by Selena Scott
She fell easily into a sprint, grateful she'd worn sneakers. But then she wasn't grateful for much of anything as what felt like a semi truck crashed into her side.
Dora gasped, a sound dulled by the mushroom cloud of pain tearing through her. She rolled across the ground.
The sky through the leaves, dawn was coming, she thought vaguely as her rattled brain settled in her head.
And then she saw what had knocked her down. A bear.
Her mind jumped. Danil?
No. This bear was leaner. Its face was scarred and wild. One of the eyes in its angry face was sewn closed. When it bared its horrible teeth to her, Dora saw that many of them were a shiny titanium. And it stank. Even with her dull human nose, she could smell the offensive chemical scent rolling off of the beast.
The bear came to its two back feet and stared at her with what could only be described as hatred. Dora quailed under the look and felt horribly, horribly frozen. She knew she couldn’t outrun it. She couldn’t outmaneuver it. Her hands searched the ground frantically for a stick, a rock, anything she could use to stun the creature while she got away.
But then it reared back, lifting a paw the size of a Rottweiler, and prepared to take her from this earth.
Dora’s eyes were open as the paw came down, but it didn’t fall. It never touched her. Instead the bear roared a deadly roar of frustration as it was swept to the side in a blur. Dora sat up straight as she watched another bear knock it against a tree. Tear at its flesh with a vicious claw.
She saw the golden brown fur, the set of the shoulders. It was Danil. Danil was here.
***
A woman needed privacy. He knew this. But he didn't like it. He was pushing her too much and he fought against himself. It was in his nature to push. To take. And he was trying to find a balance with her.
So she could take her private moment in the woods and he would wait in the car with his brothers, like a non-suffocating husband. He crossed his arms over his chest and tapped his foot, peering through the woods and trying to get a glimpse of her.
She should almost be done by now.
Emin hung up the phone call with AJ and turned around in the car, speaking in fast Belarusian. "AJ wanted to know if any of us had seen the news last night. Apparently, Dora's arrests have made the news. The fact that she's a famous journalist, come out of hiding, and obviously investigating these animal testing sites has become a bit of a story. AJ says her cover has been blown. That they probably know we're coming. That we'll be watching the facility this morning. We should go." Emin's eyes suddenly focused and furrowed. "Where is Dora?"
Danil nearly took the door off its hinges as he flung himself out of the car. He was shifting, his clothes torn to shreds around him, a full-sized grizzly before he'd even made it five feet from the car. He bounded through the woods, her scent so strong he could taste it on his tongue. And the scent of another.
A bear. A shifter. A deep chemical smell. It was the way that Anton had smelled when they'd rescued him from Navuka.
Dimly, Danil heard the sounds of his brothers pursuing, but he kept their thoughts out of his head, concentrating only on finding her.
How had she gotten so far so fast? Danil thought frantically as he raced around the far edge of the facility. She was all the way on the other side of the woods.
He galloped through a stand of trees and didn't stop, even though his heart did, when he saw Dora splayed flat on her back and a horror of a grizzly bear, more machine than animal, looming over her, one paw raised to strike.
Danil was a beastly streak of lightning as he leapt over top of Dora's prone form, slamming into the Navuka grizzly. Because he had no doubt that's what this creature was. This monster.
As the massive bear slammed into the tree behind it, Danil caught sight of the metallic, enhanced teeth, he could smell the machinery whirring inside it, the chemicals pumping in its veins. And worst of all, he saw no spark of life in its single eye. Not even pain registered. The bear was completely brainwashed. Or controlled.
Danil got a flash of memory. What Anton had been like when they'd first freed him. Little better than dead for all the soul he'd had left. They'd had to nurse that back into him as well. His personality. His free will. His love for his family. He'd damn near forgotten it all in the year they'd spent turning him into a weapon.
