by Selena Scott
“What did you just say?” Ilya asked. His normally jovial voice was darker and more serious than any of them had ever heard it. Katya included.
Danil instantly reached a hand out to Dora. Her eyes were confused. Clouded. “Pandora, what do you mean you tracked Navuka here?”
She looked even more confused now. “I’ve been looking into them for over a year. I finally got wind that they’d set up camp about fifty miles from here. I thought that’s why you guys were here.” She looked around at each of the faces and her own went white.
“Why would we be here if we knew Navuka was here?” Emin asked quietly.
Danil automatically put a hand around Dora’s shoulders. He needed to touch her, to protect her, even if she was the one who felt like a threat to his family right now.
“Didn’t - Didn’t Navuka make you? Engineer you into being bear shifters?” she asked, her voice low and unsure for the first time since Danil had ever known her.
Ilya stood. His hands curled into fists at the table. “A bear shifter is not made. A bear shifter is born.” With that, he pounded one fist on his chest like King Kong.
Dora’s mouth fell open. “I - I don’t understand. You’re born as bear shifters? It’s genetic?” She looked to Danil for confirmation.
He nodded.
Her brow furrowed and her eyes searched the faces in front of her for the answer she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear. “Then - then what does Navuka do to bear shifters?”
“Tortures them,” Anton said, rising immediately from the table and disappearing out the back hallway.
All his brothers rose to go after him but it was AJ who got up first. “I got it,” she said and darted out of the room.
***
AJ was deeply glad to get the hell out of that tense room. She wouldn’t want to be in Dora’s position right now. But she didn’t particularly love her own position right now either. She ran after Anton as he disappeared through the laundry room. She fought back a sigh at the sight of his retreating back. It seemed that she’d spent the last decade of her life chasing after Anton.
She ducked into the laundry room and caught his arm just as he was about to crash out onto the back deck.
“Wait,” she told him, tugging on his arm. She tried, to no avail, to ignore the rock hard play of muscles in his shoulder.
He stopped but didn’t turn back to her. “Let go, Autumn.”
He was the only one who called her by her full name. Everyone else just called her AJ. Short for Autumn Jane.
“No, Anton. Don’t. Just wait for a second.”
He attempted to shrug off her hand and it almost worked. But AJ clamped harder. “Get back. I need to shift.”
“No, don’t shift, Anton. Stay. Stay here with me.” She didn’t think she could bear to see him disappearing into the woods in his bear form again. Sometimes she felt like it was all she ever saw him do.
Now, he turned back to her, his eyes black as coals in the dark room. Neither of them had bothered to turn on the light. “You do not know what you ask me,” he growled.
“Yes, I do. I’m asking you not to shift and go be alone.” She gave his arm another tug, a gentler one this time. He was still immovable, but at least he was looking at her. She went for broke. “Every time anyone brings up your past, you shift as fast as you can. I’m beginning to think that you can ignore your past in your bear form better than you can in your human form.” His eyes bored into hers. “I’m asking you to stay here, in your human form, and talk to me about it. Any part of it. As a man.”
“You want me to act as man,” he repeated, his words slow and dangerous. “With you.”
AJ nodded, her dirty blonde hair waving lightly past her shoulders in a blunt, trendy cut. Her midnight-blue eyes stared up at him through the dim room. He imagined that she could barely see his already dark features in the dark lighting. He, however, could see every centimeter of her face. The gentle arch of her light eyebrow, the lobe of hair that fell over one eye. And. God. Her smudge of raspberry lips.
He searched her eyes. Those heavy-lidded, lazy eyes. Eyes he was sick of thinking about. They were always there. On the tip of his mind.
Occasionally she’d lay a gentle hand on his arm, but she’d never tugged at him the way she was doing now. In fact, they’d barely touched in a decade. Not since he’d carried her home to his mother after the mountain lion attack.
But now her soft little fingers pressed into his shoulders and she was tugging him toward her? Asking him to act like a man would? With her? He searched her face. No. She could not know what she was asking of him. Even at 25 years old she was still a girl. Still innocent.
But a small movement had him dropping his eyes. Her sweet, pink little tongue peeked out of her mouth, wetting her bottom lip. His eyes fell there, burned the image into his brain. Added it to the 100-foot-high stack of things that he could never have.
Apparently it was one thing too many. Because something in him snapped. Quick as a cat, Anton was lifting AJ by her slim hips. He seated her up on the washing machine and stepped easily between her legs. He slammed his hands on either side of her, pressing himself close.
“You want me as man?” he asked of her, quiet and demanding.
“I - I,” she stuttered and they were close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips. Taste it. But he didn’t dare. Because her eyes were wide and racing back and forth between the two of his.
Shit. Fuck. God damn his greedy, fucked up self. He’d scared her.
He took a step back from her and it was like a pincushion to the heart when he saw how little she looked, sitting there. How delicate in her oversized sweater.
He took another step back, disgusted with himself.
“Anton,” she whispered, leaning forward and holding a hand out to him.
