Ready to Bear (3 page)

Thea felt her heart begin to race when she heard a thud of metal hitting the ground behind her. She whirled around but didn’t see anyone there. Then she felt something small and furry scurry across her foot. She let out an unladylike squeal and turned to dash toward the exit of the alley.

She stumbled when the heel of her shoe broke, and as she pitched forward, she heard a harsh laugh behind her. She landed hard on her hands and knees and felt the abrasions across her skin as the asphalt tore through the flimsy material of her jeans. She flipped over onto her butt and looked up at two men standing there over her. She could smell the stench of alcohol wafting off of them.

“Well, look what we have here, Kurt. A pretty little gal,” the shorter of the two said peering down at her. He knelt down toward her. “You need some help, girlie?”

Thea heard the slur of his words. Even in the dim light of the alley, she could tell that his eyes were bloodshot. In addition to being drunk, he was probably hyped up on some drug.

“Hello, darlin’,” Kurt said. “Don’t mind my friend, Ollie. He’s rude. Let me help you up.” Kurt offered her his hand.

Thea started to scoot backward as she regained her footing. The only thing she could think in her head was that she had to get out of the alley and out into the open. “Thanks, but I’m okay.” She managed to get to her feet but found the two men had stepped closer to her.

“Looks like you might have hurt yourself,” Kurt said as he sniffed the air.

Shit.
They were shifters. Probably on their way to Urban Dwellers for the shifter match. It drew in a much less cultured crowd than the usual club clientele.

“Just a scrape,” Thea said. She brushed herself off as she backed up. Her damaged shoe made her steps uneven and readily apparent that she was trying to make an exit. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m fine. I’ll just be on my way.” She turned around and ran right into Ollie’s chest.

The short man grabbed her wrists and pulled her into his chest. She struggled against him, but his grip was like steel.

“Now, where you going?” Ollie said with a lewd smile. “We was just getting acquainted.”

“Let me go!” Thea said in a loud tone. She could see over Ollie’s shoulder that the alley’s exit was less than twenty yards away. She saw the silhouettes of people passing by on the sidewalk. She just needed one of them to look in and see her. She cursed herself for her stupidity in taking the shortcut to begin with.

She knew what she needed to do. She just had to scream. As she opened her mouth, she felt the poke of something sharp against her side. It quelled the sound in her throat before it even crossed her lips.

Kurt’s rank breath heated the skin at the nape of her neck. “I wouldn’t do that if you know what’s good for you. Now, step back into our office. Ollie and I would like to have a little chat.”

He pressed the knife further into her side, and Thea’s eyes welled at the pinprick of pain as it sliced through her shirt. Kurt’s arm circled her waist as he lifted her up. Her breath came in hard gulps.

“Please help me…” she whispered toward the people who now seemed so far away as Kurt dragged her backward into the depths of the shadows.

He was late. After showering, Billy had sat down on the bed and started flipping through his files. He didn’t even remember closing his eyes, but he guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised. It had been a long day, and the city’s assault on his senses had taken a toll. When he woke up, he realized that he had to move it if he wanted to get to the club before the shifter fights started.

Billy knew from various sources that on any given Wednesday night, Anthony Atwood, Kyle Frost, and Eric Carmichael could be found at their club, the Urban Dwellers. Billy thought it spoke volumes about the three men that they had named their club after their unofficial clan name. But there was one night a month where they hosted the big fights for the more well-known fighters, and shifters came from all over the country to watch them.

It was an unusual partnership arrangement as each of the Urban Dwellers came from a different species of shifter. Anthony was a wolf shifter, Eric a panther shifter, and Kyle a bear shifter. Kyle’s family had once upon a time lived in Greyelf and been part of Billy’s clan, but the Frosts broke off their ties when they moved to Copper City.

To have three species mingle so freely wasn’t entirely unheard of, but it was unusual. The only thing that Billy had been able to uncover was that the three men had been roommates in prep school. It appeared that their bond had stood the test of time as they were all now in their mid-thirties. Billy studied their pictures one more time before getting ready to leave.

He paused at the mirror just inside the door. He thought that he looked reasonably acceptable for going to a nightclub. Maren had helped him pick out his wardrobe for the trip. He wore a lavender button-down shirt paired with a dark pair of jeans. He had reluctantly left his cowboy boots at home and traded up for a pair of tan loafers. Maren had assured him that he’d blend in at the club, but he wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t been anywhere near a dance club in a decade, since his years at the police academy. Those memories didn’t inspire any confidence that he would fit in now any better than he had then.

Figuring he didn’t have any further choice in the matter, especially if he wanted to arrive in time to speak to the three owners before they were distracted for the rest of the evening. Billy went downstairs planning to hail a cab but as he stepped out into the cooling air of the early evening, he changed his mind. He knew the club was a little more than a mile away. He was in a hurry, but a brisk walk would help take the edge off his bear.

