Jade Crew: Fallen Bear (A BBW Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance) (Ridgeback Bears Book 7) (11 page)

Victoria

She cursed herself for her stupidity.

“What were you thinking?” she asked angrily, her back leaning against the wooden doors as she slowly slid to the ground. “Oh you’re so smart, you must know better than everyone else,” she said, mocking herself.

The building upon which she was currently in was surrounded along the front by a long wooden porch. The double swinging doors against which she sat, having completed her descent, were locked solid. Even the red neon sign was turned off. There was nobody present.

“Which shouldn’t be a surprise to you, because it’s five a.m. in the fucking
morning
,” she said angrily. “Who opens a bar at that time?”

Angrily she slammed her first into the wooden board beneath her, feeling it shiver from the force. She dropped her head, folding one arm across her knees until she could rest on it, her eyes closed.

“If you don’t mind, I just had that rebuilt,” a voice said from in front of her. There was no malice in it, just a gentle reprimand.

She looked up, meeting the eyes of the man in front of her. They were a soft, pale blue, a very calming color. Victoria knew she would likely have felt that way if it weren’t for the sudden overwhelming feeling that this person, despite the middle-aged looks, was
old
. Not just elderly, but ancient beyond her reckoning.

“You must be Ferro,” she said softly. No one but a dragon could have eyes quite like those. The gentle blue orbs reflected the knowledge that they had seen far more than she would ever dream of. She’d never met a dragon before, but there could be no doubt about it.

“And you must be the female shifter that had everyone up in arms,” he returned.

She nodded her head slightly. “Guilty as charged.”

“What brings you to the Tongue & Flame?” he asked, gesturing at the building. She turned slightly, taking a moment to arrange her thoughts. While she did that, Ferro walked up the steps and unlocked the doors, pushing them open as he entered. They swung freely behind him. Realizing it had been an invitation to follow, she pushed through and into the bar. The windows were the only source of light, and at such an early hour the interior remained rather dim.

That changed abruptly as she saw Ferro hit several switches along the wall. Potlights flared to life, and above the bartop itself a long luminescent string of lights popped into existence.

“If you know who I am, you know why I’m here,” she said firmly, her voice reaching across the open room.

Ferro looked at her for a moment, then sighed. “I have told them before, I will not fight. I
cannot
fight.”

Victoria wasn’t going to be dissuaded that easily. “They need you. The
Valley
needs you Ferro,” she told him, stalking across the room to where he was standing behind the bar. “If Evan and the others don’t have your help, they’re all going to die. The Valley will die. There’s a rogue dragon up there, ready to kill every last one of them. How is it that you can just sit by and let this happen? Are you a coward?”

She bit her lip as the last sentence slipped out. She hadn’t meant to say it, but in the end she had, and in her mind it was a valid question.

Ferro had been busy wiping down the bar with a rag, but now he stopped abruptly, his head snapping up as his eyes impaled her. The gaze hit her with a literal force that had her backing up as far as she could. She stumbled against one of the tables in the middle of the room. The blue had become the cold color of ice, dispassionate and uncaring.

“The Valley will not die. It has not died in the millennia that I have walked this planet.” His voice was deep and haunting, threateningly powerful, filling the room even though it was the same level. “I have seen cities rise and fall. Empires come and go. And I will see it happen again, young bear shifter. More than you could ever imagine has happened in my time here. This Valley has been my home for a long time. It will still be here after Mirrnolax tries his games once more, and it will be here five hundred years after that.”

She swallowed hard, trying to summon the tattered shreds of her courage. As she began to gather them, Ferro spoke again, casting her spirit to the winds.

“Some fights are worth fighting. This one... perhaps you are right, perhaps it is. But even if that were so, I cannot.” His voice suddenly returned to normal, and the power fled as quickly as it had appeared, which was almost as frightening. “You see, he has my granddaughter.”

“This dragon, he kidnapped your granddaughter?”

“Essentially yes, that is an apt way of describing it,” Ferro replied.

Victoria thought furiously, trying to find a way to convince Ferro that he had to take action, despite the harm that might come of it. There had to be
something
that would make him come around. If he wouldn’t react to threats to the Valley, then she would have to convince him that Luthor/Mirrnolax would always be a threat to his family.

“If he wins, he won’t set her free,” she said. “Not if it means keeping you neutral in his plans. He’ll hold her hostage until he’s strong enough to do whatever he wants”

“There will always be someone stronger,” Ferro said, as if her concerns didn’t matter. “This is something I am prepared to live with.”

There it was! The opening she needed, though Victoria hadn’t recognized it until he said those exact words. She tried not to smile triumphantly as she played her card.

“But is your granddaughter prepared to deal with knowing about all the people you let die because of your inaction? Would she prefer that you acted, even if it meant her death, because it was the right thing to do? Or would she be ashamed that you stood by and did nothing simply to save her, while so many others died?”

Ferro hesitated.

