by Amelia Jade
“Sorry,” came the voice.
Allix frowned.
“Aksel?” she called.
“Allix?”
The shifter emerged from a side path.
“What are you doing here?”
“Needed to clear my head,” the big shifter said. “You?”
“Same.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Aksel hesitated. “Not yet, to be honest. But I’ll gladly listen if you want to.”
She shrugged, not seeing much point in hiding it. “I want Luther to Turn me,” she said bluntly. “But he’s worried about me.”
Aksel’s eyebrows rose. “To Turn you?”
“Yes,” she told him firmly. “I don’t know how to describe this, but there is something about this that just clicks with me. Like I was supposed to come here, like this is what I’ve been searching for my entire life.”
She laughed sarcastically. “All my life I’ve been wandering, trying to avoid following the rules, to do my own thing as I found myself. Turns out I’ve been doing it all wrong. I needed order, rigidity, and rules to follow. Who knew?” she asked bitterly, not expecting an answer.
“Being Turned isn’t something to take lightly though,” Aksel said at last. “It’s serious, dangerous business. You could be killed.”
She snarled. “I know. But I’m strong, I know that. And it feels so right that I think that would help me get through it. It’s like part of me knows this is what I was always destined for.”
“You are one of the strongest humans, male or female, that I’ve ever met,” Aksel agreed. “I’ve been shocked at how easily you’ve adapted to our lifestyle over your human one.”
She smiled. “It’s not that hard. You’re violent, you drink more, you’re always horny, but other than that, it’s not horrifically different.” She frowned. “Except most of you are all good people, despite those traits. You beat the shit out of each other, but if one of you is in trouble, or needs help, none of you hesitate to be there for them. Even if they were the ones you were just fighting. It’s remarkable, to be honest.”
Aksel smiled. “Well, you do seem to find the best in us. It helps that you’ve got Luther. He’s one of the best of us.”
Allix blushed. She did have Luther. It felt nice to hear it, to know that others saw it too. He was hers. She was his.
“Besides the danger of it all,” she said, continuing on with the original subject, “I can’t really come up with any cons. I have no family, no real friends, nothing tying me to the outside world. I am, in essence, an orphan of human society.”
The big shifter nodded thoughtfully. “That does lend itself well. I can see why you would feel that way. But I can’t stress enough how dangerous it is.”
Allix looked up at him unhappily. “Luther kept saying that too. But he didn’t tell me exactly what happens, or what makes it so damn dangerous.”
“He didn’t?”
She pursed her lips. “Truthfully, I didn’t think to ask him.”
“Ah. Well, what happens is exactly how it goes in legends. He will bite you while in animal form. The bite will work its way through your system, changing you. If you’re strong enough to work through the fever and other side effects that come with it, your bear will manifest inside your weakened mind and body. You will then have to fight it mentally, and force it into a cage. If you survive all that, then we’ll teach you how to harness the bear and to shift.”
He shrugged. “It’s quite simple, but really quite deadly. The wound will bleed a lot, and you will be very weak. The fever that accompanies it is quite pronounced and can kill you by heating you up too fast.”
Allix bit her lower lip as she considered all that Aksel had just shared with her.
“I have to be bitten to be Turned?”
Aksel stopped walking and looked across at her.
“Just what the hell did you expect would happen?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “That wasn’t it though. I just figured that…” she trailed off, not sure what else to say. “Okay, maybe I didn’t think about it enough.”
Aksel’s brown eyes locked gazes with hers as he spoke once more, conveying the gravity of it.
“Allix, this isn’t some safe and secure hospital procedure we’re talking about here. This is an animalistic forced conversion from your normal human self to something else entirely. You have to mutate, to change. It’s not safe. It’s violent, bloody, and often deadly.”
She swallowed hard, feeling nervous for the first time as she realized just what she was getting herself into.
“I see.”
Aksel’s description hadn’t swayed her away from her earlier decision. Not yet.
“I’d be lying if I said I thought it was a good idea,” he continued. “How did you even learn about it? I can’t see Luther telling you.”
“He didn’t,” she said distractedly, still picturing in her mind the idea of Luther’s bear tearing a chunk out of her skin. “The commandant did.”
Aksel flinched, almost as if he’d been struck.
“The commandant told you about the Turning?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. I kinda sorta ran into him. Literally. He asked why I was so upset, so I told him how I wanted to help, but nobody would let me. He mentioned the Turning. I guess maybe he thought I already knew?”
Aksel shook his head. “No, the commandant wouldn’t just drop something like that. He rarely says something of consequence without seeing something behind it all.” The shifter frowned. “If the commandant suggested it, perhaps he believes you to be strong enough.”
“Luther seemed to put a lot of stock in his words as well.”
“Smart man,” Aksel said with a smile.
Allix smiled back. “He is that.” She inhaled deeply. “Thanks for helping enlighten me a bit more, Aksel. But, ah, I think I need to think the rest of this over on my own.”
The huge shifter tilted his head toward her. “Of course. Have fun out there. I’m heading back,” he said, turning and retreating back down the paths.
