Planet Bear

by Rebecca Royce

  The Derbys’ home was falling apart. I’d been there two days, and they’d done nothing but shout around me. No one spoke to me, but at least I should be grateful I wasn’t being beaten or locked in some kind of bear dungeon. There were at least ten clans there all gathered, and their female mates and daughters ran around cleaning as the men drunkenly sloshed through the house, yelling and breaking things—either accidentally or on purpose.

  They threw food at me to eat, but other than that, I’d mostly been left alone. If I had to pee, someone took me.

  The guy I’d come to think of as the leader, since he was quieter than the others and yet they deferred to him, held my attention. I wondered if part of being a good person in charge required the ability to be quiet and listen a whole lot of the time. Not that I was going to compare this man who was holding me prisoner to Finn.

  Time moved slowly. I watched them as they drank. I watched them as they puked. For people who didn’t want humans on their planet, they were certainly hypocritical when it came to their behavior. They were hardly keeping themselves pure and neat.

  They talked often of my mates. Calling them traitors and saying they had lost sight of what it meant to be a bear. I almost called out to them then; I almost argued.

  I was dumb, not stupid. Sometimes, it was just better to keep my damned mouth shut.

  But the leader, he watched me. And it really creeped me out. After two days, he finally had something to say.

  “I don’t like that she can understand us when we speak.” The leader got up and walked over to me. “Her people will be able to ask her things about us, and she knows more than she should.”

  McDermott shrugged. “Too late to do anything about that now. This is almost over.”

  “Well, she doesn’t have to hear anymore.”

  “How do you propose to. . .”

  I never heard what he said. One second, I sat on the floor, watching them converse, the next, the bear I thought was the leader picked me up with one hand. I dangled in his hold, my feet not touching the floor. He hit me in the left ear. Once. Twice. Three times. The world tilted sideways. He didn’t just want to hurt me.

  He was disconnecting my translator. Breaking it. Three swift hits short-circuited the device. It was a design flaw.

  That was the last coherent thing I thought.

  The world seemed to scream at me in a tongue I did not speak. My head rang. Everything went black.

  “Now, it’s time to open your eyes, miss.”

  I wrenched my lids open. I didn’t know where I was, but it wasn’t in the Derby’s house anymore. I rubbed my eyes? “Where am I?”

  “On a spaceship heading back to Earth,” an elderly woman spoke to me. “You were concussed, but we fixed that right up with the concussion serum. You’re lucky. Almost no one gets away from that savage place.”

  The gray-haired older lady wasn’t just anyone. She was the president of the Union’s pilots. One of the first to be paid full time to deliver for them. She was in charge of all of us now, but it was mostly a figurehead position. She didn’t fly anymore. What was she doing here with me?

  “I. . .” I sat up, and she didn’t try to stop me. Dizziness came and went before I could speak again. “What’s going on? You’re Lara Washington. What are you doing here? I need to go back. My mates. They’ll think I’m dead. I have to go back.”

  She sighed, covering her mouth with her hand for a second. “I’m here because we didn’t want a galactic incident over this. I mean, really, dear, can’t you have at least the good sense to die if you crash in a place like that?”

  I startled. What had she just said? “I. . .”

  She waved her hand. “We needed our gold back. The Derbys had you. We aren’t to be there. It was easier to take you. As for your mates. . .” She sneered on the last word. “Ten men and women have been rescued from there. It’s always mates or mate this and that. No, it’s all insanity. Something they do to you. Don’t worry. We have the cure.”

  I jumped off the table. “I don’t want to be cured. I love them. Just take me back. You’ll never have to worry about me again.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen.”

  Two men came through the door. One of them wielding a syringe like a weapon. I didn’t rush to get away from them. Where would I go? I sighed. Numbness struck me before I was ever poked with the needle that I was sure would put me back to sleep. Lara had wanted me awake long enough to deliver the bad news that I was truly fucked. Awful kind of her.

