Crush on the Alpha Bear

by Emilia Hartley

  Rhiannon spun clumsily, raising her bound hands and opening her eyes wide with feigned fright. Raph and the white dragons had thought they won the upper hand, but they forgot that they were in a busy city. Busy city meant witnesses, and lots of them.

  She let herself fall into the arms of one of the men that came to her rescue. He pushed her back to check her for wounds, but she let herself fall into a stream of tears.

  “I was having brunch with my professor,” Rhiannon cried, “when the dragons forced us down the alley! They bound our wrists.” She added a small tremble for added effect.

  She didn’t expect to look up into Everett’s face when she opened her eyes. A wry smile curved over his lips as his hands tightened on her arms. She felt her knees tremble for real. Stinging bile rose in the back of her throat.

  She gritted her teeth. “You cannot ignore the white dragons in front of all these people.”

  “Two birds with one stone,” he admitted. Her heart flip flopped.

  Everett didn’t unbind her wrists as he reached into his pocket for his cell phone. She could hear the voice of a GOE official on the other end.

  “I have in my possession several unbound dragons trespassing in the city. Send in back up for detainment. Bring silver zip strips.”

  Rhiannon knew that she was caught. But, she glanced over her shoulder toward the white dragons standing still in the alley. They looked to one another with wide eyes, confused and scared. They could run, but a dozen citizens and a GOE agent had already seen them. They were officially outed.

  “Release her,” Maggie demanded.

  “I cannot, Ma’am. This beast is wanted for the attempted destruction of a GOE building.” Everett said to Maggie before he turned to whisper in Rhiannon’s ear. “Do you know how disgusting I felt when I learned I slept with a dragon?”

  Rhiannon growled and let her beast flood her eyes. “Do you know how hurt I was when I realized GOE killed my family?”

  Everett jumped back. His eyes fell on the rope around her wrist. He forgot she wasn’t bound with silver. He didn’t know she wouldn’t dare attack. She had to preserve the reputation of the red dragon Territory. She closed her eyes and asked the beast to step back for the time being. She thought of Gareth and the home that was promised to her when she returned. The beast agreed for the sake of their mate.

  “I think you forget that I know all of your dirty little secrets,” Rhiannon whispered.

  Behind them, black GOE cars and vans skidded to a halt and agents poured out onto the street. They filled the alley, rushing toward Maggie and the white dragons. Glancing back, she realized that a couple of them had slipped off, but Raph stood still. A man bearing a GOE badge on his hip held a weapon pointed in his direction. Rhiannon sent the white dragon a wink.

  His lips twitched in a sneer. Everett and the other agents helped drag Rhiannon and three of the white dragons toward the vans waiting outside the alley. Everett dragged her toward a van and slapped a silver strip over her wrists. She felt the numbing nothingness that she had once been accustomed to flow over her. She found that she was lonely and empty without her beast, even if she’d only lived with it for a week.

  ***

  Gareth was stuffing randomly grabbed clothing into a duffle bag when he heard Drystan’s cell phone ring downstairs. He paused, knowing that the right thing to do would be to give Drystan privacy. He also knew that he wouldn’t be able to do the right thing. He crept onto the landing and into the spare bedroom where he could pry the vent in the floor open. From between the metal slats in the vent, he could look down into the kitchen. Drystan slapped the button on the screen and held the phone to his ear.

  Maggie’s breathy voice rose from the small electronic device. Gareth’s heart clenched.

  “Everything went sideways,’ Maggie explained. She regaled her husband with the situation, each word making Gareth’s stomach clench tighter. “GOE grabbed three of the white dragons, but they also took Rhiannon. They didn’t put her in the same van as the white dragons. I just watched them shove her in a different van and drive off in the wrong direction.”

  There was no stopping the roar of anger that escaped Gareth. Drystan looked up, surprised. Gareth’s fist hit the floor and debris rained down in the kitchen below, but it didn’t do anything to appease the anger and fear that filled him.

