MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1)

by Becca Fanning

  “We have to get out of here!” Toby yelled. His eyes were wide, focusing on the fire roaring next to him. Kat spared a quick glance that direction, seeing Jay shooting at Briggs wildly behind the flames. He was roaring, blood leaking down his brown pelt. The Aegis lay discarded at his feet.

  Toby was out of his restraints, pulling at her. “Kat, we have to go!”

  “The Aegis!” she yelled, struggling to get free. Toby held her close.

  “Let it go, Kat! It’s not worth it!”

  Kat looked at the Aegis. It was so close. Within arm’s reach. The flames were spreading to the other chair. Discarded cards and another chair only added to the blaze. The fire was reaching up to the ceiling, now. If she didn’t grab it now, it would be gone. Kat reached out, and then let Toby haul her away.

  She looked over towards where Cartwright was leaning out of the window, still firing at the HDF members. They were hunkered down behind their overturned table, returning fire. As she watched, Cartwright took a bullet in the shoulder, yelling and collapsing outside. The men turned their attention to Briggs.

  Toby lead them over to Simon and the other Shifter. He was still out cold, the IV pumping poison into his veins. Toby ripped the IV loose, starting to undo his restraints. Without even a word of greeting to Simon, she started undoing his wrist restraints, repeating the process as she had on Toby.

  Within a few seconds, both of them were free. The Shifter was moving sluggishly, and he was missing his prosthetic leg, so Toby and Simon each put an arm around him and started leading him to the door.

  “Kat!” Toby yelled, but he didn’t stop moving. Kat was behind them, walking backwards, in a trance, watching Briggs and Jay. Somehow – she didn’t know how – Jay was still alive, swinging a discarded metal pole like a baseball bat. He hit Briggs squarely in the head. He let out a dull roar of pain.

  The fire was licking the back of Briggs’ heels, pushing them towards the back of the building. She couldn’t tell how much he’d been injured, but she knew it wasn’t good. A couple of the HDF members had fled, but three still crouched behind the table, reloading their weapons.

  “Kat! We have to go! The building is coming down!” Toby yelled from the doorway. She looked back at him and smiled, not even sure what she was doing. Then there was a flare of fire and he was gone. Kat felt herself coughing from the smoke, but she was running towards the table. A gun lay at the bottom of it, forgotten by the men on the other side.

  She grabbed it, lifting it up, surprised at the weight of it. She’d fired a gun before, years before, but she’d never fired at someone. She wasn’t sure if she could do it, but when she took one last look at Briggs, she knew his life depended on it.

  She came around the side of the table, behind the men, and fired three times. That was all it took.

  The smoke was too thick and the fire was too high to see what was happening between Briggs and Jay. She wanted to go to the fight, to help out in some way, but it was impossible. The center of the building started to come down.

  Kat fled, reaching the doorway, eyes watering from the smoke. She looked back and saw Briggs raising himself up, looming over Jay – who for once in his life, looked panicked. And then the building collapsed.

  Kat screamed, feeling arms wrapping around her from behind and pulling her clear. She fought against them, coughing from the smoke, but it was pointless. She couldn’t fight against whoever was pulling her back.

  Finally, after what seemed like minutes, she gave up her thrashing. Briggs was gone. She went limp, crying in Toby’s arms. Through blurry eyes, she saw Cartwright leaning up against an old car, pain on his face, pressing a hand to his shoulder. Simon was next to him, shell-shocked. The Shifter was still out of it, and none of them dared to slap him to wake him back up.

  It didn’t matter, anyways. Briggs was gone.

  “Look,” Toby whispered. Kat looked up and followed his finger to where he was pointing. The building was an inferno, completely collapsed, but he wasn’t pointing at it – he was pointing to the side of it. A man limped around the side of the building.

  The flames flickered, revealing him.

  Kat was up immediately, running at him, screaming his name. He lifted his arm up, wrapping it tightly around her. She held him for a few seconds, crying into his chest, not caring that he was completely naked. He was alive.

  His body was burnt all over, slick with blood, but he was alive.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t have survived without your help.”

  Then Briggs collapsed to the ground.

  *

  Everything was groggy again, but it wasn’t the same type of groggy he’d experienced before. His whole body hurt. But he was alive.

  Briggs cracked his eyes open, wincing. It even hurt to open those. His vision was blurry for a few seconds, the bright light making him blink a few times. He tried to move, but gave up when he felt waves of pain washing over his body.

  “Don’t,” he heard Kat say from beside him. He heard her sitting up, then she was above him, her beautiful face looking down at him.