  I was never going to see my mates again. Even on the planet, I had managed to maintain some hope. But that was gone now. They couldn’t find me out here. Some bears might travel through space, but my guys didn’t. And who knew where I’d ultimately end up?

  They were going to put me somewhere I’d never be able to tell anyone about Planet Bear. About matings. About whatever might make people interested in a place we weren’t to go.

  I turned to the gentleman holding the syringe. “Do you suppose that it was better I knew what love felt like once or would it have been better never to know it?”

  He didn’t give me an answer. That wasn’t surprising. The needle stung.

  Of all the places I’d expected to spend time during my life, an asylum hadn’t been one of them. Nope, not at all. I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised, but six months since I’d been dumped here, informed I was crazy for thinking that I was mated and that they were going to fix me, I wasn’t any less shocked.

  Maybe I was nuts. Maybe I was mentally deficient because I couldn’t get my head around the sheer lunacy of this.

  I laughed, and the orderly shook his head. Yep, I was having full-fledged conversations with myself. They’d made me crazy since they locked me up. Oh sure, I wasn’t looking at bars like in a prison cells, but it turned out there were lots of ways to be confined against one’s will.

  This was one of them.

  Across the hall was a woman they’d pulled off Wolf Planet. She rambled a lot and rocked. Screamed for her mate. Just one. . .

  They were drugging her more than me because I made less noise. That seemed to be the key. Don’t give the doctors, nurses, or orderlies a headache, and you don’t have to live your life in chemically induced misery.

  What was really weird was how I could still see my bears in my mind. As though I could touch them if I just tried hard enough. I’d given it a go a few times now, and it hadn’t helped. No, on this hellish man-made moon circling Earth, I couldn’t reach them. No matter how hard I tried.

  My hearing was going. Day by day it got worse. Whatever the Derby asshat had done, I was having trouble hearing even the most basic things. The doctors said I was crazy. They wouldn’t fix me. Soon, I’d not have to hear a thing anyone said to me.

  I threw down the pudding I’d been trying to eat. They were probably gone. I hoped that wasn’t true. That thought was the only thing left that could make me cry. They had to think I was dead.

  That meant they’d be gone now. I wiped at my eyes. Mates didn’t outlive each other very long. I curled up in a ball. I was done with today’s hell. I wouldn’t tell my captors that my mating didn’t happen. It did.

  I’d never deny it. I’d die first.

  Six months earlier

  Finn

  * * *

  I crawled to my feet, stumbling twice. Rylan was out cold, but he wasn’t dead. I listened to the woods. Nothing. No sound of battle. No sound of Cole calling for us. What in the hell had happened?

  “Brother.” I shook him slightly, and he moaned. It would have taken a lot of whatever we’d been struck with to bring us both down.

  I couldn’t even remember what happened. It didn’t matter. Someone had taken us down, and that meant this whole area was at risk. Why? This wasn’t how we warred.

  “Rylan.” I shook him again. “Up. Now. Need you.”

  His eyes opened slowly. He sat up and scrunched up his face. “What in the fuck happened?”


  “Not sure. I. . .”

  A roar sounded in the night. It was half bear, half man and all of it pain. I knew the sound instantly. That was Cole. In horrific grief. I was running before I even realized. I shifted mid-stride. I’d be faster as a bear, and my bear wouldn’t let me down. He’d get to Cole.

  As a bear, I didn’t have to think, so I didn’t. He and I both knew what could make Cole sound like that. There were only three people on the planet that would warrant that response, and I knew Rylan and I were fine.

  I arrived at the house, shifting into my human form. Cole was on his knees, and our home was. . .gone, burning, a pile of rubble on fire. Why hadn’t I smelled it?

  “The drugs.” Rylan answered. It must have been his first question too.

  Cole pointed at the burning mess, his hand shaking. I’d make this fine. “It’s okay. We can build a new one.”

  I never gave a shit about stuff. It was all just. . .I whirled around. Where was Jessica? We needed to block her from the flames. She’d feel the heat more than we would.

