Bearly Christmas

by Becca Fanning

  He didn't like how it made him feel.

  "Why you?" He looked her up and down. She was beautiful, which was never beside the point in his opinion. He thought she was probably smart. Maybe she'd needed money, or had a run in with another shifter, or had gambling or drug debts – something that had put her into their power?

  "Damsel in distress, at your service," she said, and made a mocking bow without bothering to get up from her own hay bale. "Big strong shifters try to come to my rescue and." She waved a hand again, this time indicating the end of the sentence.

  "I got the concept," he said. "I meant, why you specifically? How did you get mixed up in this?"

  "Oh."

  He thought she might have already known he meant that.

  Didn't stop her from answering. She just sighed and hesitated for a second before she finally flipped her braid off her shoulder and behind her, met his eyes and said, "My father's one of the men behind it."

  * * *

  Chapter Three

  By the time they'd been in the cage – with Holden awake – for about 20 minutes, he'd already come to respect Dani Sjoberg. Raised in the tradition of every rich bitch anywhere, she was down to earth, funny, smart, conniving and angry as hell at her father.

  And if her plan to try and get evidence and take down at least her father's part of the league of anti shifters was a trifle lame, so was Holden's. Between the time in the arena and the abduction, being out and the conversation with Dani, Holden had been down here long enough Jacob should have checked in.

  Not that Jacob checked in often. Not that Holden hadn't told everyone to stand down.

  Not that Holden got great reception wherever they were. He assumed the cavernous room was underground. And not that Holden had anything much to tell him. He just wanted to touch base. As in, Got myself kidnapped. This is what I know so far. Alert someone!

  What he knew so far was the names of the thugs – Dave, Jeff, Sam and Stuart – and that Dani's father, Walter Sjoberg, was the head of the movement in southern Arizona.

  He also knew why she'd moved as slowly as she had. A number of the missing shifters had apparently vanished via her father and Dani hadn't acted, had waited until now to even come up with the piss poor plan she had.

  Holden didn't know that he would do things much differently if it were up to him and the life of a 7-year-old little sister was at stake.

  It didn't hurt that Dani was beautiful. Tall, built, confident. The ability to take care of herself radiated out of her. This wasn't a woman who would wait for rescue and if her plan was stupid, at least she'd made a plan and in her case, made it by herself.

  In Holden's case, it had taken all of them to come up with a not very good plan.

  She got impatient then, rattled the bars and kicked them, to no effect. "We have to get out of here."

  "No offense, little one, but I spent a lot of time and energy getting in here."

  She looked impatiently at him like he'd made a stupid comment that didn't deserve a response. "You can't stay here. Let me stay here. They can't hurt me. My father—"

  "Isn't the head of the league," Holden interrupted, quite sure by now. Her father would fit into the picture as middle management if they were discussing corporate affairs rather than probable murder.

  She looked surprised. "I didn't say that. I don't even know how many – "

  "You would if he were the CEO, so to speak." He had her attention. "Your father postures and he's got the money and he has his own minions working for him, right?"

  She nodded.

  "But he's taking orders from somewhere else and for all you know, they might be local too."

  She nodded again. "Maybe. I think he's closer to the top than that. Like getting your orders from Washington, not from state level that got it from Washington. If that makes sense."

  In better circumstances he'd have teased her for the lousy explanation. She was straightforward and goofy, all at the same time. And hot.

  Which wasn't where his head should be right now. But in all honesty, in better circumstances he'd be hitting on her by now. Hard.

  "Maybe you're right. But he's still not the head of it. That means maybe your father runs his own hired muscle and maybe he doesn't."

  He wasn't sure how to convince her. She seemed to think being a boss's daughter kept her safe.

  Holden thought boss's daughter or not, she was a pawn being manhandled by men as part of the assignment given to those men. And if they liked the assignment – which they seemed to – they were hot, bothered, excited men.

  Holden knew what men were like. He worked with them. He was unmarried and hadn't had anything more serious than a two week hookup in the last year and a half, he spent his days surrounded by guys in work and after hours beers at the bar. He'd seen the men manhandling her and he knew what they were thinking.

