I’d always believed the thing about being a bear was that when we battled, it would be a fair fight. At the end of the day, we struck at one another and the stronger bear walked away. Even when my mother had died during a war, it had been shifted as a bear, fighting to protect her home. She had lost that day. Maybe most of that responsibility fell on my fathers’ shoulders. But it had been a fair fight that hadn’t gone our way.

What McDermott did, taking our mate—hitting us with poison darts, knocking us out, and faking her death after burning our home—it wasn’t what bears did. We all had the souls of a bear pressed inside of us. How did his bear live with it?

In any case, my own bear was perfectly comfortable with what we were doing. Revenge made us both happy.

If I’d been shifted, I might have even started to tear him apart while he still lived. Piece by piece. I might have seen how long I could keep him alive while I did that. It might have made the whole act sweeter.

As it was, he was strapped to a medical table able to hear the Derbys dying in the other room. Finn wanted him dead, and he wanted to do it himself. It was hard to restrain my bear from doing what he would do naturally—kill any that hurt his mate. But we were waiting.

In the meantime, he was terrified. The scent wafted through the room, and that was something. Not enough. But something.

Rylan walked in. He stared at the whimpering McDermott and looked back at me. “Surprised he’s still alive.”

“Our clan leader asked me to let him kill him. I am doing as I was asked.” I clenched my jaw. I didn’t know if I was ever going to stop feeling this angry. How could I ever let it go? The emotion overpowered everything.

Someone shouted from the other room, and Rylan put his hand on my back. “Go. I’ve killed my share. You can go take yours. I’ll watch our betrayer. At least with the Derbys, they never came to the house, they never pretended to be anything other than what they were.”

“I was trying to save this planet,” he called out from the bed. Rylan lifted his eyebrows.

I ignored McDermott. “You’re controlling the bear.”

“Looks like it.”

That was great news. We could celebrate another time.

Okay, my brother Finn could manage this piece of shit on the table. I had enemies to end. Yes, my bear liked that. I strode into the room ready to shift. There were four bears other than my brother, and two of them cowered in the corner. That wasn’t enough of a challenge. Finn turned to look at me. As a grizzly, he always looked like he was in impressive control. He’d so terrified those two bears that they weren’t even trying to fight?

He stepped back. Yes, he understood. I needed this. Jessica was my mate. She had fallen from the sky, and she was mine. She belonged to our clan. She and no one else would have my cubs should such a thing happen. I would not live in a universe without her.

And all of these fuckers could die.

I could heal. But I could also kill.

Tonight was about the second.

---

I listened to the sounds of death from the other room. Cole would end the only two bears worth fighting, and he’d do it fast. Finn had started to taunt them. That meant it was time to change gears. I kept them all safe, and sometimes that was against their worst selves. Finn could be cruel, mean, to those he deemed unworthy of his time. These lesser beings had taken our mate.

He needed to get down to it so we could get information from McDermott. All he had said was he would end the man. He hadn’t said anything about who was going to get the information.

I smiled at McDermott, and he paled. Yes, that was right. He saw death in my eyes.

I put my hand on his stomach. “How long do you think you could live if I cut you here?” I wasn’t shifted. In that state, my claws were always out. That didn’t mean I couldn’t hurt him. I grabbed a knife. It looked like one someone might use in the kitchen. Why did the Derbys have this stuff in their medical room? I shrugged. They didn’t have anything anymore. They were all very, very dead.

Finn walked into the room, still a bear. He stood by the doorway, tilting his head. Okay, if he didn’t want to shift and do this just yet, I would.

“Where is my mate?”

McDermott’s mouth shook which made it hard for him to speak. “Your mating can’t be real. She’s human. You’re simply infatuated with her because of her blonde hair and blue eyes.”

Oh, I was done with this. I put the knife through his hand. He shouted, roaring with pain, the bear in his eyes. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not strapped the way Cole had him. “Try again.”

We would get to her. As fast as we could. This man was going to give up his information. And I was going to make it hurt.

A lot.

---

An alarm blared, waking me slightly. It had to be extremely loud for me to hear it, but what did it matter, really? They’d drugged me for crying too much. That was okay. They kept me like this, and it was better. All the fight was out of me. I rolled over. Someone would turn off that alarm soon. Maybe it was a mind game set to screw with some of the rebels they had here. Funny thing was that I hadn’t even known there were rebels. Who rebelled? Who cared that much about the dang Union?

I shut my eyes. A minute later, I was shaken awake. Groaning, I forced myself to rise to the surface of consciousness.

I had to be seeing things. It looked like Rylan, Cole, and Finn stood right over me. Behind them there was chaos. Inmates running everywhere. What a weird dream. I closed my eyes.

I was picked up. That was fine. I didn’t have to think about where I was going or if I could walk there. The meds kept me off balance. That was because I’d tried to run away. Couldn’t do that if you couldn’t walk. . .