  On Cole’s face, I saw reflected the realization that my brain refused to acknowledge. “She’s in there.”

  Cole nodded. “I left her here .You were supposed to be coming back. Ten minutes. I. . .I got struck with something. It knocked me out. I. . .”

  “Us too.” Rylan’s voice broke. “We have to get her out. She can’t make it in there much longer.”

  Rylan rushed to the flames. I grabbed him. He wasn’t thinking. None of us were. “She’s not alive.”

  I said the words, and then I joined Cole on the ground. Our little human had just burned to death. Had it been an explosion? I looked up. How would I know, and what did it matter? My girl was gone. We just had her. How could. . .

  I roared to bring down the heavens. The space. Sky. I didn’t care. Rylan wanted to run into the flames, and fuck it, so did I. If she was in there, I’d be there too.

  “Commander.” A voice from the woods called out to me. Bronson? What in the hell did he want?

  I couldn’t answer him. Maybe he’d understand, maybe he wouldn’t.

  “She was taken. I watched. I should have stopped him. But. . .he’s so violent. I thought if I did save her, then it would be worse. He took her.”

  Bronson rambled a lot. His brain had been addled in a war. He’d never been quite the same since. Cole and Rylan watched him with rapt attention while I managed to pull myself up one more time.

  “Who took her?”

  9

  Cole

  I’d always believed the thing about being a bear was that when we battled, it would be a fair fight. At the end of the day, we struck at one another and the stronger bear walked away. Even when my mother had died during a war, it had been shifted as a bear, fighting to protect her home. She had lost that day. Maybe most of that responsibility fell on my fathers’ shoulders. But it had been a fair fight that hadn’t gone our way.

  What McDermott did, taking our mate—hitting us with poison darts, knocking us out, and faking her death after burning our home—it wasn’t what bears did. We all had the souls of a bear pressed inside of us. How did his bear live with it?

  In any case, my own bear was perfectly comfortable with what we were doing. Revenge made us both happy.

  If I’d been shifted, I might have even started to tear him apart while he still lived. Piece by piece. I might have seen how long I could keep him alive while I did that. It might have made the whole act sweeter.

  As it was, he was strapped to a medical table able to hear the Derbys dying in the other room. Finn wanted him dead, and he wanted to do it himself. It was hard to restrain my bear from doing what he would do naturally—kill any that hurt his mate. But we were waiting.

  In the meantime, he was terrified. The scent wafted through the room, and that was something. Not enough. But something.

  Rylan walked in. He stared at the whimpering McDermott and looked back at me. “Surprised he’s still alive.”

  “Our clan leader asked me to let him kill him. I am doing as I was asked.” I clenched my jaw. I didn’t know if I was ever going to stop feeling this angry. How could I ever let it go? The emotion overpowered everything.

  Someone shouted from the other room, and Rylan put his hand on my back. “Go. I’ve killed my share. You can go take yours. I’ll watch our betrayer. At least with the Derbys, they never came to the house, they never pretended to be anything other than what they were.”

  “I was trying to save this planet,” he called out from the bed. Rylan lifted his eyebrows.

  I ignored McDermott. “You’re controlling the bear.”

  “Looks like it.”

  That was great news. We could celebrate another time.

  Okay, my brother Finn could manage this piece of shit on the table. I had enemies to end. Yes, my bear liked that. I strode into the room ready to shift. There were four bears other than my brother, and two of them cowered in the corner. That wasn’t enough of a challenge. Finn turned to look at me. As a grizzly, he always looked like he was in impressive control. He’d so terrified those two bears that they weren’t even trying to fight?

  He stepped back. Yes, he understood. I needed this. Jessica was my mate. She had fallen from the sky, and she was mine. She belonged to our clan. She and no one else would have my cubs should such a thing happen. I would not live in a universe without her.

  And all of these fuckers could die.

  I could heal. But I could also kill.

  Tonight was about the second.

