Fighter Bear (Enforcer Bears Book 4)

by Zoe Chant

  Lucky had trusted her, even though all of his life, he had been taught that humans only wanted to exploit and hurt him.

  Could Lucky now trust her one last time, even though he’d been drugged?

  Lily raised her fingers to her lips. Then she whistled―the shrill whistle she’d used every summer when she was a child, summoning Lucky from when he was out on the meadows. Every time, he’d come without fail, eager to sniff at her pockets and hands for the treats which he knew she’d brought.

  Lucky’s head lifted. With one hoof on the ramp leading into the trailer, he stopped.

  The man who’d pulled him towards the trailer cursed. Lily wasn’t close enough to make out the words, but she saw his agitation. Logan was still running, the powerful body of the bear moving as fast as it could, but it would take him at least another minute.

  Lily whistled again, and even from the distance, she could see the shudder that went through Lucky’s body.

  Tiredly, the old racehorse shook his head. He was still resisting all attempts to pull him into the trailer. Then the stranger pulled a whip from behind the door, and Lily’s heart clenched.

  Lucky’d seen enough of whips in his youth, when they’d tried to force him to run. He was as scared of them as he was of men.

  Lucky shied away when he saw the whip. Fearfully, he took a large jump forward.

  “Lucky!” Lily shouted in panic, even though she knew she was too far away. Lucky was now on the ramp with all four legs. All the man had to do was use the whip, and then Lucky would forever be gone…

  The man raised the whip. Lucky’s head came swinging around.

  Lily knew it was impossible―she was too far away―but for a moment, it seemed as if Lucky was looking directly at her.

  This time, when the whip came down, he reared up.

  The large body of the horse swayed precariously on the ramp. Then he turned, and despite the drugs, there was strength enough in him to rip the rope out of the stranger’s hand.

  Again the whip came up, but now Lucky whinnied, a trumpeting sound of challenge, and kicked out. One of his hind legs hit the man right in the stomach. With a shout of agony, the stranger went down, the whip falling forgotten to the ground.

  His tail held high, fluttering like a flag in the wind, Lucky came trotting towards Lily. There were tears in her eyes as she ran towards him.

  He’d done it. Lucky had done it. Even through the daze of the tranquilizer, Lucky had heard her voice and trusted her enough to fight the effects of the drug and the strangers.

  Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw the man on the ground push himself up. In his hand, he held the tranq gun. Although his arm was shaking, he was raising it now, aiming it at Lucky who was still running towards her.

  No, she thought, terrified.He’s already been dosed once―at his age, he won’t survive another dose!

  She wove her arms, trying to get Lucky to swerve―but just at that moment, a large, dark shadow moved in between the man and Lucky. It took a heartbeat before she registered that Logan had finally come close enough to attack.

  The large body of the bear crashed into the man.

  The impact sent the tranq gun skittering away through the grass. The man ended up on his back on the ground, the furious bear above him on all fours, angrily roaring straight into his face. But the stranger didn’t move. The impact had knocked him out at last.

  Over the sound of the roar, Lily almost didn’t hear the screeching of the tires, but a second later, the trailer began to pull away from where the man and the bear were crouching, speeding away on the dirt road in a cloud of dust.

  The driver’s escaping, Lily thought, but Lucky was still running towards her as fast as he could. His trot was wobbly, but his head and tail were held high. Even the drugs hadn’t been able to dim the gleam of his intelligent eyes. He was close enough now that she could see that his coat was dark with sweat and that his nostrils were wide, his breathing labored.

  But he was free. Lucky was free, and no one would ever raise a whip at him again. She’d make certain of that.

  She ran the final few steps towards him, simultaneously laughing and crying as she wrapped her arms around him.

  “You made it, Lucky! You made it,” she whispered, breathing in the familiar scent of warm horse and crushed grass.

