Theron
The news didn’t get any better. Every day there was someone else on the television talking about issues that they had no understanding of, like it was fact. Watching as politicians who had never, and probably would never meet an actual shifter talking like we were the new big threat to humanity. Scientists who had no data talking about the evolution of humans, and arguing about where we fit in. Talking heads, looking to get their fifteen minutes of fame, and willing to drag an entire population of people through the mud to do it.
No other shifters had come forward to speak, so the clips from the press conference we had done weeks ago were recycled and recut, over and over. Bella’s friend, who had been so kind to us when she facilitated our press release, did everything she can to shine a good light on shifters in general, and the Lords in particular, but unfortunately she was a single voice at a small television station, and got very little airtime at all. Less, recently.
“It’s gotta get worse before it gets better,” Baby said, running a damp cloth over the bartop. She looked back to where her son was doing puzzles with Connor and Fitz. “His dad never told me a thing.” She leaned over the bar and set her chin in her hand. “Not a fucking thing. Left me as soon as I found out I was pregnant.”
“Ethan’s a bear, yes?”
Baby just nodded, her eyes soft on where the boys were playing. “I did what I could to keep a roof over our heads, and food on the table. But my little tiny person changing into a grizzly one day was not something that I had thought to worry about.”
“How did you get here?” I took a sip of my coffee, watching as Fitz cheered each time Ethan placed a piece in the correct place. He would be an amazing father. I knew he was hopeful that his mate would be ready to bring a new little grizzly into the LOKI family sooner rather than later. All the men here seemed to be uniquely qualified. “How did you find the Lords?”
“They found me.” Baby stood and pointed at my cup. “Want more?”
“Sure.” I watched her take the mug away, her hair in ribbons of blues and purples, jeans bedazzled within an inch of their lives. Sunniest person I had ever seen, a stanch juxtaposition to the dark and moody clubhouse where she worked, bikers in jeans and leather. Even little Ethan had a blue stripe though his hair and it was utterly adorable. “They seem to just know here.”
“It’s Kai.” She put the mug back down and tossed her rag towards the hamper. “Kai finds the broken ones. Those of us who need the club the most. He found Izzy and Joey too. Though Joe’s story is a little different. But we all got found when we needed a guardian angel the most.”
“And you stayed.”
“Not everyone does. Some girls who come to LOKI work in the clubhouse for a while, get back on their feet and move on. Others go to other chapters,” she sighed and gave me a tiny shrug. “Some of us just don’t.”
I watched where her eyes went. In the back of the room two brothers sat. I knew Kafka through Whisper. They were friends. Kaf seemed to be friends with everyone. But Ruger, he was different. He looked like the clown from the outside, but I watched him sit in the furthest reaches of the booth in the back every morning. His hood up over his face, shadowing him as he stooped over his coffee. I felt like there was a story there. And I knew that he was the one Baby was looking at.
“You say anything to him?” I asked.
“Who, Ruger? No.” She took my mug again and put it below the bar to wash. “He’s sweet, but he’s not looking for a mess like me. Not with everything he’s been through. He needs a simple girl. One who can focus all their love on him.” The sad smile that tipped her lips looked hopeless. “I’m a single mom, my world is my kiddo. I can’t take care of him the way he deserves.”
“Not how mating bonds work, Baby.” I stopped her hand where she was furiously cleaning the sparkling countertop. “Goddess chooses, not you.”
“I’m not a bear, Theron,” she said, pulling her hand gently from mine. “I don’t get a mating bond.”
“Bella did.” I nodded to where Kai and Bella were sitting with Les and his family. “That is one of the most mated up women I have ever seen. Neither one of them cares that Bella is human, it's not about the animal in her middle, it's about how she makes Kai shine.”
“Ethan’s father seemed to always find fault with me. I couldn’t get him to stay, even with his cub in me. I don’t feel like my heart can do that again,” was all Baby said before she gave me a nod and left through the swinging kitchen doors.