  His mate was in the hands of GOE once more. He wasn’t there to help her. He wasn’t there to protect her from the enemy. She was going to die in that van. He was sure of it.

  Gareth flew down the stairs. Drystan darted to the door, barring his escape. A low, menacing growl emanated from Gareth’s chest. He would not be stopped by anyone. Not even his leader.

  “Move,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Drystan rolled his shoulders back and seemed to grow in height. He stood over Gareth’s massive form and looked down at him like he was a boy.

  “You’re going to force me to stay here and wait for my mate to die?” Gareth asked. “When Wesley’s mate was in trouble we flew to her rescue without a moment’s notice.”

  “I went through the proper channels to make sure we were welcome in the city then. We are no longer welcome there. I will call in some favors and do what I can to make sure that van is stopped and searched.”

  The fire was extinguished in Gareth’s chest at his leader’s promise. All that was left was a nervous ache that refused to go away. He clutched his fisted hand over his chest and willed his mate to live.

  “Do what you can,” Gareth growled. “If I don’t get results soon, I will go after her. I don’t care if you allow it. I don’t care about honor.”

  “Honor isn’t about obeying your leader,” Drystan said, his voice low and calm. “It’s about doing the right thing. I think you’re starting to understand.”

  Drystan left him standing there, the world spinning around him. Gareth leaned forward, placing his hands on the wall to steady himself. Distantly, he could hear the dial tone of Drystan’s cell phone as he began to call in his favors. His leader detailed exactly what needed to happen to the local law enforcement. Gareth wondered who his leader knew on the police force.

  Gareth pulled his fisted hands from the wall and slipped out the door while Cameron was trying to talk sense into Owain, Drystan’s father, as the old dragon shouted his opinions and no one listened. Gareth’s house was caught in chaos. No one heard him softly close the door behind him or start his truck, even.

  He would go to Rhiannon. He had to make sure that she was safe. He couldn’t trust his human connections to help her. Humanity had been failing her for as long as she’d been alive. It was a chance he couldn’t take.

  Chapter Twelve

  Her old partner jerked the van door open and shoved her inside. Distantly, Rhiannon could hear Maggie shouting at someone, but she couldn’t hear what was said because the van door shut in her face. The world around her grew dark. The van’s engine roared to life. She looked up and realized that she was alone in the van with Everett.

  Dread settled over her as she realized what his intentions were. Wilson must have whispered in his ear. That, or she’d put her foot in her mouth earlier. She did, in fact, know everything Wilson and Everett, by proxy, had done recently. She knew their dark dealings and their communication with the white dragon.

  That meant he couldn’t afford for her to make it to detainment alive.

  “I see you realize what this means,” Everett said.

  She swallowed hard. She wished her beast would rise through the silver, but all she could feel inside of her was the stormy sea that was her stomach. Everett’s foot connected with her stomach and she collapsed, gasping for air. Her chest was on fire. The feeling of being human again was crippling.

  “You don’t want to do this,” Rhiannon rasped. She bit back the bile rising in her throat. “We are still friends. We’ve known each other since we were teens. Our history has not changed.”

  Everett knelt beside her, his face twisted in an angry snee
r. “You lied to me through it all.”

  Rhiannon laughed, tired and exasperated all she could do was laugh. Everett didn’t seem to agree. His hand struck her face. Her cheek burned.

  “Wilson lied. He lied to me. He lied to you. Do you know that I dug a silver implant out of my arm a week ago? This is as much a surprise to me as it is for you.”

  Everett paused, his entire body going still while he processed her confession. “You’re lying again. Wilson warned me that you would lie and slander his name.”

  Rhiannon let her head fall against the cold metal of the van’s floor. “Wilson was the man that raised me. Or, did you forget that? I lived with him most of my life. Do you really think that I planned on infiltrating GOE at the tender age of three?”

  “Stop. Lying.”

  Rhiannon just had to keep talking. Maybe Everett wouldn’t believe her in the end, but if she could keep him from killing her on the way to GOE headquarters, then there was a chance she could get through the rest of the day alive.

