Bear Anchor (BBW Shifter Romance) (FisherBears Book 2)

by Becca Fanning

  Hell, he knew what he was thinking just being alone with her. His thoughts all involved her consent, though. Consent, and hopefully excited participation.

  Her father's hired thugs? Not so much.

  He was not leaving her here alone.

  "I'm not going to argue with you because there's only one way I could convince you I'm right and even if those guys come back I'm not leaving you alone with them. Their expressions said exactly what they wanted to do with you. No, fuck that, what they were going to do with you. The minute they were finished dealing with me. They were not worried about hurting you, princess."

  She'd been looking away from him but she spun on him now with a snarl. "Don't call me that."

  Touched a nerve, he thought, and tried to feel guilty about feeling smug.

  She turned away from him, one shoulder against the bars, staring toward the big doors that led in and out of the room. Holden watched her and felt his sluggish brain start to kick off the aftereffects of the drug and work again.

  What if he took her with him? Dani didn't seem like she'd slow him down much. And if she knew where they took the shifters, then getting out wasn't giving up. Getting out was better than staying put.

  Staying put meant he found the truth while a prisoner. He might not be able to act like he needed to.

  For the first time it occurred to him that walking into the situation to find out what happened to shifters who were taken without any idea what he was walking into wasn't ballsy or brave but stupid enough to jeopardize anyone recently taken and still alive.

  So ask. If she knew, he had more than enough to go to the FBI with, and FBI wasn't a bad idea. Holden himself – known shifter with traces of drugs in his system and a hole from a dart in his thigh – should be proof enough. Along with Dani's information that they were taking bears between states.

  He frowned. Alive? Because he'd assumed the shifters were killed. Assumed it until Colby was taken and held in an abandoned ranch house, him and Gemma both. Maybe something had gone wrong that time but they'd been left without adequate food or water in a roasting hot closed up house in the Las Vegas desert. Why give them any care at first if they were just going to be left to die of dehydration or starvation?

  He understood not killing them on site. Moving them somewhere made sense. Or even just taking them long enough to not kill them where the killers might, at any minute run into some inconvenient innocent human witnesses and killing them to keep them quiet would put the whole operation at risk.

  He looked at her again. Why she'd tried to warn him off was obvious. Supposedly no shifter would want to get caught in this net.

  But what happened after?

  "Dani?"

  She turned, leaned her back against the bars and watched him.

  "What happens to the shifters?"

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  Too bad. So far he'd been chivalrous, attempting to rescue her, and polite. He was fricking gorgeous, too – tall, muscled, with that arrogant swanky cowboy swagger.

  Dani believed that even if she hadn't been born and raised in the West she'd have ended up here. Cowboys with their faded jeans, so often faded in just the places her eye wanted to go anyway, they hit something deep inside her.

  Just looking at a weather beaten hat, the eyes under the brim squinted against wind and sun, hands chapped from Nevada or Arizona or Idaho winds – all of it made her heart beat harder. Boots and faded jeans and leather work gloves made her hot, wet and wanting.

  The few boyfriends she'd had in college had been College of Agriculture students. The men she'd gone out with after coming home and before her father's descent from hater into active insanity, they'd all been western types.

  This guy, Holden Tyrell. She knew who he was. The first instant she'd seen him she knew. Over the years she'd watched him compete. Had a crush on him but what rodeo star hadn't she crushed on at some point?

  And the answer to that? Haters. She was tired of the stupid anti shifter sentiment even before she realized her father was part of it. Even before she got dragged into it.

  Holden Tyrell, though. She'd had some hot summer nights at home in bed thinking about him, about what those hands would feel like sliding over her flat belly, his fingers dipping into the waistband of her jeans. His hands were rough from use. His face chapped. Even in his early 30s it was obvious the boyish good looks were going to translate into weather beaten rugged cowboy looks later in life.

  He was fricking gorgeous, she thought again.

  But.

  But? Apparently he wasn't too bright.

  What happens to the ones they take? Seriously, he was asking that?

  Because even she wasn't as naïve as he thought. She knew what Dave and the others were thinking. They'd played out the scenario how many times before? And the only thing they'd ever done was look big and hulking when the mark came flying in to save her.

