Gladiator bear, p.7
Gladiator Bear, page 7
part #1 of Gladiator Shifters Series
Anna wanted very badly to ask what the bear in the cage below had to do with Garius, but the emperor suddenly shoved her.
She didn't even have time to scream as she went head over heels across the window barrier and hurtled toward the pit below.
She barely had time to be afraid before the wire net caught her. A yelp burst from her lungs then, pushed out by shock and discomfort bordering on pain. Steel wasn't meant to be a comfortable landing, no matter how thin and delicate the strands appeared.
A sound rose up from the whole arena: from the audience; from the hawk, whose shriek far overpowered hers; from the bear, which roared as if it had been thrown from a height. Anna lay gasping in the net, trying to decide if anything was really hurt or if the overpowering noise made her feel worse than she needed to. Nothing was broken, at least, which meant she could—meant she had to—roll over, wobbling to her hands and knees on the strands of wire.
She did, and found herself eye to golden eye with the crimson hawk. It opened its beak and screamed in her face, its narrow pink tongue curling with rage. It twisted, all but hanging upside down from one foot and trying to shove its other foot through the net strands to claw at her face. Anna had met plenty of aggressive predatory birds in her day, but never one whose head was larger than hers. She spread her arms, making herself as big as possible, dropped her jaw, and screamed back at the bird at the top of her lungs.
It actually flinched backward, obviously shocked. In falling back, it put itself just within the bear's range. The bear jumped, an athletic leap that looked more human than animal, and swatted the hawk with a casual blow that knocked the bird loose from the netting. The audience howled its appreciation, and a chant to kill rose, but the bear ignored the bird once it hit the floor, pacing beneath Anna instead.
She swore it looked worried, which wasn't normally an expression she associated with bears. Somehow the furrow of its brow reminded her of Garius, of the gently teasing, concerned expression he'd acquired when asking if she liked dying dog movies. Maybe it was just worried it wouldn't get to eat her. She took her gaze from its face, searching for a way off the net.
There wasn't one, really. Probably that wasn't usually an issue: she doubted people were often shoved out of windows during net-caged fights.
The idea that they might be shoved out of windows when there wasn't a net to catch them struck her, and suddenly cold fear shut down almost all of her ability to think. The emperor had tried to kill her. She bet he'd forgotten the pit had a net covering right now, and had expected her to fall to her death, dashed against the ground or mauled by wild animals. Even as the realization sent tremors through her, she heard another sound, a dangerous buzzing that made her think of swarming bees. But the cables began to vibrate with it, and sickness filled her stomach.
Electricity was building, preparing to run through the net. The cage masters probably used it to keep animals from leaning into the walls, but it would work just as well to fry a human stuck on top of the net ceiling. Someone wanted Anna dead, or wanted the bear badly enough to kill her for it. And she couldn't even run. The net had too much flex to stand on, and the cables trembled with rising power.
She crawled toward the cage's edge, dress tangling around her knees as they slid through the open gaps in the net, slowing her. The long sleeves of Garius's coat at least protected her hands from the twists of the steel cables, but she would never make it to the edge in time. The sound from the crowd almost overwhelmed the buzz of building electricity. Anna couldn't tell if they were cheering for her death or her survival.
She'd faced down poachers, for heaven's sake. Dying in a net on somebody's illegal fighting pit seemed incredibly stupid. She yanked her skirt up, not caring if the whole world saw her underwear, and began to crawl more easily, focusing on the wires beneath her hands. The bear was a shadow beneath her, pacing with consternation.
Hairs began to rise on her arms, a warning that the electricity had built to release pressure. She didn't know if it would be a killing pulse, or merely disabling. Surely they didn't want to just cook their captive animals against electric wires, if a shock would get them back into the fight. But a thousand pound bear could probably take a lot more of a shock than a human. Of course, a human could probably take more of a shock than a bird, even a raptor as big as the chestnut hawk.
