Bear-ly Human (Bear Claw Security Book 4) (11 page)

H
ercules didn’t go
down for dinner that night. Instead, he snuck into Hera’s room to place the cameras they’d talked about that morning.

Just because they’d fought, and he was feeling raw and scraped open, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to put his all into protecting her.

He’d already gotten her permission to install the cameras, but he didn’t want to see her when he did it—thus, the sneaking during dinner.

When he checked the cameras from his cell phone and saw they were working, he headed back up to his room.

One of the workers came back to ask about dinner, and he accepted something basic but didn’t find himself hungry enough to finish it.

He locked his door, leaned back on his bed with a plate on his lap, and flicked on the TV, hoping to find something to distract him.

He was unsuccessfully trying to veg out when the phone rang right next to him, Bronson’s number on the screen.

He sighed. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now, but he didn’t really have any excuse to ignore his boss after everything he’d done for him.

“Hey, boss,” he said dully into the phone.

The line crackled, and then Bronson spoke back, sounding confused. “Boss? We’re friends, Herc. What’s up?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one who called me,” Herc said tersely.

More silence. Hercules tuned into the TV, not really caring what was happening on the line.

“What’s going on, Herc? I know you. At least I thought I did. I’ve never seen you pout like this.”

“I’m not pouting,” he snapped.

Bronson let out a deep laugh. “Yes, you are. Something happen with Hera? How’s the mission going? I was just calling to check in and make sure you two are okay.”

“Did you know we were involved?” Hercules asked dully.

“You and Hera?” Bronson asked, sounding amused. “No, though now that you mention it, I think I heard a rumor or two over the years. Just more to add to the Hercules mystique.”

“Mystique?” Hercules asked skeptically.

“Yeah, you know. Your past. Your incredible record on missions—rescuing troops and always hitting your target and getting out. You served on multiple squads, and squads talk.”

Hercules shrugged. None of that success mattered if the person he was wasn’t good enough to be with Hera.

“Hercules, it’s not good to keep things in. Tell me what’s going on with Hera.”

“Things just got screwed up,” he said. “We used to date. I guess when she hired me, she was hoping for another chance.”

“Jackpot,” Bronson said. “You and Hera are perfect for each other. Well, I guess the names aren’t. Then again, I don’t think your squad mates knew the two of you were going at it when they gave you those names.”

“No,” Hercules said. “They gave us those names before we’d even met each other. But it doesn’t matter now. I’ve ruined everything. Or maybe there was never anything to ruin. I can’t be with her.”

“Why ever not?” Bronson asked. “I don’t get where you’re going with this.”

“You wouldn’t,” Hercules said. “You’re normal. You had a normal family.”

Bronson scoffed at that. “You’re not the only one with secrets, buddy,” he said. “My family was awful, most of them. In fact, they tried to kidnap me. They put my mate in danger. And don’t even ask about my childhood.”

Hercules was quiet at that. He’d never expected pleasant, sunny Bronson to have gone through something like that.

“I’ve never wanted to pry,” Bronson said. “But since you’ve come to work here, I’ve sometimes seen some things in common with you.”

“What do you mean?” Hercules asked.

“I just mean sometimes it’s those of us trying to look the most normal who are the most screwed up.”

Hercules scratched his head. “That makes a weird kind of sense.”

“I’m here to listen anytime you need me,” Bronson said. “‘Cause trust me, man. You have to tell someone. One thing I’ve learned through sharing things with my mate is that secrets kill when they’re left in the dark. Gotta get ghosts out of the darkness if you want to kill them.”

“But what if they kill you when they come out of the darkness?”

“They can’t,” Bronson said simply. “Because then you have people on your side to fight them. And you can see them plainly, so you can take proper aim. If you just keep them back, push them down, pretend they don’t exist, then they can launch one-sided attacks on you all the time.”

Hercules sighed, not knowing what to say to that.

