Stone Bear: Guardian (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Stone Bears Book 3)

by Amelia Jade

  Although she was located in a building perched at the bottom of a mountain, the plains below her spread out for some distance before the surrounding forest closed in once more. There was more than enough room for the wildlife to graze peacefully. She could see a small herd of deer carefully nose their way out from under the canopy of branches, eager for the feast of the grass that grew plentifully under the sun’s attention. Yet they were wary, possessed with the knowledge that predators lurked nearby as well. Although she couldn’t see them today, there was a pack of wolves in the area, ensuring that any land-based forager must always be on alert. Today was looking up for them, however, as they made it to the verdant greenery of the open plain without incident. Several of the herd continued to flick their ears out from the others, constantly listening for the approach of a threat.

  She smiled as one of them lifted its head in her direction, staring intently for several moments before going back to munching on its tasty snack. Other animals chirped, squawked, or otherwise made their own noises, bringing the forest to life. It was perfectly relaxing, picturesque in its beauty, a slice of nature right in her own backyard.

  The sky darkened momentarily and she looked up, watching as the wispy gray trail of a cloud tried to block the sun. Not today, she thought as it dissipated quickly under the assault of the UV rays. Warmth returned a split second after the last of the cloud faded away, and the wildlife below renewed their beautiful songs with a refreshed vigor, as if to shout their own defiance at anyone that might try to ruin the day.

  If it weren’t for the fact she was trapped there against her will, Karlie knew she would find it heavenly, a place she could stay for ages. That’s what it had been like when she was first invited out there. It was all fake, she knew now, looking over her shoulder at the video cameras on the walls. She saw several of the men assigned to keep her there as they walked around the grounds.

  Her cheeks burned with shame as she recalled how easy it had been for them to trick her into coming there. A contest she had entered, supposedly. The grand prize was a five-day four-night all-expenses-paid trip to the countryside estate. Always a fan of nature, and not currently having a job, Karlie had leapt at the chance. She packed her things and took off without a second thought. It wasn’t until later that she learned her father had purchased it.

  Even the first few days had seemed normal. She had gone on guided tours of the area, always escorted by guards. It was a dangerous area, they had said, mostly untamed wilderness. There were wild predators around, and they had been known to come right up to the compound before. Karlie had smiled and gone along with it, not wanting to divulge the fact that they were no real threat to her.

  On the third day, however, she had taken the keys for one of the cars and decided to go for a drive. She realized now that they must have thought she was trying to escape, because the way they had come after her had shocked the living hell out of her at the time. They had run her off the road.

  It was then that she first met Vincent. He had walked up to her car and torn the door off with one hand, a feat of strength that had woken her to the fact that she was in a bad situation. Her “guards” were revealed to be guarding against her escape, not from any wildlife. That day they had also been replaced with shifters now that the act was up. But Vincent was the real scumbag of the group. At the time she had thought him to be the leader, though she found out later that he was in fact the senior henchman. There was another man that he reported to living somewhere in the compound. She hadn’t been able to get a name just yet, but she would.

  After all, she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  The reminder that her apparent paradise was actually no more than an elaborate prison killed her mood, and she walked back inside, slamming the door behind her. What did she care if it broke? It was her father’s. He would just replace it in the end. It wasn’t like he cared about her either, so why should she care about anything that was his?

  Her anger flared at the reminder that it was her bastard of a biological father who had engineered everything. Keeping her here and knowing that her grandfather would stay neutral in any fight her dad started. It would be the only way he could ensure her safety. The bed went flying as she slammed her foot into it, knocking over a table and turning on its end as it thumped against the wall. Paint flaked, but it was the mattress that had borne the brunt of the impact against the wall, and it was too soft to break anything.

  “Was that really necessary?” a voice asked.

  Spinning, Karlie noticed the door was open for the first time. A tall, broad-shouldered figure stood in the doorway. His green eyes laughed at her. He had a long, angry reddish-purple birthmark running from the corner of his mouth down his neck. Even when he smiled, she wanted to shudder at the sight of it. Like he was now.

  “Fuck off,” she spat, reaching out with her left hand to grab a vase off the nearby end table and hurling it at him.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Vincent said with a laugh, catching the empty vase easily in mid-air. He looked at it for a second, then tucked it under his arm. “Best find another place for this, so you don’t break it during your next hissy fit,” he said, nodding along to his own thought process.

  “Screw you,” she snapped, shouldering her way past him. Her cell—they called it a room, but she knew what it really was, no matter how fancy—was at the end of a hallway. Much of it was glass, including the floor. She looked down at the forest below. It was fancy, she had to admit that much. Her father had spared no expense in its construction, making it work with nature as much as he could.

  That was probably the lone point of similarity she had with her father. They both shared a love for nature. It made it hard for her to decide whether he had had the structure built for himself, and then decided it was the best place to hold her, or if he had thought so far ahead that he had built it as part of his plan.

