Army Beasts Resurrection

Army Beasts Resurrection
: Stavros Returns

Copyright © April 2012 Dahlia Rose

Cover Art by
Mina Carter

ISBN
978-1-936668-79-3

All rights are reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Chapter One

Casey sighed. “Zane
,
take command of the unit
.
Nia… Tell her I love her so damn much and I will watch over her…”

“I got
this
man
.
I
t
’
s good
,
you can step back,
”
Stavros said. It was a lie
,
but of course he couldn’t tell Casey that.
His best friend
needed to go home to Nia
,
and Stavros was going to make sure that she wouldn’t grieve for her man.

Casey moved
,
letting out
a long sigh of relief
,
but then horror filled his voice. “Well thank god for that…fuck
,
Stavros
.
W
hat did you do?”

Zane ran
into the building
at that time and stopped short. “What did you do
?
S
hit
,
Stav
.
W
hy do you always have to be the brave one?”

“Because you idiots have women who love you to go home to
.
” Stavros sighed and ran his hands over his face tiredly. “I never expected to live as long as I have, I always knew I would die on the job. You guys are my family, I would do anything to protect you.”

“What the fuck did
he do?” Camden’s voic
e broke in on all their headsets.

“I wish people would stop asking that,” Stavros said with a shaky laugh.

“He has the wire secured by holding the l
ynch pin in place,” Zander replied.
“You crazy son a bitch, we’d have figured something out.”

“
I love you to
o,
Zander
,
but y
ou know we don’t have the time,” Stavros said with some humor. “
Take Casey and get the hell out of here
.
T
his t
hing is slipping
,
I can feel it.” He
grimaced.
“You guys are the best and
,
Nia
,
when you transcribe this, I lo
ve you too. Take care of Casey.”

“I’m not leaving you, man
.
N
ot like this…” He heard the grief in Casey’s voice. His best friend began to fight.
“Let me go you bastards
.
I’m not leaving him in there! God
,
I can’t leave him in there!”

Of course he wouldn’t, Casey would have held the wire with him if he could. They had been so close for so long
.
A
long with Zane they were like brothers. What better way to
go that protecting your brothers
?

“Bye
,
my friends
,” Stavros said.

He watched them pull Casey from the room even though he fought like a madman. His
friend’s
shift to his beast
rippled
across the muscles of his face. Stavros ripped off his headset and closed his eyes and let the string slip from his h
an
d. Nothing happened
,
and he opened his eyes in wonder.

Taking no chances
,
he stepped away and gave a little laugh. “Thank
G
od for shitty insurgent bomb makers.”

He
spoke to
o
soon
,
because he heard the tick
of a secondary bomb
,
and then another
,
and
the sound
sped up rapi
dly.
He knew that sound all to well it was a Bouncing Betty, a landmine that was filed with shrapnel for maximum damage.
St
avros began to
run
,
but a hidden door in the floor popped open and he felt a hand grab his leg. Kicking wildly
,
he got whoever it was in the face and flipped easily. He came face to face with an insurgent.
The man’s
bloody face was clean-s
haven and he wore an American uniform. Jesus
,
they were going to use him to get on base
,
Stavros thought. The instinct to survive kicked in
,
and just as he pulled the
man from his hiding place
,
the bomb exploded. The first wave of heat him as he rolled into the small
crawlspace
and pulled the trap door down.

He heard the screams of the insurgent as the shra
pnel hit him. Pieces of metal
tore through the floor and hit
Stavros,
searing into his flesh. The second wave destroyed the Afghani
citizen
.
St
avros knew nothing could stand up to that kind of explosion. H
eat bit at him
as he tried to curl into a small ball to protect himself. It didn’t stop the pain as hot metal rained into his hiding place and the house crumbled around him. A sharp pain went though his head
,
and he opened his mouth to scream
but
nothing came out
.
T
he combination of smoke, dust and heat choked him. Stavros felt himself slip into blackness and thought this was the end of his life. Only thing left was silence as he welcomed the darkness.

* * * *

Pain, Pain, Pain
…
He didn’t know if it was the sensation or the thought that woke him. Still
,
he was pulled out of the dream and he sighed gratefully while he lay in bed. The dull aching throb of his left side let him know he was still alive and kicking. If
you could
call
what he was doing
living.