  She could have stood like that for an eternity, transported back once more to those happy summer days when she’d been a small girl utterly in love with the gentle stallion who’d carried her through so many adventures on his back. But then a distant siren began to sound, and she straightened in alarm.

  “The cops!”

  How am I going to explain the bears? Or the naked men?

  While she was still frozen with the terrifying image of old officer Thomas believing that she’d turned her uncle’s home into a nudist farm, or that she was engaging in orgies out here, the two large bears came ambling back towards her.

  The siren was still going in the distance, but didn’t seem to be coming any closer. Had they stopped the trailer before the driver could make his escape?

  Logan shifted back into a human once he was close enough. By his side, Darrell remained in his bear form, the black bear limping and bleeding from a wound at his shoulder.

  “He needs a doctor,” Lily said as she looked worriedly at the wound.

  By her side, Lucky was stamping his feet, unsettled by the scent of blood.

  Logan shook his head. “Don’t want any attention. Shifter healing will take care of it. We’ll run back home and get dressed. Tell them Lucky knocked out the attacker. The guy’s still unconscious. The cops won’t believe any tales of attacking bears anyway.”

  Dizzy, Lily nodded.

  Everything had happened so fast. Could it really be over now? They still didn’t know what had made the men kidnap Lucky.

  But just then, Lucky began to nose at her pocket, the same way he’d always done, and she felt tears rise up in her eyes once more.

  He’s a member of this family just as much as Logan and I. I’ll make sure this won’t happen ever again.

  “Call your brother,” she told Logan, who nodded in response.

  A heartbeat later, the two bears were racing back towards the house, while she leaned against Lucky, her knees weak with relief and the remaining worry.

  If officer Thomas thinks he can brush me off again, he’s never met a bear’s mate before, she thought, then pressed a kiss to Lucky’s head, stroking the sweaty fur of his neck.

  Or a stallion’s sister. This is my family and my home. I’ll get to the bottom of this, no matter what it takes.

  Chapter Ten: Logan

  Ten minutes later, Logan had barely finished pulling on his clothes again when he heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Darrell was pressing a bandage to his shoulder, wincing as blood soaked into the cloth.

  “Want to come out with me?” Logan asked. “They did shoot you. And no one’s going to believe tales of a bear when you’re standing right there with a gunshot wound.”

  Darrell grimaced. “Yeah, and then they’ll try to send me to one of their damn hospitals. No thanks. Think I’ll shift and go lick my wounds in your garden for a few hours, should be good as new in the evening.”

  Logan sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with the local police either, especially as they clearly had tried to brush off Lily’s reports at first.

  “Can’t blame you,” he said and reached out to clasp Darrell’s good shoulder. “And I can’t believe I haven’t said this yet, but―thanks, man. After what I’ve done, I’d never have thought that you of all people would come to help me out. Don’t knowwhat I can do to ever make it up to you.”

  Despite the pain, Darrell gave him that easy grin he’d been famous for in their old clan.

  “Hey, you might not be my boss anymore, but you’re still clan. Your brothers do a good job running the town, you know. Everything Iron Fang said about living with humans was wrong. It’s peace
ful in Linden Creek. And humans care as much about family as we do. It’s something I’ve learned in the past year. You might lose a home―but you can always build another, as long as you’ve got your family with you.”

  Logan stiffened, thinking of his brothers and the life they led in Linden Creek. Darrell wasn’t wrong. From what Logan had seen, life in Linden Creek among the humans had turned out pretty much perfect for his brothers and their mates.

  But family or not, someone like Logan would always be a misfit in the peaceful, small town.

  Some things shouldn’t be forgotten or forgiven.

  “Call your brother,” Darrell said softly. “Your mate’s a smart woman. And I’m starting to think she understands more about these things than you.”

  “Doesn’t take much,” Logan muttered, his voice rough.

  There was a reason he didn’t like to talk about these things. But Darrell had just taken a bullet for him. For Logan, the man who used to be Blood Claw, who had hunted Darrell and his friends under Iron Fang’s orders.

