by Amelia Jade
“What is going on here?” she asked, half-bewildered, half-intrigued.
“Some cultures have different words for it. In mine, we simply call it a midnight snack,” he replied smoothly, his voice velvety soft despite its richness.
Peyton giggled. “Oh my. Well, that sounds delightful.”
“I was hoping you would say something like that,” he all but purred.
She found herself staring at him intently as he pulled out a spread of meats, cheeses, and crackers from the box, surprised at how much content he’d managed to fit into it. Despite having had a decent meal earlier in the evening, Peyton dug in with gusto. Kiefer joined her, and they swiftly began to devour the food.
“This is rather romantic, and quite a step up from your usual evening calling,” she remarked after pausing to take a swig of water.
Kiefer flashed his brilliant smile at her, causing Peyton’s stomach to tie itself into knots. She just loved it when he looked at her like that. It made her feel so...liked.
“Well, I didn’t want you to get bored,” he said easily. “So I figured I had to step up my game a little bit.”
“And speaking of that,” she asked. “How did you manage to do all this? I thought you were on watch.”
“Schedule change. I start in two hours,” he replied.
“Well, isn’t that just convenient. So I have to put up with you for two full hours?” she asked, faking a wince.
Kiefer’s grin grew even wider. “Yep. You’ve now partaken of my food, so you’re forced into it.”
Peyton laughed. “Oh, you think so, do you?”
“Absolutely,” he said, his smile threatening to split his cheeks it was so big.
“Well, let’s start with food, shall we?”
“That’s all I had planned,” he replied. “That and some conversation.”
“Conversation?”
“Or pillow talk, whatever you want to call it,” he joked, gesturing at the pillows serving as her seat.
Peyton laughed again. “Ah, I see. Let’s stick with conversation. Two hours isn’t enough time for pillow talk,” she said flirtatiously.
“Agreed,” he said, tossing her a suggestive wink.
“You’re incorrigible!”
“You started it,” he said smoothly.
“I—” she paused. Shit, he was right. “—have no idea what you’re talking about,” she finished airily, pretending as if she had no idea what he was referring to.
“Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean,” he replied, popping another bite of food into his mouth, using his tongue to pull it off his finger in some sort of convolutedly sexual manner.
Peyton wasn’t sure if she should laugh, or lick her lips suggestively. Her lack of decision almost resulted in her doing both, but in the end she clamped down and just shook her head as she laughed at his ridiculousness.
“You, Kiefer Hartmann, are trouble with a capital T,” she informed him.
The larger-than-life bear shifter expelled air through his nose quickly. “I break a girl out of her room one time, and suddenly I’m a bad influence.” He slowly stroked his chin as if deep in thought. “And yet, nobody ever acknowledges the fact that she wanted to come with me. That it was a mutual agreement. I didn’t kidnap her. But that little fact always seems to slip through the cracks when people bring it up.”
By the time he finished Peyton was in stitches once more, holding her sides as he laid his case out.
“Well of course they don’t. Because that’s not how it went down,” she told him as he sat back and waited for her to collect herself.
The look on his face was priceless as she stated that fact.
“Uh, what? I’m pretty sure it was,” he said in genuine confusion.
“No, no. You’re getting it all wrong,” she informed him.
“Uh, I am?”
Peyton nodded. “Yep.”
Kiefer stared at her for a long moment, then gave his head a massive shake. “Okay, could you perhaps inform me then of how things actually went down?”
“I’d be delighted to,” she said, raising her chin as haughtily as she could, garnering her a blast of laughter from Kiefer.
“This ought to be good,” he muttered.
“Quiet. Do you want to hear the true way everything happened or not?”
The bear shifter raised his hands, palms facing her, then gestured for her to continue.
“Better,” she said with a sniff. “Now, picture this. I’m up on the roof, enjoying a lovely evening of stargazing and admiring the beautiful landscape. A helpless lady—”
Kiefer snorted, but Peyton just glared at him and continued.
“—there upon the roof. The last thing she ever suspected was the big ol’ brute who came flying through the door, ruining property and charging right at her. So there I was, turning to confront what I thought was a horrific and savage attack. I did the only logical thing. I tried to back away to gather extra time to fix this beast with a glare so good it stopped him in his tracks. But in my fear and shock I forgot that there was no more roof behind me. So I fell, plummeting to my death.”
Kiefer’s head was drooping as he pretended to fall asleep, so Peyton threw a piece of sliced ham at him. Her aim was true and it stuck momentarily to his forehead before dropping into his lap.
“What’s this?” he asked, picking it up and looking at it.
“Biological warfare,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.
Kiefer guffawed loudly into the night air. “Okay there. On with the story!”
“Anyway, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, I was plummeting to my death. Then the beast, wanting to ensure that he was the one to deal with me, sadistically saved my life by catching me before I fell. So there I was, at his mercy, his arms wrapped around me and ready for the killing blow, to squeeze the life out of me like a snake.” She shrugged as if helpless. “So I did the only thing I could think of. I flirted shamelessly and tried to get him to take me out to prolong my life.”