A year later and
he was not completely healed. He’d spent week
s
in
his
shift
,
hoping it would
help him
heal him
more
quickly. But even after that
was accomplished
his body was scarred
:
down his left
arm, burn
s
on his face and thighs and shrapnel marks all over his back. He was a broken man, not good enough to be a soldier and
too
weak when he was in his beast form. He longed to see the face
s
of his friends again, but
he
couldn’t stand the thought of them pitying him or taking care of him.

A tiger that can no longer hunt goes
into the wild to die
. The words echoed in his head and that was what he’d done. He
’d
got
ten
into the desolate
woods
of Alaska and rented a cabin. Each night he went out
in his shift
and waited for the tiger inside him to give up and let them both slip into the afterlife. But his second side was stubborn as hell and each morning he came home.

A groan of pain escaped his lips as he rolled from the bed. He looked for the pain pill
s
and popped two
,
swallowing them without water
,
before he went to the bathroom.
It never took so long for him to heal in his life
,
but a few cuts or a bullet
wound
was nothing compared to what his body went through in that house. He shouldn’t have even survived to crawl away and shift, but somehow he did.
Being found in tiger form by Russian mercenaries was another miracle. Luckily there was one in the group of armed men who thought a white t
iger would make a good pet
,
and
they carried him back to their boat and worked on taking the pieces of metal out of him.

In the weeks that
followed
, as
they floated across the vast expanse of water, he was in and out of consciousness but to
o
weak to shift into human form. He heard them talking, a few of them teased about skinning hi
m for a coat. St
avros doubted that he could have stopped them if they had tried. Over the intercom he heard the captain call out that they were crossing into the
Bering
Sea close to Alaska. He
wanted all guns and any illegal
drugs taken from Afghanis
tan secured.

Stavros
got out of the small room they kept him in and leap
ed
into the ocean. He would rather drown that live in a cage for the rest of his existence.
But fate intervened once again and he found himself on the Alaskan coast, alive. He could hear his father’s voice in
his
head urging him to give up with a sickening laugh. Maybe
Stavros
didn’t want to die
,
o
r just the thought of shoving in
to his father made him move
,
but he got up on four shaky legs and move
d
inland.

He found an old fisherman’s shack and
some
clothes
,
and when he had more strength he made his way into a small town and accessed hi
s hidden
bank account
. That was
where
he
’d
met Amari, a beauty that made him her personal mission. She noticed instantly he was injured
and found the little cabin he’d
bought.
He’d even bought a broke
n
down little truck and drove it back to the cabin.
She was a nurse at the small clinic in the little Alaskan town outside Dutch Harbor. And it was
because of her that he made it. Amari
wouldn’t let him give up.

He
bought a
cell phone,
and opened it up and fixed it
the way Camden
had
show
n
him
to make
the phone and the SIM cared untraceable. He ran his fingers over the buttons of the cell and punched in a number that was imprinted in his memory.

Two rings
,
and the familiar v
oice answered. “Hello?”

Stavros
opened his mouth to speak and nothing came out.
He disconnected the call and sat staring at the phone in his hand. It wasn’t the first time in the last few months that he’d reach out for a connection to his previous life. But as usual
,
when he heard Casey’s voice he couldn’t bring himself to say
“
I’m alive.
”
Those guys didn’t need a burden
,
they needed a brother in arms
,
and he wasn’t
one
. Not the way he was now. This was his life
,
and the only saving grace of it was Amari.

H
e’d fallen for her big time but kept it to himself.
She was the reason
he lived
, a breath of fresh air in his life.
How could
a
gorgeous
,
ebony goddess want anything to do wit
h a broken scarred man like him?
She felt pity for him and nothing more, yet that didn’t make the longing to hold her and kiss her any less.

Standing in front of the mirror
,
he closed his eyes an
d brought her face into his mem
ory. The soft choc
o
late
-
brown eyes that always held laughter and
caring, the sweet
,
oval shape of her face
,
and her full bottom lip that made him long to kiss and nibbled the tender flesh. Her skin was an amazing brown that looked like satin fabric. The time he held her hand
,
when the pain became almost unbearable he never wanted to let go.
Sh
e even knew what he was and didn’t
bat an eye. Stavros’s lips curved in a smile when he thought back to the first time she saw him shift.

“You’re in so much pain, Stavros
.
Y
ou should let me get you to a hospital in Ancho
rage
.
” Amari touched her hand to
his forehead. “I don’t
even need a thermometer to feel you
’re
feverish
.
Y
our skin is flushed.”