by Amelia Jade
Jade Crew:
Fallen Bear
A Ridgeback Bears Novel
By Amelia Jade
Jade Crew: Fallen Bear
Copyright @ 2016 by Amelia Jade
First Electronic Publication: May 2016
Amelia Jade
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.
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Jade Crew: Fallen Bear
Chapter One
Victoria
“Turn left.”
Sullenly she obeyed, taking yet another corner which led her deeper into the complex buried in the side of the mountain. Overhead the soft white glow of the fluorescent lighting dimmed slightly as they moved between fixtures. The metal cases hanging from the ceiling were spaced widely apart, though she wasn’t sure why. All it served to do was create a deep sense of foreboding every time she moved out of the light and into the sections of the hallway the light didn’t reach.
Unless that’s the entire point of the spacing, to break me down and make me feel intimidated.
She wasn’t sure what was more depressing: the lighting or the pair of hulking, muscle-bound guards who were escorting her down the hallway. Still, reasoning with them hadn’t worked at the time, though they had been extremely polite about everything. The only time one of them—what was his name again, Gabriel?—had gotten mad with her was when she had tried to escape. Otherwise, they could have almost been gentlemen about the whole ordeal.
Not that the two shifters behind her were overly chatty and prone to compliments like gentlemen.
And they were shifters, of that she had no doubt. They had a certain smell about them that was distinctly non-human. Besides, shifters recognized one another.
Ahead of her, the lighting grew closer together, and brighter, until it was so starkly white that she could have been in a hospital operating room. The floors never changed however, and were still the same rock passage that had been hewn straight from the mountain itself. The corridor began to widen.
She could hear voices begin to stir ahead of them, but there was no sign as to where they came from. They grew louder as she marched closer, until their location was revealed. The passageway abruptly widened out to the right, forming a room. Along the right-hand side of that room, out of sight until someone stepped into it, was a row of thick-barred rooms.
Cells.
Shoulders slumping as the reality of her predicament set in, she began contemplating an escape. Behind her, a previously unseen door hissed closed, the thick steel sliding deep into the far side of the wall.
So much for that.
“In here,” one of her guards said, his voice gruff but polite at the same time as he gestured toward one of the cells.
“Please,” the other guard added, giving her an uncomfortable smile.
“I’m not a threat,” she said dully, having repeated the line numerous times to no effect.
“We’re inclined to believe you,” the second guard said. “But unfortunately we can’t take that risk right now. Once everything is over, we’ll explain, I promise.”
Frowning, she followed their repeated gestures into the cell. The inside was lined with metal, removing any sense of coziness that a shifter might take from being surrounded by rock as if in a cave. The lighting was just as bright and sterile inside as it was outside. The first guard strode to the far side of the room where a control panel was located and punched a button.
A rumble began at the front of her cell, the thick steel bars as big as her arms, and with a heavy grinding sound the door slid closed. They were cross-reinforced as well, making any attempt to bend them worse than useless.
That didn’t stop her from trying. After the guards promised her food in a few hours, they quickly headed back down the hallway from which they had come. Carefully she approached the bars, gripping one with both hands. Planting her feet she used another pole as a brace, and began to pull.
There wasn’t even a nudge.
After several long moments of pulling with all the not-inconsiderable strength she possessed, there was still no movement in the metal. Letting out a frustrated sigh she sunk to the ground, wondering what the hell to do next.
“This was not how I expected things to go,” she said aloud with a small laugh.
“You’re a female,” came a voice from the cell next to her.
“Took you that long to pick up on it?” she asked sarcastically.
“I wasn’t sure,” he admitted. “I’ve been here for several months now, and it wouldn’t be the first time my brain has played tricks on me.”
The regret in his voice was palpable, but she didn’t want to open up that can of worms if she could avoid it. There was a laundry list of things she needed to do first.
“Well, I am,” she said, her voice polite but firm.
“But you’re a—”
“Yes, I am,” she said cutting him off. “Got a problem with that?”
There was a brief moment of silence. “No, no of course not,” he said. “It’s just unusual,” he added quickly before she could respond.
“Tell me about it,” she said, giving him an eyeroll he wouldn’t be able to see. “Story of my fucking life.”
There was a slight shuffling. “Evan,” he said.
Movement in her peripheral caught her attention and she turned to see him sticking his hand out of his cell. His voice had been apologetic, as if he wanted to start anew.
