by Selena Scott
Anton, usually so quiet in his bear form, sniffed at the ground, sat back on his haunches. “Because this isn’t a trap. They aren’t hoping to lure us. They’re hoping to lose us.”
“But-”
“Linc,” Maxim realized with a deadening in his heart. “They don’t want us. Or Anton anymore. They want Linc.”
“Christ,” Emin went back on his haunches as well. “They must have realized that Glory was too old for any of the experiments to really take effect when they had her. They needed a younger shifter.”
“They used to be trying to get me back,” Anton murmured. “But now they’re starting from scratch.”
“On a cub,” Danil spit in disgust.
“On Linc.” Maxim could barely stomach the thought. “We need anything. A spare scent, any small disturbance, anything to mark where they’ve gone.”
The brothers spread out, using their superior senses to track any small clue or sign or scent. But each passing second became more grim as the light fell and Ivy and Linc got farther away.
Maxim tried not to let the desperation he felt distract him. He needed laser focus. Twenty minutes later, the brothers gathered up again. Luckily the light was failing now and less and less cars were on the road. They’d been able to explore every inch of her car, of the road around it.
“I definitely caught the scent of chemicals,” Danil told the group.
“And armored cars and the smell of military equipment,” Emin supplied. “Farther back on the road. But they seem to have continued that way without any sign of Linc or Ivy. I don’t think they made it back that way.”
“The man and the woman were here. The two who experimented on me.” Anton could feel the pain and dread radiating off of Maxim and he almost didn’t want to tell him. Wanted to spare him the truth. But he couldn’t lie. Not when every second counted against Linc and Ivy’s lives. “Sergei and Lana. Sergei fell here, by the car. I scented his blood. He was dragged. By Lana, I think. To here.” He paced about twenty feet from the car. “Linc and Ivy were dragged as well. To here. But then their scent disappears.”
“Into a vehicle of some kind,” Danil guessed.
Maxim studied the tread left in the squishy grass on the side of the road. “Big. Military grade. Armored car,” he guessed.
Headlights approached from down the road and the four brothers disappeared back into the dark of the forest.
Maxim used his claws and tore an old dead tree right from the ground. He tossed it aside. This was utterly maddening. To know so much of what happened except the key piece of information. Which direction they were heading.
He’d never forgive himself if- No. He wouldn’t even allow himself the thought. Couldn’t afford it.
He just had to think. He just had to-
“Papa?”
Maxim’s giant, grizzly head snapped up as his brothers all turned to look at him. They could hear it, too, in their heads. Communicating as a bear shifter. Linc’s voice so small and far away and quiet. But there. Definitely there.
“Linc? Are you there? Are you okay?”
“We’re okay! Mama says to tell you that we’re in a black truck. We’re not moving very fast.”
Maxim forced himself to concentrate instead of melting into a pile of relieved bear.
“She says it feels like we’re on a gravel road and that we can hear bushes and trees scratching the side of the truck because it’s a small road.”
“Okay. Good. More. Tell me more,” Maxim pleaded with the boy. This was good. They would be able to use all this information.
“She says she thinks we’re going northwest.”
“Good girl,” Danil mumbled. And he was right. She was a smart-ass lady for figuring out which direction they were going.
“Okay, Linc,” Anton spoke now. “Can you smell anything in particular? Anything that could tell us where you are?”
“It’s hard to smell over the chemicals.”
All four of the brothers felt a tightening in their chests. They knew what those chemicals smelled like. They knew what they could do to a shifter. What they’d done to Anton.
“Try, Linc. We need more clues.”
“Okay. I smell… horses? I think. And popcorn. And maybe a bull.” His voice was getting farther and farther away. So quiet now they could barely hear him.
“I love you, Linc,” Maxim choked out. He had to say it. “And I love your Mama.”
“We love you,” Linc said, before his little voice was swallowed up by the distance.
“Horses, popcorn and a bull?” Emin asked, frustration lining his tone. “What the hell-”
“I know where they are,” Danil interrupted. “They’re outside of Ritzville. The rodeo. Dora dragged me over there a few nights ago. I know the road they’re on.”
