Growling in frustration she flopped back down on the bed. What was he talking about? She tried to remember anything she had said that would have been this amazing and fantastic idea to spur him into doing whatever it was he was going to do now—
Oh.
He couldn't.
There was no way he would dare to…
Yes, he would. She knew Max well enough to know that yes, he would.
Nikki swore at herself, thinking about how she should have just pulled him onto the bed and sexed him when she'd had the chance. If nothing else it would have distracted him away from this incredibly genius, stupid idea she'd just given him. Not that she'd meant to do it. Max had heard what he'd wanted to and ran with it.
Men, she huffed.
With nothing to keep her occupied Nikki began drifting off to sleep. She jolted awake a few times from dreams of swirling darkness picking her up and dragging her under, suffocating her, killing her. Just before she would die in the dream each time her heart would kick in her chest and she would sit straight up to wipe the sweat away from her eyes and wonder if the world would ever be normal again.
She was lightly snoring when Max burst back in. The wood plank door banging up against the wall made her jump. "Huh, what?"
"It's me," he said to her, sitting down next to her on the bed. It was dark now, she noticed. A little glass lantern in Max's hand cast the orange light of its fire over everything. It shone off his naked skin and highlighted some very interesting body parts. "I won't be long. I couldn't leave without saying goodbye."
"Goodbye…?" She was fully awake now, rubbing the last of the blurry sleep out of her eyes. "Max, you have to think about this. You can't be serious!"
His fingers stroked her cheek. "This has to be done. I don't know anyone else who's going to do it for us."
"So you have to go?" she demanded. "To fight the worst piece of nightmare I've ever seen? You cannot go back there to fight that thing! Not by yourself!"
"I wouldn't dream of it." The smile on his face turned tender and a little sad. He held the lantern higher by its metal ring and when he did, she saw the three other Ursallin with him.
Two of them were rippling with muscles, even more so than Max was. Their color of their skins were the golden bronze color that White people managed only after living their entire lives out in the sun. The third man was a lighter shade of Black than Nikki, not quite as ripped as the other two, but his eyes were keener and she had the instant impression that he was smarter than most people. They each nodded to her in turn although none of them spoke a word.
"These were the only three I knew I could trust to come with me," Max told her. "Don't worry. This will be more than enough to kill Donovan."
"I've seen Shifts tear through four werebears all by themselves before," she argued. "And Donovan is no simple Shift."
He levelled his gaze at her and shook his head meaningfully. "You are not coming with me."
She took a long breath to bolster herself. This wasn't something she was looking forward to but it was something she knew she had to do. "I'm the best fighter you have, seems to me. You said it yourself. I've taken out more of these Shifts than any Ursallin ever has. And I don't even know what I'm doing!"
It was meant to be a joke, but he jumped on those words as a way of proving his point. "Exactly! I am not going to put you in that kind of danger again when you don't even know if your magic fighting skills will hold up!"
She couldn't help but snicker. "Magic fighting skills?"
"You know what I mean. There is no way I'm putting you on the same world as Donovan. Not when I know you're safe on this one."
"Come on, Max. You brought me the last time you went up against him."
"That was the Council's decision, not mine," he emphasized. "And I don't know if you remember how that went but you got captured and Donovan soaked himself into you and me and Arcan almost died. Everyone else with us did die."
As he mentioned Donovan's "soaking" into her, the other Ursallin stepped back from her. She couldn't blame them. She only wished she could step back from the memory as easily.
"What about Arcan?" she asked, now that he had reminded her. "You've got Huey, Dewey, and Louie here but where is Arcan?"
She caught the three werebears looking her over repeatedly, their eyes straying to her breasts, but she didn't have time to scold them for being boys. There were more important things to worry about here.
"Arcan will stick with whatever the Council tells him to," was Max's answer. "I can't trust that he'll come with us to do the right thing."
"And what exactly is the right thing?"
"To kill this monster before any more Ursallin die."
"You're not worried that killing him will hurt the Ursallin, too?"
He sighed a heavy breath and looked away from her. "I am. I'm willing to risk it. Nothing could be worse than knowing he'll be back one day to kill us all."
She couldn't really argue with him. Having seen what Donovan really was, she firmly believed that Max was right and there wasn't a single world out there that would be safe until that thing was dead.
But on the other hand, she wished that someone else besides Max could be the one to do it.
"I'm coming with you," she insisted, surprising even herself.
"No. Out of the question."
"Mister Riddle Man, do not make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I get angry." The joke fell flat and she had to remind herself that Max wasn't from her Earth. There was no common ground for her culture and his culture and he was as alien as any Martian would be. A man who grew up in a world where shape-shifting was a natural-born talent. One who had absolutely nothing in common with her, but at the same time, the man she had fallen in love with.
She didn't want to see him die.
Not if she thought there was a chance that she could keep him alive.
"I am going with you," she insisted. "That's final. So unless you plan on tying me up here to the bed you better get used to the idea that you can't stop me."
"Can't stop him from what?" Arcan asked from the doorway to the hut.
