Bear Meets Girl (14 page)

“Well, well, look what we have
here?”

Angela’s blood froze at the
sound of Garrison’s voice. She tried to turn her head in the direction of his
footsteps, but she couldn’t manage to move so she didn’t see him until he was
almost atop her. Tears smarted in her eyes as she looked up at him – in
some ways he looked so much the same, with his sandy brown hair and his
cornflower blue eyes and his long, lean, almost gangly form. But those eyes,
once filled with kindness, were icy cold, and that long, lean body of his had
filled out a bit more and was dressed all in black, with a long leather duster
flowing around him. Flanking him were two huge shifter men, also dressed in
black and their heads shaven. They had flat faces with blocky features and
merciless eyes that coated Angela’s heart in a layer of ice.

“My dear sister,” he said, crouching
down beside Angela as his lips curved into a smile – a smile that didn’t
quite reach his eyes. “I’m so glad you’ve come. You’ve made it just in time for
the festivities.” He reached out to touch her face. “It’s just too bad you had
to be so reckless as to touch the bars. You really should have known better.”

“Get away from her!” Cole
shouted, rushing forward, but one of the shifters who’d accompanied Garrison
had kicked the door shut with one of his boots.
Rubber soled boots
,
Angela noted with some resentment. Why didn’t she just try
kicking
the
door first?

Yeah, like that would have
worked.

“I think you’ll find it
significantly harder to get out than it was to get in,” Garrison said
conversationally. He rose to his feet and slid his hands to his pockets as he
strolled over to the cell. “I forced the last mage I captured to place a
special seal around several of my cells that would prevent mages from being
able to use their powers to get out.”

“You bastard,” Cole said
hoarsely, his eyes wild as he stared at Garrison through the bars.

Garrison’s face purpled. “I.
Am. NOT! A bastard,” he insisted, baring his fangs at Cole. “My parents were
well and truly mated when they had me. It’s through no fault of theirs that
they weren’t around to raise me.” True pain flickered in his eyes, and it was
that pain that soothed the edges of Angela’s anger and reminded her that,
whatever Garrison had done, he was hurting and needed to be helped. “Now if
you’ll excuse me, I have more important matters to see to.”

He snapped his fingers, and
his two bodyguards lifted Angela between them, carrying her as though she was
on a stretcher – which was no mean feat since her body was still
fluctuating. She struggled against him, but she couldn’t break out of the trap
she was in, and all she could do was listen helplessly to Cole shouting for her
as she was pulled from the room.

Chapter Thirteen

            When
Angela opened her eyes next, she was sitting in a high-backed brown leather
swivel chair in a crescent shaped room that resembled something like a command
center. In the center of the room were two rows of desks facing each other that
were fully equipped with computers, several of which were manned. A large
screen ran across the length of the far wall, with a map of San Francisco
spread across it, and several areas were marked with bright red beacons –
the precincts
, Angela realized with dread.

            “Ah,
so you’re awake.”

            Angela
swiveled in her chair to see Garrison standing off to the right, a steaming cup
of coffee in his hand. His two bodyguards from before flanked him, as imposing
as could be, and lending him an air of ‘evil mastermind’ that just seemed so
wrong
on the kind, gentle boy she’d grown up with.

            “I
am,” she agreed, and then looked down at her wrists and ankles, both of which were
bound by spelled cuffs. “Though not under circumstances that I’d be agreeable
with.”

            “Yes,
well I’m sure you’d rather be waking up next to that behemoth of a hybrid who
you barged in here with.” Garrison’s brows drew together slightly. “I thought
you had better taste, Angela.”

            “I
thought you had better morals.”

            “My
sense of justice is untarnished,” he hissed, taking a step forward. “What I do,
I do for the good of all shifters.”

            “What
you do is about to get thousands of innocent people killed.”

            “I
don’t expect you to understand,” Garrison said, waving a hand. “At least not
right now. That’s why I brought you here, you know. So that you could witness
the glory of my first victory for yourself, and understand what it is that
drives me.”

            “Is
that why you kidnapped Raina?” Angela demanded. “Because you knew that I would
come, and you wanted me to witness your madness?”

            Garrison
chuckled. “You always were so very smart,” he told her. “The fact that Raina is
the Commander’s daughter certainly was part of it though, and I was hoping that
the Commander might turn himself in to me. But that wasn’t going to put a stop
to my plans to annihilate the precincts.” He turned toward the map displayed on
the wall. “Getting rid of the Order is a necessary step to riding this world of
the filth, and suppression spread around by the mages.”

