Alpha Bear Protector (Awakened Shifters Book 1)

by Keri Hudson

But Marcus knew he had to keep his focus steady, set on separating her from Le Croix so he could have at him personally, at long last.

  “You don’t wanna see her brains splattered all over the swamps in any case, you do what I say.” Marcus huffed, a low growl rolling. “It was always meant to be this way, Marcus. You and your kind? You got power, but power’s fleeting! We got community, we got numbers; that’s what makes a revolution. Look at you now! For all your size and strength, you can’t do shit! None of your power can save your girl now! No amount’a killin’s gonna help you now. Your kind was always doomed to fail, this is just… the beginning of the end.”

  “Just kill him, Marcus,” Sabrina called. “Kill us both if you have to!”

  Le Croix slapped his hand over Sabrina’s mouth, her own reaching up instantly to pull it free. “You shut cher mouth, bitch, ‘fore I gotta blast yer brains out!” He turned with a new urgency to Marcus. “Now you shift back, Mr. Reilly, back to yer human form!”

  Marcus knew that he could be shot dead in his human form, and no mere turn of the head could shield him from it. But he couldn’t stall Le Croix much longer without some capitulation, he could see that too.

  Marcus shifted quickly, standing naked before Le Croix and Sabrina, writhing in his grip. “Quit ‘cher bitchin’, girl!” Le Croix said to Marcus, “Guess y’ain’t bashful. Then again, why should you be?”

  “Let her go, sheriff.”

  “You… you tellin’ me what to do? You think anything’s changed here, boy? I own you! You shift when I say, you do what I say, you live in that motherfuckin’ cage if that’s what I say, or your little piece of ass here gets popped!”

  Marcus repeated, “Slave? Not of any lupe, nor of any man anywhere.”

  “Then you’ll have to live with her blood on your hands. But that’s the way it is with your kind, ain’t it? Loners, always skulking around on your own. You never really connect to nobody, ‘cause y’can’t! Y’lie, say y’can, but deep down yer always alone!” He turned to whisper into Sabrina’s ear, “Always was, always gonna be.” Then, louder to Marcus, Sheriff Le Croix said, “That’s why you hate us—because we have family, community, society. That’s also why we’re destined to rule this planet, because we are the ultimate species.”

  Marcus nodded, to Sabrina’s seeming surprise. “Maybe, Le Croix, maybe… but you’re not the one who’s going to lead that revolution, and this isn’t the generation it’s gonna happen.”

  “So you say,” Le Croix spat back. “But which one of us is standing here holding the gun, and which one is holding his dick?”

  “Look around you, sheriff. Your little army is dead. Granted, you were better manned than I thought, but… that’s all over now.” Sheriff Le Croix did in fact seem to give it some thought as he glanced around, Sabrina trying to pull free of his grip. “You’re finished, Le Croix, face it!”

  “No, no, not by a long shot! I’ll get that other girl back, her pup’s gonna be fine, strong; then we’ll have another. Maybe I’ll name ‘em Cane an’ Abel!” He croaked out a crooked laugh.

  “You think you can get her through gestation… twice? And survive two pups? With those gators raging the way they are? And who’s gonna keep you safe from them? Where are your guards now?”

  “There are others,” Le Croix said. “We are legion!”

  “Not behind you there isn’t! Maybe others were willing to follow you before,” Marcus said. “But now, after word of all this gets back to the others, to your… your community? None of your kind will follow you now, Le Croix. And among the humans, well, that’s not my concern.”

  Sabrina bit down into the sheriff’s hand and he flinched, pulling his hand away but returning his arm to her neck, keeping the gun to her head. “Don’t make me kill you!”

  “You might as well,” she rasped with an angry, defiant smile. “I’ll kill myself before bearing any of your hell spawn!”

  Le Croix grimaced in her ear. “Whatsa matter with you, girl? Don’t you see what I’m offering you? Queen of the fucking world, that’s what! Imagine it! Generations of shifters, all looking up to you as their matriarch. You’d be the most powerful woman in the world, and the safest! You’d have every shifter in Louisiana at yer beck’n’call!”

  Marcus looked on as Le Croix tried to seduce the love of his life with wicked temptations.

