Between a Bear and a Hard Place (Alpha Werebear Romance) Read online

  “Unnatural,” one of her companions said in a voice that seemed to hurt, as though it hadn’t been used in a long, long time. “Did you hear that? We’re unnatural.”

  The other presence grunted a short laugh. “Whatever we are, we have to go. And she has to come with us.”

  “What... who are you?” Claire asked, her voice trembling for the first time since she’d entered the lab. “Why me? And did you just kill him?” She already knew the answer, but was slightly surprised at her complete lack of emotion at what had just happened.

  “Crimes... unspeakable crimes. Unspeakable pain,” the one with the deeper, more somber voice said. “Unspeakable horrors.”

  “Come on,” the other one said. “We can worry about that later. If we’re going to find the others, we have to get the hell out of here before the damn army shows up. And you know they will.”

  “Claire, he called you?”

  She nodded, absolutely dumbfounded, but still with that feeling of calm.

  “Is there anywhere we can hide? We’ve been in here for,” he trailed off.

  “Too long to know how long,” the other one finished.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Woods about a mile from here. Pretty dense. I guess that’d work?”

  “It’ll have to. Get on.”

  Without thinking about it, Claire slid onto the back of one of the bears, and felt his heart thudding against her chest. His fur, thick and heavy, and warm, surrounded her, eased what little remained of her nervousness.

  “Which way is out?” the other asked. “And the elevator’s still working, right?”

  “D-down the hall to the left is out. And the elevator worked when I came down it about five minutes ago.” She seemed like she was about to say something else, but trailed off.

  “Good enough. We’ll keep you safe.”

  And somehow, against all reason, against all logic and sense, she knew he would.

  -4-

  “Look, I don’t have time for this. I have two cubs who just discovered parties and a mate who wants me to pick milk up on the way home. Can we hurry this along?”

  -Rogue

  Standing on an overpass with twenty-five feet of distance between the bottom of his boots, and the desert below, Draven thumped the bottom of a pack of unfiltered Camels, stooped down and pulled one into his mouth.

  The paper stuck to his wind-blown lips as he lifted the lighter, and took a breath.

  In all black, as he usually was, the only visible part of the aged, grizzled bear were the graying ends of his hair that flapped in the midnight wind.

  He took another drag, and blew a plume of smoke out of his nostrils.

  At least this time the wind isn’t chopper blades.

  Two cars passed underneath him, engines quieted by the distance, and the dust cloud hanging low to the ground that muffled everything from car tires to night birds. He squinted, glaring through the smoke trickling up into his eyes from his cigarette, and watched.

  “Where are you?” he grumbled. “How long can it possibly take one bear to drive from Santa Barbara to Reno?”

  Shooting a glance at his watch – because he insisted on using an old, Swiss watch that had been working for about sixty years – Draven counted down. “Eight hours, nineteen minutes. Should’ve been here ten minutes ago. At least I’m waiting on the one that’s been driving for more than three months.”

  He thought back with a grin, and a dry laugh. Three months seemed like the blink of an eye to someone his age. He’d seen everything come, and go; crest and fall. His clan, his family, his past and his future, all swallowed up by greed and experimentation in the name of progress. Bitter, nasty taste that word left in his mouth... but it was a vile, foul taste that he was going to cleanse.

  If nothing else, before he keeled over dead, Draven was going to make sure the small pack of Broken Pine bears, who were once the strongest clan in the Appalachians, at least had a chance to keep going.

  And if he happened to find out what happened to the rest of the clan along the way? Well, that’d be just fine, too.

  But that was a long way off; anymore it seemed like the pipe dream of a dying old man. Saving the world held no interest for him – he’d tried that. The only thing that mattered to Draven anymore was his clan. His family.

  Rogue. King. Jill. They were all he had left. At least until he found the rest of them.

  In the distance, something rumbled so heavily that it broke through the muffling dirt cloud and made Draven’s fine-tuned, perfectly trained ears tingle. He chuckled under his breath, took one last drag on his Camel, and rolled the paper tube between his fingers, extinguishing the flame before he stuck the butt in a Zip-Lock bag and stuffed it in his pocket.

