“So where can we get this done?” Annie asked, eyes like needles.
Aurie hesitated. She wasn’t one to play hero, but at the same time, she knew she’d never forgive herself if she handed someone else to them.
“Look,” a blond man she hadn’t met yet drawled, “it’s like this. If you don’t tell us where we can get someone to do the operation, we have to do this all over again and, for obvious reasons, we can’t let you go until we’re done. Now, maybe this next person is good for the operation. But maybe not. Maybe we have to do this a whole bunch of times. Or, you can give us a name, and it all ends with no one getting hurt and no one disturbed that doesn’t need to be.”
“Custer’s right,” Annie said, not unkindly. “We don’t want to hurt anyone we don’t have to, but this has to happen.”
Aurie chewed it over for a moment. “I… my advisor. Former advisor. She’s the best bet. If I call and ask her to set up a time to operate on a friend who can’t answer any questions, she’ll do it. She used to work in a clinic that catered specifically to people who couldn’t go to a hospital until it got shut down and since she’s an otorhinolaryngologist she’s the best choice.”
The entire crew stared at her.
“A what now?” Thalia asked.
“An otorhinolaryngologist. It’s a medical professional specializing in the head and neck region,” Aurie explained.
“You’re fucking with us,” Zosha said accusatorily.
“They’re also called ENT surgeons, if that’s easier to remember,” Delphine said quietly. Aurie nodded.
“Huh.” The captain leaned back in his chair. “You learn something new every day. And this Ottoman-whatever friend of yours, she can get the chip?”
“If anyone can, she can,” Aurie told him. “Otorhinolaryngologists are sort of the most trained for this, and she’s the best I’ve ever met.”
“Why is that even a specialty you need?” Rick asked.
“Grand View is the hospital of choice for about fifteen different full-contact sports teams,” Aurie answered wearily.
“We’re off track,” Annie said. “Aurelia, you contact your ENT friend. Set it up. Other than that, I’m putting you in charge of giving Dom the sedatives he needs to keep stable. That’s a daily thing for now, so I hope you two get along. Thalia, Zosha, one of you needs to be monitoring her when you’re not on shift. If neither of you can do it, find Delphine. Everyone, get where you need to be.”
“I guess we’re sticking together for a little longer,” Thalia said to Aurie as the others took their leave. “Believe it or not, you won’t hate it here.”
It took three days, but Aurie found she was right.
It was strange that her life on a smuggler’s ship she was being held on against her will was better than the one she’d had before. She felt guilty thinking it, but it was true. True to Dom’s word, no one so much as looked vaguely threatening in Aurie’s direction and with the fear for her safety gone she could see that these flawed people had created a family for themselves. It didn’t help that after a few days of talking with Dom, Aurie could understand all too well the urge to do whatever it took to protect him. It had been a gradual thing—at first, she’d been resentful and still a bit afraid and he had been respectful of her boundaries. But soon the emotional exhaustion wore down on Aurie and she tentatively opened up a little to Dom, only for him to do the same. On the tenth day, she finally got the nerve up to ask him about the chip.
“It’s because I have Rogerson’s, see,” he explained. “Bunch of rich assholes wanted a guard bear. They implanted it so they could control when I shifted. It didn’t end well for them.”
“Well, it sounds like they got what they deserved,” Aurie had replied, thinking about how young he must have been.
“You sound surprisingly okay with that.”
Aurie had smiled. “I’m a foster child. I’ve got a list of people I wish had gotten what they deserve.”
The encounter had broken down whatever arbitrary wall Aurie had constructed, and as the days counted down until the date Dr. Lee had sent them in response to Aurie’s comm, Aurie grew more and more certain that she’d miss the Breakwater when she was returned to her normal, everyday life.
Then one day Annie cornered her after she had finished with Dom.
“Hello,” she said. “I need to talk with you for a moment.”
“What about?” Aurie asked. She was still a bit frightened of Annie, but she’d come to respect the other woman nonetheless.
“Dom,” Annie answered. “And you. Dr. Lee changed her price for the surgery. The embargo set around Do’n means that the hospital isn’t getting the usual brand of anesthetics. She wants us to go around it. I need you to explain to her that we can’t?”
“May I ask why?” Aurie asked.
“Our main employer has certain personal stakes in the embargo being respected. He’s not someone we want to anger,” said Annie. “Just let her know that it’s a no go. Other than that, I wanted to know how you’re doing.”
“I…” Aurie trailed off, collecting her words. “Am better than expected, honestly.”
“You look it,” Annie said. “Thalia says you’re a lot more colorful now.”
“I appreciate you asking after me,” Aurie said with a smile.
“Oh, it’s not a selfless endeavor,” Annie replied. “You like Dom. You like Zosha, and Thalia, and Delphine. And you can stand the rest of us, even Custer. It seems like a lot more than I could say about you and you old coworkers.”
“I don’t understand,” Aurie admitted.