Allix watched him go, and then she drove herself forward, deeper into the forest. Darkness closed in around her, and she paused, eyes closed as she simply stood there, alone with her thoughts.
A branch snapped in the woods ahead and to her left.
She froze, muscles tense. Then she heard another twig or branch snap, followed by the crunching of snow underfoot. Her eyes peered deep into the gloom. She didn’t want to move. The snow wasn’t exactly a quiet terrain to move over, and she knew how acute shifter hearing was.
Off to her right, she could see the glow of a light from one of the other paths.
And beneath it she saw a shadow move past.
And another.
A moment later there was a veritable stream of shifters going by.
Her head swung around to the direction they were coming from, and then back. These shifters weren’t coming from Base Camp, and they were certainly not moving in the ordered fashion members of the Green Bearets moved.
There was only one conclusion she could make. They were invaders! They had to be.
Allix looked back down the path, the way she had come, and cursed. There was no way she could outrun them, to get warning back to Base Camp in time for them to greet the attackers properly.
Once more, she was helpless because she was a human.
If she were a shifter though, she could have made the dash with a reasonable expectation of success. She might not have made it, but they would have heard her coming, and she would have survived long enough to make it.
Right now, her only chance was to hunker down, and to hope they were all so fixated on attacking that they didn’t see her.
Allix snarled silently at her own impotence.
If she hadn’t been positive about her decision before, she was now.
Chapter Twelve
Luther
Base Camp was under attack.
Luther barreled through a shi
fter from Fenris as the enemy bear tried to deal a finishing blow to a recruit.
All around him shifters bellowed and roared, their challenges often followed by pained noises and the shattering of wood and other materials as the gigantic beasts destroyed the grounds around them.
Luther opened up another bear at the neck, blood from his victim drenching his claws as he moved on before the soon-to-be corpse hit the ground.
Allix. He had to find Allix. She had gone outside for a walk. In this maelstrom she would be helpless. Only he could protect her!
Dozens of bears on both sides were down as the fighting raged on. He wasn’t sure how many enemy bears there had been, but with the majority of the proven Green Bearets out on combat patrol on the borders of Cadia, all that was left was the instructors, some officers like himself, and the recruits.
The newcomers had hurled themselves at the enemy shifters with abandon, but they weren’t ready. They had no combat experience, and they weren’t as adept with their bears as their enemy. The recruits drew blood and fought till the end, but they were dying in droves.
Here and there others like Luther waded into the fight, killing and maiming as they went. The Green Bearet program was second to none, and it showed when the fully trained shifters hit the Fenris invaders. They cleaved through them like a butcher’s knife, leaving a trail of blood and rent flesh behind them.
But there weren’t enough.
Several of the barracks were burning now. If they couldn’t get it put out soon, the whole place would go up in flames.
His mighty head swung left and right, desperately searching the grounds for any sign of Allix. There were too many shifters, too many scents for him to track her, and he was getting scared. The attack had come without warning, and they hadn’t been prepared when the tide of beasts rolled over them. They’d struck the recruit barracks first, wreaking untold carnage there before the sheer numbers of recruits could stem the tide.
In the center of the parade ground Luther saw both the colonel and the commandant fighting back to back. Around them was a pile of dead Fenris shifters, blood staining the stones around them in a slowly spreading pool.
Above the battlefield a shriek pierced the air, and from the skies above came desperately needed help. Three huge forms dropped to the earth, wings spread wide, scattering bears left and right. Huge golden-yellow beaks shot out, ripping limbs from bodies and inflicting mortal wounds upon their enemies.
The trio of gryphons was most welcome. Luther had no idea where they’d come from, but they tore into the Fenris shifters with abandon, striking with beak and paw, or even a mighty bash with their wings as if they were shields.
The invading bears fell back before them, and as more of the recruits and instructors rallied, the tide began to turn.
Luther dove in with abandon, striking like a crazed wolverine as he launched himself at one bear. His teeth ripped flesh from its face even as he rebounded from the wounded beast and tackled another. His claws moved frantically as he shredded its underside before flinging himself forward at the head of a massed charge of Cadian shifters that finally sent the remnants of the raiding force running for the forests.
He dropped back, letting the others organize pursuit.
Focusing his energy, he shifted back into his human form.
“ALLIX!” he bellowed, his voice carrying over the shrieks and moans of the wounded or dying.
He repeated his call, desperately trying to filter out the other noises.
Looking around, he tried to put himself in her shoes. If she’d come outside to clear her head, where would she have gone?
Not the parade ground; it would have been too busy for her, not quiet enough to think straight. His eyes scanned the layout of Base Camp as he turned. But his attention kept being drawn back to the forests.
The paths.
Shit.
He knew instantly that that was where she would have gone. It was quiet and away from everything else.
Running forward, he made his way past the burning buildings of the barracks, shouting encouragement to the recruits forming bucket brigades to try and put it out.
But his focus was elsewhere.
