Page 16 of Handcuffed to the Bear (Shifter Agents #1)

CHAPTER 16

The ocean glittered beneath the speeding Sikorsky Jayhawk, a former Coast Guard hand-me-down which was currently the biggest and longest-range helicopter at the SCB’s limited disposal for search and rescue. Eva Kemp had claimed the shotgun seat, next to the pilot. Avery was behind her. He craned out the window, peering down, though there was nothing to see but the ocean. Occasionally he caught intermittent glimpses of the land to their right, hidden behind the storm’s dark curtains.

They were lucky, though: by the time they got this far up the coast, most of the storm had blown inland. They flew in and out of patches of dense clouds and pounding rain. When they weren’t under the storm, the western sky was stained with a gorgeous salmon-colored sunset. Avery barely glanced at it.

Eva keyed her mic. “How close is the island?”

“We’ll be on top of it in just a minute, beautiful.”

Eva made an irritated noise and checked her gun, again.

Avery wasn’t sure whether they’d lucked out or not by getting “Wild Bill” Majewski as their pilot. Bill was a wiry, tough-as-nails little guy, a jackrabbit shifter and former Army pilot, who had a reputation for being willing to fly in even the worst weather. He wasn’t afraid of anything. There were times, especially in law enforcement, when this was exactly what you wanted in a pilot.

As Bill suddenly and without warning banked the helicopter sharply left, tilting it steeply to the side, Avery gripped his seat and reflected that, at most other times, it would be nice to have a pilot with a sense of self-preservation. He glanced at Mila, the elk shifter from Eva’s team who was seated beside him, and shared a brief look of commiseration with her.

They were now flying alongside a jewel-green island rising out of the ruffled sea. The gently curving chain of low mountains was easily recognizable from the map Mila had spread out on her knees, but it was much more striking in reality. The forest spread like ruffled green skirts around the mountains’ gray, rocky peaks.

In the seat behind Mila, her teammate Dev Tripathi had a small pair of binoculars clamped to his eyes, examining the scenery below them as Bill skimmed over it. Eva had a pair, too. Avery hadn’t thought to bring anything of the sort.

His hand, resting on his bad knee, clenched into a fist.

Mila punched Avery lightly in the shoulder. When he looked over at her, the platinum-blond Ukrainian gave him a quick thumbs-up.

We’ll get him back, the gesture seemed to say.

Most of the shifters Avery worked with at the SCB—aside from Eva and her pod—weren’t pack animals in the same way he was. But there was a pack feeling among them, nonetheless. Jack was one of theirs. They were going to find him, and if he was hurt (or, God forbid, worse) they were going to make the people who’d hurt him pay for it.

* * *

The boat bobbed on the waves, rolling unsteadily in its unpowered state. This, plus Derek’s weakened condition, threw off his first lunge. He fell against the side of the cabin, rolling the boat even more wildly.

Casey was unable to do anything except clutch her leg, the pain washing out everything except how much it hurt. She thought vaguely that she ought to shift, but couldn’t summon the mental stillness to do it. She had no idea how Jack had been managing.

Practice, probably.

Jack was a ravaged, muddy mess, no more steady on his feet than Derek. Somehow he’d cut his face, and blood dripped off his chin. He hadn’t shifted yet. Casey wasn’t sure why; then the awful thought occurred to her that he might not be able to. Or maybe there wasn’t room. Derek, in his shifted form, nearly filled the cabin.

Dodging the reeling lion, Jack made a lunge for the boat’s small galley. Everything in the cabin was securely fastened down or put away, so there were no loose pots or knives to grab. Casey could see Jack realizing this and changing direction. He pulled the sheet off the bed just as Derek got his legs under him, and threw it over the lion’s head.

There was a thump from the deck, and the boat rocked. Oh God, now what?

Casey wobbled to her feet, standing up to see out the window. She caught a glimpse of a dripping, tawny tail. Roger was on the boat. An instant later his huge claws screeched across the door, and it bowed inward beneath his weight.