It wasn’t much—barely a pause in his well-practiced movements as he finished unlocking the door. The ancient dragon straightened and turned to face her once more.

“I,” and to her shock, Ferro stopped mid-sentence as he thought about it. “I do not know,” he finished at last.

There was something about seeing a dragon shifter so uncertain that worried Victoria. Everything Ferro did, from his measured steps to the even way his hand cleaned the bar despite him never having to look down at his work, spoke of a confidence so strong that it beggared comparison. And yet, she had managed to make him unsure. She desperately hoped that was a good thing, and that Ferro didn’t decide to just kill her because she had embarrassed him.

She sighed in relief when he laid down the cloth and looked at her, instead of flying over the bar.

The silence between them grew, but still Victoria didn’t say anything. Ferro was clearly thinking deeply about her remarks, and she didn’t want to antagonize him while he made a decision she wasn’t sure she could make if put in his place.

“You know,” he said at last, “I think Karlie would probably side with you. She is still young, after all, and doesn’t truly understand how long she will live for. She cares so much for you short-lived species in a way that I’m not sure I will ever understand.” The great shifter sighed. “But I don’t think she would forgive me for sitting this out, even if it meant harm, or even death, to her.”

Ferro looked at her heavily. “We dragons value our offspring, you know. There are so few of us that each one is utterly precious. I was of the mind that I had to do everything in my power to keep her alive. But even if I kept her body breathing, the knowledge of what I had allowed to happen to do so would likely kill her on the
inside
, and that, that is what I value most,” he said heavily.

She grimaced, unsure of what to say. Her elation that Ferro would intervene—and perhaps be able to save the lives of her mate and his friends—was tempered by the fact that she may have just condemned a young dragon shifter to death.

She prayed that someone, somewhere, would forgive her for that one day.

“So you’ll fight?” she asked breathlessly.

“I will speak to Mirrnolax,” Ferro said, his voice hardening. “He
will
be made to see reason.”

Evan

“Shit,” he swore as Luthor/Mirrnolax exited the vehicle.

“This changes nothing,” Gabriel said, his voice strong and steady. “We all knew it was going to go this way. We stick with the plan.”

Evan wanted to say he felt as calm and brave as Gabriel did, but the sight of the dragon shifter was doing a serious job on his nerves.

They watched as Luthor gestured for his men to clear a space around him. Once the men had backed up to what seemed like a ridiculous distance, Luthor knelt to one knee. Everyone was watching now, Evan knew, entranced by what they were about to see.

Enemy or not, the appearance of a dragon shifter in their true form was something most shifters never witnessed in their lifetime. It would be the first—and likely last—time Evan witnessed such an event, and he was determined to make the most of it. His eyes were glued to the kneeling figure, watching as his long trenchcoat fell around his body.

The air began to shimmer in a sphere around Luthor. It was the size of his body at first, but then it began to expand, growing at a rapid rate, until it was at least a hundred feet across, if not more. Nothing happened for a moment, and Evan wondered if something had gone wrong.

“Oh,” he said in a very small voice as the figure within the sphere suddenly sprouted a massive tail, the core of the body doubling in size every second. Two huge bulges appeared at the shoulders, and in the blink of an eye massive leathery wings erupted from them, instinctively curling themselves around the form, obscuring the final changes to the figure. The shimmering sphere disappeared, allowing them their first real glimpse at what a dragon shifter looked like.

The first thing that caught Evan’s eye were the scales. They were huge, easily the size of a medieval shield, and they covered the dragon everywhere but his wings. Blacker than the darkest night, they still managed to glitter with a deadly, distracting beauty. The blackened charcoal wings swept back, revealing the pointed snout for the first time.

Though he had known better, Evan had still half-expected to see tendrils of smoke wafting up from within the dragon’s nose. No smoke appeared however, which drew his attention to the great yellow eyes, oval slits breaking the monotony of the scales. The orb nearest him narrowed as the dragon stirred at last, focusing his attention on the gryphons that stalked back and forth with agitation behind Evan.

Then it spoke.

“I will deal with those two,” Mirrnolax said, his voice rumbling across the distance like an avalanche, the noise almost a roar without having to try. “End the rest of them.”

The leader nodded and signaled to his men.

“Stand ready,” Gabriel said, and around him the shifters of Genesis Valley called forth for their animals.

Massive animals, bigger than any that naturally walked the earth ripped from within the human bodies, taking a fraction of a second to do what the dragon had needed almost a full dozen seconds to achieve.

Evan was one of the last, along with the other Alphas. They looked at each other, exchanging nods. Then he called to his bear and fell to all fours, his weight shaking the earth. Across from them their enemies were doing the same thing.

Evan looked to Gabriel, who did his best impression of a human nod.

The roar started somewhere within the Jade Crew, though Evan wasn’t sure who. It grew as bear after bear began trumpeting their defiance, hurling all their anger, rage, and fear into one ear-numbing sound that reached out and lashed at their enemies.