  The engine thumped so heavily Draven felt it in his chest as the bike sped underneath. He turned in the opposite direction, watching the vehicle make a comically illegal U-turn off of the highway, and then around the embankment.

  He shook his head as the driver dismounted, gently laid the motorcycle on the ground, and crouched down before crawling out of sight.

  “Someday he’ll learn that you probably shouldn’t do that when there are stoplights around. Or police,” he laughed under his breath. He considered another smoke, but replaced the pack after eyeing it for a moment.

  “Why can’t you just meet me at the Denny’s or something?” the rugged, husky voice behind him wasn’t exactly familiar. He left the clan on his self-given mission long before either of the Broken Pine alphas came of age. Then again, it sounded so much like his dead brother’s voice that it was hard to mistake.

  “Rogue,” Draven said, curling his lips into a smile. Maybe I will have that smoke after all. He fished out the packet again, and took one with his fingers. He offered the pack to Rogue, who curled an eyebrow and pursed his lips.

  “Really? I haven’t seen anyone smoke a cigarette since Jill made us drive around Santa Barbara Community College for an afternoon while she had a meeting,” Rogue said. Draven smiled, then let himself chuckle as he lit up. “It’s amazing how much you have in common with eighteen year olds. You should get some of those shorts that barely cover your ass.”

  He was joking, because he always did. But Rogue was as serious as he was deadly. Draven knew he couldn’t mince words, couldn’t fool his nephew. In a way it was frustrating, but really it just made him proud.

  “I... don’t think that’d be the best idea.” Draven finally turned, and extended a hand. “Tan lines, and all. Bears take forever to get suntanned.”

  Rogue clasped the hand, and then pulled his uncle in for a tight, uncharacteristic, and slightly painful hug. “I’m glad you’re alive,” the younger bear said, his voice still ragged, his breathing still heavy.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Figured after what you pulled, with the helicopter hijacking, then killing the experimental subject, and the daring escape from Broken Pine territory that you’d have been hunted down and turned into a rug on some old man’s floor by now.”

  Almost on cue, lights from a passing helicopter caught both men’s attention.

  Sensing his nephew’s worry, Draven patted him on the shoulder. “Medivac,” he said. “They fly low. Probably taking some car crash victim back to Reno. Although out here, it could be an exploded meth lab just as easy.”

  Rogue stuffed his hands deep into the pocket on the front of his hoodie.

  “Speaking of college kids,” Draven said. “I thought you were more the flannel type.”

  Rogue scoffed a laugh. “Jill,” he said, nodding slowly. Jill Appleton, mate to both Broken Pine alphas – because there are always two alphas and always one mate shared between them – had arranged for the clan to take up residence in Santa Barbara, following the escape a season before. “She wants me to blend in better.”

  “She’s smart,” Draven said, taking another puff. “Very smart. And you should listen to her.”

  Rogue nodded. “I do. If I don’t, she gets angry, and makes me d
o things.”

  Draven cocked an eyebrow.

  “Dishes, mostly,” Rogue said with a slight slump to his shoulders. “King, he won’t ever wash the plates after he eats, so there’s always some kind of meat juice, or potatoes mashed against the bottom of the plate. And then sometimes he has cereal and he won’t dump the milk out. He’ll get the cereal, watch TV while he eats it, and then leave the damn thing sitting. It starts to smell after a while, and he—”

  Draven was patiently watching Rogue’s face, and having a hell of a time not laughing at his better-than-six-five nephew who probably outweighed his mate by a good two hundred pounds of pure muscle. “Tell me,” he said with a sardonic grin. “Do you wear those gloves? The thick, yellow ones? Maybe pink? To keep your hands soft and safe from the dish soap?”

  It was Rogue’s turn to glare. The bear’s dark brown eyes bored into his smaller – though not by much – uncle. His wavy, brown hair hung in a frame around his sharp cheekbones, and square jaw. “Of course,” he said, sounding genuinely confused. “Who the hell wants rough fingers?”