***
Well, they’d done the best they could, Ivy supposed. Linc said he’d told the brothers everything that she’d told him to. There was some small amount of hope. And now all there was to do was rest. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. But she needed Linc at his best if he was gonna be running as fast as he could through the forest.
She’d thanked her insane mommy habits when she’d found a cheese stick and a granola bar in her pocket. So at least he’d had some sort of dinner. Now she was rubbing his back as he laid across her lap. She thanked God when his breaths got even.
As a five-year-old, he wasn’t particularly fast. But she had hope now that Maxim would find him in the woods. He knew the general location of where they were.
Ivy didn’t hold out any hope that these Navuka assholes would keep her alive any longer than they had to, but she thought that Linc stood a chance. He just needed to get away far enough toward Spokane that Maxim could track him.
The thought gave her a moment’s worth of comfort. Linc would grow up without her. And the thought made her sick. But he’d have Maxim. The most deeply loving man in the history of the world.
She would do everything she could to make that happen. She wasn’t sure how, but she was going to create a hell of a diversion so her little bear cub could get away. Blaze of glory and all that.
More settled now that she had a semblance of a plan, Ivy let her head rest back on the metal side of the truck, her only comfort that, though they were moving, they were not moving fast at all. This road must really be a piece of shit. Or really unused. It was bumpy as hell, anyways.
Her eyes were heavy. Adrenaline sure took a hell of a lot out of you. And she was drifting uneasily when suddenly she and Linc were sliding, unrestrained, across the slick metal floor of the truck.
Panicked voices shouted as they came to a complete stop. Ivy was instantly on her feet.
“Wake up, ace,” she whispered as she held her boy in her arms. “This might be it, okay? The moment where I tell you to run. And you run, okay? You run right in the direction I point and shift when you can’t smell me anymore. And then you keep running and wait for Maxim to find you. Maxim will find you, okay, baby? I love you, ace.”
Tears were clouding her vision and Ivy angrily blinked them away. She wouldn’t let herself be weak. She needed fury, not sadness.
“Maxim will find you,” she repeated. “I love you. You promise me you’ll run as fast as you can.”
Linc blinked sleepily up at her, confusion lining his face. “Okay, Mama. I’ll run. But Maxim is here already.”
“What?” Ivy asked, thinking Linc must have been having a dream about him.
“I can smell him,” Linc whispered. “He’s-”
Her little boy’s words were cut right off as the back doors of the truck were damn near ripped off the hinges. The diffused evening light spilled into the truck, and Ivy squinted against it. But she’d never forget what she saw. The silhouette of a bear, gigantic, furious. His huge paws tearing open the truck, searching the dim light until he saw what he’d come for.
“Papa!” Linc shouted and wiggled down from Ivy’s arms. He almost beat Ivy to Maxim. Almost.
She buried
her face in the thick fur at Maxim’s giant neck. He smelled of the forest and of himself and of home. She’d never felt safer or more protected than she did in that moment, burying her face in grizzly bear.
Which was why she wasn’t ready for the bang that nearly popped her eardrums. Or the stiffening of the bear against her body. Ivy leaped back, taking Linc with her. She could smell gunpowder on the air.
Maxim’s bear stumbled back, falling down onto all fours. Ivy was horrified to see a gaping, bleeding hole directly in his back.
“No,” she whispered, shoving Linc behind her. Rushing forward, she caught sight of a woman lowering a handgun.
The same dickhead lady who’d shoved Linc into the back of this truck in the first place. And now she’d shot Maxim?
Oh, this bitch was about to say goodnight.
Ivy lunged forward, jumping down out of the truck. She slammed the truck door behind her, locking Linc in. The woman easily switched her gun from Maxim to Ivy.
“Oh, that’ll be quite enough.” Her voice had a hint of an accent. Ivy was ready to rip that accent right out of her mouth, along with her tongue.