Everyone turned, the three newcomers backing up to the walls, trying to pretend they weren't there to commit conspiracy against the Council. Max squared off on Arcan, and if there had never been a literal dick measuring contest since the beginning of time, there certainly was one now.
Both men stared hard at each other. Nikki felt like telling them both to put their rulers away but she somehow knew that getting into the middle of this would be the wrong step to take. She waited it out, just like everyone else in the hut.
"Brother," Arcan finally said to Max.
"Brother," Max grated between his teeth.
Turning to the three werebears doing their best to be unnoticed, Arcan greeted them each by name. "Thorin. Zonsur. Forl. Late for anyone to be out of their homes, isn't it?"
"The same could be said about you," Max retorted. "This meeting doesn't concern you. Please leave."
"It concerns me if you and these others are considering violating the Council's word." He stood very still, but just like always Nikki had the impression that he was coiled tight, his muscles ready to spring in any direction. Cold, calculating strength. His body was a Black beauty, worthy of being a model for any sculptor's Adonis.
Max turned to her, and she tore herself away from thoughts of how good Arcan's body had felt under her hands that day she had chosen between them. Thankfully, Max couldn't read her thoughts. "You see what I mean?" he said to her. "He won't even consider the remote possibility that the Council is wrong."
"Because they aren't," Arcan said heatedly. "And anyone who goes against them is committing treason against our people."
When he said that, he looked at the other three again. Each of them managed to look nervous in their own way. The one Arcan had named Forl, the Black werebear, shuffled toward the door like he was about to leave.
Max moved closer to the door, probably only to get in Arcan
's face but Nikki wondered if it was his way of making sure his little army didn't abandon him, too. "There is no sense to the Council's orders this time, Arcan. Even you have to believe that."
Arcan shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I think."
"Ha!" Max crowed. "I knew you felt he same way. Join us. Come with us! We will end Donovan once and for all and then we can tell the Council what we did afterward. By then the deed will be done and no one will be able to argue about it."
To Nikki's surprise, Arcan hesitated, thinking about what Max had said.
She realized she was still kneeling on the bed, and whether she was used to be naked now or not, being in the same close space with five men now—all of them also nude and each one a potential Playgirl centerfold—was starting to make her blood overheat. "Arcan, just listen to Max. We're going to stop Donovan. Your Primus Secor. You know that's the right play here."
"We are not going," Max told her, emphasizing the "we." He put his hand gently on her shoulder.
And the feel of it tingled. The electric spark of his touch was still there. Relief washed through her along with the intense hum along her nerves and more than a little sexual response fluttering in her core.
So sex wasn't a problem between them. Donovan hadn't changed that. Now if she could just knock some sense into that big head of his.
"You're staying here," he said, kind of ruining the whole moment.
"No, I'm not," she retorted.
"Yes, she is," Arcan said to the whole room, "because all of us are staying."
"Arcan—" one of the other werebears started. Zonsur, she thought.
"We. Are. Not. Going," Arcan grated out.
Just like that, the atmosphere in the room turned chilled, and everyone was ready to tear into each other.
"We have to go," Nikki blurted out, and then bit her lower lip, wishing she could take the words back.
Arcan stalked into the space directly in front of Max. His hands were up, his face was tight, and Nikki shrank back from the heat in his voice even as Max stood perfectly still. "You," he said to Max, "will not bring her into Jakal! You will not put her into that kind of danger again. If she doesn't mean that much to you then you can go to Hell!"
Max's fist came up quick to strike Arcan across his chin.
The fight was on.
Nikki tumbled off the side of the bed away from them, only to have to curl up to avoid the rush of the other werebears jumping into the fray. At the same time, Arcan's words echoed in her head.
If she doesn't mean that much to you, he had said to Max. So…
How much did she mean to Arcan?
She had chosen Max, out of the two of them, and she had hoped Arcan had moved past that. Obviously, he hadn't.
Everyone was shouting, loud enough that Nikki was sure the entire village was going to get woken up. Back and forth, yelling, demanding, eyes sharp and voices cutting. She stood up, her hands to her head, her heart racing, terrified that these men who were so important in her life were about to rip each other apart over this.
Over her.
When Arcan's arms morphed and swelled, and black bear's paws formed at the end, and the claws came out, something in her snapped with an audible click.
"For the love of God enough!" she heard herself cry out.
Her own arm slashed up through the air at an angle that felt right somehow in a way that she couldn't describe. The world around her seemed to slow down and she watched light trail behind her uplifted hand, light that shimmered and thickened and deepened into a hole that tore through this reality into another.
A portal formed.
Nikki didn't have time to be surprised by it. It sucked her in, swallowed her forcefully and spit her out again somewhere else.
*
The bright light of the portal that had blinded her gave way to darkness that threatened to do the same.
She landed hard against rocky ground. Her right knee felt like it had been skinned and her shin took a hard knock but she managed to keep her arms up protectively around her breasts. When she opened her eyes the darkness was everywhere, even though she could see the outlines of dead trees and dried up grass and broken piles of rocks.
Oh, Hell, she thought to herself. She was on Jakal. She had opened up a portal to Jakal without even meaning to do it and now she was here.