Kiefer was staring at her in shock now, his jaw moving but words not coming out.
“I see,” he finally managed to get out.
“So you understand now how you’re a bad influence?”
His eyes rolled. “Are you usually this good at bullshitting?”
Peyton laughed. “No, actually. I wish I had inspiration to weave such stories on a whim.” She sighed dreamily. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“Perhaps. Although, then I’m not sure I’d have any idea when you were telling the truth or making things up if you became that convincing.”
She lifted her eyebrows slightly and regarded him for a long moment. “Who says I wasn’t telling the truth?”
Kiefer’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Well, for starters there’s the fact that I don’t want to hurt you at all?”
“I’ll concede that perhaps there is some truth to that statement,” she replied with a regal nod of her head.
Kiefer muttered something under his breath too low for even her to hear, but she saw the smile on his face.
“And I did help rescue you from that prison cell you were sitting in in Fenris,” he told her.
Peyton nodded. Then inspiration struck. “How is that whole thing going, anyway?” she asked cautiously. “I haven’t heard anything since I got here.”
To her relief Kiefer shrugged and started speaking. “Um, good and bad to be honest. With Fenris itself, the territory and the city? Things are going better. They’ve officially declared peace, apologized, the whole deal.”
“And the bad?” she asked with a frown.
“Well, the Fenris Wards fled before the human military could cordon off the entire territory. All of them.”
“The Wards are like, your equal, right?” she asked.
“As in the Green Bearets?” Kiefer shook his head. “Not quite. So, the Green Bearets are for bear shifters only. The Guardians of Cadia is our multi-species force, tasked with patrolling
and defending our borders, and keeping the peace. We’re the most numerous, but it is composed of all the other races. The Wards are the equivalent to the Guardians.”
Peyton nodded in understanding. “So they just all up and left?”
Kiefer frowned. “Pretty much. Nobody has any idea where they are, and by our rough estimates, there are still somewhere around a thousand of them unaccounted for.”
Her eyebrows shot up, this time in genuine surprise. “A thousand?”
She hadn’t seen that many bears at the base. Could they truly face down that many? What if they all concentrated their might here? Would she be safe if a force that strong came after the Green Bearets? What if they recognized her as their former prisoner?
Peyton tried not to shiver at the knowledge that they would likely kill her if they found her at Base Camp.
“Hey,” Kiefer said, leaning in and resting one massive hand on her forearm, his fingers almost encircling her. “It’s going to be okay. You don’t need to worry.”
“A thousand of them?” she asked skeptically. “You don’t have that many Green Bearets here.”
Kiefer smiled. “Not at any one time, no. But there are many, many more of them that aren’t based out of here. Several hundred are out patrolling our borders at any given time. Then we have the huge deployment at Cloud Lake that has been growing constantly, despite suffering some setbacks. We’ve got close to four hundred and fifty Green Bearets in or around the town.”
She tried not to frown. Cloud Lake. She’d heard mention of that place before. Her fellow prisoners had all been from there, she’d learned. They’d all departed and gone home though, without her being able to find out more about the place. She figured it was likely a nearby human settlement, but she had no idea for sure.
Asking for more information, however, was not an option. Not from Kiefer at least. Not yet. Maybe in time she could, once she was more comfortable with it. But not now.
Feeling her mind drift down familiar, haunted paths, she yanked herself back to reality. She could revisit her problem and cry herself to sleep later if she really wanted to. Right now, she was going to enjoy this evening with the one shifter who so far had treated her like a normal human being.
Which was remarkable considering he couldn’t have that much interaction with human females. Peyton wasn’t sure why she knew that, but she did.
“So the humans are still blockading Fenris?” she asked, switching subjects, hoping Kiefer would put it down to her not wanting to be worried anymore.
His reaction was not one she expected.
“Among other things,” he said unhappily.
“Pardon?” She wasn’t sure what to make of his reply.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you. But,” he paused, and looked around. “I’m not supposed to tell you this part, so don’t repeat it to anyone, okay?”
Peyton nodded. “Promise.”
Kiefer sighed. “Okay, well, rumor is that not only is there still a blockade, but that they’re using that to put their own people in charge of Fenris.”
“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand as her brain processed that information. “As in, humans would run a shifter territory?”
Kiefer’s head moved up and down very slowly, his eyes alight with anger. She heard a knuckle pop as his hand closed into a fist. “That’s correct.”
“Oh,” she said, deflating slowly. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It goes against all the treaties and things that have been signed. So, I suppose you could say it’s not fair, yes.”
Peyton’s lips became a thin line as she considered those words. That, she was positive, was not a good thing.
“But why would humans want to take over a shifter territory?”
Kiefer just looked at her, and she knew his answer.
He had no idea, and it scared him.
Chapter Eight
Kiefer
His concentration was wavering, and he knew it.
“A bear is a formidable weapon to any opponent. Nearly two thousand tons of deadly killing machine,” he said, his voice not a shout, yet carrying clearly through the trees to the ears of the twelve men spread out through them.