  He really didn’t deserve what Darrell had done for him. But Darrell had helped to keep Lily and Lucky safe.

  He’s right. For Lily’s sake, I should…

  He hesitated for a moment before he reached out for the phone. Darrell was already halfway out the door, opening the buttons of his trousers to quickly shift before he could be seen, when an alarming awareness hit them both at the same time.

  Shifter!

  Theyfroze. The bear inside Logan rose up with instinctive anger at an intruder here in his home―and then it calmed just as quickly.

  The scent was familiar. Family, it said.

  It was the scent of his brother Chris.

  When Logan moved towards the window, he saw that two patrol cars had stopped in their yard, and behind them, the trailer came up, also driven by a man in uniform. His brother Chris had just stepped out of one of the cars, and suddenly, all of Logan’s fears fell away.

  He’d never liked to ask for help. Showing weakness had always meant that someone would take advantage of it to hurt him. But what would Logan have done without Chris and Darrell? He couldn’t be everywhere at once to protect both his mate and his farm.

  Logan took a deep breath, and then a slow, small smile spread across his face. Strange that he’d run away and purposely bought this farm to find solitude away from his family and everyone who’d known him. Because only now, with Lily, Darrell and his brother here together, it felt as if something was opening up in him.

  For a moment, the farm felt like a real home―not a quiet, solitary place where he and Lily could hide away from the world, but a place where one day soon, their own cubs would play hide-and-seek with their cousins in the orchard.

  Logan had clung to the dream of loneliness for so long that he’d never allowed himself to imagine what it might be like to live a quiet life among green and growing things, and still share in his brothers’ lives. To be a part of their family as well.

  Uncle Logan, he thought, tasting the words on his tongue. In two or three years, he might go to visit the goats with a niece or a nephew holding on to his hand. Chris’s car might come pulling into his driveway one day, and the doors would open and two or three cubs might come spilling out with gleaming eyes as they shouted for their uncle Logan, excited for the adventures they could have on his farm.

  Logan nearly took a step back, so overwhelmed by that image that he barely knew how to react.

  It’s possible, he thought.

  For the first time, he truly felt as though that old life of pain and hardship had been left behind, like an ill-fitting, cumbersome armor that had constrained him as much as it had protected him.

  All of that is possible now. I can have it. It’s right here in my grasp. All I have to do is reach out for it…

  Go to your family, his bear grumbled in his head, the voice of the hardened fighter surprisingly tender. Go. It is time.

  “Stay,” Logan told Darrell before he left the house. “It’s Chris, so no need to run from them. He’ll help us deal with all of this, if they ask strange questions.”

  Fortunately, in the end, no one asked questions about bears. Instead, officer Thomas was visibly sorry for the way he hadn’t immediately believed Lily’s story.

  “Who’s ever heard of that before?” the old cop muttered, shaking his head as he looked at the inside of the high-tech trailer. “Look at that. All of this for an old horse? “

  Logan had given Chris a hard hug. He’d surprised himself; ever since he’d been reunited with his brothers, he’d tried to keep his distance as much as possible. But Chris had helped to protect his mate. Logan’s bear was right―it was time to get over this, for Lily’s sake. She deserved a real family, and all the support they could offer.

  “Let’s take a closer look at this,” Chris said, and then he began to search the trailer while Lily went and retrieved her uncle’s old documents and notebooks from the house.

  Officer Thomas shook his head after they had leafed through everything. “Can’t make heads or tails of this. So your Lucky is from a famous line of racehorses―but what did they want with him? He’s too old for racing or breeding.”

  “He’s the full brother of this generation’s most expensive stud,” Lily murmured slowly.

  Logan watched when she suddenly stiffened, as though an idea had come to her.

  “Do you mind if I call one of the people from my uncle’s notebook?” she asked. “I’ve got an idea…”

  A minute later, they were all sitting around Lily in the living room, watching her as she in turn listened to her phone.