  Hell, he knew what he was thinking just being alone with her. His thoughts all involved her consent, though. Consent, and hopefully excited participation.

  Her father's hired thugs? Not so much.

  He was not leaving her here alone.

  "I'm not going to argue with you because there's only one way I could convince you I'm right and even if those guys come back I'm not leaving you alone with them. Their expressions said exactly what they wanted to do with you. No, fuck that, what they were going to do with you. The minute they were finished dealing with me. They were not worried about hurting you, princess."

  She'd been looking away from him but she spun on him now with a snarl. "Don't call me that."

  Touched a nerve, he thought, and tried to feel guilty about feeling smug.

  She turned away from him, one shoulder against the bars, staring toward the big doors that led in and out of the room. Holden watched her and felt his sluggish brain start to kick off the aftereffects of the drug and work again.

  What if he took her with him? Dani didn't seem like she'd slow him down much. And if she knew where they took the shifters, then getting out wasn't giving up. Getting out was better than staying put.

  Staying put meant he found the truth while a prisoner. He might not be able to act like he needed to.

  For the first time it occurred to him that walking into the situation to find out what happened to shifters who were taken without any idea what he was walking into wasn't ballsy or brave but stupid enough to jeopardize anyone recently taken and still alive.

  So ask. If she knew, he had more than enough to go to the FBI with, and FBI wasn't a bad idea. Holden himself – known shifter with traces of drugs in his system and a hole from a dart in his thigh – should be proof enough. Along with Dani's information that they were taking bears between states.

  He frowned. Alive? Because he'd assumed the shifters were killed. Assumed it until Colby was taken and held in an abandoned ranch house, him and Gemma both. Maybe something had gone wrong that time but they'd been left without adequate food or water in a roasting hot closed up house in the Las Vegas desert. Why give them any care at first if they were just going to be left to die of dehydration or starvation?

  He understood not killing them on site. Moving them somewhere made sense. Or even just taking them long enough to not kill them where the killers might, at any minute run into some inconvenient innocent human witnesses and killing them to keep them quiet would put the whole operation at risk.

  He looked at her again. Why she'd tried to warn him off was obvious. Supposedly no shifter would want to get caught in this net.

  But what happened after?

  "Dani?"

  She turned, leaned her back against the bars and watched him.

  "What happens to the shifters?"

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  Too bad. So far he'd been chivalrous, attempting to rescue her, and polite. He was fricking gorgeous, too – tall, muscled, with that arrogant swanky cowboy swagger.

  Dani believed that even if she hadn't been born and raised in the West she'd have ended up here. Cowboys wi
th their faded jeans, so often faded in just the places her eye wanted to go anyway, they hit something deep inside her.

  Just looking at a weather beaten hat, the eyes under the brim squinted against wind and sun, hands chapped from Nevada or Arizona or Idaho winds – all of it made her heart beat harder. Boots and faded jeans and leather work gloves made her hot, wet and wanting.

  The few boyfriends she'd had in college had been College of Agriculture students. The men she'd gone out with after coming home and before her father's descent from hater into active insanity, they'd all been western types.

  This guy, Holden Tyrell. She knew who he was. The first instant she'd seen him she knew. Over the years she'd watched him compete. Had a crush on him but what rodeo star hadn't she crushed on at some point?

  And the answer to that? Haters. She was tired of the stupid anti shifter sentiment even before she realized her father was part of it. Even before she got dragged into it.

  Holden Tyrell, though. She'd had some hot summer nights at home in bed thinking about him, about what those hands would feel like sliding over her flat belly, his fingers dipping into the waistband of her jeans. His hands were rough from use. His face chapped. Even in his early 30s it was obvious the boyish good looks were going to translate into weather beaten rugged cowboy looks later in life.

  He was fricking gorgeous, she thought again.

  But.

  But? Apparently he wasn't too bright.

  What happens to the ones they take? Seriously, he was asking that?

  Because even she wasn't as naïve as he thought. She knew what Dave and the others were thinking. They'd played out the scenario how many times before? And the only thing they'd ever done was look big and hulking when the mark came flying in to save her.

  No one had ever laid a hand on her before. That meant something had changed. It might mean her father was in some trouble with the organization.

