Pierce

Ahead, Mila slowed as they approached the double doors that led out into the underground.

He moved up alongside her, realizing that she probably wanted him to lead the way, in case there was a trap of some sort.

Smart thinking. My girl has some brains.

His girl. He eyed her as he approached. Her fair skin was flush with blood as her heart raced, the adrenaline and excitement powering it to new highs. The close-set cat-like eyes stared up at him, and she extended one lovely arm to block his path.

“Pierce,” she said, one of her naturally arched eyebrows rising on her forehead as she said his name.

“Yeah?” he replied, ignoring the tug of pain from the gash now healing on his cheek as he spoke.

“There’s something wrong. Something we’re forgetting.”

He frowned at Mila, noting the way her heart-shaped face was screwed up with consternation. Whatever it was, it was truly bugging her.

“Um, okay? What?” he asked. “We go outside, get in the vehicle, and then…we leave, right?”

Mila nodded. “Right. But what are we missing?”

He thought it over.

Down the hallway and around a corner there came a loud, bellowing noise. It filled the corridor, making the shifters shake their heads slightly at the level of it.

Pierce inhaled.

“Whatever it is, we have exactly zero time, Mila.”

The roar hadn’t come from a human throat. At least one of the shifters was awake and had taken to animal form.

“That tranq should have knocked them out for eight hours,” she hissed angrily.

“Well it didn’t. So, time to go,” he urged as one of the walls shook.

“Right. Okay, out these doors and into the black SUV. Three of you in the back seat, one in the trunk, Pierce up front with me. Let’s go, no time to waste,” Mila said.

The others gestured in acknowledgment, and Pierce led the way out into the underground.

He sensed it almost immediately. The overwhelming pressure of humanity closing in on him, boxing him in. The concrete structure around him weighed down on his shoulders, bowing them slightly until Pierce relaxed, focusing his mind.

Not anymore. I control you now. I’ve learned. Your power over me is no more.

He could still feel it there, in the back of his mind, an oppressive rule that he would never entirely shake. But it no longer controlled him.

“Oh shit,” he said, his eyes meeting Mila’s at the same time that an inarticulate wave of pain swept over his brothers.

“That’s what we missed,” she whispered as his brothers all staggered and began to hold their heads.

Pierce cursed mentally. Of course his brothers wouldn’t be able to handle the human city around them. They’d been unconscious when they were brought there. Only now as they exited the building, entering an underground area assaulted with noise from the world above them that echoed down the ramp, would they truly feel it.

And it was only going to get worse once they emerged into the city streets.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Okay, umm, shit.”

Pierce was panicking. He didn’t know what to do.

The hallway behind him shook as one of the bears went flying through the intersection and right through the wall, unable to change direction fast enough.

“I’m getting the car started!” Mila shouted and dove for the driver’s seat. “Get them in the car, Pierce. Now!”

Right. In the car. That was what he needed to do. Thank you, Mila.

“Close your eyes!” he shouted. “Keep them shut. Focus on the forest, on home, and take deep breaths. Try to stay calm. You only have to do it for a little while. You can make it. Just don’t lose control.

He ripped the door off the SUV in his haste as he took Gavin and shoved him into the back row, pushing him across.

The bear roared.

Fuck. None of them are in any condition to fight. But I need to get them into the vehicle. Oh hell.

“Got any tranqs left?” he hollered as he sent Kean following Gavin into the backseat.

“No, I left it behind. Stupid, I know!” came the return.

Kassian came next, but he shook Pierce off and staggered himself into the back of the vehicle, groaning, his eyes wild with anxiety.

Only Maximus remained.

Pierce looked around.

His eldest brother was gone.

Moving around the rear of the SUV to open the trunk, he saw his brother at last. Standing in the opening of the doors, staring down the oncoming bear.

Pierce recognized the stance. His brother was preparing to unleash his animal.

“Maximus, NO!” he shouted and dove for his brother.

The eldest Koche turned and swatted Pierce out of mid-air, sending him tumbling to the side.

“Go,” he said in a pained voice, his head still staring straight down the hallway. “I’ll hold them off.”

“Maximus!” Pierce cried out as he got to his feet, the back of his head bleeding from where it had impacted on the concrete wall. “You don’t have to do this.”

Black fur, the color of darkest night began to cover Maximus’s face, spreading down his neck and across his shoulders, appearing on his arms.

“This is what family does,” he said, the words becoming mangled as his face changed.

Pierce saw his nose shoot forward, the entire face elongating as it reshaped itself into a muzzle.

“Dammit Pierce, we need to go, NOW!” Mila shouted from the driver’s seat, revving the engine to reinforce her point.

