Green Bearets: Garrin

by Amelia Jade

  “Perhaps not,” Garrin admitted. “But by exposing Fenris as the plotters behind the attack, a number of human governments have voted in favor of investigating them. Those investigations have now concluded, and the word I’m getting, while still unconfirmed, is that they’ll be looking at various courses of action to pursue against Fenris.”

  The news was received with mixed emotions, as he had anticipated. The possible sudden cessation of hostilities without further casualties was welcomed of course. If the humans intervened, their numbers and heavy modern weaponry would ensure that even Fenris wouldn’t try anything. Most handguns couldn’t hurt a shifter, and many rifles couldn’t either.

  A fifty-caliber machine gun on the other hand, would wreck a shifter’s day just as badly as it would a human’s. Garrin didn’t even bother to think about the even heavier caliber weapons they could bring to bear.

  So it was a given that if the human military forces became involved, then the war between Cadia and Fenris would be over, except perhaps for covert operations. But large-scale warfare would be done.

  As nice as that would be, the idea that humans were getting involved in shifter business was something that none of them wanted. This was their problem, and they would solve it without outside interference. He understood it, and part of him even agreed with them. It was an ending they would accept, but never love.

  Times though, times were a-changing, and perhaps it was well past due for them to adapt to part of it. Anything was preferable to further senseless death.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” Luther said at long last. “I must admit, this is not the way I envisioned it. I thought we’d have to gather our full strength and march on them, duking it out the hard way.”

  “As did I,” Jarvis said, with Gabriel muttering his agreement.

  “Indeed. But with that being said, if we know about this, Fenris certainly knows about this. If they’re going to do something, it seems likely they’re going to do it soon, before the humans can prevent it. So I need you to be on high alert. Adjust your patrols, guards, etcetera as you see fit.”

  Garrin wasn’t going to begin to tell his men how they should do that. They were all trained leaders and could figure out what was necessary on their own. His job was to tell them what to do. Their job was to figure out how to do it.

  Delegation was a beautiful thing.

  It also meant he wasn’t micro-managing, which was a terrible thing for any superior, military or civilian. It became even worse in an environment where people’s lives were at risk. So Garrin, despite wanting to jump into the nitty-gritty of it all, would sit back and let his people do what was necessary.

  “We’ll get right on that, absolutely,” Jarvis said. “Captain Korver, gather the lieutenants and squad leaders for a meeting in…” he glanced at the clock on the table. “Forty-five minutes.”

  “Yes sir,” Gabriel said, recognizing when it was time to slip back into official mode. He rose, saluted the other three shifters, and departed swiftly.

  Garrin leaned forward in his chair, a precursor to getting up. He would visit with the others after everything had been set into motion.

  “Gentleman,” he said, beginning his departure.

  The others rose with him.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Come,” Jarvis said, and the three stood there as a lance corporal he’d passed by earlier entered.

  He looked back and forth between Jarvis and Garrin, clearly unsure of who to report to.

  “Just make your report,” Jarvis urged.

  “Uh, yes, uh, sirs,” the Green Bearet said, coming to attention. “There’s a woman here. A human woman. Says that she has urgent information that can only be shared with one of you.”

  “Tell her I’ll see her in a minute,” Captain Klein said, moving to take something off of the senior officer’s plates.

  Garrin arched an eyebrow. “Come now. This sounds interesting. Show her in, Lance Corporal,” he said, usurping authority for the time being.

  Rank, after all, hath its privilege.

  “Yes sir,” the bear shifter said, standing aside to allow the woman to enter.

  Garrin tried not to let his jaw hit the floor as his eyes focused on her.

  She was beautiful.

  His bear came alive in a flash.

  ***

  Mia

  She entered the room, coming out from behind the colossal man’s back, only to be confronted by three more walking statues. Mia wasn’t a short woman; in fact she was nearly six feet tall, something that often put men at quite a disadvantage with her. But these men were all easily six inches or more taller than her, and being surrounded by so many of them had the unnerving feeling of actually making her feel short, something that rarely happened to her. It was odd, to say the least.

  “Um, hi,” she said, slowly looking back and forth between them, trying to discern who was in charge.

  The oldest one was in the center, currently staring at her. To his left the youngest, she thought, was giving her an appraising look.

  To the right, the one behind the desk looked bored.

  “I’m Mia,” she said, addressing the one behind the desk at last.

  “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Major Eidelhorn. This is Colonel Richter and Captain Klein. How may we help you?”

  Mia wasn’t positive, but she thought that a colonel outranked a major. So far though, the colonel was still staring at her. He was kind of cute, she thought idly, admiring the way his closely cropped beard contoured his powerful, chiseled jaw.

  But it was the steely glint of his brown eyes that kept her attention. They were focused on her with an intensity that made her heart race nervously. She’d never met this man before, Mia was positive of it.

  So why was he staring at her like that?

  Tearing her eyes away from his tanned skin and the muscles the tight white T-shirt showed off, she nodded in greeting to the captain as well, and then sat down in the chair the captain had unfolded from against one of the walls.

