Between a Bear and a Hard Place (Alpha Werebear Romance) by Lynn Red Page A

keep gesturing . Rogue’s thoughts were racing. In the last three months, he’d seen enough TV to know that whatever these things were, they were no good. They looked similar to the way Draven had been dressed, but knowing that they were involved with GlasCorp was already a foregone conclusion.
    The eight figures had drawn into a circle, each of them moving their heads slowly left, then slowly right, as though the green glass of their goggles functioned as some kind of scanning device, and they were just waiting to pick up some kind of signal, some sort of reading.
    Something crunched in the far distance, on the other side of the area, almost exactly opposite the circle from where Rogue and King were crouched. The figures didn’t react to it, as though they didn’t have normal senses, because the sound wasn’t quiet.
    “Report.” Same voice, different source.
    “Nothing,” one of them said. “Nothing,” said another, and on down the line.
    “I have something,” said the seventh voice. He was pointed in the direction where Rogue heard the crackling sound. “Motion. Or heat. Something. It’s strange though.”
    “Strange? Report.” It was the first voice again, or so Rogue thought. It was hard to tell.
    I wonder if they’re some kind of security system? Or some kind of Borg? He’d been watching a lot of Star Trek. Hive mind?
    “Changing shape. Directly ahead.”
    The first voice emitted a sort of chirping sound, followed by a series of clicks that couldn’t possibly have come out of a human mouth. And then for a moment, the static was back. Hissing, crackling, like he was producing a radio tuned to a static signal. Slowly, he started reciting numbers.
    “One, eight, six. Two, seven, four, four, eight,” it intoned. Rogue felt his skin crawl. He read something about number stations in one of Jill’s crazy-person conspiracy magazines. The conclusion the author came to was that they were forgotten remnants of cold war, or possibly early radio era, spying. Long series of nonsense numbers that contained some kind of important missive.
    “Nine, Forty-three, one-sixty-two, eight.”
    Then again, here were a bunch of weird-as-hell cloaked figures, and one of them seemed to be the walking version of a number station.
    “Eight, sixteen, forty-seven. Forty-seven. Forty-seven.”
    King let out an attention-getting, low sound. Rogue looked in his direction. “I think we better do something,” he said in the tight-throated voice that they used when they were bears. “I think they found our kin.”
    As though controlled by some external force, all eight of the figures turned at once, unloading their guns into the forest without a single second’s pause.
    Rogue roared, King flew out of their hiding place, and two breaths later, King had one of them in his jaws, Rogue had sent one flying with a swipe, and bullets were going in a whole lot more directions than “straight ahead.”
    By the incredibly short period of time that it took the soldiers to retrain their aim – this time on Rogue and King – whoever it was they’d been firing at took a turn. One black-hued bear and one golden one crashed straight into the group of six, thrashing, slashing and clawing like hell itself opened up.
    Rogue took one look at the pair of newcomers and knew he liked them instantly. Without a second thought, he charged headlong into the melee. Left and right he flung his claws wildly, not thinking, not planning, but just feeling the battle course through his veins. Something warm struck him in the face, but when it ran into his mouth it wasn’t the coppery taste of blood that he’d expected. Instead it was bitter and foul. He heard King shout something, but the largest of the three bears wasn’t fighting,.
    “What did you say?” Rogue shouted back, raggedly ripping his voice from his pained throat. He dispatched another of the strange soldiers with a backhanded swipe as the two newcomers ripped one straight in two.