Bonded to the Bear

by Fay Walsh

  “Is that not something we should take notice of? Let us dispose of those who are truly evil, but not eradicate an entire colony. Not everyone is evil.”

  And as Harmony recalled all that she had learned, she knew that this wasn’t anyone’s fault. Is it so bad to give Roan another chance? She touched her chest where the electricity pull increased when she thought about him.

  “Besides,” Chrys added as she stepped from behind Harmony. The three Hunters looked at her now. “Who cares whether we were born Hunters and he’s a Shifter? Love is love, you can’t put a price on it, or fight it.”

  Again, no one said anything for a few moments and Harmony thought they would be yelled at or worse.

  “Alright, I’ve heard enough,” Finn piped in. “I’m going to take a walk.”

  Finn turned around and left out of the door.

  Harmony looked between Helga and Klaus.

  “What about you two?”

  Helga spoke first, “girls, look, I understand where you’re coming from. Klaus and I know what it’s like to be in love, especially if it's forbidden, but…”

  “This is what we do. We hunt shifters and they hunt us.” Klaus added. “That’s just the way things go.”

  Harmony felt her chest tighten and Chrys gripped her arm. “Even with the possibility of someone innocent getting hurt? Not all shifters are evil. It’s high time we put an end to this.”

  Before anyone could say anything further, the sound of a car’s engine revved. Klaus ran to the window and swore, loudly.

  “Damn it! Finn took my car.” He slammed his hand on the window. “I swear, Finn, if you scratch my baby I’m taking your head off!”

  Chrys pulled Harmony to the side and whispered, “You don’t think he’s going to find Roan, do you?”

  Harmony figured that was exactly what he was going to do.

  “Let me call Roan to warn him.”

  But when she went to get her phone that she had sitting in her bag near the bathroom, she saw that it wasn’t there.

  Her heart fell in her chest and turned around to Chrys.

  “It isn’t there.”

  Chapter 17

  “Where do you last remember seeing the Hunters, Mason?” Roan had called back one of the members of his Herd, after making sure that the Elders were no longer present at the ranch.

  The last thing he needed was for his father to start doubting him.

  “Richard and I were patrolling around the perimeter of the interstate when we smelled them, Alpha. We saw them driving in an Impala, the license plates didn’t match up. I believed them to be fake.”

  Damn it, how did they manage to get the scoop on our location? I’ve always managed to be thorough. Did Kiran tip them off?

  “Thank you, Mason. Stay alert.”

  Roan drove down the street and headed into town. He spoke to several people in town to ask if they had seen an Impala driving into town. The people who had given him the information matched what Kai had told him, three people were seen in the car. One of the women, who had stopped by one of the stores, had a German accent.

  “Yes, thank you for your time,” Roan said as he thanked the person for giving him the information.

  He got back in his car and continued to look for any signs of the Hunters.

  ***

  It was already evening when Roan parked his car in front of the ranch. He didn’t find any more information, or why they were here, only that they had appeared earlier this morning. Roan had called several other Alpha’s that were close by to see if they had encountered any Hunter’s of late, but no one had any Hunter sightings of late.

  The question was, where were they now, and were they on to their location?

  Roan noticed Kai sitting on the porch of the ranch, his head bowed low, and his head in his hands. Roan got out of the car and headed toward the front porch.

  “Kai, what are you doing out here? You should be home.”

  Kai looked up and Roan noticed that his friend’s eyes vibrating.

  “Kai, what’s wrong?” Roan asked, worry laced his voice.

  “I’m sorry, Roan. I wasn’t here to attend my duties because I was with Chrys.”

  Roan deeply swallowed. He admitted a part of him was jealous, but from the way that Kai acted around Chrys, he was starting to see why. He and Chrys were mated.

  Roan leaned against the porch railing.

  “Well, thank you for letting me know, Kai.”

  “There’s something else you should know Roan,” Kai said, and the tone indicated in his voice made Roan furrow his brow. “I don’t know what’s going, but Harmony was with them… whether she was with them for other reason but…”

  Roan face paled. He understood what Kai was about to say, but the thought that Harmony would bring Hunter’s willingly made his chest hurt. Does she truly hate me that much? Roan didn’t want to think that way, but the way things ended and the look that she had given, Roan couldn’t help but wonder if it could be true.

  “How many Hunters, Kai?” Roan asked him, the severity of his tone changed to seriousness.

  “Uh, there were three. I don’t know if there were any other Hunters, but those were the only three there at the ti—Roan, where are you going?”

  Roan was already heading back to his car before Kai finished what he was saying.

  “I have to find Harmony, whether she called on these Hunters or not, I have to know that she’s alright. Stay in contact with Chrys and let me know anything that comes up.”