“Casey!” Jack gasped. He was wrestling to keep Derek’s head and forelegs wrapped in the sheet, while Derek struggled and lashed out blindly with his huge paws. “Get away from the window!”

Casey ducked only seconds before there was a loud spang! from somewhere on the hull of the boat, followed by the rifle’s report.

One thing she had managed to see, in her brief and dazed glimpse of the shore, was that the boat had drifted quite a way from the dock. The tide was going out, carrying the boat with it. They were almost to the mouth of the cove.

Which, on the one hand, was carrying them steadily farther from Rory, Mara, and the rifle. And that was good.

Unfortunately they had two very angry lions on the boat with them.

Not so good.

Roger roared and threw his whole weight against the door. Made of the same fiberglass as the hull, it didn’t stand a chance; it folded inward, spilling Roger’s forequarters into the already crowded cabin.

His face was a bloody mask. Casey was pretty sure she’d either got the hook-pole thingie in his eye, or opened a deep gash right above it. Either way, he was down to one good eye, and water mixed with blood kept flowing into it from the clawing she’d given him earlier.

Still, he oriented on the two of them with laser-beam accuracy.

Casey, unable to walk, tried to drag herself away. Roger was too big to easily fit through the door in lion form, so he shifted and threw himself after her. She’d been expecting him to go for Jack, as the more dangerous opponent, and was caught unprepared when Roger’s cold, wet hands closed on her arm.

“Jack!” she screamed.

Roger dragged her out the door. His bloody face was so twisted with fury that it hardly looked human. When he opened his mouth, his teeth were sharp predator’s teeth, and claws pressed into her skin; in his fury, he was losing control of his shifting.

“You little bitch,” he snarled, slurring through his fangs. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

“Jack!” she screamed again, right before Roger slammed her head against the deck. Sparks danced in front of her eyes. Roger mashed her down against the deck. She tried to rake the handcuffs across his bare skin, but he pinned her arm. She couldn’t shift, couldn’t struggle; she couldn’t even breathe.

Out of the corner of her eye, through dimming vision, she glimpsed movement. Then it changed, humping up as Jack plunged out of the cabin door and burst into his bear form. The bear hit Roger going full tilt, frothing in fury. The two of them slid off the edge of the deck and into the water, Roger shifting as they went.

Casey lay on the deck, shaking. She managed to roll over, but that was as far as she could get. She lay on her back, staring up at the evening sky. She was so cold. Her leg, mercifully, seemed to have gone numb.

Got to get up. Got to help Jack ...

Derek lurched into view, pushing his way painfully through the door onto the deck. He was still wobbly, but moving with purpose. His jaws parted, fangs bared.

Got to get up ...

She reached out blindly, hoping to find the hook on a pole, or something, anything to defend herself. Her fingers did nothing but swipe across the damp deck.

She was so cold. So tired ...

A growl bubbled up in Derek’s throat. He seemed almost to smile.

Then the growl merged into the sound of an engine. Dazed, her consciousness beginning to fade, Casey thought, Jack got the boat going.

No. Jack was in the water.

Then who?—

The helicopter seemed to come out of nowhere. It wasn’t there, and then it was, looming huge in her vision, skimming low across the headland and then banking steeply in a big circle.

It braked somehow in midair, tilting up at the nose, and then leveled out to hover about fifteen feet above the boat. They were pinned in the brilliant glare of a searchlight.

Casey stared upward. So did Derek.

A door opened in the side of the helicopter, and a blond woman with an assault rifle leaned out. “Federal agents!” she screamed. “Freeze where you are!”

Derek stared at her, then turned his baleful gaze to Casey. Hate warred with self-preservation, and he took a step forward.

Something darted past the woman with the gun and flung itself out of the helicopter. All Casey caught was a black flash. It hit the boat’s wet deck, stumbling and nearly sliding over the edge before catching itself.

Casey pushed herself up shakily on her hands, and discovered that a medium-sized black wolf had interposed itself between her and the lion. The lion was five times its size, but the wolf’s hackles bristled, its head low. Just try to go through me, asshole, its body language seemed to say.

Avery! Casey thought. This had to be the werewolf partner Jack had told her about.