As the grizzly stood on its back legs and roared what could only be termed a battle cry, Danil had to guess that this poor creature had spent more than a year in Navuka's grips. There was no turning back for this one. And it was with that in his brain, and Dora in his heart, that Danil charged the bear. The two great beasts clashed like Titans. There was the natural tree-trembling roar of two grizzlies in battle but there was also the foreign ear-splitting screech of Danil's teeth on metal as he pierced the skin of the other grizzly. There were plates of armor underneath the bear's skin. Injuring him was going to be difficult.
Danil roared in frustration as the other bear swiped and connected with Danil's shoulder, tossing him off balance and tearing into his thick hide. But it didn't put him down for long. The bear was bounding toward Dora again and Danil smashed him to the ground with a mighty roar.
Danil's teeth gripped for purchase on the grizzly's back. He found it. He punctured the hide and whipped the bear backwards, spinning him across the small clearing and setting him to roaring. The sticky, chemical-laden blood was like tar in Danil's mouth and he spit it out immediately. He turned, putting himself between Dora and the bear, and roared, lifting a paw and smacking the other grizzly to the ground again. The bear let out a growl of frustration and it hoisted itself to its feet, coming at Danil again.
And again, Danil smacked the bear to the ground. Danil's rage at the grizzly only grew. At Navuka. At whatever it was that was telling this bear to keep coming for Dora, even though it was injured, dragging, outmatched.
The bear had a crazed look in its eye and it was lunging for Danil again when it abruptly stopped.
Danil didn't need to turn to know his brothers had joined him in the clearing. He could feel them, smell them, hear them in his thoughts. He knew that Maxim stood over Dora, protecting her first. That Emin stood just back from Danil, ready to spring, and that Anton watched the other bear with a revolted grief at everything Navuka was capable of.
"No!" Danil heard Anton's voice in his mind as his brother sprang forward, anticipating the altered grizzly's next move. Danil watched in sick fascination as the augmented bear broke off one of his own metallic fangs and, without hesitation, jammed it fully into his own throat.
Anton got there a second too late, pulling it from the throat of the bear himself. But the bear was still, and dead already.
"He knew he couldn't take all of us. He did what they told him to do. Use his own poison," Anton said in all their heads. "They wouldn't let him be captured. Dying by your own hand is better than capture."
Anton held the poisonous fang in his claws before tossing it aside and turning back to his brothers.
"Let's get her to mama," Anton said and had Danil whirling.
Dora was crouched behind Maxim, her eyes wide and her face as white as a sheet. Danil ambled toward her, needing to reassure himself that she was okay.
He sat heavily in front of her and she fell into his meaty bear chest. He carefully encased her in his arms, knowing that it would be easy to accidentally be too rough with her in his bear form.
"I'm okay," she whispered. "I'm not. I'm not. A fainter," she managed, before she went even whiter and collapsed right off her feet.
The brothers chuffed out the bear versions of a small laugh. But they couldn't keep their eyes from the poor, augmented creature that lay dead behind them. That so easily could have been their own brother.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dora felt a warm hand brush the hair away from her forehead as her eyes fluttered open just a little.
"Dad?" she muttered. Where was she?
"No, child. It is Katya. Danil's mama. Though Danil tells me I
will be your mama soon, too."
Dora opened her eyes another crack and saw a room with dark blue walls and yellow flowers in a vase. She had a heavy white comforter over her and someone had pulled the curtains so a little bit of gray sun filtered in at the cracks. Her head was killing her.
“Katya?" That's right. It all came back to her in a wave. She wasn't with her dad. Her dad had passed away. She was in Spokane. Danil. The bear. She'd fallen. Danil had come for her.
The brothers must have taken her to their parents' house when she fainted. Dora tried to pull herself up and was happy to have Katya's strong grip on her elbow to help her. She was a little dizzy.
"Here. Drink." Katya tipped a small cup to Dora's mouth and she gladly opened up for it. And then almost coughed up a lung when she realized it was definitely not water. It was closer to whiskey, with a little nail polish remover mixed in.
"What the hell is that?" Dora sputtered.
