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HANS
Teaser of Erik – Band of Bears
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Spoil the Shifter in you…
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Copyright 2017 by J. S. Striker - All rights reserved.
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Dragon
The Clan Legacy Series
By: J. S. Striker
Tables of Contents
Keep in touch!
THANK YOU!!
HANS
Teaser of Erik – Band of Bears
More Steamy Not So Shifter Stuff Right Here
Check out my other books!
Spoil the Shifter in you…
Keep in touch!
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Maker of Sexy Shifters
HANS
CHAPTER ONE
Hans Grayson didn’t know what to do.
It wasn’t an easy admission, especially for someone like him who had a high status in this community—not that he was going to announce his helplessness, thank you very much. Weakness didn’t have a place here, and he’d rather swallow dirt than admit it.
Which, of course, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do anything about it.
It had been happening for weeks now—unnoticeable at first, just a few of them dying and everyone thinking it was an isolated incident. An accident, for one, who was hit by a car before the symptoms were discovered by the resident doctor. A sudden sickness, for the other, which they all simply thought was from an infection of some kind.
Shifters rarely got sick. And bear shifters? They were the toughest of the lot when it came to that, which made the term healthy as a bear not something to be sneezed at.
After those two first incidents, it was like the world pounded at their lot as bear shifters started dropping like flies. The first symptom was fever, followed by hallucinations and a tendency towards violence. Then, a few days later, it would all vanish as the shifter would go comatose…and never rouse again. The only indication that it was the same disease, other than these symptoms, were the purple rings under the shifters’ eyes on their last days before death.
His breed was dying. They were dying slowly, sometimes painfully.
He’d be lying if he said it didn’t bother him. He’d be stupid if he didn’t do anything about it. As a bear clan leader, it was an automatic responsibility to preserve their line. As a bear shifter himself, it was the decent thing to do for the people he considered his family.
And so, even when he wasn’t really on good terms with the ultimate clan leader of all shifters, Dylan Masters, he knew it was time to stop dilly-dallying and make a move. Hence, he requested the meeting, agonizing over the hours when he got no response. He grew restless, unable to let out his energy by shifting into his bear form and hunting the woods—not when he needed to respond to Dylan’s call as soon as it arrived.
Finally, three hours later, he got summoned to Dylan’s office. Since they lived in the same shifter headquarters, it was only a matter of crossing the hallway and going up two flights of stairs until he reached it. He knocked twice, hearing a call to enter on the other side. Without preamble, he did, and found that Dylan wasn’t alone.
Beside him was Sophia Gray, resident witch ally and mate of a dragon shifter. Hans held back a grimace, not entirely liking this new development at all. For one thing, he wasn’t really on good terms with her, considering his stand against witches, vampires and anything that wasn’t shifter or human. He still didn’t fully trust them—but he was easing up a bit, considering they’d proven their worth in the battle against some actual evil witches a few months ago.
Again, not something he was going to announce.
He’d chosen not to join that battle, hence the often cold treatment from the other clans, sometimes including Dylan. He could live with that.
What he couldn’t live with was seeing his shifter brothers die.
So Hans swallowed his pride and stepped forward, keeping his eyes on Dylan as he explained his dilemma. Dylan listened with no expression showing on his face, save for the tilt of his head to the side. His face had grown weary since that last battle, blond hair mixing with silver now, luckily the look suited the wolf shifter.
When Hans finished, there was silence. Then Dylan turned to Sophia, and they exchanged glances. He turned back to Hans. Sighed.
“I had a feeling you were going to say that,” Dylan started. “Which is why I brought Sophia to this meeting.”
The statement puzzled Hans enough to glance at Sophia, who was refusing to look at him. He gave Dylan a raised brow.
“Sophia?” Dylan prompted. “Can you tell him what you told me earlier?”
Reluctantly, the witch finally looked up. Then she spoke.
Hans remained silent while she did, absorbing her words as quickly as he could. The witch spoke of the disease and how she and some trusted allies had discovered its cause. Hans’ brows both rose up as Sophia went on to say that the disease only affected bear shifters—and anyone who had sexual contact with them.
“Why is that?”
Sophia cleared her throat, honey eyes meeting his head on. “Because it’s a spell made by a witch whose lover was killed by a bear shifter. This is her revenge.”
It was too preposterous to be real. But then again, it was too preposterous to not be real.
“What’s the cure?” he asked.
Sophia hesitated. “It’s located in a charmed mountain and forest area in Perthshire. It’s not really visible to the human eye.”
