9781631054747HerstoBearHoffa

by Tamara Hoffa

  The convoy continued to head southeast, through the Blue Ridge Mountains and headed toward the Smokeys. They were only an hour or so behind the HUNTS crew and should be nearing their location soon. Bern could sense himself coming closer to his mate and his heart soared.

  Soon he would once again hold her in his arms. After he slaughtered the men who had dared to touch what was his.

  Bern are you there? Jenna’s soft voice touched his mind, wiping the anger away.

  Yes, my sweet. What’s going on?

  I think I’m going to be sick. I’m in a cage! They took us in an elevator, down I think, to a laboratory. Bern—Jenna’s voice cracked. There are dozens of children here. I can’t see all the cages, so I can’t count how many exactly, but my God, Bern, there are so many. Will we be able to rescue them all?

  We will, my sweet. We will not leave one shifter child behind. “Damn, Jenna says there are dozens of shifter children in cages in a lab at the facility,” Bern relayed to Sebastian.

  Sebastian’s eyes lit with hope. “My cubs may be there then.”

  “That’s true, but how will we transport all those children?”

  “Once we get them out and to safety I can call in a helicopter to transport them out.”

  “You have a helicopter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well. You’re just full of surprises,” Bern said.

  Sebastian just smiled and then relayed the information that their pack cubs were most likely in the lab facility to his pack members. Several growls came over the radios in response to the news. Good. Bern was glad the wolves were as invested in vengeance as he was.

  “Stop here,” Bern said.

  All the vehicles pulled off the road and the shifters exited en mass. They formed a circle around Bern. “The compound is in that direction,” Bern said pointing to the west. “We need to shift into our animal forms and scout the area. Jenna said they were being held underground. Look for an entrance to an underground facility. Watch for cameras, booby traps, electronic surveillance. Our biggest advantage is surprise. They don’t know we’re coming. We can’t tip them off that we’re here. Make sure that you are not seen. Meet back here in one hour.”

  The men split up, hid the vehicles in the trees, stripped and shifted. Wolves and bears slipped quietly into the forest and disappeared. Bern and Bastian travelled together, a golden bear and black wolf. Though Bern was a very large bear he moved soundlessly through the woods, his light fur blending with the fall leaves and trees. The black wolf kept to the shadows, a shadow himself, darkness personified.

  Bern was drawn to the entrance of the mountain, but it was tricky getting there without being seen by the many cameras posted along the way. They made their way around and above the cameras, climbing up the steep incline and coming at the entrance from above.

  They would have to blow the entrance, and once they did the HUNTS crew would know they were coming. How many men were inside? And would they be able to get to the hostages before they had a chance to kill them? Would they kill them to keep them from being rescued?

  Jenna, how many people are in the lab area?

  The four men who brought us down, the doctor and four guards that I can see at each of the exits.

  Have you seen any other guards?

  No, but I’ve only seen this room.

  What happened to the men who brought you?

  I don’t know. I think they left, but I’m not sure.

  Okay, little one. We are here. We’re going to be coming in soon. Be ready. Is there any way you can warn the children?

  All the children are sedated. Jenna’s voice hiccupped a sob. They are hooked up to IV’s and out cold. Bern, what are they doing to them?

  I don’t know, baby? Have they done anything to you?

  No, and they know I’m awake. The doctor just looks at me and shakes her head.

  Okay, don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself. We’ll be there soon.

  Okay, I love you.

  Love you too.

  Bern nodded to Bastian and they began to make their way back to the rendezvous point.

  * * * *

  Jenna sat on the cot in her cage and twisted her hands together. Two weeks ago she was nothing but a kindergarten teacher in a shifter town. Now she was a shifter. Well, almost a shifter, mated, kidnapped and in a freakin’ cage. What the fuck?

  The doctor walked over to Jenna’s cage and Jenna looked at the floor. Oh shit, what now. “I’m sorry you have been caught up in this, miss…”

  Should she answer? “Jenna, Jenna Raynes.”