  Knowing him, she had feeling it was all specially built just to house her. The thought made her sick as she headed for the kitchen. Her room and the hallway were elevated, but the majority of the compound was housed at ground level, and she descended the stairs swiftly. Her attention was elsewhere but that didn’t matter. The fifth day of her “prize trip” had expired over nine months ago. She was well used to the layout by now, and could navigate her way around in the dark.

  “Hey Charlie,” she said, walking into the kitchen.

  “Hello Miss Karlie,” the cook said pleasantly.

  That was the one benefit of her stay. Charlie. He was the cook/chef, and he was actually trained. He provided all the meals for the people staying in the compound, and he was damn good at it in her opinion.

  “Do we have any stuff to make a sandwich?” she asked. “I know it’s a little early for that, but I find myself craving one,” she admitted.

  “Oh, I think I can probably whip something up for you,” Charlie said with a grin, going to dig in the back to put something together.

  She smiled. Charlie was the only other person she interacted with on a daily basis that—as far as she could tell—wasn’t employed by her father to prevent her from leaving. Everything she’d learned suggested that he was just a cook from the city who had gotten the sweet gig of being a personal chef for twelve men and one woman. She wasn’t even sure he knew she was here against her will.

  It was something that she intended to keep that way as long as possible. Charlie was extremely nice, and she didn’t want him to feel guilty about her predicament.

  Although, she thought to herself, if everything goes as planned, he won’t have to worry much longer. Charlie returned, carrying a plate. Smiling in thanks, she began to wolf down her sandwich. She kept her ears open, listening for what she knew would be coming.

  “Ah, Phillip, so good to see you,” Charlie said politely.

  Karlie looked at her watch.

  12:23.

  Right on time. She had timed her approach to the kitchen with care, making sure to arrive exactly at qua
rter-past the hour. Her captors tried to make it seem random so that Charlie wouldn’t catch on, but one of them always arrived in the kitchen if she was there alone. They always did it after waiting between seven and eight minutes from when she first arrived, to make it seem like a coincidence.

  It hadn’t taken Karlie long to catch on, or to begin tracking how long it took them. She hadn’t been sure at first, since there was at least two cameras she could spot in the kitchen. Why would they need a physical presence if they could see and hear everything she and Charlie discussed over the cameras?

  Then one day, it dawned upon her. The cameras were video only. They couldn’t hear what was being said. From there it had taken her some time to come up with a plan that could capitalize on that weakness, but she had managed.

  Even now, her ears could detect a slight screeching noise. Vincent hadn’t said anything to her that morning about her attire, which was excellent. She had purposefully worn the option that showed a bit more skin, hoping that a view of her chest might make him ignorant of just what she was wearing.

  The tight pants and shirt, which clung to her body comfortably, were different from her normal day to day attire. She had made an effort to wear them more often lately, so that when the day arrived she wouldn’t throw them off that she was planning something.

  Finishing the last bite of her sandwich, she dumped the crumbs all over the food Phillip was eating. She felt bad ruining the effort Charlie had gone through, but the guy was a jerk and he deserved it. It was petty and ultimately ineffective, but it was the spirit that mattered.

  “Tell Vincent I’m going to the bathroom, then I think I’d like to take a stroll outside.”

  Phillip glared at her, but she pointed at the radio at his side and made a shooing motion. “Go on,” she urged, turning to leave the room.

  As she neared the bathroom, the screeching noise became a little louder. There was nothing down here except for the bathroom—one of several on the premises, but the one outside of her bedroom that she had claimed for herself—and also the laundry area.

  It was Wednesday, and that meant it was laundry day. There were two housekeepers who took care of those types of things. For a prison, it really did have all the amenities. As she pushed open the door, she heard the sound of one machine. The metal on metal screeching was growing louder, and she knew it wouldn’t be too long before one of the shifters came to investigate. But she should have enough time. They knew the area was a dead end, and they had a camera outside of the bathroom. What could go wrong?

  Typical men, she thought sarcastically. She walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Then she waited for the shouts to begin. It took another five minutes before footsteps came pounding down the hallway. As she looked, water began to seep under the doorway.

  Karlie had used the guise of doing her own laundry—something she always did—to sabotage one of the machines. Each time she had thrown in a load of clothes, she had hit the back wall of the machine. Her inhuman strength allowed her to perforate the contraption. The only evidence the camera would have seen was the machine rock slightly. But without an audio feed, they couldn’t hear the sound of her punching the metal innards.

  After having worked all morning the machine had finally flooded, spilling soapy water everywhere. It didn’t hurt that she’d also mixed in some bubble-bath soap into the laundry detergent, making the mess even worse than it looked.

  “What is going on here?” she yelped, tiptoeing out of the bathroom, trying to pretend like she was disgusted by the water and fearful for her shoes.

  “Washing machine broke. Go back to your room,” one of them ordered.

  “Make me,” she threatened, not wanting to cave immediately.

  “Take her,” Phillip said, coming down the hallway from behind her.

  She glared at him. “I can take myself,” she snapped and strode angrily down the hallway.

