The Princess and the Bear (The Shifter Games Book 5) Read online

  Isa waited until the door had clicked firmly shut behind him, and then she turned to face the shifters. They all sat watching her warily, eyes dark with anger. She could not blame them. Her people had mistreated them in nearly every way imaginable. For a moment, she considered turning and running back through the door. This task was too hard, and she was not brave enough. How could she ever convince the shifters that she was on their side?

  But if she didn’t help them, then who would? She forced herself to stand her ground, and to lift her chin stubbornly.

  “Hello, everyone. I’m Isadora Eastmore. Most of you probably know me as Princess Isa.” The introduction wasn’t necessary. Everyone in here knew who she was, and they probably all hated her just for the fact that she was related to the Emperor. She had to prove to them that she was more than her bloodline. She took another deep breath, and plowed forward.

  “I would like to know how you all have been treated. Have you been provided with ample food and water?”

  A derisive snort came from the cage right in front of her. The man inside had striking green eyes and the biggest muscles Isa had ever seen. He looked vaguely familiar, but that didn’t surprise her much. Most of these shifters she had seen in the ring before, she was sure of that.

  “You want to know how we’ve been treated?” the man asked, his voice taking on a tone of incredulity. “Look at us. We’re in cages. How do you think we’ve been treated?”

  Isa swallowed hard and told herself to remain calm. Getting defensive wasn’t going to help anything, and these shifters deserved to be angry. Isa was going to have to take a chance on being straightforward with them, and hope she could get them to listen.

  “I’m sorry. I know it must seem like a joke to you that I’m asking how you are, and I know you must hate me because of who my father is. But the truth is that I am nothing like my father. I’ve grown up watching you all be mistreated and I’ve hated every second of it. I should have stood up and said something long before now, yes. There’s no real excuse for my silence, but I hope you can all give me some grace and give me a second chance. It isn’t easy to stand in the shadow of a man as cruel as my father and try to change things. But I’m here now. Better late than never, I hope. I want to help you, and all of the other shifters, too. I…I’m no warrior. I don’t know how to fight. But if you’ll show me how to help you, I’ll do my best.”

  The shifter who had first spoken up rolled his eyes. “Oh, great. The pretty little princess’s conscience is bothering her, is it? Does it make you feel better to give us a speech like that? ‘Oh, I can’t do much and I don’t know what to do, but I do feel bad. Really I do.’ Are we supposed to be impressed by that?”

  Isa took a deep breath to steady her nerves. This was not going well. “I’m not trying to impress you. I’m trying to help. Maybe I’m not the perfect savior, but you guys are all locked up in cages right now. Surely, you’d rather accept imperfect help than get no help at all?”

  The shifter crossed his arms. His eyes flashed at her, and normally Isa would have shrunk back at the anger in them. But she found herself strangely fascinated instead. She’d never seen eyes so handsome. How had she never noticed that when this man was in the ring? When he only glared at her without answering, she decided to take a chance on asking him who he was.

  “What’s your name?”

  His frown deepened, and for a second she thought he wasn’t going to answer. But a moment later he said, “Leo. Leo Ashworth.”

  Isa furrowed her brow, trying to remember the name. She couldn’t recall ever hearing that name at the Games. “Are you a newer competitor?”

  Leo laughed. “I’m not a competitor. I was a shifter guard for House Severson. Been there about two decades. Saved those bastards’ lives on more than one occasion, but it doesn’t matter. They have no gratitude. All they’ve ever done is mistreat me.”

  He’s a guard! That’s why he looks vaguely familiar. I must have seen him now and then when I visited the Severson estate.

  Isa’s father was good friends with Fritz Severson, the patriarch of the Severson noble family, and because of that Isa had been to countless dinners at the Severson estate. She had firsthand knowledge of how the Seversons treated their shifters, and she couldn’t blame Leo for being angrier than most. If he’d been a Severson guard for two decades, he’d suffered countless indignities, of that she was sure.

  “Well, Leo, I can’t change what the Seversons have done. Or what my father has done for that matter. But I can help you now. What do you need?”

  Leo rolled his eyes again, and before he could say anything, the shifter in the cage next to him spoke up.