They had an injection for everything.

My head throbbed, and some time passed. Where was the orderly with my daily feel-nothing pill? I’d take it now. I wouldn’t even object. I could just. . .

I opened my eyes. Cole stood over me. He wiped my head with a cool cloth.

“Dream?” I’d started to shout what I said, I thought. I couldn’t hear myself unless I did.

He scrunched up his face, and although he said something, it was too low for me to hear it. It didn’t sound like words, just mumbligook. Like any language that wasn’t my own now sounded.

“Look, dream, I can’t hear you. They broke me. My hearing is all but gone, I can’t speak bear, and my translator is gone too. I’m broken.” I waved at his hand when he tried to wipe at me again. “If you can still understand me, go away. I don’t like to see them. It’s nothing but pain.”

The dream of Cole didn’t listen and instead, continued to talk too low for me to hear. He was insistent on wiping my face with the cloth. I bet if I could hear him, it would be soothing. Finn appeared, standing next to him. They opened and closed their mouths, clearly discussing something, and Cole rose to walk over to the medicine cabinet.

Oh no. This dream had taken a decidedly nightmarish turn. I liked my drugs just as they were. The cocktail I was on didn’t need to be altered, and I didn’t need any more injections. I threw myself off the medical table. Or I would have, if Finn hadn’t caught me.

He pressed his lips to my temple, and he made noises I couldn’t understand. This was so ridiculous. I was on a spaceship in this scenario, and my guys never would be. Rylan came through the door. He shouted unintelligible sounds, but at least I could hear how he made them.

Finn shouted something back, and then he rocked me in his arms. After I stopped trying to get away, it was sort of soothing.

Rylan came to the side of us and put his hand on my cheek. Were there tears in his eyes? There shouldn’t be. They didn’t cry in my dreams. They were free. Running as bears. No more nonsense.

No more war.

Then Cole was back, still holding that injection. I closed my eyes. I was through fighting the inevitable. Okay, he was going to hurt me. There was going to be a pounding right in my arm. But he was gentle. It pinched, and then it was over. A coolness passed through my arm. Whatever he put in me didn’t hurt like the way the abusive drugs did.

I wasn’t out cold. It didn’t knock me on my rear. More like. . .I crawled against Finn. Letting him hold me closer. Cole touched my ear, and it didn’t hurt. That was weird. Anytime anyone came anywhere near it, I hollered in pain. He shined a light in it, and I could hear his voice as he spoke to Finn and Rylan. I couldn’t understand him, but that close to my ear, I could hear him.

This was starting to feel very real.

“Dreams shouldn’t be this real. That makes them harder to leave.”

Rylan stroked the top of my head. To make matters even stranger, my brother came through the door.

“What’s the prognosis?” I could understand him just fine.

I sat up a little, and Cole put his hand on me to stop me. He answered Cal, but I couldn’t understand him.

“Okay, then. See you in a bit, Jess. Love you.”

Love me? He didn’t love me. No one loved me.

All three of my mates spoke. Maybe I’d said that last part aloud.

“Can you understand me and hear me?” Cole brushed my hair off my forehead. I sweated badly. It was hot in here. Or maybe it was just the furnace that was Finn holding me.

“I can.” I squirmed, and Finn let me up just a little. He still had his arm around me. “How is this happening?”

Rylan scooted over from where he’d been leaning by the wall. “Fuck, yes.”

I rubbed at my eyes. “I don’t understand.”

Cole grinned at me for a second before his head fell down like his neck couldn’t support the weight. He took a deep breath and lifted it. “Your translator was damaged. No one fixed it. A side effect of a damaged translator left in the ear is that it makes the person hard of hearing. Worse and worse. I simply had to change it out. Not a big deal. I’m sorry they didn’t do it for you. They were all of them butchers and. . .” He didn’t finish whatever he was going to say. He rubbed his eyes.

They’d all lost weight since I last saw them, and I had a million questions.

“How is this possible?”

Rylan sat down on the edge of the table. “After we found out you weren’t dead, we tracked down McDermott. You’d been gone three days. He’s not breathing air anymore. Neither are any of the Derbys.”

I swallowed that information and found it didn’t bother me at all. “Okay.” I pointed to my ear. “Their leader is the one who hurt me with the translator.”

Finn snarled. “I wish I could kill him again.”

“We got ahold of our cousin, and he came and got us. We were on our way to Earth, working out a plan on how to get to you, not even knowing where you were, when we got a message from your brother. Well, he found us. Turned out he knew our cousin. Nefarious personalities run in crowds.” Rylan smiled at the memory. “He knew where you were. Was planning on getting you and wanted to know if we wanted in. He knew who we were, thanks to our cousin.”

