Choose The Bears (Ursa Shifters Book 6), page 41
“Are your family bikers?” she asked, and as if to underscore her point, we heard the muffled roar of multiple motorcycles revving their engines. The sound grew and grew, feeling more and more sinister. Mike occasionally went to biker parties, but I didn’t think he or Phil were associates or anything, so who were these people?
“Bloody hell…” Kyle shook his head sharply. “The phone tree really did get activated. Some of our… distant relatives have MC contacts, and they must’ve decided to get involved.”
He looked down at me.
“I need to go outside and find out what’s happening.”
“No.” My hand clamped down on his forearm, able to see too many horrific scenarios just then.
“It’s OK.” He turned and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I know these guys. They’re rough, but their hearts are in the right place. Good guys to have in a fight.” Ginny let out a ragged sigh, and I found myself doing the same. “I’ll be back shortly. Just go sort out the coffee and then head straight back to the gym.”
I didn’t want him to go, but I saw his bear. No matter what shit Phil thought he could pull, nothing would stand against the might of a massive freaking bear stamping its paws on him. I nodded and let him go, turning to Ginny.
“So this is all very exciting.” She was using the same jolly tone nurses used when giving kids their vaccinations or something, like she knew this would be painful but was trying really hard not to show it. “I mean—”
“Ginny!” God, was everyone on edge today? A woman jogged up to us, looking flushed. “Nathan is having another asthma attack.”
“Again? Goddammit, I knew those preventers weren’t working well enough. How bad?”
“We started administering Ventolin, but…”
When Ginny turned to me, I knew what she was going to say, so I said it for her.
“Go. I’m just grabbing tea and coffee. I won’t need you unless I spill hot water on myself. I’ve got this.”
“You sure?” The nurse asked, but she was already edging away. A child with his airways closing down trumped babysitting me and I told her that. “OK, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
But she wouldn’t. When the two of them rushed away, that same deadly stillness settled back over me like an oppressive weight. I pushed through it, walking quickly towards the kitchen, not really feeling like I could take a breath until I got to the doorway.
Only to find I wasn’t alone.
“Stay here.” Mary’s terse tone was familiar. It was the panicked one mothers used when they were terrified for their kids but needed their compliance. She gestured to the space under the workbench. “We’re playing hide-and-seek and you need to hide here.”
“Won’t Dad be able to find us?” Scott asked in a wavering voice, but he pulled his little brother closer.
“Not if you stay in here. He can’t get to you if you stay in the kitchen. Just wait until Imogen arrives. She’ll look after you and make you some more pancakes, OK?”
My heart clenched in my chest as I saw her blink back tears, Scott’s face way too pale.
“But what about you, Mum? What about you?”
“I’m just going to talk to your father.”
She was trying to be strong, I could hear it in her tone, but if I heard the moment when her nerve failed, so did her son.
“No, Mum!”
His hand shot out, grabbing at her pants, but she was forced to brush him off.
“Not for long. I’ll be right back, I promise. Just stay here and—”
“We’ll make pancakes?” I stepped forward, and their focus shifted abruptly to me. “You got it. Scotty, can you go into the pantry and find some flour for me?”
Chapter 68
Imogen
“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed at Mary as soon as the kids left the room.
“He’s here.” Mary held up her phone, showing me an anonymous text exchange. “Or he will be shortly. He’s coming for me. I thought we were safe, but he… but he…”
Intended to burn the place down if that’s what it took. My eyes flicked back and forth as I read the disgusting text messages he’d sent her. Phil’s diseased mind vomited up wild theories about what went on in this building, and to my shock, I realised he thought he was the good guy here. He was liberating his wife and children from danger.
“I can’t find the flour!” Scott shouted from the pantry.
“In the big blue container,” I called before turning back to Mary. “Stay here,” I urged. “You don’t have to go any—”
“No.” My eyes went wide as she shoved me backwards, then started for the big fire doors at the end of the kitchen. “No, you don’t know. You don’t understand.”
But I did. Phil’s treatment of her was like Mike’s of me. They conditioned us to accept, no, expect this shitty behaviour.
And not believe in anything better.
That complete loss of hope, that things could improve, that there was any point in trying to resist, was writ large in her eyes. She turned and bolted for the door. I heard the sound of the metal bar being shoved down, right as the exit was shoved open.
“Found it…”
Scott appeared triumphant, his little brother in tow, but when he saw the door and heard the fire alarm, his face fell.
“Mum? Mummy!”
That shout cut straight through me, forcing me to move.
“Stay right here. Right here, you hear me? I’ll go get your mum.”
I pivoted sharply and went running after Mary.
The world seemed too bright, too harsh, as I stumbled outside, but I stopped blinking the moment I saw a familiar car pull up.
Mike’s
What the fuck was my ex doing here? Ferrying that fuck Phil around, it appeared. He looked over as he came to a screeching stop, frowning when he saw me, then Mary, but Phil’s expression was completely different. Feral, monstrous, I wanted to say inhuman, but unfortunately it was all too common for someone of my kind to sport a cruel smile just like his. He strolled towards a now frozen Mary with a casual air that didn’t fit with the atmosphere. Alarms, motorcycles, and more and more cars were pulling up, making Mike squirrelly.