“I’m saying, once Dom’s chip-free, we’ll drop you off anywhere in the universe you want to go. But if you want to stick around, there’s room for you here.” With that, Annie strode off. Aurie, in a daze, just sent Dr. Lee the comm Annie had asked her to, leading to several days where despite Aurie’s best wheedling, Dr. Lee refused to budge, which in turn did its part to gradually ratchet up the tension on the ship.
Aurie was on her way to her and Dom’s daily checkup when she ran into Hyde walking the opposite way.
“You may want to give it a minute,” he told her as he passed her. “He’s pretty upset. This isn’t easy on him.”
Warily, Annie continued toward the room. She could hear muffled swearing and movement and the scrape of something being dragged across the floor. She had almost reached the doorway when she heard a loud thud, followed by a moan of pain. Alarmed, she looked into the room only to see the chair overturned and Dom grimacing and clutching his bleeding hand, blood smudged on the wall where he’d punched it.
Aurie gave him a look she generally reserved for her trouble patients.
“And what did that accomplish?” she asked patiently.
Dom deflated. “Nothing. It… it’s all nothing.”
Aurie studied him for a moment. “Hop on the table.”
“What?” Dom asked.
“I said, hop on the table,” she repeated. “I need to put something on your knuckles.”
Dom stared at her for a moment, then obeyed.
“I don’t know why you bother,” he told her, a quiet confession. “Even if you could do the surgery, it wouldn’t do anything, not really. I still wouldn’t have any control over my shifts.”
Aurie hummed as she looked for antiseptic and something to cover the wound with. “Do you know how long it takes to become a qualified doctor? Classes, exams shadowing, residency? The technical answer is a really fucking long time.”
“That’s nice,” Dom said, clearly a little confused.
“But you know why we do it?” Aurie asked. “Because if we do, someday we get to be the big fancy doctors. Because if we succeed in the end, then we succeed now. I think it’s similar with you. Even if it all seems impossible because there aren’t any clear victories around you at the moment, the war’s not lost yet, you know? It’s about the finish line. And you’ll get there. You’re strong, and you’ve got a lot of help.” She made a noise of victory i
n the back of her throat as she dug up a bottle of antiseptic spray.
“Well, thank you,” Dom told her, swallowing. “I hope you’re right.”
“Usually am,” she told him. “Now give me your hand.”
He did, and she inspected the broken skin, wiping the blood away.
“You guys really need to hire a doctor, you know that?” Aurie sighed as she applied the antiseptic spray to the abrasions on Dom’s knuckles.
“You offering, Princess?” he asked her, a small smirk playing across his lips.
“Me? On a smuggler ship?” she asked, batting her eyes at Dom. “Oh, no, Mister, I’m too delicate and sensitive—don’t let the fact that I’ve almost completed my residency as a neurosurgeon fool you, if I see one drop of blood, I’ll pass right out.”
Dom rolled his eyes. “Keep milking that, why don’t you.”
Aurie beamed at him. “Don’t worry, I plan to,” she told him sweetly.
“Really though, are you happy at Grand View? Every time you talk about it, it just sounds like you hate it,” he said, pinning her with his hypnotic eyes.
Aurie shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, its stressful, sure, but that’s medicine. And I don’t have to get along with everybody to work with them efficiently, so…”
“But if you had the chance to work somewhere else, would you take it?” Dom asked, almost demanding.
“I…I don’t understand,” Aurie admitted softly.
“I just—” he started, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by a cry of pain as he jolted forward, clutching his head in his hands.
“Dom?” Aurie asked, taking a step forward as her heart leapt into her throat. He shook his head, sinking to his knees and leaning over so his forehead touched the ground as he continued to grunt in pain.
“Dom, what’s wrong?” Aurie felt frantic despite years of training. She hadn’t been this scared since her first surgery where she had to do more than actually observe. “I need you to talk to me.”
Dom just curled in on himself more, fingernails cutting into the skin of his scalp. Aurie realized that he was shaking so hard he was practically vibrating. At first, she thought it was some sort of seizure, but as a ripple ran through his muscles, causing him to buck back sharply, an understanding of what was happening flooded through her life ice water.
“Oh no,” she breathed out, taking a step back as Dom bucked back again, this time leaving the back of his shirt split as the bones of his spine seemed to try and break free of his skin. “Oh shit.”
She knew she needed to get out of there as quickly as possible, but as soon as she turned to flee down the hallway it seemed like Dom lost whatever shred of inner strength was keeping the transformation at bay. In a roar of blood and muscle and bone he shifted outward until Aurie was staring in terror at the hulking, fur-covered form of a black bear. He snuffled at the tattered remains of his shirt for a moment before stilling and turning his golden gaze on Aurie.
