Between a Bear and a Hard Place (Alpha Werebear Romance) (11 page)

The hard, cold, hiss of the voice was vaguely haunting. Rogue’s ears prickled, his muscles ached for action. More than anything, he wanted to charge them and spray the forest floor with... well, with whatever would come out of these things after a good claw swipe. He looked at King, who was silently observing the strange sight in front of him.

“Four,” one of them said. “Makes no sense. The sensors aren’t ever wrong.”

All their voices are exactly the same. Or, only one of them is speaking. That can’t be though, because different ones keep gesturing
. Rogue’s thoughts were racing. In the last three months, he’d seen enough TV to know that whatever these things were, they were no good. They looked similar to the way Draven had been dressed, but knowing that they were involved with GlasCorp was already a foregone conclusion.

The eight figures had drawn into a circle, each of them moving their heads slowly left, then slowly right, as though the green glass of their goggles functioned as some kind of scanning device, and they were just waiting to pick up some kind of signal, some sort of reading.

Something crunched in the far distance, on the other side of the area, almost exactly opposite the circle from where Rogue and King were crouched. The figures didn’t react to it, as though they didn’t have normal senses, because the sound wasn’t quiet.

“Report.” Same voice, different source.

“Nothing,” one of them said. “Nothing,” said another, and on down the line.

“I have something,” said the seventh voice. He was pointed in the direction where Rogue heard the crackling sound. “Motion. Or heat. Something. It’s strange though.”

“Strange? Report.” It was the first voice again, or so Rogue thought. It was hard to tell.

I wonder if they’re some kind of security system? Or some kind of Borg?
He’d been watching a lot of Star Trek.
Hive mind?

“Changing shape. Directly ahead.”

The first voice emitted a sort of chirping sound, followed by a series of clicks that couldn’t possibly have come out of a human mouth. And then for a moment, the static was back. Hissing, crackling, like he was producing a radio tuned to a static signal. Slowly, he started reciting numbers.

“One, eight, six. Two, seven, four, four, eight,” it intoned. Rogue felt his skin crawl. He read something about number stations in one of Jill’s crazy-person conspiracy magazines. The conclusion the author came to was that they were forgotten remnants of cold war, or possibly early radio era, spying. Long series of nonsense numbers that contained some kind of important missive.

“Nine, Forty-three, one-sixty-two, eight.”

Then again, here were a bunch of weird-as-hell cloaked figures, and one of them seemed to be the walking version of a number station.

“Eight, sixteen, forty-seven. Forty-seven. Forty-seven.”

King let out an attention-getting, low sound. Rogue looked in his direction. “I think we better do something,” he said in the tight-throated voice that they used when they were bears. “I think they found our kin.”

As though controlled by some external force, all eight of the figures turned at once, unloading their guns into the forest without a single second’s pause.

Rogue roared, King flew out of their hiding place, and two breaths later, King had one of them in his jaws, Rogue had sent one flying with a swipe, and bullets were going in a whole lot more directions than “straight ahead.”

By the incredibly short period of time that it took the soldiers to retrain their aim – this time on Rogue and King – whoever it was they’d been firing at took a turn. One black-hued bear and one golden one crashed straight into the group of six, thrashing, slashing and clawing like hell itself opened up.

Rogue took one look at the pair of newcomers and knew he liked them instantly. Without a second thought, he charged headlong into the melee. Left and right he flung his claws wildly, not thinking, not planning, but just
feeling
the battle course through his veins. Something warm struck him in the face, but when it ran into his mouth it wasn’t the coppery taste of blood that he’d expected. Instead it was bitter and foul. He heard King shout something, but the largest of the three bears wasn’t fighting,.

“What did you say?” Rogue shouted back, raggedly ripping his voice from his pained throat. He dispatched another of the strange soldiers with a backhanded swipe as the two newcomers ripped one straight in two. “King!”

The last man standing, the one Rogue was relatively certain to be the first one he’d heard speak intoned another series of odd numbers, and then fired one single shot before the golden bear and the black one barreled into him. One hit high, one hit low, and the black-clad trooper hit the ground in a pile.

“I... I got to her in time,” the half-shifted alpha was rasping. “I’m hurt but... I’ll heal. She wouldn’t have.”