Katya grinned at her and so did Ilya as he stepped in from the doorway of the bedroom. "Old Belarusian remedy," he said. "It cures what ails you. And puts hair on chest.”
"Oh, good," Dora said wryly. "Just what I've always wanted."
Ilya and Katya grinned again and then sobered as they shared a look.
"Where's Danil?" Dora asked.
"They go to bury body," Ilya responded, looking older than she'd ever seen him. "Danil did not want to leave you, but he needed to be with his brothers. With Anton, especially. And we could see you were okay."
"Yes, I’m fine," Dora said, gamely reaching for the cup of lighter fluid and choking down another sip. In a weird way, it was kind of helping. "I'm a little embarrassed. I mean, not that I've ever fought an animal before, but I would have liked to have handled myself a little better than that."
Ilya and Katya exchanged looks again.
"You fight in different way, no?" Katya asked, smoothing the blankets around Dora.
Dora cocked her head to one side in confusion.
"With your," Katya held one hand up in the air and mimed writing with a pen.
"Oh, with journalism. Yes, of course. That's my main weapon."
Ilya took a breath and Dora's hand in his own. "Danil will not like what I am going to ask you."
Dora looked back and forth between Ilya and Katya's faces. So serious, so sad. "You want me to keep looking into Navuka. Find out what they're doing and write about it."
"Shine a light on the cockroaches," Ilya said, nodding. "But we do not want to put you in danger."
"They almost kill my boy," Katya said. "They stole him from us. And change him. They give him pain. Change his body. Try to change his heart." She broke off and looked away, unable to go on. She took a deep breath. "Danil says they sent that bear for you. They knew you would be there and that you were trying to expose them."
Dora was thoughtful; she looked at the light lining the edges of the drapes. "Ilya, Katya, I wanted to nail Navuka when I thought they were just doing illegal testing on animals. And then I looked into them even further. I saw piece by piece of evidence that they were involving people, innocent people in their experiments. I pushed harder. I learned about shifters. I pushed harder. I've been wanting to expose them for over a year at this point. But now that I know what they've done to Anton, what they did to that - that thing in the woods that tried to kill me, well. I wouldn't be a Katsaros if I didn't expose them now. My father would turn over in his grave if I turned away from corruption like this."
She didn't see Danil in the doorway as she gripped his parents’ hands, and stared in their faces.
“Trust me. I won't stop until Navuka is dismantled piece by piece."
"Enough for now," Danil said, making the three of them jump. Ilya and Katya rose from the bed like guilty children. He said something to them in Belarusian and Katya spoke back to him in the sharp tone of a good, stern mother.
Danil bowed his head, but not his eyes. He was still fired up.
Dora figured that a Battle Royale in the woods might do that to a guy.
When they left, Danil closed the door after them, and crossed the room to Dora in two quick strides.
“So quiet. You were so quiet when I saw that monster over top of you. Why don't you scream? Scream for me. And I will come to you. Every time.”
Dora felt his words settle over her and she pulled them around her like a cape. A coat against the world. For so long, all she’d had was herself. The only place she could look to for protection had been her father. And then it was just her. But he was right. It was time. Time to lean on him. The way that he needed her to.
“Do the thing,” she said, reaching out for him. “The thing where you say words and then they come true.”
Something softened in his eyes when he realized that she was acquiescing, agreeing, opening. He changed his stance, stood straight up.
“You will call for me when you need help. Reaching at the top of the closet. Lifting a heavy grocery bag. Or when there are monster bears trying to dismantle you. You will call for me.”
“And when we’re in bed,” she added, to make him smile.
He didn’t smile. He took it very, very seriously. “Especially then.”
He simply climbed into the bed then and lay completely over her. His weight was constricting but deeply welcome as his scent filled her nose.
She rubbed a hand over his back and he winced. Dora quickly lifted the collar of his shirt to see a large, white bandage covering his shoulder.
"Danil," she started, but he shushed her, one hand over her mouth.
