by Amelia Jade
Just as he was about to initiate the change he caught the sound of rushing wind, a great whoosh in the night sky above them. Instinctively he ducked, a result of the training Darren had been instilling in them lately. The sound carried past him, and he watched in abject surprise and satisfaction as one of the bears getting ready to attack him the dark was attacked by something from the air above. Whatever it was, the bear didn’t stand a chance. There was a loud roar of anger, followed by a mighty crack.
Only silence followed.
Joel had no idea who his savior was, but he wasn’t about to let them do all the work. Moving as best his injured paw would allow, he charged back into the fray, taking one of the startled bears by surprise as he hit it in the flank. His paw may have been hurt, but the claws on it could still rip flesh. He proceeded to eviscerate the stunned attacker with a flurry of blows in the space of a few seconds, leaving the right side of his foe a ruined, bleeding mess. The shifter bellowed in pain and collapsed. Joel used his big paws in a human imitation of a club against the skull as it lay on the pavement, until his attacker moved no more.
Exhausted from his explosion of anger, Joel looked up for his next attacker.
If his jaw could drop open, it would have. Instead it simply hung open, his tongue lolling to the side as he surveyed the destruction.
Bears and parts of them lay strewn around the road in a scene of gore he had never seen the likes of before. A loud screeching sound drew his attention, and he looked farther up the road as his savior snatched yet another of the bears up, flicking its beaked head with disdain as it snapped the impertinent shifter’s neck.
“Holy shit,” Joel whispered, shifting back to his human form.
The fight was over.
He watched as the creature turned to face him at last, blood dripping down its beak and staining the white feathers of its neck, and discoloring the white fur that covered the rest of its body. Four massive paws each almost the size of his head supported the being, and it moved easily as it walked in an almost stately manner down the road toward him.
Behind it a long tail swished back and forth. But the most magnificent parts of all were the two huge wings that jutted out from either side, which were now tucked back along the sides of the creature to better help it walk with ease.
His savior was a gryphon.
Above them the moon cleared the clouds and bathed them in soft white light, enough to illuminate the long scar along the creature’s face.
“Valen,” Joel breathed in shock.
Valen Kedyn was one of the twin gryphon shifter brothers who owned Lionshead Mining Consortium. The entire company name was a play on the fact that they, as gryphon shifters, had the head of an eagle and the body of a lion.
Several months ago, Valen had intervened in another fight the Jade Crew had been a part of, saving them from certain doom at the hands of another powerful shifter. He had done that in his human form, however. Joel had seen his gryphon when Valen had to mete out punishment to one of the shifters in his employ, but this was the first time Joel had ever witnessed full gryphon battle rage.
The knowledge of that power made him nervous, but what truly chilled his blood was knowing that what the gryphon had just done to a group of bears would be what a dragon could do to a group of gryphons.
And they were up against a dragon.
“Thank you,” he said solemnly as the gryphon drew near. “But why would you expose yourself like this for me?” He felt embarrassed asking, but he had to know. What was so important about him that Valen had come out of hiding to save him?
Valen had risked much by coming to Joel’s aid. He watched as the gryphon picked up the body of one shifter in its beak and casually tossed it off the road, trying to clean up the evidence as best he could.
When Valen had intervened in the fight, he had done so against the express wishes of their enemy, who seemed to hold some sort of leverage over him and his brother Marcus. Nobody had ever been able to figure out what it was, but it was powerful enough that Marcus had actually been forced to label Valen an Unfound.
In the shifter world, an Unfound was an enemy to all shifters, one that was to be killed on sight. Theoretically, Joel would be in a world of trouble if he didn’t try to kill Valen right then and there.
Not that he had any intention of doing that.
As he watched, the gryphon shrunk rapidly until it eventually disappeared, replaced by the tall, thin, yet somehow still powerful figure of Valen Kedyn.
“Because I could,” he said without preamble. “Unfortunately, we have bigger problems.”
“What’s that?” Joel asked, feeling a sinking sensation form in the pit of his stomach.
“One of them got off a phone call first.”
Joel didn’t need Valen to elaborate to know that he meant “before I ended him.”
“Shit,” Joel swore, continuing to curse for a few seconds.
“They will know now that you’re associated with me,” Valen said seriously. “You will need to disappear.”
“What?!” he exclaimed, caught completely unawares. He didn’t want to run away and leave his crew behind. That wasn’t the type of man he was!
Except, part of him argued, Valen was right. Marcus will be forced to do the same thing to you that he did to his brother. His twin. If he didn’t hesitate then, why would he even blink before ordering the same thing for you? And let’s face it, you’re a lot easier to kill than a gryphon shifter. They almost had you tonight.
That brought up another thought in his mind. Why had the shifters been waiting here? How had they known that his truck would die right then?
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” he said aloud.
“What is?” Valen asked, frowning in confusion at the sudden change of topic.
“I keep my truck in excellent condition,” he said, explaining what had happened. “Yet somehow, right here where they were waiting it died.”
