by Bianca D’Arc
Georgio tugged on his clothing while Arlo stood guard over Matilda. He checked his gear, and when he was satisfied he was fully armed and ready—which took only seconds—he nodded to Arlo, and the Wraith leader moved away to continue leading his people.
Georgio reached out to Matilda, and she allowed the touch, crowding into his legs and batting her head against his side. Good. She wasn’t going to reject him. She knew him, even in the battle daze she seemed to be in.
“Honey, can you shift?” he asked gently. “We need to get under cover, just in case there were more of them.”
The lioness shook her golden head and seemed to come out of her shock a bit. A glimmer of gold, and she shifted into Matilda’s human form, lusciously naked. Her clothing was nearby, and Georgio helped her retrieve it. She dressed quickly then looked over the scene and shook her head.
“I’ve never killed a mage before,” she admitted. “Actually, I’ve never killed a person before. It’s…different than hunting animals.”
Georgio took her hand and led her back toward the woods near the side of the mountain. “Yeah, it is different,” he agreed gently. “Most animals are neither good nor evil. They just are. But people… People are complex. It’s right to take no pleasure in ending a life, regardless, but when you put an end to evil, you can do so with a clear conscience. She would have imprisoned you again, or worse.”
“There’s nothing worse,” Matilda said softly, her shoulders hunched a bit.
“Yeah, you might be right about that,” Georgio agreed. “But you know what I mean. She would’ve killed you and everyone else with barely a second thought. That kind of person won’t stop until they’re dead. Today, you had to do the hard work of ending that evil, and for that, I’m sorry, but I know it was right. Rest assured in that. You did the right thing.”
Arlo came to them, appearing out of the forest gloom. “We’ll clean up out here. I’m reasonably sure we got them all, and Tara is checking out how they got here. We’ll have their transport searched and removed ASAP. I’ll report any findings of interest. I assume you’ll deal with the human?”
“Yeah, we’ll go get him. He was beat up pretty bad, so it might be good to have a medic standing by to check over my first-aid work,” Georgio said quietly.
“We can arrange airlift to a human hospital—”
Georgio cut the other man off. “Frank can’t deal with crowds. We’d be better off with a small clinic. Preferably staffed by our kind. He seems okay with shifters—though he didn’t know what we were. I suspect that’s changed after this little demonstration. Ideally, I think he’d do well in Grizzly Cove, and we have a clinic and medical doctor who’s also a shifter. Check if your helo can take us all there, and I’ll try to talk Frank into it.”
“Roger that,” Arlo replied. “Stay in touch.” He tapped his own ear, indicating the ear piece Georgio still had in. He wasn’t sure if it would work so deep underground, but he figured they were about to find out.
Arlo walked away, blending into the trees, leaving nary a trace.
“That guy is spooky, the way he moves,” Matilda observed.
“Yeah, they don’t call ‘em the Wraiths for nothing. They all move like ghosts,” Georgio agreed before ushering Matilda into the hidden passage that would lead them back into the mountain.
Chapter Twelve
When they got back to the bunker, Frank was waiting in the main room, sitting on the couch, a frown on his face. He looked up at them with narrowed eyes, and Georgio knew, without a word being spoken, that they were going to have some explaining to do.
“I expect you have some questions.” Georgio took the initiative and spoke first as he closed the bunker door behind them.
“You can say that, again.” Frank shook his head then stopped midway as pain hit him from the abused muscles in his neck. “To start with, those painkillers you gave me earlier weren’t the kind that make a person hallucinate, right?”
Georgio considered taking the easy way out, but he couldn’t do that to Frank. The man had been more than straight up with them. He’d allowed them to use his bunker, and he’d given them shelter when they needed it most. He’d also taken care of Matilda when she’d been out there, in the wilderness, on her own.
Georgio shook his head as he approached the couch where Frank was seated. “No, sir. They were just painkillers. Nothing that would make you see things that weren’t there.”
“Then…” Frank’s gaze went from Georgio to Matilda and back again.