“Well, I’m not human,” Hans stated the obvious.
“It’s also very dangerous,” Sophia said. “What we know is the witch who made the spell has hidden the cure there along with herself, and she sealed it from the world. She’s territorial, so witches and shifters can’t enter the area. She’s also very powerful, so no one has tried.”
“And the cure?”
“It’s a black-colored plant. The leaves can be extracted and made into a potion to drink.”
Impatience simmered inside Hans, but he tried to keep it under control. He eyed Sophia coldly, and could tell her back went stiff at
the gaze. Maybe he should have cared, but at the moment he didn’t give a damn. “Is there any way to access it?”
“There is, but again it’s very dangerous—”
“Well what is the way to access it?”
Sophia glared. But Hans had directed his gaze at her and Dylan now, until the latter eventually sighed again. Weariness radiated from Dylan, and Hans knew it wasn’t just because of this meeting. The leader was dealing with a lot.
“Yes. Sophia can make you a potion that will allow you to enter the area. But we can’t risk any other men for this, Hans.”
He figured that—it was Dylan’s way of saying that Hans had messed up, whether he liked it or not. So Hans looked the shifter leader straight in the eye and firmly said his next words.
“No, we can’t. Which makes my solution perfect.”
*****
That was how Hans found himself, alone, at the bottom of the location the witch and the shifter leader had given him. It didn’t take him long to take half the potion, which Sophia had said would last him a good minute—enough to enter the barrier that was placed there. Once he was in, he wouldn’t be able to get out and vice versa unless he took the potion again. The walk through the fields was easy enough, it felt like he was going on a hike in the friendly parts of Scotland. Hans loved hiking in itself, and had often done it when he wanted to get away from the world and his responsibilities.
But this was no simple hike.
He was cautious, even more so than what instinct dictated as he finished passing the fields and went on to the first forest area leading upwards. There were pine trees everywhere, and the regular sounds of little animals scurrying about that came with every forest or jungle there was. Nothing threatening, but it was too early to tell. In this initial part, though, the forest itself was normal—similar to the ones he trekked in the mountains of Tibet and France back when he was still young and not too entwined in the politics of being a leader. Up above, the sky was a clear light blue, indicating sunny weather ahead. He took advantage of that by walking longer, keeping his ears up for any strange sounds.
Four hours later, he deemed it time to rest. Hans had brought only some weapons and a few food packages with him, but that was only for emergency cases. He put his clothes and bag in a hidden place and shifted to his bear form so he could hunt down some rabbits for a fresh meal, then took note of the area using his animal form. Still no danger as far as he could sense.
When he was full, Hans shifted back to his human form and got dressed, then hunted down a water source. The water was fresh, and now he was recharged. So he continued trekking up, navigating the alternate fields and forest areas. Up ahead, the top of the mountain loomed, surrounded by fog despite the sunny weather. He didn’t know what lay ahead, but he’d face it without hesitation—anything for the survival of his clan.
Morning turned to noontime. Despite his earlier forecast of sunny weather a light drizzle came, but only for a few minutes. It made the grass smell sharper, and when Hans looked back, he saw that he had covered a couple of miles already. Before the sun set, he would need to look for a place he could settle in—perhaps perched in a large tree to be safe. A few hours of sleep was needed, then he could strap his stuff on his arm, shift to his bear form again and continue on in the darkness.
He continued on for a bit as he considered his options, realizing he might also need to hunt for food again. The sun went down slowly, an orange ball that disappeared through the trees and left darkness in its path. There was only a half moon, but he made use of the light until he found an area with some bushes and a large pine tree. He could settle here. He could—
A twig snapped.
Hans could have dismissed it as a squirrel passing by, or one of the deer he saw earlier. But he’d suddenly become aware that all animal sounds were gone, something that he should have noticed sooner. His neck prickled, and he quietly shifted his hands into claws, still acting as casual as possible.
He had enough time to see movement on his right and smell the sickening odor before a blur leapt at him from the left. Then it was toppling him to the ground and trying to snap at his throat.
Rogue vampires.
If there was anything he hated more than an actual vampire, it was rogues. Rogue vampires were hideous, hunched down like animals in form and badly disfigured, with loose skin barely clinging to their bones and a gray pallor. They smelled horrible, a stench that was a putrid mix of rotting garbage and corpses. Their red eyes and yellow teeth, along with the saliva dripping from their mouth, made them look even more hideous. Rogues were vampires who went crazy, unable to control their lust for blood and losing whatever semblance of a mind they once had.