  “Where am I?” he asked. It hurt to talk, but he had to know.

  “We’re at Animus,” Kat told him. “We couldn’t take you or Cartwright to a hospital. They’d ask too many questions. That didn’t stop me from wanting to, of course, but Cartwright made the call.”

  “It was the right one,” he said. “Help me sit up.”

  “Briggs, I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’re burnt pretty badly.”

  “I know, I can feel it,” he said, managing a pained smile. “Please.”

  He felt her warm hands grabbing his upper arm, helping him lift his body up. It hurt so bad that he saw his vision dimming, but once he was up, the pain faded away. He took in his surroundings inch by inch, slowly and carefully. He didn’t dare look around too fast.

  He was indeed in Animus. He could tell by the massive piles of junk lining the walls. He was laying in some type of hospital bed in Kat’s lab, but the plastic sheeting had been strung up and held out of the way. A few feet to his right was Cartwright, who was snoring gently.

  The others were nowhere to be seen. To his left, he looked over and saw the Aegis leg prototype sitting alone in the glass case.

  “I’m sorry about the Aegis,” he told her. He knew his actions had led to its destruction. He’d destroyed Kat’s work. What she had lived for during the past three years. “I didn’t think I could take them without it, and it turns out I shouldn’t have taken it at all.”

  “It’s okay, Briggs.”

  He knew it wasn’t, though.

  “Briggs,” she said, and her voice was serious. “Listen to me. I don’t care about the Aegis. I only care about you. I would burn up a million Aegis prototypes just to make sure you were safe.”

  He smiled at her. “Okay, Kat. At least the leg survived, right?”

  “Yeah. But it was never really mine. It was all Simon’s – but at least they didn’t have it on them when they were nabbed by the HDF. That’s something, at least.”

  “How’s everyone going to be?”

  Kat looked over at Cartwright, who was still asleep. “Cartwright is going to be fine. The bullet passed straight through. He said it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot. Toby is at home resting. He came away with a broken nose, but he also said it wasn’t his first broken nose. Simon and the Shifter he was working with were both fine, though Simon said he was done with working with Animus.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Briggs said. “How long have I been in here?’

  “Just a day. Go back to sleep, Briggs. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he told her, closing his eyes. He’d been fighting sleep off the entire conversation, and now, he didn’t want to fight it off anymore. As he drifted asleep, he whispered, “I love you, Kat.”

  *

  “I love you, Briggs,” she told him, but he was already asleep, a smile on his face.

  Kat
sat back in the chair between Briggs and Cartwright, grabbing a book. She’d been trying to read off and on the past day, but she couldn’t really focus on what she was reading – she was only on page 52.

  The events from yesterday evening still played in her mind. The kidnapping, the HDF, Jay losing his mind. The three men she’d killed.

  Did she regret it? No. She would killed a thousand men to keep Briggs safe. She found that she didn’t even care what happened to Jay. Whatever good memories they’d had were long gone. She hadn’t wanted him dead, but he was dangerous, and she was glad she would never have to worry about him again.

  She feared that this wouldn’t be the end of the HDF, though. The leader of those men hadn’t been the leader of the entire Human Defense Force. She didn’t know if they would be after her and Briggs, or would ignore them altogether, but it still made her uneasy. She knew there would always be people with prejudices out there. Alone, they weren’t much of a threat. But when grouped together…

  She pushed those thoughts away, vowing not to dwell on the negatives that had happened. She wanted to focus on the good that had come from the situation. Briggs was safe. Toby was safe. She was safe. Everyone she cared about was safe.

  She smiled to herself, and went back to her book.

  *

  “I really liked that car.”

  Briggs stood silent in the old scrapyard. Kat stood next to him. Both of them were looking at what was left of his car. Which was, to say, not much. It sat behind the burned down building. They’d come to pick it up, but had found out it was a pointless endeavor.

  It had been his home. His whole life had been in that car. Now, it was gone. Still, he was alive, and for that, he was thankful.

  “We’d better get going before anyone gets suspicious,” he told her, wrapping his arm around her. It was the next day, and Briggs was feeling much better. He was still sore, especially his left leg where he’d taken a couple of bullets, but most of his burns had healed nicely. The perks of being a Shifter, he thought.

  Kat had been eagerly watching the news for any mention of the fire, but there was none, for whatever reason. Either no one cared enough to report it, or the HDF owned the lot and decided not to say anything, or for whatever other reasons existed – Briggs didn’t care. He was just glad that all of this would be behind them.

