Pamir said in a thick accent and friendly voice, “No, no. I won’t be tired for hours.”
Asher sighed and leaned back, waiting for the dance to end. Afghan hospitality had been charming in the first year, but now he just found it grating.
“My friend,” Andrei said, “of course you’re not tired, but I’m not used to sitting still. Driving would give me something to do.”
“Ah,” Pamir said, “I couldn’t let you drive. You’re getting us safe to America, and it’s such a small thing for me to drive.”
“Well,” Andrei said, “can we at least stop for a moment and stretch our legs?”
Now they’d get out, stretch for a minute or two as a pretense, and Pamir would look the other way when Andrei stepped back into the driver’s seat. No one would say anything or point out this swap. This way Pamir could go into the backseat and have a rest without losing face.
Taleeb lit a cigarette and leaned against the Humvee. Asher spit the betel nut out when no one was looking and then crushed it into the dirt with his boot. He took a look at the mountains in the distance, and he wished he could just shift and run up into them.
Andrei made a show of stretching, and Pamir went to go take a piss a few feet off the road. Once Pamir’s back was turned, Andrei opened the driver’s side door and got inside. He left the door open as he adjusted the seat—he was much taller than Pamir—and Asher decided to ride shotgun. Just as Asher began walking toward the Humvee, he heard a loud hiss in the distance, the pitch rapidly dropping.
He spun to face it and spotted a smoke trail and a flash of light.
“Andrei!” he yelled, but there was no time to do anything other than take cover.
He dove away from the Humvee and rolled off the side of the road as the Humvee exploded behind him.
Moments later the familiar clang of AK-47s rang out from the brush, and Asher heard bullets whooshing over his head. He’d left his rifle in the Humvee and had only a pistol.
The road was slightly uphill from him, and the shots were coming from the other side of the road. He crawled up toward the cracked asphalt, keeping the burning Humvee between himself and the brush.
He saw Taleeb lying lifeless on the road with a chunk of metal in him, and Pamir was crawling across the dirt toward Asher. The shooters could have killed Pamir if they wanted to, but they must have wanted him alive.
Asher got as close to the Humvee as he could. The fuel had all exploded at once, and there was only a little bit of fire now. He risked a quick look through the window, and since it was broad daylight, his shifter sight spotted three gunmen.
They were far away, but Asher was an excellent shot, even with a pistol. He adjusted for distance and wind and fired at the first shooter. Half a second later he saw the shooter drop to the ground. Seeing their comrade go down, the other two fell and took cover.
He took some potshots at the other two, but they’d dug in too deeply already.
He needed to get to Pamir before they did. Luckily, he was much closer. Not so luckily, he had nowhere to go once he got Pamir. The Humvee was totalled, and the best he could hope for was to somehow escape across the sparse landscape without getting shot and then disappear into the mountains. No, that wouldn't work. He couldn’t run miles across the flat ground in human form with Pamir. They’d catch up to him and put a bullet in him. He needed to force the remaining shooters to retreat, or he’d need to kill them.
He couldn’t risk an outright firefight; he’d only been able to take down the first one because they’d underestimated his aim, but now they were dug in and they outgunned him.
He tore off his SHIFT uniform and stripped totally naked, and then he shifted.
He ran back down the hill until he was out of sight, and then he ran parallel to the road until the smoke from the Humvee looked small enough. He took a breath and then crossed the road at a leisurely pace.
He saw the shooters from the corner of his eye. They were dug into the brush and focused on the Humvee. He noticed one look toward him, give a double take, and then focus back on the Humvee. Bears were not common here, but you did see them from time to time when this far out from cities and towns. Asher worried that the shooters might think a bear was worth a bullet or two, but they didn’t seem to care so long as he wasn’t coming toward them.
The shooters cautiously crawled out of the brush and then moved in a low crouch with their assault rifles fixed on the Humvee.
When Pamir saw this, he got up and broke out into a full sprint.