Matilda came forward, perching on the arm of the couch on the opposite end from where Frank was seated. She smiled at Frank, and Georgio hoped the older man would fall for her charm as hard as he, himself, had.
“I’m a shapeshifter,” she said simply. “It’s not something we discuss with outsiders, as a general rule, but I think you probably saw me shift—and a whole lot more.”
“I saw a lion kill that woman who was shooting fire out of her hands!” Frank sounded really upset.
“A magic user,” Georgio said with grave solemnity, nodding. “An evil one, at that. Were you able to hear the conversation?”
“Most of it,” Frank admitted. “But I didn’t understand a lot of it.”
“She admitted to being one of those who helped imprison me and my little brother,” Matilda said quietly. “I was in lion form the whole time. They tried to make us shift, but as far as I know, none of the shifters in that menagerie ever gave in to the demands or the torture. We all stayed in our animal forms until we escaped. We wouldn’t allow them to have the proof of what you saw today. If there was video of people turning into animals and vice versa, the enemy would have used it to create a panic among the human population, which is the last thing we want.”
“What do you want?” Frank asked her point blank.
“To live in peace. To work, play and have families, like any other beings. We want peace in our time and an end to evil, but lately, that hasn’t been so easy,” she admitted.
“There are things happening in the wider world, Frank,” Georgio added. “The age-old struggle between good and evil is heating up, again. Apparently, every few hundred years, there’s something that causes renewed hostilities. Recently, it’s been mages, like the one you saw lobbing fireballs at us, who have been stirring the pot.” Georgio sat in the chair at the side of the couch. “We’ve been quietly waging a war against evil for many years.”
“I thought you had retired from the military,” Frank said.
“That, I did. Myself and my entire unit of Spec Ops bear shifters left the struggle in foreign lands to others and settled a wild place on the Washington coastline. We intended to settle down and find mates. Raise those families Matilda mentioned and have a life before we got too old or too shot up to enjoy it. Then, evil found us, again, and we’ve been forced into action to protect innocents and defend our home.” Georgio sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and met Frank’s gaze. “Look, I know you probably saw more than you ever imagined existed, but I need to know that you won’t speak of what you’ve seen—or worse, show anybody recordings, if you made any, of what went down here today.”
“I didn’t record. I realized pretty quickly what I was watching and shut it down to the live stream only. Nothing got beamed anywhere,” Frank told them. Georgio could hear the ring of truth in his voice.
“Good.” Georgio sat back, more relaxed. “You wouldn’t have done that had you not already decided we were the good guys. I thank you for that trust, and I’ll return the favor. It’s obvious your safe house here has been compromised.”
“I won’t be returning here after I leave,” Frank said. “It’s a shame, because I liked this location better than the others, but I have several places I can go that are similar.”
“That’s good, but I’d like to invite you to stop off in my hometown to see the doctor there and maybe get a few more questions answered by folks higher up the chain of command than me. Now that you know about us, I think you need to
be briefed on what else is out there and how you can ward against the real threats in the world these days. Also, your sensitivity to being around people is something that I’ve heard of before. It could very well be that you have a bit of magic of your own, and untrained, it’s causing you problems. There are a couple of world-class mages in our town that might be able to help you with that, if you wish.”
Frank looked surprised, then hopeful, for an unguarded moment. “Is everyone in your town like you?”
Georgio nodded. “Most. We have a few plain old garden-variety humans, but they’re mated to some of my friends, who are mostly bear shifters. We also have an entire pod of mer living in the cove.”
“Mer? As in…mermaids?” Frank seemed nonplussed.
Georgio nodded. “It came as a surprise to us, too, but our presence attracted unwanted attention from an evil sea monster, if you can believe it, and it was attacking the mer. They came into the cove at our invitation, and under our protection. The cove itself was vulnerable at one time, but the mages I mentioned managed to craft a protective barrier that runs up and down the coast for thousands of miles. Otherwise, the humans who live along the coasts would have been in big trouble, and news stories about sea monsters eating boats would’ve been a lot more prevalent recently.” Georgio chuckled a bit.