Men jumped out of the truck that had apparently been following them. They were dressed in SWAT gear and had high powered rifles sweeping the woods. If Ivy had any guess, it was that the rest of the Malashovik brothers were out there, trying to find their opening.
Maxim’s labored breath had Ivy stepping back, one eye on the gun. She groped backwards with her hands until she felt his muzzle. Ivy knelt next to him, risking a glance at his precious bear face. He didn’t look good.
Goddamn it. Ivy needed to get Maxim help, she needed to get Linc the hell away from here, and she needed to not get dead. She needed some fucking backup!
“Lana,” a familiar voice sounded from behind her.
Ivy sucked in her breath as Anton stepped out of the woods in his human form.
Lana cocked her head to one side in curiosity. She spoke in their native Belarusian. “You face me in your human form, Anton? I never would have thought you’d be that vulnerable in front of me again.” Her eyes skated down his naked form. “Well, you’ve certainly… grown since you were a teenager.”
Anton ignored her. “What do you want with a child, Lana?” He nodded his head toward the truck where Linc was.
“You of all people know the answer to that.”
“You want to waste your time developing a child when you could have your already fine-tuned weapon at your disposal?” He waved a hand over his body dismissively. As if he could barely bear to think about what he was offering her.
She took an intrigued step back now, the gun slipping an inch or two from her target. “You offer yourself freely? Well, I’ll be damned. Sergei’s plan was the one to work after all. I don’t particularly care to experiment on you anymore, Anton. But if you’re offering, well-”
Lana’s breath whooshed out as Ivy launched herself full tilt at her. The gun arced through the air. Ivy ignored the shouts, the screams behind her as she straddled Lana and socked her right in the face. Lana screamed in rage and pain as she slapped at Ivy. But Ivy had been in a fight before, and little slaps weren’t gonna slow her much at all. She punched the reprehensible beast a second time and a third.
“Mama!”
Only her son’s plaintive scream was going to keep Ivy from tearing Lana’s eyes out. She scrambled up, leaving the woman whimpering in the dirt.
Linc was gripping the side of the truck as one of the uniformed guards was trying to yank him out. Ivy was two steps toward them when the man was easily swatted aside by Emin’s bear.
Danil was charging the other armed truck, barreling through the guards and snapping their rifles like twigs. Emin set Linc carefully in the back of the truck and fell to all fours, sniffing at Maxim.
Maxim was breathing heavily, his eyes wide with pain. Oh, Jesus. Ivy fell next to him as well. Totally unsure what to do besides trace her hands over his muzzle. He needed a doctor immediately.
She watched as the gigantic bear’s eyes went from wide with pain to narrowed, determined slits. She turned to see what he was looking at.
“Mama!” Linc screamed again as the truck he was still in the back of started pulling away.
Ivy glanced behind her and saw that Lana was gone. She must have gotten back in the driver’s seat.
“No!” Ivy screamed, sprinting forward toward the truck that was already flying down the road. But she was bowled aside as a bear lunged past her.
Ivy watched in complete amazement as Maxim, still bleeding from his gunshot wound, barreled down the road, easily catching the accelerating truck. Jamming his great claws into the floor of the truck, and planting his back feet, the truck instantly halted its progress.
Ivy watched in horror as the engine screamed and the wheels kicked up dust. The wound on Maxim’s back tore open even further as he strained against the vehicle. But seconds later, Emin was there and Danil, too. Anton sprinted around the side of the truck and ripped the driver’s side door open.
Grabbing Lana, he tossed her easily out of the truck and the engine immediately stopped revving.
Anton turned to her. “If my brother wasn’t bleeding out right now, believe me, I would end you. Slowly. As slowly as you tortured me.”
He slammed his way into the truck.
Behind, Maxim collapsed to the ground, the last of his strength used to stop the truck. Danil and Emin wasted no time in hoisting him up into the back. There wasn’t room for three full-grown grizzlies, so they shifted.
“Ivy, take Linc up front and tell Anton we’re ready to go. We can’t waste any time,” Danil ordered.
