Page 23 of Handcuffed to the Bear

“I know. Stop in a minute.”

They finally stumbled to a halt in a small clearing. Casey leaned on Jack, gasping for breath. He didn’t want to admit how much of his own ability to stay upright was due, in turn, to leaning on her.

The forest was very quiet. Their crashing through the brush had disturbed the local wildlife, and the only sound for a moment or two was their own harsh breathing and the wind in the trees. Then, slowly, the twittering of the birds began to come back.

Casey’s panting settled to the point she could lean over and check her feet. “Oh man,” she moaned, coughing. Her legs were badly scratched, and a raw gash ran from mid-shin all the way down her foot. “It felt like something ripped right through me.”

“Could be devilsclub or some other kind of thorn bush. We gotta find a way to protect our feet.”

Casey looked up and her eyes widened. “Jack, you’re bleeding!”

“I know. You too.”

“No, you’re—you’re really bleeding.”

Blood pattered softly into the leaf mold around their feet. It was dripping off the dangling fingers of his left hand. “Shit,” Jack said. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.” And he sat down suddenly.

Pulled off her feet by the cuffs, Casey sat down hard beside him with a startled, “Ow!”

“Sorry,” Jack said automatically. The forest, blurrier than usual, rocked gently around him. His fast shifter healing should be kicking in, stopping the bloodflow. Anytime now.

“No, no, you should—lie down, I think. Yes. Lie down.”

“Can’t. Lions?—”

“Can’t stop, lions will eat us, Iknow, but Jack, you look really pale.” Casey was pale too, her eyes wide and stark. “If you pass out, I can’t possibly drag you, so just lie down before you faint, okay?”

With that, she gave him a firm push in the chest. He lay flat, and watched the trees and the sky go around hazily above him, somewhere down a long dark tunnel.

“I tried to give him a way out,” he said. Somehow it seemed important.

“I know,” Casey said, and Jack closed his eyes.

CHAPTER8

A quiet,intense emergency atmosphere prevailed over the Seattle office of the SCB. It wasn’t exactly panic mode, not yet. But as the morning rolled by without a check-in from Jack, the feeling of imminent disaster deepened and Avery’s tense nerves screwed tighter.

“This op is blown,” he snapped, facing off with Division Chief Stiers inside the half-open door of her office.

“We can’t assume that, Agent Hollen. If we go in with all hands on deck, wewillblow it, and jeopardize an agent’s life.”

Stiers was a tall, angular woman in her late forties, her graying blond hair cropped close to her head. Most shifters reflected their animal form in some way—Jen Cho, for example, was recognizably gecko-esque, though her twelve-cup-a-day coffee addiction probably also had something to do with it—but there was nothing owl-like about Pam Stiers. If Avery hadn’t known her shifter type, he’d have guessed an eagle or a cheetah: something regal, serene, swift, and deadly.

Of course, owls were swift and deadly too, and you didn’t see them coming until they dropped on you out of nowhere, borne on silent wings.

“Look, Avery,” Stiers said, her voice shifting to a softer register. “You know I’m not going to hang Jack out to dry. But you also know that he’s not always the best at remembering he’s working with a team. If he’s running his own game on the inside, the last thing he’d want us to do is come in with guns blazing and blow his cover.”

As much as Avery wanted to argue with her, he couldn’t. Jack had been written up more than once for missing check-ins or failing to take the overall plan into consideration when an opportunity presented itself. He was a damn good field agent: smart, resourceful, and skilled. He just wasn’t a team player by nature.

Intern Rosen tapped lightly and stuck her head in. “Ma’am? We got word back from Canadian Customs. The Lion’s Share cruise ship didn’t cross the border. Coast Guard says it’s heading back now and should be in port soonish. Do you want to send anybody to intercept it?”

“Not directly,” Stiers said. “But I want Eva Kemp’s team standing by when it docks. I want to know exactly who gets off that ship, and where they go.”

Rosen nodded and withdrew.

“We’re going to find him,” Avery said, as much to himself as to her.

“Of course we are.” She gave him a ghost of a smile, and Avery caught a glimpse of the concern for her missing agent that lurked under her severe demeanor. “Right now, the best way we can do that is by staying calm and looking for him under the Fallons’ radar. We can blow the panic whistle later.”

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