“Inga, sit down!” Tor yelled at her.
“I can’t! I’m sorry, Tor!” she shouted back at her brother. She decided not to bother taking off most of her clothes; they would probably be flung out of the boat anyway. “Don’t try to follow me. I’ll be fine. Get back to shore, wait out the storm, and come back with Dad and anyone else you can round up.”
“Inga, wait?—”
Inga didn’t listen. A great wave slapped the boat, and as the bottom rose under her feet, she let the motion carry her over the side. Her shift happened in mid-fall. There was an instant of uncomfortable constriction as her clothes tore off her, and then she hit the water with a tremendous splash and came up as a bear.
In bear form, she was perfectly comfortable with the chill and the wet; it felt nice. But even for a polar bear, these waves were hard to swim in. Inga steeled herself and struck out in the direction where she could still glimpse the powerboat. She lost sight of Tor and the small skiff almost immediately, and hoped he was heading in to shore. To do anything else in this storm would be suicidal.
She hadn’t realized how much work the waves would be for her bear form. The powerboat nearly ran her over, and she slapped a paw over the railing and heaved herself aboard, shivering with exhaustion as water streamed off her shaggy fur.
Luke was down on his knees with two guns pointed at his head, but having a bear climb over the railing was sufficiently distracting that while Inga managed to get herself on deck, Luke was able to take down one of his captors and disarm the other.
Inga flattened the last man standing with a whack of her furry paw, leaving only the pilot, casting terrified looks over his shoulder but unable to take his hands off the pitching boat’s controls long enough to do anything about it.
“Is that Inga or Tor?” Luke asked, panting.
Inga gave a gruff snort. She had no way to tell him. But Luke gave her side a tentative pat.
“Inga, right?” he said. She nuzzled his face, which seemed so small to her right now.
And then she became aware of something huge looming over them. Inga looked up in alarm.
Once the boats had ungrappled from each other, the powerboat pilot had taken them back to the ship. Now the boat bobbed along its side, and lines were being flung down.
A sharp pain stung her furry shoulder. She was startled at the unaccustomed sensation; few things could penetrate a bear’s thick fur and hide. Seconds later, a tingling feeling and a chilly feeling spread across her body.Oh no,she thought,tranquilizer dart... Her bear snarled and raged inside her, but there was nothing she could do. Her legs folded, and she crumpled to the powerboat’s deck.
LUKE
For a brief,searing moment, Luke thought Inga had been shot, and red-hot fury roared through him, blacking out his vision for an instant.
Then, through clearing eyes, he saw the bright orange dart protruding from her shoulder. Inga was still moving weakly, her legs scissoring in the air as she lay on her side before her paws dropped to the deck.
She shifted with a suddenness that startled him, and now there was a naked woman lying there, curled up and small. Luke fell to his knees beside her, wrenched the dart out of her shoulder and threw it over the side. He took off his borrowed rain slicker and laid it across her.
He put up no resistance when soldiers surrounded them. They were, one by one, hauled up to be hurled unceremoniously onto the deck of theGlobal Blue. Inga came up second, carried up one of the lines flung over a soldier’s shoulder. Luke caught her when she was dropped to the deck. Carefully he wrapped the slicker more tightly about her, concealing her supple curves from the onlookers. He ran a hand gently across her face, smoothing back the water-darkened blonde hair.
The two of them were at the center of a tight ring of guns. Abruptly, some of the soldiers fell back to make room for Brockton to stride through.
“Well, if it isn’t our long-lost stray,” he said, staring down at Luke. Even soaked in the rain, arms crossed and short hair slicked down, he radiated command. “At least one of them. Where’s the other one, if he’s even still alive?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” Luke said. So someone else had managed to get away, too. He hoped that other escapee had fled across the ocean and was living their best life somewhere far away from these people.
Brockton snorted and looked down at Inga. Although there was nothing lecherous in his gaze—it was more coldly assessing—Luke was glad he had covered her. Brockton’s cool calculation was more disturbing than a leer would have been; at least that would have had some human feeling behind it.
“So she’s a polar bear,” he said thoughtfully. “A natural shifter, I assume.”
“Stay away from her,” Luke snarled.
“How very chivalrous. As if you have any say in it.” He gestured to one of his men. “We need to stop them from shifting.”
Heavy iron handcuffs were brought, looking like something from an old chain gang movie. Luke recoiled. Brockton calmly drew a handgun and pointed it at Inga’s head. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you to cooperate, do I?”
Luke wished he had more control over his bear. Even if he did, he doubted he could do anything with Inga’s life at stake. The ghost bear seemed to have no useful ability to interact with solid objects, and in the time it would take him to shift, they could kill her.
If they were separated, he would have more opportunity.
“Find somewhere empty to lock them up,” Brockton ordered. “Chain the girl, too.”
