Bear Protector - Bella Love-Wins Page 0,9

the Chancellor. He could read the most unwilling of minds. Kiera on the other hand would receive impressions, some emotional cues, and fleeting images. Nothing concrete. Xander’s mind, however, was a locked door, very much like the Chancellor’s, who always cloaked his thoughts. Did Xander know she was trying to read him? Was he intentionally putting up walls to block her way?

After pondering the question, she dismissed the idea. It may have been because he was a shifter. She had never tried to read a shifter’s mind before.

Probably because she had never met one in person.

Even for all her inexperience, and with all the tension Xander created, she was willing to bet that no other person—not witch, human or shifter—could send a chill down her spine the way Xander did just by looking at her. Now if she could just focus long enough to get the loud, overbearing, stubborn man to cooperate as they worked to protect the region this winter.

3

Xander

This was the chance Xander had been waiting for all these years. His instincts screamed so loudly, he could hardly hear the words Kiera spoke. His men had a shot at freedom, and Kiera was going to be the one to help make that happen. The part of him brought about by the transformation spell made him certain of it. That was the thing about strong magic. It left something behind. Something intangible and unreachable inside of him felt Kiera and her familiar’s abilities, and recognized that she was the key.

Before that evil witch Minassus had cast his spell on him, he had been an ordinary human. He’d worked hard to build as good a life as he could for his mother and himself. Everyone else in his family had been killed during the Big Storm nine years ago, so he did everything he could to care for his mother. Shortly afterward, Minassus’ scribes, scientists and witches made three discoveries that changed everything.

First, two of the Chancellor’s scribes found a written account from almost three hundred years ago, after the first destroyers had appeared. The report described a failed destroyer attack and their retreat from Akimiski Island near James Bay in Canada. The cause: Kodiak bears that inhabited the island had defended their territory, brutally wounding or killing scores of the monsters. Second, at the same time nine years ago, scientists in the employ of the Chancellor had discovered that it was the presence of the 236-k gene in humans that allowed them to be turned to Kodiak bear shifters. Finally, the witches had perfected a powerful spell to transform large groups of people to shifters all at the same time. Afterward, it was the evil, traitorous familiar belonging to Minassus who had recommended turning all men with the gene to Kodiak bear shifters, to use them as defensive weapons against the destroyers.

Minassus had thus established a way to bolster the defense of their boundaries. Of course, he used surreptitious methods to build his new army. Every healthy male in the central village was called to the Great Hall under the guise of holding an emergency meeting. On their arrival, Minassus announced there was a way for a select number of men to serve and protect the region. Given that the destroyer attacks had affected every household and family, every man in the room raised their hands to help.

The scientists did their tests, and three days later, Minassus again called on every man with the 236-k gene. He told them they would be made stronger, more powerful, and capable of bringing down all destroyers that approach or breach the region’s outer walls. There was no mention of being transformed to shifters, and no advance notice that they would never live with their families again. Those realities came later, and with them, the segregation, oppression and mistreatment of Xander’s kind began.

Xander was in the first group that was transformed. The unfortunate first cases. Quarantined and tested for the gene. Once their suitability to become shifter soldiers was confirmed, Minassus and his familiar, a Siberian tiger, cast the spell to turn them. The men with the 236-k gene were all turned, but the spell was too strong for the witch vessels. The tiger familiar died immediately. Minassus was almost killed too. He fell into a coma for nearly a month. During that time, the head of his personal guard carried on his work, training Xander and the other turned shifters, and then unleashed them to fight days after their transformation.

The first destroyer