She would always reach out for him. He knew this. Because she was so kind. So sweet. She’d reach for him even after he’d been a brute and almost taken her on a washing machine in the back of his mother’s house. And that was why he could never let himself have her. He’d only spoil her sweetness. Like dirt on snow.
He took another step away from her and another. He didn’t hesitate at the door. Anton disappeared into the night. And left her trembling, vibrating, fighting for breath.
CHAPTER TEN
“Oh, Jesus,” Dora said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “How could I have missed this? I just never thought. Naturally occurring. CHRIST!”
Dora leaned forward with her head between her hands for a second. Her genuine shock, her sympathy for Anton, her deep remorse at having been so cavalier with the news, all of it was so palpable that she’d won back the hearts of everyone in the room.
“If I had known that Anton had been tortured, I never would have brought it up like that.”
“I know, ptuška. You are not cruel. Brash and forceful? Yes. But not cruel.”
When Dora looked up, into Danil’s eyes, she saw that he was smiling at her.
“Okay, will someone explain this to me?”
Danil took a deep breath, wondering where to start, but it was Maxim who spoke, surprising them all. Generally, he spoke about it the least of all of them excepting Anton.
“Belarusian bears are a legend over there. But one that most people believe is rooted in fact.” Maxim’s accent was stronger than Danil’s but he’d obviously spent more time with English than his other two brothers. “Navuka, what we thought was just a tech company, followed the signs, much like you did, to track us down. They approached us, wanting to use us for study. It didn’t take much to figure out that they wanted to figure out how to use us as weapons of war.”
Maxim’s eyes had taken on a distant blur as he looked into his family’s past. He was so sad. Sadder than Dora had ever seen him. “So, we moved. To a different part of Belarus. But they found us there. They found Anton. The two of us, we were throwing ball in a field behind our new house. Many men. A helicopter. I couldn’t get to him. They took him.”
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Maxim broke off as Emin rose and put an arm around his shoulders. The two brothers leaned on each other in a way that spoke of infinite sadness, pain, and healing. Here together.
“You came here to heal,” Dora guessed, looking around at all the faces. “You came to America to leave it all behind.”
“Yes and no,” Danil said, holding her hand in his. “After we rescued Anton, the three of us,” he looked at his brothers, “we knew that we weren’t safe there anymore. We had to come someplace we could start fresh. Maybe even blend in.”
“We thought we were,” Emin said; his eyes had a cold fury burning behind them. “Yet you say that Navuka has come within fifty miles of us?”
Dora nodded, hating that she was the bearer of this news. “They’ve had a sort of criss-crossing pattern over the west coast, as far as I have been able to tell. They’ve abandoned place after place over the last five years. But in the last year they’ve had three in the Spokane area.”
“Not a coincidence,” Ilya said quietly, laying a hand over his wife’s hair for just a moment, as if he were drawing power from her.
“They’re coming for him,” Danil whispered, fear and anger vibrating through him. All of them looked to the door that Anton had disappeared through. “They’re coming back to claim all the work they did on him. Their greatest weapon.”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Maxim said, standing up to pace around the small room. “If they are so close then why wouldn’t they have broken our door down? Taken him as they did before?”
“Because they saw what we can do,” Emin replied. “When we rescued him before. We three nearly destroyed entire facility. They wouldn’t be eager for more.”
Dora was listening, but her thoughts were racing as well. She was rearranging everything she’d observed and learned over the last year about Navuka. The answer hit her like a brick. “They’re building shifters who will be able to fight you.”
Every head turned to her. She put a hand over her mouth to keep the disgust down. “Every site that I’ve found and investigated over the last year had the same signs. Chemical tests, surgical tools, signs of human and animal suffering. I thought that they must be creating shifters out of some poor souls. But no. They were augmenting shifters that they’d found. If they’re sticking this close, it must mean that they’re building some sort of crew to try and take you all down.”
Danil had to stand now, too. “We have to slow down here. We need more evidence. Dora, we’ll need to see all of your notes. Everything you have on them.”
“Of course. But I can also lead you to their headquarters.”
“How?” Danil asked, his voice chilled and serious.
“With the packages. I know the schedule now. Kip revealed it to me this morning. A week from now they’ll get a new shipment of chemicals and supplies in for their experiments. They drop them off at a dummy location. And then a few hours after that, whoever is working for Navuka comes and picks them up and brings them to wherever they’re doing their experiments now.” She took a deep breath. “I can go and tell you where it is.”
“You won’t be going alone,” Danil said, his eyes boring into hers from across the room.
“We’ll all go,” Maxim said. And no one else spoke. No one else had to.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dora slept in Danil’s bed that night. It surprised her a little that it came so naturally, but he didn’t blink twice, arrogant as he was. She woke up tangled in him, his mouth tracing a tingling path down the side of her neck.
The next night, she fell asleep at the desk in the guest room, combing through her notes, looking for anything she might have missed. But she awoke that morning in Danil’s bed. She’d looked at him in the dim morning light. Smelling his pine smell. She smiled when she realized that the morning was their time. So many moments had happened to them in the mornings. She rolled on top of him and made another moment.
