“Captain, I don’t think—” the brunette started before Leo cut him off with a lazy flick of his wrist.
“Didn’t ask you to,” he said, quirking an eyebrow at Annie. “So? Interested?”
Like she had any choice. “Go for it.”
“We help you with your soldier problem. Hell, we’ll get you off planet. For the right price.”
And there it was. Annie felt something cold start to move through her veins.
“What price might that be?” she asked as calmly as she could.
Leo’s grin widened as his eyes traced down her neck and over her torso. He nodded at her chest.
“Those real?” he asked
Annie bristled. “Excuse me?”
Leo smirked at her. “The diamonds, sugar. I’m assuming yes if you got the dress from Strathmore but I thought I’d ask anyways.”
Annie straightened her shoulders as heat slowly filled her face. She ran fingers along the tiny crystals.
“He said they were,” she answered. “I don’t know if he was lying, though.”
Leo shrugged. “Good enough for me. Alright, let’s get this onto the Breakwater.”
Leo gave Annie a wary look before glancing at Custer, who was still smiling like this was exactly what he had wanted to happen today. He turned and walked up the ramp into the ship behind him.
“Hyde, Dom, we need your help to load fast,” he called before walking over to one of the crates and loading it onto a flatbed next to the stack of cargo. He and Custer grabbed another box as Leo took a step closer to Annie.
He smiled at her and put his hands up in a placating gesture when she tensed. “Got anywhere in particular you’re needing to be?”
“Why are you helping me?” Annie asked in lieu of answering his question. “And don’t say the diamonds. I’m asking why you’re actually helping me.”
“You don’t believe I’m motivated solely by greed?” Leo said. “I’m touched that you think I’m such a good person.”
“It has nothing to do with being a good person,” Annie snapped. “There are soldiers from one of the most feared private militaries to ever exist who are going to burst out of the forest at any minute now because the man who put the galaxy’s balls in a vise is trying to find me. If I were you, I’d need a hell lot more than a couple rocks to convince me to get involved.”
Leo’s smile faded as he ran his eyes searchingly over her face. “You think I’m going to sell you back to Strathmore.”
“I’d have to be an idiot to not consider the possibility,” Annie told him. “I’m a lot of things. That’s not one.”
“So why haven’t you made a break for it yet?” he asked, tilting his head.
“Because you’re only probably going to hand me giftwrapped over to Strathmore whereas the jackasses in the forest definitely will. The hand’s shit, but it’s still more in my favor with you.”
“Captain, they’re getting closer,” Rick called as two men ran down the ramp to help move the cargo. One had a shockingly blue eyepatch and the other, while no less muscular than his crewmates, looked to be several inches shorter than Annie. Both glared suspiciously at Annie as they approached and she wasn’t surprised to see they also had gold eyes. Rick leaned over and muttered something to them. They looked at each other, then went to work.
“Alright, you need to get inside now if you’re getting inside at all,” Leo said to Annie. “I can’t focus on fighting these chucklefucks and protect you at the same time.”
“Wait, you’re fighting them?” Annie said in disbelief. “I thought the plan was to try and outrun them.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Leo replied calmly, rolling his shoulders.
“I thought it was implied in that there’s going to be at least five of them and unless you’re all secretly highly trained operatives then there’s no way you’ll win,” Annie said as she slowly realized she was throwing her lot in with a mad man.
“Don’t worry about me,” Leo said. “Just get on the ship.”
“I am not getting you killed,” Annie hissed at him. “I’ll deal with this on my own.”
Leo turned back at her and smiled. He had been grinning for the entirety of the time she had been talking to him, and yet it still felt as if this was the first time. It was wide and warm and Annie felt something in her chest flutter at the sight.
“You’re one interesting lady, Annie,” he said. “I’ve got no intentions to kick it before getting to know you a little better. Now, please, get to the Breakwater.”
Annie was about to protest again when hands clamped down on her shoulder. She flinched violently.
“I have her,” Rick told the captain, pulling Annie towards the ship. “I’m going to go ahead and get our bird running. Don’t die.”
“I will do my very best,” Leo responded cheerfully.
The other three crewmen were pushing the carts up the ramp. Rick tapped Custer on the shoulder.
“Stay with him,” Rick told the blond, who grinned, nodded, and then jogged over to where his captain was staring out into the forest.
“So we’re actually bringing her?” the man with the eyepatch asked as he adjusted his hold on the cart. “We’re actually kidnapping Strathmore’s fiancée?”
“I think it’s more that you’re de-kidnapping me,” Annie said. He glared at her, and the short man snorted.