  “Miss Raynes. I am Dr. Elizabeth Montrose.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Jenna asked. “These are children. Don’t you understand you are taking them from their families? What are you doing to them?”

  The doctor flushed. “I am not harming them. Only testing their blood. It is necessary for the greater good. To find a cure for the diseases that decimate the human population; cancer, AIDS, ALS, MS, and others.”

  “You are harming them. Look at them! They are unconscious. In cages. Scared, alone, away from their families. How can you justify what you are doing?”

  “Their blood could save millions!”

  “There are other ways. You could have asked for donations. Asked the shifters for blood samples.”

  “You don’t think we tried that?” the doctor screamed. “We asked, we cajoled, we begged. They all refused. They can heal, they never get sick, they live for hundreds of years and yet they refuse to share the secrets of their health with the human race.”

  “I’m sorry, but that is still their right. It doesn’t give you the right to take what isn’t yours.”

  Dr. Montrose turned her back and paced across the floor. She rested her hands on a metal table and bowed her head for a moment then turned and paced back. She stopped at the bars of the cage and met Jenna’s gaze, her look was hard and cold.

  “When it is your life that is in jeopardy see what decision you would make,” she spat and turned on her heal and marched out of the room.

  Jenna stared at her clasped hands, what the hell did that mean? Dr. Montrose was a piece of work, trying to justify kidnapping children because she was going to save the world from disease. No. Sorry. It didn’t fly in Jenna’s book.

  One of the white coated technicians entered the cage where Sarah was lying and Jenna stood and walked to the bars of her cage. “What are you doing?” she yelled. “Don’t you hurt her!”

  The man looked over his shoulder at her and shook his head. “Shut up or I’ll sedate you too,” he barked, dismissing her. He inserted a needle in Sarah’s arm and withdrew a blood sample, filling three separate vacuum tubes, before exiting the cubicle. He sneered in Jenna’s direction as he stepped to a counter, labeled the samples and placed them in a refrigerated unit. The disdain in his face was clear, she was beneath him, less than human. A lab rat, nothing more.

  Dr. Montrose returned through a door at the back left of the lab, speaking briefly with the guard at the door. She walked right up to Jenna, who still stood at the bars of her cage. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. It’s a fault of mine. I am passionate about my research,” she said.

  Jenna took a deep breath, antagonizing her captors would not get her anywhere. “I understand. We will just have to agree to disagree.”

  “Would you allow me to take your blood?” Dr. Montrose asked.

  Oh shit! What should she do? If she said no they would most likely sedate her and take it anyway, and then she wouldn’t be able to help Bern when they came to rescue the children. They would destroy the lab when they came, so the blood would never be tested, right? Okay, let them take it.

  “Why would you want my blood? As you said I am only a human,” Jenna stalled.

  Dr. Montrose arched a brow at her. “I think we both know you are more than that, now don’t we? John said you sprouted claws and roared when they tried to take the bear cub from you. Can you explain how that happened?”


  Jenna faked a laugh. “I think your man must be on drugs. I may have roared in anger, as I think anyone would do if a loved one was being pried from their arms, but my only claws are these.” She flashed Dr. Montrose her manicured nails.

  “Why is it I doubt your veracity?” the doctor asked.

  Jenna shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe you’ve been hanging around the wrong group of people,” she said scanning the room with a vicious gaze.

  “Touché,” Dr. Montrose replied. “However, you still haven’t answered my question. Will you allow me to take your blood? It was your suggestion that I ask instead of take.”

  “Hoist by my own petard. So it was, good doctor. Yes, I will allow you take my blood.”

  “Please go and sit on the cot.”

  Jenna complied and the doctor retrieved a tourniquet, syringe and several vacuum tubes from a nearby drawer. When she returned one of the guards accompanied her. She unlocked the cage and the guard entered first.

  “Do not move from the cot or make any sudden movements.” The guard stood to Jenna’s left while the doctor took up a position to her right. “Extend your right arm please.”

