by Amelia Jade
"Intricate how?"
"It's built on respect, and a foundation of leadership. Both of those take time to develop. Time I haven't had yet."
Emma seemed to consider this for a moment, then sharply nodded her head once. The movement sent her long red hair into a momentary frenzy that washed aside any sort of professionalism on her part.
"How long will it take?" she asked.
"You don't set a clock and wait for the timer to run out. Your bosses gave me the remnants of two crews to forge into one cohesive unit. That alone is challenging enough, but you also decided to remove a former Alpha in Evan and make him my second. That makes it a monumentally more challenging task. But when it just so happens that the two crews I'm saddled with also happen to be the survivors of a blood fight between each other? Don't push it," he growled, his anger rising, though it wasn't directed at her.
"Hell," he said into the silence after a second, "it's surprising that I haven't had to put any of them down yet. But you know all this, after all."
Emma nodded, though she didn't speak. Not that Garrett needed her to. As a LMC liaison, she would have been involved in the aftermath of the fight between the Amethyst and Opal crews, the survivors of which formed the rest of his own crew. He still didn't know what the trigger had been, but a brawl between them had turned savage, resulting in the deaths of several shifters, and several unfortunate humans who had gotten caught in the mix.
"It was not a pleasant experience to be a part of," she said, as if reading his mind. "I had to sign off on the death warrants for four shifters that day. Four. I've only had to sentence one in my entire time before that. At least I managed to overturn Evan's conviction."
Community liaisons were given the final say. If they decreed that a shifter had done irreparable harm, or was no longer safe, they were put down. It happened infrequently, but it did happen.
"Part of me wishes you hadn't tried so hard on that last one," he commented wryly. "Evan has been the biggest pain in the ass. We could probably be a lot farther along if it weren't for him."
Emma smiled, and opened her mouth to say more.
"What did you say?!" came the shout from behind them.
"That came from the Silvertips, didn't it?" Garrett asked Emma, interrupting her, though it wasn't really a question.
She nodded.
"Fuck," Garrett said, standing up abruptly and moving between his charges and the other crew swiftly. "Okay boys, bottoms up and move your asses to the door. Let's go."
Evan stared at him the entire time, rage evident on his face.
"That's right greenhorn, listen to Daddy," came the taunt from the far side of the bar.
Garrett didn't have to turn around to know that the Silvertips were ready to fight if the situation called for it. He was really, really hoping it didn't come to that. Not only did he wish to avoid fighting today, but Garrett really wanted to make a good impression in front of Emma. He wanted her to like him, he realized abruptly, though his attention was immediately drawn elsewhere as Evan surged past him toward the other shifters.
"No," Garrett said loudly and firmly, projecting his command into his voice and actions, as his hand landed heavily on Evan's shoulder, freezing him in his tracks.
Then Ferro spoke. "No bears. No fighting."
He didn't yell, but if Garrett's voice had been infused with command, Ferro's voice was nothing but command.
"You should listen to him," Emma hissed from his shoulder. "He's a—"
"He's a dragon," Garrett finished for her. "Yes, I gathered that. His name is Ferrovax, and he's something like eight thousand years old. I get it, which is why I'm trying to get my people out of here. Now, if you don't mind?" he said, rather more harshly then he meant. Still, time was of the essence, and he literally had zero to spare.
"Time to go Evan," he said firmly, his tone brooking no arguments.
Evan threw off Garrett's hand, but made no move to the Silvertips, simply staring them down before he strode outside. Garrett followed, with Emma closely behind.
Chapter Two
Emma
She watched as Garrett exhaled as they left the bar.
He was under more tension than she had thought. Trying to bond the crew of misfits he'd been handed must be taking its toll on him more than he let on. Perhaps with her around, it would make things smoother for him. Part of her snorted at that thought as she watched battle lines draw up in front of Garrett. Her presence was just going to make everyone appear more on edge, likely provoking conflict where there might not have been one before.
"Why did we leave?" Russell was asking angrily. "They're the ones that should have left."
"We left because you couldn't shut your mouth," Darren replied.
"If you and pipsqueak over there would have stuck up for each other, then I wouldn't have had to."
Emma held back a laugh at that, though she recognized how close things were to going south. It still struck her as humorous that they were referring to Joel as "pipsqueak," even though he was well over six feet in height. He simply happened to be one of the smallest of the shifters, and thus was stuck with the nickname.
"There was no need to say anything at all," Joel said fiercely.
He may have been the smallest in stature, but everything she had read or been told had shown her that he wasn't afraid of any of the others, and wouldn't back down from any challenge. She admired that, even as she saw the subtle shift in Garrett's body language that told her he was about to intervene.
Emma held back, waiting to see how Garrett would handle the situation. This was just one of the occurrences that were going to happen as the Alpha of a mining crew in Genesis Valley. All of the bears that were hired to work for the Kedyns were of rougher stock than their moderately more civilized brethren. The types that came here were the types that couldn't hack it playing by human rules. She would have to keep that more closely in mind.
