Alpha Bear (21 page)

Cameron had poofed in at the town hall this
time, along with his three companions. Brody had drawn his weapon
on them when they just suddenly appeared, but recognizing Steve
Redstone, he put up the muzzle almost immediately, swearing
roundly. The guys were still having a good laugh about his reaction
when John and Ursula walked into the town hall about ten minutes
later.

John greeted them all, letting Steve Redstone
do the formal introductions to the two new shifters. Brody had
called Zak in, as well as the rest of their core group. The Spec
Ops bears had always worked and traveled as a group, while guys
like Seth went from team to team and place to place around the
world until he’d gone out on his own, gathering a group of
likeminded misfits around himself.

With the arrival of Steve and the other
shifters, who seemed to know a lot more about Cam than John did,
his bear instincts began to settle. Although he would wait and see
how Cam behaved, the acceptance and recommendation of the other
shifters went a long way toward making John feel better.

John ushered them all into the war room
they’d set up at town hall, Ursula with them as the notable sole
female. She didn’t seem to mind, but John realized other women—bear
women—wouldn’t be so accepting of the lopsided way the military
created its Spec Ops teams. John didn’t have anything against women
in combat. Bear females could be even more lethal and destructive
than many males. But the human military didn’t usually allow women
in combat roles—especially not in Special Forces.

That was one of the reasons John had
concocted this retirement strategy. In a village setting, he’d
hoped to even out the numbers of males and females, with the aim of
helping some of his guys find mates. A lot of them had been
soldiering for way too long. Some of them had horrific experiences
in their pasts that would probably only begin to be healed by the
intervention of an understanding, loving female touch.

“Tonight’s festivities will happen at
sunset,” Cam stated, drawing everyone’s attention as they sat
around the big conference table in the war room. “The third and
final ceremony of the sun will be the culmination of the good work
Lady Ursula has done so far. With our help, she may be able to
direct the energies of her last two spells into a new protective
barrier that will prevent anything like what happened yesterday to
bring me here, from happening again.”

“What exactly did you hear, Ursula?” John
asked her softly, knowing they all needed to know as much as she
could tell them so they could be on the lookout and not fall victim
to what had almost happened to her.

“It was a song. Like I imagine a siren’s song
might sound, but wordless. More like an indistinct whispering. If
the whispers were some kind of communication, they weren’t in any
language I’ve ever heard before. They might have been in some
language from another realm.”

“That is more likely than not,” Cam
confirmed, frowning. “Such language is not fit for mortal ears. Be
glad you could not hear it clearly. Such a thing could confound you
permanently, leaving you trapped in your own mind. Mad.” He looked
around the table, catching every eye. “My advice to you, should any
of you suspect you are hearing the voice of the leviathan, hold
your ears and do everything in your power not to listen, if
possible.”

“The pull was like nothing I’ve ever felt
before. I started out following it, trying to figure out what it
was, and suddenly, I found myself halfway around the cove, in the
woods. It led me out of sight of everyone else, into the woods and
around to where my ward no longer held the creature at bay. If the
bond hadn’t been broken by John’s shifting in its path, I shudder
to think what would have happened.” Ursula shivered in her
seat.

“‘Tis to your credit you were able to wake
yourself from the leviathan’s song before you were out of the
woods,” Cam commented.

“It felt like something was wrong, but at
first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Eventually, I woke up and
I stopped walking, doing everything I could to resist, but I was
frozen. I couldn’t move until John found me and shifted, breaking
the spell,” she admitted, smiling softly at John, like he was some
kind of hero or something.

John felt that smile all the way down to his
bones. That his mate would look at him like that was…well…it was an
amazing feeling. It was something he wanted to see for the rest of
his life. He wanted to be worthy of that kind of look from her all
the time. He would do everything in his power to be her real life
hero from now until eternity.

Cam cleared his throat, gently bringing John
back to the conference room and the meeting that was in progress.
Only Ursula had that effect on him. Only his mate could distract
him from a room full of shifters holding a war plan session.

