Bear Mechanic: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance (8 page)

* * *

There were strangers milling around the perimeter, all wearing the same vest with the Wild Dogs' crest. They sprang to wary attention when she pulled up and parked her car. She swallowed and reminded herself of the plan.

The walk to the front door felt to Elise simultaneously much longer and much shorter than it had the day before. Dread dogged her footsteps.

“She’s here,” reported one through a walkie-talkie, his beady eyes fixed on her. “No sign of company.”

There wouldn’t be. Elise had drawn a map of the property and the surrounding area. It turned out that Noah and Gabe had some experience with exfiltration and rescue missions, which went a long way toward easing Elise’s anxiety.

But it wasn’t gone. Even though she knew she wasn’t alone, she couldn’t quite relax. She told herself her act was probably more convincing that way.

As she approached the front door, one of Lyle’s men, so beefy he was almost rotund, grabbed her upper arm in a bruising grip.

“Hey!” she protested, trying to extricate herself. The biker only smirked and gestured for the bag she was carrying. He rummaged through the cash with a distinctly interested look.

Apparently satisfied, Beefy released her. She rubbed her arm and glared at him as Ponytail led her inside.

He led her through the house. There was no electricity, so the bikers were relying on hung lanterns they’d put up. They were probably relying on her being disoriented and not knowing where she was. They weren’t completely wrong.

She had spent a lot of time here as a child with Cecil and her grandfather, and lived here while she was in high school. It was in bad shape now from years of neglect after she and her brother had left, and her grandfather fell into his depression. The smell of mold was starting to pervade the house from the rain, and as they passed through a hallway under a hole in the roof, Elise’s shoe squelched on the carpet.

He took her to the bedroom Cecil had been sleeping in when he’d been hiding from the bikers. Ponytail knocked on the door in a series of rapid taps. Some kind of code, she thought.

“We’ve got the girl,” said Ponytail.

They were let in.

Lyle was prowling, from one side of the room to the other, back and forth. When he saw her, though, he stopped.

“How nice of you to join us.” He giggled, hysterical and grating. Now that she knew what he was, she could almost see the hyena in him, just below the surface. “You must care for your brother very much.”

“I did what you wanted. Now where is my brother?” she demanded, with more bravery than she felt.

His eyes glittered a sick yellow, settling on the bag at her side. “I certainly hope you did.”

She took a deep breath, handing the bag over. “I promise this is it.”

“Promises don’t mean much. I have a better idea. Maybe I’ll keep your brother for a while as I verify your cooperation.”

Something tightened around Elise’s heart like a hand. She’d been counting on Cecil being here, with the bikers, and that was what Noah thought, too. If the bikers were holding him hostage somewhere else, that was a major complication they hadn’t taken into account.

“You promised!” Elise said, tears springing to her eyes. Her fists were clenched at her sides.

“Oh, he’s safe,” Lyle assured her. He snapped his fingers, and one of his henchmen showed her a tablet. On the screen was Cecil, in a small room on top of a dirty mattress.

“This is a live feed. Cooperate, and he’ll stay alive and unharmed. If you make trouble for me, on the other hand…” He smiled unpleasantly, his teeth bared.

“What more can I do? I've already done everything you've asked for!” she protested.

Lyle smiled thinly. “I've been told I'm an ambitious man.”

“I don't have anything else. This is it.” She pointed at the bag. The longer she could stall Lyle and his gang, the more time she gave Noah.

“That's not quite true.” He spread his arms, gesturing at the space surrounding them.

Elise stared at him. “The house? What could you possibly want with this place?”

“True, it's a dump—”

Even though it was true, Elise's hackles rose and she gritted her teeth.

“—but as they say, one man's trash is another’s treasure. Maybe I'll go into house-flipping. What do you think it could get on the market? Realistically.”

The real reason for all of this wasn't the money, Elise knew. It wasn't about the trust fund or the house. It was about the power. He was petty and thuggish, and this was all because Cecil had defied him. Now he was going to take everything.