A dark bundle thumped to the deck a few feet from Avery. The wolf scuttled sideways to it, limping heavily but never taking its eyes off the lion. It put a paw on the bundle. Then, with a liquid flicker, Avery shifted and the wolf was replaced with a dark-haired, light-skinned young man crouching in front of the lion, his hand resting on top of what, Casey now saw, was someone’s jacket. Avery pulled a gun out of it—the gun and its holster had been bundled in the jacket—and aimed it at the lion’s face.

“You’re under arrest,” he said. “Shift and get down on your face.”

The lion’s lips curled back from its fangs.

“Do it now!” Avery yelled. “Think you can take me out? Did you miss the woman up there with the rifle pointed at you? If you take one more step, make one more threatening move, she’s going to shoot you. Now shift .”

Derek seemed to think about it; then he blurred to his human form. Sullenly, he lay down on the deck.

Avery retrieved a pair of handcuffs from the jacket. Seeming unconcerned about his nudity, he cuffed Derek—taking an interested look at the lion shifter’s injuries while he did so—and then picked up the jacket and limped to Casey, unsteady on the slippery deck.

Her eyes were drawn to his legs. Jack had mentioned how badly he’d been hurt, but she was still unprepared for the extent of the scarring, or the way his right leg twisted under him, the foot toeing slightly in.

“Avery,” she managed through chattering teeth as he awkwardly crouched beside her.

“You know me.” He wrapped the jacket around her shoulders. It was wonderfully warm. “Then you’ve met Jack, right? Agent Ross. Where is he?”

“He ...” she gasped. “He went off the edge.”

Avery tilted his head back. “Jack’s in the water!” he shouted up to the helicopter. “Where’s Eva?”

A naked woman, presumably Eva, dived out of the open door of the helicopter. She deftly missed the boat and sliced gracefully into the water.

Another shifter? Casey thought. But, of course, they were all shifters. What a strange and wonderful thought.

“Are you hurt?” Avery asked, patting her down. “Is any of this blood yours?”

She tried to force her scattered mind back on task. “Leg. Shot.”

“Jeez,” Avery muttered. He clasped a hand over the bloody mess of her lower leg. She cried out.

“Sorry. We’ll get you up to the helicopter, okay? There’s people with paramedic training. They’ll take care of you.”

There was something else. Something important. To do with Jack. “R-Roger Fallon is in the water too,” she stammered, her lips clumsy with cold.

“Don’t worry,” Avery said. He put his free arm around her, supporting her. “Eva will take care of him. Now, we’re going to lower a sort of chair to lift you into the helicopter, all right?”

“Th-there are more of them. With guns. On shore.” But there had been no more shots since the helicopter showed up. It seemed Rory and Mara had decided to make a break for it.

“We’ll get them,” Avery told her. “Everything’s going to be okay.” His face was drawn with tension, despite the reassuring words.

“Roger’s a lion,” she told him desperately. “A very large one. I—I don’t know what Eva is, but she might not be able to fight him.”

Avery smiled. It was a quiet smile, but there was something sharp in it nevertheless. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about Eva if I were you.”

* * *

Jack hadn’t known he had one last shift left in him until Casey screamed. Then it came without his conscious intent, the feeling of bear sweeping through him, picking him up and carrying him along.

He wasn’t actually trying to knock Roger into the water, and he was only half conscious when they hit. He went beneath the cold waves. Water filled his jaws.

Swim , said an inner voice that sounded a little like Casey and a little like Avery. Swim!

He kicked, more by reflex than anything, and his head broke the surface of the water. He gulped a desperate breath. The boat was nowhere to be seen in the smeary blur of his nearsightedness. He couldn’t tell if the thumping in his ears was an engine or just the beating of his own pounding heart.

Something latched onto his hindquarters, dragging him down. Water closed over his head again, and he struggled to free himself, swiping at his assailant with paws slowed by the water and his exhaustion.