“I give about as many fucks about the exact terminology of what the stunt we’re pulling here is as Strathmore’s going to give before he blasts our sorry asses out of the sky,” Eyepatch said. “That amount, if you were wondering, is zero.”
“Hyde,” Rick said warningly.
Hyde shook his head and tuned back to the cart. “All I’m saying is, the bitch better shit platinum.”
“Hyde,” Rick growled.
Annie had heard far worse on some of her best days working at the bar and had far bigger concerns.
“Aren’t you a little concerned that they’re about to get themselves killed?” she asked, jerking her head at Leo and Custer as the sound of shouting grew steadily louder.
“They’re not going to die,” the short man—Dominic?—said, “which is a damn shame because I would give up some very valuable things to watch Custer bite the dust.”
The men pushed the carts the rest of the way onto the ship and into what appeared to be a cargo hold.
“Alright, we don’t have time to tie these down right now,” Rick said, “so we’re going to strap the whole cart and hope for the best. When we’re done, Hyde, you’re backing up the captain and Custer and Dom, I need you to—oh, dammit.”
Annie jerked around to see what he was cursing at and her heart dropped as she saw the familiar uniforms pour out of the trees. One soldier barked something at Leo, who said something in reply that made the man stiffen. Annie scrambled, trying to get out of the line of sight, but it was too late. One woman saw her and pointed, shouting. The others reached for their guns. Instead of reaching for their own weapons, Leo and Custer roared at the offending soldiers and exploded outwards.
Annie blinked, trying to reconcile what she was seeing with reality. Where Leo and Custer had been were now two giant bears, one black and one honey-colored, swiping left and right. Half the soldiers were already bleeding on the ground and the other half were, like Annie, recovering from what they were seeing.
“Hyde, cover them, Dominic, engineering,” Rick snapped, running into a chrome hallway towards what Annie assumed was the pilot’s station. Dominic sprinted after them as Hyde unstrapped his blaster and put a bolt in the head of the first soldier to point a blaster at one of the bears. Between Hyde’s cover fire and the brutal assault by what were probably the captain and Custer, the soldiers were shortly dispatched and the two giant, furry creatures where lumbering towards the ship.
“Move your asses,” Hyde hollered.
The honey-colored bear shoulder checked him as he entered the cargo bay. As soon as they were both in, Hyde slammed a hand down ove
r a button on the intercom by the door.
“All in and ready for takeoff,” he said.
“Get out of the cargo bay,” Rick’s voice answered. “I’m about to go and I don’t want any of you getting killed by a box of pain meds.”
All four of them, bear and human alike, hurried towards the hallways as the ramp lifted and the door to the outside slid down. They started into the main body of the Breakwater as the ship hummed to life around them.
“Alright, I’m going to go see if Dom needs anything,” Hyde said. “Please, for the love of any god you so choose, both of you put some pants on. Custer, that means you.”
With that, he spun on his heel and stalked off. The bears wandered off and Annie, after a moment to adjust, followed the bear she was pretty sure was Leo.
He walked down one corridor and came to a stop in front of one of the doors. Then, sitting back on his haunches, painstakingly typed in a passcode with far more care and precision than could ever look natural on his hulking, fur-covered frame. A surprised giggle burst out of Annie before she clapped one hand over her mouth. It was strange; she would have thought laughter to be beyond her two minutes ago. The bear simply sank back down on all fours and huffed at her as the door hissed open. Annie followed him as he walked inside a bedroom that reminded Annie loosely of hospital rooms, all uniform, sturdy furniture and sleek surfaces.
There was a strange sound, like a squelch combined with bones popping, as the transformation reversed. Within seconds, the bear had melted back into Leo, standing tall and proud and very, very naked.
Annie considered turning around to give the man some privacy, but from his smirk he clearly didn’t mind the eyeful she was getting and honestly after all she’d gone through, the universe owed her some compensation. She took a good, long look at his broad shoulders and sculpted abs before snapping her eyes back up to his.
“Impressive,” she said, half talking about his abilities and half talking about his physique.
“Done already? You’re allowed to go lower, you know,” he flirted.
Annie shook her head. “Maybe when you don’t still have blood on your hands. And face.”
Leo grimaced and held up one finger in a universal “wait a sec” gesture before turning and walking into what turned out to be a connected bathroom. As he entered the adjoining room, Annie allowed her eyes to dip down towards the dimple at the small of his back and then farther down. The view almost made up for having to run from a maniac with a private army.
