I slept pressed up to Cole, happily dreaming nonsense in my newly found blissful state, when he jerked next to me. My eyes flew open. “What’s the matter? Rylan? Finn?”

I had decided to believe them when they said they were okay. But maybe that had been foolish. Maybe. . .

Cole put his hand on my arm. “They’re fine. Almost nothing happening with them. No, one of the bears who lives on our land is giving birth. It’s not going well. One of them called out to me to come help her. I’ve got to go.” He rubbed his eyes. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”

I forgot sometimes how incredible their hearing was. “Go. I’ll be fine here. Do you sense or hear any threats?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be stupid about this. You’re coming with me. Or. . .” His voice trailed off. “Hold on. Rylan, Finn, I need you to come back.” He raised his voice slightly. “I’m going to help June give birth. You’re coming back to Jessica now, okay?”

He nodded. “They’re on their way. Ten minutes. You’ll be alone. I hate to even do that. Maybe I should wait.” The whole time he spoke, he got dressed. I sat under the sheet we’d pulled over ourselves and watched, really not able to do anything at all. These were the moments I suspected would always be hard. I didn’t like to feel ineffectual. Cole winced. “She’s really in terrible pain.”

I got up on my knees. “Anyone around who is going to cause problems in the next ten minutes? I mean, I know I snuck up on you guys, but you were still very tired from the winter phase. That is over. Scan with your ears and nose. Shift if you have to. But check. Because if I’m not about to be mauled by a human-hating shifter, you need to get over there and take care of this woman and stop obsessing about me.”

Cole furrowed his brow. “No one at all.”

“Great. Go.”

He held out his hand. “Come with me.”

“Not if you ever want me to have children. I. . .” I shook my head. “I can’t ever see it before I have to do it. Unless, it’s different for your women. This is awful for female humans.”

Cole nodded. “No, it’s awful everywhere. Okay. Ten minutes. They’re already on the move back to you.” I hated that they were leaving battle to come back and to babysit me as I slept. Still, this wasn’t the time nor place for arguing about it. We’d address what I could expect about being on my own later, maybe when we weren’t at war with bears that wanted me dead.

I sighed. Drama had a way of following me.

I made my way downstairs to see Cole leave and then shut the door behind him. I locked it. They never did that, but I was going to if I was alone. Just for good measure. When the other two came back, I’d let them in. In the meantime, I wanted to snack. I’d caught two fish earlier, and we’d eaten them, although I hated the taste. In this case, the fish wasn’t the same as any other planet I’d lived on, and I doubted it was going to turn out to be a favorite.

I wanted something sweet. But I wasn’t sure they had anything. The porridge was a little, but the guys ate more for functioning than enjoyment. They probably had nothing that resembled chocolate or peanut butter.

I’d found a piece of fruit and eaten it by the time it occurred to me that more than ten minutes had passed. Maybe Cole had misjudged how much time it would take for them to return. I walked over to the window. The night was dark. I couldn’t see anything, but I was sure Finn and Rylan would be back any second.

“Don’t laugh at me guys,” I raised my voice the way that Cole had done. “But, ah, Cole, Rylan, and Finn, if you can hear this I’m kind of worried about you. Cole, they’re not back.”

I had no idea if they’d heard me. Finn and Rylan had heard Cole, but maybe that was just a bear thing. I chewed on my fingernail and moved away from the window. The clock seemed to be taunting me. Tick. Tick. Tick. Every second a reminder that guys who were probably never late ever got more and more away from their arrival time.

My heart rate kicked up. “Okay, let’s think about this, Jessica. Cole is busy. He’s helping to deliver a baby. He can’t come running back. Besides, he has communicated with that amazing hearing of his with Finn and Rylan. He knows why they’re late, and he’s unconcerned. They stopped to help a person whose house has flooded.” Not that it had been raining. “Or something. They’re just delayed. You are going to sit down on the couch and wait without panicking. That is what you are going to do. You aren’t this woman. You fly spaceships. You crash landed and survived in the woods. Probably with dumb luck, but there you go. You don’t panic.”

Maybe if I said it enough, I’d believe it.

I waited. I couldn’t even read anything since their books looked like strange symbols, not words. I was going to have to learn to read their language. I’d get to that. Surely, they’d know someone who could help me.

What had I done in the orphanage when I’d been scared? What had I done when I took care of Cal in the woods? What had I done when my uncle made me fly a spaceship years before I was ready to? I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember a thing. I. . .

The door handle turned. It was locked but that didn’t seem to matter. It turned, the sound of breaking metal filling the room. I knew instantly it wasn’t one of my mates. They’d never break down their own door. This was. . .someone else.

