Bear's Strength

Four wildling lovers. Five mates to align. Fourteen missing kids.

With five very different personalities bound by the universe, it's no surprise 'aligning our quint' isn't as easy as I hoped. Still, when all the life and death obstacles hit us, it's Musketeer time– All for one and one for all. Do we have the juice to pull it together and unite the realms? Um... no one seems to agree on that. The one thing that everyone is straight on, though, is that the corruption in the upper levels of the Fae Concealment Office must be rooted out and stopped.

What do superpowered teenagers have to do with anything? Who is moving behind the scenes to make our lives more difficult? And what's the real reason Brant is holding back because I know it isn't what's happening behind closed doors. As a woman who's never made it work with one guy, do I have what it takes to make it work with four? Gawd... I hope so.

Brant

It’s four o’clock in the afternoon when we step off Hawk’s sleek Gulfstream G650ER jet, at a private airport outside of Portland. Hawk’s pilot taxied us right inside the hangar, so despite it pissing down rain, we’re free to stretch our legs while the airport Welcome Wagon does their thing. 

Hawk takes Kotah, his younger sister, Keyla, and Doc over to meet a few of his hand-picked security staff waiting by the office door, and Calli, Jaxx, and I wander.

“Hey, Lukas,” I say, nodding to the military-fit, right-hand mage of our avian mate. The guy has proven solid from the get-go and after he saved our asses with his magic dome of impenetrability during the missile attempt on our lives, I’ve learned to respect him as part of the team. “Hawk said the warehouse in Eugene was a bust. Did you find anything we can use? Anything that leads us to where those teens are being hidden away?”

Lukas meets my knuckles for a bump and tilts his head from side to side. “Nothing inside, but a local investigations officer skimmed the garbage bags from the closest dumpster and found a couple of shipping orders made out to the FCO. She’s tracking the manifest info and accounts now. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll lead us to something we can use.”

“Cool. Where can I find her?”

Lukas points to the second of three, black SUV trucks parked outside the open doors of the hangar. “She’s working off her laptop and phone.”

I take that as my cue and head out.

Damn. It’s really coming down. I duck my head, scoot into the deluge, and dive into the back seat as quickly as I can manage. The door slams behind me and I’m still brushing my hands down the slick layer of water on my arms when her scent hits.

Shit on a stick. “Hey, Hannah,” I say, offering her what I hope is an easy, charming smile. “So, you’re the local IO Lukas mentioned, huh? When did you switch to investigations?”

Hannah Gantley, a redhead witch with fairy blood from the Seattle office, twists around in the shotgun seat and smiles. “If you’d called like you said you would, you’d know the answer to that, B.”

Okaaaay. So, I may have found too much enjoyment in Hawk’s two past-lover fiascos with Calli. It seems the universe has a sense of humor and is goosing me in the ass.

“A lot has happened in my life too, beautiful. Did you hear about the rise of the phoenix? I’m one of her guardian mates. I’m the chosen ursine.”

Hannah draws a deep breath and shakes her head. “You don’t carry the scent of a mated male. You sure you want to stick with that story?”

My bear growls loud and long. No. My scent isn’t merged as a claimed mate. Jaxx, Kotah, and even fucking Hawk have mated Calli over the past week and a half, but here I am, the charmer, stalled in my tracks and on the outside looking in. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to take things slow.”

Hannah snorts. “You taking it slow? You do remember our first sextacular meeting, right?”

“Of course, I do.” I had her long legs wrapped around my hips twenty-five minutes after we locked eyes across the dancefloor. “That was different. That was a bar crawl hookup. No strings. No complications.”

She tilts her head toward the hangar. “So, your mate-in-waiting is strings and complications?”

“No!”

“That’s what you said.”

“That is not at all what I said,” I say, my bear growling at the offense of even implying I would say such a thing. “Shit, forget it. I came to find out about the leads from the warehouse but it was obviously a mistake.” 

I reach for the door handle and Hannah reaches back and grabs my shirt. “Relax, Bear. I’m fucking with you. Tall, dark, and military over there told us almost nothing about why we’re here but your place as one of the chosen guardians is hardly a secret. Call me childish but twisting the screws to you took the edge off you dumping me.”

I shake my head. “Hannah… I never dumped you. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you thought we were anything more than a good time when I was in town.”

She stares at me for a moment longer and bursts out laughing. “Okay, still fucking with you.”

I flop back against the leather seats and curse. “Can we please fast-forward past the fucking with me part and focus on what you found at the warehouse? My bear’s not in full control right now and you’re testing my focus.”

Hannah sobers and shrugs. “Sure. Right after you tell me what’s really going on with the warehouse and why it’s so hush-hush.”

“If it ends the torment, done deal. Last fall, I took down three different kids with off-the-charts, unique fae affinities. When I followed up on them a month or so ago, I found that they’d been erased off the face of the earth. It’s a thorough wipe. Their parents know nothing about any of them, my files were altered to omit mention of them, and according to the records in the Fae Palace, they never existed.”

“Their existence is completely erased?”

“Yeah. It was made to look like Hawk Barron is behind it, but that’s not the case.”

“How can you be sure—”

“Because he’s another of our mates.” I wave off her skepticism, surprised how sure I am now of his innocence. “Trust me, I explored that avenue and it’s a dead end. As our bonds grow, so too does our sense of each other. Hawk’s a hard-ass but he’s also a patriot to all things fae.”

“So, three kids are missing, and you thought they might be in that warehouse?”

“No. Fourteen kids are missing, and we don’t know where the hell they are. Every time we dig deeper, we find that it’s worse than initially suspected. That’s why we have to move on this… and why we have to keep it quiet. Fourteen kids are depending on us and the enemy is our own people.”

Hannah purses her lips and frowns. “Okay, so here’s what I’ve found.”