  * * *

  Rylan

  I listened to the sounds of death from the other room. Cole would end the only two bears worth fighting, and he’d do it fast. Finn had started to taunt them. That meant it was time to change gears. I kept them all safe, and sometimes that was against their worst selves. Finn could be cruel, mean, to those he deemed unworthy of his time. These lesser beings had taken our mate.

  He needed to get down to it so we could get information from McDermott. All he had said was he would end the man. He hadn’t said anything about who was going to get the information.

  I smiled at McDermott, and he paled. Yes, that was right. He saw death in my eyes.

  I put my hand on his stomach. “How long do you think you could live if I cut you here?” I wasn’t shifted. In that state, my claws were always out. That didn’t mean I couldn’t hurt him. I grabbed a knife. It looked like one someone might use in the kitchen. Why did the Derbys have this stuff in their medical room? I shrugged. They didn’t have anything anymore. They were all very, very dead.

  Finn walked into the room, still a bear. He stood by the doorway, tilting his head. Okay, if he didn’t want to shift and do this just yet, I would.

  “Where is my mate?”

  McDermott’s mouth shook which made it hard for him to speak. “Your mating can’t be real. She’s human. You’re simply infatuated with her because of her blonde hair and blue eyes.”

  Oh, I was done with this. I put the knife through his hand. He shouted, roaring with pain, the bear in his eyes. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not strapped the way Cole had him. “Try again.”

  We would get to her. As fast as we could. This man was going to give up his information. And I was going to make it hurt.

  A lot.

  * * *

  Jessica

  One year in the asylum

  An alarm blared, waking me slightly. It had to be extremely loud for me to hear it, but what did it matter, really? They’d drugged me for crying too much. That was okay. They kept me like this, and it was better. All the fight was out of me. I rolled over. Someone would turn off that alarm soon. Maybe it was a mind game set to screw with some of the rebels they had here. Funny thing was that I hadn’t even known there were rebels. Who rebelled? Who cared that much about the dang Union?

  I shut my eyes. A minute later, I was shaken awake. Groaning, I forced myself to rise to the surface of consciousness.

  I had to be seeing thin
gs. It looked like Rylan, Cole, and Finn stood right over me. Behind them there was chaos. Inmates running everywhere. What a weird dream. I closed my eyes.

  I was picked up. That was fine. I didn’t have to think about where I was going or if I could walk there. The meds kept me off balance. That was because I’d tried to run away. Couldn’t do that if you couldn’t walk. . .

  They had an injection for everything.

  My head throbbed, and some time passed. Where was the orderly with my daily feel-nothing pill? I’d take it now. I wouldn’t even object. I could just. . .

  I opened my eyes. Cole stood over me. He wiped my head with a cool cloth.

  “Dream?” I’d started to shout what I said, I thought. I couldn’t hear myself unless I did.

  He scrunched up his face, and although he said something, it was too low for me to hear it. It didn’t sound like words, just mumbligook. Like any language that wasn’t my own now sounded.

  “Look, dream, I can’t hear you. They broke me. My hearing is all but gone, I can’t speak bear, and my translator is gone too. I’m broken.” I waved at his hand when he tried to wipe at me again. “If you can still understand me, go away. I don’t like to see them. It’s nothing but pain.”

  The dream of Cole didn’t listen and instead, continued to talk too low for me to hear. He was insistent on wiping my face with the cloth. I bet if I could hear him, it would be soothing. Finn appeared, standing next to him. They opened and closed their mouths, clearly discussing something, and Cole rose to walk over to the medicine cabinet.

  Oh no. This dream had taken a decidedly nightmarish turn. I liked my drugs just as they were. The cocktail I was on didn’t need to be altered, and I didn’t need any more injections. I threw myself off the medical table. Or I would have, if Finn hadn’t caught me.

  He pressed his lips to my temple, and he made noises I couldn’t understand. This was so ridiculous. I was on a spaceship in this scenario, and my guys never would be. Rylan came through the door. He shouted unintelligible sounds, but at least I could hear how he made them.