  The others followed suit, the colonel taking a half second to shake his head before he slid into a seat.

  “What seems to be the matter?” This was the colonel speaking for the first time, and his voice rumbled over her like an avalanche crashing down a mountain, strumming the very strings of her soul as he spoke to her.

  Oh my…

  Mia couldn’t let herself get distracted. Her purpose in coming here was nerve-racking enough as it was. She had no idea how they would deal with people like her, and it scared her almost witless to think about it.

  Her throat froze up, no sound coming from it as she looked back and forth between them all, nerves getting the better of her.

  “It’s okay,” Colonel Richter said, reaching out to give her forearm a gentle squeeze.

  A bright burst of static electricity jumped from his fingers to her skin, shocking Mia. Yelping more in surprise than pain, she jerked backward. The flimsy plastic leg on her chair snapped and she tumbled to the floor.

  Or would have, if an incredibly muscular arm hadn’t snapped out and slid around her waist, hauling her up from a falling position as the colonel arrested her fall, having moved from his seat with reflexes that were literally superhuman.

  “T-Thank you,” she stammered, overwhelmed by everything that was going on.

  “Just trying to fix what I started,” he joked, offering her his chair instead, a sturdier wooden piece that was unlikely to break from her movement.

  “Well, you certainly know how to catch a swooning lady,” she returned without thinking.

  The words circulated through her own brain, and Mia felt her eyebrows shoot up her forehead as she realized what she’d just done. She was flirting with him!

  You can’t do that. After you tell them why you’re here, they aren’t going to want anything to do with you. Behave and tell them the reason for your coming.

  The colonel coughed and she nodded quickly in agreement.

  “W
hat is so urgent that you could only talk to us, Mia?”

  She looked down, shame burning her cheeks as she went over the words in her head one more time.

  “There’s something you need to know,” she said, forcing the words out as terror threatened to keep her quiet once more.

  “What’s that?”

  She was only talking to the colonel now, the others having faded into the background while he maintained her attention.

  “You have a Fenris spy in your midst.”

  The three of them sat up straight, imposing and intimidating. No longer were they the kind men, but they were the trained soldiers, the killing machines that she knew lurked just under the exterior.

  “Who?” the major ground out.

  Mia took a deep breath and steeled herself.

  “Me.”

  ***

  The room went silent as her admission of guilt hit the three shifters at once, leaving them stunned.

  The two younger ones reacted first, their expressions hardening, plunging the temperature of the room down as they regarded her with cold glares.

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed, but the eyes under them never clouded over. They remained introspective, assessing and analyzing her as she stood there, waiting for someone to say something. Anything.

  “You don’t strike me as the type to normally do spywork,” he said at long last, the words coming from him slowly.

  Mia arched an eyebrow. “Well, it’s not my day job,” she said dryly, at a loss for words otherwise.

  The other two officers in the room grew angrier, if anything.

  But not the bearded one. He stared at her in shock for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

  “Is everything okay, colonel?” the one to her left, the captain, asked.

  “Oh, I’m not sure about that,” he replied. “After all, she’s an admitted spy. But,” his laughter vanished. “I have a feeling that she didn’t exactly volunteer to do this. Am I right?” His eyes became laser focused on her as he grilled her.

  “How did you know?” Mia asked in a small voice, trying to get a hold on the vibe in the room.

  “It’s in your eyes,” he responded softly.

  Mia looked away, eyes cast downward.

  “No,” the big man said, and his hand reached out for her once more, this time to cup her jaw.

  She tried to resist, but his fingers were stronger than steel, yet his touch as gentle as a feather as he tilted her face back up.

  “Tell us what’s going on,” he said, a knowing, understanding look appearing in the dark brown sea of his eyes.

  “Okay.” She couldn’t resist; it was like being hypnotized.

  The shifter dropped his hand from her face, much to her surprised dismay. Mia almost got caught up in what that meant, but she focused her mind in time.

  One thing first. Tell them why you’re here.

  “The simple version is blackmail.”

  “Blackmail?” the shifter behind the desk said, his expression softening almost immediately.

  “They have my twin,” she replied. “Threatened to kill him if I didn’t provide the information they demanded.”

  “Your twin brother?” the colonel asked.

  “Yes. Fraternal,” she replied, answering the unasked question automatically.

  People always asked if she and her brother were truly twins. It happened so often that she just began to explain before they asked. It was easier that way.

  There was a pause as the shifters digested the information.

  “How long ago did this happen?”

  “What information did they want?”

  “Who is your contact?”

  “Why did you come to us now?”

  The questions cascaded over her like a waterfall. Mia tried to start answering, but they just kept coming and she began to feel overwhelmed. Her gaze swung from one huge, imposing shifter to the next, wondering who she should answer first. Her mouth hung open, trying to vomit up the words to answer all the questions at once.

  She began to panic.

  “Enough,” the big shifter in the middle said, spreading his hands wide.

  The other two immediately fell silent, respecting his authority instantly.