  Or it might mean her father suspected Dani knew something.

  It might mean whether she had her proof or not it was time to get out.

  He shook his head impatiently like a horse shaking off a fly. "Killed, fine. But the bodies? No one is ever found. The few things anyone knows – " He stopped.

  She didn't push. If they got out of here, her father would know what she'd done. She didn't think he'd kill her. Not just because she was his daughter. But because of her mother. Walt still loved Christy. Killing Christy's daughter was unlikely, even if she didn't have any belief that, having crossed him, she was still safe just because she was his daughter.

  Also, she believed Holden wouldn't risk telling Dani Sjoberg what he knew.

  She blinked at him. He looked bigger than he had seconds earlier, and totally angry. His eyes had darkened. They were golden anyway, but now they looked dark. His mouth was set. His hands were flexed open.

  Mostly he looked so pissed.

  Her head swam. Fear caught up with her again and she threw herself back into words to fight it off.

  They both started talking at the same time.

  Dani said, "It's not what you think. Nobody lives through it, but sometimes they keep them alive for a while, I think – "

  Holden interrupted. "Your father, if he's involved, he's got to be doing something more than snatch and kill, why would they even bother to take shifters if they're just killing them? Snipers could pick off anyone who's out of the closet shifter, easier, and if these people don't care what happens to them because it's a cause –"

  She had just enough time to say, "It's not a cause, it's hate, and money – "

  She was going to finish, Dressed up as a cause.

  But the doors burst open and they came for them then.

  In the instant before armed men burst into the room, she looked again at Holden. Something flickered in the pit of her stomach that made no sense, based on a crush and maybe 30 minutes of conversation.

  Her thoughts as the men leveled another dart at Holden and started screaming at her were, Idiot! Why didn't you run?

  Why didn't you run? And take me with you?

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  They were coming. For him and the girl.

  In the moment before the armed men hit the doors, Holden got ready.

  The light coming through the window set high in the concrete wall had broken with the shadows of legs. Only for a second.

  Dani hadn't noticed it.

  Holden had. All the shifters he knew were hyperaware. No one knew if it was the effect of the animal spirit inside, healthy paranoia or just part and parcel of being different in today's world.

  He knew they were coming and even as she started to answer his questions about what happened to disappeared shifters, Holden pushed himself.

  He shifted, just so far. Enough to heighten senses again. Enough to hear them on the stairs outside the doors. To sense how close they were. To judge by the way they moved and the thread of their voices, that they were armed.

  He guessed they'd come with tranqs. Nothing else made sense. Taking the time and putting themselves at risk just to get Holden into a cage and kill him here, trapped in a cage, made no sense.

  It wasn't even likely as setting an example, first because no one ever saw the results of such a thing or they'd all know what happened to taken shifters. And second because there was no point setting an example.

  Shifters were shifters. Nothing they could do about it.

  Even if they wanted to.

  It would be stupid for the men who grabbed him to risk themselves moving him to begin with. He'd been out. He'd been vulnerable.

  And killing him didn't produce return on investment. Seemed like there was more than hate going on. Hate would have him dead now.

  Money explained finding himself in a cage.

  Just before the men outside reached the doors that thought had left a bad taste in his mouth.

  They could shoot a tranq into any part of his body. There was nothing in the cell to cover his body with anyway. Hay, maybe, tucked under his clothes, if he had time. If he'd thought of it before they were on their way into the prison where he was trapped.

  If he wouldn't have to be bulky as the Scarecrow from Oz in order for it to block the damn needle from sinking through into his flesh. Anyone would be able to see that and make the decision what to do with him.

  Aim for uncovered skin.

  Or just shoot to kill.

  The only other thing he could think of doing to stop the drugs was the rage. Hormones freely coursing through his system triggered shifts when he raged. Not the only time. He could shift at other times. But the only time a shift might happen whether he wanted it to or not.

  If he did that, and they didn't come, he'd be a live, furious, hideously strong bear in a cage with a breakable girl he liked.

  If they came too late, he'd be a grizzly with little control. They'd tranquilize him and by the time he woke up – if he woke up –