I had one thought, and it was to run for the safe room. The door flew off its hinges just as I got down the hallway toward Finn’s office.

“Jessica,” a voice I didn’t know called out to me. “Don’t run in there. I’m fully aware that I can’t get in there. But I’ll have to burn the house down with you in it. If you don’t do that, you can live through this and so can your mates.”

I stopped moving. That was the perfect thing to get me to stop running. Not because I was all that concerned with my own safety. I’d have to be stupid to think I had any chance to live through this unscathed but I couldn’t let him harm the guys.

I sighed. I’d been terrified, but as calmness wafted through me, I was suddenly fine. This was an unwinnable, miserable situation, and I knew how to manage this kind of pain. Sudden happiness was something else.

I turned around. “They’re already dead if you’re here.”

“No.” He shook his head. He was tall with red hair and a goatee. Not as tall as my mates but not small either. I doubted anyone on this planet would be. “Let me introduce myself. My name is Robert McDermott. I was here earlier in the week to meet with Finn. He wasn’t particularly helpful.”

This man was the reason I’d been shut in the room to begin with. Cole had said he wasn’t to be trusted. He’d clearly been right.

“What have you done with them?”

He sighed. “The problem with your mates, and their fathers before them, is that they care too much about things. One rough pregnancy leads Cole from the house, and your other two mates turn around to come protect you. They’ve been waylaid. Not dead. Not yet. They don’t have to be.”

Tears came, but I didn’t let them fall. This wasn’t the time for grief. “You’re going to kill them.”

“I’m not. See, I don’t want to follow the Derbys. I’ve always liked the way the Durojos lead. Until recently. I’m not strong enough to hold this planet together, but I am not going to be ignored. Why did Finn have to announce you like you were something everyone should accept? I don’t personally have a problem with you. I’ve known about Mark and his human for a long time. There are at least five families hiding a human. That’s all he had to do—hide you. No one had to know.”

I really didn’t understand. “You like them, so you did this?”

“I want them to lead. I want them to get over this. It’s not a true mating. That can only happen with one of their kind.”

This man really liked to hear himself speak.

He continued to do so. “They’re infatuated. Fine. They’ll get over it. And as long as I can prove to them you were returned to your people and not terribly injured, they won’t overreact. You can always count on Finn to be reasonable. Or at least we will be able to again. You’re going home, Jessica. Your people are taking you back.”

“You can’t possibly be in contact with them.” I started to shake. “Only Finn could do that.”

“The Derbys can too. I’ve convinced them to let you return to them rather than kill you. As soon as you’re off this planet, all will be well.”

This was happening. McDermott would be faster than me and stronger. I had no way out except death or compliance. “You can’t think it’ll be that simple.”

“Most things are, human. Come with me.” He held out his hand. “Make me work for it, and I’ll take it out on them. See, they could always beat us physically. They just never saw the knock out drugs coming. Took five darts to take down Rylan. Struggle, and he’ll have more than a headache when he comes to.”

That sounded right. It would take five to take out Rylan. McDermott dragged me outside. I wasn’t done arguing with him. “They’ll smell you all over this house. They’ll know it was you.”

He smiled. “They won’t.”

As I stood outside watching the one true home I’d ever had blow up, I had to give it to fate. It sure did like to make the things I said sort of true. They were going to think I blew up in an explosion.

Tears rushed down my cheeks.

McDermott had one more thing to say. “I have to tell you that the Derbys will hurt you before they deliver you over. That’s just how these things go, my dear. It’s a rough planet. Not anywhere that a human like yourself should be living.”

I slapped him hard, letting my fingernails dig into his skin. He gasped. “My ancestors were bears you asshole. I have my own claws.”

His smile shocked me, but there it was. “Thank goodness you’re not boring.”

No, I was never that.

I was also royally screwed.

Although, I shouldn’t be surprised. This wasn’t a fairy tale. I didn’t get happy endings.

The Derbys lived hours away, and it was the first time I got the chance to see how shifters got places without shifting and running. They had hover cars. We’d tried this on Earth before I was born, and it hadn’t gone well. Maybe the lower population and the fact that everything was so quiet all the time made a difference. People could hear the cars coming. It buzzed loudly, and either McDermott was a lousy driver or the car bounced incessantly too.

I obsessed over my mates. Were they okay? Were they actually dead? Would I know if they were?

I curled up, my head on my knees with my legs pulled up as close into me as I could make them on the seat. Nausea rolled through me. As long as I could stay alive, there had to be hope. The guys would come.