“We gotta move, Phil!” he shouted.
“Not before I get what I came for,” the other man snarled.
He started to march towards his wife like he had a right to, but everything in me knew that couldn’t happen.
Phil’s here! I tried to broadcast that thought out, hoping my mates would hear me, and sure enough I felt their reassuring presence as if they were standing next to me. He’s here and he’s trying to take…
I couldn’t finish that sentence, my eyes locked on Phil’s hand as it reached out, reaching to wrench Mary’s arm out of the socket, like he had mine.
And that couldn’t happen.
I had no idea where this bravery came from. The last time I’d tangled with Phil had ended badly. I hadn’t learned any skills or developed superhuman strength, but for some reason I felt like I could feel each one of my sleuth’s bears inside me as I raced forward.
Stop him, that’s what my heart beat. If Phil got her in that car, I wasn’t sure she’d ever get out alive. Those videos, the disgusting shit he jerked off to, played out in my mind, but this time she was the unwilling victim. She screamed, she cried, she was beaten senseless, and that’s when I saw all the consequences Phil would never recognise.
The devastation it would cause in her children’s lives was unimaginable, and yet I saw the tears rolling silently down their cheeks as I leapt forward.
“NO!”
My shout was my mate’s, the sounds of some many shouts, of roaring bike engines filling my head. For a moment, I thought I had this because Phil went stumbling backwards. I had to get Mary back inside, away from this fuck, so that when the cavalry arrived…
A good plan, the one that Asher snapped inside my head, but that was never the way things worked out.
Mary and I weren’t people anymore. We were little other than blow up dolls, each one interchangeable victims of the sick fantasies inside Phil’s head. So he rallied fast, his hand snapping out and around my wrist, grinding into the nearly healed flesh.
“Run…” I gasped. “Run!”
A shove from me was enough to get Mary moving, all her previous feelings of self sacrifice dissipating as she faced her abuser again. She turned tail and ran, and I was glad to see it, right before I was jerked closer.
Phil stank of beer, piss, and a body long unwashed. If that wasn’t enough to have my gorge rising, there was his face. He leered down at me, his eyes sliding across my body.
“Well, well, look at what we have here.”
“Get the fuck in the car!” Mike snapped. “We’ve got company, and lots of it!”
Phil and I were galvanised into action, him trying to haul me closer to the car, me pulling with all my might against my aching wrist, my teeth sinking into my lips.
No.
No, no…
NO.
Imogen, stop—
Don’t—
Their voices were a dread chorus inside my head, commanding me to stay right where I was, and I tried, I really fucking tried. Because now it was me starring in those videos, my likeness shared across the dark web long after I’d taken my last breath. I fought for me, for them, for us, and the place we were building together, but it just wasn’t enough. Phil’s ham-like fist crashed into my face, and my head jerked back with a sickening snap, right as everything went black.
Come find me…
That was my last thought, a tiny little plea sent out as unconsciousness claimed me.
Chapter 69
Lucas
I was up and out of my seat the first time Imogen’s mind touched mine, but something in the cameras caught my eye. Movement out the back of the building, by the fire exit…
Phil’s here! she shouted, as if right in my ear. Here’s here and he’s trying to take…
Mary, I knew that as sure as I knew my pulse had started to thunder. Like so many of these fucks, they would do anything to get their claws back into their victims, knowing that these women, these children were psychologically vulnerable in a way only they could manipulate. Somehow Phil had got to his estranged wife, convincing her that she needed to come to him, lest he…
None of that mattered as I watched the screen, momentarily paralysed as I saw my girl go running towards the prick.
No, I thought, shaking my head over and over. Where the fuck was Kyle? But all conscious thought left me when Mary was shoved back and he…
Claws shot out so fast my fingers ached, and the seams of my shirt stretched, then popped, as I strode from the room. The bear and I raced towards the front of the building, only to find Kyle and Asher doing the exact same thing.
“Where the fuck…?”
My question for Kyle died in my throat as I saw it. Phil had his fucking hands on my mate, right when I promised he would never get within ten feet of her. His fingers closed down over the bruises he’d left before, and her breath sucked in as he wrenched her forward, and then his fist was raised. A roar that came from the depths of my soul erupted, echoing out into every corner of the foyer, only to be met by others from the outside. The shutters rolled up too damn slowly, right as I heard those fatal words.
Come find me…
He had her. He had Imogen.
I stared at Kyle and Asher, seeing the same stricken expressions as we came running out to find that chaos reigned.
Half the bear community was massed outside and more besides. Contractors and dads stood side by side with fucking wolf shifter bikers, and Rey and his crew rolled up in their sleek black car seconds later.
None of that mattered.
“The police are coming.”
One of Kyle’s dads pushed forward through the crowd to inform us, and the far off wail of a siren confirmed that, but it wasn’t enough.
“Gimme your bike.”
Asher sounded like murder. Probably because he looked the same as he marched up to the closest biker. Bjorn, that’s what his name was, threw his leg over the bike and stepped free with a nod.