The gravel parking lot was still warm from the afternoon's sun. It was the beginning of summer, but the weather had been unseasonably warm for weeks now. It was making everyone, human, shifter, and bear alike, cranky. Trucks and Jeeps of varying colors and designs were pulled up in front of the bar, curving up and away from the bar in a crude U-design.
"Shut up, all of you," Garrett said, his voice heavy with anger and disappointment. "We left because we as a team weren't acting appropriately to be around others.
"But—"
"You don't want to say it, trust me," Garrett said, cutting Darren off before he'd had a chance to say anything more.
The shifter's jaw snapped shut audibly. Interesting. So he had established firm command over some of them, she noticed, but not all. That was still good for only a week on the job.
"They were taunting you, knowing you would snap," Garrett was saying as she tuned back in. He was clearly not looking at Evan, but everyone knew to whom he was referring. "They wanted to get a rise out of you, and you let them."
"Well, if you had said something, shown them that we aren't weak, then perhaps things would have gone differently," Evan said, his tone dangerously close to insubordination.
Emma held her breath, waiting for the explosion of anger from Garrett. Cautiously she took a slow step backward, out of the way. If he did what she expected him to do, in a moment there would be two large bears hashing the issue out with a variety of claws and teeth, none of which would do her any good if she were in the middle of it.
But again, Garrett defied expectations. She could see the others tensing too. The shifters were in two lines. To Garrett's right stood Corey, Darren, and Joel. Opposing them were Evan, Russell, and Cole. She knew that those lines also marked the two crews that had been merged into the Ridgebacks. Things were splitting down the center, and if the Alpha didn't take charge, she knew something bad was going to happen.
"Do you want to know why I didn't say anything?" Garrett asked, his voice equally low and dangerous.
Evan simply stared at him, but Garrett looked right back, the steel i
n his eyes overwhelming even Evan, who finally nodded.
"I didn't say anything because I can't trust you guys yet. If I had said something, then you would have taken that as a sign to insult them even more, instead of letting me handle it."
Russell looked as if he wanted to protest, but Garrett speared him with his gaze, freezing the irate shifter in his tracks. Then, once everyone was calmed, he turned back to face Evan again.
"Lastly, do not call me out again like that. Ever." The threat in Garrett's voice was clear for all to hear, even Emma.
It would appear, she noted, that Garrett did not tolerate any bullshit. She liked that. That and his cute butt. Which had already almost embarrassed her in front of him! Thankfully he hadn't seemed to pick up on her slip of the tongue earlier. Or if he had, the Alpha shifter had been kind enough not to say anything. Her face felt heated as she recalled what had been going through her mind at that time. It was definitely not appropriate for a liaison to be thinking such thoughts of her assignment.
Still...she couldn't help but admit that he was attractive. Extremely. Attractive. He was tall, which was a given with bear shifters, but he was the tallest of all the Ridgebacks, and though she hadn't seen them back to back, she would have pitted him as being bigger than most of the other miner bears she'd met. Perhaps a few of the Alphas and seniors were bigger, but not many. Her head barely came up to his chest. His broad, heavily muscled chest—
Her thoughts, which she couldn't seem to stop on her own, were thrown into disarray as the screen door behind them banged open and Silvertips began to emerge. She noted that Ajax, the Alpha of the group, was not among them.
"Thanks a lot."
"Way to ruin a perfectly good day."
"Do us all a favor and never come back."
The Silvertips were pissed, she could sense that. So could Garrett, because as she noticed, he was moving to interpose himself between her and the very large, very angry looking group of bears standing on the slight wooden porch that wrapped its way around the bar.
"What's your problem?" Garrett said, speaking up before any of his charges could.
"You are," one of the bears said, before realizing who had spoken. "I mean, they are," he corrected, jabbing his finger in the direction of Evan.
"Would you care to use your big boy words and elaborate?" Garrett said.
One thing she would give him credit for was that Garrett was willing to stick up for his crew. After almost having an outright showdown with Evan mere minutes before, here he was sticking up for him to an outsider, when Garrett clearly knew what was going on.
"You know why," the unknown shifter responded.
"We should go," she whispered to Garrett as both sides stood around in somewhat awkward silence. "Nothing good will come of this."
"Tell me about it," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, doing his best to keep an eye on the bears at the top of the step.
"Ferro kicked us out, and said that we were 'causing a commotion,' " the Silvertip instigator continued, clearly the one chosen as leader by the handful of other bears with him.
"You did seem to have a problem not keeping your mouth shut," Garrett observed, not-too-kindly.
She hoped he knew what he was doing, because his comments were not making the others any calmer. Only the fact that Garrett was the Alpha was likely keeping the Emerald bear from shifting.
"What's the matter Alex, the beer making your stomach hurt?" Evan said, hurling the insult with all the venom he could inflict.
"Shit." Garrett said dully, before exploding into action. Grabbing Emma by the waist, he bodily hauled her out of the way as violence erupted in front of her.
Alex, the recipient of the taunt, snarled, and his bear, a big, brown beast with silver in its fur, burst from his skin, charging directly at Evan.
Emma screamed as the raging animal slammed into another bear that was now occupying the spot where Evan had stood. The two went down, the combined force of their bodies shaking the ground, setting off several alarms on nearby trucks.
