Green Bearets: Gabriel (Base Camp Bears Book 6)

by Amelia Jade

  “Then I killed them all. I had no choice.”

  The words echoed to her through the door, and suddenly, through the haze of her anger and pain at being called a mistake, Stephanie realized she had it. It had been sitting right in front of her this whole time. Her story.

  Bloodthirsty Shifters Seduce and Alter Human Women to be Their Shifter Brides.

  It was perfect.

  Pushing off the doorframe, she walked down the hallway past the other lieutenant she was supposed to interview, not even speaking a word to him. Just a savage snarl that sent him backing away from her in surprise.

  Stephanie got to her room, locked the door, and pulled her laptop from the bag she’d had with her the day before. The rest of her stuff was still at the bed and breakfast. During the “mistake” of the day before, she’d never bothered to take the time to go grab the rest of it. But she was thankful she carried her laptop everywhere.

  Pulling up her word processor, she started to hammer away at the story as it formed in her mind.

  Killer Shifters Able to Turn Human Women Into Their Own Kind!

  By Stephanie Holmes

  She grinned.

  Fuck Gabriel, fuck Luther, and fuck the Green Bearets.

  Let’s see how they react to this.

  And she wrote it out. The story of how the Green Bearets had come to Cloud Lake, supposedly to help. But really, they had come in search of women. Human women. Women that they could seduce and then turn into shifters, so that they would be forced to stay with them. It was the sickest form of Stockholm syndrome she’d come across, taken to a whole new level. By making the women into shifters, they were ostracizing them from society in a way that, as far as she knew, they could never recover from.

  It was about time the rest of the world knew of this disgusting tactic. Of the fact that these shifters loved to kill. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen Gabriel covered in blood. Perhaps this was a regular ritual of theirs. Going out and killing, just because, and justifying it as having “no choice.”

  The town of Cloud Lake had let a bunch of murderers waltz in and take up residence, and they had thought of them as heroes. How wrong they were, she knew now.

  Half an hour later her story was complete. She saved it, opened up her email, and sent it off to her boss with a satisfied grin on her face. There was no way he could keep her as a temp now. Plus she hadn’t even revealed everything to him. She’d left names out so far, instead just referring to the Green Bearets as a whole. But she knew of several specific couples thanks to her chat with Allix, and she was going to dangle that little carrot above her boss’s head if he so much as hesitated.

  She smirked. If he did, she was going to take it all to a different outlet, and get them to give her what she deserved.

  Email sent, she packed up her laptop and the few other things of hers that were now littering the room, and hoisted the bag onto one shoulder. One last survey of the room before she left.

  Her eyes settled on the bed, the covers still rumpled. Her cheeks burned as she thought of the hours upon hours that the two of them had spent there, making love, sleeping, talking, and laughing.

  She spat on the floor and left. Fuck this place. It wasn’t the first time that Stephanie had been used for sex, but it definitely hurt the most. She’d not expected it this time. The other times she knew what was going on, and had consented to it because…well, because she’d been horny too.

  But with Gabriel things had been different.

  Well, she’d thought they had been. As it turned out, they hadn’t been different at all. The closeness of their bodies, the way that whatever either of them did seemed to complement the other. It had all been fake. A hoax. A charade that she’d never even had an inkling existed.

  Clearly Gabriel must do this all the time, because he had been utterly and thoroughly convincing in the way he acted, the words he said, and how he said them. The two of them hadn’t talked about their feelings for each other, but just about how they were enjoying the other’s presence, how everything seemed to feel better, more enhanced with them.

  She tried to compose herself as she went down the stairs and headed out the front door, not wanting to cause a scene. The last thing she wanted was for Gabriel to chase after her, and for them to get into a public argument where he could reveal to everyone that he’d just been using her for sex.

  He’ll probably tell them anyway, because that’s what men do. But at least this way I don’t have to be around when it happens. I don’t need to hear him say how I sucked, or how little he actually enjoyed it. Instead he’d just used me as a piece of meat to get off.

  Her anger boiled over, but by that point she was past the last of the barricades and out into the streets of Cloud Lake itself, no longer having to worry about stupid bear shifters and her broken heart.

  She frowned, though her pace didn’t slow.

  Broken heart? Did I really come to care for him that much in the past few days?

  Her lip curled back in a sneer. Fuck Gabriel. It didn’t matter that maybe she had fallen head over heels for him in a backward, confusing, and less-than-realistic manner. That might have mattered if he’d felt the same, if he hadn’t blown her off as just another mistake, a notch on the wrong side of his belt.

  Her phone rang, the sound piercing the veil of anger that had descended over her.

  “What?” she said, not even looking at the number.

  “It’s me.”

  “What do you want, Andy?” she asked, trying hard not to roll her eyes.

  In the end, since he wasn’t there, she did so anyway. The second to last person she wanted to talk to just then was Andy.

  “Read your story. Is this actually true?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I actually spoke to someone.”

  “I need a name,” he said immediately.