“At the same time, you can’t just dig into that deep stuff alone. You need help. A therapist probably. But then, it’s also important for the people you love to know what’s going on so they know how to help you.”

“That’s what Hera said,” Herc replied. “But I don’t see how she can help. She’s just going to see me as a monster.”

“You, a monster?” Bronson said in disbelief. “No. I know you. I’ve seen your actions. I don’t know what happened to you to make you believe that, but you’re the least monstrous person I know, unless you mean your monster ability to rescue those in trouble and protect those you love. I would say that aspect of you is definitely monstrous in a way. Monstrously good.”

Hercules had never thought about it that way. Did that unidentified thing in him somehow make him stronger? Was that why he’d been so good in almost any position he was given, from sniping, to leading, to extraction?

But did that matter at all with the woman he loved in danger?

“But didn’t you ever worry…? I mean, with your history, did you ever fear it would affect your mate?”

“You mean like would you ever hurt Hera?” Bronson asked.

“I nearly did today,” Herc said in a low voice, feeling the pain almost unbearably as he admitted it out loud for the first time.

“But did you?” Bronson asked. “Was she hurt?”

Hercules shook his head and then realized Bronson couldn’t see. “No. She was strong enough to save both of us.”

“Then that’s just what you need. Someone you can save who can be there for you in those moments where you need saving too.”

“I don’t want to be saved,” Herc said grumpily. “I just want to do all the saving.”

Bronson laughed again. “I get that. But sorry, we have to share some of the glory with our wonderful mates, too.”

“It’s not that. It’s just that I want everything to be easy for her. I want her to live life on soft pillows, with everything she wants and needs.”

“But it sounds like she wants you, right?” Bronson’s tone held a grin. “I mean, that’s pretty ingenious that she hired you and brought you out there just to win you over. Hilarious actually.”

Hercules didn’t know what to think about it. “I love her, Bronson. I just want what’s best for her.”

“I know, dude. I know. But you have to think what that entails if you aren’t there. Maybe wait until you don’t feel like crap about yourself and think it over.”

Herc knew Bronson had good advice, but there was still a lot of debris from the day scattered around, making it hard to think or feel clearly.

He heard footsteps walking around downstairs and knew dinner was over. He put Bronson on speaker and pulled one of the cameras in Hera’s room up on his screen so he could watch it while talking to Bronson.

“So is there even a threat there?” Bronson asked.

“I don’t know,” Hercules said. “A couple pervs. Nothing I couldn’t deal with. Nothing she couldn’t deal with, to be frank.” He set the phone on his leg and leaned back, trying to relax and think clearly. “How are things going back at the office?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hera enter her room and shut the door behind her. As she started to get ready for bed, he turned away, not wanting to violate her privacy. Even if he ached to be beside her. If they hadn’t fought, they could be together right now. But then again, the darkness would still be there inside him. Waiting.

“You there?” Bronson asked. “Things are going well here. Limes is back and being his Limesy self.”

Hercules laughed at that. “How is Mark coming along?”

“Well,” Bronson said, a little quieter. “It’s weird having him around. Sometime I’ll have to tell you more about my family. When you’re back, if you feel like talking.”

Hercules felt a tight knot inside him but forced it to relax. He should tell Bronson. Perhaps he could trust him. As much as he hated the idea of talking about it, maybe that was the answer after all.

He rubbed his hands over his forehead. Maybe it wasn’t.

He heard something on the camera and turned toward it. Hera was getting situated in bed, had just turned off the light. He sighed as a warm tenderness shot through him.

He hated he’d have to take the camera down at some point and wouldn’t be able to see her whenever he wanted. How would he know she was safe?

How would he ever leave her?

He put his hands in his hair and pulled, trying to make sense of everything.

“Hey, you okay over there?” Bronson said. “I’m here as long as you need me.”

“I’m fine,” Hercules said.

“You guys just bedding down for the night?” Bronson asked.

“Yeah,” Hercules said. “Hera just turned in. I have a camera on her room, since someone was snooping in it before.”