Looking into his eyes, Aurie lost all remaining hope that somewhere, deep down, the bear was still Dominic. There was nothing hypnotic or soft in the bear’s stare, only an animalistic rage. The bear stood back on his hind legs and growled low in his throat, the bass reverberating through Aurie’s bones.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay, we’re just going to—”
The bear dropped back down on all fours and roared. Aurie shrieked and ran for the doorway, pulling down the medicine cabinet on her way out. She heard the thud of impact as the bear barreled into it and the following bellow of anger and pain that chased her down the hallway. As she turned the corner so quickly she skidded into the wall, she could see the dark mountain of fur push his way through the remnants of the ruined cabinet and started down the hallway after her.
Aurie had been scared a lot. Scared of the dark, of foster fathers, of failing classes, of burning out before she completed her residency, of some of the patients that came in during the late shift. An hour ago, she would even have said she was terrified of those things. Now she knew differently. Real terror was everything seeming to go in slow motion, like she was running underwater, and the only thing that was moving at a normal speed was the monster after her. Real terror was the adrenaline seeming to shrink her skin until she thought she’d burst out of it and clouding her thoughts until there was nothing left but run, run, you’ll die if you don’t run. It was the way the only two things that she knew were real were herself and the bear to the point that every time she put a foot down she was only half sure it would actually connect with the floor. Terror was feeling yourself sinking and fighting for air, or waking up to find yourself in freefall, or trying desperately to keep ahead of a faster, sharper animal.
Aurie was so close to the main body of the ship. If she could just get to one of the other shifters, or even Delphine, she’d have a chance.
Thalia found them first.
She rounded the corner, looking like someone who was about to threaten to file a noise complaint, and then froze as she took in the sight of a terrified doctor and an enraged mass of fur and claws barreling down the hallway at her. To her eternal credit, she reacted much more swiftly than Aurie had. Turning and dashing back down the hall, she opened the door to her and Hyde’s room, then leaned back and yanked Aurie inside and slammed the button to close the doors. A split second after the lock engaged, a muffled, angry snarl sounded from right outside before the sound of an impact shook the doorframe.
Aurie and Thalia looked at each other, breathing heavily.
“Okay,” Thalia said in a tone that could be best described as placating, “I need you to not freak out, but that door’s not going to hold until Dominic shifts back.”
“What?” Aurie demanded, voice coming out shriller than she could ever remember it being. “You live on a ship with five bear shifters and that’s not a precaution anyone ever thought might come in handy?”
Thalia walked towards the bed as the pounding on the door continued. “First of all, the other four are in control no matter what form they’re in, meaning they’re only as likely to try and break a door down as a bear as they are as a human. Second, there’s a reinforced room by the engine room that can hold him. The problem is, he can usually recognize a shift and get there, or let someone know to get him there, in time to be locked down before he’s completely shifted. That stupid fucking chip, however, is messing with that. He can’t predict his shifts anymore. The sedatives were supposed to counter it.”
“I think he’s built up a resistance to them,” Aurie said faintly, afraid to take her eyes off the door.
“No shit, really?” Thalia asked as she thumbed a button on an intercom system identical to the one in Zosha’s room. “Hyde, you better be at your fucking station.”
Hyde’s sigh crackled through the intercom. “What’d I do now?”
“I need you to get over here now. I’m in—” she broke off as a particularly loud thump came from the door. “I’m in our room,” she finished with a not insignificant amount of panic.
Aurie was slowly backing away from the door on shaking legs, still unable to look away from it, as Hyde’s voice, now attentive and worried, asked, “why? What’s happening?”
“It’s...fuck. Oh, oh fuck,” she said as the bear rammed into the door so hard one of the panels jutted into the room, exposing the wiring as the growling from the other side grew more audible. “Aurie, bathroom, now.”
Aurie whimpered a little, rooted in place.
“Bathroom!” Thalia barked. “Hyde, I need you here ten minutes ago, bring Custer or the captain if you can.”
“Thalia? Thalia, what’s happening?” Hyde asked, sounding frantic, but Thalia was pushing Aurie into the bathroom and closing the door behind them.
“We’re going to be okay,” she told Aurie. “We’re going to be absolutely fine, this is a smallish ship and there’s no way Dom can break through both sets of doors before someone gets here.”
“Are you sure?” Aurie demanded with just a tad o
f hysteria.
“Look, I don’t fucking know, I’m a journalist,” Thalia snapped.
She and Aurie stared at each other for a moment, the only sound the snarling and thuds and metallic groans form the other room, then burst out laughing.
“Oh,” Aurie gasped. “Oh, my God. I’m a medical student, and you’re a journalism student, and we’re about to get eaten by a bear. They didn’t cover this in my orientation, did they cover it in yours?”
“Nope,” Thalia giggled helplessly. “But suck it, academia elitists. You may think journalism is a useless major but I can tell you it’s exactly as helpful as a medical degree in spontaneous bear attacks.”
Leeward Bear (BBW Shifter Romance) (Fisherbears Book 3) Page 65