by Bianca D’Arc
“I’ll make it happen, sir,” Jeff promised.
He had no idea what kind of folk the vampire had working for him, but if this guy Spencer was one of Moore’s former command, then he was, in all likelihood, someone they’d want to reassure. Moore was still a legend among Spec Ops warriors.
They spent a few more minutes helping Hiram in whatever way he needed before he had to go into his safe room. Maya sniffed all around both the safe room and the rest of the massive suite. Although she’d found traces of an intruder, they hadn’t left anything behind.
“They took my laptop,” Hiram reported with a cunning grin on his face. “Not to worry. It was a decoy. There’s nothing on it that anybody could possibly use against me. As if I’d leave sensitive data just lying around in my suite,” he scoffed. Then, he sobered. “You know, while everyone is still out, it would be a good time to have a look around and see what else might’ve been taken—or who else might have Venifucus tattoos.”
Jeff supposed he meant those glowing red designs on the combatant’s faces, though they didn’t look like any sort of tattoo he’d ever seen. He was about to ask a few pertinent questions when a commanding knock sounded on the door to the suite.
“Ah, I see others have probably come to the same conclusions,” Hiram said, answering the door himself, though Maya positioned herself behind the door hinge so as to be close at hand if there was trouble.
Jeff didn’t like that, but he had to admit, she was a force to be reckoned with in her bear shape. Getting used to that would take some time. He was usually the protector of the weak and innocent. Having a woman in his life who was more partner, than in need of his protection, was something new—and highly intriguing.
Hiram stepped back, admitting Admiral Morrow, Sam Kinkaid and Marlon to the room. Morrow had dressed in a dark golf shirt and cargo pants. Kinkaid wore almost the same.
“We have to check the place,” Morrow began without preamble. “I’ve got Moore’s men sniffing around, and Shelly and Sullivan have agreed to help reveal any hidden marks. The jaguars are accompanying them, of course.”
“They took my laptop,” Hiram reported. “They didn’t get into the safe room, though they tried.” Damage around the false lock was obvious, but they’d been barking up the wrong tree. The door to the safe room was a masterpiece of misdirection and obfuscation.
“We didn’t recover a laptop among the fallen, which means…” Morrow paused and looked at Jeff.
“Somebody got away,” Jeff supplied, noting the reactions around the room. Nobody was happy to hear that at least one of the bad guys had survived the night’s purge.
Hiram shook his head. “Can’t be helped. At least we have one to question.”
“There is that. I’ve put him on a high-speed shuttle to the Lords. They’ll know what to do with him, and they have specialists that can question him even better than we can,” Morrow told them. “Was there anything on the laptop that could be used against you?”
“Not at all,” Hiram assured them. “It was a decoy. They’ll find some nasty surprises on it if they try to fire it up, and if they’re connected to a network when they try, we might even be able to trace their location. Once my people wake up, they’ll know what to do. I’m afraid Spencer is the only one with the proper codes to do the trace. I’ll have to change that for the future.”
Morrow nodded. “Live and learn. That’s all we can do.”
“As long as you’re sure the laptop is no immediate problem, we’ll leave you in peace,” Kinkaid said. “We just wanted to get your input before you turned in for the day. Are you okay here or are you leaving?”
“My preference would be to leave and seek shelter elsewhere, but I will not leave my people unless there is no alternative. I believe our side has the situation well in hand and I will be safe enough,” Hiram said, not looking exactly pleased about his options.
Jeff had to hand it to the guy. He had guts. He was risking his life to make sure his people were all right. Jeff had to respect that.
“I tried without success to find out who was running this tournament,” Hiram put in, altering the topic. “Perhaps some of you might have more luck. The enemy got the guest list somehow and it had to be from the organizers of the event, but they’ve kept a very low profile.”
Kinkaid spoke up. “There were a number of shell companies, but we traced everything back to an entity managed by a murky fellow named Jonathan Chase, now deceased.”
“Jonathan?” Maya sounded surprised.
“You knew him?” Kinkaid looked sharply at Maya as she nodded.
“He set bounty hunters on one of the new mates in Grizzly Cove. He’s dead and any businesses that he had control of are now back to their rightful owner, a young woman who is newly mated. She’s been sending out operatives to clean up Jonathan’s more disgusting business enterprises.”
“Apparently, she missed the folks running this one,” Morrow observed.
Maya nodded. “But the good news is, she can get us whatever information we need from her end. She’s mated to one of Moore’s men. A guy named Trevor.”
Morrow just shook his head. “I’ll call your brother and ask him to start the ball rolling on that end,” he promised.
“We’ll be collecting the intel we discover about the guests here and turning it over to the admiral, though my offer holds.” Kinkaid turned to address Morrow directly. “I, and my Clan, stand ready to help you clean house.”
Jeff didn’t quite follow the implications of Kinkaid’s wording, but everyone else in the room, besides him and Marlon, seemed to understand fully. He’d have to ask Maya, when they got a chance. Maybe she could help them learn to interpret some of this brave new world they’d just discovered.
