Badlands: The Lion’s Den(39)

Finn slunk forward, low to the ground. Ruben took his slow, careful movements for submission. The big bear rose to his full height, his triumphant roar booming across the crowd and causing a tense, horrified hush to fall.

But Flora knew Finn better than that. Ruben, with his hair product and his flunkies and his honest-to-God golden throne, was all about showing his power. The Hudsons didn’t work that way. Finn didn’t need to strut around playing King of the Jungle. If he wanted someone dead, that person was as good as cold and buried.

No threats. No bluster. He just hurled himself at Ruben in a golden blur of motion, muscles bunching and releasing with powerful precision, and with teeth and claws he ripped open the brute’s belly. Glistening loops of silvery-gray intestine slithered to the floor, along with gouts of thick, dark blood that splattered on the ground and spread into deep pools that crept together and merged.

Ruben staggered for an endless moment, as if he could keep fighting even with his insides ripped out, fueled only by his shock and fury. Then he fell.

Finn stepped back and, with a ripple in the air around him, switched back to human form and stared down at Ruben with a solemn expression on his face.

Several of the women who’d been held in his cells pushed their way through the crowd and stalked over to the massive bear, who lay sprawled in a pool of his own blood. They spat on his twitching body, and he feebly swiped at them before his eyes went dull and he lay still.





Chapter Nineteen




It seemed as if all of Darwin was flooding the streets in front of Ruben’s house. Ruben’s guards had all been killed and lay abandoned on the street. Several dozen dead shifters who had fought against Ruben’s men lay in rows, covered by tarps. The injured were being carried away to medical clinics in both territories. Shifters of all species – cats and canines and bears – mingled together.

Flora climbed up on top of an abandoned car, and Krystle scrambled up beside her. Finn and Liam leapt up and stood next to them. Flora cleared her throat nervously. “Um, excuse me, everybody.” A few shifters glanced up at her, then looked away.

“Louder,” Krystle whispered to her. “Access that inner bitch.”

Flora took a deep breath. She thought of the dead shifters sprawled out on the ground, and the women Ruben had abused, and everyone who’d lived in fear and poverty to feed his massive ego.

“Listen the hell up!” Flora shouted at the top of her lungs, and everyone turned to stare up at her. She fought the urge to apologize for raising her voice and using bad language. “These shifters did not die in vain,” she yelled, pointing at the bodies of the fallen. “They died to end Ruben’s reign of rape and terror! Outside these borders, your life was controlled by the government! Did you come here just to be oppressed all over again?”

“No!” the crowd bellowed.

Liam cleared his throat and yelled out to the crowd. “From now on, we join together as a city! The borders are eliminated! All bears are welcome in our territory, and we will share our resources! You have internet connections, we have medicine that you need! You have the car mechanics, we’ve got the canning factory!”

“We have better beer!” one of the bears yelled, and there was a ripple of laughter from the crowd, despite the grim circumstances.

“Yes, you do! I’m not too proud to admit it! And we have better tequila!” Liam roared back. Now the crowd was laughing out loud. “And you have the best bakeries, and we have the best butcher shops! Let’s work together! Let’s patrol together! We’ll form a council of all shifters to make Darwin the best damn town in the Badlands!”

There was a loud cheer from most of the bears. A small but sizeable contingent, those who had once supported Rueben or who had benefitted from his criminal reign, booed and let out threatening growls. They glared intimidatingly at the bears who were cheering.

“One more thing!” Flora called out. She looked at Krystle, who nodded. “No woman, whether she is bear or cat or any other species, will be forced into a relationship with a man, ever again. Any woman who wants to leave a man can do so. Any man abusing a woman will be banished from Darwin forever.”

“You cats can’t tell us how to live! We rule by strength! What are you going to do about it?” a tall, angry bear shifter with a scarred face yelled threateningly at her. He was standing with a crowd of several dozen male bears, apart from the shifters who were mingling together.

With a mighty roar, he shifted into bear form. He shot up to a height of at least eight feet, snarling and waving his massive paws with long, curving claws.