Page 37 of Handcuffed to the Bear

When the wind and rain abruptly ceased, Jack thought at first it was a trick of his mind. He stood, swaying, and registered slowly that there was rock above and in front of him. Dry rock. The rain still poured down outside, and occasionally as the wind changed a light spray of mist blew across them, but they were ... inside.

Cave, he thought. She’d found it.

He sank down to soft, dry sand, crunchy with dead leaves and dried-out moss. His head settled into the dirt.

Beside him, Casey shifted back and stretched her lynx body against him, pressing close as if to give him some of what little body heat she possessed.

Jack leaned against her, and let himself relax at last.

CHAPTER11

Like all therest of her family, Debi Fallon was built like a Norse goddess: tall, long-limbed, and blonde. Wearing a severe charcoal business suit and carrying a briefcase, she walked out of the elevator into the Lion’s Share parking garage, then froze when she found herself confronted by a small contingent of SCB agents pointing guns at her.

“Put the case down slowly and raise your hands in the air,” Avery snapped. Behind him Eva Kemp loomed, radiating menace as only a person whose shifted form was a twenty-foot killer whale could do.

Her face like stone, Debi reached toward the breast pocket of her business suit.

“I said hands in the air!” Avery barked. “Eva, if she doesn’t comply, shoot her in the leg.”

“I was reaching for my phone,” Debi said coldly.

“I know. Don’t try it. Put the briefcase down, put your hands up, and get on your knees.”

The agents were fanning out, surrounding her. Debi’s eyes darted around, and then, as the cost-benefit calculus clicked to a decision in her head, she shifted.

Even though he could watch it in the mirror anytime he liked, Avery never seemed to get used to the endless miracle of his kind’s transformation. Debi melted out of her clothes, the charcoal suit fluttering to the concrete as she flowed smoothly forward. Golden fur rippled down her long, pale limbs. Her muzzle thrust forward; her tail whipped around her flanks.

Even for a lion, she was huge—as big as Jack in his grizzly form. She was already moving as her paws hit the concrete, launching her into a bound straight at Avery. Assuming her enemies were normal humans, she was counting on their moment of frozen shock, trying to understand what they’d just witnessed, while she ripped through them like wet paper.

Good thing they’d brought the rest of Eva’s strike team.

As soon as Debi’s transformation began, the agent behind her, Dev Tripathi, dropped his gun and shifted as well. The fur that flowed over his smooth brown skin was rust and black, and the tiger who erupted out of Dev’s jeans and gray shirt was at least as big as Debi’s lion.

Mila Shevchenko’s transformation lagged an instant behind her partner’s, but as Debi finished shifting and began to spring toward Avery, the enormous hooves of Mila’s elk came crashing down on the concrete a few steps behind her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Avery glimpsed the third member of Eva’s team, Vic, blurring into his crocodile form.

Avery shifted as well. He wasn’t as big and dangerous as the others, but it looked like this was going to be a shifter fight, and they still had enough agents wielding guns—those who couldn’t shift on land, like Eva, or whose shifted forms weren’t especially lethal, like Jen Cho and the bat shifter who rounded out their current group. And he was faster as a wolf, with three good legs rather than just one.

Also, it threw off Debi’s trajectory. As Avery went to all fours, Debi sailed over his head and landed with her legs splayed out between two rows of parked cars. Avery had never seen such a shocked look on a lion’s face before.

“What’s the matter, sweet potato?” Jen Cho asked, the muzzle of her service weapon pointed rock-steady at Debi’s furry forehead. “You thought you were going to put the smackdown on some normal humans, didn’t you? Guess again, hon.”

For God’s sake, Jen, stop antagonizing the enormous lion who could eat either one of your forms in two bites.

Debi looked even bigger from his four-legged position than standing on two legs. As her hot predator scent hit his sharp lupine senses, Avery bristled without meaning to, baring his fangs in a snarl.

Debi weighed her options, her wild-eyed gaze darting from the closing circle of shifters to the exit ramp leading out of the parking garage. For a nervous instant Avery saw her eyeinghim, as the weakest link among the transformed shifters. But then she seemed to realize how badly outnumbered she was. Her leonine outline blurred and a naked woman crouched where the lion had stood. She spread her hands on the pavement. Eva and Cho marched up to handcuff her, while the others shifted back and collected their clothes.

This was always the undignified part of shifting on a case. As he reached for his pants, Avery tried not to feel self-conscious about the scars on his leg, the wasted muscles that were no longer hidden by his pants. Shifters were generally pretty comfortable with nudity and polite about not staring at the flaws in each other’s bodies. Also, if anyonedidask, “wounded in action in Afghanistan” was usually enough to shut them up. Most of the people he worked with regularly knew the story anyway.

“Whoareyou people?” Debi demanded as Eva twisted her hands behind her back and unceremoniously snapped the cuffs on her.

“We’re the SCB,” Avery said, buttoning up his shirt. “Special Crimes Bureau. Why has no one ever heard of us? Maybe we need a better PR department.”

“Isn’t anyone going to read me my rights?” Debi growled, her voice strained since Cho had a knee in her back.

“We’d only need to do that if we were arresting you.” Avery picked up his gun and checked the action to make sure it was none the worse for wear after clattering on concrete. “We’re just taking you in for some questions. Someone get her phone, would you? Ah, thanks, Mila.”

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