Then, led by Gabriel, they charged at their enemies.

Victoria

She was flying.

The wonder of it threatened to distract her from their mission, but she couldn’t help but admire the beauty of the world when witnessed from above. The landscape spread out far below her. The sheer size and scope of the planet was impressed on her once again, and for the first time in a long time, Victoria felt small compared to the vastness of the nature around her.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“That it is,” Ferro replied. She hadn’t expected him to hear her over the rushing wind, but he had. “I often remind myself to get out more often, to simply fly, but I rarely do it.”

She nodded, understanding the commotion it must cause, especially in the digital day and age they lived in. If her reaction when Ferro had shifted outside his bar was anything to go by, she felt sorry for him. Any time he let his dragon out, he was probably mobbed by people who wanted a picture, or his autograph.

“Over there!” she cried as the plateau upon which the LMC complex rested finally came into view.

Ferro banked toward it, and Victoria felt her heart stop.

Atop the flattened area, a battle was being waged. Everywhere she could see, shifters warred with other shifters. Bodies littered the landscape, some of them trying to crawl away, and others lying there unmoving.

Though it had mostly devolved into a melee, there were still two lines. Even as she watched, they pulled apart for a moment. As they did, a third force appeared. It was small in numbers compared to the first two, but it came charging out of the forest on the far side of the battleground, and slammed into the side of the force that appeared to be attacking the LMC. They hit the enemy hard, and the surprise shifted the focus of the battle. She watched as the attackers moved forces to try and counter this new attack.

Which was exactly what the defenders wanted, she realized. From two very heavily armored vehicles along the opposite side of the battlefield, figures began to emerge.

“It’s the women!” she shouted. Emma had told her that she and the others were going to be a part of this fight, no matter what Garrett wanted, but that had been all she was willing to share. In the chaos of the evacuation from their apartment and the rush up to the Ridgeback Lodge, Victoria’s phone had died, and she had been unable to find out more.

Now, as she watched in mixed horror and admiration, the women emerged from the vehicles, moving toward the shifters. They were holding something in their hands, but it wasn’t until shifters began to wobble and fall that Victoria realized they were guns.

Tranquilizer guns,
she thought in shock. There were over a dozen of them, and they walked forward with fierce determination. Any shifter that came at them was met with a hailstorm of darts, and went down almost instantly. She recognized the heavily pregnant Emma and several other Jade crew mates, but the rest were a mystery to her. Perhaps they were the mates from the other crews.

Either way, the attack seemed to have stunned both sides, but the defenders reacted swiftly to the unexpected advantage. They were still heavily outnumbered, but the women were putting a
serious
dent in their opponents’ numbers. Two of the defenders peeled off and began to escort the women. As Victoria watched, any shifter that was brought down with darts was promptly dispatched by the pair of defenders as their powerful jaws ripped the tender skin out from under their heads.

What a horrible way to die,
she thought with a shudder. Still, better them than her friends.

Two powerful gryphons that had been walking behind the defenders’ lines leapt over them, moving to encircle a huge black rock. It was only when the rock
moved
that Victoria realized it wasn’t stone, but in fact another dragon.

“Luthor!” she shouted, pointing at him.

“I see him,” Ferro said.

The dragon eyed the two gryphons. One of them crouched suddenly and leapt at him, but the dragon simply flicked one of his wings with almost contemptuous ease, and the powerful half-eagle half-lion shifter went tumbling away as limp as a doll, crashing through the walls of the mansion.

The other gryphon looked at its companion’s body for a moment before it continued to prowl around the edge of the dragon’s reach.

He’s just trying to keep it busy
, she realized.

“Hold on tight,” Ferro said.

She yelped in surprise as he folded his wings in and suddenly began to plummet toward the battlefield. The brief warning the dragon had given her was barely enough for her to throw her powerful arms around his neck and hold on for dear life as the ground came rushing up fast.

At the last moment Ferro unfurled his wings and beat them heavily, sending up a shower of debris that forced the two sides to back away from each other, giving room for the arrival of the second dragon.

One of the bears must have noticed her as she slipped down from Ferro’s neck, and the next thing she knew, Evan was running at her, his powerful arms sweeping her up into a rib-crushing hug.

“I thought you were lost to me,” he said in her ear, the carnage of the battlefield forgotten momentarily as she surrendered to his touch.

“I forgot to charge my phone,” she said apologetically.

Evan froze, and looked at her. Then he laughed. “What a silly thing,” he said.

Then he kissed her. The electric charge couldn’t be denied, and she kissed him back wildly, ignoring the stares she knew had to be directed their way. Victoria didn’t care. This was her man, and damn anyone that thought less of her for sharing one last kiss with him. She loved him, and that was all that mattered. The kiss seemed to go on forever, and she reveled in each moment of sinful luxury that his touch brought.

Until the black dragon shattered it all.