            Angela
opened her mouth to tell Garrison that he was crazy, but she knew it wasn’t
going to do any good, so she tried a different tack instead. “Mom misses you,
you know.”

            Garrison
paused. “Does she now?” he asked carefully.

            “She
cried on my shoulder today and asked me to bring you home.” Angela allowed the
tears to shine through her own eyes as she looked up at her brother. “Dad said
the same thing. We all miss you, Garrison. We miss having you around, and we’re
tired of the constant worry and fear we go through every time we wonder where
you are, and what you’re up to and whether or not you’re going to wind up dead
someday.”

            “Is
that so?” Garrison said softly.

            “It
is so,” Angela said defiantly, not at all liking the way Garrison was looking
at her, as though she were a bug and he was about to crush her ruthlessly.

            “If
that’s so true,” Garrison said, “then why is it that mom and dad have never
once tried to visit me?”

            “I
– ”

            “Why
is it that they’ve never once come to check up on me and see how I’m doing,
especially since they clearly know how to find me?”

            “Garrison,
that’s not – ”

            “Fair?”
he said bitterly, his eyes bright, his cheeks high with color. “No, it’s not
fair. It’s not fair that while I’m out here putting my life on the line, doing
all this good work, that my foster parents who claim to love and miss me so
much, can’t do so much as drop me a line. Because they’re
scared
of what
I’m doing. They can’t
condone
it. They’re too afraid to do anything
except sit there on their hilltop home with their tails between their legs
instead of taking this world back from the mages.”

            “You
know, it’s funny that you say you hate the mages so much,” Angela said through
gritted teeth, “Since you clearly have no problem using spelled items, or
hiring one to put down protective spells on pieces of your property.

            Garrison
simply shrugged. “What can I say? Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire.”
He turned toward the map and snapped his fingers. “Let’s get scene one on
screen.”

            The
screen briefly flickered, and then a live feed of the southern precinct began
to play. Angela swallowed her horror as she saw people she knew walking in and
out of the building, going about their everyday business. Quite a few of them
were Protectors, of course, but many were civilians, and they were going to get
caught in the crossfire.

            “You
can’t do this,” she told Garrison, lifting both her hands to point at the
screen. “That woman going into the building, she’s a shifter. You’ll kill her.”

            “Yes,
well, I can’t help it that she’s chosen to ally herself with the Order, can I?”
Garrison’s face was stone cold as he stared at the screen. “She made her
choice, and now it’s time for her to face the consequences. Give the go ahead,”
he barked to one of the shifters sitting at a console.

            “All
clear,” the man said, speaking into a headset, and Angela watched in horror as
a loud explosion blew out all the windows of the precinct, setting the entire
building aflame.

* * *

“I don’t know why you’re
wasting your energy trying to get these off me,” Raina muttered. “We should be
saving our strength until an opportunity to escape presents itself.”

“By the time that happens, the
entire Order in San Francisco could be annihilated.” Cole could hardly believe
he was lecturing an actual Protector, never mind a mage, about this, but then
again she had been trapped down here for awhile. “We don’t have time to wait.”

He closed his eyes and
concentrated, moving his magic through the metal as he searched for the weak
point. Finally he found it, and the shackles popped open with a satisfying
clack
,
allowing Raina to slump down to the floor for the first time.

“God,” she gasped. “That feels
so much better.” She just lay there for a few moments, soaking up the feeling
of not having her joints constantly struggling under the pressure of her body
weight.

“No time for that,” Cole said,
nudging her with his foot. “We’ve got to get out of this cell.”

“And how exactly do we do
that?” Raina asked, struggling to her aching feet. “I’ve tried prodding at the
bars, and their impossible to break through with the spell on them.”

“Yes, well you’re approaching
the problem all wrong,” Cole said briskly. “It’s not about attacking the cell,
it’s about attacking the spell itself that’s sealing us in.” He clasped hands
with her. “My magic is just different enough that I should be able to do it,
but I’ll need a boost from you to make it happen.”

Raina looked up into his eyes.
She could see that he was both determined and sincere. A thousand questions
blazed on the tip of her tongue, but there was only one that really mattered
right now. “You’re sure this is going to work?”

“It had better, or else we’re
fucked.”

“Good point.”