  “Fuck you, Andy, do you really think I’m that gullible anymore?” she snapped, taking her anger and frustrations out on her asshole of a boss. “You know this is good. You know it’ll put us on the radar of the national networks. You want the rest of the story, you’re going to have to pay.”

  There was silence, and she knew he was thinking about it. Running the numbers in his head. How much did the channel stand to make from the story, and from the increased viewers and other attention that would come their way, and how much of that could he pocket and still be okay transferring some of it onto her?

  “How much?”

  She smiled. It had taken some time, but Andy had clued in to the fact that this would likely make the station fabulously wealthy. The gravity of the story was something that would reverberate around the world. Shifters everywhere would be exposed for the assholes they were, and it would be his station that did it. Sponsors would come forward seeking deals, and they would suddenly become household names. He could afford whatever it was she wanted.

  “I want a full-time position, making what Chelsea and the others make. An office, and for you to stop treating me like I’m a shitty reporter. You know I’m not, so give me some fucking respect. Otherwise I just go straight to one of the national networks.” She paused for just a moment. “It’s not much Andy, and you know it. For this story, it’s nothing.”

  There was another pause.

  “I need more to agree to that.”

  She snorted into the phone. “No you don’t. I’m not stupid.”

  “Footage,” he said. “I need video. We can’t just run a text story, and you know that.”

  Shit. He had a point. She needed something proving it.

  “Okay,” she said. “If I get you some footage, then you agree to the terms?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, deal. Now fuck off,” she said, hitting the button to end the call and stuffing the phone back in her pocket.

  A smile spread slowly across her face as the bed and breakfast came into view. She could endure scratchy sheets for another night or two if it meant a start to her career.

  Maybe being used
wasn’t so bad this particular time around, since it was going to springboard her career far faster than she’d expected it to.

  Now all she needed was some video that proved her point. Or could be made to look like it did…

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gabriel

  “I made a mistake last night,” he muttered.

  “With the girl from the news?” Luther asked, his face showing concern now instead of anger.

  “Yes,” Gabriel replied.

  “I thought you two…” Luther began, then stopped himself. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. No, it’s not that,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “She’s perfect, Luther. Amazing. We fit together like…oh hell, I can’t even begin to find words to describe it.”

  A grin spread across Luther’s face. “Believe it or not, I think I understand what you’re saying.”

  “Maybe you do,” Gabriel said, his voice still filled with anger. “But I spent too much time with her yesterday. I should have worked my way up to it. But I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t pull myself away from her. The connection, it was just…magnetic.”

  He shook his head. “I lost control today. My bear was just…after that, and then the constant back and forth with Fenris. It was too much. I was too tired. It got out.” He grimaced. “I ran through the forest, I have no idea for how long. Then they blindsided me.”

  “How many?”

  “At first? Three. Caught me off guard. So I had to kill them all.” He hung his head. “I hate killing, Luther. Why do they make us do this?”

  “I don’t know,” Luther agreed, sitting down heavily in a chair next to him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “I don’t know.”

  Gabriel shrugged, and then filled in Luther on the rest of his trip back.

  “Are you good now?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m actually really good. The fight, and the sex, they’ve really calmed my bear down for the time being. I’m not better, and I feel dirty speaking of those acts so bluntly as if they didn’t mean anything, but in the context of my bear, they worked wonders. I don’t think you need to worry about me. Not until it recharges at least.”

  Luther nodded, and together they rose.

  “I’m going to shower,” he said, pushing from the room, the shirt peeling from the various spots it had stuck to his skin as he talked.

  “Take care of that shoulder too. It’s pretty nasty.”

  “Yeah,” Gabriel agreed, looking down at the massive wound. “That’s going to take a little bit to heal,” he said, then pushed from the room, glad that things with Luther hadn’t escalated any further.

  ***

  He had just exited the shower and was drying off, careful not to reopen the wound on his shoulder now that it had at least stopped bleeding, when someone knocked on his door.

  “Come,” he said, too tired to cross the fifteen feet and pull the door open himself.

  The door popped open and one of the lieutenants he’d left in Stephanie’s care poked his head in.

  He smiled at the shifter, wondering if this meant that they were done and he could go interrupt her now. His arms longed to be around her, to pull her tight, even as he wanted to drag his fingertips along her skin, touching her everywhere in a show of affection, not sexual desire. His smile grew, until he took in the expression on the other shifter’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, the words coming out short and fast.

  “Um, I’m not sure, sir.” The lieutenant winced. “I just thought you should know that I saw Miss Holmes in the hallway earlier, sir. She looked rather upset, and didn’t say a word to me. She just pushed by and went up to her room. Just a minute ago I saw her, well, the only word I can think of is storm out of the motel.”

  Gabriel frowned. “You’re positive this was Stephanie?” he asked.

  The lieutenant nodded unhappily. “Positive, sir. Short, red hair in pigtails that barely reach the top of her neck.” He shrugged. “Hard not to know who it is.”

  “What the hell happened?” Gabriel wondered aloud as he dismissed the shifter. “Why would she leave?”

  The questions didn’t matter though. All that mattered was that he needed to get to wherever she was and make sure that Stephanie was okay. He carefully pulled on a fresh shirt and then his boots before heading down the hall to her room.