  “You’ll have everything you need or want, anything you see. And eventually, well, there’s no saying, but… the sky’s the limit!”

  Sabrina seemed to be thinking about it. “Anything?”

  “Anything,” Le Croix repeated.

  “All right, then,” Sabrina said. “I proclaim, as the new queen of the shifters… that you go fuck yourself!”

  “You got your answer,” Marcus said to Le Croix, “now let the girl go—”

  “Now let the—?” Sheriff Le Croix broke out in a twisted laughter. “And then what? She’s gotta die as a witness, Marcus, you know that.”

  “Then I kill you,” Marcus said.

  “If you can.”

  “I can, or you wouldn’t be hiding behind a woman.” Marcus let a little smile creep over his face. “Come and fight me, shifter to shifter, lupine versus ursine, alpha to alpha. You know you want it, to test me, to better me, to kill me with your own paws and claws and jaws.”

  Le Croix growled from behind his human shield, increasingly frightened as he seemed to reason out what would happen next, and what would happen ultimately.

  Then inspiration seemed to strike Le Croix’s round face. “We ain’t there yet, Marcus. No, sir. We ain’t there yet t’all.” Le Croix glanced at Sabrina, then back at Marcus. “This bitch too dumb to know a good thang when she sees it? Bet ‘cher not, though! Think about it, Marcus! You an’ me, runnin’ the world together, we’d be unstoppable! The best of both worlds, well, both of our worlds anyway! One or two generations, these dummies won’t stand a chance.”

  “No,” Marcus said, “I don’t suppose they would.”

  Le Croix’s jar-headed face took on an intrigued grin. “Sure. You can propagate with this one; she’s yers anyway, right? Hey, like I told you, work fer me an’ she’s yers! An’ like I also said, I’m a man of my word.”

  Marcus just glared at Le Croix, then slowly at Sabrina. “I’ll take the other one. She’s havin’ my pup anyways. An’, y’know, we’ll get the plantation up and runnin’ again, bring in some new girls, break ‘em real quick like we did before. Hell, won’t be two weeks before we’re up and at ‘em better an’ ever. An’ think about what that means fer the future! Wolves and bears livin’ in peace an’ harmony, at long last.”

  Giving it some thought, Marcus repeated, “Peace and harmony?”

  “Why not? They’ll grow up side by side, friends and neighbors, all part of the same community.”

  “Oh no,” Sabrina said, “Marcus, you can’t!”

  “Shut cher mouth, little mamma!”

  “You know what my answer is, Le Croix.”

  The sheriff huffed and rolled his eyes, not losing his grip on his squirming captive. “Yeah, I know… what’s with you anyway? This is your chance to rise, to rule!”

  “I don't want to rule,” Marcus said, “and I certainly don’t want you to rule.”

  “But… these humans, everything they’re doing to the environment. You’re willing to sit back and let them poison the whole place to shit? Fracking? Oil? Coal? Dang fools can’t do nothin’ right! Under our rule, the world’ll be a better place, cleaner, more just—”

  Marcus repeated, “You’re talking about justice? What kind of justice will you… will we bring to the human race?”

  “Plenty,” Le Croix said, “and long overdue. But those who bow down will have a fair enough time of it—working, obeying… like dogs.”

  “That’s not justice, Le Croix; hardly anybody knows we exist at all! That means just about every one of your victims will have done nothing to you.”

  “Accessories before, during, and after the fact,” Sher
iff Le Croix said. “And ignorance of the law ain’t no excuse.”

  But Marcus just shook his head. “The humans aren’t all criminals, any more than we are. We have to wait, let events take their course. They can still turn things around—”

  “But they won’t,” Le Croix said, “because they don’t care to!”

  “Then find those and be truly just… if you think I’ll let you.”

  “Yes,” Sheriff Le Croix sneered, “protector of the humans, god of the swamps! But you can’t keep fighting us forever. Eventually, we’ll take you down like we took down the one before you, and the one before that.”

  Marcus simply shrugged and held up his empty arms. “Here I am.”

  “Oh God,” Sabrina said, exhausted. “Just get it over with.”

  Le Croix asked her, “What?”