  After he laughed for another second, Draven finally let down his guard. “I’m glad you’re all safe. I’m glad you have Jill, to put it another way. I can’t imagine the trouble you and King would get yourselves into if left on your own.”

  “You never answered me,” Rogue said, diverting the conversation back onto topic. “How did you escape?”

  “Same way I always do. I know the country better than most anyone I’ve ever met. Spend enough time searching for people who don’t want to be found, and you’ll do the same. Keep on the move, you know. And I never stay in the same place for more than a few nights.”

  Rogue ground the toe of his boot into the asphalt. “Sounds rough.”

  Draven shrugged. “We don’t have much in common, nephew. You’ve got a family. I’m looking for mine.”

  “You could come back with me,” Rogue said. “We’re as much your family as anyone else. We’re the clan, Draven, that’s stronger than anything else.”

  The old man smiled. “It’s supposed to be, anyway, huh? I appreciate the offer. I’ll think about it, but I can’t imagine I’ll accept.”

  “You shouldn’t live like this. Alone, running around, doing,” Rogue waved his hand above his head, “whatever you do.”

  “I don’t need a nursing home,” Draven said with another wry laugh. “Tell me. What would you do if someone took Jill? If you went home one day and found King, all the cubs, and Jill, all missing?”

  Rogue’s lip curled in a sneer. “I’d hunt the motherfu—er, kill whoever did it.”

  “Mate got your tongue?”

  “She says I have to watch it, on account of the younger cubs. Apparently it’s bad to say things like that at school.”

  “Bear cubs in public school,” Draven said. “That’s something I’d like to see. Blending in and all though, I suppose?”

  Rogue nodded. “Blending in.”

  “But you see my point?” Draven finished his smoke, and it joined the other in the baggie. He noticed Rogue’s confused look. “Littering is no good.”

  With a laugh, Rogue nodded. “I see your point. But if you ever want somewhere to go, you know where we are.”

  Draven smiled, and watched his nephew’s face. “Thank you,” he finally said. “For coming out here, meeting me like this. I know it’s a trip, but I needed to know that you were all okay. I’ll be in touch if I find anything.”

  Something in Rogue’s pocket buzzed for a moment before falling silent. A half-second later, an extremely loud dance beat, accompanied by a veritable light show, broke through the denim of the big bear’s jeans. He shook his head. “Jill makes me carry this. I don’t know how to change the ringing song, and she won’t tell me. Says it’s like putting a bell on a cow.”

  Draven kept his mouth shut as Rogue exchanged some hushed words with the phone. When Rogue hung up and returned his attention to his uncle, Draven mooed at him.

  Rogue rolled his eyes, exhaling sharply. “I’d love to stay and chat. Actually I’d love to do anything in the goddamn world instead of getting back on that motorcycle for another eight hour trip, but something’s come up.”

  “Nothing serious?”

  “I wouldn’t be about to beat my kidneys into paste if it weren’t serious.” Rogue paused as though he was considering whether or not to say anything. Finally, he relented. “It’s the boys. Slate, who didn’t change his name to sound more normal, because apparently Slate is in the top hundred names for Millennial boys. And don’t ask me what Millennial means. But Arrow, he goes by...” Rogue looked off in the distance, obviously searching his memory.

  “You forgot your own cub’s name?” Draven cracked a small grin.

  “He’s not mine, remember,” Rogue corrected. “But no, it isn’t that. I just can’t remember... these human names, they’re all the damn same.”

  “How many bears,” Draven began, “do you think are named ‘Arrow’? Or, say, ‘Rogue?’”

  “Fair enough.” Rogue flipped ran a huge finger back and forth across the phone’s screen. “Grant,” he announced, shaking his head. “Anyway, they’ve gone off somewhere, and Jill’s worried.”

  “They’re older, aren’t they?”

  “Both in their twenties,” Rogue said. “Still young and stupid though. Young and very stupid, if you ask King.”

  “Aren’t we all, though?”