She swallowed. “So you want the deed? Is that it? I— I'll get it for you.” Even though she didn't mean it, the words were still hard to choke out.

“But how will I know you'll really come back?” His tone was innocent. “Or that you won't bring the police next time?”

“You still have Cecil. And I didn't this time, did I?”

“Desperate people do desperate things. Stupid things.” Lyle smiled. “But if I mark you, you’ll have to come back.”

Elise’s mind jumped to brands, tattoos, scars.

“Mark?” she repeated nervously. Her ears strained to hear something, anything, that told her she was going to be rescued.

Please let Noah get here soon
, she thought.

Not answering immediately, Lyle approached her slowly but surely. Although she tried to step back, his goon held her in place. So she couldn’t do anything but endure as he pushed her hair back and ran his fingers along the side of her neck. She shuddered at his touch. She couldn’t help but compare it to Noah’s, warm and affectionate and loving.

“Perfect,” he said, his expression sharklike. “Yes, I think a mark will look nice right… here.”

He opened his mouth to bite.

Chapter Six

Noah

Rows upon rows of corn provided a decent cover for approach. Noah didn't know whether the Wild Dogs had guns, but they wouldn’t be of much use if they couldn’t see what was coming. Altogether, the house was a stupid choice. But then, they didn’t have seven years of military operations experience and friends with some very specific skills. Noah wasn’t going to complain.

Shifter animals might be bigger and bulkier than the wild versions, but there was still plenty of room to send Will’s wolf down the east side of the property next door. The corn, by now almost four feet high, reached almost to the fence and gave Will plenty of opportunity to sniff out their opponents’ defenses.

And it was a windy night, so the corn rippled occasionally and provided extra disguise. They’d chosen the direction of approach that let them be downwind, so that they could smell the hyenas but not the reverse.

“Six bodies, not counting Elise,” Will reported in a low voice when he returned and transformed back into his human self.

Noah frowned. That was fewer than he’d expected.

Will must have been thinking the same thing. “I didn’t smell the boy, either,” he added. “Not fresh, anyway. There were residues. They must have him elsewhere.”

“We thought this might be a possibility,” Noah said. “Now that you have their scents, do you think you can chase down where they came from?”

Will nodded. “The rain was lucky. Everything’s clean and fresh now.”

He looked to his sister in an unspoken communication that Noah didn’t quite understand.

“We’ll find the boy.” Though she was quiet, Cam spoke with authority. She might not have a very intimidating animal, but she was plenty tough enough by herself. He’d seen at least two knives on her and a very small gun tucked into one boot, and those were just the weapons he knew about.

They disappeared silently into the night. A moment passed before Oliver whispered, “Do those two give you the creeps too?”

Tyler chuckled, while Noah and Gabe, who among the group knew the most about the Grayson twins and their past, just rolled their eyes.

Noah turned his attention back to the little house. Four on four. He’d bet any of their shifters could take on a hyena alone, no question about it. But big predators were generally harder to make stealthy. The approach was going to be the problem.

Cats would have an easier time than dragons and bears approaching the guards unnoticed.

“Tyler, Oliver—” he began.

“We’ll take down the outside guards.” They both shifted silently and stalked along the edge of the field. Oliver’s black panther was almost invisible in the dark.

“Do it quick,” Noah whispered urgently. “We don’t want to alert the inside.”

Their heads bobbed in unison, and then they were off. Noah’s eyes scanned the horizon restlessly. Their footfalls were so soft and they disturbed the corn so little that he lost track of their locations after a few moments.

“Takes me back to the good old days,” Gabe said with a touch of fondness.

Noah shook his head, smiling reluctantly. “You can keep them.”

He’d be Army until he died. But he’d never quite gotten the same thing out of the military as Gabe, that sense of meaning and purpose and structure, not just for the job but for one’s life. Noah thought it might have something to do with how the dragon was estranged from his clan.

Chloroform would have made things easier, knocking the bikers out before they could shift, but they were roughing it on a limited deadline. In the distance, Noah spotted Oliver’s panther delivering a graceful backhand to the head of the biker guarding the back door, knocking him sideways and out cold.