He and Roger grappled in a sort of slow-motion ballet, ripping at each other with teeth and claws in a dark, silent, aquatic world. Blood roared in Jack’s ears, his vision dimmed, and suddenly he didn’t care if he drowned as long as he took this bastard with him.

But Roger, sensing his suicidally deadly intent or just running out of air, tore free and kicked for the surface. They broke out of the water mere feet from each other, the bear and the lion, gasping for air.

Between the damage Casey had done to his face and the ravages of Jack’s assault, Roger was looking somewhat the worse for wear. He was still in much better shape than Jack, though. There was no way to victory Jack could see that didn’t involve his own death. But the alternative was to die here at Roger’s claws and fangs, his death serving no purpose.

Casey, I’m sorry ...

He wished he could see her one last time. He hoped she’d be all right against Derek on the boat.

And then he lunged forward, driving himself with a powerful thrust of his legs. Roger saw him coming and readied for defense, but all Jack was trying to do was get a firm enough grip that Roger couldn’t get away. He didn’t care if Roger hurt him anymore.

He sank his teeth into Roger’s shoulder, wrapped his muscular legs around the lion, and sank them both.

Too late, Roger realized what he was trying to do. He struggled wildly to free himself, but his thrashing only made them sink faster.

Jack barely felt the pain as Roger tore at him. Nothing mattered now but holding on.

And so he did, as they sank through the dark water, tangled in life as their bodies would be in death.

Something huge came out of nowhere and slammed into them.

It was as fast as a torpedo and big as a submarine. Shocked, Jack found himself drifting free, staring as an enormous orca closed its jaws around Roger. It arched its body and pulled him down, his tawny limbs fluttering like those of a rag doll. And then it had vanished into the murky gloom, and Jack was alone in the dark water.

That was Eva.

They found us.

And that was his last coherent thought. He didn’t have the strength left to swim for the surface. All he could do was drift.

He was dimly aware of something large coming up from beneath him. It bumped him gently, and then bore him upward.

* * *

Avery leaned over the edge of the boat, heedless of his own safety. Above him, Dev and Mila were pulling Casey inside the hovering helicopter.

The boat was still drifting aimlessly with the waves. In the gathering darkness, the helicopter jagged first one way, then another as it tried to maintain a relatively steady position above.

“Jack!” Avery yelled.

Nothing answered but the lapping of the dark waves, glinting in the helicopter’s searchlight.

Then something lurched out of the water, a dark lump like an island breaking through the waves. It moved purposefully toward the boat, and as it got closer, he could make out Eva’s long black-and-white torpedo shape just under the surface. Jack was draped over her back in bear form, a huge, limp, sodden mass of fur. He looked dead.

“Jack!”

Eva bumped against the boat, rocking it. Avery sank both hands into Jack’s fur, trying to get a grip, but he could no more move that mountain of sodden grizzly bear than he could fly.

But Eva did something with her flippers, bucking her body, and Jack rolled across the railing, flopping on the deck.

“Hey, man,” Avery murmured, desperately trying to find a pulse in the loose skin under the bear’s great jaws. “Don’t make me do CPR on a grizzly bear. Trust me, that’s not a bonding experience we need to have.”

Jack saved him from that fate by coughing hoarsely and then vomiting up several gallons of seawater onto the boat’s deck.

“You with me, buddy?”

Jack stirred weakly, then slumped down. It was an answer of sorts.

“Can you shift?”

A pause, then the shaggy head moved slightly in a negative.

“Well, this complicates things,” Avery muttered. With an arm thrown over Jack’s bulk, he shouted up to the helicopter, “He can’t shift. How are we going to get him in?”

Eva’s sleek black-and-white orca head thrust through the waves. She pushed herself upward with a thrust of her tail, then shifted in mid-leap, so her human hands caught the railing and she pulled herself gracefully aboard. It was as neat a maneuver as if she’d practiced it a thousand times. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Jack’s too hurt to shift and I’m not sure how we’re going to fit him into the helicopter.”

“Well, that’s easy.” Eva contemptuously nudged Derek with her foot; he glared back at her. “Don’t forget we’re going to have the perps with us—some of whom are still at large. Mila and I can stay here, guard the one we’ve got and see if we can round up the others, while the rest of you get these two back to base.”

