by Leslie Chase
She hadn't gone five paces before she realized she was being watched. The man across the road from her stood out on the nearly empty street. He was taller than anyone else, slender and pretty just like Meallan and his men. Fiona shot him a glare before walking on, faster.
Ahead of her, a woman who could have been his twin stepped out of an alleyway and blocked her path.
"Princess, please come with me," she said, and her voice was beautiful, soft, hypnotic almost. It drew Fiona in and she found she'd taken a step forward before she even thought about it.
Stopping dead, she glared at the woman. What the Hell is this?
The woman looked confused, as though she'd expected Fiona to simply do as she was told. Taking a step backward, she gestured to a van parked in the alleyway.
"This way, Princess," she tried again, as though repeating it would be more convincing. Her lyrical voice was somehow compelling, but Fiona stood her ground, shaking her head and glowering.
"Why the Hell are you calling me Princess, anyway?" she said, glancing around. The street was empty aside from her and the two of them, and she started to feel stupid for having left Cole behind.
Okay, so maybe I can't take care of myself quite as much as I'd like. She wasn't afraid to face one of them, but two? And maybe more in the van? That was a bit much. She turned sharply away from the woman, reaching into her purse for her cell phone.
The man was in front of her. Right in front, a single step away, so close that she nearly ran into him before she could stop. While she was staring in surprise, just starting to wonder how he could have crossed the distance so quickly, the woman grabbed her arm and pulled the cell phone from her hand. Not again, Fiona thought, irritated almost as much as she was scared.
"This isn't a request, Princess," she hissed, and the man's arms closed on her with surprising strength. He lifted her almost as casually as Cole had, and the three of them were moving towards the van before she had time to think.
"Relax," he said, the same lyrical note in his voice as had been in the woman’s earlier. She could feel the word run over her mind, calming her despite the fact that he was kidnapping her. But it wasn't enough to contain her fear and shock, and she struggled in his arms.
He seemed surprised when she kicked at him, looking as though he'd expected her to come quietly. But quiet was the last thing on her mind right now.
"Help!" she shouted the word, screaming as she squirmed away from her captor. Managing to get out of his grip, she found herself in the alleyway between the two of them. Trapped, even if she wasn't being held any more.
I'm not going to let them take me without a fight, she thought. It might help if I had the slightest idea what I was doing, though.
She felt ridiculous, planting her feet and raising her fists as though she was in a movie. The self-defense course she'd taken years ago was a distant memory, and she'd never been much good at it. Around her the wind whipped up, and rain started to fall. The tall man in front of her grinned and shook his head.
"I don't want to hurt, you, Princess, but my lord has given me an order and I won't fail him."
"Will you stop calling me that?" Fiona said, taking a swing at him. He laughed, leaning out of the way, and her fist sailed through thin air where his face had been.
His arm caught her across the chest with enough force to push the air out of her lungs. Fiona stumbled backward and fell on her ass. She couldn't breathe or stand, and she whimpered in fear as the cold rain fell around them.
"We call you that because—" the man towering over her said, but before he could complete the thought a roar of anger interrupted him.
"Get away from her," Cole shouted from the mouth of the alleyway. Lightning cracked above them, the storm coming alive as the kidnappers turned to face her man.
Fiona's heart leaped. How did he know I was in trouble? She shook her head, deciding that she didn't care. He was here, and that was what mattered. All that mattered. Strong as her attacker was, surely he'd be no match for Cole.
Her two attackers glanced at each other, and sprang into action.
"Hold him off," the woman shouted, grabbing Fiona and lifting her into the van. Fiona struggled feebly, trying to pull away, but she couldn't manage to catch her breath.
Cole rushed forward, not wasting any time as the man turned to face him. For a moment, Fiona thought that she'd get to see Cole flatten him. Her man was big and strong enough that knocking the slender attacker aside would be no problem for him.