“I’m not leaving him!” he roared, and unleashed his own bear. “Find a tranq!”

But Pierce didn’t just let the entity flow through him. He grabbed his bear, and forced it forward. The change ripped through his body faster than ever before. Agony erupted along every nerve, nearly blinding him with pain as his joints were reshaped in the span of an eyeblink.

Two thousand pounds of golden-brown bear charged forward, knocking his brother off stride and out of the doorway just as the enemy shifter struck.

Pierce trumpeted in pain as he was hit from the side by the enraged smoky-gray bear as it emerged from the hallway at the same moment. The animal ravaged his left flank before the force of its impact sent Pierce spinning away.

He barely saw the animal, but he did glimpse a second beast charging down the hallway behind it. Things were getting out of control. Pierce needed to end this, and quickly.

Anger blossomed inside of him as he saw the smoke-gray bear turn on his brother, who was just now completing his shift, having been thrown off stride when Pierce hit him. Recovering his footing, Pierce threw himself forward. It was his turn to take the enemy shifter in the side, and he didn’t waste the opportunity.

Six-inch-long claws shredded tough fur like paper, and his muzzle latched onto one of the other brute’s legs, ripping muscles and ligaments from it with a mighty heave. Blood flowed freely, making the ground slippery and matting fur. His side ached. His entire body ached.

But his brother was in trouble. Pierce didn’t relent. He pushed his attack, opening more wounds and systematically dismantling the enemy bear, who couldn’t regain any momentum. More and more of its life was spilled onto the floor.

Pierce heard a roar, and his head turned just in time to see the second attacker lunging at him. He braced himself for impact.

It never came.

Soaring over the engaged bears came Maximus, his pitch-black bear interposing itself between his little brother and the attacker. The huge onyx-colored animal went berserk, attacking the enemy with abandon. Maximus ripped and tore, bit and slashed, employing every weapon in his considerable arsenal as he defended Pierce.

Pierce’s foe was weakened, and this allowed the Koches to recover first. His jaws latched around the throat of the gray-furred bear and ripped it out. Blood that had been a stream came pouring out as the enemy shifter coughed and sputtered its last few breaths.

“PIERCE!” Mila screamed.

He glanced at the car, and saw her working frantically to calm his brothers. They were running out of time. If they didn’t start going now, they would lose control.

Like Maximus.

Pierce knew his eldest brother, the most wild and animalistic of them all, must have lost control, his bear working its way free.

Would he have to fight him to get him to surrender?

He turned to see the outcome of the other fight, only to find the black bear regarding him. Then as he watched, the bear shrank. Fur retracted into the body and faded from the color of darkest night to a much more lightly-tanned brown. The pointed muzzle became once more a flat, human face, one that Pierce recognized. Limbs shrank and readjusted their positioning.

“I have your back, little brother,” Maximus said weakly, then collapsed.

“We need to go, NOW!” Mila yelled. “More are coming!”

A quick glance down the hallway showed nothing, but he heard more roars from further in the building, as well as the shouts from human voices.

Pierce ran to his brother’s side, scooping Maximus into his arms. He deposited the limp shifter into the trunk, and slammed it closed.

“Go go go!” he shouted at Mila.

She had the vehicle in gear and it was already accelerating. Pierce broke into a jog, then a run, and finally a sprint as he caught up with the vehicle and slipped inside, only his shifter-enhanced speed ensuring he wasn’t left behind.

“Whatever happened to finding a tranq gun?” he asked as nonchalantly as he could between heaving gulps of air.

Mila shrugged. “I looked. There wasn’t one in the vehicle.”

Pierce almost choked on his slightly swollen tongue. “There wasn’t one…in the vehicle,” he repeated.

“Exactly.”

“Did you ever think to look…outside the vehicle? Perhaps…on one of the guards we knocked out earlier?”

Mila shrugged. “You never told me to look outside.”

This time Pierce did choke, until he realized she was smiling. “You’re teasing me,” he said glumly.

“A little. I was too busy dealing with them,” she said.

As if to emphasize her point, Kassian yelled in pain.

Then they emerged into the surface-world once more, and all hell broke loose. Mila drove like a maniac, trying to frantically get them out of the city core as fast as she could, without getting them pulled over at the same time.

Pierce turned around and began to talk to his brothers. Calming them, speaking soothing words. Reminding them of the forests of home, of the chirping of the birds and the sparkle of the sun’s rays as they were reflected by leaves covered in morning dew. The feel of the wind rustling the branches as it worked through the forest on a beautiful summer evening.