  No one had ever laid a hand on her before. That meant something had changed. It might mean her father was in some trouble with the organization.

  Or it might mean her father suspected Dani knew something.

  It might mean whether she had her proof or not it was time to get out.

  He shook his head impatiently like a horse shaking off a fly. "Killed, fine. But the bodies? No one is ever found. The few things anyone knows – " He stopped.

  She didn't push. If they got out of here, her father would know what she'd done. She didn't think he'd kill her. Not just because she was his daughter. But because of her mother. Walt still loved Christy. Killing Christy's daughter was unlikely, even if she didn't have any belief that, having crossed him, she was still safe just because she was his daughter.

  Also, she believed Holden wouldn't risk telling Dani Sjoberg what he knew.

  She blinked at him. He looked bigger than he had seconds earlier, and totally angry. His eyes had darkened. They were golden anyway, but now they looked dark. His mouth was set. His hands were flexed open.

  Mostly he looked so pissed.

  Her head swam. Fear caught up with her again and she threw herself back into words to fight it off.

  They both started talking at the same time.

  Dani said, "It's not what you think. Nobody lives through it, but sometimes they keep them alive for a while, I think – "

  Holden interrupted. "Your father, if he's involved, he's got to be doing something more than snatch and kill, why would they even bother to take shifters if they're just killing them? Snipers could pick off anyone who's out of the closet shifter, easier, and if these people don't care what happens to them because it's a cause –"

  She had just enough time to say, "It's not a cause, it's hate, and money – "

  She was going to finish, Dressed up as a cause.

  But the doors burst open and they came for them then.

  In the instant before armed men burst into the room, she looked again at Holden. Something flickered in the pit of her stomach that made no sense, based on a crush and maybe 30 minutes of conversation.

  Her thoughts as the men leveled another dart at Holden and started screaming at her were, Idiot! Why didn't you run?

  Why didn't you run? And take me with you?

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  They were coming. For him and the girl.

  In the moment before the armed men hit the doors, Holden got ready.

  The light coming through the window set high in the concrete wall had broken with the shadows of legs. Only for a second.

  Dani hadn't noticed it.

  Holden had. All the shifters he knew were hyperaware. No one knew if it was the effect of the animal spirit inside, healthy paranoia or just part and parcel of being different in today's world.

  He knew they were coming and even as she started to answer his questions about what happened to disappeared shifters, Holden pushed himself.

  He shifted, just so far. Enough to heighten senses again. Enough to hear them on the stairs outside the
doors. To sense how close they were. To judge by the way they moved and the thread of their voices, that they were armed.

  He guessed they'd come with tranqs. Nothing else made sense. Taking the time and putting themselves at risk just to get Holden into a cage and kill him here, trapped in a cage, made no sense.

  It wasn't even likely as setting an example, first because no one ever saw the results of such a thing or they'd all know what happened to taken shifters. And second because there was no point setting an example.

  Shifters were shifters. Nothing they could do about it.

  Even if they wanted to.

  It would be stupid for the men who grabbed him to risk themselves moving him to begin with. He'd been out. He'd been vulnerable.

  And killing him didn't produce return on investment. Seemed like there was more than hate going on. Hate would have him dead now.

  Money explained finding himself in a cage.

  Just before the men outside reached the doors that thought had left a bad taste in his mouth.

  They could shoot a tranq into any part of his body. There was nothing in the cell to cover his body with anyway. Hay, maybe, tucked under his clothes, if he had time. If he'd thought of it before they were on their way into the prison where he was trapped.

  If he wouldn't have to be bulky as the Scarecrow from Oz in order for it to block the damn needle from sinking through into his flesh. Anyone would be able to see that and make the decision what to do with him.

  Aim for uncovered skin.

  Or just shoot to kill.

  The only other thing he could think of doing to stop the drugs was the rage. Hormones freely coursing through his system triggered shifts when he raged. Not the only time. He could shift at other times. But the only time a shift might happen whether he wanted it to or not.

  If he did that, and they didn't come, he'd be a live, furious, hideously strong bear in a cage with a breakable girl he liked.

  If they came too late, he'd be a grizzly with little control. They'd tranquilize him and by the time he woke up – if he woke up –

  --and meanwhile they'd do what to the girl?