  “Wilson stole me from a pair of dragon ambassadors that died thirty-three years ago. He had a piece of silver implanted into my arm and over the years, without the dragon inside of me, and with Wilson’s upbringing I forgot what I actually was. That doesn’t mean I am any different from the girl you grew up with. I just realized that I was on the wrong side of the moral line.”

  “Did you forget that a dragon nearly levelled our city years ago? One dragon came from the wilds of Wales and set Bangor on fire for no reason. They are evil creatures that will stop at nothing until they see humanity dead or enslaved.”

  “Is that really true? If it was they why haven’t the dragons actually done anything in the past decades? If they wanted to destroy humanity why haven’t they done so already?”

  Everett paused, the answer not waiting on the tip of his tongue this time. He was forced to mull over her words in order to submit a rebuttal. Rhiannon knew that her words wouldn’t instantly turn him to her side, but it made him think. Everett was a smart man. He joined GOE to make a difference, to protect people from the chaos and disaster of the Occurrence.

  Outside the van, Rhiannon could hear the wailing of sirens. The van made a sharp turn and her body slid across the floor until her back jammed into the metal leg of the bench seating. She hissed in pain.

  The sirens followed them, familiar even though they were muffled. Was the GOE van being chased by the local police? It was impossible. GOE ranked above the PD. Still, the sound of the following sirens brought a small amount of relief to her, lifting the hand that had been clenched around her heart. She shoved herself into a sitting position and turned her head up toward her old partner.

  He looked down at her with indecisiveness in his eyes. Here sat the beaten and bruised woman that had been his best friend for years, his lover for months, and the person that had his back since they met.

  “I’m not going to sit here and fight for all dragons. It’s clear that Raphael and his gang of brutes are up to no good, but nothing they’ve done so far has even been against humanity. They hate the red dragons for living in a place that they think is their rightful home. The red dragons are just trying to live in peace. They have mates and families.”

  Everett sank onto the barely padded seat, his hands in his lap. Rhiannon felt a jolt of surprise. Had she managed to sway his mind, after all? It felt far too easy after what she’d gone through. That was when, through the dim light in the van, she noticed the weapon in his hand. He looked down at it, his shoulders slumped.

  His eyes moved toward the van doors, the sound of the sirens growing louder by the moment as other cars joined the chase. Soon, the van would be forced to stop. Everett raised the weapon and aimed it at Rhiannon. She felt her heart stop.

  This was it. She was going to die by the hands of a friend. In that moment, all she could see were Gareth’s sad eyes. She was sorry that she never had the chance to see if she could love him. She was sorry that she threw away the opportunity to live a long life with him. She could only hope that her death would be questioned. That Everett and Wilson would finally take the blame for their actions.

  But, she sat there with her eyes closed for several long moments. Daringly, she cracked an eye open. Everett’s hand shook and tears brimmed his eyes.

  “Really?” she sneered. It was a familiar jeer that the two shared. “No bollocks, eh?”

  The weapon fell to his side. He released a breath. “Apparently not. You’re giving me an existential crisis, you know.”

  Rhiannon laughed, relief a cold rush through her system. “You have no idea.”

  Everett banged his fist against the metal partition between the driver and the van cab. The van slowed to a halt, Rhiannon rocking forward at the sudden stop. The doors flew open after a moment. Everett took the time to holster his weapon as though he never pointed it at her.

  Outside, four PD cars sat with their lights blazing. An officer approached, his weapon trained on Everett. Another appeared beside her, a phone in his hand. She raised her bound wrists to grab the offered cell phone.

  “Here,” Everett said as he attempted to stand.

  “Freeze,” the officer with the weapon demanded.

  “I’m not here to hurt her. I just want to unbind her so that she can hold the phone properly.”

  Rhiannon studied Everett’s face, wondering if she was ready to let him near the tender veins in her wrist with a sharp object. There was nothing but honesty presented to her. She nodded and the weapon fell to point toward the pavement so that Everett could lean forward and snap the rope and silver zip tie that bound her.