"Not now, my love. My wife. Later, when we wake. When we wake we will say it all." He laid his head onto her chest and Dora couldn't say no to that.
***
When they woke, the light in the room had dimmed with the coming evening. They could smell Katya's cooking wafting up the stairs.
"You're not going to stop, are you," Danil said in a careful voice. "Even though they tried to kill you today."
"Danil, I can't. Don't you see, it's so much bigger than I am."
He sighed. "My Pandora, where little curiosities turn into the grand search for truth."
"And justice," she added.
"And justice," he agreed. He was quiet for a moment before he propped himself up on his elbows. "But we must be married immediately. If you're going to keep pursuing this, putting yourself in harm's way, then I will be there by your side. Every time you do something I might not like, I must be there."
"Danil, you have a job yourself. You can't be there every time."
He frowned, seeing the truth of it. "Fine. Then at least two of my brothers must be with you."
Dora laughed. "It's either you or two of your brothers? Think a little much of yourself, huh?"
He smiled, hauling her up out of the bed to head downstairs.
They were all down there, even AJ. All except Anton, who was nowhere to be seen.
Dora went to take her place at the table next to Danil but was stopped as she passed Maxim. Reaching up, he took her face in his hands, planting a noisy kiss on her lips. "Here's to our little bird, who is going to help us be free from Navuka."
Next came Emin, who kissed her soundly as well. His kiss was just a touch passionate. Muscle memory, Dora supposed, from kissing so many women in his life.
And then came Ilya. Then Katya.
AJ held out her arms to Dora. "We're both American so I suppose we can just hug."
Dora laughed and embraced the small, sweet woman. She heard the back door of the house clang open and a moment later, Anton came into the room, pulling a shirt over his head. He must have shifted outside and come back for dinner.
Seeing the way everyone was leaning toward Dora, he cracked a quick, sharp smile and pulled her out of AJ's arms.
"We are thanking you, da?"
Dora nodded. "It appears so."
Anton bent down to Dora, his face only inches from AJ's shocked, open mouth, and took Dora's mouth in an incredibly friendly kiss. One that would have bl
own the roof off Dora's head had she not been kissing Danil for the last few weeks. At Danil's growl, Anton unleashed Dora and stepped back from her, holding her shoulders. "We get them, no? Together, we take down Navuka?"
"Uh. Yeah," Dora said, her head still a little fuzzy from all the Malashovik kissing she'd just been subjected to.
Danil batted Anton's hands away from Dora and shoved his brother back. "Hands away from my woman."
"She's not yours until you're married," Maxim called across the table as everyone sat down to dinner.
"Then she'll be mine in the morning," Danil growled, eyeing his brothers grumpily, because he knew what was going to happen next.
A cheer went up around the table and the Malashovik brothers all stood, swooping in to kiss the blushing bride again. Dora laughed, smiling into each kiss.
Later that night, Dora ran back up the stairs toward the bedroom she'd slept in. She'd left her coat up there and she wanted to grab it before Danil took her home. To their home. She nearly hugged herself in joy.
They'd be married tomorrow. He'd promised her that if he couldn't get the license in time, he'd fly them to Vegas to get it done. She didn't care what kind of wedding they had. Although she thought her dad would have gotten a kick out of a Vegas wedding. He had kind of had a thing for Elvis.
Dora grabbed her coat from the dark room and turned, running smack into Emin. He flipped the light on and paced over to sit on the armchair in the corner.
"I have question," he said, his dark eyes reserved.
"Okay," Dora said, leaning against the door jamb. "Shoot."
Emin rubbed a hand over his dark crop of hair. "When you investigated, and you realized that shifters were real, you believed it?"
Dora nodded slowly. "Maybe not at first. But the evidence I found in the abandoned labs was all pretty irrefutable."
"And you found evidence of other bear shifter families?”
“Well,” she shrugged, thinking hard. “Nothing that suggested families. But yeah, the evidence suggests that there are lots of other bear shifters in the world besides the Malashoviks if that’s what you’re asking.”