“It’s yours, brother.”
Asher didn’t acknowledge the gift, revving the engine before turning to us. “Bring back up,” he ordered.
My sleuth mate roared off the footpath and straight into traffic, forcing cars to stop abruptly, their hands slamming down on their horns, but he didn’t care.
And neither did we.
“Keys,” Kyle barked at his dad.
“Son, do you think—”
“Keys or I take fur right fucking now,” I snapped, “and follow on paws.”
He handed them over reluctantly and that seemed to trigger something in the crowd.
“We found our prey?” a massive wolf shifter biker asked with a wild grin. “Then we hunt!”
I dimly wondered what the fuck our neighbours in their neat office blocks around us thought as we tore off down the road, cars and bikes quickly joining us as we sped up the streets. There was no question of which direction to take because the chaos was apparent as we passed. Cars stopped midway through intersections as we streamed forward, ignoring the traffic signals, the rules of the road, everything. We normally obeyed human rules, kept quiet, small in their presence, lest they turn on us.
But this time they crossed a fucking line.
No one, I mean no one was ever going to lay a fucking finger on my mate again and I tried to send that promise out to Imogen frantically as we raced forward.
“Rye?”
We were gaining on Phil, but the streets weren’t our friends. We were on a major thoroughfare around the city, unable to get close enough to cut Phil and his dickhead mate off and end this fucking thing. Kyle muttered something to that effect as I took a call from the fox shifter.
“We’ve got our people moving,” he told me. “Asher paid for the full participation of our colony and he’s got it. We’ve got cars moving to intercept this cunt at every major road, but now might be the time to make contact with some of those friends you have in the police department.”
“On it,” I said, ending the call without another word. I tapped on my contacts, bringing up the number of a detective we had a lot of dealings with.
“Detective Lowell,” he barked. “You saved me a call. Want to explain why the majority of the shifter community is careening through the city in a high-speed car chase?”
Bruce Lowell was a police detective, but like quite a few members of the force, he was also a wolf shifter.
“Phil Jackson has my mate.” His silence told me everything I needed to know. “He knocked her unconscious—”
“Got it. We’ll coordinate our cars from here, stop this fuck in his tracks, but… Who’s on the bike?”
I looked up through the windscreen and saw a police chopper flying overhead.
“Asher.”
“The killer? Are we going to have a problem, Luc? We were able to cover up his little ‘mishap’ when he was a kid, but this…”
“Just get there before he does. Do whatever the fuck you have to,” I snapped back. “Otherwise you’ll be explaining to your superiors why there was a polar bear rampaging through the city.”
“Right.”
“Hold on,” Kyle ground out as I ended the call, my hand slapping down on the ‘oh fuck’ handle. He wrenched the car sideways so hard the whole thing lurched to the right. For just a second, I thought he’d roll the damn thing, but he corrected swiftly, ducking around the car in front of us and hitting an empty stretch. His foot went to the floor, the car accelerating rapidly as we raced on.
As we caught up to Asher, I craned my neck. I’d apologise to Kyle’s dad later, but my claws punctured the roof upholstery, shredding it as we got closer. Of course, right as Asher floored the bike, racing up on one side of the ute that had our mate in it, they veered right abruptly, barely missing several cars as they crossed an intersection without warning. Asher followed without thought and my whole body stiffened as I saw a car spin towards him. He was forced to swerve abruptly, so fast he lost control of the bike, dumping it on the ground hard.
“Fuck, is he…?”
When Asher rose up, my heart was in my throat, and when I saw him swell in size, I was right there with him. He strode through the intersection with his arms outstretched, claws at the ready. His feet moved faster and faster, his gait changing as he moved, from the sprint of a man to the lope of a polar bear on the hunt.
“He shifted. He fucking shifted…”
We had an incident a while ago with some kids doing that in a school gym, necessitating a coordinated effort to expunge the video evidence from the internet. I’d been part of that task force, but I knew we’d never hide this. Too many witnesses, that’s what I thought as I stared at Kyle and he did the same to me. He was about to wrench the car sideways, the lot of us taking fur like our beasts demanded, right as black cars came streaming out of the side streets to form a blockade in front of Phil’s car.
We had him right where we wanted him.
Kyle slammed his foot down on the accelerator, rocketing us forward.
When our feet hit the asphalt, I knew this was a turning point. Not just for us, our sleuth, but for all of shifter kind. More choppers thrummed overhead, the logo of the news channel whose headquarters was only a few buildings down from us emblazoned on the side.
“We can’t…” Kyle stared at the sky, the lines of furious drivers, and trashed cars. “We won’t…” His eyes went wide as he stared into mine, but my focus was dragged away as I heard Asher bear’s roar.
“No, we can’t hide anymore,” I said, yanking my shirt off and tossing my glasses inside the car. “I don’t know what comes next, but I know this. I’m not walking away from this until Imogen is in my arms.”
“That’s it, brother,” Kyle said, his smile wild. “Let's go get our girl.”
Chapter 70
Asher
I knew madness well.
Blood red and turning my head to fire, it burned away all conscious thought and replaced it with this.