This rogue looked at him with a mindless focus, clawing at him everywhere desperate for his blood.
Another rogue lunged, the one that he’d seen first. He only had a second to shift to his bear form, hearing his clothes tear as he did. Just as the second lunged for his thigh, he kicked it away and tackled the first, making use of his own claws to mutilate. Limbs tore and blood spilled, and soon the two rogues were down for the count, while he was still standing on all four paws.
Hissing came, louder and louder. He turned just in time to see two more rogues climbing down from trees. More hissing at his back, and he took a quick turn to do a quick count. There were more than twenty of them.
He wasn’t expecting this.
Just as that thought entered his mind, they all tensed.
Then they all jumped Hans at once.
CHAPTER TWO
Hunting rogues wasn’t a passion, but a necessity.
At least, that’s how Nell saw it.
It was also a mission assigned to her by the vampire leader Lucinda, who trusted Nell more than she trusted anyone—except for her mate, of course. Mates trumped assistants in matters of trust at all times, and Nell was fine with that.
Five days ago, they received news that there were too many rogues scourging the mountain area of Scotland. Perthshire, in particular, where there was a rumored nest on top of the mountain, which was very alarming. Rogues in New York had already been regulated thanks to the joint efforts of the vampire and shifter alliance. The new first-in-line vampire, Vladimir, was supposed to handle most of the European section—but he was still new to his role and concentrating his efforts towards London and Russia, where an influx had also been detected and needed to be controlled. The second-in-line, Raz, was busy in Africa, teaming up with the dragon clan leader, Henrik—who resided there—to do some cleaning up.
Hence, Nell was asked to step in.
She didn’t mind, because it gave her the opportunity to get away from the city and breathe some fresh air for the first time in years. She loved New York, loved working for Lucinda—but the demands were plenty, especially now that she was a vampire. It wasn’t in any way due to the vampire leader’s bossiness, because Lucinda gave her a break more than anyone. But Nell felt that she had to work hard.
It was the only way she could ever repay Lucinda for saving her life when she was killed as a human.
Then, when she was no longer human, for helping her control her bloodlust enough to have a normal vampire life.
That wasn’t to say she was slacking off right now. She was still working hard, but at least it was under the radar. She could sightsee while she did so.
And she could kick some rogue ass.
She arrived in Perthshire via a portal from New York to Scotland, then trekked her way to the base of the mountain. One of the trusted vampire council members had provided her an obscure map, and she imprinted the image in her brain before throwing the map away. That was one of the perks of having a great memory—you didn’t have to bring unnecessary extra baggage with you.
From the bottom of the mountain area, she went forward for a slow, somewhat leisurely hike. Lucinda had told her to take her time and wipe out what she could, and a witch ally had given her potions she could use for her convenience. Right now, she was covered in
a potion that made her smell like them—horribly smelly, but only rogues could smell her. She smelled like nothing for all others. It was a brilliant potion, and she had more in her bag for the rest of the trip.
Two hours later, she found her first rogue encounter. It was hiding inside a dark undergrowth of bushes, and she could smell it a mile away. Rogues were generally easy to find because of their putrid smell, but they had a habit of sneaking up on you and rendering it too late for you to detect them.
Nell had no problem with that, because she’d practiced this—fighting rogues at headquarters for training, then hunting them in the city itself.
Morning turned to afternoon. She’d killed only two during her hike, a number that didn’t sit well with her. So she gathered her energy by drinking the blood of a mountain deer, a welcome change to the other animals she took the blood of in the city. She sat from time to time, taking in the view on top of a branch and deducing that it might rain tomorrow.
When night fell, she shifted her tiny bag on her shoulders and started walking again. This time, she walked faster.
It was time to hunt.
*****
Night fared better, and Nell was able to kill five in under two hours—a fact that pleased her very well. Her good mood didn’t last long when on her third hour of hiking up, hissing could be heard.
Too much hissing.
The hairs on her head prickled as a certain chill surrounded the air. Her scent-altering potion was still in place, and her black cloak gave her the cover she needed. But somehow it didn’t seem enough, because it sounded like there was over a dozen.
It sounded like a damn congregation.
She’d stayed hidden in the trees the moment she heard the sound, trying to gauge where it was coming from. It sounded North—North up, where she was supposed to be headed. Surely this wasn’t some trap?
Hans (The Clan Legacy) Page 1