  “Got it, Alpha.”

  Roan got back into his car and started the engine, driving down the dusty road. As he drove down the road, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He slipped it out of his pocket and saw that he had a text message from Harmony.

  Roan’s first thought was to reply to Harmony and ask her what was going on with the Hunters, but when he read the message his entire persona changed.

  We need to talk – meet me at your house.

  Roan frowned at the message, trying to decipher Harmony’s words and wondering what she wanted to talk about. Them? The reason the hunters were there? He didn’t know, but he knew he would find the answers when he got there.

  ***

  Love… Peace… Equality? For a Shifter? Impossible. The only thing that shifters are capable of doing is killing and destruction. There is only evil supernatural.

  Finn’s memories briefly flashed through his mind as a little boy, when Shifters raided his village and killed his entire family. He wouldn’t have managed to make it out alive, if it weren’t for the Hunters.

  Hunters were his only family. All Shifters deserved to die.

  Finn would find the Alpha, thanks to Harmony, and her cellphone. He would bring the Alpha right where he wanted him, it wasn’t hard to find out where Roan Quinn, a fellow local farmer was located.

  Finn texted the message from Harmony’s home, getting a message instantly in reply,

  I’m on my way.

  Finn was waiting patiently beside the door when he heard Roan’s car pull up to the front. Finn could hear the jiggling of his keys and the doorknob turning.

  Finn raised a silver crowbar that was in his hand. The door opened fully, and Finn raised the bar in the air, “surprise.” He could see the shifter’s amber eyes widened in surprise, not having expected the oncoming onslaught as the crowbar landed straight to the side of his head, he yelled in pain from the hit, before blacking out.

  The Alpha’s body fell to the floor with a hard thud. Finn only smiled at the unconscious body. Finn grabbed Roan’s body and chained him in silver to a wooden chair. “One down”. He knew that Harmony would come to find him, and he would be prepared to take them down. No matter what they claimed to be, they weren’t Hunters, and if they wanted to side with Shifters, they could die with them too.

  ***

  Roan woke up to a searing sensation on his bare chest and the smell of something burning. When he opened his eyes, he grunted and tried to assess his surroundings.
<
br />   “What the hell?” He asked groggily as he slurred his words. He noticed that he was inside his house. The last thing he remembered was getting a text from Harmony. “Harmony.” He struggled to call out her name, but the silver chains did more than just constrict him from moving.

  Silver, he thought. It dawned him that he had been attacked.

  “I’m glad that you are coming to, Shifter. I was starting to get bored.”

  Roan craned his neck up to see a man with black hair that continuously fell into his dark brown eyes. There was something vindictive and almost soulless Roan saw when looking at this man. Despite Roan never having meeting the man, there seemed to be a fiery streak of hatred between them.

  Roan gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t do much as the silver had weakened him immensely.

  “What have you done with Harmony? Where is she?”

  The man chuckled, he had in his hand a silver blade, that Roan assumed he must have used to burn his flesh with.

  “The Ashur girl? Most likely with my other two associates. You see,” he said and walked behind the chair. Roan turned his head to follow the man’s movements. He stopped to the left of him and whispered by Roan’s ears. “We plan to kill your entire Herd. That is correct, yes? Herd? As in bear shifters. You know, it wasn’t hard to figure that out, especially thanks to your girlfriend, she’s not too bright, is she? But then, she’s dating a Shifter.”

  Roan growled under his breath, hating the way he talked about Harmony like she was nothing.

  “You shut your mouth when you talk about her. Harmony is beautiful and intelligent, with a heart, unlike you, she would never kill anyone.”

  The man pressed the silver blade to Roan’s throat, and it sizzled against his skin, making Roan bite back his tongue. The silver blade was removed after a moment, leaving a burnt scar.

  “Yes, because she loves you oh so much, ugh, disgusting when she let the words slip through her mouth. A Hunter in love with a Shifter? It’s a crime against nature and she should be burned like every last shifter.

  Hearing him say that Harmony let the words slip past her lips played through his head, to let him know it was recently said. She did love him, there was no way she would betray him this way.

  “What do you want, huh? To kill us? Put us on the mantle? You could do that, but there will be plenty of my people who will hunt you down.”

  The man walked in front of him and he smiled.

  “And you think I don’t have any men? If you try anything, the minute I don’t come back, bam, a squad of Hunters will be down so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  The sound of a car pulled up in front of Roan’s house as lights shone inside the dark house.

  “Oh, that must be your lovely Harmony. Why don’t we say hello, shall we? I’d love to have her tied up and you can watch me as I kill her, so you can lose someone close to you too, just as your kind have done to me.”