There was a brief muzzle flash from one of the rifles, and Pamir fell to the ground. He clutched his leg and started pulling himself across the road with just his arms.
The shooters must have thought Asher had run by this point, as they stood up more and ran faster.
Meanwhile, Asher was circling around behind them as a bear.
They had completely stopped noticing him by the time they reached the Humvee. Pamir was just clear of the road now, but he was going so slowly that they could simply take him when they needed to. They first checked the Humvee. Then, just as Asher got a new angle on the Humvee, he saw Andrei being pulled from the driver’s seat.
The shooters tossed him to the ground, and one stuck his gun into Andrei’s face. Andrei was breathing, but he was covered in blood, and a piece of shrapnel was jammed into his upper shoulder.
Asher had just made it into earshot, and he was weak with the local dialect, but he made out the exchange between them as:
“We got an American. Do we really need the rat?”
“No. I don’t want to carry two men.”
Without further deliberation, they shot Pamir in the back, and he collapsed.
Andrei laughed, and though his accent was normally light, he laid it on thick and said, “You fuckers will regret that. And I’m Romanian.”
They clubbed him with their rifles. “You work for America, wear their clothes. You’re American.”
Asher was rushing as fast as his four legs could carry him, and they both had their backs to him. Andrei kept his face neutral so as not to give Asher away.
When he was five feet from them, he leapt and took the first down instantly in one swipe.
Before the first even dropped to the ground, he shifted back to human form and snatched his gun. Then shot into the second man’s chest.
He crumpled to the ground, and Asher dropped the gun.
“Andrei,” Asher said, “let’s get you out of here.”
“No,” Andrei said. “More will be coming. I’m a liability. Just get your ass out of here.”
Asher ignored him and went to retrieve his SHIFT suit. The vest had some synthetic straps rated to hold over 300 pounds, so he took three of them out. He ran the first strap under Andrei’s legs, the second just above his waist, and the third behind his shoulders.
“Asher, come on, this is stupid.”
Asher snapped the straps into his harness, tightened them, and hoisted Andrei onto his back. He got onto all fours, shifted, and suddenly Andrei wasn’t so heavy or unwieldy.
It would slow him down a little bit, but that wasn’t the real danger. If Asher had just wandered into the mountains as a bear, he could escape notice and be ignored. With a big black vest on, and a man strapped to his back, he might as well have a lit signal flare attached to him. And the smoking Humvee was a lit signal flare.
“If we get out of this alive,” Andrei said, “I’m going to owe you.”
CHAPTER 20
VIOLET
“You’ve got a good man,” Andrei said. “I hope you two can be happy together.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Violet asked.
They were walking through an abandoned subway tunnel—her, Jax, and Andrei. Jax and Andrei both had put their guns away, so she’d tried to make a break for it twice, and it had become clear very quickly that they didn’t need guns to stop her. She walked willingly with them now. If she needed to escape, it wouldn’t happen now. Maybe once they reached wherever they wer
e going, they’d let their guard down at some point. It seemed smarter to act resigned and compliant, biding her time for a real chance at escape.
“You don’t agree?” Andrei asked.
“I mean, you are kidnapping me at gunpoint, and the first time I met you, you held me hostage. Now you’re chatting to me as if we are two girlfriends talking about my new date.”
“Neither you nor Asher are my enemies,” he said.
“Could have fooled me.”
“Metin forced my hand! Now Asher has touched the tooth, I assume, and is bound to it. I’ve sent him a message, and using you as collateral is my only way of ensuring that he does the right thing.”
“You have some really strained logic.”
“In the museum,” Andrei said, “I had the gunmen only in case Metin attacked me, which he did. If you had simply been honest with me and given me the tooth, I’d have called off the gunmen and left in peace.”
“So this is all my fault.”
“No,” he said. “Even though you forced me to take hostages, I still don’t blame you. I want the tooth, need it! That’s all.”
