Bearly alive

3

Roman

I'm a brute. A monster, fists for hire. I do the dirty odd jobs that no respected shifter or supernatural being ever wants to be associated with. Most importantly, I’m the f*****g best and I pride myself on it. And that is because I kill without remorse, I'm an assassin. I don't ask questions that I don't want to know the answers to, and I certainly never go soft or feel for my targets.

Until I met this one.

I'm Roman, and I am a werebear, though my bear and I aren't on good terms at the moment.

Her name is Stella, and she's a werewolf. An Omega, or so I've been told. Right now, looking at her tiny frame I'm starting to doubt that she's more than a measly human. I don't like dealing with humans. It somehow feels like I'm cheating, since they don't possess any powers that they could use to fight back. Not that any of them fight back against me, not that they could ever be a match, or get the chance to.

Watching her, so skinny, so frail, I briefly wonder if I have the wrong girl, but I don't allow myself to debate that for too long or I might miss my opportunity, and I’ve already had one of the shittyest days in a while.

I grab her by her hair. She winces in pain, somehow even before I tugged at her locks. I turn her around and see her eyes go as wide as saucers and I can practically feel her wanting to scream even before her lips part.

"Shut up!" I growl at her and watch all the colour drain from her doll-like face. Why the f**k does she look like a kid who opened a gift on Christmas morning only to find a pair of pyjamas in there? And why the f**k am I asking myself why my target looks disappointed, of all things? It's not like she was expecting someone else to come and kidnap her. Or did she? It must be that I look scarier than usual after my earlier run in with her fellow pack mates. I usually don’t wear as much blood on my hands, but time is of the essence here.

In all fairness, it’s not every day that I get a job from the King of all beasts himself. And despite his peculiar request, it’s not like I can say no to him, certainly if I don’t want my own life to become very difficult if not endangered. Although, after the last hour I’m strongly considering taking my chances.

“Come on, move.” I urge her, though she’s light as a feather, and not in a good way, more like heavily malnourished. I also realise I’m practically holding her up by her hair since her body has gone limp. She must be in some kind of shock. Those huge golden eyes are watching me without blinking, and it creeps me out while also doing something weird to my insides. It sort of reminds me of her, and Goddess knows I’ve done everything in this world to ensure nothing will ever remind me or make me feel like she did ever again.

I curse as I hear a vehicle approaching far in the distance. Maybe the girl was expecting someone else to come grab her, or maybe those fuckers are comming back with reinforcements.

Judging by how fast the car seems to be going and the dirt road they are on, I have about a minute before it reaches us, so I need to hurry and drag my newly collected target back towards my own vehicle, then get the hell away from here.

Truth be told, I am a little unprepared for the first time in my career. I usually don’t grab my targets without a well thought out plan beforehand, but I’ve been watching the Thunderbolt pack and not once since I’ve been here has Stella the Omega gone outside the pack's borders. She didn’t even come within a mile of the border. In fact, I only caught a glimpse of her once, a few weeks ago, when I managed to sneak inside their pack and confirm my target was indeed there. So I kind of had to take advantage of this opportunity and grab her, or I sense I would have wasted another couple of months on this job. And as well as it pays, it’s boring as s**t, though the unexpected fight I got into earlier broke the pattern.

I usually don't get involved in anything I see going on. Not my problem is my motto and has been for a long time, since I have plenty of problems of my own. But not when there is an unfair advantage, that just pisses me off. And five f*****g werewolves preying on a human is just beyond unfair advantage. It was obvious that the woman those idiots were circling in the woods had come voluntarily, but I doubt she was expecting that. After a short back and forth with myself and my bear, my idiotic self decided to intervene and give the poor woman a chance to leave.

I made quick work of beating the fuckers to a pulp since I really needed to let out some steam and frustration of my own, but one of them managed to stick a needle in me and I must have blacked out, because it feels like I blinked and when I opened my eyes, they were gone.