Without waiting for a response he stomped back down the road to his truck. Or what remained of it at least. It was still up-ended. With a snarl and a grunt, Joel squatted down, grabbed the siderail of the bed, and heaved the truck up onto its side.
His wounded paw flared in pain and he almost didn’t make it, but Joel was a bear shifter. When he needed to, he could easily summon the strength to flip a car on its side. The truck was a little bigger, but he managed nonetheless. He saw stars for a few minutes afterward until his arm calmed some more.
With the undercarriage now exposed, Joel immediately saw—and smelled—what he was looking for.
“Those bastards,” he snarled, holding something up for Valen to see.
“What is it?” the gryphon shifter asked.
“They cut my damn fuel line! They must have gotten lucky with the exact spot, but they timed it pretty damn well by leaving just enough fuel to get me here.”
His heart froze at the same moment Valen spoke.
“Where were you coming from?”
Oh no. Oh fuck no. If they had cut his line, that meant—
“Courtenay’s house,” he replied, his voice no more than a whisper.
Chapter Seven
Courtenay
Courtenay bolted upright.
Her dreams of Joel, sunshine and warm summer days, swimming in the river, picnics and even a glimpse of a child were ripped from her as she heard the loud, insistent banging on her front door.
Terrified at who could be there, she reached for her night table and the phone. There were no messages from Joel, and she quickly punched in his number, hoping he would pick up. She made a beeline for the closet as the phone went straight to voicemail. She knew that was not a good sign.
The closet door slid closed in front of her, and she tried to calm her breathing while looking out through the small little slats. She felt like she was in an old horror movie, except that this was real and there was no one around to save her.
The banging on the door stopped.
She held her breath
, hoping that whoever it was had gone away. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she told herself. This was the exact reason why she had sent Joel away, desperate to stay uninvolved in anything that was going on. Now, it seemed, it had come for her anyway.
There was a humongous crash and Courtenay had to stifle a terrified scream as whoever it was broke down her front door. Footsteps clomped up the stairs rapidly, throwing open the door to her bedroom.
“Shit,” the voice hissed. “She’s not here.”
“Joel?” she asked in astonishment as she realized she recognized the voice.
“Courtenay?” he exclaimed excitedly.
Nervously she slid open the closet door.
“Oh thank God,” Joel said, sweeping her up in a hug as he pulled her into the room.
“Why? What? What the hell is going on Joel? You broke down my door!” she said, her voice rising as anger began to replace her terror.
“Shh,” he said, putting a finger to her lips. “I’ll explain everything, I promise. But right now, we need to go. You need to pack your bag with stuff as if you were going on a trip.”
“What the hell? No, I’m not going anywhere!” she protested.
“Courtenay Laurel,” Joel said, his eyes boring into hers as he assumed a voice and stature she had never seen before. “If you are ever going to just trust me and do as I say, now is that time. Pack your bag.”
His words and the tone of voice he used spurred her into action. Later Courtenay would still be unsure of how he had managed it, but something in his voice spoke to her, commanded her to do as he said. She saw a grimace pass over his face as she leapt to packing the first bag she could find, and wondered if Joel regretted having to do it.
He should have picked up his cell phone then. She snickered to herself at the thought.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she asked, not pausing as she slammed clothes into the bag, followed by other essentials.
“It broke in the crash. I’ll explain on the way, I promise,” he said, urging her to be faster.
A truck pulled up outside, its engine rumbling, and Joel anxiously took a peek out of her window before relaxing when he seemed to recognize it.
“Okay, our ride’s here. You ready?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “I’m never going to be ready after what just happened, but I do have my bag packed,” she said, pushing by him and heading for the door.
Behind her she could hear him sigh before he leapt to follow her.
“This isn’t the way I wanted it to go either,” he told her, holding the broken door aside so she could pass, before pulling it as closed as he could manage behind them.
He grabbed the bag from her hand and tossed it in the back seat while holding the door open for her. Courtenay got in, feeling overwhelmed by everything that was happening to her.
“Joel,” she said weakly. “I think I need some answers now. I’m pretty sure I’m going into shock, if my medical training has told me anything.” Her voice sounded distant and detached.
She listened with half an ear as he told her about the fight and how he was saved by Valen Kedyn. That sort of spoke to her, but she still couldn’t pull herself from the fugue state that seemed to be inhabiting her brain.
“He called Garrett to come here, then dropped me off.”
“Hi Garrett,” she said, realizing for the first time that the Jade Crew Alpha was not only in the truck with them, but was the driver. It was as if her brain had decided to completely ignore that aspect until Joel expressly mentioned his name.
“So, where are we going on vacation?” she asked, knowing that it was a stupid question, but unable to stop herself from asking it.
“A cabin in the woods,” he told her. “Garrett is going to go with us part of the way, then he’s going to wait for another of my crew to pick him up. You and I will continue on alone. We’re going to hole up there for a few days until Valen can come back to us.”
“Oh,” she said, as if that made complete sense.
