need to drop Beth off. Then what? Charge in guns blazing?” Clive asked. “It's not a good idea.”
“No, it's not. That's why Joe thought of another plan. We're going to send your girl in first. Draw Hudson out. Get his guard down. Then we're going to ambush him.”
“No way! No fucking way!” Clive exploded. Beth flinched back, but didn't say anything. As she watched, he gripped the back of the seat in front of him. His nails started to grow long, digging into the fabric. He growled, closing his eyes, and was silent. A few seconds later it was as if nothing ever happened. “We were hired to protect her. Not put her directly in harm's way. That's not what we do. That's not what your father would have wanted, Marcus.”
“Keep yourself in check, Clive,” Marcus said. “I don't like it any more than you do. But we do what the Pack Leader says. It's the best way to actually get Hudson out into the open.”
“Beth, you don't have to do this,” Clive said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it.
In the mirror, Beth watched Marcus's golden eyes. “I'll do it.”
“What? Beth! You could get hurt! You could die!”
“I'm not going to be safe until Hudson is out of the picture. It's the only way I'll be truly safe. And the sooner he's gone, the better,” Beth said. In the mirror, she watched Marcus smile.
They pulled up to an old, abandoned building back in the city. Beth hadn't expected to be back so soon. The weather had cleared up, but it did nothing to raise her spirits. If anything, it felt colder and more unforgiving. She was about to be part of something she never had before. We're going to kill him, she thought. The thought was foreign, strange, and to her surprise, welcoming. She wanted Hudson gone. She wanted to be free. To be safe.
She hesitated. If Hudson was gone, then there would be no need for a protector. She would be safe. But that meant that Clive would be out of her life. She watched him, standing off to the side of the SUV. He hadn't said a word since she had told the shifters that she would go along with Joe's plan.
“Hey,” Beth said, moving over towards him. “This is the best way.”
“It's not,” Clive said, head down. “It's recklessly dangerous. Ever since Marcus's dad died and his uncle took over, things have gotten worse. Way more dangerous than they used to be. They're in it for the money. That's never why we were founded. We're supposed to protect our clients. We've been doing it for nearly 70 years. We use our powers to protect those who can't protect themselves. And now we're throwing you into harm's way to get it over with. But once it's over, we can move forward.”
Beth didn't know what to say at first, so she grabbed his hands. “It's going to be okay. I'm nervous, yeah, but once this is all over with, it'll be done. There's something else I wanted to talk about.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“Listen, Clive. When this is over, we should go our separate ways. We can't move forward. I won't need you protecting me all of the time. Move on and focus on the next job. I'm no good for you and your lifestyle.”
“Why do you get to decide what's good for me?” Clive asked. “If you've felt only a fraction of what I've felt these last two days, then you know there's something there. Isn't that worth it?”
Before she could answer, another car pulled up. He withdrew his hands and trudged off, greeting the newcomers. Out of the car stepped another three large men, all eyes the same striking golden color. The first was a dark skinned man, head shaved bald. He was leaner than the other men, though the feeling of danger still rippled off of him. He may not have been as massive as the other men, but Beth knew he was no less dangerous.
The next man was just a bit smaller than Marcus. While the other men wore jackets, jeans, and boots, this man wore expensive looking khakis and a nice suit jacket. His face was soft, yet he had a few day's growth of stubble. His golden eyes burned with intensity and intelligence, though he still had a primal air to him. In one hand he held a suitcase and the other a stethoscope. Beth almost laughed. A doctor? Well, it makes sense. Still, he's almost a contradiction, she thought.
The doctor was moving towards Clive, who was moving towards the third man. “Clive, wait. Joe told me you'd been shot. I need to check your wounds.”
“I'm fine, Russell. The wounds were only superficial,” Clive said, holding up his hand in the doctor's face.
“If you insist.”
“What are you doing here?” Clive asked as he approached the third man. Beth raised her eyebrows when she got her first look at the man. He bared a striking resemblance to Clive. He looked a few years younger and wasn't as large. There was no denying that they were brothers.