  “I’d love to drink a toast to that one, old man,” Rogue said with a smile and a clap of his hand on Draven’s shoulder. “But I gotta run. You hear anything else, you see anything, you—”

  “One more thing,” Draven said, cutting him off. “There’s news.”

  “News?” Rogue quirked an eyebrow. “About the other bears? The rest of the captured clan?”

  Draven nodded, very slowly. He decided to have another smoke after all. “No details, but my sources tell me that someone – or rather, someones – escaped from the GlasCorp headquarters in Pennsylvania. Like I said, no details, but—”

  “Who the hell else would escape? Was it just bears?”

  Draven shook his head. “If I’m listening right, it sounds like there were two bears and one human. A woman who apparently helped them escape.”

  “I thought you said there were no details,” Rogue said, smirking slightly. “Sounds like a pretty detailed bunch of vague information to me.”

  “Yeah, well,” Draven took a long, patient drag on his smoke before blowing out a plume of smoke and extinguishing the half-smoked cigarette on his boot. He put the butt dutifully into the baggie in his pocket. Noticing Rogue looking at him funny, he felt compelled to expand.

  “I... have a girlfriend. She doesn’t like the litter. And aside from that she keeps telling me that as careful as I am of not getting caught, leaving a bunch of DNA-covered cigarette butts everywhere isn’t the best idea.”

  Rogue gave him a knowing grin and a nod. “What about the escape? Nothing else?”

  Draven shook his head, grimly staring off into space. “Nothing. Don’t even really know if it’s true or a false report. Wouldn’t be the first. But this one’s different.”

  “How?”

  “Well, for one thing, GlasCorp shut down the HQ for the first time in... well, ever. Down to a skeleton crew. This part at least, I checked out. It’s absolutely true.”

  “Checked how?”

  “You ever heard of the internet?” Draven smiled as he pinched his Velcro pockets closed. “Turns out, you can find a whole lot of stuff there. But no, to not be an asshole for a second, it all checks out. Three people escaped, one corpse left behind, and one security guard knocked unconscious but not really hurt.”

  “What killed the dead guy?”

  “Well, he was a scientist. A guy named Jim Eckert. It’s a name you probably wouldn’t recognize, but it’s familiar to me. Very familiar. He led one of the experimentation teams that...”

  “Elsa?” Rogue asked, the name of his former mate, who h
ad died at the hands of these so-called scientists, these barbaric monsters.

  Draven’s mouth hardened into a taut line. He nodded. “Tooth marks,” he said somberly. “Very big tooth marks. Tore out his throat and half of his shoulder.”

  Rogue nodded along. “Good,” he said. “Sounds like he got what he deserved. You’ll let me know if anything else comes up?”

  “You’ll be the first to know. Give my best to everyone.”

  Without another word, Draven stepped up onto the overpass, and simply dropped straight off of it. When Rogue rushed to the rail and looked over, the old man was just gone.

  “You old son of a bitch,” Rogue swore, with a smile. “Well. See you around, I guess.”

  On the horizon, as the big bear began to descend the side of the overpass, back to where he’d stashed his bike, thunder boomed in the distance. He stood for a moment, watching an arc of lightning crack the sky, and then another peal of thunder blasted the desert landscape.

  It was like a dream, Rogue thought; an endless, meaningless, haunting dream. One of those nightmares where you go to sleep and live an entire life in your mind in the eight hours of sleep you get, in eight-second bursts. And by the end of the dream, you actually feel old, tired, ready to die from extreme antiquity.

  Rain pattered the cracked ground a hundred feet to the north of where Rogue stood, but somehow his position stayed dry. These pop-up storms that did nothing but smell nice and cool the air momentarily happen all the time, but for some reason, this one stuck in the bear’s mind. He watched the clouds boil up on the horizon, watched the lightning arc again – blue and yellow and green to his over-sensitive eyes.

  “What happens when this is all over?” he asked the night. “What does it mean that someone escaped? Does it mean anything, or am I just seeing things where they don’t exist?”

  He pulled the soft leather of his jacket closer around his neck, shielding himself from the wind that began to bluster across the hard-cracked desert. He laughed at himself, then laughed at himself laughing at himself.