Asher had been a good man before the tooth, and only days after having it bound to him, he’d changed. Andrei may have been good once, but even without the tooth corrupting him, he was already changed. How bad would things get if he got what he wanted? She couldn’t risk telling him anything. He couldn’t know that Asher had a weakness to be exploited. Violet figured the likelihood of talking Andrei out of this with logic and reason was bordering on zero anyway.
“Almost there,” Andrei said. “We have a nice bed for you, and we’ll get you some food. I have no desire to harm you or make you uncomfortable. If Asher brings me the tooth, this whole thing will be over before you know it.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “Will there be dessert?”
He ignored her as they approached a gate with an armed guard. The guard saluted and then opened the gate. They stepped inside, into an old subway stop. There were dozens of men in uniform swarming around. There were even desks with laptops and wires and radio equipment and men and women in dress shirts typing away while talking into headsets.
“So all of this,” Violet asked, “is so you can just take the tooth and walk away to live your life?”
“No,” Andrei said. “All of this is so I can make sure what happened to me never happens again.”
CHAPTER 21
ASHER
The messenger pointed them down the tunnel, and they began walking through, fully armed.
When the messenger was out of earshot, Asher said, “Does it not seem suspicious to you that he’s letting all of us go in to make the exchange?”
“No,” Alex said. “This way he knows where we are. If he made you go in alone, he wouldn’t know what the rest of us were up to.”
“So why did you let him trap us like—”
“I didn’t,” Alex said. “I pulled blueprints and am fairly certain I know where his base is. The main entrances to it were flooded shut decades ago, but there’s still sewer access. I have two strike teams in there ready to blow in with C-4.”
“We can’t risk Violet—”
“I know,” Alex said. “Trust me, I know. I’ll only call them in if things go south and Andrei betrays us.”
Demian huffed. “You dragons are too fucking sneaky.”
Haller grunted in agreement.
Asher kept quiet, but he was thinking along the same lines. If Andrei got the tooth, how bad would it be? Could he really risk that?
As soon as he thought of Andrei, his bear went into a blood frenzy, and it seeped into Asher like a flood. He stopped walking, gripped his rifle as cold sweat filled his palms, and doubled over as the rage worked up from his gut.
He dropped the gun and dug his nails into his palms, resisting the urge to shift. He thought of Violet’s face, and the anger stopped rising but still didn’t go down.
He gripped the train tracks below and tore at them, bending the steel. He thought of having kids with Violet, having a normal job, and coming home to a family. He let go of the warped steel and caught his breath.
“Dude,” Haller said, “are you—”
“I’m okay,” Asher said. “It’s passed. We need to keep moving. I don’t have much time left.”
***
They saw an armed guard in the distance, and he raised his gun at them. He shouted out to them, “Only Asher comes through.”
So now Andrei knew exactly where the SHIFT squad was. Did he know about the infiltration teams too? Was there another layer to the backup plan that Alex hadn’t even mentioned?
Demian, Haller, and Alex stopped, nodding at Asher.
“All right,” Asher said. “Let’s hope for the best.”
He turned his back to them and walked toward the gate.
The guard took all his weapons and then let him in.
Andrei greeted him in a quasi-military uniform, sleek black with a high collar and red trim.
Behind him stood a line of soldiers, shoulder to shoulder in formation.
“Are you some kind of dictator now?”
“Good to see you again, Asher.”
The red rage was encroaching on the edges of his vision, but he held it at bay for Violet’s sake.
“Where is she?” Asher asked.
“Safe. Where is the tooth?”
“On my neck,” Asher said. “Do you know how to unbind it from me?”
“Yes,” Andrei said.
“Unbind me first, and then we’ll talk.”
“I need the tooth to do that,” Andrei said.
“No,” Asher said. “Tell me how to do it.”
“You know I still owe you,” Andrei said.
“I regret saving you,” Asher said.
“But I still owe you,” Andrei said, “so know I’m telling you the truth. To unbind it, you need to draw your blood with the tooth.”