“She’ll get it eventually,” my mate said, leaning into my back and pressing a kiss to my cheek. “She doesn’t see how he watches her or that little boy.”
“We know how Ethan’s father is?” I asked, turning to pull Whisper into my arms.
“Baby isn’t interested in finding him. He isn’t a shifter here, lots of grizzlies around the country though.” My mate melted against me, her arms around my shoulders, fingers in my hair. “Thought you were getting coffee and coming back up.”
“Got caught up.” I tipped my chin up to where there was another debate happening on the television. “Looks like it may go to a vote.”
“So quickly?” Whisper pulled away and sat down heavy on her own stool. “It’s been less than a month, can they do that?”
“They’re voting for special dispensation, due to the nature of the issue.” I peered over the bar, wanting my cup back. I had half finished coffee that Baby had just taken away. But then, all of this was affecting us each differently. So, she had a pass. Stress levels in the club house were high all across the board. And with the eyes of the world on us, it was doubly hard.
Whisper winked at me and slid off her seat and went around the bar, retrieving my mug and getting one of her own. “It can’t go their way, can it?”
“A mandatory registration?” I tipped my head back and forth. “With the way that they’re rushing all of this, it feels likely. But if they don’t get the votes to actually have a vote on the registration act, then probably not. If it gets held off, it’ll be tied up in legal battles for years. Neither side has enough of a majority to push it through without the rushed move.”
“Fuck.” My mate curled over her cup, her little nose just centimeters from the steaming hot coffee. Everyone at LOKI had a coffee addiction, it seemed. Except for Bella, who was drinking tea. Apparently her mother made it. Sadly, I had yet to meet the woman. “We need to get the walls back up.”
“Someone will do something stupid, and the public will demand new content. Pictures of us repairing a wall and going back and forth to houses around Ironwood will get boring.” I shrugged. Public opinion was fickle. We just needed something that was mildly more interesting, and things would change.
“We were on the cover of Time Magazine, Scar. You and I. Kissing.” She raised a brow like she had won an argument, but I just let it pass.
“Whisper!” A shout came from the front doors, Tex came sliding in at a dead run, his boots caked with mug from the morning rain. Reason why we weren’t all outside aligning boulders onto an ancient wall. “We got fucking trouble.”
Whisper’s back went rigid, and before I could even get the scent of wet fur on the wind, she started shaking. “They found me,” she hissed under her breath, eyes wide where Tex was tripping to a stop next to us. “Broken Oath.”
“Wanna say it's just Broken Oath, but they got someone with them.” Tex rounded the counter, ducking down. Came back up with a handgun.
“That just under there?” I asked, looking at the kids that were around. Granted most of them weren’t at the walking stage yet, you LOKI had kids.
“Gun safe under the bar. Only a few of us have the combo.” Tex tucked the gun in the back on his jeans.
“Can’t use it,” Whisper said, her eyes ticking around the room looking for someone missing. “Not with the cameras out front. And Broken Oath can’t come in.”
“Probably why they brought a hostage.” The blond man cocked his head to the front doors. “They ain’t happy with not being invited into our home, either.”
“Fuck them,” I growled, my hand going to my mate’s back. “They can sit in the fucking street and rot.
“They have Liz.” I looked at Tex for a long moment, waiting for him to elaborate.
“There’s no Liz in this clan,” I said when he didn’t continue, racking my brain for any Liz I knew, other than the pretty news anchor.
“But I have a Liz.” Bella stood and handed Harper to her mate. “It’s my Liz, isn’t it?” The pretty news anchor. Whisper’s old clan had a human. Fuck.
“And she looks like she’s in some rough shape.” Tex held out a hand to her and tucked her under his arm, leading us all out the front door. Baby and Mama Bear came out to take the kids before we walked as a club towards the gates.