“Then, you’re not only protecting your own kind, but others who don’t even know you’re doing it?” Frank asked shrewdly.
“We’re born protectors. It’s in our nature. It’s why most of us signed up for the military and why we take our responsibilities to safeguard the innocent wherever we find them, very seriously. Not all shifters serve the Light, though. Most do, but there are good and bad in every population. So, even if you don’t come to Grizzly Cove with us, you should be aware that just because someone is a shifter doesn’t automatically mean they’re on the right side. Just like not all magic users are evil. We all have free will. Just like everyone else on the planet.”
Frank seemed to consider those words then nodded. “Makes sense.” He turned to look at Matilda. “You’re going to this Grizzly Cove, too?”
Matilda nodded, and a bit of tension eased from Georgio’s spine. “I want to see the doctor. The people who imprisoned me did some kind of surgery on my lion form. I don’t know what they did, but when I woke up, I had incisions. More than once.”
Georgio frowned. For a mad moment, he wished that sorceress was still around so he could kill her again, for what had been done to Matilda.
“I want to know what they took out…or put in,” Matilda concluded.
“Is your doctor a field medic or a real M.D.?” Frank asked. “Does he have the right equipment?”
Georgio was quick to reassure him. “Sven’s a real M.D., and his clinic is set up with all the equipment he requested. Ultrasound, x-ray, even a CT scanner. We don’t have an MRI, but shifters are pretty healthy as a whole.”
“And he turns into a bear?” Frank looked skeptical.
“A polar bear, actually. Only one in town so far. He recently mated, though, and his bride is a mermaid huntress. Quite the lady,” Georgio admitted. “We keep teasing him about having cubs with furry white mermaid tails.”
“Is his wife pregnant?” Matilda asked.
Georgio shook his head. “Not that I know of, but it’s in our nature to tease each other. Bears don’t usually live in such big groups, but the core unit was built around our military team. We’re closer than brothers, and we didn’t want to go off on our own, as bears usually do. The whole town is sort of a social experiment.”
“Sam said that,” Matilda commented. “We lions like our Prides, but bears are usually loners or, at most, small family units.”
“Yeah, usually. That’s the way most of us grew up, but facing death and danger in far off lands together bonded us in ways that changed what we wanted when we got back home,” he admitted. “I don’t know if it would work for another group of bears, but it does for us.” Georgio shrugged and looked at Frank. “Look, why don’t you just check out the town? Get the doc to look at you, meet with Big John, our Alpha, and then, you can decide what you want to do from there. When you want to leave, we can arrange escort to wherever you want to go. I can promise you’ll be safer with our guys than with just about anybody else.”
It didn’t take long for Frank to decide, and within two hours, they were out of the bunker, which had been checked, and double checked, for anything they didn’t want to leave behind. The Wraiths had done the cleanup of the bodies in the woods. Nobody asked exactly what had been done with them, but Georgio was sure there wouldn’t be any evidence to come back to haunt anybody. The Wraiths were good like that and had plenty of experience hiding their tracks.
Matilda had talked to Sam Kinkaid and alerted the lion Alpha of her plans to visit Grizzly Cove. Likewise, Georgio had called Big John and filled him in on what had transpired and his suspicions about Frank’s sensitivity to people. John wasn’t happy a human had learned the shifter secret, but he was pragmatic. If Frank had a sensitivity based on wild magic, they would help him, and it never hurt to have an eccentric billionaire owe you a favor or two.
Arlo had arranged transport, and before long, they were airborne in a black helicopter, heading straight for Grizzly Cove by a route known only to the pilots and, no doubt, plotted for maximum safety. Arlo had also arranged for someone to drive Georgio’s SUV back to Grizzly Cove.
Logistics settled for now, Georgio sat back and let the flight happen. Matilda was peering out the window, and Frank was sitting back, eyes wary, but clearly still in a lot of discomfort from the beating he’d taken the day before.