Raina sucked in a breath and
closed her eyes so she could concentrate. Letting out her breath slowly, she
flowed her magical energy into him and allowed him to start pulling on it,
binding it with his own into the spell that he was chanting. She could feel the
power building in the air all around them, concentrating into one small,
brightly lit ball that pulsed, faster and faster and faster, until it exploded
like a supernova, ricocheting in all directions. Some of it passed through
Raina, leaving her jittery and breathless, but the rest of it went straight
through the containment spell, and she could feel it shatter like glass.

When she opened her eyes
again, Cole was already working at the lock. He turned to look at her
dumbfounded expression, his own grim as the door swung open behind him. “Let’s
get moving.”

* * *

Cole ran faster than he’d ever run in his life, throwing all
caution and stealth to the wind, as he hurtled through the corridors with Raina
hot on his heels. Every single shifter they came across was simply blasted
away, either by Cole or Raina, with a combination of magic and brute force
bleeding, with aggression and anxiety. Heart-pumping fear raced through Cole’s
veins, fear for San Francisco, fear for the success of the mission – but
really, most of all, fear for Angela.

            When
he’d watched them drag her away earlier, without knowing if he would ever see
her again, he’d realized that he was completely, irrevocably in love with her.
And that, more than ever, it was paramount he get to tell her that before it
was too late.

            “No,”
he heard Angela sobbing as he approached a set of double doors. “No, Garrison,
you can’t! Please, I’ll do anything!”

            A
red haze burst over Cole’s vision as he barreled through the doors. Every
person in the room turned to look at them, all wearing varying degrees of shock
on their faces, especially Garrison, who didn’t look at all happy to see him.
Up on the screen spread across the wall was a live feed of Angela’s precinct,
and a cold certainty settled upon him as he realized what Garrison was up to.

            “It’s
too late for you to stop me now!” Garrison yelled wildly, pointing at one of
the shifters at the desks. “Give the order you idiot! Give it now!”

            Before
the man could say anything, Cole pointed a finger at the rows of desks with
their computer consoles and shot a stream of fire in that direction. Instantly
every computer went up in smoke, and the shifters at the desk threw themselves
back from their chairs, putting as much distance from the fire as possible. The
one who was supposed to give the go-ahead caught the worst of the flames and
dropped to the ground, screaming and rolling frantically across the carpet to
put it out.

            “You
bastard!” Garrison shrieked, his face mottled with fury. His eyes glowed
orange, and he began to shift. “I won’t let you get away with this!”

            Cole
considered throwing a ball of fire at him. He really did. But he felt Angela’s
eyes on him from behind, and he knew he couldn’t do that to another family
member of hers, not right in front of her. So he did what any self-respecting
guy would do, and punched Garrison in the face before he’d finished shifting.

            The
guy went straight down to the ground, without a single sound.

            “Anyone
else?” Cole hissed, conjuring another ball of flame.

            Everyone
else in the place scattered, even the two shaven goons, though they hesitated
for a moment before looking down at their fallen Chieftain, and deciding to
follow suit.

            “Well
that was rather disappointing,” Raina remarked. Cole turned around to see her
undoing Angela’s restraints. His heart lightened as he saw the pure joy burst
across Angela’s face as she embraced her friend.

            “Oh
God, thank God you’re safe,” Angela said, rocking her friend back and forth as
she hugged her tight.

            “It’s
all thanks to you, you know,” Raina said with a smile. “You, and the hunky guy
standing behind me. He yours?”

            “I’m
not sure,” Angela said slowly, disengaging herself from her friend. She moved
cautiously toward Cole, a question in her eyes. “Though I have to say we all
owe a huge debt to him. If not for him, we would have lost all the precincts
today, and not just one.”

            Cole
winced. “He blew up one of them?”

            Angela
nodded, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “All those innocent people…” she
whispered.

            “Hey,
hey.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “At least we
saved the others, right? And your partner, right? And we’re all still alive,
right?” He kissed her at the end of each question.

            “Yeah,
I guess that’s true,” she said, giving him a watery smile.

            “Good.”
And then he kissed her again, and he kept kissing her until he forgot where he
was, even who he was, until he forgot everything, except the woman in his arms
who made him feel more alive and loved and wanted than anyone in his life.

            “I
love you,” he finally whispered against her lips, when he could go no farther
without stripping her clothes off and taking her on the floor – something
he couldn’t do, given the circumstances.

            “I
love you too.” Her luscious lips curved into a grin. “Now let’s get out of
here.”