Gotta give him credit for trying.
“Victoria,” she said, shuffling around and sticking her left arm through the bar until they could shake hands.
There was a tingle as they connected. It was the first time she had had non-violent contact with another person in a long time, and the wonder of it caught her slightly off guard, such that she missed his next words.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” she asked, shaking off her daze at having managed to shake someone’s hand without trying to rip it off.
“I was just wondering what brings you to our wonderful little home,” he said with a sarcastic snort.
“That’s a damn good question,” she replied softly, thinking back to what had led her here. “I don’t think I did anything.”
His next words gave her the impression that he had sat up straight in surprise before speaking, if his tone was anything to go by. “They just threw you in here because they could?”
“What was it?”
“Bullshit,” she said, anger tingeing her voice.
There was no reply.
Victoria stood up and paced to the back of her room. No, her cell is what it was. Turning, she took the five strides back to the bars, wrapping her hands around two of them and using them as a support as she remembered what had happened.
“All I did was come into town looking for a job. I thought this was the place to get jobs!” she said in exasperation.
“And they threw you in here for it?” Evan paused. “Things must be different out there now.”
“They didn’t throw me in right away. But they seemed mighty surprised that I was here,” she told him.
“Who was? Do you remember their names?” Evan asked.
“The Gee-Gees,” she said with a snort. “Two big Alphas. Garrett and Gabriel.”
Silence sounded from the adjacent cell. Then there was a small noise. It took her a moment to realize that Evan was trying to cover up his laughter. He failed, however, and several heartbeats later his loud guffaws echoed through the chamber.
“Was it something I said?” she asked as his laughter died down.
“The Gee-Gees,” he muttered. His voice had deepened, she realized, as if he was more relaxed now than before. “That’s priceless. I’m going to have to remember that one.”
“You know them,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“I know them,” he confirmed. “Not terrible people. They’ll treat you well, unless you provoke them.”
She frowned. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.
He laughed softly. “Despite the lavish accommodations and impeccable service here, it’s not somewhere I would choose to live if given the freedom to decide.”
With that, there was silence in the cell for a long time.
“Oh,” he said an unknown amount of time later.
Victoria had almost dozed off, leaning back into the corner formed by the bars and the wall. The sound of his voice jolted her back awake. She looked around, blinking away the sleep.
“Yes?”
“I should introduce you.”
“To who?” she asked, confused.
“The gang. William, Jared, Mathew, and Josh.”
A rumble of greetings from farther down the cellblock greeted her ears.
“Uh, hi,” she said awkwardly, having forgotten that she had heard voices as she approached.
Why had they kept silent until then, letting Evan do all the talking? The thought echoed around in her mind, until she landed on the obvious conclusion.
“Are you all shifters too?” she asked, seeking confirmation.
Affirmatives came back her way.
“You’re the leader,” she said in a softer voice, directed only at Evan.
He paused before responding. “It wasn’t intentional,” he said, admitting the truth of her statement.
“It rarely is,” she said, taking a minute to reevaluate the stranger across from her. She didn’t know anything about him besides his name and the fact that he was a bear shifter. But apparently he had managed to assert his dominance while incarcerated, without even meaning to. That must make him a rather powerful figure. How was it that an Alpha who possessed such command came to be locked away in such a high-security jail?
“Did they say when they were coming back for you?” Evan asked.
“Soon,” she said, using finger quotes.
“You did nothing to provoke them, and they just threw you in here for no reason?” There was a challenge in his voice. Victoria knew that she shouldn’t rise to it, that it was bait to get her to retell her story, but her bear took notice of his tone and decided that it didn’t want to pay attention to her. She fought the urge, but quickly caved. It was bound to come out sometime, so she may as well tell him.
“Well, not entirely,” she admitted, then paused. Finally, with another sigh of defeat she began to explain.
“Everything started off like I thought it would. I came to Genesis Valley after I heard that it’s the place to go for last chances.” She pushed on quickly before he could ask her how she’d used up her first few.
“Almost from the moment I made my way up to the mining office, people were looking at me strangely,” she explained. “I’m used to that in some aspects, but usually the looks are more of a ‘holy shit she’s tall’ type of thing. You know?”
Evan made an affirmative noise, but he didn’t speak, allowing her to continue.
“This time though the looks were all suspicious, as if I didn’t belong, as if I were an outsider. I know I’m rare, but seriously, this is a place that sees all kinds of shifters. Why would a female one be viewed with such hostility?”