“I might take you up on that, depending on what we uncover,” Morrow replied with a respectful nod. “For now, let’s just gather what intel we can, and we’ll deal with what we learn as we learn it. Now, you two,” Morrow spoke to the two humans in the room, “stay here. Guard Hiram and fill Maya in on your unit, if you feel the need. You have my permission.” He nodded, as if it was nothing, but really, the admiral had just given them clearance to share one of the military’s deepest secrets with a civilian. That was big. “And you, my dear,” Morrow turned to look at Maya, “I think you need to explain a few things about the hidden world to your new friends. They’re a little lost, but they’re coping well. They’ll do even better if they know more about the situation they’ve found themselves in, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir,” Maya said, nodding. “They’ve already seen more than most, and they haven’t run away yet, so there’s no sense keeping them in the dark any longer.” She grinned, and Morrow smiled back.
“Make sure you explain the Venifucus to them,” was Morrow’s only advice as he headed toward the door with Kinkaid.
Once they were gone and Maya had locked the door behind them, Hiram also took his leave, locking himself into the safe room. The sky was just beginning to show a pale light in the east, and the house was quiet. Those who weren’t under the effects of the gas were going from room to room, gathering as much data as they possibly could, turning an evil plot against those who had intended to do the good guys grievous harm. It seemed only fair to turn the tables on them and use the situation to learn as much as they could while they had the opportunity.
Maya sighed heavily and headed to the mini-bar and the little fridge that was stocked with goodies. There was also a big fruit basket, which she appropriated and brought back to the low coffee table in front of the couch. She put a pouch of popcorn in the microwave, and it started to pop as she gathered items from around the suite to make a little camp for herself and the men on the couch.
Once they realized what she was doing, Marlon left to get some spare pillows and blankets from the bedroom closets. He brought back about six pillows and four blankets in two trips and proceeded to feather their nest while Maya brought the munchies. Jeff went to the bar fridge and gathered some
soft drinks and juice bottles. There was an ice bucket and small ice maker, so he put what would fit on ice and placed it on the coffee table.
“There are some frozen pizzas in here,” Maya reported at one point. “I could nuke them, but they’ll be soggy that way. Still, I am hungry. What about you guys?”
“We’re good with whatever you can dig up,” Jeff insisted.
Frankly, he was more thirsty than hungry, though it had been a long night. Regardless, he was too keyed up to sleep. They’d watch until Hiram’s people woke, and then, after a quick debrief, it would finally be time for the human pair, and their werebear lady, to rest.
“Is that a thing?” Jeff pondered out loud. He caught Maya’s eye and asked outright. “I’ve heard of werewolves. Is there such a thing as a werebear? Is that an accurate description?”
Maya smiled and nodded. “Some call us werebears. In general, we’re shapeshifters. Specifically, we’re bear shifters or, in my case, a grizzly shifter.”
“There are other kinds of bear shifters?” Marlon was quick to ask as he arranged the pillows on and around the couch.
“Sure. Polar bears, black bears, Kodiak bears, Kamchatka bears… Even panda bears. Koala bears, too, though they’re not really bears,” she said, giggling a bit. “My brother is a grizzly, like me, of course. That’s why he named his dream town Grizzly Cove.”
“Big John sure kept his secret for a lot of years,” Marlon observed.
“John’s whole unit was made up of shifters. Mostly bears. Admiral Morrow was aware of it the entire time. He runs interference for those shifters whose protective instinct drives them to take direct action by joining the military. Johnny says that Morrow also knows exactly how to deploy their talents,” Maya informed them.
“We shouldn’t be too surprised,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “He does the same for our group. We’re not just Spec Ops. We’re black ops. Officially, we don’t exist as a unit. We’re ghost members of other teams.”
“But why?” Maya asked, truly puzzled. They were just human, after all…weren’t they? “Why do I feel a tingle like magic around you two, sometimes? And what happened to those chairs the sorceress threw at me? I thought I was going to get clobbered, for sure. I didn’t feel magic stop them. It was more like that tingle I get when I’m around you two, only stronger and higher pitched. What did you do?”
Marlon and Jeff both looked as if they’d gotten caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. It was Jeff who spoke first.
“Maya, sweetheart, what you have to understand is that we’re not…exactly…normal, anymore.”
Marlon picked up where Jeff stumbled to a halt. “Several years ago, we volunteered for an experimental program. Jeff and I were already Navy SEALs. We’d been swim buddies all through training. We had a special rapport with each other that our commanders noticed enough to recommend us for a special project code named Gemini.”
“Gemini,” Jeff repeated. “Like twins. Only, we’re not…but our minds are.”
Maya was confused. She squinted at them, trying to figure out what Jeff was trying to say.
“Ignore him,” Marlon said, stepping forward and taking both of Maya’s hands in his. “What Jeff’s having trouble revealing is that we are part of a special program that was intended to develop innate psychic abilities such as telepathy.”
“You can hear each other’s thoughts?” Maya couldn’t quite believe what they were saying.