They would.

We’d only known each other a brief period of time and yet. . .I believed.

The Derbys’ home was falling apart. I’d been there two days, and they’d done nothing but shout around me. No one spoke to me, but at least I should be grateful I wasn’t being beaten or locked in some kind of bear dungeon. There were at least ten clans there all gathered, and their female mates and daughters ran around cleaning as the men drunkenly sloshed through the house, yelling and breaking things—either accidentally or on purpose.

They threw food at me to eat, but other than that, I’d mostly been left alone. If I had to pee, someone took me.

The guy I’d come to think of as the leader, since he was quieter than the others and yet they deferred to him, held my attention. I wondered if part of being a good person in charge required the ability to be quiet and listen a whole lot of the time. Not that I was going to compare this man who was holding me prisoner to Finn.

Time moved slowly. I watched them as they drank. I watched them as they puked. For people who didn’t want humans on their planet, they were certainly hypocritical when it came to their behavior. They were hardly keeping themselves pure and neat.

They talked often of my mates. Calling them traitors and saying they had lost sight of what it meant to be a bear. I almost called out to them then; I almost argued.

I was dumb, not stupid. Sometimes, it was just better to keep my damned mouth shut.

But the leader, he watched me. And it really creeped me out. After two days, he finally had something to say.

“I don’t like that she can understand us when we speak.” The leader got up and walked over to me. “Her people will be able to ask her things about us, and she knows more than she should.”

McDermott shrugged. “Too late to do anything about that now. This is almost over.”

“Well, she doesn’t have to hear anymore.”

“How do you propose to. . .”

I never heard what he said. One second, I sat on the floor, watching them converse, the next, the bear I thought was the leader picked me up with one hand. I dangled in his hold, my feet not touching the floor. He hit me in the left ear. Once. Twice. Three times. The world tilted sideways. He didn’t just want to hurt me.

He was disconnecting my translator. Breaking it. Three swift hits short-circuited the device. It was a design flaw.

That was the last coherent thing I thought.

The world seemed to scream at me in a tongue I did not speak. My head rang. Everything went black.

“Now, it’s time to open your eyes, miss.”

I wrenched my lids open. I didn’t know where I was, but it wasn’t in the Derby’s house anymore. I rubbed my eyes? “Where am I?”

“On a spaceship heading back to Earth,” an elderly woman spoke to me. “You were concussed, but we fixed that right up with the concussion serum. You’re lucky. Almost no one gets away from that savage place.”

The gray-haired older lady wasn’t just anyone. She was the president of the Union’s pilots. One of the first to be paid full time to deliver for them. She was in charge of all of us now, but it was mostly a figurehead position. She didn’t fly anymore. What was she doing here with me?

“I. . .” I sat up, and she didn’t try to stop me. Dizziness came and went before I could speak again. “What’s going on? You’re Lara Washington. What are you doing here? I need to go back. My mates. They’ll think I’m dead. I have to go back.”

She sighed, covering her mouth with her hand for a second. “I’m here because we didn’t want a galactic incident over this. I mean, really, dear, can’t you have at least the good sense to die if you crash in a place like that?”

I startled. What had she just said? “I. . .”

She waved her hand. “We needed our gold back. The Derbys had you. We aren’t to be there. It was easier to take you. As for your mates. . .” She sneered on the last word. “Ten men and women have been rescued from there. It’s always mates or mate this and that. No, it’s all insanity. Something they do to you. Don’t worry. We have the cure.”

I jumped off the table. “I don’t want to be cured. I love them. Just take me back. You’ll never have to worry about me again.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m afraid that isn’t going to happen.”

Two men came through the door. One of them wielding a syringe like a weapon. I didn’t rush to get away from them. Where would I go? I sighed. Numbness struck me before I was ever poked with the needle that I was sure would put me back to sleep. Lara had wanted me awake long enough to deliver the bad news that I was truly fucked. Awful kind of her.

I was never going to see my mates again. Even on the planet, I had managed to maintain some hope. But that was gone now. They couldn’t find me out here. Some bears might travel through space, but my guys didn’t. And who knew where I’d ultimately end up?

They were going to put me somewhere I’d never be able to tell anyone about Planet Bear. About matings. About whatever might make people interested in a place we weren’t to go.

I turned to the gentleman holding the syringe. “Do you suppose that it was better I knew what love felt like once or would it have been better never to know it?”

He didn’t give me an answer. That wasn’t surprising. The needle stung.