“Joe sent me,” Clive's brother said.
“Joe sent you? You're barely old enough to be out of school, Derrick!”
“If my uncle cleared it, we're not going to question it. He knows what he's doing,” Marcus said, placing a hand on Clive's shoulder. Clive swung around, ready to attack, but backed down. Fury crossed his face, and then it was gone. He nodded.
“Here's the plan. Hudson is holed up in that building over there,” Marcus said, pointing towards a dark building on the edge of a weed overgrown parking lot. Beth wasn't sure, but she thought there were a couple of lights shining in one of the top floors. “Track and Beth will head straight up the middle of the lot. They're going to be tracked, of course, which gives us the opportunity to sneak around the sides.”
“What makes you so sure that Hudson won't just open fire immediately? Or think it's a trap?” the dark skinned man asked.
“Joe has put out lines of information that one of us shifters has gone rogue and wants a reward for turning over Beth. We think Track fits the description the best.”
Track let out a throaty, rough laugh. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“It should be me,” Clive said. “I was assigned to protect her and this should be my job.”
>
“Joe says it's going to be Track. Now, Russell, Jace, and Judge are going up to an adjacent rooftop to keep an eye on Hudson. Clive, Derrick, and I will go to the rear of Hudson's building and wait for his location. Once we figure out where he's at, we'll move in.”
Beth held up one of her hands. It was shaking uncontrollably, so she placed it against her side. The world around her was silent except for the steady sound of footsteps. Track strode confidently beside her. He even had a smile on his face.
“You know, Clive's falling for you,” Track said, trying to lighten the conversation. Beth appreciated it, but wasn't sure if it was going to help. They were drawing closer to the building and hadn't seen a soul.
“Nothing can come of it.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, calm as ever.
“He's a bear shifter. I'm a normal girl. Once he's done protecting me, he'll have no reason to see me any more. I told him that he needs to move on.”
“He's yours if you want him,” Track said. I do, Beth thought. More than anything. But I can't, no matter how much I desire him.
Track suddenly tensed up, his nostrils flaring. He held out a hand and Beth stopped in her tracks. He moved between her and the building. “Fresh, nervous sweat. They're tensing up. I can smell it. They're going to open fire. We need to get into the building, now. Stay behind me!”
Track started to sprint, Beth close behind him. Immediately, a shot rang through the air. Beth watched as blood exploded out of the back of Track's neck, covering her. She screamed, almost stumbling over Track's dropped body. Miraculously, he got to his feet, a hand to his shredded throat. He opened his mouth to her but nothing came out except a stream of blood. He started to shift, his body turning, even as more shots rang out.
Track pushed Beth away and she was running, bullets hitting the pavement and kicking up plumes of dust. She stole a glance backward, seeing Track fully shifted into his bear shape and coming towards her. She knew that he was never going to make it. She reached the doors, finding them locked. Beside the door was a half broken cinder block, which she used to shatter the glass. Carefully crawling inside, she unlocked the door from the inside. Another glance at Track showed her it was pointless. He was on the ground, barely moving forward. His eyes met hers and then closed.
“This is a disaster. Clive was right,” she muttered to herself. She moved through the darkness of the building. It was soon apparent that it was an old office building and she wove through old cubicles, climbed toppled desks, and pushed rusted chairs out of her way. She reached the end of the row and was suddenly bathed in light.
Beth shielded her eyes from the sudden spotlights focused on her. Armed men surrounded her. She stood still, knowing there was nothing she could do against these men. Their plan hadn't worked, after all. It was over.
“That wasn't a very good plan, Beth,” a man said, striding forward through the ring of armed men. “It's over.”
Beth immediately recognized Hudson. He had the same, slimy look he had had back in the courtroom. He looked a little bit more full of life, a little bit happier. Getting off of multiple murder charges will do that to you, thought Beth.
“They'll link this back to you, Hudson. Once you kill me, you'll have the authorities all over you.”