  Like a rush, her beast surged forward. It took her breath away, making her chest tight. She was forced to take a moment to close her eyes and assure the beast that they were safe now. The beast didn’t want to lie down and die for all of the enemies surrounding them. It took a while to convince the beast that there were no more enemies. Rhiannon had made sure of that with her words.

  Eventually, she reached for the phone without opening her eyes for fear of showing the gold in them. She put the phone up to her ear and managed to squeak a hello into it.

  “Fuck me,” Gareth breathed on the other end. She was nearly sure she knew what he was feeling in that moment. It was the cold wave of relief she heard in his voice.

  “You’re telling me,” she said in return. “I’m alive and in one piece. Not even a scratch on me.”

  She sat there for a while, just listening to Gareth breathe on the other end of the call. She was sure that he was doing the same, relieved that she was still alive. Eventually, a police officer directed her out of the van and into their custody. Everett and his driver were cuffed and pushed toward a police cruiser. Rhiannon couldn’t help herself. She broke away from the officer and ran toward Everett.

  “Promise me,” she began. “Promise me that you will testify against Wilson and Raphael. Show the city that they aren’t in any danger from the dragons on the Territory.”

  Everett didn’t speak for a long moment. She was afraid that she’d lost him when the cuffs were placed on his wrists. Then he nodded. Her heart fluttered inside her chest.

  “I won’t let either of them get away with ruining more lives,” Everett said. “He’s already fucked our lives up enough.”

  Rhiannon laughed with her former partner as they directed him into the caged seat of the cruiser. Another officer appeared by her side and directed her toward the ambulance waiting to serve her. She refused aid, because she, truthfully, didn’t need it. Once the silver was removed from her wrists, her beast sped up her healing. The bruises from Everett’s attack were already gone.

  A familiar face broke through the crowd, shouting her authority for all who stood in her way. Maggie rushed toward Rhiannon once she spotted her through the thick crowd of uniformed bodies.

  “You get to come with me,” Maggie informed her. “Drystan is evacuating the Territory until this blows over. If it ever blows over.”

  “What do yo
u mean? Evacuating?” Rhiannon hissed.

  Maggie held a finger to her lips, pointedly looking at the people around them. “We cannot afford to stay where we are. Drystan has ordered a retreat to a place that we know will be safe.”

  “Even after we have Raph and Everett in custody? Everett agreed to testify against Wilson and Raphael.”

  Maggie shrugged. “Tensions will be high for a while to come. We can afford to wait out the testimony.”

  Rhiannon looked back at the commotion that she had caused. Police cruisers had silenced their sirens, but their lights still flashed into the sky. All of this just to save her, a dragon they’d only known for a short while.

  Another face appeared in the mingling bodies that made Rhiannon’s heart flip. She turned back to Maggie and shook her head. “I’m not going to hide. I’m staying right here and I’m going to show the city that I am not a threat.”

  She pulled away from the woman who was trying to suppress her smile of pride. Rhiannon slipped between the commotion to find her way to Gareth. He waited, leaning against his beat up pick-up truck.

  “Take me home,” she said, running a hand through her knotted hair.

  He pushed forward, ready to explain that there was no more home. She shook her head before he could speak.

  “Let’s go back to my place. I’m staying here in the city to show them that I will not be a threat. If that doesn’t work, all attention will be on us instead of the missing red dragons.”

  Gareth made a face of appreciation. “Sounds like a good idea. Am I still sleeping on the deck?”

  Rhiannon laughed and felt joy rising in her chest. “Not anymore big man.” The joy faded as she realized that she would have to tell him the truth of her body sooner or later. It might as well be sooner. But, before she could speak, he closed the distance between them and captured her mouth in a hungry kiss.

  His arms wrapped around her middle, protective and possessive. After the afternoon she’d had, she didn’t argue. She felt safe for the first time in a long while. A sharp pain of regret spiked through her heart at the thought of what she was about to do.