Bears' Claim [PUP Squad Alpha 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (9 page)

“Actually,” West said, trying not to give too much away over the phone, “I might.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

* * * *

Eric wasn’t certain he was hearing all of the words correctly—West and Benjamin were speaking very softly—but the words “Hannah” and “bait” seemed to appear in the same sentence.

“Absolutely not!” he growled, trying hard to hold on to his temper. Hannah had only just stopped shaking from the last attack. There was no way he was allowing her to be used as some sort of bait to draw in her would-be killers.

West grimaced at Eric’s angry words, but it was Benjamin who moved to explain.

“We will make sure she’s protected. Eric, we have to bring an end to this. They’ll just keep sending more and more assassins until they get lucky. They haven’t found where we’re hiding Amber and Kristen yet, but it’s only a matter of time. If they try to hit all three safe houses at once, we won’t have the manpower to protect everyone. We need to bring this to an end, now.”

“But Hannah—” Eric started to say, but West cut him off.

“Hannah will be far safer than she is right now.”

“It’s okay, Eric,” Hannah said in her usual calm voice. “I want this over with. If dangling me out as bait will ensure the safety of the people around me, then I’m willing to do it. Anything has to be better than sitting here waiting to find out that somebody died protecting me.”

“Hannah,” Benjamin said, stepping closer to the woman Eric and West loved more than life itself, “this is what we do. None of my squad would ever regret dying in the line of duty.” He gave her a warm smile. “They’d be pissed that they failed and ruined their perfect service record, but they wouldn’t regret dying so that others may live. It’s what we do, Hannah.”

Hannah bit her lip, but she nodded her understanding. And Eric had no doubt she understood. He still had nightmares about the day she’d thrown herself in the middle of a domestic dispute in the children’s ward. A mother and father had literally been beating the crap out of each other, and Hannah, with her above-average height and slim curves, had stepped into the middle and broken them apart.

Eric had seen the footage on security cameras several hours later. It had taken all of his strength not to grab the woman, fling her over his shoulder, and lock her in his bedroom until she promised to never, ever do something so foolish again. Instead, he now found himself trying to cope with her willingness to be bait.

“How is it going to help?” he asked Benjamin. The vampire smiled, obviously aware of Eric’s struggle to stay calm. “They’ve proven already that they’ll just send more. Won’t they just keep coming?”

“Not,” Benjamin said with a wide grin, “if they think they succeeded.”

* * * *

Hannah tried to tamp down the sudden attack of nerves. She’d agreed to do this. She knew the plan inside out and upside down. She absolutely knew she was as well protected as the men and women around her could make it.

She glanced over at the leather-clad vampire pretending to do a lousy job of protecting her. Skye was such a sweet woman it was almost incomprehensible that she could enjoy this type of work. The fact that she was a vampire and needed to cover every inch of skin with thick leather, and her head and face with a type of helmet with a heavily shaded visor to be out this time of day just made her look more intimidating.

But at the moment she was carefully feigning disinterest in protecting her client, casually moving away as if she really didn’t expect trouble. Of course, they were both being protected by more PUP Squad Alpha and Deeks Security employees than Hannah had seen in one place before.

It had taken a long time to calm Eric down. He’d been adamant that she shouldn’t do this, but she couldn’t in all conscience not take the opportunity to end this. If the pixies believed her to be dead, it meant the men and women protecting her would be able to assist in protecting the others.

But right now her heart was beating so loudly she almost missed the telltale noise of the wards being breached. Everything seemed to happen at once. The pixie appeared almost in front of her, confirming that she’d wandered to the edge of the magical wards. Skye ran back to her side, gripping her hand to drag her away, just as they’d discussed. West and Eric came running from the house, West yelling at his cousin to go back inside, adding to the illusion of chaos.

But it was Jed’s magic that made the whole thing bizarre.

* * * *

Eric’s heart pounded so hard he wondered why his ribs didn’t break. It didn’t matter that they’d discussed this very scenario. Seeing the whole thing unfold in front of his eyes was like living a nightmare. West’s squad mate, Darian, hadn’t been available, so Benjamin had enlisted Jed’s help. The plan was very simple. Jed would glamour the pixie or pixies so that they would “see” Hannah die even though they would never actually get close enough to lay a hand on her.

The rest of them would pretend to see the same thing, “fail” to stop the pixies from escaping, and then hopefully the whole thing would be over and Hannah would be safe.

At least that was the plan.

But right from the get-go something was wrong. The pixie got way closer to his mate than any of them had anticipated. Hannah screamed, the sound blood curdling as the pixie managed to lay a hand on her arm.

Panic burst through him, his bear taking over as he ran to his mate. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Hannah wasn’t supposed to be hurt. Hannah was supposed to be protected, not on the front lines of a war she had no business being in the middle of.

A growl tore from his throat, West’s bear voice echoing the same agony as they raced toward their injured mate. She fell backward, her body stiff and unyielding as the stench of burning human flesh reached his nose.

He lunged at the pixie, his teeth snapping against thin air as she stepped into a slip path and beyond his reach. He and West both changed back to their human forms at the same time, West dropping to his knees as he frantically used his healing magic to assess her condition. Eric did the same, pressing his hands against her heart, trying to gauge how badly hurt his mate was.

Grief nearly drowned him as he found her heart not beating, her body stiff and lifeless, every internal organ shut down in an instant.

“No,” he said reflexively, his doctor’s professional training deserting him as he faced the reality of his loss. They had nothing to work with, no spark of hope, no hint of life. His mate was gone. Dead by a pixie’s hand, victim of an assassination for simply being born at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

Grief overwhelmed him, the pain in his chest stealing the breath from his lungs.

* * * *

Anger flooded through West. He wanted revenge. He wanted blood.