Nothing much more was said until they dropped Garrett off and continued onward with his truck. At that point Courtenay began to feel herself returning to normal as she accepted what had happened, and instead of being unable to react, she started wanting to know more.
“I’m really sorry,” Joel said after retelling his entire story again, in more detail this time. “I know this isn’t the way you wanted things to go. It’s not the way I wanted things to go either, truth be told. But clearly they’ve been planning this for some time. I’m not sure why they struck me first, but it could just be because I’m traveling into the city to see you. That makes me more vulnerable than the ones who mostly stay up at the Lodge.”
Courtenay frowned. “I’m sorry it came to this too. But maybe I was being stupid by pretending that I could get involved with you and sit everything out. I don’t know,” she said angrily.
Joel sat back in silence, not commenting while he focused on driving them. Courtenay felt her ears begin to throb with the pressure as they climbed higher, and she yawned without meaning to, allowing them to pop. Being tired had at least one perk at the moment.
“Where, exactly, are we going?” she asked.
“Gabriel, the leader of the Stone Bears, owns a cabin up here,” he told her.
Courtenay felt her eyes rolling. “I know who Gabriel is,” she said. “I’ve worked alongside him at LMC for some time now. I know all those security Stone Bears, the good and the bad. Like Uriel,” she said. “He’s a good man. I was glad to see him and Sydney get together. That was a match made in heaven.”
Uriel was a member of the Stone Bears who had suffered an extremely horrific injury, losing his entire arm in a fight. He was helping the Jade Crew out when they took on the Sapphires, another bear crew that had been dealing mind-altering shifter drugs. Although the Sapphires had been eradicated, Uriel hadn’t managed to come out unscathed. He had been a walking wreck in Courtenay’s eyes, at least until he had met Sydney, the LMC physiotherapist who had healed him and then fallen in love with him.
Love.
The word represented a lot of feelings, emotions, and thoughts, all of which contrasted rather starkly with the situation she now found herself in. Warmth, care, and hope were all the antithesis of the darkness, terror, and anxiety she found herself dealing with at the moment, even if she was with the man she knew she was falling in love with. Not only was she aware of it, but Courtenay knew it was happening with a speed and degree of seriousness that destroyed all popular ideas of how one was supposed to love another.
But then again, all of those ideas are based on humans. There are no “acceptable” ways to fall in love with a shifter. Each one is a little different, isn’t it?
Courtenay wasn’t sure if that made it easier or more difficult for her to accept, but even now the connection she felt with Joel was beginning to cut through the terror of the night. Looking down, she realized at some point that their fingers had become entwined as they each rested a hand on the dash. It had been so natural she hadn’t even felt it happen. She only realized it now as she looked down at it.
A smile graced her face as she saw Joel look over, his eyes ranging downward as he too realized what they were doing. An answering look bloomed on his own face as she looked into his eyes. Since he was driving they couldn’t stare constantly, but she could see him darting quick glances over her way as often as he felt comfortable.
Not wanting to distract him, she leaned over and put her head on his shoulder.
“There is one plus,” she said dreamily, feeling her lack of sleep begin to rise up and overwhelm the adrenaline that had been coursing through her before.
“What’s that?” he asked, his voice soft and quiet, soothing her toward sleep.
“We get to sleep in the same bed.”
Joel made a contended noise, and she could practically feel some of the tension flee his body. He must have been a ball of stress, she realized, knowing that their enemies knew she was wit
h him. Courtenay didn’t envy him those thoughts, but she did vow to do her best to ensure he didn’t stress. The last thing she wanted was Joel worrying about making her mad when he had to be aware of any danger instead.
This, she began to understand, would be a team effort. She didn’t have the strength of a shifter to be able to fight with her body, so she was going to have to use her mind to ensure Joel was able to do what he needed without having to worry that it would adversely affect their relationship.
She felt herself begin to drift into the realm of dreams just as the truck ground to a halt.
“We’re here,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
Courtenay shook her head and pressed herself tighter to him. She didn’t want to move.
“Come on,” he said, pushing her into her own seat as gently as he could. Courtenay smiled at his tone, but she still didn’t want to move.
Joel sighed, and she heard him get out of the car and walk around to her side and grabbed her bag. Just as she was gathering herself to get up, he opened her door, reaching one long, powerful arm over her to undo the seatbelt.
“Let’s go,” he told her, and she let herself be scooped up by the strong embrace of her man.
My man. He’s all mine.
“You’re mine,” she told him, nuzzling her face into his neck, not caring about the constant stubble he always seemed to have. She just wanted to be close to him, to feel the touch of his skin to hers as he held her aloft with an ease she had never experienced before.
Except for that last time they were together, she remembered, a strand of lust coloring her thoughts. That thought forced a little energy into her, enough that she opened her eyes to examine the surroundings.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said, looking around. The cabin was in the middle of a clearing. The moon was out in full force, casting a soft white glow across the property. Here and there a few piles of snow still clung to the ground. It was colder up here. They were much higher up than even the Ridgeback Lodge where Joel lived. Still, the warmth of the past few days had served to melt most of the winter covering.