“Ah, I don't think so,” he said, smirking. He held up a pistol and pointed it to her head. Beth closed her eyes. Instead of a gunshot, though, a roar shook the air. Beth opened her eyes, dropping to the ground, just as four bear shifters exploded through the line of armed men. The thugs started to shoot, panicking.
Beth saw Clive diving through the mass of men, followed closely by a bear that looked just like him, and then two others. Within seconds, the men were scattering. Hudson turned to run, but a bear dark as pitch closed in on him. It sank its fangs into his shoulders, throwing him into a mass of cubicles. He screamed as he flew, and then the bear was moving towards him.
Beth watched intently, ready for it all to be over, hating the man that had set all of this into motion. Clive moved towards her on all fours and then shifted, grabbing her and holding her in his embrace. He turned her away from the carnage as the other three bears tore into Hudson. His screams lasted for only moments and then they were only echoes, and then they, too, were gone.
They reached the HQ only a few hours later. Beth would have laughed at the sight of their so-called HQ, except she couldn't find the humor in anything at the moment. Track was dead by the time Russell reached him. Track had sacrificed himself to get Beth to safety, but she didn't feel any less guilty.
When they had heard the gunfire, Clive and his brother had decided to abandon Marcus's plan. He had ordered them to stand down, but they hadn't listened. The other three shifters had also decided to move in despite Marcus's orders. Russell took the time to ensure Track was gone before moving in, but by the time he got inside of the old office building, the carnage was over. He had then tended to the shifter's wounds. Clive, Derrick, Jace, and Judge were all riddled with bullets. None were life threatening and the other three stayed in shifter form to heal faster. Clive was hurt the worst, but Russell was able to take good care of him.
Marcus had exploded on the other shifters for their defiance, but they hardly acknowledged him. He'd screamed about the good of the pack, how important it was to maintain order, but it had all fallen on deaf ears. His orders had gotten Track killed and would have gotten Beth killed as well, if the others didn't intervene. He seemed to understand that, though he wouldn't admit it. His position as second command in the clan wouldn't let him.
So Beth sat in silence for nearly an hour while the rest of the shifters sat behind closed doors and deliberated back at their HQ. There had been older shifters with bone white hair, shifters with skin so mangled she wondered how they had even survived what had given them those scars, and even a couple of young shifters that were even younger than Derrick that had filed into the meeting.
There had been a couple of other women in the building when they had first arrived. One of the women had gone up to Jace the second he came in the door, hugging and kissing him. For once, she saw him chatting up a storm, though she couldn't hear what they had to say. After that, she'd introduced herself as Emma, and had explained how everything really worked between these shifters.
She had explained that she was also a client being protected. She was a police officer, betrayed by members of her own squad and framed for a murder she didn't commit. Other members of her unit wanted her dead, so she'd reached out to the shifter's security firm. If you could pay, they took you under their protection, she said. Jace had been assigned to protect her.
She had also said that they followed a strict code of honor. They held order and the chain of command in the highest regard. Any of the shifters who disobeyed their commander could be exiled, or worse, killed. Together, they had shared a couple of drinks at the bar, but Emma had retired to her room shortly after Beth had arrived.
Unsure of if she even had a room, Beth waited patiently. She'd tried to wipe the blood off of her as best she could, but she still felt disgusting. She considered slipping out the door and leaving the shifters, the violence, and Clive behind and moving on with her life. She hesitated. She didn't like the danger, but she found she liked Clive. Maybe it's even love, she thought, blushing. Was it enough? Would that be enough to make them last?
She got up, finally mustering the courage to leave, when the meeting room door opened. The first out the door was Clive, who came straight towards her. He winced slightly, still healing from the damage he'd taken in the fight earlier. His long, dark hair was disheveled, but he still stole Beth's breath away when he smiled at her.
“We're not being punished,” he said quietly. “But everything isn't good. Cain’s going to be devastated.”
“Who’s Cain?”
Spurred Bearback (BBW Shifter Cowboy Western Romance) (Bear Ranchers Book 4) Page 60