  He knew the HDF wasn’t gone. They might be down on their luck, missing some of their members, but they weren’t gone, not yet anyway. He didn’t know if they ever would be, but he could hope.

  “Maybe it’s time I invested in a real car,” he said. “First off, it needs a radio. Then, it would be nice if I didn’t have to worry about it breaking down every time I drove it. I like walking, but walking everywhere gets old, fast. Then, it would be nice if I didn’t have to live out of it.”

  “We can arrange that,” Kat told him. The snow was falling lightly. It wasn’t extremely cold, so they enjoyed their short walk through the towers of cars slowly. “I’ve been thinking about that, a lot, actually.”

  “And what have you decided?” Briggs asked.

  “I think you should move in with me.”

  Briggs hesitated, and Kat noticed. She shot him a look. “It’s not that, Kat. I would love to, honestly. But am I someone you want in your life, all of the time? You saw what happens when I get close to people. They get hurt.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, Briggs. You can’t control what others are going to do. You shouldn’t let them control you. Just consider it.”

  “Okay,” Briggs told her as they reached her car. “I’ve considered.”

  Her grin was heart-melting. “And?”

  “I think I’ll move in with you. If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What will Toby say?”

  “He’s probably going to be more excited about it than I am,” she teased. “He’ll have a new buddy to hang out with. He’s going to love it. Just don’t team up with him and play any pranks.”

  They climbed in and Kat started the car, leaving the old junkyard behind for the last time. He knew he would never be back here, and for that, he was thankful. The things he had to do in there…

  He shuddered, but grabbed Kat’s leg and squeezed. He would put all of that behind him. For Kat. For himself.

  *

  Toby was snoring softly on the couch when they got to Kat’s house. Briggs carefully shut the door behind him and Kat grabbed a blanket from the chair, covering her brother up. He mumbled in his sleep, but never woke. She could tell just by looking at him that the past few days had really taken it out of him. His face was still bruised and swollen, but his nose looked to be healing nicely.

  “I’m proud of him,” Kat told Briggs as they made their way through her house.

  “What for?”

  “With everything going on, I was worried he would turn back to drugs. But he hasn’t even moved from the couch. One of the most trying times in his life...and he didn’t even try to go back to his old ways. He’s stronger than I thought.”

  “He is. I think he’s put all of that shit behind him, for good.”

  Briggs shut the door behind them. Kat kicked off her shoes and socks, hearing Briggs do the same. Then Kat collapsed on her bed, face first into the pillows. Beside her, she felt Briggs do the same, his large body almost tossing her out of bed. She laughed, a muffled, happy sound. She could hear Briggs laughing next to her.

  They hadn’t done much today, but they were both exhausted. Kat pulled her face out of her pillows and rolled over to Briggs, wrapping an arm and leg over him. It was only around seven, but Kat was ready for bed.

  “I’m going to shower before I fall asleep,” she whispered in his ear. “Care to join me?”

  Briggs immediately pulled his head out of the pillow and look at her with a wry smile. “I’d be a fool to turn that down.”

  They climbed back out of bed, all signs of their exhaustion forgotten for the time being. Kat reached her door and peaked out, making sure that Toby was still asleep. She heard the sound of his snores filling the living room, and then darted for the bathroom. Briggs, for all of his size, moved behind her nimbly and quietly. If she hadn’t known he’d been serious hurt only days before, she would never have guessed.

  Briggs shut and locked the door behind them. His hand started to run over her body immediately, moving from her thigh, up to her stomach, and then running over one breast before finding her neck and caressing it softly. She let out a small moan, but slowly moved away, spinning and grabbing his hand as she reached for the tub. She turned the hot water on to full blast, turned the cold on just a smidge, and turned the shower on.

  Almost immediately, hot steam was filling the bathroom. Though there were some things she didn’t love about her house, the bathroom had been one of thing she did love. It was large enough for two people comfortably: a large counter with his and hers sinks and a massive tub that doubled as a shower. She spent many long nights relaxing in the tub, or taking extra-long, hot showers, but she’d never had a man in here.

  She was giddy with excitement. Kat turned back to Briggs and watched in awe as he lifted his shirt off of his body. The bruises and wounds were long gone: all she could focus on was his chest and stomach. Kat found her hands wandering over his smoothness, reveling in his body.

  His hand came up, wrapping around her body just above her waist, and pulling her close. Kat didn’t fight it. He bent down, their lips meeting. Kat pressed hers against his, the softness of his lips melting everything else away. Kat found herself wrapping her arms around Briggs’ neck, then the next thing she knew, he had his arm underneath her ass and was lifting her into the air with ease.