Billy’s thoughts darkened even as he walked, though. There were too many people on the sidewalk, and he found that even though he switched sides of the street several times, there always seemed to be someone in his space. Billy was taller than many men, and so he could see over the tops of everyone’s heads to pick his path through the crowd. He wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming meeting with the three Urban Dwellers.

The fact that they were ignoring all of Lukas’s summons spoke volumes. Clearly, they had no intention of acknowledging him, much less joining him. So, in addition to trying to find out what they knew about Joshua Bailey, Billy was also playing the part of ambassador for Lukas. It was a role that seemed to be thrust on him often. Aside from council negotiations, he’d had to mediate many a squabble in Greyelf. But the stakes were much higher in this game than they were in the small town where he had lived for the last seven years.

Billy was wrapped up in his thoughts as he neared the address for the club. He had memorized it. Billy hated depending on notes or technology for anything. He fully trusted himself and his memory above everything else. He took a deep breath as he saw the glowing neon lights flashing half a block up ahead. It was almost show time.

His feet had slowed on his approach as he gathered his thoughts. That was the only reason that his ears picked up the faintest whisper over the din of the crowd around him.

“Please help me…”

His head whipped around toward the alley. He couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but he had heard a voice. It was a woman’s voice. He stepped into the alley. His nose went up into the air, and he sniffed. There was the faintest aroma of perfume and something else. His nose wrinkled. Billy knew that undertone well. Blood.

He would have called out, but he didn’t want to alert whoever was in the alley that he was there. Most men would have wished for a gun, but Billy was confident in his hand to hand skills in a way most other men were not. He was a policeman. More than that, he was the sheriff in a place where shifters ran wild on more than one occasion. He didn’t scare easily.

Billy slid his back against the stone wall of the alley as he moved further inside. Now that he was away from the hustle and bustle of the sidewalk, his ears detected other noises that he would have otherwise missed. It was the sound of a scuffle.

“Just stay still!” A man growled. It caused the hair on the back of Billy’s neck to rise, and he had to stifle his own growl at the menace the words held. “It makes it a lot worse when you fight back.”

“Dammit, Kurt! She bit me!” Then the sound of a hard slap rang out in the air, and Billy heard a low yelp. “You bitch! You’re going to pay for that.”

If there was one thing that brought his temper immediately to the surface, it was violence against women. These boys were going to get what was coming to them, along with anything else he had to give. Billy moved in closer until he could see the shadows in the darkened corner of the alley just behind a dumpster.

He could see the movement of pale, bare feet struggling against the hulking shadows above them. In his mind’s eye, all he could see was red. Billy charged, a loud snarl ripping through his lungs.

He hit the man pushing himself between the woman’s legs head on and toppled him over. He felt the impact of someone else hitting him, but he twisted and swung low as he propelled the man up over his head. He hurled a fist into the jaw of the man beneath him and was rewarded with the satisfying sound of bones cracking. A knife clattered to the ground, and Billy grabbed it into his fist.

Another howl mingled with his, and that was when Billy realized it wasn’t two ordinary men that he had engaged. These were shifters. He hauled the other man to his feet even as he used his body to block the advance of the smaller man. His nostrils were laced with the offending smell of alcohol. Billy could feel the man’s bones rearranging themselves within his fists as he started to transform.

“If you shift, I’ll make sure that knife blade is between your eyes in less than ten seconds,” he said in a low rumble. “I’m that fast.”

He met the eyes of the man who had until this point remained faceless. It was a rather ordinary face, although the man’s nose was enlarged. Clearly, he was a drinker. “That goes for you too, peckerhead.” He addressed the smaller man behind him.

“You’re getting your nose all up in business that ain’t yours,” the older man said. “You’ll regret it.”

“I doubt that,” Billy said with a sneer. “Pretty sure that girl isn’t here by her own accord. You’re lucky if I don’t kill you and put you out of your miserable existence.”

“You think it’d be that easy, huh?” the man replied. Billy could see that the smaller man was dancing back and forth on his feet. Clearly, the man in his grasp was the guy with the brains.

Billy knew that part of the man’s bluster was because he was a shifter. Billy let his nose elongate ever so slightly. He saw the man’s eyes widen, and that was when he sank a hard fist into the man’s stomach.

The man bent over, and Billy brought up his knee to connect with the man’s jaw, and he broke it again. Shifters might have extraordinary healing powers, but if you splintered bone to high hell, it took quite a bit longer to heal. And it was extraordinarily painful, which served Billy just fine.

