by Lynn Red
“I suspected,” Draven said. “But kept my mouth shut. So she’s marked, then?”
The big man nodded. “Marked just like my mother, just like the two alphas. My memories aren’t all that clear, and God knows what GlasCorp did to me when I was in their cages, but I remember enough to know that she’s special. Marks aren’t random, they don’t just happen. They always have a purpose.”
“Regardless,” Draven said. “Business is business. Not a word, to anyone. Understand, Madix? You’re not going to do anything to spoil the mission.”
“Of course not,” Madix said.
“But you’re also not going to do anything that’ll endanger your people any more than necessary. Rogue and King, I get the impression they can take care of themselves. The girl too, to an extent. But the cubs?” The old man shook his head. “There’s a reason I’ve been protecting them for fifty years. Last of their kind.”
“But, sir,” the young man cut in. “If you’re trying to protect them, why are we going along with this?”
“Like I said,” Draven whispered, taking another drag. “One man can’t fight an army. Even if he’s a bear, and the army is nothing but pencil necked bureaucrats. So I watch, I manipulate, I try to do what I can. Hell, the only reason Rogue and King are still alive is because I deflected the Army from figuring out they existed. GlasCorp might experiment, might be trying to create some kind of human enhancement serum using their DNA, but that’s nothing compared to what a bunch of scientists with grants on their minds would do to those people.”
“Our people, you mean,” Madix said.
Draven curled his lip in half a smile and rolled up his sleeves casually. Underneath the stark, black uniform were harsh, line-drawn, tattoos all the way to the wrist. “Dismissed,” he said.
The young soldier looked back and forth a couple of times. “Me?”
Draven nodded. “Report back if anything changes. If not, you did good work. Get some rest.”
“I’m staying, I guess?” Madix asked.
Draven gestured with his head for the younger soldier to leave. He turned on his heel and exited the trailer, but paused as soon as he was outside. “You know them better than anyone,” he heard Draven say. “I’m a generation too old, I came before. But you? You’re theirs. We need a plan, but we need to be careful.”
“Understood,” Madix said. The enormous bear smiled, revealing a set of teeth capped in metal. He wasn’t as put together, collected, and calm as the old man. This guy seemed on edge, a little too intense, and a little... sweaty?
The young soldier smiled to himself. In his line of work, knowing about the secret things in the world was just part of the job. Shape shifters, werewolves, silent helicopters, alien technology, black ops projects in the Nevada desert, it was all old hat.
But, figuring out the General’s secret before the old man said a word? That was damn cool.
-14-
“Rabbit holes – turns out, not just where rabbits live.”
-Jill
The ash was thick and heavy, falling like pillowy snowflakes all around Jill as she crept through the undergrowth. The wolves were still whipped into a wild, screeching, howling frenzy, but they seemed to stay where they were. At least, they weren’t getting any closer, which was nice.
As she got closer and closer to ground zero for that fire storm, her chest burned hotter and hotter. It was like the mark was a beacon drawing her home. None of it made sense, but in that, all of it made perfect sense. Why she’d started studying this stuff in the first place, why she fought so hard to get out here, and how completely she was consumed by the two gorgeous alphas that had claimed her for their own – it all made a perverse kind of sense.
A half burned pine needle, with still a touch of ember on the shaft, fell in front of her. She instinctively stepped on it to put out the flame, but then barked a laugh. Fire was all around her. Thousands of tiny embers, thousands of impotent fires, none of which caught on anything.
But stepping on one was something she could do. As helpless as she felt, that one tiny act gave her a surge of confidence.
“I’m coming,” she said as the mark flared to life, making her stomach, her legs, and between them, tingle. “Whatever I can do, I’m coming.”
As soon as she lay eyes on the massive cave that overlooked the burned plain below, she felt like the world’s biggest idiot. How did I miss this? She shook her head.
That’s when she noticed the eyes. Twenty, thirty, maybe more, peered out from the cave overlooking the field. They were all glowing amber, barely visible in the darkness. Jill took another step forward, hoping she hadn’t just walked straight into a revenge ambush for the wolves she’d blown to bits. But the immense sense of calm and safety she felt told her there was nothing to fear.
“We were waiting for you,” a voice said that made her jump slightly. “Our fathers told us you were coming, but... we didn’t believe it. We thought it was impossible.”
A young bear, much smaller than King and Rogue, slid out of the forest silently, stood on his hind legs, and right before Jill’s eyes, became a young man. She touched her mark, felt the heat. “Are they here?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
The young bear nodded. “We sleep in the cave,” he said. “And no, they aren’t. It’s all right!” he called, turning to the cave. “You can come out, our mother has come.”
“Not my mother,” a black-haired boy spat as he emerged from the darkness. “Mine was taken, probably by her people.”
“Enough.” The one who first spoke to her said. “She’s marked. Are you?”
That shut the mouthy, younger bear up immediately.
As soon as she set foot in the massive cave, Jill’s jaw dropped. “Wow,” she said. “Is this where you live?”