  And all the while he felt the heat rise, the hackles along his back rise, fur along his spine, his face still felt human, his jaw human, his teeth not fangs, his hands, held flexed wide open, were hands.

  He was bigger. Stronger. His heart pounded hard and fast.

  The rage filled him.

  The doors burst open.

  There were four of them. Four huge thugs, the same men he'd seen before, the ones he'd found interchangeable and he'd watched them but not close enough.

  Somehow he hadn't expected quite so many musclebound types to be on the captures. He'd expected guns. Maybe more of the type of man who stepped out from behind the hired muscle, his face schooled to boredom but Holden saw the light of sadistic glee in his eyes. The man Holden was looking at got off on causing pain. He'd do what he was doing even if there was no personal gain involved.

  "Daddy!" Dani's voice echoed in the room. She sounded terrified and furious.

  He hoped the fury would carry her through. He wouldn't have told her what he planned even if there was time. It needed to look like she really thought he was out, and she hadn't seen the changes in his body, distracted by the sounds of the men coming down outside metal stairs.

  Holden held onto human by a thread.

  They carried a variety of weapons. Dave and Jeff carried tranquilizer guns like zoo officials would.

  Stuart and Sam carried riot guns.

  Walter Sjoberg carried a Dirty Harry gun that looked heavy enough to throw the tall, thin man off balance. Now he looked at Dani and grinned, his eyes flinty cold, the smile malicious.

  "You did a good job with this one, baby. He's one of the Tyrells." The fake smile vanished and he turned his attention on Holden, his lip curling. "Fucking freak." He nodded, and the goons with the tranquilizer guns raised them.

  Dani stepped in front of Holden, her arms out, as if she could block everything. All they had to do was circle the cage and they'd be behind Holden.

  He didn't think it mattered. They'd probably shoot her if they had to. Even if they just used the tranquilizers on her, she might be hurt – Holden was considerably bigger than she was and had a totally different constitution. A dose of drugs meant for him and given to her might be deadly.

  He moved her easily, shoving her out of the way. To keep her safe. And because with her right next to him, his new size had to show.

  She bounced back to him like a boomerang. This time clinging. "Daddy, don't! Don't do this! Please, what if I – "

  Sjoberg didn't even bother looking at her. Just snarled, "Take him down."

  Holden sensed the man behind him, focusing through the bars of the cage. He let his frustration with Dani crescendo into rage and shoved her hard away from him this time.

  Her eyes were on his when she fell. Holden let no emotion show. Later, if there was a later, she'd understand.

  In that second, he saw fury and concern and something that confused him: hope.

  Then he'd looked away and whirled on the man behind him. Too late. The gun barked with a hiss of compressed air and the dart sank into his thigh.

  Holden squeezed his eyes shut, called up all his attention and felt the drug sliding through him. Some of it.

  Not enough. The rage was beating it back. Like adrenaline overcoming a nighttime sleep aid when an emergency happens.

  He sank to one knee. He roared.

  Outside the cage, three of the goons looked uncomfortable. The fourth, Dave, leered at Dani.

  You'll be first, Holden thought. Then he locked bear eyes on Walter Sjoberg and sank down into exaggerated stillness.

  The last of the shift rippled through him. He was grizzly, lying still on the bars on the bottom of the cage.

  Waiting to see what would happen.

  * * *

  Chapter Six

  They shot him!

  But the horror was tempered. She'd seen something in Holden's face right before he fell. About the time the harmless crush started – about the time she'd never have been able to talk to him if she met him because she wanted to too much – Dani had started riding seriously, wanting to compete. She'd spent her time watching all her heroes – live, on television, in videos. She watched Brianna Jackson, who'd roomed with Eddie Tyrell's girlfriend Dakota, and she watched each and every Tyrell, the way they competed, the way they trained.

  She knew that, for Holden Tyrell, right before he went into any physical challenge, his eyes closed, just for a second, like he was running internal systems checks, making certain everything was good to go.

  He'd just done that.

  He's not out.

  If her father and the others knew – no, just her father, the others wouldn't understand the subtlety – looked at Holden, he'd probably figure out the bear was faking it.