“Mila and you, huh?” Dev had arrived, lowered on a rope, just in time to hear this. “I get to miss the fun? And the possibility of explosions? Did I piss in your Cheerios lately, boss?”

Eva snorted. “Sorry, tiger boy, we need your paramedic skills on the helo a lot more than we need your, I admit well-practiced, talent at making things blow up.”

“Awwww,” Dev said. He handed her a bundle of clothing.

“If you’re good, Dev, we’ll blow something up just for you,” Mila called down.

“What about Fallon?” Avery asked. He had not missed the one we’ve got reference to prisoners. “Roger, I mean. Did he get away?”

Eva glanced up from pulling on her tac vest. “Not ... exactly. Let’s just say that when orca meets lion, lion loses.”

Dev gave a sharp laugh, even as his hands worked busily, checking Jack’s vitals. “And you people call me a loose cannon. Stiers is gonna love you, Kemp. And the paperwork you cause.” Looking over Jack’s bulk at Avery, he said more quietly, “We need to get him evac’d, Hollen. Right away.”

Mila called down, “Hey guys, Bill says he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to transfer a passenger that large from one moving vessel to another. What say we land first, and then figure this out?”

“Fair point. Let’s roll.” Eva took hold of Derek by the scruff of his human body and hauled him below to get the engines started.

Avery gripped a handful of Jack’s thick, wet fur and gave it a little shake. “Hey, stay with me, okay? You hung on all this time on your own. Checking out now—that’d be just plain rude , man.”

* * *

Jack drifted in and out. The next thing he was aware of, he’d shifted, suddenly and without warning. His body bucked in a seizure. He heard a babble of voices, people sounding worried and frantic.

Then time skipped again, and he was huddled under a pile of blankets. A low thumping echoed through his chest, and he came back to himself enough to understand that it was the steady chop of a helicopter, carrying him somewhere.

They came for us.

But close on the heels of this realization was a new concern. Casey! Had they gotten her out, too? The last time he remembered seeing her, she’d been injured and trapped on the boat with Derek. Was she all right?

“Casey,” he tried to say. “Casey!” It came out impossibly garbled.

“Hey, hey, settle down. It’s okay.”

Something moved on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. Through the weight of the blankets, he hadn’t noticed there was a hand resting on him.

Squinting, Jack followed the hand up a jacket-clad arm to Avery’s face. Avery was sitting on the floor next to him, his bad leg stretched out. The helicopter seats had been moved forward to make space for Jack on the floor. There was another pile of blankets next to him, with an IV on a portable stand above it.

“Casey,” he managed to say, more coherently this time.

“She’s doing okay. Better than you, probably. How do you feel?”

“Been better,” Jack whispered. Everything hurt. Even his throat and sinuses, the one part of him that hadn’t hurt before, were a fresh source of pain now that he’d tried to inhale the ocean.

Avery squeezed his shoulder again. “We’re headed home. Since neither of you were on death’s doorstep once we got you warmed up, and we’ve got the fuel for it, we’re going all the way back to Seattle. That way we don’t have to try to explain shifters at a regular hospital.”

“Nice rescue,” Jack whispered. “Good timing.”

“Yeah, we specialize in nick-of-time rescues around here.” But a certain tightness in his voice attested to how close it had actually been.

The other pile of blankets stirred, and a small hand quested out of it. Casey’s cuffs had been removed at last, leaving a ring of scraped, reddened skin around her wrist.

“Jack?” Casey asked hoarsely.

“He’s right over here,” Avery said, raising his voice above the helicopter’s engines.

Casey continued to grope for him, making a distressed noise. Jack moved enough to get his own hand over to hers. His fingers laced through hers, comfortably familiar after all that time they’d spent holding hands on the island. Casey relaxed immediately, squeezing back and then settling down.

Something tense in him relaxed, too. It felt good. It felt right. With Casey’s fingers securely in his, and the light pressure of Avery’s hand to anchor him, Jack closed his eyes and let himself slide away.