It sounded like magic, but it wasn’t. She had heard tales about humans born with special mental gifts. Telepaths had been known to spontaneously occur every few centuries—or so legend said. Personally, she’d never met any. Until now?
“You have to understand, this is Top Secret stuff. Marlon and I are one the rare teams of men specially selected for the training and medical procedures that brought about our heightened telepathy. You can’t tell anybody else. Admiral Morrow only gave us clearance to tell you, and that’s pretty unprecedented,” Jeff said.
“Telepathy,” she said, rolling the word around in her mind. “But what was that with the chairs? Telekinesis? Isn’t that what they call it?”
“I swear, that never happened to us before,” Jeff told her.
“They told us it could be a possibility when we started down this road,” Marlon clarified, “but we’ve never experienced an actual telekinetic event before tonight. Hell, I’m not even one hundred percent certain that was us. There were a lot of people in play in that battle with all sorts of different abilities we had never encountered before.”
“It wasn’t magic,” she assured them. “You should know, bears are among the most magical of shifters. We can sense things—each of us to different degrees. I always know when someone’s doing magic around me. I can block it, too. Did you see the way it rolled off my fur? Most other shifters can’t do that. Not like bears, at any rate.”
“If it was true telekinesis,” Marlon said quietly, moving to sit beside her, “then it was because of you. Neither one of us wanted to see you hurt. I think we both reached out automatically. Instinct kicked in and allowed us to do something we never have before. I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to recreate it, though I know our command and the scientists who’ve been working with us from the start will probably try to bring it out again. Telekinesis would be one hell of a weapon, if it could be done reliably.”
“So, you two can talk silently with each other. Can you do that with anybody else?” she asked, curious.
“No,” Jeff said, sitting on her other side. “Just between us. Other pairs in our unit are the same. They worked with guys who were already close on a personal level and had some affinity—though I’m not sure how they measured that. They put us through a bunch of tests before they accepted us into the program. There aren’t that many of us, but each team can only communicate with each other.”
Suddenly, it all started making sense to Maya. She sat back, between the two men her bear insisted were her mates.
“In a way, you share a mind, huh?” she asked.
Marlon chuckled. “Yeah, it feels that way. We were close before, but now, it’s different. It’s like, sometimes, we’re one person, just in two separate bodies.”
She started to realize that the two men shared a mind connection, and maybe that’s why her bear saw them both as her mate. To her wild side, they were two halves of a whole—and that whole belonged with her. She had no idea what her brother would say, but if Marlon and Jeff were willing, she’d happily take them both as mates, forevermore.
“You know, mating among shifters is a very serious thing. There is no divorce. It’s forever because our instincts decide who that one special person is for us. Some believe the Mother of All chooses our special One, and many go their entire lives without finding that person who completes them,” Maya told them. She was going to risk a lot here, but she needed to know where they stood.
“It is always just one person?” Jeff asked in a quiet voice.
“I always thought so,” she told them honestly. “But, after meeting you two, I’m beginning to wonder. There are certain special circumstances where trios exist. For example, each region of the planet has a set of Lords who govern all shifters in their region of influence. For North America, the current Lords are a pair of werewolf brothers who live somewhere in Montana…with their mate.”
“Brothers?” Marlon looked at Jeff and back again. They weren’t related by blood. It was easy enough to read his thoughts in this particular instance.
“Identical twins, actually. A rarity among shifters. In fact, there are only one set of identical twins born to every generation in each region. I’ve heard rumors that the next set of identical twins will be bears, but there’s no way of knowing until their parents reveal their presence. If a shifter has a set of identical boys, they keep them under wraps. Our enemies would hunt them if they knew about them as vulnerable cubs,” she explained.
“So, shifter royalty is the only time these trios form?” Jeff asked.
“I know of one other instance in the current generation, among big cats. Tigers, to be exact. They don’t fall under the Lords. The big cats have their own royal families and traits. The king of all tigers is a white tiger, for example. Only a few white tigers are ever born—one male in each generation plus the occasional female. The mating I heard about recently was a case of two golden tigers mating with one woman,” she said. “They weren’t royalty.”
“What about when humans mate with shifters? Are there any rules about that? Is it permissible?” Marlon asked, hope in his voice.
“Definitely permissible. Quite a few of the men who started the town with my brother, from his old unit, have mated recently. At least three of them mated with regular, average humans.” She thought fondly of the Baker sisters and the bear shifters they had mated. “I have to warn you, my inner bear is feeling very possessive of both of you, and has since we first met. I didn’t understand it before, but I think I get it now. Your telepathy means you’re closer than blood brothers. You literally share a mind, at times. That’s why my instincts say you’re two halves of a whole, and to be complete…I’d need both of you.”
“You would?” Jeff moved closer, reaching out to touch her hair.
“Sweetheart,” Marlon breathed, moving closer on her other side and touching her knee. “We’ve pretty much decided we need you, too. If you’ll have us.”
“Both of you?” She wanted to be perfectly clear. “Forever? Once we mate, I’ll never be able to let you go.”