When they landed, Frank was the first one taken—by wheelchair—directly to the doctor. They’d landed the chopper on the street directly in front of the small building that housed the clinic. There was something to be said for the town still being small enough to do that kind of thing without too many witnesses. Georgio and Matilda went inside with Frank, Georgio making the introductions.
“How are you feeling, Frank? Does anybody here rub your senses the wrong way?” Georgio wanted to be sure.
Frank looked around, amazement on his face as he shook his head. “So far, so good. You folk are easy to be around, which is quite the discovery.”
Sven stepped in and started asking Frank about his injuries. Georgio watched from a few yards away, until he was certain Frank was comfortable with the doc, then turned toward the doorway. Matilda joined him. They both had to talk to Big John before anything else, and the doctor would be busy with Frank for a bit. After that, Sven would use his considerable skill and the state-of-the-art equipment to figure out what, if anything, had been done to her while she’d been held captive.
John Marshall, the Alpha of the community of bear shifters, met them at the door to the clinic. Matilda knew she would have to speak with the Alpha. Just as she would be checked over by the doctor. But, now that the moment was near, she felt reluctant to discover what had actually been done to her those times the keepers of the menagerie had cut her and she’d passed out from pain, waking to find shaved spots on her lion body and fresh incisions slowly seeping blood through sloppy stitches.
She supposed she was justified in feeling apprehensive to learn the details. Fear about what they might have done to her had been a silent monkey on her back for weeks. Now that the hour was near to learning the truth, she wasn’t sure if she was ready. Then again, would she ever be ready to receive what she feared would be terrible news?
Or it could be not-so-bad news. They might’ve done very little. It might have all been some kind of psychological game to them, to scare her out of her wits, and break her that way. Maybe.
Or it could be bad. There was no getting around the horror that gripped her when she thought of what they might have done while she was unconscious. Better not to think about it until she had to. Right now, she was meeting the Alpha of Grizzly Cove. By all accounts, John Marshall was a stand-up guy, well thought of in shifter ci
rcles and allied formally with the Kinkaid Clan.
“Matilda Kinkaid, this is John Marshall,” Georgio introduced them formally near the door of the clinic. “John, this is Matilda.”
John reached out one beefy paw and shook her hand. He was as large as Georgio, but he didn’t have the same magical mojo going for him. At least, not to her. Both men were huge—as bears were wont to be—but she didn’t see right off why John was the Alpha. She supposed his Clan knew what they were doing, though, to make this one Alpha over Georgio, or any other of the huge men she’d seen here so far. Perhaps she’d figure it out in time.
“Why don’t we use Sven’s office for our chat, and then, you can get back to your friend?” John offered, ushering them into a side door that led into an office with a desk and two chairs.
John went around the desk and took the doctor’s chair while Georgio and Matilda took the guest chairs. The desk was between her and the Alpha bear, and she wondered if that was some sort of subtle way of putting her in her place as a guest here. Maybe. Maybe not. Bears weren’t known to be as subtle as cats when it came to that kind of one-upmanship.
“Can I get you anything? Sven keeps his fridge stocked with drinks and sandwiches,” John asked, surprising Matilda with his courtesy as he pointed to a small cube refrigerator quietly humming in one corner of the room.
“No, thank you,” she replied. “I’m good. And I must also thank you for allowing me to visit your town. Sam speaks very highly of you and your men.”
“Your cousin is a trusted ally,” John replied. “I’m glad Georgio found you, and I’m happy to offer whatever assistance you need from the town to get back on your feet. Have you given any thought to what you want to do?”
A loaded question. She couldn’t quite tell if he was impatient to see the back of her or inviting her to stay for as long as she wanted. She would tread carefully with this powerful Alpha. He didn’t read as quite so dominant as her cousin, Sam, but she was wary of this bear’s strength. It felt big and heavy to her senses, though not overly aggressive.