The gates were the only part of the wall that had been fully reconstructed. Stones still lay ragged and half sunk into the wet spring soil, but it didn’t matter–you couldn’t go much past the gates themselves unless you were a friend of the Lords and their clan. Between the two checkpoints stood half a dozen men that looked like the personification of inbreeding and hillbilly. They all also looked stupidly proud of themselves, and right then and there I vowed to my mate that I would wipe those fucking crooked grins off their ugly mugs. The woman in the center I barely recognized from meeting her during the press conference.
“Well, lookie here,” one of the men said. He did everything but chew on a piece of straw and spit tobacco on the ground to personify the stereotype he was actively living. All of the bears in the small group smelled sick. “Little Stella, all growed up. Told your pop to hold you down better. Grizzlies are known to go crazy.”
“Really want to say that while you stand on grizzly land, friend?” Kai asked, leaning against the guard post. “This isn’t how we do things around here.” He nodded to the photographers who were taking furious pictures of the little exchange. “And your little standoff is especially stupid while we’re being watched. Got enough bad press by just existing.”
“Well the fucking dead ass hiker didn’t get her off your land, needed something else.” Asshole said it loud enough that I was positive the news cameras had picked it up, and a little huff of satisfaction came from my griffin where he was curled in my middle with his mate.
“So you killed the hiker? Whisper hissed, her hands coming up to her lips. “Why? Blaming it on me would never work.”
“Because your bear is a demon,” the man growled, pulling down the collar of his already tattered and threadbare shirt. Four silver claw marks dripped down from his clavicle to disappear under the cloth. “Figured it would get you picked up by the local five-o. Apparently they’re even dumber than you are, though, 'cause Sheriff came back without you and handed out tons of excuses. But if you wouldn’t come to us, all trussed up in a neat little package, we found someone who could persuade you.” He reached back and grabbed Liz by her ponytail, wrenching her head around and pulling her towards him. “Found this little chit looking a bit lost, thought we would bring her back to you. She is one of yours, isn’t she?”
“Don’t do a fucking thing they say.” Liz spit on the ground next to the mouthy fellow, and was backhanded for her trouble. The little shriek she let off as she tumbled to the ground had every male toeing the line of our wards, backs up and the scent of fur and dominance everywhere.
“Liz is a friend of our clan, but isn’t one of us,” Bella said carefully, ever mindful about the fact that people were watching, but eyes never leaving where her friend sat on the ground, lip split and bleeding. With the vote so close, anything could tip it into certainty. “Hey Lizard,” she gave her friend a kind smile, head tilted to get a good look at her.
From what I could tell, she was still wearing what she had on for the nightly news. Her heels were broken, and there was dirt and tears in her skirt, but she couldn’t have been with them long.
“Nightshade,” her friend whispered past a split and swollen lip. “Had a fight with the husband–doesn’t like me siding so hard with shifters, worried it will cost me my job.”
“Oh, love.” Bella held out her hand to her friend. “Why didn't you call me?”
“Left my phone in the house.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Doesn’t matter now, 'cause here I am.”
“You’re right.” Kai strode straight through the wards, punched Sir Talks-a lot directly in the teeth, and pulled Liz back through. “Don’t matter now, 'cause you’re here safe and sound. Why don’t you give him a call, let him know you’re safe.” He handed her his phone, and tucked her behind him, blocking her from the bears who looked more than a little pissed, their leader spitting a tooth on the gravel drive.
The clicks from on the other side of the road went crazy. Photographers were inching closer and closer as Bella and her friend hugged and cried.
“Y'all knocked on the wrong door with the wrong plan,” Les drawled from where he was sitting in the folding chair that whoever was manning the boundary had abandoned. “Women are sacred here, and Lizzy is a friend. She’s got protection from dumbasses like you.
“Give us the girl,” dumbass number one said, pointing directly at my mate. “She’s ours, and you stole her from us.”
“Really?” Cherry just fisted her hands on her hips and looked at the idiot. “Is that the story you want to go with? She’s ours? Come on.” She turned to Whisper, who looked like she had seen a ghost, and sized her up. “Okay, she looks a little scared now, but usually…”
“She’s a little scared,” Whisper mumbled, with a very faint but rye grin. “I mean, I’m not the most demonstrative of people.” She clung to my jeans, like she could disappear inside of me. “But I can very much say that I choose to be in Ironwood. This is my home, has been for years now.”