John shook his head, amused at himself. He
couldn’t get upset about it. Finding his mate was a momentous
thing. It might be a little inconvenient to be so distracted during
a crisis like this, but he couldn’t feel bad about it. He’d found
his mate! He’d cut himself a little slack on everything else—as
long as he was still able to keep everyone safe.

They kept making plans and accounting for all
sorts of contingencies that might never come to pass. Joe Nightwing
was going to do aerial recon, as John had expected. He would be
reporting to Brody, who was going to coordinate the ground troops
while John was once again in the center of the circle with
Ursula.

The Jackal was surprisingly easy to work
with. He was smooth-tongued and had a wickedly sharp wit and eye
for strategy that John came to quickly respect. He, too, would be
reporting to Brody, but he was going to be paired with Zak, running
recon. Having the two newcomers on recon would free up John’s men
for defense.

“I’d like to split up our forces into two
groups. Alpha team will be led by Brody. Red, if you’re up for it,
I’d like you to lead Beta.” John nodded toward Steve Redstone,
using the nickname he’d gone by in the military.

“It’d be an honor,” Red answered right away,
as John had known he would.

Red might be a cat, but he was a born leader
of men. He didn’t do well in the background. He had to be one of
the guys leading the charge. It was where his true talent lay, and
John was happy to exploit the strengths of every single one of the
men under his command.

Not that they were still in the military, but
this was sure starting to feel like one of their old ops. They
hadn’t gone up against magic often, but occasionally, there were
unseen forces their unit had to deal with when regular human troops
were getting their asses handed to them. Most of the brass never
knew why John’s team was so damn good at the impossible missions.
They just knew he got results.

There was one officer though…a Navy
admiral…who knew the score. He was in the command structure, and he
knew exactly who to call when magic came into play. He was the one
John had called when the leviathan had first appeared, but though
he was willing to send his best people, they were otherwise engaged
in real world activities at the moment and wouldn’t be free to come
out to Grizzly Cove anytime soon. Those were the guys they needed.
John could feel it in his bones.

Until those guys were available, the
residents of Grizzly Cove simply had to do what they could to
protect themselves from the creature. Ursula was putting herself
and her magic on the line to do just that, and he couldn’t be more
proud of her. She was one hell of a woman.

“Now…” Cam said, breaking into John’s
thoughts. “I believe you have a sample of one of the smaller
creatures on ice somewhere. Is it possible we could take a wee
look? See what we’re up against?”

“Sure.” John signaled to Brody, who was
closest to the door. Brody got up and left the room. “We sent about
half of it up to the Lords after Zak here managed to rip one of the
tentacles off the smaller creature that had attacked his mate, but
nobody in Montana had ever seen anything like it, and the High
Priestess is away at the moment. We’re hoping to get more
information once she has a chance to look at it.”

At that point, Brody returned, carrying a
heavy duty trash bag in his hands. He placed it on the table in
front of Cam, pulling it open to show what was inside.

Cam scrambled from his chair, standing up in
what appeared to be alarm. John watched, seeing the fey’s face
pale.

“Uh, Brody, you want to move that a little
farther away from him?” John said into the stunned silence. Nobody
had expected the cool, collected fey to nearly jump out of his skin
like that.

“Sorry,” Brody mumbled, taking the bag back
and moving it down the table a good five feet. Cam watched it with
an intense expression.

“Dear Mother in heaven,” the fey muttered as
the tentacle fragment moved farther away. “I never thought to see
such things in this realm again.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, looking into the
trash bag that was now closer to him.

“I thought…” He trailed off and started over.
“I’d hoped you were exaggerating. Or just plain wrong, but this…
This is definitely from one of the leviathan’s minions. Something
from another realm. An evil thing from a place of evil. A creature
of chaos and hunger that never ends.” Cam was staring at the bag,
his face still pale. “Such things should not be here in the mortal
realm. This is very bad indeed. It means the Destroyer’s followers
are even stronger than we suspected. Otherwise, they could not have
summoned such a demon.”