She heard the hiss of a sonic scrubber start up and looked around the room while she waited. There was a bed with a nightstand next to it and an intercom system just above it, along with a shelf running around the room at about Annie’s eyelevel. A desk with a stationary comm unit sat against one wall with a chair pushed away from it at an angle. Annie, suddenly feeling the exhaustion of the last several hours pouring over her, figured that if Leo was willing to turn into a bear and kill her pursuers and then all but hand her an engraved invitation to look at his junk then he probably wouldn’t be overly angry at her for sitting down. Still, she sat gingerly, ready to spring back up if necessary, the memory of Strathmore striking her hard across the face for sitting without his permission at dinner her first night on the Appomattox fresh in her mind.
Leo sauntered back out of the bathroom and smiled at Annie.
“Alright, I’m getting me some clothes. Do you want something to change into? I don’t have anything your size, but you’re welcome to anything in my closet.”
Suddenly, Annie was more desperate than ever to get out of the dress. She nodded quickly. Leo laughed as he walked over to his closet and pulled out a shirt and a pair of pants and tossed them to Annie before rummaging for clothes he could wear.
Annie got her boots off in record time but her dress proved to be more difficult. It had taken two of the assigned guard to get her into it and do up all the little buttons on the back and tie the various laces. She cursed as she fumbled with the fabric, trying and failing to get it even a little looser.
“Allow me,” Leo said from behind her, followed by the familiar snik of a traditional metal knife snapping open. There was a tearing sound, and suddenly the dress was a lot looser. Annie crossed her arms over her chest before the fabric fell away completely. She turned to Leo and raised an eyebrow.
“You’re clearly had practice with that,” she said.
Leo shrugged. “I’m a dashing and devastatingly handsome smuggler. A little roughness adds the edge the kind of women who come after me are looking for.”
Annie uncrossed her arms, letting the dress fall away, and reached for the shirt. She didn’t miss the way Leo’s eyes ran over her body as she tugged it over her head.
“I won’t lie, in any other situation it’d work for me,” she told him as she adjusted the soft blue fabric. The shirt was long enough on her that she really didn’t need pants, but she tugged them on anyways. The material dwarfed her, making her feel like she was playing dress-up. From the amused glint in Leo’s eyes, he agreed.
“In that case, I’ll wait for any other situation to pop up and try again,” he said and winked. The gesture came across more humorous than seductive and Annie laughed.
She was slowly, to her surprise, relaxing. Hours ago she had thought even her best case scenario to be hopeless but now she was on a ship with men who could become bears. Suddenly, the impossible seemed very possible.
“So, bear shifters?” she said with a small smile. “I gotta admit, I’ve met a lot of strange folks, but I’ve never met one of your lot before. I thought you all had fancy security gigs, shit like that.”
“First of all, we have about the same genetic frequency as redheads, so I wouldn’t say for sure you’ve never met one of us before,” Leo said. “And obviously some of us took the low road. I tried private security for a while. It got old fast.”
“I see. And the others? All shifters?”
Leo opened his mouth to respond when a beep came from the intercom.
“Captain, letting you know we’ve broken atmo. Custer and Hyde went back to the cargo hold to secure the loose crates. Will let you know if anything else develops,” Rick said.
Leo walked over and pressed a button.
“Thank you, Rick, I appreciate it.”
He released the button and walked back towards Annie and sat on the corner of the bed.
“Sorry about that. To answer your question, yes, everyone on this crew is a bear shifter,” he told her.
Annie drew her knees to her chest.
“Can you tell me about them?” she asked. “Not anything secret, obviously, but I’m curious about who does what. You have a small crew.”
Leo nodded. “Bare bones, that’s us. We need to take on some more crew, but with our… peculiarities and our work, that’s not easy. We’d have to let anyone we hired in on our secret, and there’s a lot of money to be made in selling shifters and splices. Anyone good enough at smuggling to be hired here would be the type to jump at the opportunity.”
He sighed, chewing at his lip. “Where to start… Rick is the obvious place. He’s my second in command and the other main pilot.”
“Main pilot?” Annie asked.
“Everyone in the crew can pilot this bird by necessity,” Leo told her, “but Rick and I are the ‘official’ pilots. He’s a good man. Quiet, smart. Stubborn as all hell once he takes a stand on something, but a good friend and a good pilot. His parents were in the smuggling game so he knows what he’s doing. Both his legs are prosthetics so if you hear him hissing when he moves, don’t worry, that’s perfectly normal. Out of everyone else on this crew, he’s the one you should worry about the least.”
KIKO (MC Bear Mates Book 3) Page 80