But the man didn't square up for a fight. Instead, he raised his hands and shouted something in a musical language that Fiona felt she ought to understand. She felt the words, like a tingle down her spine, and she knew what was about to happen before it did.
The wind, already strong in the alleyway, picked up into a howling hurricane, blowing straight down into Cole. The force of it was enough to slow him, and he struggled against it step by step. The tall man didn't seem to be hindered by the blast of wind, though it whipped his long coat around him.
Fiona's kidnapper didn't wait to see the outcome, though. She pulled Fiona into the van and shouted to the driver to go. There was no way Cole could reach them in time to stop them, not in the face of that wind. Fiona struggled wildly, but the other woman held her firmly, and another man in the back of the van grabbed hold of her too. Panicking, she looked back into Cole's eyes pleading for him to help her somehow.
Her prayers were answered, but not in a way that she could ever have expected.
The rage and desperation in Cole's eyes were eclipsed by a grim determination and then he changed. Even over the wind, she could hear his bones crunching and twisting as he grew, clothes tearing away and muscles bulging. The shift took only seconds and then, instead of a man struggling against the storm, it was a bear rushing forward into it on all fours.
Fiona's eyes went wide, unbelieving, as the huge animal brushed aside the man conjuring the winds with an almost casual swipe of a paw that slammed him into the alley wall. The bear rushed after the van, ignoring its fallen foe as he slumped to the ground. Tires squealed as the driver tried to accelerate away, but the wet pavement didn't offer traction and the bear was so fast.
She should have been terrified. She knew that a bear charging straight for her meant death, but this didn't feel dangerous. This was still Cole, somehow, and she wanted to throw herself into his arms. The two people holding her were less happy with the prospect of the bear catching them: the words they shouted were in a language she didn't know, but she recognized swearing when she heard it.
Under them the van's tires squealed and they started to pull away. But it was too late, and the bear was on them.
A mighty paw grabbed the door of the van and tore it off as though it had been attached with tissue paper. Fiona's captor pulled her back, away from the open door, and the man beside her leaped into the way to face the monster bear who came for them. He shouted something, and the air tingled with a chill pressure, ice forming impossibly in the man's hands.
Before he could finish whatever he was trying to do, the bear's jaws snapped shut on his arm, and the musical chanting turned into a hoarse scream. With a great roar, the bear slammed its paws into the van and lifted, wheels coming away from the road. The engine howled uselessly, spinning the wheels in the air, and Fiona saw her chance.
The woman holding her stared at the bear with wide-eyed terror, and Fiona's elbow to her gut caught her by surprise. Doubling over in pain, she left Fiona free to scramble up to the torn-open door. As she passed the man cradling his injured arm and whimpering, she had a moment to think how insane this was.
She was running towards the bear who'd tasted human flesh. That was crazy.
But somehow she still trusted the bear. Trusted Cole, as hard as it was to think of them as the same. And, just as she'd hoped, the bear made no move to stop her as she squeezed out past it.
As soon as she'd tumbled to the ground behind it, the bear dropped the van, letting it's spinning whee
ls hit the ground, sending it careening away. Glancing back, Fiona saw her two captors staring at her as the van sped off. They looked shocked and angry. Fiona didn't think that this was over or that they'd given up.
But right now she had more important things to think about. Like the bear who was sitting next to her. It looked around, carefully lowering its head to be below hers as though that would make it less frightening. Still, it felt familiar to her, safe, and it had rescued her.
Can I really believe what I just saw? Did I hit my head or something?
Reaching out with a trembling hand, she ran it through the beast's fur.
"Cole?" she asked the question quietly, nervously, somehow more afraid of sounding stupid than of the bear that looked back at her. It nodded its head quite deliberately, unmistakably agreeing. "How is this possible?"
The bear pulled back from her hand, retreating a couple of paces, and then looked at her. For a few seconds it was still, and then it began to shift. The change back was slower, more deliberate, and disturbing to watch as the animal's fur pulled in and the body shrank. Fiona looked away, and the sound of bones crunching was worse when she wasn't watching. She turned back to see Cole standing against the wall, breathing heavily as though he'd just run a marathon.