“So she does need you,” Bronson said.

“Yeah, I guess,” Hercules replied. “Perhaps.”

“You know who it is?”

“I have my suspicions.” Hercules looked at the camera again, and he jumped as he saw movement at the door. Hera was quietly snoring, already asleep after a long, hard day. She didn’t even stir as the door slowly opened and someone slipped in.

His heart jumped and his breath caught in his throat. He stood, ready to run down there.

But then he thought maybe it was just her dad. Coming to talk to her.

Then he saw the figure pick up the large, solid desk in her room and move it in front of the door.

Shit.

“Bronson, I gotta go,” he said quickly, running for his door.

“Herc, wait—”

But Hercules didn’t hear him. He’d already thrown the phone down on the bed and tore the door off his room, running out of it.

H
ercules let
out a roar as he rounded the end of the top hallway and planted a hand on the bannister. He leapt over it with a growl and landed hard on the marble below, cracking it with a thud that resounded through the house.

He ran to Hera’s room, not caring about anything around him. He went to the door, tried the handle. Locked.

“Hera!” he yelled, grabbing the handle and yanking on it. It came off in his hands.

He looked down at it, aghast. He’d never thought about it, but Bronson was right. He was strong. Oddly strong.

He kicked the door and felt the heavy weight of it, combined with the weight of the desk.

Strong? All the better to protect his mate with. He backed up and ran at the door, kicking it and hearing splintering through the frame. And then a muffled scream beyond that.

Curse the fine engineering that made the door and frame so durable, or he’d have been in there with one hit.

He heard footsteps running up to him. Someone grabbed his arm and tried to yank him back. He roared and knocked them back into the wall.

“How dare you!” a male voice roared. It was Hera’s dad, Rob. “Are you insane? Breaking up my house? Harassing my daughter?”

Hercules ignored him. Instead, he backed up and geared himself up for one more charge at the door.

“Don’t you dare!” Rob yelled, but it was too late.

Hercules had already hurled all of his weight into the door, and with one loud roar, it finally gave. When it fell in, in a cloud of dust and splinters, he saw the desk had been knocked out of the way and the door was in pieces.

Then he saw something worse. Hera on the bed, struggling with someone on top of her who had his hand over her mouth.

She was a bear shifter, but so was anyone here, so even though she was tough, fighting had never been her strong suit.

But even if it were a bear shifter, Hercules had no doubt he could beat them. Because he was something more than a bear shifter, and he would embrace that if it helped him save his mate.

He lunged toward the bed and grabbed the man on his mate, flinging him into the wall and throwing himself over Hera to protect her.

She looked up at him, shocked, and then relief flooded her. “Hercules.”

But they didn’t have time to celebrate before someone grabbed Hercules around the waist and he was pulled off with an
oof
. He turned and planted his fist into the man pulling at him.

It was Bentley, who staggered back, holding his nose. Adam was starting to stand, back where he’d been thrown against the wall. Hercules positioned himself at the end of the bed, between the men and Hera.

“Just what the hell is going on here?” Rob asked, walking in.

Adam looked over at him, an evil glare in his eyes, and then threw something his direction.

“Move!” Hercules shouted as Dean came out of nowhere to knock Rob out of the doorway. The dagger Adam had thrown clattered onto the ground.

“Are you insane?” Hera asked, sitting up in the bed, pulling her blankets around her. “What the hell are you doing? We’ve known you for ages.”

Bentley gave her a dark look, as if he were ashamed of his actions but resolved to them. “Right, and while your company has done well, ours has floundered. You knew my family and Adam’s had a merger, right? But it still didn’t save us.”

“Dean, you protect May and Rob,” Hercules said, putting up a hand.

“As if I need to be protected,” Rob grumbled. But he stayed back with his wife. “Go help him with those two idiots. They’re full-blooded bear shifters.”

Dean just looked at Hercules calmly. “He can take them.”