  Roan gritted his teeth and tried to bust through his chains but to no avail. He watched as the sick man waited for Harmony to enter into his clutches.

  Chapter 18

  “No, No, No,” Harmony repeated over and over, in a panicked frenzy. Her fingers ran through her hair as she paced around the hotel room. “He’s going to kill him!”

  “It does seem that way, I don’t think Finn liked what you said,” Klaus had said, stepping away from the window. He still had an annoyed look on his face from where Finn had stolen his car.

  “Darling you aren’t helping,” Helga told him and turned to face Harmony. “Look, we can help you stop Finn, Harmony, he can be a loose cannon and act without thinking.”

  Klaus snorted. “That’s an understatement. Even the Hunters find that he is insubordinate and doesn’t work well with others.”

  “And you have him patrolling around for what?” Chrys exclaimed. “In his state, he could probably hurt more humans than he helps.”

  “I was assigned to watch my cousin, that’s all.”

  Chrys snorted and crossed her arms over her chest, rolling her eyes. “And what a fantastic job you’re doing.”

  “Chrys,” Harmony hissed her sister’s name. “You aren’t helping. Look I need you to call Kai, ask him he can get in touch with Roan, maybe he can warn him.”

  Harmony knew that it was useless to panic and the first thing as a Hunter was not to panic and not lose your head.

  Chrys nodded and pulled her phone out of her pocket, she dialed Kai’s number and walked away from the others. Helga stared at the back of Chrys’ head as she walked toward the bathroom.

  “She’s… also dating a Shifter?”

  Harmony couldn’t read Helga’s expression as she gave nothing away in her steady eyes. She knew that this was brand new to these Hunter’s and they never thought they would meet anyone who favored Shifters so highly in their life.

  “Yes. They’re mated, just like Roan and I are.”

  Helga turned to face Harmony and furrowed her brows with a tilt of her head. Klaus spoke first,

  “Mated? That’s the equivalent of the American term ‘soulmates’ right? I’ve heard of that. They say when Shifters mate, they mate for life, and all that, but I’ve never met anyone… let alone a human who has.”

  Harmony shrugged her shoulders.

  “I guess we would be the first. Kai and Roan, they aren’t like the Shifters you’ve faced in the past, and as I said to you previously, there are good Shifters, like there are good people. You should give them a chance and not slaughter them the first chance you get.”

  Harmony looked to the couple, who looked at each other, but it was Helga who spoke first,

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Harmony. We will help you, but you’ve got to understand that we’ve been doing this for years. We’ve seen the horrors that Shifters have done.”

  Harmony frowned, knowing that they wouldn’t believe so easily, but they were willing to listen.

  “That may be true, but you have to at least think that some of them, maybe they were only instinctively protecting themselves and their loved ones. Isn’t that what humans do? We get aggressive and protective when our loved ones are in danger, so how is that any different to a Shifter?”

  Chrys came back over to them before anyone had a chance to say anything else.

  “Kai said he’s going to call him right away, he said he had gone to check out around town earlier about the Hunters who came into town.”

  Harmony nodded.

  “Alright, thank you, Chrys. You stay here, tell Kai to meet you here, I’m going to Roan just in case.”

  Chrys nodded in reply, already texting Roan.

  “Are you with me? We can take my car.”

  ***

  Harmony drove down the road, careful to not get into a car accident or a ticket as she ran a few stop lights as she made it on the highway. Her mind was reeling at the thought of Finn hurting him and she couldn’t help but feel that this was her fault and if she had never contacted the Hunters, Roan wouldn’t be in danger.

  But would you have decided to want to be with him again?

  Harmony knew without a doubt that was true. She was terrified that night, but it dawned on her that Roan had never hurt her once and Kai never laid a finger on Chrys. He didn’t want anything to happen to her and despite him not being able to voice it, he wanted to cause her as little pain as possible since she had been through this in every day of her life.

  “Keep your emotions centered,” Helga told her. She was in the front seat of the car. “You need to be on your toes and emotions will cause you to mess up.”

  Harmony nodded as she focused on the road. She took several deep breaths as she tried to calm down. After a few moments, she felt her breathing and heart at an even pace.

  “Good. You can’t lose your head, ever. That could mean death for you and everyone around you, you need a good head on your shoulders.”

  “What will you do when we get there?” Harmony asked.

  “We’ll probably go fo
r Finn ourselves,” Klaus said from the back seat. “We’ll know how to anticipate his tactics.”

  “Thank you for helping me, you didn’t have to but you did.”

  Helga smirked. “When a Hunter is in need… we might not understand your reasoning, but we do understand what it means to save someone you love.”