The cubs looked around at one another, looks of obvious confusion on their faces, like they were trying to figure out how much to say. “I’ve heard Rogue and King talk about all of you,” she said carefully. “They’re very proud of their cubs, you know.” That got a few smiles from the still apprehensive crowd.
“We’re not all theirs,” one of the boys, who was regarding Jill rather coolly, stepped forward. “They’re the alphas, so they’re our sworn fathers. But we’re mostly from different parents. Only a handful of us are actually related to them. And the only one with an amber eye is Arrow. He’s next in line. The eyes tell us.”
“But we only have him, there are no others,” a larger boy cut him off. “Can’t be. The helicopter people...”
“I know,” Jill said, “they took them. I know the story; Rogue and King told me. So this is where you live?” Her head was swimming.
“Only when dangerous things are happening outside,” one of the other boys – this one with absolutely piercing ice blue eyes – said. “The alphas are supposed to be separate from the rest of the clan so they can make decisions without interference. It’s got something to do with the traditions. I never paid much attention to those old stories, so I can’t tell you anything else.”
“You must be one of Rogue’s,” Jill said with a fond smile. “He doesn’t care much for tradition either.”
The boy smiled back, and for the first time, she felt like she’d made a connection with one of these young cubs.
“Speaking of,” Jill said, “have you seen them?”
“They went,” the boy, who seemed to be in charge, said.
“Went where? And what’s your name?”
“Arrow,” he said, his cool blue eye and amber eye flashing in the orange flame licking the ceiling of the cave. “When the alphas are gone, I speak for the clan.”
“Oh boy, yeah, he thinks he does, anyway.” Another one stepped up, this one shorter even than Jill but holy shit was he muscular. “I’m Sly.”
“Like Stallone?” Jill asked. The bear cocked his head to the side.
“No, like sneaky. Because I’m the exact opposite of—“
“Sure, like naming the biggest guy Tiny, I was just
talking about a movie star, Sylvester Stallone, he’s,” she trailed off for a moment. “You know what, never mind, we have other things to talk about, for instance, this massive fire and what seemed to be a carpet bombing.”
Sly shook his head. “If his name is Sylvester, then... humans are strange.”
She nodded. “You got that right.”
“I do speak for the clan,” Arrow said. “And I say that Sly is an idiot. But I also say we do have other things to worry about. The alphas are gone, they left to look in on the lupines when the latest frenzy started.”
Sly grumbled under his breath, his hot-tempered brown eyes turned to the ground at the rebuke.
Overhead something whizzed by, causing a sound like a very quiet sonic boom. Then a second whatever-it-was followed soon after by a third, before the noises finally stopped. “What was that?” she asked. “Has it been happening a lot?”
“No,” Arrow said. “Last couple of days, maybe. About as long as we’ve been watching you.”
The words hit Jill like a fist in the chest. “Following me? What is it with you guys and stalking?”
“We had to make sure,” Sly said. “There have been imposters who—“
Arrow cut him off with a nasty glare. “We had to make sure you were who they said you were, and not someone who threw a spell on the alphas.”
“Uh, okay wow,” Jill said. “Yeah, no I can see you, I have a mark, everything checks out. If it helps anything, I hate these people too, though probably nowhere near as much as you—“
A hand, one on each shoulder, squelched the words in Jill’s throat. The scent that struck her nose was achingly familiar. She knew without even turning. Closing her eyes, Jill let her head slump forward. She didn’t know why, but if these two were around, nothing much seemed to matter. She just felt safe.
“Rogue,” she whispered, crossing her arms over her chest and putting one of her hands atop the ones on her shoulders. “King.”
Saying their names was like release after days of tension. Feeling their touch, having their aromas fill her nose, Jill had apparently missed them more than she knew. And she really missed them.
“So you found your way home,” Rogue whispered before brushing his fingers along the side of Jill’s neck.
“The welcome fire was hard to miss,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt pulled toward this place.”
The two alphas exchanged a knowing look, but said nothing. “We’re leaving,” King announced flatly.
“For how long?” Arrow asked. Jill had almost forgotten he was there. “How long this time?”
“We won’t be coming back,” King said, his eyes sweeping the intricate paintings on the cave walls. “Not to live, anyway. Maybe to visit.” He flattened his hand against one of the walls and closed his eyes, breathing slowly through his nose as he stroked the wall. “Thousands of years of tradition, gone in an instant.”
Rogue grabbed his brother’s shoulder. “Not gone,” he said. “Living on. Traditions are what they are, right? The past is what it is, it doesn’t change. But we can keep those traditions alive somewhere else. Somewhere with... less fireballs and bombing.”
How can one of them possibly be so different from the other? Jill wondered, and not for the first time. It’s like they’re from different planets. For a second the idea that – holy shit they may actually be from different planets – occurred to Jill, but she somehow banished that thought as ridiculous.
“What changed your mind?” Jill said, grabbing the bigger alpha’s hand and making him look her direction. “And what are we going to do about all this?”
“I can’t bear to see my cubs, my mate... and maybe even my brother,” he grinned slightly, “killed for tradition. Rogue was right. There’s no place for us here anymore. This is a place for the wolves and for these greedy humans, whatever it is they want.”
