Chapter Five

In a way, the magic user fainting the way he did was probably a blessing. Storm could see and smell the burned flesh on the poor man's wrists. That had to be incredibly painful. But having fainted, it meant that the magic user didn't see him frisking the dead man's pockets for a key. Logic dictated the guy had to have one, because there had to be a way to get the victims, once dead, outside so they could be buried. Unless the guy cut the hands off. Storm considered that for a moment and then decided it would be too much work.

The fact that the magic user had been taken and not killed instantly meant the bear shifter had a ritual he must've gone through each time he took someone new. Fortunately, it wasn't up to Storm to work out why the bear did what he did or how. He'd been the hero, saved the victim, and finished a job. That meant all the boxes that needed ticking were checked.

Which meant he could focus on other issues. Storm hunted for his phone, dropped in his rush to grab the bear shifter. As mentioned, he looked after his things and the phone had a military grade case on it, so part from a bit of dust on the screen, it worked fine. Storm texted Cyrus, quickly giving him the bullet points – bear was dead, there were other bodies buried around the cabin that the cleaning crew might be interested in, and that he was bringing the victim back with him to the Alley. Check, check, and check.

Next, it was time to move onto the next job – getting his magic user free. "You are a disgusting individual," he muttered to the dead bear shifter, dipping his hands in and out of pockets as quickly as he could. Storm found the man's wallet, looked at it briefly and then stuck it back where he found it. One of the key things assassins were taught from day one was never take anything from the scene of the crime, so to speak. The organization Storm and his friends worked for had stayed in the shadows for decades. Assassins with sticky fingers didn't last long.

"What have you done with the damn key?" Storm glanced over at the sleeping magic user, but the guy's eyes were still closed, his face pale. Storm heaved on the bear's body and checked there weren't any pockets he'd missed. Nothing. He eyed the man's boots. Hmm. "You didn't shift." Something Storm was grateful for, and he knew that could be for a number of reasons. In rare cases where shifters went against their nature – animals didn't kill for no reason – their animal spirit left them, or at least refused to help the human side of the equation carry out their schemes.

But sometimes the answer was simple as not wanting to lose a key. "Hiding anything in your footwear is so cliché." Storm shook his head as he tossed the offending boot away. "It's the first place any thief would look." Although Storm could appreciate why the bear was in such a maniacal mood – the key wasn't small and had to be uncomfortable, digging into the sole of a foot. Maybe the pain was part of the ritual.

Again, Storm didn't know, the bear wasn't capable of telling him, and besides, he had a living mate to tend to. Hustling back to his mate's side, Storm quickly undid the cuffs, carefully peeling them away from the slender wrists, wincing at the blisters. It truly looked as though the iron had burned the skin. "I need to get you back to the car." He looked down. His cock didn't care his mate was unconscious, but a man only got to claim a mate once, and he wanted to do that properly. "So you'll just have to wait."

In the meantime, Storm had the little matter of his ripped clothes to deal with. Shifting, especially into an animal form that was much larger than his human body was always hell on clothes…and that was without the stab marks. Storm ignored his ruined shoes completely. He couldn't look at them. No point in dwelling on what couldn't be fixed. Besides he had gained something so much more valuable than a pair of shoes.

He was not keen on the idea of waltzing through the forest naked, carrying an unconscious man in his arms. Which gave him two options. He could steal the clothes from the bear. Storm wrinkled his nose at the very idea, and he wasn't allowed to take anything from the scene. He gave a brief thought to going through the bear's car, to see if there was something there, but Storm was also conscious of the fact "the cleaners" would be coming through in double quick time and he and the little magic user needed to be gone.

His wrists would be too sore for me to lift him that way. Storm looked between the rags left of his clothing and what the magic user was wearing. Guess I'll have to make up some sort of a sling-type belt, because the only way he and his new little sweetie were going to make it back to his car together was with that magic user strapped to his shifted form's back. Fingers crossed he stays asleep until the trip is done.

A crocodile is an incredibly powerful animal and Storm was justifiably proud of his shifted side. But the lack of workable hands and thumbs, and having the bulk of his body mass so close to the ground, meant his options for carrying anything were limited. "It's not like we can carry him in your jaws," Storm muttered to his animal spirit as he worked on ripping his pants into strips and then adding ripped strips from the remains of his shirt as well.

The mouth comment, incidentally, wasn't made in jest. Crocodiles carried everything that needed moving in their mouths – even their young could be gently cradled between lethal teeth. Python, being a demon with a slightly reckless streak, insisted Storm try carrying him in his jaws once, just for shits and giggles. Storm smirked, remembering who ended up shitting his pants and who was giggling when he was done.

But that memory was a timely reminder of why carrying their mate the same way wasn't a good idea. The magic user, for all his talk about shifter dick, clearly wasn't versed in any shifter humor. After almost falling prey to a bear with an attitude problem, it was up to Storm to sweeten his mate's perception of how shifters could be. Which meant absolutely not taking the risk the magic user might wake up in the jaws of a crocodile.

"Okay, here's hoping this will work." Storm tugged on the knots he'd made and then wrapped part of his makeshift rope around his middle, leaving room for the size of his shifted girth. "Let's get our mate out of here. If the Fates keep smiling on us, we should be back at the car before he wakes up."