Either way, she wasn't going to get off the net in time. Anna slid an arm out of Garius's jacket and shoved the sleeve between her teeth, hoping she wouldn't rattle them out of her head when the shock hit.
Sheer panic crossed the bear's face, and as the shock wave began to hit, it flung itself into the cage walls, absorbing the brunt of the electricity.
Anna screamed, watching the beautiful animal throw himself against the wires again and again. Shocks coursed through her palms, zotted her knees, but they were tolerable, barely rattling her teeth. She spat the coat sleeve out, gasping for air as she watched the pit floor below her. The hawk awakened, dragging itself upright to sharpen its gaze between Garius and Anna, and back again. Its shoulders caved, eyelids closing before it took a breath that puffed its whole chest, and, like the bear, threw itself against the cage walls, allowing electricity to course through it.
Another scream tore from Anna's throat, deafening her, even quieting the cheering audience. Electricity burst in a shower of sparks as the audience fell entirely silent, their understanding of the match changed. Anna, through an erratic heartbeat, struggled to grasp why, and then slowly, as her ability to think returned, understood.
The electric fence was a last-ditch line between the predators in the ring and the people paying to watch them fight. Without it, chain link wasn't enough to stop a thousand-pound bear. Without it, the humans became prey. A thrill of vicious glee rose in Anna's chest. People who paid to see this deserved to be hunted. The only shame was that she couldn't get the net off so the hawk could go after the really rich, higher up in the stands.
Or maybe she could. She was close to the edge now anyway, and no longer had to worry about being electrocuted. Maybe she could peel the net back far enough to let the hawk escape. She'd come here to rescue Garius and the animals who were being abused. Saving the hawk would accomplish at least part of that.
If the poor thing could even fly, at least. It had collapsed on the ground, its chest still heaving underneath black marks burnt into its crimson breast. The bear was still flinging himself against the cage walls, bending the links out of shape and making it harder for Anna to crawl to the edge. It didn't matter. She was one hundred percent on his side. It only took an extra few seconds to make it to the edge anyway. From there she was able to drag the weighted side of the net away from its resting place on the top of the cage's edge.
An awful lot of things went wrong then, though. She hadn't thought through what her weight on the unanchored net would do. Suddenly she was falling again, a startled shriek ripping from her throat. She had the sense of the bear rushing to her aid, and had time to think that one of them was going to regret it if she landed hard on his bony spine.
Something happened. A twist of light at the corners of her vision. A thump of sound like a car door closing. A rush of familiar, comforting scent, where there had only been the smells of wildness and sweat before.
Garius Beren caught her in his arms, and crushed her safely to his chest.
CHAPTER 12
Anna's weight in his arms calmed Garius's bear in a way nothing else ever could. He buried his nose in her hair, breathing deeply and murmuring nonsense that mingled with worry. She whispered, "I'm fine, I'm all right, I hardly got shocked at all, that bear—"
And then she lifted her head, looking for the bear in a way that told him she already knew, but couldn't believe the impossible. Her gaze skirted the pit, then returned to him, wide-eyed, and she repeated, "That bear..." softly. She didn't recoil, though, which was more than he dreamed of. His bear chuffed softly, dismissing his concerns: it had trusted she wouldn't be afraid. "Garius, that bear..." she said again, and he shrugged, a tiny motion that hardly moved the solid, reassuring weight of her.
"I didn't have time to explain before." He glanced up, then brought his eyes back to hers. "I don't have time to explain now. We have problems."
To his huge relief, a quirk of amusement twitched her mouth. "Oh, really? I couldn't tell. Put me down. You can explain later. After we've escaped. Good thing they kidnapped me, too," she added under her breath, as he put her on her feet. "I don't know how I would've rescued you otherwise."
The pit floor rumbled as she got her feet under herself, its gears beginning to shift the whole room so the doors would close off. Anna blanched, but rather than break for the gates, as would have been sensible, she ran to the downed hawk, pulling Garius's tuxedo jacket off as she went. An idiotic surge of joy rushed through Garius. She was wearing his coat. It meant nothing. It meant everything. She'd been kidnapped and decided the smart thing to do was rescue him, as if he was a...well, not a damsel in distress. A prince in a pickle, maybe.