What they really want is YOU, Jill wanted to say. And anyway, it wouldn’t help anything. So instead, she just nodded. Rogue, she noticed, had absolutely no look of smug satisfaction on his face.
“I know this is hard, brother,” he said to King. “You doing this – issuing this order – takes more courage than I probably have in my entire body. I know it hurts to leave the past. I know it hurts to leave the memory of our mates, and everyone else. But we can start again. We can start new traditions, new families.”
King’s face was nothing but hard lines and sharp angles, but Jill sensed a little softness behind his eyes. When he closed them, the droplets of moisture accumulated in his eyes disappeared into his eyelashes. “We don’t have time to sit around and reminisce,” he said. “We take nothing except what we have on ourselves. Cubs, I would give you until the morning, but we’re not safe. We have to do what is best for the clan. Get the things most dear, we leave now.”
The vast majority of the cubs, along with King, disappeared into the shadows in the deepest part of the cave. Rogue remained behind. “Some of us don’t have much,” he said, without turning back to Jill. “Except the things most dear.”
That was punctuated by a squeeze on her shoulder.
“What convinced him?” she asked.
Her bear shrugged. “The fire I think. Or it might’ve been the lupines. I’ve never seen them like this. Either way, something did. I pretty much promise he’ll never say exactly what did it, but you take what you can get. Anyway, we should be thankful. Except now there’s another question.”
“Where to go?”
Rogue smiled instead of speaking. That was answer enough. “It’s a tricky thing. Some of us can control ourselves well enough to live pretty easily right next to humanity.”
“Let me guess, you’re one of them?”
“I’ll just say I’d much rather sleep in a bed than in a cave. I spend a lot of time wandering. I’m far more comfortable with the rest of the world – with the reality outside this forest – than my brother is. But at least as far as that goes, instincts aren’t something you can blame him for. He’s always been wilder than me, but far more connected to his actual nature than I guess I am. Good and bad to everything.”
It was Jill’s turn to nod. “Well,” she said a moment later, “I’ve seen your home. You interested in a trip?”
He smiled as a handful of cubs began to emerge from the back of the cave. King though was still nowhere to be found.
“Alpha,” the straight-backed young bear named Arrow said, his tone amazingly deferential after the confidence he’d shown before. “I think we’re ready. But I found this.”
He handed a pendant to Rogue, who took the strange, hooked shape in his hand and closed it in his fist. “Where?” he asked. “This was a long time ago. A memory I thought I lost.”
“I stole it from you,” Arrow said. “It was my mother’s, the only thing she left. But I know you and she were...”
Rogue grabbed the young man’s shoulder and forced the claw pendant back into his hand. “We might have been mates, Arrow, but you were her first son. She was so proud of you. I know that the next time you see her, she’ll be proud of the man you’ve become.”
The look on the younger bear’s face told Jill he may not actually believe that she was coming back. But Rogue wasn’t wavering. She knew the look in his eyes. She’d been around him and his sworn brother long enough to know what determination looked like on their faces. Maybe it was belief? A necessary one that kept him sane?
Maybe it was willful ignorance? Something he had to make himself believe so he could keep facing the day?
She shook her head. Jill knew that whatever theory she came up with didn’t matter. The only reality was the one inside her alpha’s head. And then there was King, who continued to be a mystery that she could hardly pierce.
Was his distance and guarded caution the same as Rogue’s belief that all of their people were coming back? That everything would work out okay in the end? Just a defensive mechanism to keep the world – and the pain that he surely felt – at bay long enough to fo
cus on leading this group of cubs and half-grown adolescent bears?
Back in the cave this far, there was no glimpse of the outdoors, no way to see the stars and the moon she knew were out there, spilling their light on the forest. When King emerged from the deepest part of the den, Jill grabbed his forearm, he looked down at her with eyes softer than she’d ever seen. They stared at each other for a brief moment that burned into Jill’s mind. The lines on the alpha’s face had never been more apparent. The worry, the fear that she knew he must feel, was on the surface just then instead of buried in the background.
“Are you okay?” she whispered, already knowing both the truth, and how he’d answer. The handful of cubs with their meager possessions filed past them, to Rogue, who was inspecting each of them to make sure they weren’t carrying too much for the trek ahead... to wherever they were going.
He flinched. His burning eyes went left and then he looked at the floor for a moment. “I’m... sad.”
That hit her like a truck, right in the chest. “I know this is the only thing we can do,” he said softly. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like leaving home and everything we’ve built. I don’t like leaving everything our ancestors made behind, I don’t like—”
“Everything changes,” Jill cut in. “You can’t keep the world the same just because you don’t want to deal with getting used to something new.”
“Two weeks, two and a half, and she’s already telling me things I should know. Things I should believe.”
“You know,” Jill said with a little smirk. “You aren’t even talking to Rogue about me over my shoulder. So I’m pretty sure that means you’re nuts.”
King cocked an eyebrow. “Nuts?”
“Crazy,” she said. “You’re talking about me, to yourself, and referring to me as ‘she.’ You, aside from being big, gorgeous and nearly always shirtless, are just about to go crazy pants.”