  “You two are going to kill each other, so just go ahead and do it. I’m sure I’ll die too, so just tear my head off or whatever you’re going to do and then have at it. I’m tired and I just wanna go home! I’m not some fucking monster—”

  Sheriff Le Croix repeated, “Monster? Fuck you, bitch!”

  “Fine, whatever, I don’t care anymore!”

  “You heard her, Le Croix,” Marcus grinned, “she’s finished. It’s just you and me.”

  Le Croix grinned back, then threw Sabrina to the side and threw his gun away. He shifted fast into a massive lupine, and Marcus shifted into his ursine form, the two ready to battle to the death.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Marcus and Le Croix clashed, paws flashing and arms swiping, blood and flesh leaping in flecks from each combatant’s face. The din of growl and bark surrounded the frenzied shifters, yelps of pain and snarls of frustration underscoring the grim cacophony.

  Marcus had greater size, but Le Croix moved with incredible strength and vigor, as if driven by an impulse beyond Marcus’ own; a lifetime of anger and rage seemed to spill out with his drool, punctuated with every clapping of his jaws. Marcus knew he’d have to pool all his resources against him, and they’d been drained by considerable battle, days of bondage, malnutrition, electrocution, injury, blood loss.

  And Le Croix seemed to know it. He seemed to sense a vulnerability that would give him a rare and necessary advantage over his bigger and more powerful foe. So Le Croix pushed forward with all his strength and aggression, the one feeding the other to drive him to murderous heights. Le Croix’s jaws got in a few lucky snips at Marcus’ face, claws digging their way through his thick, ursine hide.

  Marcus roared and gave as good as he got, claws slowly peeling away at Le Croix’s face, those lupine jaws snapping shut in hopes of biting them off. Instead, Marcus rolled over, from his side to a position above Le Croix. Marcus plunged his claws down toward his eyes. Le Croix turned his head, deflecting the blow, but Marcus tried again; another close miss.

  Marcus positioned himself above the flailing alpha lupe and held his head straight with one paw, at least as much as possible. The other claw got closer to the lupe’s eye… closer… Le Croix tried to snap his jaws, but Marcus’ paw pushing up on the bottom of Le Croix’s jaw made it impossible. Marcus tried to aim the claw just right, above that twitching, lupine eye.

  Closer… closer…

  Shclitch! Le Croix screamed as the claw went in, head shaking with such a furor that it pulled Marcus’ claw right out of his paw. Le Croix threw a flurry of deep cuts into Marcus’ belly before sliding out the side of his torso, between his front and hind legs.

  Marcus turned to face Le Croix, even more dangerous when enraged with an agonizing injury, one good eye red and nearly glowing with rage.

  Marcus reared up to welcome the attack, and Le Croix charged with so much speed and power that he managed to throw Marcus backward. He fell onto his back, Le Croix on top of him, biting and slashing at Marcus’ face.

  Marcus tucked his hind legs under Le Croix and threw the lupe off him with one mighty push. But as soon as he hit the dirt, Le Croix barked and charged again, finding Marcus’ back and digging into that gaping wound at the back of his neck. His fangs quickly got closer to the bare nerves, deeper toward the meat and the bone. He was almost at the point of excruciating agony, and his adversary seemed to know it too. Marcus roared in pain and shook his head and shoulders, failing to throw the devious Le Croix.

  Marcus rolled to crush him, but Le Croix leapt out of the way. Marcus found his footing and his advantage and tried to pounce on Le Croix to crush him with both forepaws. Le Croix rolled out of the way of the first attempt and the second. The third gave him the opportunity for a move of his own.

  Le Croix jumped up above Marcus’ head and bit down, hard and fast, locking his jaws over Marcus’ snout. Marcus growled, pain exploding in his own jaws, tongue filling his mouth and throat, his breath wheezing through his nostrils.

  Marcus reached up, but Le Croix’s paws swatted Marcus’ away, a frenzy of claws swatting and batting, beasts snorting and growling into each other’s faces. Marcus tried to shake himself free, but the lupe had a terrible death grip on him, biting down harder and harder with every passing second. Blood stopped circulating, his snout beginning to crack, Marcus’ breath stopped short and was running out fast.

