Saving Briar

Torin was losing his mind.

They’d arrived in Anchorage only to learn through a Kodiak Shifter contact that Oaklyn had at the airport that the Rose Industries jet had departed two hours earlier, bound for Las Vegas. Ted had wondered aloud if he was going to have to sedate Torin so they could continue on with the rescue plan, and while he’d tried to pass the words off as a joke, everyone in the group knew that there was more than a little truth to them.

Oaklyn had tried Brielle’s phone at least a dozen times since Torin had come to his senses, but it kept going straight to voicemail, and the female bear shifter couldn’t help but feel like that wasn’t an accident. She may have known Brielle for years, but she was coming to understand that there were obviously some rather large pieces of the She-Wolf’s story that were missing.

“We’re going to get her back.” The Alpha Wolf had dared say those words to Torin and it had taken everything in the large man’s body to hold the beast inside him back, as he sensed the presence of the person who had hurt his Wolfling was nearby.

His Wolfling.

Torin winced at the thought. She wasn’t his. She could have been, but he’d kept pushing her away, rejecting her advances over and over again. Had that only been a day earlier? How could so much have changed in such a short amount of time. He had known that sending her away meant letting her go, but he’d only been willing to make that sacrifice when he’d thought he was letting her go on to something better than what he could give her.

Knowing what she’d likely been lured into and who had her made his stomach turn.

He hated the Alpha Wolf that was now accompanying them, but he knew in comparison the man was nothing compared to the enemy that they would be facing in the future. Hell that’s why he hadn’t rejected the young Alpha’s offer to help. He sure as fuck didn’t want it, but he wasn’t going to turn away another strong fighter, even if he hated the man with every fiber of his being, not if it meant they had a better chance of saving Briar.

Ted was the one who called in a number of favors and managed to secure them a jet to fly south. Torin had no idea how the other man managed it, but Ted waved away Torin’s offers of money, saying that there was no need.

It took an hour to get everyone into the jet and to get clearance to take off, putting them nearly four hours behind the Rose Industries plane when they finally took to the air.

Torin had settled back in his seat, staring out the window, well aware that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he’d found Briar and knew that she was safe.

She might not want him now. He’d hurt her. If her leaving hadn’t told him that, the look he’d seen in her eyes the last time she came on to him had made it perfectly clear.

“You really care about her?” That mate of hers wouldn’t let up. Torin tried to force something like a smile onto his face when the other man settled into the seat next to him, but he was certain it looked more like a grimace.

“Not sure it’s any of your fucking business.” That hadn’t been what he’d opened his mouth to say, but the words came out and the Alpha didn’t look even vaguely surprised to hear them.

“I’m sure it’s not. Not after the way I screwed up with her.” Torin watched, feeling nothing, as the other man leaned forward in his seat, running both hands through his hair. “I’m not here to try to get her back. I know that that ship has sailed. I lost her. I damaged our bond irreconcilably. But fuck, when my Beta came to me and told me that she’d been taken,” Theon sucked in a long breath and Torin noticed that his hands were shaking.

“I don’t want her to pay any further for my sins and to be punished for the kind of Alpha, or the kind of man, that I’ve become. I didn’t see it until it was too late. I was too wrapped up in myself. And I’ll pay for that for as long as I live. I don’t want her to pay for it too. So I’m here to set her free, both from our bond and from whatever trouble she’s in.”

Torin’s brows had drawn together as he weighed the Wolf Shifter’s words. He was still pissed as Hell about everything that Briar had gone through. But sitting beside the mate of the woman he loved, he couldn’t help but think that he’d pushed her away too, and that now, as a result she was in danger.

Briar had left because she hadn’t felt welcome in his home. She might not have been in danger there, the way she had been in her pack, but he’d certainly been giving her signals that he’d wanted her gone sooner rather than later, knowing that the longer she stayed the greater the chances he’d lose control and do exactly what he’d been dreaming of doing since he’d had his first taste of her.

“I do.” Torin finally answered Theon’s earlier question, continuing when he saw the confusion in the other man’s eyes. “I do care about her.”

Theon nodded, accepting the words at face value. “I thought you must.” He finally replied. “You wouldn’t be doing all of this if you didn’t.”

A long silence followed before Theon spoke again. “When I first saw her I thought that I couldn’t accept a weak mate. All I could see was her rank in the pack as an Omega. And I could practically hear my father’s voice in my head telling me that it was my duty to find a strong mate and raise strong pups or the pack would never survive.”

Torin stayed silent. He didn’t want to hear any of this, but he wasn’t going to say anything.

“But I’ve begun to realize that he was wrong about a lot. He did so many things, so that the other men in our pack would think that he was strong and it hurt so many people. Fuck that’s how Briar’s father died.”

Torin’s head had leaned forward as he listened, but at this he raised his eyes. He was under the impression from his conversations with Briar that her father was killed in an accident of some kind and that she didn’t know much about it. If he could find answers for her, he wanted to do that.

“What happened?” Torin asked, truly interested in the answer.

“Twice a year my father liked to take his men out to different locations to hunt.” Torin’s eyes were fixed on the window ahead of them. He wasn’t sure why, but already he had a knot in his gut that he couldn’t unravel. “He’d take his best warriors, as a reward, and they’d go out as a team and take down what my father called ‘Big Game.’”

Theon took a deep breath.

“When I was in middle school I remember being upset he wouldn’t take me along. I was already pretty tall and big. And I could hunt. I just really wanted to go with them. Now I thank the Goddess that he wouldn’t let me.”

There was another long pause and Torin waited for him to continue, although some part of him felt like he knew where the story was going.

“They didn’t just hunt in Alaska. Once they went down to Florida. Once to Minnesota. Hell, a couple of times they even left the country for their hunts. My father has albums with photos and-” Theon’s voice trailed off and he shuddered. When Torin glanced over at the younger man he saw that he was extremely pale.

“That doesn’t matter. I need to get on with the story. Some warriors went once and after that opted out. They said once was enough. But most went again and again. They wanted to be in my father’s good graces and they knew that he was closest with those men who went hunting with him.”

“What did he hunt, Theon?” Torin hadn’t meant to speak, but he found he couldn’t wait another moment to hear the confirmation of what he already suspected.

“Other shifters. Sometimes it was an alligator, or a deer shifter. Once they tried for a female dragon shifter. It was the only time they failed, although I hear she was seriously injured in the attack. Reindeer, bears, snakes, wolverines, horses, birds, you name it, if there’s a shifter out there, they wanted to hunt them. I swear if he could have gotten away with it, he would have brought them back stuffed as trophies, but as you probably know when a shifter is killed-”

“They shift back.” Torin filled in what he knew Theon was about to say. “Fuck.”

“Briar’s father died in the same incident my father died in. A few other warriors were seriously injured. According to what Beta Poe said, and he was there, they’d been watching this female Bear Shifter for days. They waited until she was alone to attack her. But her mate realized something was going on...” Theon shook his head, letting his voice trail off again.

“And I got there and killed them, both your father and Briar’s. But I was too late. My mate was already dead.”