“Hell no,” she snapped. She picked up Linc, gave him a quick squeeze just to make sure he was okay, and slammed him into Emin’s arms. “I’m not leaving Maxim.”
“But,” Emin’s eyes widened in horror. “He’s crying.”
And indeed, poor Linc was crying weakly, his arms like a vice around Emin’s neck.
“Yeah, well, he just watched his dad get shot in the back. So there’s gonna be some tears. Deal with it, Emin. We’ve gotta get the hell out of here.”
Emin nodded, hitching Linc onto his hip and swinging down, firmly closing the truck doors behind him. Within seconds, Anton was pulling away, heading toward the highway.
“They’re not gonna treat a bear at the hospital, Danil.” Ivy braced herself against the wall and fell to her knees beside Maxim.
“I know. We have to get him to shift. It’s gonna be bad, Ivy. Really painful.”
But she was already tuning out Danil. She fell to her side, mirroring Maxim’s position on the floor of the racing truck.
“You gotta shift for me, baby. Okay? You can do it. Just like how you talked ace through it that first time. You scream if you have to, okay? You can do it.”
The night got deeper, quieter all around them as Ivy’s voice took Maxim all the way through the pain and into the other side.
EPILOGUE
One Month Later
“I’m fine! I’m fine,” Maxim grumbled as Ivy automatically shoved her shoulder under his armpit and helped drag him up from bed. Maxim’s bed. Their bed.
He was sick of being carted around by his wife, but he was glad as hell that he was out of the damn hospital and back at home. He was even more glad that while he’d been in the hospital, Ivy and Linc had moved all their things into his house.
The gunshot wound had been bad. Punctured a lung, required two different surgeries. And even with his awesome bear healing skills, he was still very much in recovery.
“I know you’re fine,” she grumbled right back. “But at your pace, Anton is gonna get bored and leave before we even get out there, so just let me help, okay?”
She wasn’t wrong. He was moving a lot slower than usual these days, and he was anxious to get out there to Anton.
They had some major stuff to talk to him about.
When Ivy slid open the screen door with her foot, Anton automatically rose
from where he was playing with some Wonder Woman action figures with Linc.
He didn’t ask if his brother needed help. He just took him by the arm and sat him down in the nearest chair. He’d never forget watching Maxim stop that truck. It had really been something. Some real papa bear shit. Anton felt a stab of sadness when he realized that he’d never feel that way about somebody. He’d never have a cub of his own. He couldn’t afford to. Not with the monster that lived inside him.
Ivy darted back inside and came back out with three snifters of whiskey and an apple juice for Linc.
Anton lifted an eyebrow at the drinks. “You told me this was not bad news. So we are to celebrate something?”
“Yes,” Ivy said definitively, drawing Linc up onto her lap and pulling out a chair for Anton. “As you know, after the wedding-”
Anton growled a little, frowning. The Malashoviks had all been a little put out that Ivy and Maxim had gotten hitched at the hospital, just the two of them and Linc there. But none of the three of them could wait another second to be a family.
Ivy had just watched the man take a bullet for her and then nearly kill himself keeping her son from being abducted. Yeah. She’d needed to be married yesterday. But still, the wedding hadn’t had quite the pizazz or fanfare that the rest of the Malashoviks might have wanted. She didn’t care, though. It had been perfect for her.
She cleared her throat and continued. “After the wedding, we started Maxim’s formal adoption process of Linc.”
Anton nodded.
“He’s my real papa. Which means you’re my real uncle. Right, Uncle Anton?”
Anton nodded, leaning forward and flicking one of Linc’s Wonder Women over. “This is right, Nephew Linc.”
“You wanna ask him?” Ivy asked Maxim, but the big man just smiled, waved his hand for her to do it.
Anton looked back and forth between them. “Ask me what?”
“Well,” Ivy gathered her thoughts. “Maxim told me what you said to Lana that night in the woods. I couldn’t understand, because of the Belarusian and all. But apparently you offered to go in Linc’s place. Back to Navuka.”