This all made sense. I hadn’t hallucinated seeing Cal. “I. . .I never thought.” I choked on a sob and then tugged it back in. They all made varying degrees of growls and whimpers. “I thought that was that. I’d never see you again.”

Finn sucked in a long breath. “We failed you.” He hit the ground on his knees, his head lowered. “We can’t make it right. There isn’t fixing this. There is only what can come next. Do you want a future with us? We cannot live in the world if you aren’t okay, but if we know you are okay, we will leave you alone. If that is what you wish.”

Is that what I wished? “I have wanted nothing but you for. . .” I didn’t know how long it had been. “How long since we saw each other?”

Cole sighed. “A year and one day. We were hoping to get you yesterday, but things aren’t moving as fast as we keep trying to make them. We’re a bit of a slow moving cog.”

“Why?” My ears were working, and suddenly the sound of the ship we flew on overwhelmed my senses. It had been such a long time since I’d been in space, and I used to spend almost every waking moment there. My trip to the asylum didn’t matter. I’d been knocked out for most of it. This was a large ship. This was. . .

“Are we on a freighter? Why is this ship so big?”

Rylan put out his hand. “Before we left, Finn gave the people a choice. They could stay where they were and live a completely isolationist life, potentially never finding their mates or they could come with us. It would be a long time until we found a new home, but they could come.”

Finn got to his feet, hugging me to him. I could hear his heartbeat. Both of those facts—his heartbeat being near me and that I could hear it—were large miracles.

“I thought maybe Mark would show up with his mate and brothers. We had a larger group than we initially thought. Hence the large ship. There are actually four ships.”

Goosebumps broke out on my arms, and I rubbed them away. “That’s huge. You guys don’t like to leave home, mostly. Where are we going?”

“We’ve been focused on getting to you. But your brother helped some of the others find a planet he knew about. Terraformed fifty years ago. Apparently, there are all kinds of people there. Shifters, and others who prefer to simply be left alone. We’re going to go there now.”

My planet on the edge of the universe. Yes, sure, Cal knew about it. I’d talked about it a million times. That’s where I was supposed to be going when I got him out of jail.

I nodded. “You had to change your entire planet to be with me. I don’t know if I can ever live up to expectations.”

Rylan kissed my hand. “No expectations. Just you. Just us. We’re not even going to try to lead once we’re there. We’re just going to be. Just family.”

Tears streamed from my eyes. “And can we have a house where the chairs are too big? And the bed is too big? And the fridge has some items I can’t identify in it?”

“Maybe we can make some of that furniture just right.” Rylan put his nose on my neck, like he breathed me in. Cole kissed my cheek while Finn pressed our foreheads together. That was just what I needed. So we stayed like that. For a very long time.

I watched in amusement as the third bear shifter of the morning arrived to ask my mates for advice. Their idea about not leading had been ridiculous. Everyone wanted to know what they thought all the time about all sorts of matters.

This one had to do with the distribution of crops. I wasn’t sure that Cole exactly knew that, but he was answering just the same.

I put my hand on my stomach to feel the baby move. We only took up such a small portion of the planet, not wanting to cause issues with our neighbors. Rylan estimated it was maybe an eighth of the place. But with all the babies that were going to be born in the next year, that was bound to increase a bit.

Finn walked over and sat down next to me on our big bench. It had sort of become a joke. We made everything just slightly too big for me. Rylan arrived a second later. They’d seen me watch the suns set on this planet every day since we got here like it was my job.

“There’s been something I’ve wanted to ask you guys since day one.”

Cole ran over and sat on the edge of the bench. “Go. I’m here. Ask.”

Rylan rolled his eyes. “I bet we could have answered it without you.”

“Yes, I’m sure, but not as well as I’m going to answer it.”

Finn nudged me. “Ask. They’ll do it all night.”

“Why did the wolves shoot at me that day? Why did they do that when I wasn’t off the set path?”

Finn shrugged. “Who knows with wolves? They’re such miserable creatures. Not like the bear. The loyal, understandable, trustworthy bear.”

I held back my laugh. He might sound like he was kidding, but he wasn’t. If I laughed, he’d try to prove his point, and then we’d be talking about bears for the rest of the night.

Cole nodded. “Never could trust a wolf.”

Rylan drummed his hand on the bench. “Besides, if they hadn’t done that, you’d never have fallen from the sky and into my lap.”

Every time he talked about my crash landing, he added something to it to make the whole thing sound much more romantic than it was.

“That poor ship Goldie. She got me down safely.”

Finn played with a stand of my golden hair. “We can tell the kids stories about her someday. That’s what life is, right? A retelling of beautiful stories over and over? I can’t think of any I like more than the time Jessica arrived on Planet Bear.”

I wasn’t getting away without hearing about bears tonight. I leaned back on my bench and watched the orange redness of the sky. Finn started talking. Cole would be next. Rylan would finish. I was Jessica, and these were my three bears.

---