And he wasn't the only person in a pickle that she intended to rescue. She gathered the hawk in her arms with the confidence of someone who knew what she was doing, by draping the jacket over its head. It calmed, and she wrapped her arms around it, clasping its wings closed. She grunted, lifting it. Even shifter birds had hollow bones, but more than physics allowed them to fly. The hawk probably weighed far more than she expected.
Garius remembered, abruptly, how his first thought upon seeing her was that she could carry a large dog to safety. Confidence soared through him. She would never let the hawk down.
He touched her shoulder, once she was on her feet with the hawk in her arms. "We have to get through the doors."
She arched her eyebrows. "You're the big one. Make it happen."
If his bear could physically manifest heart eyes, Garius thought they would pop into existence right then. Instead he only nodded and ran for the doors, but the grinding gears thumped to a stop as he reached it, and an inside door swept open.
The terrified Atlas sow and her cub came out at a run, bellowing their confusion. Anna skidded to a halt behind Garius with a delighted shriek—"A sow! An Atlas sow! And cub!"—that drew the mother bear's attention. Garius flashed into his shifter form and roared a warning at the sow. She stopped with all four paws dug into the sand, fear sending her scrambling backward. Anna stayed on Garius's far side, well away from the sow. Garius tossed his glance between the woman, the sow, and the stands that were rapidly emptying of spectators.
Go through. His bear didn't waste time debating, and after only a heartbeat of hesitation, neither did Garius. He spun to charge the heavy link fence, all his weight smashing against it again. No electric shock coursed through him this time to numb his senses. All that kept him from freedom was metal, and metal couldn't withstand his anger.
After a few seconds the sow threw herself against the cage walls, too. Garius's bear grunted approval as pandemonium erupted on the other side of the cages, humans fleeing like mice before a flood. The sow was hardly more than half Garius's size, but that still meant fifteen hundred pounds of wild animal flinging itself against cages meant to constrain, not jail. Metal tore and Garius burst through, roaring instructions that Anna couldn't understand and the sow didn't need.
He meant for Anna to go first, to stay ahead so he could see and protect her. Instead she shouted for him to lead, and took up the tail instead, making sure that the cub, who was very excited by all the commotion, stayed close enough to his mother to be safe.
Unadulterated adoration flooded Garius. Anna Liffey was more than he could ever have imagined. Better. Kinder. Wiser. And maybe he hadn't blown it by dint of being a bear.
Told you, his bear said impatiently, beneath the bedlam they'd created. Part of him—the wildest part, the deepest, strongest part of the bear—wanted to turn on the men who had caged him and paid to watch him fight. But that could come later. Now he needed to get Anna and the true bears out of there, so he only charged recklessly down the corridor leading to the nearest docks. There had to be a boat there that he could use. A boat big enough to carry three bears and—
Anna had brown hair.. Not Goldilocks, then. Garius still tripped over his own paws, laughing at himself, while his bear snarled with impatience. Faster.
Human legs weren't faster, not in the short term, but Garius shifted mid-step anyway so he could look behind himself as he ran. Anna was keeping up, her cheeks flushed and her gaze intent on the ground as she carried the hawk to safety. The cub went charging past Garius, not caring that he'd shifted, but its mother skidded and released a confused howl.
Anna smacked right into the sow's back end, shouted at the top of her lungs, and sent the mother bear running forward again, although Garius could sense the poor animal's bewilderment. He bellowed, a sound deeper than a human chest should be able to make. Although the sow clearly didn't know where it had come from, she seemed reassured by the idea that the boar bear was still nearby. More importantly, though, her baby had gone ahead, and nothing but death would part her from him.