A few moments later, Tyler’s tiger emerged from the front of the house, dragging a clearly unconscious biker by the collar of his vest with his teeth. Within a minute they’d bound the two together and gagged them. They waved, and Noah and Gabe jogged down to the house as humans.

“That leaves two more inside,” Noah murmured, taking care to avoid being glimpsed through the windows. “Split into two pairs. And be careful. Elise is in there.”

Tyler grinned. “And you lo-o-o-o-ve her,” he sang under his breath.

“Fuck off,” said Noah pleasantly, even though it was true.

Gabe and Noah took the front, while Oliver and Tyler went in the back. The idiots hadn’t locked anything. From the side, Noah gently turned the handle and let the door swing in. He gestured to Gabe, and together they went inside.

“You’re not supposed to—” One of the bikers was clearly disgruntled, and didn’t notice at first that they weren’t one of his comrades. When he finally did, his eyes widened. “Who the fuck are you?”

Not too bright, then. Noah almost laughed.

Noah and Gabe moved together in perfect harmony. The bikers might be shifters, and bulky, but they didn’t have combat training. In seconds, Gabe had his arm around the biker’s throat, choking the air out of him, and Noah had shifted into his bear form.

The moonlight coming in through the window highlighted the golden fur flowing down the biker’s arms. He was trying to transform.

Noah held up an enormous paw and gently rested the wicked claws against the man-hyena’s belly. The message was clear:
Shift and you’re dead
. Gradually, the animal look went out of the man’s eyes, along with his consciousness. Gabe let his body slump gently to the ground.

At the back of the house, Oliver and Tyler weren’t quite so unobtrusive.

It wasn’t a large house. There was a thump and a muffled growl—then the sound of something smashing and a shout.

“Shit,” muttered Gabe with feeling.

A door opened behind Noah.

“We’ve got trouble!” another biker shouted over his shoulder upon spotting them.

Whoever they’re answering to must be behind that door
, thought Noah.

Gabe must have realized the same thing. “I got this.”

Gabe began to transform. His shifted form took up most of the living room, even emptied of furniture; his spiked tail curved overhead. Noah edged along the side of the room, out of the immediate danger zone.

The dragon snarled at the bikers, who stepped back automatically. The braver or stupider of the two, depending on your point of view, took aim at the dark, hulking form and pulled the trigger.

Dragon scales could repel damn near anything, and they didn’t fail now. As the bullet ricocheted off Gabe’s hide, Noah found himself glad he was semi-protected by the protruding fireplace.

The guns dropped and the bikers shifted, apparently deciding they had a better chance that way. Noah could have laughed. The dragon’s tail whipped through the air—and sent the two hyenas flying against the opposite wall.

That left an opening for Noah. He sprinted to the door they’d been guarding—the one that Elise was behind.

Behind him the hyenas snarled. But Gabe could take care of them.

The door slammed open and Noah ran in.

There was Elise. His heart almost stopped from relief.

Until he saw the mark on her neck.

He recognized what it was immediately. It was no mere scratch or injury. It was the mating mark of a shifter.

Noah’s bear almost took over right there. That was
his
mate and that should have been
his
mark on her. He couldn’t see straight through his anger.

Losing control completely could mean putting Elise in danger. He stopped himself before he completed the shift, but didn’t bother to repress the growl that rose in his throat.

The biker boss grinned at him with a row of razor-sharp hyena teeth. “Well, who’s this?”

“Get away from her.” Noah’s fists were clenched so hard he was surprised he wasn’t bleeding.

The biker glanced at Elise as if just remembering she was there. “Is that what you’re here for? You’re a little late, buddy.”

Noah willed himself not to look at the mark on Elise’s neck and kept his attention on the biker. “I said, get away from her.”

The biker turned to Elise. “Have you been cheating on me already? For shame.”

With a look of anger and disgust, Elise tried to jerk her arm out of his grip, to no avail. The sight stirred Noah’s bear again.