“That’s enough!” There was a voice behind them then. Billy looked back over his shoulder. He saw a man that he knew from the pictures he had been studying. Eric Carmichael had arrived. There were two hulking forms flanking him, probably bouncers from the club.

Billy shoved the man to the ground. He ignored Eric and instead turned his attention to the woman. He knelt down beside her and was stunned to see yet another familiar face. But the woman’s expression told him that she was terrified. He grasped her elbow, and she didn’t fight him as he pulled her to her feet. He could see that her face was smudged with dirt. She was shivering, but Billy didn’t guess it was from any chill in the air.

“Thea? Are you all right?” Eric stepped forward, but Billy put his hand up.

“Give her a minute. How about you focus on the dumbasses who were trying to rape a woman on your doorstep?” Billy was beyond being polite. The woman, Thea, stared up at him without a flicker of recognition in her eyes. He had seen the same expression countless times. She was in shock.

The bouncers were already collecting the two men, and Billy barely heard the whispered voices between Eric and the two of them. ‘No police’ was mentioned several times in the brief exchange.

“You need to file a report. These assholes need to be charged,” Billy said. He cupped Thea’s chin and brought her eyes up to his. “You’re okay. It’s all right. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“My shoe…” Her voice was thready and faint as it trailed off.

“Are you all right?” Eric pushed his way forward around Billy’s hand. Billy stepped in front of her and pushed on the man’s chest.

“I said, give her a minute,” Billy growled.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? That’s my sister,” Eric snarled back.

There was another part of the puzzle that clicked into place. Billy knew that Eric had a stepsister from his father’s third marriage. Pictures of her had proved to be elusive as she didn’t seem to enjoy the limelight the way that the rest of her family did.

“Your sister was just the victim of an attack,” Billy said, pulling out his authority voice. Now that he knew the score, he was back in his element. He had used the voice on countless occasions with hysterical family members. “You need to take a step back and take a beat. I’m a police officer. I know what needs to be done here better than you do.”

“You’re a bit out of your jurisdiction, don’t you think, Sheriff?” Eric replied with a snide smirk.

Another puzzle piece clicked into place. “You had a tail on me. That’s how you got here so fast.”

“It’s part of my job to know when we get company from Greyelf in Copper City,” Eric said without any sort of apologetic tone.

“Maybe if you spent more time focusing on your own city instead of the people visiting it, you’d be able to avoid shit like this,” Billy said. He turned away from Eric then. He addressed Thea again but made his tone much gentler. “Are you okay to walk? We’re going to get you out of this alley.”

She nodded slowly. He saw fat tears well up in her eyes and begin their slow trails down her cheeks. That was a good sign. She was starting to come around.

“You got a back door to your place?” He looked over his shoulder at Eric. He would have preferred to take Thea somewhere besides a noisy dance club, anywhere else, but he was afraid that she was going to faint on him.

Eric’s jaw worked as if he was chewing rocks, but he nodded briskly. He cocked his head back toward the sidewalk. “There’s a door just around the corner that leads to the offices above the club. We can go in there.”

“Good,” Billy nodded. He gently put his arm around Thea’s shoulders. As she took her first wobbly step, he realized the meaning of the strange words she had muttered earlier. He looked down at her feet for confirmation. “Your shoes. Did you break one of the heels of your shoes?”

She looked up at him and nodded gratefully. It was if the effort of forming a full sentence was difficult. Her eyes were luminescent in the dim shadows of the alley, and Billy found that he wanted to strangle the men who had tried to hurt her. He handed the knife he’d picked up to one of the bouncers. Then he bent his legs slightly and swept her up into his arms.

She weighed next to nothing, and he felt a slight contraction in his lungs when she slung an arm around his neck and buried her face in his chest. He saw the frustrated look on Eric’s face, but he didn’t give a shit.

“Lead the way,” he said.

He followed Eric out of the alley. He ignored the sound of half-voiced yelps of pain that they left behind them. He knew that the men should have gone to the police, but at the same time he heard Lukas’s voice in his head.

“
This is clan business
.”

There were unspoken rules whether anyone was willing to admit it or not. There were certain things that humans wouldn’t understand that made perfect sense in the animal kingdom. One of those things was taking care of your own and adhering to a strict code of ‘eye for an eye’. Billy was fairly certain that the men who had attacked Thea wouldn’t suffer a simple death for their offense. That would be far too easy. No, instead they would be made to suffer.

Despite his usual hard bent toward upholding the letter of the law, Billy was glad about that. He would talk to Eric privately just to make sure that the punishment fit the crime. Men who raised a hand against women or children deserved the worst of the worst.

Thea hadn’t moved or made a sound since he picked her up. He was worried that the attack had affected her far more deeply than he realized. He couldn’t let her retreat into herself for fear that they wouldn’t be able to draw her out again, not that he could blame her for her coping reaction.