“Bullshit,” the village idiot was still standing there like he had the biggest cock in the room, swinging it around–figuratively, thank the gods–pointing at everyone who had come from the clubhouse in turn. “You kidnapped our baby and made her into one of your whores.”
“Do I look like a whore?” Whisper looked down at her jeans and House of Ink t-shirt, she was barefoot, but we had been relaxing at home when they knocked on our door. “Looks normal to me.” She lifted her chin, and I could smell the dominance coming from her. Not her bear–from my sweet little mate, all in her human skin. “Get off our land, Broken Oath. I put you all in my rearview years ago. Ain’t no reason to come for me now.”
“You killed our Alpha,” the man roared, black filling his gaze as his bear swam to the surface. The monster was sick. Very sick. “You took all of our leadership before you fled. You kill the alpha, you become the alpha. Ain’t none of us able to settle since you fucking left us.”
“You raped me!” my mate screamed, dominance pressing down each of the polar bears until they were hunching in the dirt, throats exposed to my Whisper. Her face was bright red, breath sawing in and out of her chest. “Jasper Damaskis, you held me down and raped me, then you beat on me while your brother did the same. I should have taken you out when I left. I can see the mistake it was to leave you breathing.” Her fingers dug into my thighs as she leaned towards the barrier, but my arm around her middle kept her on our side. “Leave. Take your pathetic excuse for a clan and leave my territory. You have lost.”
Cameras were still clicking, the humans getting far too close to the territorial dispute between two clans. Weeks stalking the Lords meant they didn’t think shifters would hurt them. Which was good for us. By and large we kept our issues from humans. We policed ourselves. But every once in a while, some sick animals would do something fucking stupid.
Kafka and Ruger were out around the gates, trying to keep the photographers back. But there was a huge pack of them, and just two bears, both of whom were being too careful to really be effective.
Jasper’s face went bright red, hand going behind him to reach for something, but he suddenly stopped. He turned to face the press who were now inching past the gates, trying to get a soundbite. Claws tore from human fingers, and before anyone of us could react, a man who had been holding a camera too close was down on the ground, blood gushing from his torn chest.
“Get Doc!” Kai screamed, as he pushed Bella and Liz back, and jumped through the barrier to the man bleeding out on LOKI’s front step. “Fuck, Ruger, where’s your fucking dad?”
“Coming.”
Kai pulled the man through the wards, tearing off his own shirt and pressing it into the wound. “We ain’t set up for this.” His eyes caught Les, who already had his phone to his head. “Ambulance will take too long.”
“Calling Sheriff Carter,” Les shouted from where he was walking away.
Lords had already jumped into action, pulling all of the journalists to our side of the wards, while the twins took it upon themselves to take down the skinny, sad excuse for a polar bear. It took moments. The remaining five members of Broken Oath scattered back to their car as their leader was held down by two fully human grizzlies sitting on his ass.
“Carter is ten minutes out.” The Sgt at Arms pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “You lot are all kinds of stupid.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking to the journalists, who were being bundled up by the women of the clan and brought blankets and ushered inside, or the man who had been a polar bear, and was now a bleeding human being sat on by Finn and Fitz. Both who looked none too pleased to be touching the nasty, stinking, sick bear. Could have gone either way.
“Was a bit anti-climatic,” Finn grumbled, punching the idiot under him in the back of the thigh, causing the man to scream, but also stop squirming. “Got blood on my favorite fucking jeans to take this motherfucker down, and it didn’t even take one hit.”
“We need to get him in the basement,” Doc said, pointing to the journalist who was getting paler by the moment. Doc used his shirt to clean his fingers off before he pulled off his glasses and did the same. “I don’t have much here, but if we want him to hold out until EMS can send the chopper, we need to get him stable. Misha is getting donors set up and ready to go.”