When next Rogue saw King, blood matted the decreasing hair on his rear shoulder. There was a terrible wound, but Rogue could tell with a glance that it wasn’t silver – it’d heal quickly. But still, with a fairly long journey ahead of them, it wasn’t the best idea to have one of the bears bleeding all over the place, growing weaker and weaker.

“Is that all of them?” It was an unfamiliar voice that struck Rogue’s ears. And it, too, was ragged with pain. “Where did they come from?”

The other stranger shook his head as he rushed to King’s side, bear-form shrinking away. “From the ground,” he said, but distractedly as he took the girl from the ground near where King knelt. “Claire?” he whispered, before kissing her gently and cradling her in his arms. “Claire? Answer me. Please!”

“I think... the noise, or the gunfire... something terrified her.” King was holding his shoulder as Rogue prepared a bandage of shredded cloth from one of the strange things lying on the ground. “She’s unharmed, but...”

“What did
you
do to her?” The newcomer snarled, backing away. “Who are you, anyway? Are you with them?”

“Did you see any of those turn into bears, by chance?” Rogue shot back. When he finished dressing the gaping hole in King’s shoulder, he turned his attention back to the new bears. “We were looking for you, which probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise.”

“You,” the charred-gray fur receded completely as the heretofore silent bear approached. “You’re... not like them.”

Rogue scoffed. “For one thing, I don’t bleed motor oil, or whatever is in my mouth. For a second, I’ve got a question. Does the name Draven ring any bells?”

An immediate look of either awe, or indigestion, came over both of the men. Both of them were also completely naked, which would give away that something wasn’t quite right, even if somehow, nothing else did.

“No,” the grim-faced bear holding the woman said. “Means nothing.” He shot a warning glare at the other, who was obviously looser with his tongue, as he’d already started to say yes. “We know nothing.”

Rogue rolled his eyes. “Looks like you’ve just met your spiritual ancestor, King,” Rogue said with one of his semi-obnoxious smirks.

For a long moment, the four bears regarded one another. The two new ones were clearly younger than Rogue and King, but from the looks on their faces, not by very much. At the least, their experiences had aged them; these were not men who had lived easy lives.

“Taken?” King said simply. “Hm, come closer.”

As though the two knew what they’d encountered, the man holding the limp woman – Claire – took a step forward. “Let me see your eyes.”

At first, the younger man narrowed his eyes, but then when King didn’t break the gaze, he relented. Something obviously crossed King’s mind, though he stayed silent. Rogue would know the look on his face anywhere. He’d noticed something. And if it had to do with the eyes...

Thinking quickly, and wanting to avoid any further trouble until they’d had a chance to get everyone patched up, Rogue threw a bundle to each of the new men, who caught them. “What’s this?” the slighter of the two asked. “Sleeping bag?”

Claire stirred in the man’s arms, blinking furiously and then wiping at her eyes. She looked from King to Rogue and then back to the man holding her, who gave her a surprisingly gentle look.

“Clothes. You’re going to need them unless you want people thinking you’re on some kind of weird naturist trip. Wait, you’re not, are you?”

“Naturist?” the serious one asked.

“Nature...” it was the first time Claire spoke. She was sucking wind, but the inhaler she puffed was starting to work. “Naturist, like a nudist. He’s making a joke. And holy shit there are four bear men. And a bunch of guns, and...”

That was about all Claire was willing to process just then, as she slumped back into his arms.

Rogue chuckled. “Guess that was a little bit of a shock. How did she—?”

“Long story,” the one holding her said, as he climbed from his knees to his feet. He placed her gently on the ground and took up the bundle, nodding to Rogue as he dressed. “I’ll tell it later. I’m Stone.”

“You don’t say,” Rogue quipped. King glared at him. “Sorry. And you?”

“Fury,” the other one said, buttoning the plaid, flannel shirt. There was ample room in the chest, which apparently fascinated him. “How did you know? Even the hospital gowns barely fit when they’d tie them.”

“Our mate is used to buying clothes for us,” King said in his deadpan that would impress Bob Newhart. “Big and Tall stores. Really good for bears.”

