Page 22 of Handcuffed to the Bear

“What, like I’m not more than enough to handle you two?” The man laughed. “They’re all spread out, canvassing the island, but I’m the one who used my brains to figure out which way you were gonna go. Not bad for the youngest pride sibling, huh?”

Well, at least now he knew who he was dealing with. Derek Fallon was the youngest of Roger’s brothers and sisters. Which meant Roger and Rory were the brothers still unaccounted for, as well as Roger’s sisters Mara and Debi.

“Derek, you need to know I’m a federal agent,” Jack called down the hill. “You’re in a lot of trouble, I’m not gonna deny it, but you don’t have to go down with your brothers. I can help you cut you a deal?—”

“Oh, we know who you are,” Derek called back. He was still coming, not in any particular hurry, strolling up the hill and picking his way through the stumps at his leisure while catching his breath. Jack couldn’t help thinking of a cat playing with a mouse. “And we know what you turn into. How do you like our little handcuff trick? How tough is the big, bad bear when he can’t shift and he’s handcuffed to a useless little prey animal like that one?”

“Since she just kicked your ass a minute ago, I think I got the lucky end of this deal,” Jack said. Beside him, Casey raised her head wearily.

A growl rumbled out of Derek’s chest. “Luck is exactly what that was, and nothing else.”

“Didn’t expect the prey to bite back, huh? What does it mean for your place in the pride when they all find out a guy who can’t shift and a little cat shifter took you down?”

This time Derek’s growl had the vibrato that meant he was on the cusp of a transformation.

“Jack?” Casey whispered. “What are you doing?”

“Shhh. Trust me. And be ready to move when I do.” Raising his voice, Jack called, “Derek, I’m going to warn you one last time. Iwilluse deadly force to defend myself and the civilian with me. Surrender yourself now, and I’ll offer you whatever help I can after you’re arrested. If you don’t, I will defend myself by whatever means are necessary.”

Derek laughed, a deep rumble. There was only about ten or twelve yards separating them now, and at this distance Jack caught the golden flash from Derek’s eyes. He was still man-shaped, but not for long. “You really think I have anything to fear fromyou? You think you can arrestme?” His voice deepened and distorted until the words were almost incomprehensible. “I’m going to really enjoy tearing you apart.”

Jack spread his legs apart and bent his knees, balancing his weight. Casey glanced at him and then copied his stance, though it was clear she had no idea what he was doing, or why.

Derek shifted as he sprang. One minute there was a man standing down the hillside from them; the next instant, a huge lion was bounding over the stumps toward them.

“Jack!” Casey screamed.

“Throw!” he snapped back at her, and then the lion was on them.

This was a terrible plan, and they’d get only one chance at it. On their desperate scramble up the hill, the sharp, upthrust ends of the stumps had reminded him of something, but he hadn’t figure it out until he looked behind him, down the hill. That was the point when he’d noticed the resemblance to the sharpened stakes at the bottom of a pit trap, like people used to hunt tigers with, a long time ago.

He didn’t have a pit, but the beavers had kindly supplied him with a whole hillside covered with stakes. Because the trees had been growing uphill, leaning slightly into the slope, all of the “stakes” were pointing up and angled inward, at a perfect slant for impaling someone falling downhill.

Unfortunately the only bait he had was himself. And Casey.

When five hundred pounds of enraged lion plowed into them, Jack caught him under the jaw and flipped him over backward. He could never have simply thrown him, not in human form, but it was a pretty basic self-defense move, using the opponent’s own momentum and lack of balance against him.

Whether or not she realized what he was doing or why, Casey moved with him, raising her arms as he raised his. Derek’s claws scored Jack’s arm in a blaze of scalding agony, but it was a wild flail and not a calculated hit.

Derek tumbled over backward and rolled down the hill.

Under normal circumstances he’d simply have been knocked off balance, gotten up, and come after them again. But he fell straight onto the upright, gnawed-off tree stumps, rebounded and rolled and hit again farther down the hill. Derek screamed, a terrible sound halfway between lion and human. Thrashing around in pain only made his situation worse.

“Go, go!” Jack gasped, giving Casey a push. At his last glimpse, Derek was still rolling downhill, still screaming, a tumbling patchwork of golden fur and red gore.

“That was awful,” Casey choked as they plunged into the trees.

“He was trying to kill us,” Jack panted. His left arm was a sleeve of pain from shoulder to wrist. He didn’t dare look and see how bad it was. Not until they were farther away.

“It was still awful.”

He didn’t dare answer her; it would have come from the darkest part of him, and there would have been nothing to say after that. Behind them, Derek’s screaming cut off. Jack wasn’t sure if that meant Derek had died, passed out, or simply managed to get out of the field of stakes.

“Ow, ow!” Casey gasped. “I have to stop—I stepped on something?—”

“Can’t stop. Keep going.”

“My feet?—”

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