  Jenna hated needles and doing this in a cage with a guard standing next to her was really amping up her fear factor.

  Bern reached out to her. What is it little one? I feel your fear.

  Just being stupid, they are taking my blood. I hate needles.

  Bern’s growl reached her mind and she almost smiled. They will suffer for hurting you, my sweet.

  You are such a bear. I can’t talk now. Ouch! The needle sank into her arm and Jenna grimaced and looked at the ceiling and counted to twenty, it would be over soon. She felt Dr. Montrose switching the vials with a pinch and swore softly.

  “I’m sorry, almost through,” Dr. Montrose said.

  One more pinch as the vials changed and Jenna groaned, the guard stepped closer and Jenna cringed.

  “Stand down, David, she just doesn’t like needles. She’s not going to attack me for God’s sake.”

  “You don’t know that,” the guard grunted.

  “She’s human,” Dr. Montrose said.

  “Or not,” the guard replied.

  Dr. Montrose stuck the last vial in her lab coat pocket and removed the tourniquet, she swabbed the spot with an alcohol wipe and covered it with a small Band-Aid, patting Jenna’s arm. “Thank you, Miss Raynes. I appreciate your cooperation.”

  “What’s a little blood among friends,” Jenna quipped.

  We’re about to blow the entrance Jenna, brace for an explosion.

  Holy shit. Okay, standing by.

  Dr. Montrose and the guard, David stepped from the cage and locked the door behind them just as the explosion rocked the entire building. Plaster fell from the ceiling, light fixtures exploded and swung loose from there attachments glass shattered from cabinets all over the laboratory and the technicians and guards ran like rats in a maze.

  It wasn’t completely dark in the laboratory, emergency lighting came on over the exits giving the space an eerie red glow. The guards began barking orders. “Get to your lock down positions.”

  “Secure the prisoners.”

  The white coated personnel all exited out a back door and a dozen or more guards flooded in from other doors.

  Jenna called to Bern. There are about sixteen guards in the laboratory now. All the technicians and the doctor have left for somewhere else.

  Thanks, we’re on our way.

  * * * *

  The entrance blew with a mighty blast of rock and debris and the group rushed in, half in human form and half shifted. They were better fighters in their beast forms, but there were some things only a man could do, like open doors and push buttons.

  Over the stench of smoke and Primacord Bern smelled a scent that enraged his bear. The man who had taken Jenna was here. Bern scanned what looked like nothing more than a parking lot, though many of the vehicles now lay on their sides or crushed by fallen debris. His nose led him to the one he was looking for in no time.

  A white panel van rested no more than a hundred meters from two sets of elevator doors in the center of the structure. Undamaged, of course. As his men swarmed into the building, seeking cover among the overturned vehicles and structural supports the shots began to ring out.

  Bern didn’t run for cover, he charged straight ahead toward the van. That man, John, would be his. He would bathe in his blood for having touched his mate. A bullet grazed his shoulder and a solid hundred and fifty pounds of wolf knocked into his legs, right at the knees, he fell to all fours and a bullet soared over his head.

  Bern growled and snapped at the wolf by his side. You’re welcome, stupid, Bastian snarled in his head. Guards began spilling into the parking garage from hidden passages surrounding them, automatic weapons firing. But they were as good as dead. The Wolves and Bears attacked, paws the size of dinner plates with six inch claws slashed across the jugular veins of the guards before they could draw a breath.

  Jaws full of razor sharp teeth clamped onto throats and squeezed or simply tore out and life ended. The walls were painted with blood and while a few shots connected with the shifters, they healed quickly, and unless you managed to hit their heart or their brain they weren’t going to die.

  The whole fight lasted less than five minutes and at the end twenty guards lay dead on the ground with only minor injuries to the shifters. As Bern was dispatching the last guard an engine roared to life.

  He lifted his muzzle to see the white van shift into gear and careen toward the exit of the mountain. Bern roared and lumbered after the vehicle, but Sebastian’s voice stopped him. We need to find Jenna and Sarah and the cubs. There will be time enough later for vengeance.