“Any tips on how to send it back where it
came from?” John asked. “The
strega
seem to think it cannot
be killed, only banished.”

“Oh, aye. That’s the way of it. Its power is
connected to its own realm and, as such, cannot be severed from
here. It needs to be sent elsewhere, but it is not a job for just
anyone. That would require a very special skill set and balls the
size of Kentucky.”

John couldn’t help but laugh at the
unexpected comment, and finally, the tension broke. Cam seemed to
calm, and a bit of his normal color returned, though he remained on
his feet until John gave Brody the nod, and he took the bag back to
the empty fridge, where it had been stored.

“Trisha should probably take a look at this,”
Steve offered. “My mate is Admiral Morrow’s daughter. She has
powers over water, like her brothers.” Then Steve frowned. “But I
don’t want her in danger.”

“I called Admiral Morrow when this all
started,” John told him, nodding. “The Admiral promised to send one
of his sons here as soon as they were done with their current
assignment, but they’re out of communication for a while yet. Deep
undercover.”

“Probably deep underwater,” Steve commented
with a chuckle.

“That was the impression I got,” John agreed.
“They’re coming, but I don’t know when.”

“Well, then, if you’ve got a Navy SEAL water
sprite on the way, we’ll just leave the creature to him,” Cam
declared. “Either one of them has the skill set I was talking
about, no doubt. If anyone can rid this world of the leviathan once
again, it will be one—or maybe both—of Trisha’s brothers. I’ve met
the lady, and her power is formidable.” Cam nodded respectfully to
Steve.

“We just have to do what we can until then,”
John put in.

“Aye,” Cam agreed with him, nodding again.
“And the lassie’s wards will go a long way toward safeguarding this
cove for generations to come. What we’re doing here right now is
not trivial. In fact, it is vital if you wish to keep this town
going. Concentrating this much magical power in one place will
require ongoing protection.”

“I guess I didn’t really think of that when I
came up with this idea.” John felt a little sheepish for having
overlooked such a big thing.

He knew intimately how magical bears were. He
should’ve thought about how grouping them together in one spot
might attract the wrong sort of attention. But in his defense, the
plans for the town had been in place for a very long time—years
longer than anyone even thought there might be a threat from
something like the
Venifucus.

“Don’t feel bad, Alpha,” Cam absolved him.
“Under normal circumstances, you and your people probably could
have handled whatever came your way. None of you could have
foreseen some damn fool would be mad enough to release the
leviathan.”

When lunch was brought in for the guys, Urse
decided to leave. John insisted on walking her back to the
bookstore, where she could rest up for the evening’s work. He
dropped her off at the door, insisting she enter before he would
leave and making Amelia promise to keep her sister there and call
him if Urse stepped even one toe outside the store.

The kiss he gave her before leaving set her
toes on fire and left her feeling a little bit giddy, but any
promise of passion fulfilled it made would have to wait until
later.

Surprisingly, Mellie didn’t give her any guff
about her new relationship with John. Mellie just gave her a big
hug and told her she’d already made lunch. Urse had to smile. Nonna
had taught them well. The best comfort an Italian woman could offer
her family was to feed them.

Mellie had gone all out on lunch. She’d
prepared all of Urse’s favorite dishes, knowing she wouldn’t be
able to eat again until after the sunset ceremony.

“Thanks, Mel.” Urse almost sniffled when she
saw the awesome lunch Mellie had prepared, but settled for hugging
her sister again, briefly.

After she ate, Urse prepared the few things
she’d need for the evening, repacked her overnight bag in case she
ended up at John’s again, and then did a little tidying up around
the apartment before she settled in for a nap. She needed to be
rested before she attempted to lay another ward in the presence—and
defiance—of the leviathan. She hadn’t really told anyone how
drained she felt after each session, but the effect was becoming
greater. She just had to get through tonight and then the big full
moon ceremony tomorrow…