I guess he did chase down a moving van and lift it off the ground, she thought. He has a right to be tired. But most of her mind was beyond words. She ran and embraced him, hugging him hard.
"What are you?" she whispered into his chest. His naked chest, she realized. His clothes were torn and scattered at the mouth of the alley, where he'd begun his change.
"This is what I couldn't tell you about," he said, hugging her back and kissing the top of her head. "It's a secret, one I'm not allowed to let out into the world."
"But—" Fiona started to protest, and he cut her off.
"Now you know too much for me to keep it secret. Let's get back to your place and I'll tell you everything I can. Okay? We can't discuss it out here, especially not with me dressed like this."
That made sense, as much as the questions were burning in Fiona's mind. Being spotted with a naked guy in an alleyway wouldn't make anything better, no matter what was going on.
Reluctantly, they let go of each other, and while Fiona recovered what was left of his clothes, Cole went to check on the man he'd slammed into the wall in his rush to get to her. She came back with a bundle of torn cloth: nothing he'd been wearing had survived intact enough to wear. At least he's got what was in his pockets back, she told herself.
Cole kneeled beside his prisoner, who seemed to be in remarkably good condition for someone who'd been body-checked by a bear. Fiona didn't even pretend to understand what that meant. The man had commanded the wind, so why shouldn't he have other powers?
Cole pulled the man's long coat off and then took the bundle of his clothes from Fiona. A quick search through them and he'd pulled out a pair of handcuffs which he fastened on his prisoner.
"Right, let's get back," he said, wrapping the coat around his waist. He was far too muscular to actually wear it but at least like this he was barely decent, and they didn't have far to go. He lifted the prisoner over his shoulder casually and they set off towards home, and explanations.
Cole shut the door of the apartment behind them with relief. They'd been lucky that no one had seen them on the way back — it would have been awkward to explain things to the police if they'd been called, and getting help from the Agency would have been embarrassing. It was going to be bad enough to explain to Eric that he really hadn't had a choice about telling Fiona the paranormal was real.
His relief at going unnoticed was short lived. As they headed through to his rented bedroom, Janet poked her head out of her room. She took a look at the three people in the hall, her face a picture of surprise. Fiona who should have been at work, Cole wearing only a borrowed coat wrapped around his waist, and the fae prisoner he carried handcuffed.
Then she shook her head, evidently thinking better of asking any questions now. Her glance at Fiona promised an inquisition later, and then she shut her door again.
Behind him, he heard Fiona giggle uncontrollably, and looked back to see her, face red, trying to control her hysteria. This must be a lot to take in, he thought. I've got to steady her.
Once in his room, he dropped the prisoner on the bed. The handcuffs were his Agency issued iron cuffs that would stop fae magic. Bound with those, the man shouldn't be any more trouble to handle than a normal human. He could be safely ignored for a little bit while Cole looked after his mate. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and turned back to Fiona, opening his arms to offer her an embrace.
Her breathing was ragged as she held him, and he squeezed her gently, reassuringly.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions," he said. "And you probably don't know where to start. So let me tell you a bit, and then you can ask anything you want to fill in the gaps. Okay?"
Fiona nodded, pulling herself together, and he sat her down on the one small chair in the room. Sitting on the floor in front of her, he looked her in the eyes.
"First off, yes, I can change into a bear. I'm a shifter, and so are my family. We're not exactly common, but there are more of us out there." He watched her reaction, pleased to see that she wasn't terrified of him. He'd hoped that the bond between them was strong enough to overcome her natural fear of the paranormal, but he didn't know how she'd take it until he spoke.
"Second, my job is with the Arcane Affairs Agency," he said, reassured that she wasn't just going to freak out. He had no idea how he'd cope with that, not now. "We're basically law enforcement for the paranormal. And we're the group that makes sure the paranormal doesn't come to the attention of the rest of humanity."