  Bern nodded his big shaggy head. True enough, my friend. Let’s find our kin.

  Martin appeared at Bern’s side in human form. “We have tracked the routes the guards used to come to the surface. There are only people on two other levels. The laboratory, which contains sixteen guards and all the captives, I scented twenty-five; and a residence level, where the staff must live. They’ve made it easy on us, they’re all gathered in one room, five guards manning the doors. What do you want us to do with the researchers?”

  Bern couldn’t answer Martin in bear form so he shifted back. He addressed Bastian. What do you think? Do we kill the researchers, capture and question them? Let them go?

  We need to question at least the doctor. I want to know how much they’ve learned and what it is they really want. As for the rest… It is a tough call. If they are zealots like the rest of HUNTS they are better off dead, if they are merely working for a paycheck, eh then let them go, but how do we know?

  “We need the doctor for questioning. If you can safely capture and contain the others, do so. If not, eliminate at your discretion. You take Guiles, Hans, Victor, Ivan and three others of your choice and secure the residence level. Rendezvous in the clearing outside at twenty-one hundred hours,” Bern said.

  Martin nodded solemnly. “I understand, Sippe.”

  Bern turned to Bastian and gazed down at the black wolf. “You ready to go bite some more heads off?”

  Bastian yipped at him, snapping his jaws a little too near Bern’s manly treasure. “Hey! Watch it! I still want cubs you know.” If a wolf could smile Bern was sure Sebastian was smiling.

  As with the fight in the parking garage, the infiltration of the laboratory was over in minutes. There were a few more bullet holes on the shifter side, because they had limited access into the lab, having to enter through doorways, which made them targets for uncomfortable moments, but they entered in twos, bear and wolf, high and low, and took the guards down fast and furious.

  When all the bloodshed had ended Bern found his mate huddled in the corner of her cage in a fetal ball, he approached her slowly, afraid she would fear him after seeing his animal unleashed. His sweet mate was not used to violence and anger.

  He had once again shifted back to human form and prayed he
didn’t have to shift again for a week. His body shook with fatigue and left over adrenaline. He crouched beside her huddled form and extended his hand, stroking her hair.

  She flinched and Bern’s heart broke in two. “Jenna, little one,” he said in a voice choked with tears.

  She looked up with unfocused eyes, glazed with fear and blinked. He stroked her hair again, and grazed her cheek, smiling softly. “Little one? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

  She blinked again and her eyes finally seemed to focus. “Bern?” she asked hesitantly, she blinked again and then shouted. “My Bern, my bear!” and threw herself into his arm so forcefully he barely managed to remain on his feet.

  Now, that was more like it! His mate was in his arms, kissing the stuffing out of him. Jenna placed kisses everywhere she could reach. Kissing his forehead, cheeks, neck, and finally landing on his mouth where he deepened the kiss and explored her mouth with the passion he’d been holding back. He crushed her in his arms, standing to his feet and cradling her body as close as he could.

  When he finally pulled back she said. “Oh my goodness Bern, you’re naked!”

  Bern threw his head back and laughed. After the day he’d had it felt really good to have something to laugh about. “Glad you noticed, baby.”

  “You better get some clothes on, because…um, something is…poking.”

  “Somebody toss me some pants,” Bern yelled, and a pair of sweats sailed his way. He pulled them on and bowed to her. “Better, my lady.”

  She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, um.”

  He nuzzled her neck. “You are better than honey, little one,” he said.

  “Sweet talker.” She laughed, then looked around the room. “We better get the kids out of here and wake them up,” she said.

  “That’s my mate,” he said. “Always thinking of the clan first. I’m so proud of you.” He kissed her soundly on the lips. “You heard the lady. Let’s get these kids out of here!”

  Jenna went straight to Sarah’s cage and unhooked her from the IV, but when she would have lifted the child into her arms, Bern took her instead. By the time they reached the upper level and exited outside darkness had fallen.