  A quick look showed that all of her stuff was gone. Wherever she was going, she was leaving the motel. Gabriel wondered if one of his men had said or done anything inappropriate to her that would cause her to leave. Most of his men were good shifters, though like every batch, there were some bad ones.

  His brain went to a recent conversation he’d had with Lieutenant Hartmann about the Koche brothers and their gambling ring. He thanked his lucky stars the lieutenant had dealt with them before his training company—which had included the Koche brothers—was sent to Cloud Lake. Those five loose among the humans would have been a recipe for disaster, he was sure.

  Well, if she wasn’t at the motel, the next best place for him to check would be where she’d been staying until then. He called up a map of Cloud Lake in his mind, and after pinpointing the particular location, he took off at a jog, hoping he’d remembered the details right about which one it was she was staying at.

  Please still be there, Stephanie. I need to know what happened.

  I need to be able to make it right.

  I need you.

  ***

  An hour later he returned to the motel.

  There had been no sign of Stephanie, and so all he could do was continue to berate himself for not having told her how he truly felt about her, for making it clear that he was truly, madly, deeply in—

  “What the fuck is going on here?” he said, slamming to a halt as he rounded the corner at the intersection just down the street from the motel.

  The street in front of him was jammed with bodies. Tall, muscular bodies clad in white shirts, black pants, and brown tactical boots. It was like a sea of clones, distinguishable only by minor differences in height and facial features.

  “Report!” he barked at the first shifter who turned his way.

  “Captain Korver, sir!” the private shouted, jumping to attention.

  “Explain,” he growled, not in any mood for further delays.

  “Uh, we’re mobilizing, sir,” the private replied, as if Gabriel should already know that.

  “Mobilizing for what?” he asked dangerously.

  “Um, a fight, sir.”

  “You useless imbecile,” Gabriel snarled, shoving the young shifter out of the way. “If I could, I’d demote your dumb ass even further.”

  He pushed his way through the crowd. After several shifters were rudely tossed aside by a lowered shoulder the rest of the crowd began to take notice. Slowly at first, but with increasing speed, a path cleared for him as he approached the steps to the motel entrance.

  With nothing impeding his way he quickly made it to his destination, where some of the command staff were located.

  “Captain Klein,” he said formally as he approached Luther from behind. “Could you kindly explain to me just what the fuck this is?”

  Luther spun. “There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you. Where did you go?”

  “Personal business,” he said, uninterested in divulging anything further even as his temper rose some more. “Could somebody please explain to me WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” he asked, his voice a full-throated bellow by the time he finished.

  “Orders, sir,” a nearby lieutenant said helpfully.

  Gabriel turned, grabbed the stunned lieutenant by the neck, and slammed him into the outer concrete wall of the motel.

  “Do I look so stupid that I couldn’t have figured that out?” he snarled, his face inches from the other shifter’s. “Perhaps somebody could realize that I require more information than that. WHAT orders? FROM WHOM? And most importantly, WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY SAY?”

  He pushed off
the shifter and spun, taking his anger at the situation with Stephanie out on those around him as they failed to give him a quick, concise report on the situation.

  “From Cadia, Captain Korver,” Luther said, coming up next to him. “The Remnants are on the move.”

  Gabriel went still. “They’re what?” he asked, wanting to make sure he’d heard it properly.

  “They’re on the move. Reports say their massed strength is heading for the Cadian border like a bat out of hell. The Guardians are assembling whatever strength they can, but they’re going to need us.”

  “Shit,” he swore, looking around at the mass of shifters. From his elevated position he could make out ten distinct clumps of shifters.

  Ten companies. Almost forty men per company, including officers. Nearly four hundred shifters were assembled in the street in front of them. It was a powerful force by any means.

  But the group of rebels heading for the Cadian border to the east had over twice their numbers, and those numbers included many of the more powerful shifters, such as gryphons, Pegasi, and dragons.

  They had a few fliers of their own nearby, but if his force was supposed to intercept the Remnants and hold them at bay while Cadia assembled its own troops, his men were going to get mauled.

  “This isn’t going to be pretty,” he muttered to Luther.

  “Cadia has promised they aren’t going to leave us high and dry. In fact, the goal is for us to actually flank the Fenrisians when they go to engage the main body of Guardians,” Captain Klein replied, also pitching his voice low.

  “Really?” Gabriel asked, feeling mildly relieved. “Well, I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  The two captains shared an ugly laugh.

  “Sir,” a quiet female voice said from behind him.

  Gabriel turned. “Ava,” he said. “Boy, am I happy to see you.”

  Captain Ava Holmgren was the head of the Pegasi contingent assigned to Cloud Lake. The RAF, or Ragin’ Air Fillies, were only half a dozen strong, but combined with the four semi-rogue gryphons who had allied them with the Green Bearets, they formed the heavy artillery of his force.

  “We’re ready,” Ava said without preamble. “Andrew and his gryphons are already in the air and scouting our path. My team will fly escort around your formation.”