She shook her head, still unable to believe it.
“Anyway, I was told to wait in a room for someone to see me. Being the naïve idiot I am, I happily believed them, despite the fact that their looks told me something otherwise.” She slammed a palm into the metal bars in front of her. “I had finally thought I was being given a chance, that I wasn’t being judged for who I was. But as soon as I walked into the room, I knew that I had been wrong. It wasn’t an office room, it was a detention room. Bare metal walls, metal chair bolted to the floor, the fucking works,” she said, her voice ending in a snarl of embarrassed anger as she strode to the back of her cell, placing both hands on the wall as she hung her head in shame.
“I still don’t understand why they would just throw you in here,” Evan said, confused.
“Something about how I’m the only shifter to make it here in months. Whatever that means,” she told him.
There was sudden surprised murmuring between the other locked-up shifters at that statement. Her head came up as a frown played across her face. Pushing off the wall, she walked back to the front of the cell.
“That means something to you?” she asked, desperate for any sort of information to make sense of her imprisonment.
“Sort of,” Evan explained. “It’s less that I know what it means, and more that I know it used to be the opposite.”
‘You’ve lost me,” she said dully, with a bit of irritation in her voice.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “What I meant was, Genesis Valley used to get all kinds of new shifters. Several a week would show up. Most were unfit for life even here, and either moved on, or got in trouble and ended up here. Or worse.”
Victoria didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. She knew that shifters policed their own. They didn’t have the same stringent values on life that humans did. If a shifter was unable to cope with living in society, they were simply dealt with. It was brutal and generally unspoken of to outsiders, but that’s the way it was. They had enough trouble with human acceptance. Letting their near-wild counterparts run around unchecked was not the best way to help that situation.
“So something has happened to stop that,” she mused. “And yet I still managed to get here fine. No wonder they’re suspicious. No new shifters show up for months, then all of a sudden I waltz in here? But what happened to the other shifters?”
There was no answer from Evan. She got the idea he knew more than he was letting on, but forcing him to speak now wouldn’t help her. He would tell her eventually.
After all, she knew where he lived.
“Why me?” she asked instead.
“Probably because you’re female,” one of the other shifters chimed in. Josh, she thought.
“What’s that supposed to mean Josh?” she asked dangerously. “Something wrong about me being a female shifter?”
“That’s not what he meant at all,” Evan said firmly, verbally putting himself between her and the rest of his crew, acting as a shield for them. Her eyes widened at the quick, unhesitating decision for him to do that. It spoke well of him as an Alpha, she thought.
“And you know it,” Evan cont
inued. “Whether you’re angry about people always being surprised at the fact that you’re female and a bear shifter or not, it doesn’t mean he was saying there was something wrong. He was saying that there aren’t many of you, and even more rarely does one do something to end up needing to come to Genesis Valley. So it was likely assumed you weren’t actually a shifter.”
She felt her bear stir at the way Evan talked to her. His voice was firm and unyielding, dispensing the facts without being condescending. It irked her that he was so calm about it. She wanted to yell, to fight with him. But she couldn’t.
Because he was right.
She had threatened one of his crew, simply because they brought up the fact that she was a female shifter. It was a sore point with her, but that didn’t mean she needed to automatically assume everyone who mentioned it was doing so in a malicious way. Evan was right; although the reasons weren’t well known, the number of female shifters was drastically lower than males. Something on the order of twelve or thirteen to one. So that did make her an oddity.
Her anger rose as she was forced to acknowledge the truth of his second point as well. Most female shifters were far calmer and easily able to adapt to society. It wasn’t very often that one of them was forced to search out a place like Genesis Valley.
Then again, they don’t make them like Victoria Mackey very often!
A sad smile played across her face as she shook her head.
“Sorry,” she said gruffly, aiming her apology at both Josh and Evan. Josh, because he hadn’t deserved that, and Evan, for the threat to one of his crew.
Rumbled acceptance came back to her, followed by a ringing silence.
“So why Genesis Valley?” Evan asked after a few minutes.
Victoria sighed. She didn’t want to answer it, but there was no getting around the fact that it was a question she had expected. If anything, she was surprised it had taken him this long to get it out.
“It’s a long story,” she began, using it as a preface to her tale, not as an excuse to avoid telling it. Word would get out eventually, and she wanted to ensure it was told properly.