He’d known his mate for such a short moment in time, yet he couldn’t imagine a future without her. His hands shook as he touched her beloved face over and over, his mind refusing to give him the hope he needed. Hannah was gone, and somebody was going to pay.

But before he could do anything about it, Benjamin’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“We need to get her inside,” he said in a voice that made it clear it wasn’t a request. West nodded, following his CO’s orders reflexively, lifting the lifeless body of the woman he loved into his arms.

Hannah was having a hard time watching her men grieve for her. She stood to the side, Jed’s restraining hand on her shoulder, as West lifted what he saw as her lifeless body into his arms. It wasn’t her of course. But Jed had warned her this might happen. It was a necessary ruse for the pixie to believe she’d accomplished her mission.

But understanding the reason for it didn’t make it any easier to watch.

Jed kept his hand on her arm, his concentration intense as they followed Eric, West, Skye, and Benjamin into the house. As soon as the door closed, Jed dropped the illusion and let the others see what Hannah could.

At first West looked confused to realize he held nothing in his arms, but his mouth dropped open when he saw her standing next to Jed. Unable to let them believe her dead for a moment longer, she ran into his arms, kissing him frantically even as her hand groped behind her, searching for Eric’s solid presence.

And then he was there, his relief obvious in the shuddering breaths that rumbled against her back.

“What happened?” Eric asked as he ran his hands over and over her body, perhaps reassuring himself that she was truly there.

“I had to make it look real,” Jed said from behind them.

“Real?” West asked in a hostile voice. “You put us through all of that to make it look
real
?”

Hannah held on to West, her arms shaking as she worried he was about to slam Jed with his fists. What she didn’t expect was her gentle, giant pediatrician to flatten the man first.

Benjamin pulled Eric away, almost losing the battle as Jed laughed from his position on the ground. But then the old-looking man seemed to sober and climbed to his feet far more nimbly than his outward appearance suggested was possible. “Look,” he said with his hands palm outward in front of him, “I did what was necessary to save Hannah. The pixie thinks she’s dead. Any other attackers who were watching will confirm her story, especially when they witnessed your very genuine grief.”

“I’m sorry,” Hannah said as she moved into Eric’s arms. They clamped around her almost hard enough to cut off her oxygen. When Jed had explained what he intended to do, Hannah had understood the necessity of it, but she truly hoped she’d never have to put anyone through such an awful experience again.

“Jed’s unexpected tactics aside,” Benjamin said as he pulled his own wife into his arms, “the fact that only the people in this room know Hannah is actually alive is a good thing. We have no idea how the pixies found this safe house. If we do have a traitor in our midst, it would be wise to keep Hannah’s survival quiet.”

“We need the squad’s help to keep Hannah safe,” West said, clearly disturbed by the thought that only a handful of people were now available to protect her. West had made it very clear that he trusted all the members of PUP Squad Alpha with his life.

Benjamin shook his head, but held up his hand to stop whatever West was going to say. “We’ll bring Brody, Nathan, Alex, and Ronan in on the truth, but everyone else is to think Hannah is dead. Am I clear?” West nodded tightly, but it was obvious he wasn’t happy about it. Hannah didn’t miss the fact that the men Benjamin had listed were Ava’s and Kali’s mates.

Benjamin then turned his attention to Hannah. “I’d like you to consider moving to Sugarvale. We’ll need to keep your presence a secret for now, but it was where you were headed in the first place. I feel it would be beneficial for you to be close to Ava and Kali even if we can’t introduce you just yet.”

Benjamin grinned widely as his wife added with a wink, “I can guarantee you’ll like the neighbors.”

“This place is perfect,” Eric said as he held her hand and they wandered from room to room. Hannah smiled and nodded in agreement. Ronan’s builders had just finished renovating the place so everything that wasn’t new had been restored to gleaming perfection. She could almost hear the sounds of a happy family growing up here.

West glanced out the window to the back yard. “We’ll have to take that down,” he said with a nod at the haphazardly built tree house. “By the time they’re old enough to climb it, our kids will be too heavy. We’ll have to build something lower to the ground.”

Eric cleared his throat, subtly reminding West not to push it. They’d agreed to give Hannah time to make her decision, but truly she didn’t really need time. Between these men was where she was truly happy. She squeezed Eric’s hand and grabbed West’s with the other.

“I think that sounds like a great idea,” Hannah said, feeling certain about something for the first time in several weeks. “Growing old with you two sounds like an experience I really don’t want to miss.”

“So you’ll let us make you a bear-shifter and claim you as our mate?”

She’d spent days trying to tell herself why it would be a bad idea, and despite all of her valid arguments about not making choices in the middle of a stressful situation, only one thing came through loud and clear—it just felt right to be with them.

“Yes, I want to be a bear-shifter, and I want to be mate to both of you.”

West stepped closer to say something, but his cell phone chirped. He looked annoyed at the interruption, but ever the professional soldier, he answered it on the second ring.

“Brody, what’s up?” he asked in a rather happy voice. It was a little strange for the man to be calling on the cell phone when he was actually in the house, but West’s demeanor changed as Brody started talking. “You can’t be serious.” He glanced at Hannah and then frowned as Brody continued to talk. “That’s completely unfair. She hasn’t even met Kali or Ava yet. How can you even think that it’s true?” He rubbed his eyes tiredly, turned his back to the other two people in the room, and made a sound of resignation. “Fine. I’ll discuss it with Hannah, but if she tells you to go to hell…” He let his words trail off, but it was very obvious that he wasn’t happy. He slammed the phone closed and turned back to Hannah and Eric. “We have a problem,” he said as he urged Hannah to sit up on the countertop. Judging by Eric’s pale face, he’d heard both sides of the telephone conversation.