Fiona was staring, and he reached out to take her hand. Feeling her tremble, he squeezed it reassuringly, trying to project calm at her. "I know that this is a lot to take in, Fiona. The important thing is that I'm here to look after you. I'll protect you from anything that threatens you."
"But what do I need to be protected from?" Her voice was a little shrill, a little panicky, but Cole could see that she was trying to keep herself calm. And he could feel that she was stronger than she realized — the bond between them was strong, surprisingly so since they weren't fully mated yet.
"I don't know why they're going for you," he admitted. "But this asshole is going to tell us when he wakes up. And whatever their reason is, I am going to stop them from bothering you again. Fiona, you can trust me."
"Maybe," she said, smiling lopsidedly. She looked like she wanted to believe him, but it wasn't easy for her. "How did you know I was in trouble, anyway?"
He took a deep breath and tried to sort out his words. "That's complicated, but you deserve to know. Shifters like me, we can recognize our mates. People we're fated to be with, our perfect matches. I have to admit I wasn't sure about that until I came to Argent Falls and met you, but I can't doubt it now. I'm meant to be with you, and there's a connection between us. You might be able to feel it too."
"Like soulmates?" Fiona asked, and Cole nodded.
"Yeah, only us shifters can tell right away. And the bond will be even stronger once we're fully mated," he said. Seeing the question in her eyes, he kept speaking. "I claim you by biting you, Fiona. It seals the deal, binds us together for ever. I wouldn't do that without you knowing what you're getting into, though."
Fiona frowned, and then nodded. He could see the confidence building in her as he explained. "So I was just leaving to get on with my investigation when I felt that you were in trouble. I knew you were afraid, and I came running, just like I always will if you need me."
She smiled at that and raised his hand to her lips to kiss it. "My knight in shining armor?"
"If that's what you need me to be, then yes. Always."
The simple sincerity of his promise made her eyes shine, and he saw her doubts fade. For a moment they looked into each other’s eyes, and then Cole leaned up to kiss her gent
ly. Fiona relaxed into his arms and they held each other for a few seconds.
"You were going to tell me all this later, right?" she asked quietly as they broke apart. "You weren't just going to keep me in the dark about who and what you are?"
"No, I wouldn't do that to you," he said firmly. "The Arcane Affairs Agency doesn't let us tell people lightly, though. There's a process, to make sure you don't spread the word that the paranormal exists. Paperwork to sign."
Fiona snorted at that. "A non-disclosure agreement? Your bosses think an NDA would keep people from talking about this?"
"Not exactly. The agency has witches working for it, and they can put a binding on the paperwork. People who sign it can't break their promise to keep the secret."
"Oh." Fiona blinked, looking a little shaken at that. "I guess that makes sense. So, um, am I going to have to sign that?"
"I can't force you to," Cole said. "And I wouldn't, even if I could. But I will ask you to. I shouldn't have told you about all this before you sign, but with what you've seen, I couldn't keep you in the dark any longer. So it's on my head if any of this gets out."
Fiona nodded, looking thoughtful, then changed the subject. "What about him?" she asked, gesturing at the cuffed man on the bed. "Why are he and his friends after me?"
"I don't know," Cole admitted. "They're what brings me to Argent Falls. I was here to look into the strange weather patterns in case they were caused by something paranormal. Honestly, I didn't expect it to lead to anything, but it turns out the fae Court of Storms here is up to something. They just haven't told me what, yet."
"Fae? You mean, elves? Elves are real, too?" Fiona stared at the man and Cole had to hold back a laugh at her surprise. It wasn't really funny that she could accept shifters and witches but balked at the idea of the fae.
"Yep, real and a pain in the ass," he said. Straightening up, he walked around the bed and looked down at the man. The iron cuffs had stripped away his fae glamour, leaving him looking less human than he had before. Still tall, slender, and beautiful, but it was an alien beauty that didn't quite look right. The pointed ears were only the most obvious part of his strangeness.