"Is this how it always is?" she hissed as they crouched behind one of the trucks, which unfortunately was not Garrett's.
"Yes, and it's the way it's going to remain for now," he said, observing the carnage being wreaked in the parking lot in front of them. "Come on."
Out of immediate danger, Emma found her confidence returning, even as one of the bears let out a roar of agony and slammed hard enough into one of the trucks to rock it back on two wheels.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because your bosses decided to do a triple-play of stupidity in creating the Ridgebacks. But they appointed me Alpha, and I will forge them into a cohesive unit," he said fiercely, glaring at her.
She arched an eyebrow at him as a spray of blood arced out at them, falling well short, but painting the gravel nonetheless.
"Eventually," he finished sourly as they left the cover of the truck. He pointed her towards another one, several parking spots away, which she figured must be his.
The Silvertips, she noticed, despite outnumbering the Ridgebacks, were getting all they could handle from their opponents.
"Should I worry about anyone killing anyone?" she asked as yet another bear shifted back. This one was from the Emerald Crew, a bear she didn't know. His entire body was covered in wounds as he pulled himself out of the fray.
"Nah, we should be good with that. For now at least. With you around, I really don't want to know how they're going to act with a beautiful woman in their midst."
Garrett said it so matter-of-factly that she almost missed it. Her cheeks began to burn as he opened the truck door for her. She sat in the seat, eyeing herself as discreetly as possible in the sideview mirror.
Her face still had the vibrancy of youth, and her red hair was thick enough to make many women jealous. Emma thought she was good-looking, though she may have a few more curves than society on a whole might tolerate. But beautiful? That seemed to be a bit of a stretch, even for her confidence. Still, she smiled pleasantly at the memory of Garrett saying that.
"Holy hell," Corey said, startling her as he pulled open the back door unannounced.
"Get out of my truck!" Garrett roared, finally coming around the front of the vehicle to see one of his crew trying to get in.
"Hey, boss, it's me!" Corey protested.
"I know full well who you are," Garrett said wryly as she watched them, amused at their antics. "That still doesn't mean you're getting in the cab all covered in your own blood. If you had at least gotten someone else's on you, I might consider it. Now, in the back!" he ordered sternly, though she could see the twinkle in his eye.
Corey was someone he trusted. That meant a lot, she was sure, to have someone who understood how things worked, and was willing to work with you. Emma mentally marked Corey down as one that could be saved. She still wasn't too sure of the others, despite Garrett's reassurances that he could make it work.
The truck rumbled to life and they pulled out of the parking lot. It seemed as if a lot of time had passed, but in reality it had barely been thirty seconds. The bears behind them were still fighting it out. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. The Emerald Crew, the Silvertips, were generally a levelheaded bunch, and Ajax ensured they stayed that way most of the time.
Why, she wondered, had he let the five blowhards of his crew come outside to start a fight? That was odd. Searching her brain, she tried to remember if he had even been inside the bar, but the more she pictured the scene, the more she realized he hadn't been present at all.
***
"Where are we going?" she asked after awhile. The three of them—including Corey, who had stuck his head in through the rear-center window—had been talking about all sorts of random subjects, to the point she had totally forgotten that she had nothing on her, not even a change of clothes. It was all in her SUV, back at the bar.
"Home," Garrett said, his deep voice infused with pride.
A few minutes later, th
e truck turned off the road. It went under a painted sign that read Ridgeback Lodge in green paint, though she could barely make it out in the dimming light of the afternoon. With mountains to the west, Genesis Valley saw a fairly early sunset compared to other places.
"Welcome to our den," Corey muttered as they pulled up in front of an older building.
As she looked at it, Emma realized that the foundation was an old motel. The front had been heavily modified to include a massive wooden deck that swung around the small part that jutted out on the left that must have been the office, and ran laser-straight along fully half of the motel itself.
"We've only done work on part of the place so far," Garrett said as he saw the direction of her gaze. "With smaller numbers and no mates, we don't really need the entire space, though I have plans to fix it all up eventually."
"How did you choose this as home?" she asked, looking around.
"Well, it was actually Corey here who helped with that. He knew that it was here, when most of the others forgot. He's from the valley, so he knew many of the back areas. Decades ago, this was actually the main thoroughfare, instead of the highway," he explained. "But when the highway opened there was no more need for the road, so many of the places fell into disuse. The motel here was outright abandoned."
"My last crew already had a den," Corey chimed in. "So, when the Ridgebacks were formed by the Kedyns, I told them about this place as a potential home."
"Well it definitely has a nice appeal to it, being way out here, surrounded by nothing and nobody," she said as they moved toward the lobby.
"This is now my workplace, for the most part," Garrett said as they entered. There were several desks and filing cabinets set up, along with several computers. The desks were old but serviceable pieces, likely salvaged from some commercial auction, she figured. The filing cabinets were beat all to hell, and cords from various devices ran this way and that across the floor.
"I can see what you mean by some work still needing to be done," she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, though judging by the wince from Garrett, she hadn't entirely succeeded.