Hercules cocked his head at that, confused. Then he got into a fighting stance, ready for their next move. “Get out of my mate’s bedroom.”

“Oh, your mate now, is it?” Bentley asked, putting his hands on his hips. “I thought you were just a bodyguard.”

Hercules shrugged. “The title changes. The meaning is the same. But all you need to know is I’m one scary fucker, and I’ll kill anyone who threatens her.”

Bentley flinched for a second but then seemed to be gathering himself for a fight. “I need to mate her,” he said. “I need her company.”

“As if anyone would allow that after you forced me,” Hera spat. “You put it near me and I’ll bite it off.”

Bentley raised an eyebrow, but Adam smirked. “We can take him together,” he said, his lip bleeding from where Hercules had thrown him. He spaced himself out from Bentley so they were coming around Hercules.

All Hercules wanted to do was protect Hera, and it was going to be complicated with two of them.

He decided to take Adam first, lunging at him and grabbing him by the neck.

He heard a roar and saw Bentley transforming into his bear and charging at him just as he threw Adam into the wall again. He put up a hand to block himself but then saw a smaller grizzly launching from Hera’s direction to knock Bentley to the side.

The two bears tussled, Hera clearly on the losing side due to her size. The bear inside him sizzled with pride at the courage of his mate, and then he felt the animal rip out of him, changing him in a second into an oversized golden bear. He roared at Adam, who was transforming and trying to come toward him, and slashed the other bear across the neck.

Adam reared back, and Hercules rushed to his mate on the other side of the large bedroom, being pinned by Bentley’s giant Kodiak.

He roared and knocked the other male off her. Then he took the other bear by the claws and lunged with him toward the large double window, breaking the glass and sending them both rolling out.

Adam followed, and Hercules felt the other bear sink his teeth into the back of his neck as he wrestled with Bentley. Despite the two-on-one situation, he was completely calm. This was what he was
made
for.

His mate was safe inside, and he’d take care of these two miscreants
now
.

He swiped at Adam, knocking him off his back, and then kicked off of Bentley and went flying into Adam, forcing him to the ground. He then rammed his head into the other bear’s without a second thought, knocking him out.

Hercules didn’t take any pride in killing.

He turned back to see Bentley getting up to help his friend and roared and charged him, almost a grim smile on his face as he collided with the other male and sent them both rolling down the hill at the side of the mansion. They landed next to a sidewalk and some trees, so Hercules grabbed Bentley by the scruff and tossed him backward into a thick tree trunk, where he bounced off with a thud.

Hercules looked back to make sure Adam wasn’t causing trouble, but he was still out cold. He saw Hera and her family watching from the broken window, but he didn’t care what they thought of him.

These bears had tried to claim his mate. Tried to
force
his mate. He couldn’t think of anything until they were down for the count.

He snarled and took Bentley by the throat as the bear stumbled toward him, still unwilling to give up. He wrestled the other bear down, swiping at him with powerful claws until he was bloody and raw, barely able to struggle. Then he held his teeth over Bentley’s throat, letting him know he was ready to give the final blow. He looked into Bentley’s eyes, waiting for any sign of surrender. But the other bear still looked stubborn and wild.

Hercules stared at the bear. Despite everything that had happened, he still felt no urge to kill him. He took a step back from him, letting him rise slightly in front of the tree trunk.

Then, as Bentley’s bear tried to stumble forward, Hercules pulled back his paw into a fist and sent it flying forward into Bentley’s face, knocking him back into the tree with a loud crack that resounded through the air around them.

Bentley fell to the side, finally out.

Hercules stepped back, adrenaline still thrumming through him. He surveyed the grounds around him. Bentley down. Adam down. Hera safe. Family staring. Broken window.

Ugh. His triumph came crashing down around him as he realized what they’d all seen. He’d torn off his own door, cracked their marble, torn off her door.

And looking at her, holding her robe together and staring at him as she climbed down over the window ledge to run over to him, he knew he’d do it all over again in a second.