For a second, thick, almost impenetrable silence hung in the air. Then Fury laughed, followed by Rogue, and King. Stone tried it out, but it seemed as foreign to him as it was to King way back when.

“Follow us,” Rogue said, helping King to his feet. “We’ve arranged for a pick up. Or, not a pick-up, that wouldn’t make much sense. We’ve got someone coming to get us. We’ve got about four hours to make it a few miles. Even with gimpy here, we should be fine.” Rogue nodded to King.

Fury gave Rogue a clap on the shoulder.

This one. I can tell I like this one already
.

And he was close enough to see the color of his eyes. Suddenly it struck Rogue what King had seen.
One green, one gold. Could it really be possible? No... right?
The mark of a Broken Pine alpha – multicolored eyes – could it possibly have been that these two recent escapees were alphas?

Rogue filed the thought in the back of his head with a shake. “We’ve got to get going. We also have a
lot
to talk about, but I think that can wait.”

“He’s Rogue,” King said. “And I’m King. You’re the first of our kind we didn’t raise. We’re the alphas.”

“Leave it to him to be as formal as possible,” Rogue said to Fury, who laughed under his breath.
I really did know I liked this guy
. “Good to meet you, on and on with the small talk. Let’s get the hell out of here before any more of those things decide to say hello. Oh, that reminds me.”

With a slightly comical spring in his step, Rogue sort of pranced back to one of the fallen troops, and snapped off one of the hands, then collected a mask. As it happened, there wasn’t much
under
the mask. But, he couldn’t be sure of anything. In a world where werebears applied for mortgages in Santa Barbara, a disappearing soldier wouldn’t be anywhere near the strangest thing to happen.

“We’ll need this to study. Best to know what we’re up against.”

“How will we find our way?” Stone asked, of course very serious. “The forest is so thick, and you have no map.”

“GPS, my friend,” Rogue said, whipping out a smart phone that he had just about gone into bankruptcy over. “Even out here, we’ll pick up some kind of signal. Wait, what are you looking at?”

King sighed heavily. “You really bought that?”

“Contract was up on the old one. Traded up. What? What’s the big deal?”

King grumbled something under his breath about materialism and greed, but just rolled his eyes again.

As King decried his sworn brother’s undying consumerism, the phone beeped a few times, and the new bears both stared at it in utter amazement. “It’s a map... that moves?”

“Tracks us. Satellites. Don’t worry, you’ll catch up. It took us a while to get used to the world too.” Rogue smiled. “Or, really it took
him
a while. I’m a much quicker learner.”

But King was already gone, too far ahead to hear the snarky quip. Stone followed shortly after him, carrying Claire’s unconscious body. Rogue went to follow, to bring up the rear of the group, but Fury turned and stopped him with a huge hand on Rogue’s chest.

“I don’t know if you are who you say you are,” he said slowly, carefully. “But if you hurt him, or her, I’ll rip your fucking guts out.”

Rogue regarded him coolly, measuring this fire-spitting young bear. “I think you mean that,” he said after a pause. “Or at least, I think
you
think you mean that. I saw you fight. I like what I saw. But before you start talking a big game about ripping my guts out, why not—”

“Learn if I can trust you first?”

“Nah,” Rogue said with an easy grin and a laugh. “Just get to know me. After that, you might want to rip them out anyway, no matter what I’m lying or telling the truth about.”

Nodding, Fury turned back away from Rogue to follow the group, but this time it was Rogue who stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. “Listen,” he said. “We thought you were all dead. Or, well, I always thought you were dead. King kept believing that one day we’d somehow find all of the cubs and women that were taken. Do you know?”

“Know what? If there are others?” Fury swallowed, and then tightened his jaw. His gold eye, and his green one, flickered under the quicksilver moon. “Yeah. Yeah, they’re alive. But I’ve never seen them. They kept us in a box way underground. They didn’t do anything to us – any experiments I mean. The others though, I’m not sure.”

His cheek twitched—a sign of anger Rogue recognized easily enough, as he did the same thing. He patted the man on the shoulder. “Fury,” he said. “It’s nice to meet another Broken Pine bear. It’s really, really goddamn nice. And I promise that as long as I breathe, we’re not gonna stop looking. And I promise one more thing.”