She wasn’t surprised when she came home from the coffee shop - an unsuccessful attempt to meet with Kip - and found that all of her things had been moved into his room. No discussion. No extra words. Just the reality of living in his room with him now. She wasn’t surprised, but she did roll her eyes. What a bossy-ass bear.
She asked over and over to see him shift.
“Come on!” she’d cried. “My name is Pandora, for the love of God! Curiosity can kill! It killed the damn cat. Show me, Danil!”
Her begging had almost worked. But he’d shaken his head, pulled her against him, and showed her other things instead.
Danil went to work that week. Although Dora had no idea how he did. She was damn near coming out of her skin at every turn. She tried to be useful, to keep gathering information. But her nerves, her head, spinning with information, was making her sloppy. She was drawing attention to herself in ways that made her nervous.
With three days left until they were going to the package sorting facility, Dora figured it was best just to toss up her hands and try to concentrate on something else.
She regretted that decision about thirty seconds later when she found herself roaming from room to room in Danil’s house. She should feel funny, being there without him, but she didn’t. She was extremely comfortable here. Perhaps because he’d made a point of having sex with her in every single room. Dora swallowed hard as she sauntered through the living room, recalling what had happened here.
She’d been trying to read the paper last night when Danil had strode into the room, ripped it from her hands and tossed it across the room. He’d fallen on her like a starving man. Her lady parts had been the main course. Dora clamped her thighs together as she remembered how ravenous, how focused he’d been. She’d come harder than she ever had in her life. All because of his talented mouth. And when she was done he’d flipped himself onto his back and pressed her right down in his lap.
She smiled to herself. Even when she was on top he was still in charge. She’d never thought that would be something she’d get a kick out of. Yet, here she was. Just living in his house.
Looking at the clock on the wall, Dora realized that it was getting close to when Danil would be home. She didn’t know what to do with herself. She needed a job. A spark of inspiration hit her as she wandered back through the main hallway.
Hurrying to her phone she was grinning and laughing with Katya on the other end of the line in moments. Dora studiously took notes on every instruction, checking the fridge and cabinets for ingredients as she went.
An hour later, the babka was in the oven, and Dora wiped down the counters and washed the last of a few dishes in the sink.
She felt, rather than heard, Danil behind her. She turned, startled, and he stood in the doorway of the kitchen. His tie was pulled loose, the first two buttons of his shirt open. He pulled off his suit coat and laid it on the back of a kitchen chair as he moved toward her, slowly, like an animal on the prowl.
When he was only inches from her, Dora turned to face him and he reached around her to turn off the faucet.
“You’re at my sink.” His voice was low and gravelly as he pulled the tie of her apron, letting it fall to the ground. He grazed his fingers over her cheekbone. “You have flowers on your skin.”
“Flour,” she corrected him automatically.
He ignored the correction and pulled her out to the center of the kitchen. He started walking a slow circle around her, his eyes taking in every detail of her. Dora flipped around to keep facing him as he stalked a slow circle around her.
“You stand here. Like woman.”
“What do you mean? Of course I’m standing like a woman. I am a woman.” She wasn’t sure why she was nervous. There was no reason to be nervous. This was just Danil. But as he came back around to face her, she saw something in his eyes, something she’d only glimpsed before. This was the animal inside him. Danil was finally letting him out of the cage.
“No. This is not what I mean. I mean you stand in my house. Your hands in my sink. Your feet bare. You use it
like it is yours. Like you are my woman.”
“Well,” Dora blushed, confused and a little flustered. “You were the one who kept telling me to make myself at home. ‘I am home’,” she imitated him in a thick accent. “‘You live here’.”
“No, Dora,” he took her by the chin. “You live in my lap,” he corrected her, waited for her to blush even deeper. “And I do not say this to criticize. I say it because this,” he gestured at her, there in the middle of his kitchen, “it pleases me.”
He planted a kiss on her lips, softer than she was expecting. It was at odds with the fire that burned in his eyes.
“You use my home like it is yours. Because it is. And now you will use me like I am yours. Because I am.”
He took a step back from her and she swayed for him, ready to be touched and stroked and undressed. But he was simply staring at her. Undressing himself.
He started with his tie, whipping it out of his collar and then tossing it aside. Next was his button-up shirt. First he untucked it from his suit pants. And then came the buttons at the wrists, then the ones down the middle. He tossed that aside as well and didn’t hesitate when he went for his belt. His undershirt. He toed off one shoe and then the other. And then his pants were gone too.
Danil stood in front of her, with the eyes of an animal. The body of a jacked, hairy, Belarusian action figure. And a pair of tight boxer briefs that were straining to the edge of their mortal limit.
Dora’s mouth was dry. But pretty much everything else was wet. She was having a little trouble getting air in and out of her lungs, but she was a tenacious woman. She made it happen.
Dora cocked her head to one side. “You want me to…”
“Use me. Yes.”
“Just checking.”
Dora took a step forward and then another, noting the way his eyes dilated, his breath quickened. She walked the same path around him that he had around her. Her eyes taking in every godly inch of him.