The five of them—two bears, two shifters, and a human—burst out of the tunnel onto the worst-kept docks in fifty miles. Rotted wood, a strong smell of fish, waves splashing up over walkways...this was where the locals entered to watch the fights, and it was meant to dissuade casual approach. The mother bear's weight smashed a hole through a board and she pulled back, roaring in fear.
Anna ran past Garius, thrusting the hawk into his arms as she gave the sow wide berth and seized the rope of the largest boat docked at the pier. She hauled on it, swore, and kicked her high heels off so she could place one foot against a dock support and bodily haul the boat forward, as near to the sow as she dared. "Get the cub on the boat!"
Garius scrambled to do as he was told, admiration rolling through him. Bears, for all their size and reputed aggression, were inherently shy animals. He'd never imagined a take-charge woman would thrill him so much, but even his bear was essentially prepared to roll over and expose its belly to Anna Liffey. She'd give him a good scritching, he thought, a nice solid rub...
Mate later, his bear muttered reluctantly. Get the cub now.
Right. Garius dumped the hawk over the side of the boat, mumbling an apology, then scooped the cub into his arms. It bawled with surprise, hit him across the face with its head, then licked him, making for a painful combination of fluff and amusement. His bear wanted Garius to knock heads with the cub again, part play and part warning, but Garius tucked the little animal under his arm and vaulted into the boat while the sow roared with worry. Garius backed away, putting as much distance between the mother and her baby as he could while Anna, muscles straining in her arms, held the boat against the dock.
"Come on, Mama. Come get your baby." Garius gave up on human words and crooned, a deep reassuring rumble that sounded more bear than man. The cub wiggled in surprise and clawed his leg, which dropped a note of pain and anger into Garius's call, and the sow, suddenly more worried for her baby than afraid, rushed forward.
Her weight pitched the boat deeply to the side, knocking Anna off balance. She fell face-forward into the hull, nearly landing on the sow, but her hand shot up and her muffled voice called, "I'm okay!" as panic spurted through Garius. He put the cub down and the sow, struggling to find sure footing, edged forward toward her baby.
Anna sprang to her feet, hair wild in her face and her dress soaking wet from the water that had gathered in the bottom of the boat. "Keep them in the middle," she snapped. "As close to center as you can." She spun away, not waiting to see if he did as he was told, and unwrapped the docking rope with skilled, efficient motions.
"Ahhhshhh," Garius murmured to the bears. "C'mon, Mama. You're safe now. I've got you. We've got you." Rumbles accompanied the words, the soft sounds of a contented beast. His bear was nearly at the surface now, not quite pressing to get out—it understood what its weight would do to the boat, because Garius did—but Garius knew his scent had changed, that he seemed more wild, and therefore safer, to the bewildered sow.
He kept murmuring, trying to get her settled in the bottom center of the boat. She stood there already, more or less, with her legs braced wide and the cub beneath her. The cub was looking around like he was enjoying this very interesting adventure. At least someone was. "Lie down, there's a good girl."
The boat shoved off from the dock with a smooth motion. Garius glanced toward Anna to see her actually girding her loins: she pulled her skirt all the way up, snugged it against her backside with all the fabric in front of her, then swept it back through her legs, parting the fabric to both sides of her hips from behind and tying it in front of her. A gladiator couldn't have done better.
A gladiator wouldn't be wearing stockings and garters beneath their clothes, though. A pang of sharp desire turned Garius rigid in every possible sense of the word, his breath caught in his chest. He forgot about soothing the bears, gazing instead with star-struck lust at the briskly efficient wildlife conservationist. Anna caught his look and straight-up smirked, as if she knew and appreciated the power of her strength and confidence.
The dock drifted away, black water widening as—finally—people began to pour out of the fighting arena's entrances. Garius frowned as his attention was pulled toward them. It seemed like it had been forever since they'd made their escape, although it couldn't really have been more than a few seconds. Humans were just so slow, sometimes.
Not our human, his bear said with satisfaction, and as Garius chuckled, the sow suddenly settled down, half-squishing her cub beneath her. Good, his bear said. She understands we're family now. All of us.