  “Tell us what happened,” he said gently. “Start from the beginning, and take your time,” he told her, his voice gentle and soothing, yet mixed with subtle hints of command.

  This man was a natural leader, one who knew just how to wield a position of authority. Mia recognized that, having already seen hints in it from the way his subordinates respected and deferred to him. But just hearing him speak to her like that, his voice pitched and modulated just perfectly to get her to loosen up, was impressive.

  “Okay.” She nodded, and took a deep breath. “It all started just before you came back and kicked Fenris out.”

  The other shifters nodded. They knew this part. The men she was talking to were from the shifter stronghold of Cadia just to the east, across the mountain range. Fenris was another shifter-only territory, located to the west across the ocean.

  Fenris had started a war with Cadia, and invaded Cloud Lake to use it as a staging point. Whereas the few Cadian shifters that had come through the human settlement had always been polite, Fenris had practically torn the town down around it. The residents had watched with what amounted to unfettered glee as they were booted out once Cadia got its act together.

  Unfortunately, Fenris hadn’t been finished off completely.

  “They took him from his home one night,” she continued. “At first I thought he was just one more of those that went missing from the Fenris occupation. It tore me up inside, and I grieved, wondering how he’d gotten onto their bad side. But then, a week later, a large envelope was sitting on my porch when I got home from work.”

  Mia sucked in another breath, trying hard to ignore the shiver that wormed its way down her spine as she relived those first horrific moments.

  “What did it say?” Colonel Eidelhorn urged gently after a few moments of silence.

  “It said that they had him. That they needed information from me.”

  “And if you didn’t provide it?” he prodded when she paused once more.

  “They said they would send him back piece by piece, ending with his head,” she said, tears tracking down her face as she spoke the words as they had been written, line for line.

  Wood snapped and she yanked her head up from where she’d been wiping tears on her sleeve.

  The armrest of the chair the colonel was sitting in had shattered into kindling as his hand closed around it. He grimaced angrily, pulling slivers from his hand as he nodded slowly.

  “Make a note to talk to all the relatives of the other few people that went missing during Fenris’s time here,” he said to the major behind the desk. “Perhaps Mia here isn’t the only one being blackmailed, just the only one with the courage to come forth and speak up.”

  She looked at him in surprise.

  “Courage?” she said, the word almost a laugh. “I went along with them for two weeks! I’m sure your men have died because of the information I’ve given. How can you call that courage?” she said, tears once again streaming down her face as she finally spoke aloud the consequences of her actions.

  She’d known, of course, what Fenris was likely using the information for. Mia wasn’t an idiot; she knew they weren’t using it to throw a surprise birthday party for somebody. But actually vocalizing it—that she had aided and abetted the scum who had her brother in killing friendly shifters from Cadia made her feel sick.

  In fact…

  “Here,” the colonel said, pushing a garbage bin to her, even as Mia’s stomach began to empty its contents.

  She heard a snapping of fingers and the shuffling of feet, and once she had finished, she realized that it was just her and the colonel in the office.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he said gently, handing her some tissues and taking the bin from her.

  Mia’s f
aced burned with embarrassment, and she wanted nothing more than to flee, to run away and hide in a locked room.

  “My name is Garrin,” he said softly, reaching out to gently caress her shoulder.

  She flinched but didn’t pull away, his warm hand relaxing despite her discomfort. Mia liked the way his touch felt…

  Chapter Three

  Garrin

  After grabbing Mia a wet cloth and removing the evidence from the office, he settled back into his chair and regarded her once more.

  She was stunning. The moment she’d walked through his door, her strawberry blonde hair bouncing in its soft curls, he’d been lost. The slight arch to her carefully manicured eyebrows, or the small, thin nose between her big eyes—it all drove him wild. There wasn’t a single ounce of her that was hard on his eyes.

  When he’d finally managed to tear his eyes away from her steel-gray eyes, Garrin had been surprised by her height. Mia was tall. His best guess was an inch or maybe two at most under six feet tall. She was big, but in an athletic, muscular way. It was sports muscle though, unless he missed his guess. There were subtle differences in that versus muscle created in the gym.

  He idly wondered just what it was she did, and made a mental note to ask her about it the first time the conversation came up.

  “What do I do?” she asked after finishing telling him her story, her stomach calmed for the time being. He tried to remain calm as she detailed the information she’d given over to Fenris before finally come to him.

  Garrin worked his jaw, thinking through his words.

  “Why did you finally come to us? I’m sure they told you that if you come to us, they’ll kill him.”

  Mia nodded soberly. “Yes, that threat has been in every set of instructions I’ve received.” She shook her head angrily. “But this time…this time they went too far. They want too much.”

  “What is it that they want?”

  “Everything. They want me to outline as much as I can. Patrols, buildings, numbers. Before it was ‘Watch this area, tell us if you see any shifters or suspicious activities.’ Now they want me to give them as much of a breakdown of your defenses as possible. The only reason I can think of for that is so that they can invade.”