***
Allix
The wait as the steady stream of bears passed by on her right was one of the single most nerve-racking moments of her life. She had stayed absolutely still, barely daring to breathe as the colossal beasts moved by in the distant light. How she hadn’t been spotted, or smelled, she didn’t know, but Allix wasn’t going to force the issue.
It seemed like there was a never-ending amount of enemy shifters. Allix began to wonder if this was just the first wave of a full invasion of Cadia. But then, just like that, the shadows stopped and the area around the lightpost in the distance was empty, save for the trampled snow where the huge creatures had made their way to Base Camp.
In the distance she heard bellowing and other noises as the two sides met in battle.
Slowly she began to pick her way back along the path. Fear began to mount the closer she got, as the sound of injured shifters began to drift across the distance.
Luther.
She knew that he would be in the thick of it without hesitation, going all out to protect his friends and his homeland. The big lovable idiot better not have gone and done something stupid to get hurt.
Or killed.
Allix stumbled as her mind conjured up images of Luther being torn to pieces by the attackers, dying alone, without her by his side. The pain she felt hit her like a truck, running her over and sending her tumbling along the concrete freeway.
I should have been there. To warn them. To fight with them.
Angrily she picked herself back up, rage at her own inability to be useful building. No, Luther wouldn’t be dead. He simply couldn’t be. She would know it, would feel it. Allix knew shifters had some sort of ultra-strong bond with their mates, and although she was human, she could tell there was something different between them.
It was the way she felt so at ease with him, so comfortable within his presence, as if she knew him on some sort of deeper level. It was the way he knew just when to wrap his arms around her and hold her, and when he knew to throw her down on the bed and have his way with her, or to just leave her alone. It came instinctively to them. Allix didn’t understand how that was possible, but she was through fighting it.
But it was that same connection that she somehow knew would tell her if Luther was dead.
There was a commotion in front of her. Peering into the darkness, she froze once more, trying to discern just what it was.
Ground thumped, and she threw herself to the side an instant before a frenzied-looking bear barreled down the path. She pulled herself frantically through the snow into the lee of one of the great Vallenwood trees, humongous giants that rose hundreds of feet into the air.
But the stampeding animal paid her no mind. It just kept running, and the reason for that became apparent a moment later as a much less harried-looking bear shot past her hiding spot, chasing it down. She couldn’t see well enough in the dark to know the outcome, but she heard the crash of two of them going down, followed by the pained cry from one of the bears that was abruptly silenced.
A few moments later one of the beasts came back her way. She thought it was the pursuing one, but she wasn’t sure. It looked at her, eyes ablaze with fire and anger, but when it noted she wasn’t a threat, the massive animal just continued on its way, picking up speed as it headed back toward the camp.
That had to be a good sign. If that was a Fenris shifter, it would have killed me for sure. Which means the Cadians are chasing them off. Perhaps they won’t all be killed after all!
Full of renewed hope, Allix darted from her hiding spot and headed back down the path, keeping an eye out for any more incoming bears.
“Oh no,” she whispered as the forest thinned, giving her the first real view of Base Camp.
It was burning.
Or more accurately, one
of the nearby barracks buildings was burning, despite the efforts of a number of bears to prevent it from doing so. Even as she watched, one of them barreled through the building, helping to knock it down, so that it fell away from the rest of the camp.
They had given up on trying to save it.
“ALLIX!”
She heard the voice bellow over the commotion. There was very little fighting going on that she could see, but bodies lay everywhere.
“ALLIX!”
It was Luther.
“I’m over here!” she called back distractedly, almost tripping over the desiccated remains of a bear shifter that lay across the path. The body had been torn to pieces and was just lying there.
It wasn’t alone, either. Everywhere she looked, dead or dying shifters lay strewn.
“Allix!” Luther said, the huge man rushing up to her and enveloping her in a crushing bear hug. “You’re okay! I was so worried.”
She was touched by his concern and sincerity, but even as the emotions tried to sink home within her, they simply glanced off. Right then she was glad he was alive, and seemingly unharmed, but this was too much.
“It’s happened again,” she said softly.
“What has?” Luther asked, looking around for more danger.
“I could have stopped this,” she told him, still not meeting his eyes as she surveyed the damage.
It got worse the farther toward the center of Base Camp they got. Bodies piled upon bodies, some of them still moving. She saw one shifter—she didn’t know if he was Cadian or not—sitting against the wall of a building, staring blankly ahead even as he tried to hold the mangled remains of his arm to his body in an effort to staunch the bleeding.
His efforts were in vain, and even as two others ran up to him, she saw his eyes go blank and the body slump to the side as he bled out. His wound was too great even for a shifter’s healing powers.
“Nonsense,” Luther snapped from above her, not letting go of her. “Nobody could have stopped this on their own. It took a concerted effort from all of us.”
She glanced overhead as wings flapped in the sky. Her mind, still dulled from the carnage, blankly noted the bone-white dragon that was circling above the burning building, unleashing a slow, steady stream of what appeared to be frost that quenched the fires in an instant.