  “Mr. Timmins, you’re just the man I was hoping to speak to,” Lily said brightly. “You might remember my uncle, George Carmichael? I found your number among his papers.”

  Lily listened again, and made some sounds of agreement.

  “That’s very kind of you, thank you. But that’s not why I’m calling… You see, my uncle bought a racehorse years ago. It’s still on the farm, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it. I thought, maybe for nostalgia’s sake, someone at the track might want it… You must have so many stables, and I know so little about horses…”

  Lily listened again and then made a fake, trilling laugh. “Exactly! Oh, I’ve got the papers right here. I don’t really understand much about these things―sire means father? It says Sire: Black Star, and dam: Lucky Lucinda.”

  A smile began to spread over Lily’s face as she listened again, and Logan suddenly realized what she was doing. By posing as someone who’d inherited a horse without understanding anything about animals and the race track, she was hoping to draw out whoever was responsible for the attack on the farm.

  Now Lily looked up, meeting his eyes. She raised a hand, as if to ask all of them to pay attention, then silently put the phone on speaker.

  “―too old, I left that business a while ago,” a male voice was saying. The man on the other side of the phone coughed before he continued. “Missy, for the sake of old George, I’m telling you, that horse you have there is worth quite a bit. You want to phone up Jeffrey De Var from Lightning Stables. He’ll want that horse. Oh, he’ll want it. Don’t let him trick you; he’s a dirty bastard. Your beast should be worth at least a million to him.”

  “A million… dollars?” Lily gasped out loud, her eyes going wide. “But that can’t be right, our Lucky is too old to use for breeding.”

  Logan leaned forward, listening attentively. This had to be it. A man known to play dirty, who’d offer a million dollars for an old horse… was that the same man who’d send a trailer and people with tranquilizer guns?

  A snort came through the phone. “Not in this day and age, sweetheart. It’s why I retired from breeding and racing. The business isn’t what it used to be. It’s all cloning now. They take your old Lucky, they clone him, and a year later, an exact copy of your Lucky will run around a stable, only he’ll be a foal. And with the genes that horse has got, De Var will make the deal of a lifetime.
”

  Both Chris and officer Thomas were furiously scribbling down notes. Lily was pale as she clutched her phone, but there was a fierce determination in her as she ended the call, thanking her uncle’s old friend for the advice.

  “Well done,” Chris said, then turned to address officer Thomas. “What do you say, have you got a few people to spare? I’d like to give these Lightning Stables a little surprise visit.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary...” Logan said, looking down at the screen of his phone.

  He’d googled Jeffrey De Var, and the first article that came up informed him that Lightning Stables was close to financial collapse after a disastrous racing season.

  But most importantly, the article showed a head shot of Jeffrey De Var, CEO of Lightning Stables, himself.

  “Because Jeffrey De Var is currently unconscious and locked up in our goat stable,” Logan continued.

  He turned his phone, so that Lily could look at the picture. Her eyes went wide.

  “That’s him!” she said. “That’s one of the men who came with the trailer today!”

  “In that case,” Chris said triumphantly as both he and officer Thomas immediately stood, “I think we can upgrade him from the goat stable to a holding cell...”

  Chapter Eleven: Lily

  “Call me,” Chris said firmly, boxing Logan’s arm.

  Lily watched the two brothers as they said their goodbyes. She’d been worried about Darrell, but it seemed that his claims about shifter healing were the truth. The sun was beginning to set, and instead of the bleeding gunshot wound, all that was left was a large, painful looking bruise and a red scar on his shoulder. By the next morning, Darrell had assured her, even that would be gone.

  Nevertheless, now that it was getting dark, she wished that Chris and Darrell would have agreed to stay the night. But Chris had a mate and a baby to get home to, and with Jeffrey De Var safely locked up by officer Thomas, the farm should be as safe as it had always been.