I have no idea what could await for me, if they went and asked for help, if their whole pack is out on the hunt for me, but walking away from a job, especially one ordered by the King of beasts is a major no, especially when I’m the one to f**k it up, so here I am, grabbing Stella and dragging her after me.

It doesn’t occur to me that I didn’t even gag her, or put something over her head, until the car approaches and she gasps like she just woke up from a trance or suddenly remembered something. She catches me off guard and manages to slip out of my grasp.

“Oh, for f**k’s sake. Come back here.” I growl and lunge back to grab her. She struggles, surprising me with how much resistance she shows compared to a few minutes ago when I surprised her. Maybe the initial shock wore off, I tell myself, but she looks determined as hell.

“Wait, I have to give Margo the note.” She struggles to push me off.

Who the f**k is Margo? I ask myself and growl at her, then I practically drag her out of the way and behind a tree just as the car passes close to us on the road.

And it’s not until the car has passed that I finally start to see something that makes sense on a victim’s face. Fear. Panic. Something inside me wakes up, like a dormant beast. I push it back down.

“No, no, no. You, you have to let me go. I need to run after the car and give her the note.” The girl keeps mumbling. I frown at the senseless things she says and continue to drag her after me by holding onto one of her wrists. It seems that her energy is gone after that little burst earlier when she managed to get away and take two steps before I caught her again.

“No, please. You have to let me go. Oh, Goddess, the note.” She practically sobs. “You don’t understand, he will kill me.” I stop and force myself to look at her face again. The way she said it, it sounds so final and she looks so sure of the outcome. It’s chilling. But then again, that may very well be her fate once I do my part and deliver her to the King. I don’t care about what happens next, I’m ready to be done with this task. Yet a part of me makes me speak before I can think better of it.

“If he wanted you dead, I would have killed you already. My job is to deliver you to him. Alive.” This is my way of trying to reassure her. She looks defeated, not reassured in any way. I'm doing shitty job, apparently. I should stick to being the bad guy.

My bear growls in my head, unimpressed with the piss poor job I did at making her feel better, but that’s just it. I’m here to literally kidnap her, not make her feel better. I’m the boogieman, not the one that keeps her safe in his arms.

And now I have the idea of my arms curling around her small frame to keep her safe, which pisses me off even further, so I tug harshly for her to start walking again. I really need to be done with this job sooner rather than later.

“You’re right, what waits for me is a fate far worse than death,” She whispers after looking at me in a strange way. Most likely her words are not intended for me, but I hear them nonetheless. I can’t stop wondering what she did to anger the King of beasts and have him go to these lengths to get her. I mean, she’s just an Omega. He could have easily asked the Alpha of Thunderbolt pack to give her to him. I have been having the nagging feeling that I’m in the dark about a lot when it comes to this job, but when the King himself tells you you know enough to complete your mission, you thank him and go complete that f*****g mission.

“Where are you taking me? This isn’t the way back to the pack house.” Stella spoke again and for some reason, I stopped walking again and turned to face her as I answered. She seemed almost hopeful, but I can’t stop wondering why she would even assume I was taking her to the pack house. Surely she can’t mean Thunderbolt’s pack house, right?

“That I can’t tell you, but what I can say is that things would go a whole lot easier for you if you did what I say.” Surprisingly, she nodded. I may be imagining things, but her shoulders seemed to relax a little too.

A few miles later, I could tell my little prisoner was about to faint from exertion, so I mumbled some curses to let her know just how happy I was about this, and took her in my arms. I nearly dropped her as she curled into me like a rescue cat. My body recoiled instantly, unsure of the game she was playing. It took her about ten minutes to pass out completely, and I’m starting to think the girl is not all there in the head. She seemed more terrified that I would take her back to her pack, which means she doesn’t actually know who ordered me to grab her.

From all this, what makes me unusually angry and more involved than I should be is the thought of her being relieved to be taken away from her pack.

Get a f*****g grip, Roman. You don’t get involved, you don’t care, it’s just a f*****g job. I scolded myself all the rest of the way to the car I had stashed away in a no man’s land between two packs' borders.