“And then?”
“And then,” he said, “use it to draw the blood of another shifter. It will transfer the binding.”
“You’re lying,” he said. “There must be a way to simply unbind it from me without transferring it to you.”
“There is,” Andrei said. “Death. So either transfer it to me so that you can leave here safe with your mate or kill yourself to spite me. I’ll just take the tooth from your corpse anyway, and then Violet will be alone.”
There was no way out of this. But he had to at least warn Andrei.
“Okay,” Asher said. “I have to warn you though.”
“I’ve read the book,” Andrei said, “and I know what I’m in for. I’ve spent the last months focusing my rage where it belongs. I don’t expect to live long after you transfer to it me, but if you stay out of my way, you won’t be harmed.”
He’d tried. If he didn’t transfer the tooth now, the soldiers behind Andrei would just kill him, and Andrei would have the tooth anyway. Maybe SHIFT could bring Andrei down before things got too bad.
Asher grasped the tooth and then ripped it off the necklace. He pressed the sharp tip into his forearm, and at the first sting and drop of blood, his bear roared.
It’s ours! his bear screamed, and suddenly Asher felt himself lose control.
CHAPTER 22
VIOLET
The guards rushed down the stairs, leaving Violet unattended. She followed them down, and when she walked back into the main part of the station, she saw total chaos.
Asher had shifted, and he was twice the size she’d last seen him as a bear. His eyes were glowing red like burning embers, and she saw him take down three soldiers in one swipe as Andrei emptied a magazine into him.
The bullets hit, but Asher didn’t slow. He roared and swatted the gun out of Andrei’s hands, and Andrei dove away before Asher’s next swing connected.
A wall exploded open into a pile of rubble, and she saw a metal cylinder fly through the breach and roll across the ground. Just as another wall exploded open, the cylinder flashed like a strik
e of lighting, and a deafening explosion filled her ears.
She was blinded by the brilliant flash, and her ears rang. Underneath the ringing, she could hear and feel deep vibrations firing off in rhythmic pulses. She shielded her eyes uselessly and ducked down for cover. She was still on the stairs and was hopefully far enough away from the fighting that no stray bullet would catch her.
As her vision returned and the ringing died out, she saw a tiger and wolf running in from the tunnel, and behind them was a massive dragon. Its wings were tucked in so as not to scrape against the tunnel walls, but as it entered, it spread its wings out and roared.
Andrei had put distance between himself and Asher, and two teams of men in uniforms and helmets were pouring through the breached walls.
Everyone formed a circle around Asher, guns pointed. He roared and stomped, but he stopped his attack when he saw Alex. The smaller animals and men with guns moved out of the way as Alex approached, and Asher snarled at him.
Alex shot a blast of fire, but he seemed to be holding back, not wanting to hurt Asher.
Asher—or Asher’s wild and enraged bear—had no such qualms. He dodged the fire and lunged at Alex. His claw dug into Alex’s neck, and though Asher was still only half the size of the dragon, his strength seemed greater. Alex recoiled and clawed back at Asher, but Asher dodged and bit his teeth into Alex’s arm. Alex shot a blast of fire at Asher, but he didn’t let go even as the fur on his head blackened and singed off.
Violet ran down the stairway and shouted, “Asher! Please!”
He heard that. He let go of Alex and turned toward her.
Alex backed away and then shifted back to human form. His arm was soaked in blood, and he was doubled over. “Remember what you’re fighting for,” he said, his voice strained.
Asher roared and thrashed as Andrei and his army watched him, guns still trained on him.
“Don’t kill him,” Andrei said. “Not yet.”
“I doubt we could,” Jax mumbled.
“Enough bullets would do it,” Andrei said. “Violet, talk him down.”
She took cautious steps toward him. If he was truly lost, he could simply kill her in an instant. But if Asher was still in there, she might be able to save him.
Unbearable Arms (The Grizzly Next Door 4) Page 9