  It took all of her willpower not to let a smile cross her face. The lights went out in that area as the water overloaded the circuits, cutting the power. She had also managed to slice the wires at the back of the machines.

  For the moment she was out of sight of anyone, without any cameras on her. Stealing to her left, she crept down a hallway toward the garage. It was the closest guard post to the laundry area, and just as she’d hoped, the guards had run off. The past two months as she planned her escape, Karlie had played the unhappy, but meekly accepting prisoner, trying to lure them into a sense of false security.

  It seemed to have worked. The garage was empty. They thought she was complacent enough to forget to leave a guard behind. She strode toward the Jeep at the front, a khaki-colored version with no roof on it.

  “Damn,” she whispered. There were no keys.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She spun at the voice. Shit. She had missed one guard. Or had she? He was silhouetted by the sun in the open garage door. No, she hadn’t missed him. He’d been walking around outside, and had happened to pass by the garage and saw her there.

  “I think I lost a bracelet in here,” she said pointing at the Jeep, her mind thinking furiously. “I can’t find it anywhere, but I know I had it on when we went for a drive two days ago.”

  The goon wasn’t one of her regular guards, and she was playing the odds that he wasn’t aware she hadn’t been in this particular Jeep. Thankfully she had been out for a little tour of the area two days ago. Vincent had realized that keeping her completely confined was likely going to result in more problems than occasionally letting her out of the house. So once a week she was allowed to go out—heavily escorted—and just roam the surrounding grounds.

  “In this one?” the shifter guard said as he walked toward her.

  She nodded. “Yes. I was sitting on that side,” she pointed to the rear passenger side. “I took a peek inside already, but I can’t see much. It’s probably under the seat.”

  The guard made a noncommittal noise as he got closer. Karlie was so intent on trying to fool him that she almost missed the sudden change in his body language as he got closer to her. She wasn’t playing him. He was playing her.

  The guard’s tranquilizer gun whipped from the holster on his right hip. Giving credit where credit was due, Karlie nodded internally. He was fast. But he had gotten too close. Never during her time in prison had Karlie tried to use her innate strength and abilities.

  She did now. Her far hand whipped up, the flat palm of it slamming into the trigger area of the gun, crushing the guard’s fingers between her blow and the metal. The gun was knocked away, but Karlie was past that, her body spinning with the blow. She followed her right hand around in a half-spin, now facing the same direction as the guard and less than a foot from him. Her left arm followed through with the spin, the elbow flying past her head and hitting the guard’s face with a sickening crunch.

  He dropped like a rock.

  There wouldn’t be much time now. Not only would the guard be expected to report in, but the body lying on the floor would be rather visible.

  “Keys,” she muttered to herself, looking around the garage. She hadn’t been able to plan this far ahead because she was never allowed in the garage. Even when she got into the vehicles, they were brought around the front of the building. So finding keys was bound to be problematic.

  On the wall near the door she spotted a metal box. “Key box?” she asked aloud, darting over to it. Her fingers hooked onto the thin metal door of it and she easily ripped it aside.

  “Perfect,” she said, sorting through the dozen sets until she found the one that matched her chosen escape vehicle. “Time to go.”

  “Go where?”

  Karlie turned slowly, her shoulders sagging. There, blocking the exit to outside—to freedom—was Vincent and three other guards. All of whom had weapons leveled at her. Vincent had no weapon, but she wasn’t foolish enough to think he needed one.

  “For a stroll through the garden of course,” she said, flipping the keys at hi
m and heading back toward the hallway into the rest of the house, acting as if nothing was wrong.

  Vincent snarled and blew by her in an instant, putting himself between her and the door. “Do you think that’s it? My guy is on the floor there, covered in blood.”

  “It’s called a broken nose. They tend to bleed a lot. The only reason he’s on the floor is because he’s a wimp,” she told him, rolling her eyes.

  The shifter guard was even now recovering. “I’b no wib,” he tried to say. The words didn’t sound right through the smashed nose and—now that she looked closer—mangled lips.

  “Silence!” Vincent snapped, his finger shaking as he pointed it at the fallen guard.

  Karlie rather flippantly stared him down. “What are you going to do? If you harm me, my father will see to it that’s the last thing you do,” she threatened.

  The threat didn’t have the expected reaction. Instead of moving aside sullenly, like he normally did, Vincent smiled. A cold chill ran down her spine as all of a sudden it became clear that something had changed.

  A vicious backhand caught her across the cheek, sending her sprawling to the ground. Stars played across her vision for a second.

  “Get to your room,” Vincent ordered.

  Chapter Three

  Raphael

  “Please fasten your seatbelt sir.”

  He looked up, blinking rapidly at the feminine voice above him.

  The middle-aged women with short brown hair that was chopped off past her ears was looking down at him. There was a bit of a patronizing smile on her face, the one that any person who works in a customer service position learns to fake in the first week of their job as they deal with a general public that is anything but easy to work with. Raphael knew that smile well, and he didn’t blame her for it one bit.