She ran to him, and he transformed as he fell into her arms. Not caring that he was naked, but not wanting his claws and his bear near her now soft, human form.

She put her arms around him as he sank to the ground. He wasn’t tired from the fight, just the adrenaline. The worry of something happening to her. The absolute deathly fear when he’d seen someone sneaking into her room.

He put his hand in his hair and felt himself shaking as he put the other arm around her.

But she was safe. That was all that mattered. As long as that was true, anything else could be worked out.

He heard the others approach and couldn’t even look up. Her dad was probably furious. He’d probably say a sane person would have been able to stop the bad guys without breaking the house. But Hercules didn’t care. He could say what he wanted.

But when the group got to them, he was surprised to see Rob simply drop a robe over Hercules’s shoulders and then step back without saying anything.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, not knowing what to say. Then Rob looked at Bentley and Adam and turned into his bear, a large, dark, shaggy grizzly. “Time to clean up,” he said. “Dear, will you help me get them into the shed so we can call the authorities… and their parents?”

May nodded and shifted, too. True to full-blood bears, they were both large and regal, and together, they started dragging the unconscious bears to a nearby shed.

Dean was still standing there, watching everything. Hercules looked up at him with tired eyes.

“Thanks for the help,” he said.

“Not like you needed it,” Dean retorted.

“I meant with keeping the others out of the way,” Hercules said, waving a hand. He kept Hera against him with the other. He didn’t think he could ever let go after this.

Her blond hair was mussed from the fight, her blue eyes concerned as she checked him over to make sure he was all right. She was safe. That feeling was the best in the world. He was just glad he’d been here.

“I’m sorry, girl,” he said. “But I think you’re stuck with me. I may be some messed-up experiment. I may be some kind of monster. But the more I think about it, the more I think this monster is meant to be with you. To protect you. I have to protect you.” He put her hand over his heart. “See what you do to me?”

She nodded and laughed. “I see.” She shook her head as her parents approached again, wearing robes they must have gotten in the shed after shifting back into humans. “You destroyed my family’s house trying to get to me.”

He nodded. “I’d destroy a city if I needed to.”

She brushed his hair back with a grin. “I believe you.”

“He could probably do it, too,” Dean said, matter-of-fact.

Hera and Hercules turned to face him. “Just what makes you so confident in me?” Hercules snapped. “I’m getting a little tired of you acting like you know things about me, but not saying what they are or how you know them.”

Rob took a step forward, folding his arms. “I’ve been feeling there was something weird about you, too.” Then he looked down at Hercules. “And what’s this about being an experiment? Will someone tell me what’s going on?”

Hera looked at Hercules. She was giving him permission to say or not say what he wanted. But Hercules thought of Bronson’s advice. That secrets only have power in the dark. Time to burn them in the light.

“Just what I said. I’m an experiment. Made in a lab. No history to speak of. And when I was freed, I went into the military. It was a good fit for my… talents. But I have no idea who I am. I have nothing to offer your daughter in the way of good breeding. I don’t even know what I am.”

He stroked Hera’s hair back. “Except in love with your daughter. I’ll do what I have to in order to keep her safe. But I’m not leaving her side again.”

Hera hugged him. “That’s all I wanted.”

He felt relief move over him. It was even better than he’d imagined. And now that the secret was out, it didn’t have any power over him. He didn’t care what people said. What people knew. It was like breaking out from under an icy lake and out into the fresh air.

He could breathe out here.

He held his mate. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to mate,” he said. “But if we need to use protection, so be it. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll do more to find out what I am. Somehow, it’ll work out.”

“I think I can help with that,” Dean said, stepping forward with a card in his hand.

Hercules blinked up at him in shock. He’d almost forgotten the other man was there, despite his beef with him. He took the card and looked down.

The name of a private investigator and an agency was on it.

“What the hell is this?” Hercules asked.

Dean folded his arms. “Maybe we should talk in private.” He gave Hercules a meaningful stare. “It’s about your family.”