  Marcus tried to roll over and crush Le Croix, but the clever lupe shifted, facing Marcus instead of positioned against his body, not losing his grip on Marcus’ snout. Marcus stood up, lifting not only his own battered weight but all of Le Croix’s as well, the lupe’s legs kicking in midair before falling to land on Marcus’ chest, clawing in deep as Marcus tried to shake his enemy loose.

  But that drained the last of his strength and Marcus fell to the grassy, wet ground on his back, Le Croix still locked around his snout. Marcus lay on his belly, Le Croix suffocating him with every passing second. Marcus grunted and tried again to pull himself free, but he was exhausted and both he and his adversary knew it.

  Marcus’ blood began to tingle, his brain cracking with memories, his vision becoming a vague blur. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, slower and slower as his last breath dried up, no oxygen to his brain, limbs going numb.

  Closer… closer…

  Marcus tried again, one more great push to get away, but Le Croix’s growl was loud in his ear.

  You’re dead now, motherfucker, he seemed to say in a language only they could understand. Looks like I’m the god of the swamps now… and soon enough, the whole damned planet!

  But his wasn’t the last voice Marcus would hear upon this Earth.

  “Hey, stupid!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Marcus looked over, even in that death clamp, and Le Croix did too. Marcus had to focus hard and quick, but he was certain he saw Rachel Arnneux standing not far off, holding a gun in her hands.

  No, Marcus thought, don’t do it.

  Bang!

  The pressure around Marcus’ snout immediately let up, Marcus able to pull his face away and gasp for breath. But Marcus couldn’t resist looking over at Le Croix staggering back, a neat red hole in the center of his forehead.

  Rachel stood with a steely point of focus, legs splayed, hands on that pistol. “See you in hell, motherfucker.”

  Bang!

  Another shot rang out. Le Croix took the shot, hitting his leg and severing his foot. Le Croix cried out, limping on his other foreleg just to stay up.

  Bang!

  A third shot was the second to plant itself in the big alpha lupe’s forehead. His stunned body remained standing, but it struck Marcus as being little more than shock. His three legs trembled, his single eye glared, his great jaw stretched open in what would have been a terrific death wail.

  But he was already dead.

  Le Croix fell slowly to the side, landing finally with a heavy thud in the wet grass and a pool of his own blood.

  Marcus shifted back into his human form, coughing and gagging, pushing himself up from his hands and knees. Sabrina ran to Marcus, wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders, pulling
herself close.

  “Oh, Marcus, thank God you’re all right, thank God…”

  “I’m… I think I’m okay.” His body was wracked with pain, blood on his nose and chin, every limb slow to move.

  Sabrina looked him over, scanning his injuries. “Jesus, he… he really did a number on you.”

  “No, I’m… I’m fine.” He turned to Rachel, standing nearby, the gun still in her hands. “Rachel, I’ve never seen such shooting after just one lesson.”

  Rachel stood there, stammering, a vague smile on her face. “I guess I’m a natural.” Rachel raised the gun to her own temple.

  Sabrina reached out, eyes wide. “No, Rachel, don’t!”

  “It’s all right, Sabrina,” Rachel said, very calmly. “You two made it out okay, that’s what matters.”

  “No, Rachel,” Marcus said, “we all have to make it out, that’s what matters.”

  “I… I can’t,” Rachel said, putting her empty hand on her belly. “I… can’t leave. I don’t belong out there anymore.” She looked around the blood-strewn grounds. “And there’s no one here anymore.”

  “You do belong out there,” Sabrina said, “out there with us, with everybody else.”

  “Listen to me, Rachel,” Marcus said, “I felt the same way… for years, for all my life. I felt I didn’t belong, that I had to be… isolated and alone.” He glanced at Sabrina. “But now I see… that’s not true, Rachel. I can find a place where I belong, a woman I belong with. And you’ll find the same—”

  “I don’t want any man touching me!”

  Sabrina held out her hand to calm her frenzied friend. “I know you feel that way now—”

  “No, Sabrina, you have no idea how I feel! I… I’ve got a monster inside me! It can’t live on, I won’t let it!”

  “I’m not a monster,” Marcus said, knowing it would do little to sway her.

  “I… won’t… let it!” Rachel’s voice burst out of her throat, tears streaming down her face.

  “We’ll get you taken care of,” Sabrina said. “I know it’s not a… a pleasant idea, but… there are other ways, Rachel!”