“I am not your—
mate
—whatever,” she spat, her disgust clear.

“Oh, but you are,” the biker said with relish. “There’s no escaping me now, sweetheart.”

“No, she’s not,” said Noah with quiet authority. “Because she’s mine.”

They both turned to look at him with shock.

The biker let out an answering growl at this that sounded almost like a whine. “What did you just say?”

“I said she isn’t your mate. She’s mine.”

The words were calculated to offend. Shifters could be volatile after taking or giving the mating mark—and judging by the hyena shifter’s reaction, this one was. The mark prevented him from directly injuring Elise; Noah wanted all of the biker’s attention and ire directed at himself.

It worked. The biker dropped Elise’s arm and strode toward him. It was only a few steps across the room to where Noah stood. In seconds, the biker grabbed his collar and pulled a fist back, ready to punch. Noah stood his ground.

“Say that again,” he warned.

Noah grinned. “I said,
she’s my mate
.”

He didn’t bother waiting for the biker to respond. He used his height to his advantage and landed an elbow to his neck.

The biker staggered and Noah grabbed his arm, twisting it around his back so that the other man shouted in pain.

“Your brother!” the biker cried, his voice going higher in desperation. “If you don’t help me, you stupid bitch, I’ll—”

Elise froze, her eyes wide. “He has Cecil somewhere else,” she said to Noah, her voice wobbly. “He showed me where they were keeping him on a tablet!”

“Where is it?” asked Noah. The biker made a protesting sound and Noah twisted his arm harder.

Biting her lip, she rushed over to a corner of the room and picked it up. At whatever she saw on the screen, she frowned.

“I don’t see Cecil anymore. But Cameron’s there. She just gave me a thumbs-up,” Elise reported, looking bewildered.

Noah chuckled. “She and Will went after your brother. He’s safe.”

“Oh, thank God. I was so worried.” Her shoulders sagged.

The biker made a protesting sound, and Noah twisted his arm harder.

“How about we get out of here?” Noah offered.

* * *

“You can see why we wouldn’t call the regular police,” Noah said into the phone.

On the other end of the line, Eric snorted. “But you didn’t call us earlier?”

“You were too far away, and we were on a deadline.”

“You have a habit of getting yourself into all kinds of trouble, Hawley. We were cleaning up the last case you brought us for months afterward. How are they, anyway? Will and Cameron?” His voice rose on the second name, and Noah repressed a smile.

“They’re good. Cameron actually talks now.” From across the yard, Cam shot him a glare. Noah only waved back with a smile.

“That’s an improvement. Don’t tell her I said that,” Eric said. “We’ll get there as fast as we can, but it’ll be a few hours at least.”

“That’s fine. I know you’re spread thin.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you joined us,” suggested Eric slyly. “We could always use another bear shifter.”

It was a long-running argument. Noah chuckled. “I like my shop. I like my job. I like my people. Sorry, Eric.”

The ranger was unperturbed by yet another rejection. “Well, Silas will fly on ahead, seeing as how he has wings and all. He should get there soon. He's in Lubbock right now.”

“My people will stick around to help with the hyenas. But I’m going to take the humans home, if that’s okay.”

“The hostages?” asked Eric. “They’ll have to give their statements.”

“In the morning,” Noah insisted. “They’ve been through a lot tonight.”

“All right. Just make sure they don’t go anywhere.”

Noah glanced at Elise fingering the wound on her neck.

I sure hope not
, he thought.

Aloud, he said, “No problem.”

After he hung up, Noah approached Elise cautiously where she was sitting on the edge of the porch.

“How are you?” he asked, sitting down next to her.

She gave him a tired smile. The adrenaline had clearly given way to shock. “I’m okay.” Her fingers played with the hem of her shirt, twisting it around. He thought she might not even realize she was doing it.

His eyes strayed toward the bite mark on his neck. Mating marks tended to be shallow and heal fast. No one wanted to grievously injure their mate, and it was thought that the bites secreted something to help. Lyle’s was no exception. The skin had almost knit itself back together in a tender red line.