Nikki rose up to her knees and brought her hands up to study them closely. Max and Arcan had both told her she probably had the ability to do this. To travel between the worlds just like the Ursallin did. She was positive she never could. She was human. She was a Black woman from Manhattan, and proud of it and damn it all to Hell she was human!
Only, it turned out she wasn't. She was something more.
Or less.
She wasn't sure anymore.
Large hands grabbed her arms from behind and pulled her backward into a warm body and she jerked on impulse and shifted her weight and, with a scream, she turned her attacker around and put herself face to face with…
Max.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him, her reflexes flat lining in an instant like she had never been keyed up in the first place. "How are you here?"
He pulled her against him. The outlines of his strong muscles under his White skin were dusky in this light, and they felt so good against her own. He was rough and she was smooth and without even really meaning to she wrapped her leg around his thigh and let the pressure of his hug do nice things to her private spot.
It tingled all over, just like it should.
"He's not the only one here," Arcan growled.
She gasped, and looked over past Max's shoulder to find Arcan standing there, his arms still in their bear form, black fur stirring as he shook in anger. The rest of his naked body pulsed, in and out, like he wanted to morph completely and was barely restraining himself.
The other three werebears were just getting to their feet around him. Nikki blinked. All of them? She'd sucked all of them into this place?
How?
"I…didn't mean to…do…" How could she explain this? She didn't even understand it herself.
"It's all right," Max told her. His hands caressed her back and scooped up to her neck. It calmed her down to feel this protected in his arms. "Don't worry about it. Everything will be all right."
"No, it won't." Arcan's voice was low, almost a whisper, and sharp to the point. "This is not all right, Maximillian. We're here. In Jakal. We're the only living beings in this world besides the Primus Secor. How long do you think it will be before he senses our presence and comes after us?"
"Let him come," the Black werebear, Forl, boasted. Even so, he kept his voice at the same low whisper as Arcan. No one wanted to bring the wrath of Donovan down on them.
"Arcan, we're here now," Max pointed out. "For all of your arguments against it, I know you want to do this. I know you want Donovan dead just like the rest of us do."
"Of course I do!" Arcan yelled. Then, with a quick look around him into the darkness, he lowered his voice again. "Of course I want that bastard dead. Dead and gone. I don't care if the Shifts and the Ursallin are connected. I don't care if killing the Primus Secor sends a ripple effect through every world that ever existed. He needs to die. But we cannot win this with five Ursallin and…Nikki."
"Hey," she said, folding her arms under her breasts. When she realized how that made them perk up and draw every male eye around her, she unfolded herself again. "I'm right here you know."
"I know," Arcan said, finally realizing his hands were in animal form. "But you shouldn't be. You should be back in Gallandrian, safe and sound, with the Council watching over you."
He shook his hands repeatedly, over and over, until they shrank in size and lost their hair and became human again. With a loud shlisht the claws retreated back into his fingers.
"I don't need to be protected," Nikki protested.
"I disagree," Arcan said.
"Enough of this." Max was looking all around, making hand ge
stures to the werebears he'd brought as backup. "The Primus Secor is here somewhere. We can't keep debating the issue. We're here and this is happening."
He looked at Arcan, and Nikki saw a lifetime's worth of conversation cross their faces. She wished she could learn to hear what they were saying when they weren't speaking.
Finally, Arcan looked away with a huff. Every line in every muscle on his body radiated frustration.
Every muscle.
"You good?" Max asked him.
"Fine. What's your plan, big man?"
Max sneered with his lip. "Well, the plan was actually to grab weapons before we came through the portal. Guns with stiletto rounds to slice this Shift up. Personal weapons, too, like the hand-held scimitars that the Council keeps for special occasions. Unfortunately," he added, a touch of sarcasm cutting through his voice, "someone interrupted us and so now here we are with nothing but our bare hands and good looks."
Nikki snickered. "Bear hands. That never gets old."
Arcan glared daggers at her. "Wonderful. So hey, sure. Let's go tear us a Shift apart with our…hands."
Nikki could hear the way he intentionally dropped the word "bare" from that sentence. She couldn't keep the smirk off her face.
"There's nothing to be done about it now," Max said. "We can't leave and come back because we've already tipped our hand. If we tried to come back more prepared he'd just be waiting for us and tear us apart. We have whatever element of surprise we're going to get right now. That will have to be enough. Everyone, let's get going. Keep your senses alert. In this world, the Shift could be anywhere."
"Right, like on the other side of the planet," one of the others pointed out.
"Not likely," Arcan said sourly. "He'll have sensed us by now. Even if he doesn't know where we are exactly or how many of us there are, he'll know something has come through from another world. If he isn't here already, I'll wager that he'll be here soon."
"Maybe some of us could go back for weapons?" Nikki asked. It seemed the most reasonable course of action to her.
"We won't risk it," was Max's answer. "If we open a portal now, even if we manage to go through and come back before the Primus Secor has time to prepare for us, then we risk him using that portal to go wherever we do. I won't expose Gallandrian to that kind of risk. No. We kill Donovan first, no matter the cost."
Simply Bears: A Ten Book Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection Page 42