They were in the forested area on the eastern edge of Base Camp, a hundred-acre area that served a multitude of functions. Shifters could learn to patrol, maneuver in close quarters, track their opponents, and more. In the current situation, his training company was broken down into six elements of half a dozen men each. Then one element was pitted against the other in an attempt to locate, engage, and defeat their foe.
Speakers were planted at strategic locations throughout, hooked up to his mic, so that he could address all his men at once. It might dampen their ability to hear their opponents, but so be it.
After all, the real world wasn’t fun either.
But while he strolled through the area, well aware of where both his elements were, Kiefer’s mind was slowly wandering. He had to bring it back to focus each time, lest a long-legged, raven-haired beauty occupy all his waking thoughts.
“But a team is more deadly than any individual,” he said, continuing to speak to his men. “A team can overcome even the greatest odds. A team, you uncoordinated buffoons, is what separates us from everyone else. As Green Bearets we work together. As one. Like Beta squad. They are working as one to make more noise than my grandmother when she hears I didn’t finish the last of her burnt roast!”
His voice became a roar by the end. His men were good, and they were getting better by the day. But part of being their training instructor was always striving to better them. But yelling and screaming at them, telling them they were shit, wouldn’t work. He had to make them believe they could be better, and that he believed they could be better. If they thought someone else saw more in them, they would respond much better to that than someone else demanding more from them.
Not that he was above calling them out and making fun of them, however. But it was the manner in which he did it that set the tone. They all knew he was in charge, though some of them tested that boundary still. Kiefer had never felt like he needed to scream at them and beat them down just to prove he was in charge. So he kept his insults to a minimum, rarely telling a recruit that they were shit. Instead he pointed out their flaws in a way that they knew he wasn’t happy, but would encourage them to strive to be better. Not because they were terrified of him, but because they believed they could be.
It was a powerful concept, belief, and one he’d worked hard at to ensure his company understood. So far they were responding, and even as he listened now he heard Beta squad tighten up, and the noise of their passage dropped abruptly.
He smiled. Sneaking through the forest as a two-thousand pound bear wasn’t something that came naturally, and it took a lot of practice. Sometimes they just needed gentle reminding of that as they trained, until it became second nature to them.
A roar went up and he jogged through the forest. Moments before he came into sight of it, he heard the meaty thuds of bodies slamming together as combat was joined. Bears roared, trees trembled upon impact, and the ground shook slightly underfoot.
He burst upon the scene and watched as Delta Squad engaged Beta. Three Deltas were taking on four Betas.
Where are the others?
Kiefer turned, looking around him to try and figure out what the two half-squad-sized elements had been trying to accomplish. Even now the three Deltas were backing away, sticking together as a team and defending each other as best they could.
Then he saw it. The middlemost Delta backed away farther than his flankers, and the Delta formation took on a deep horseshoe-like shape. The Betas were sucked in without realizing it. Spinning to his right, Kiefer watched the final three Deltas charge out of the forest and into the rear of the Betas.
Well, that’s it. Beta is screwed.
Another roar went up and this time from behind the Delta formation the final pair of Beta recruits appeared.
Oh, brilliantly done. Very, very good.
Because of the shape the Delta formation had taken, the pair of Betas were able to take down and “kill” the middle shifter in the horseshoe. With his back turned and his flankers too far forward, the Delta went down in a flash, freeing the ambushing duo to each engage one of the flankers.
As this happened the four Betas that had suddenly been surrounded turned and charged at the numerically inferior trio of Deltas who had tried to sneak up on them. It was a very complicated maneuver that might never work again, but it had been executed perfectly.
In minutes it was over. Three Betas survived, but none of the Deltas were left “alive” after the exercise concluded.
“Well done, Marvin,” he said to the Beta leader. “While I hope you know it’s unlikely something like that would work in the real world, you took advantage of the situation presented to you.”
“Thank you, sir,” he replied, the recruits having shifted back to their human forms. “It feels good to win.”
Kiefer turned an eye on him. “Win?” he shook his head. “You took fifty percent casualties. Half your men are dead. While you defeated the Betas, you didn’t win anything.”
Marvin worked his jaw, but in the end he nodded, understanding what Kiefer was saying. Preserving life was everything. He would only have won if he’d not lost a single team member.
“So, you three are dead,” Kiefer said, pointing at the three Betas who had fallen. “That means you can’t walk.” Then he glanced back at Marvin. “Get your men home, Beta leader.”
“Yes sir,” Marvin replied and squatted down to pick up one of his men in a fireman’s carry. The other members of Beta team joined him.
“On the double!” Kiefer called as they began to walk back toward Base Camp.
At least one pair of shoulders sagged slightly, but then in perfect lock-step the trio began to jog back to base.
Kiefer turned away from them to look over the assembled Deltas.
“That was a good maneuver you tried,” he said, addressing them all. “The coordination was well done, and your teamwork was flawless in the execution of it. You should feel proud about that aspect.” He looked directly at the team leader. “Do you know where it all went wrong?”