Of all the places I’d expected to spend time during my life, an asylum hadn’t been one of them. Nope, not at all. I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised, but six months since I’d been dumped here, informed I was crazy for thinking that I was mated and that they were going to fix me, I wasn’t any less shocked.

Maybe I was nuts. Maybe I was mentally deficient because I couldn’t get my head around the sheer lunacy of this.

I laughed, and the orderly shook his head. Yep, I was having full-fledged conversations with myself. They’d made me crazy since they locked me up. Oh sure, I wasn’t looking at bars like in a prison cells, but it turned out there were lots of ways to be confined against one’s will.

This was one of them.

Across the hall was a woman they’d pulled off Wolf Planet. She rambled a lot and rocked. Screamed for her mate. Just one. . .

They were drugging her more than me because I made less noise. That seemed to be the key. Don’t give the doctors, nurses, or orderlies a headache, and you don’t have to live your life in chemically induced misery.

What was really weird was how I could still see my bears in my mind. As though I could touch them if I just tried hard enough. I’d given it a go a few times now, and it hadn’t helped. No, on this hellish man-made moon circling Earth, I couldn’t reach them. No matter how hard I tried.

My hearing was going. Day by day it got worse. Whatever the Derby asshat had done, I was having trouble hearing even the most basic things. The doctors said I was crazy. They wouldn’t fix me. Soon, I’d not have to hear a thing anyone said to me.

I threw down the pudding I’d been trying to eat. They were probably gone. I hoped that wasn’t true. That thought was the only thing left that could make me cry. They had to think I was dead.

That meant they’d be gone now. I wiped at my eyes. Mates didn’t outlive each other very long. I curled up in a ball. I was done with today’s hell. I wouldn’t tell my captors that my mating didn’t happen. It did.

I’d never deny it. I’d die first.

Six months earlier

Finn

---

I crawled to my feet, stumbling twice. Rylan was out cold, but he wasn’t dead. I listened to the woods. Nothing. No sound of battle. No sound of Cole calling for us. What in the hell had happened?

“Brother.” I shook him slightly, and he moaned. It would have taken a lot of whatever we’d been struck with to bring us both down.

I couldn’t even remember what happened. It didn’t matter. Someone had taken us down, and that meant this whole area was at risk. Why? This wasn’t how we warred.

“Rylan.” I shook him again. “Up. Now. Need you.”

His eyes opened slowly. He sat up and scrunched up his face. “What in the fuck happened?”

“Not sure. I. . .”

A roar sounded in the night. It was half bear, half man and all of it pain. I knew the sound instantly. That was Cole. In horrific grief. I was running before I even realized. I shifted mid-stride. I’d be faster as a bear, and my bear wouldn’t let me down. He’d get to Cole.

As a bear, I didn’t have to think, so I didn’t. He and I both knew what could make Cole sound like that. There were only three people on the planet that would warrant that response, and I knew Rylan and I were fine.

I arrived at the house, shifting into my human form. Cole was on his knees, and our home was. . .gone, burning, a pile of rubble on fire. Why hadn’t I smelled it?

“The drugs.” Rylan answered. It must have been his first question too.

Cole pointed at the burning mess, his hand shaking. I’d make this fine. “It’s okay. We can build a new one.”

I never gave a shit about stuff. It was all just. . .I whirled around. Where was Jessica? We needed to block her from the flames. She’d feel the heat more than we would.

On Cole’s face, I saw reflected the realization that my brain refused to acknowledge. “She’s in there.”

Cole nodded. “I left her here .You were supposed to be coming back. Ten minutes. I. . .I got struck with something. It knocked me out. I. . .”

“Us too.” Rylan’s voice broke. “We have to get her out. She can’t make it in there much longer.”

Rylan rushed to the flames. I grabbed him. He wasn’t thinking. None of us were. “She’s not alive.”

I said the words, and then I joined Cole on the ground. Our little human had just burned to death. Had it been an explosion? I looked up. How would I know, and what did it matter? My girl was gone. We just had her. How could. . .

I roared to bring down the heavens. The space. Sky. I didn’t care. Rylan wanted to run into the flames, and fuck it, so did I. If she was in there, I’d be there too.

“Commander.” A voice from the woods called out to me. Bronson? What in the hell did he want?

I couldn’t answer him. Maybe he’d understand, maybe he wouldn’t.

“She was taken. I watched. I should have stopped him. But. . .he’s so violent. I thought if I did save her, then it would be worse. He took her.”

Bronson rambled a lot. His brain had been addled in a war. He’d never been quite the same since. Cole and Rylan watched him with rapt attention while I managed to pull myself up one more time.

“Who took her?”