  “Don’t waste your breath, Leo. She’s probably been sent here by the Emperor himself to act like she cares. She’ll try to be all buddy-buddy with us and then try to get information out of us on what our plans for attacking Gilt Hollow are. This is all a giant trap.”

  “It’s not a trap!” Isa insisted, turning to face the other shifter. She recognized him instantly. Otto, the wolf shifter. He’d been Champion of the Games on numerous occasions, and he’d always pushed back a little against the Gilt Hollow system. He’d been able to do that, since he’d won so many trophies for the Seversons. Rumor had it that he had been the ringleader behind the recent shifter rebellion, which wouldn’t have surprised Isa at all. He’d always had bit of a rebel look in his eyes. Right now, he was looking at her with eyes that said he would not trust her if his life depended on it. Before Otto could say anything else to her, though, Leo was speaking again.

  “If it’s not a trap, then get us some food.”

  Isa turned to look at Leo. “Food? Are they not feeding you?”

  “Leo, that’s enough!” Otto said.

  But Leo ignored Otto and spoke anyway. “No, they’re not feeding us. They’re trying to starve us to death. They think that the Bear Hollow shifters will submit to them again if we all start dying in here. It won’t work. Bear Hollow will never submit again. But I wouldn’t mind a damn sandwich.”

  Isa blinked at Leo, processing everything he’d just said. She should have realized that this was what was going on. She’d heard her father talking about how he didn’t have enough soldiers to hold back the Bear Hollow shifters, but that he could still hit them where it counted. Isa hadn’t been sure what he meant by that, but now all the pieces were falling into place. Her father was going to kill these shifters slowly in hopes that this would scare the rest of Bear Hollow into submission. Her stomach lurched at the thought. Sometimes, she wondered how it was possible that her father was actually her father. How was it possible that she was the daughter of such an awful, cruel man?

  She didn’t have answers to that question, but she did know one thing. She wasn’t going to let her father get away with this. She was going to get these shifters food somehow, even though she’d have to risk her own safety to do it. And in the process, she would prove to everyone in these cages that she was more than just her father’s daughter.

  The cruelty stopped here. She looked Leo directly in the eyes, startled again by how intense those green eyes were, and even more startled at the way her heart fluttered when he looked at her.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, doing her best to sound strong and confident. She was a princess after all. “And when I’m back, I’ll have food with me.”

  She turned on her heel and reached for the door handle, determined to get out of that room before Otto could make some sort of sarcastic reply. She let the door slam shut behind her and didn’t bother to slow down or explain to the guards that she was done. She stormed toward the Arena exit with her own guard scrambling after her in confusion, but she didn’t offer him any explanations either. She didn’t have time to make excuses to her father’s man.

  She had work to do, and shifters to help. And she had determined that she was going to help Leo Ashworth if it cost her life.

  Chapter Three

  Leo had lost track of whether it was day or night. The
guards came and went in shifts, but no one would ever tell him what time it was. And in the dark, windowless room that held the cages, the hours blended together. He hadn’t had a single morsel of food to eat since being thrown into this cage, and the hunger had become so intense now that he found it hard to sleep. The guards did finally bring water for the shifters, which told Leo that the Emperor’s plan to blackmail the Bear Hollow shifters wasn’t going quite as well as he’d hoped. The Emperor had been forced to give his captives water to keep them alive a little longer, in hopes that the Bear Hollow shifters would give in and surrender in return for the lives of the captive shifters.

  But they’ll never surrender. Smart shifters. We don’t make deals with these bastards. No sir.

  Leo was lying on his back on the cold, hard cement floor of his cell, staring at nothing in particular and fighting the strange hallucinations that hunger seemed to bring. He shivered off and on, another seeming side effect of hunger. His blood sugar had plummeted, and his body was having trouble maintaining the proper temperature. He closed his eyes and wished for sleep, but his stomach seemed to laugh at his effort. He wondered what had happened to Princess Isa. It must have been at least two days since she waltzed out of here with promises to bring food. Otto had been skeptical, but Leo had wanted to believe. Even Leo had lost faith by this point, though. Either Princess Isa hadn’t meant what she’d said, or it had been too difficult for even the daughter of the Emperor to get food to the shifters.

  Too bad. A meal would have been nice. And another glimpse at the Princess wouldn’t have been bad either. Leo would never have admitted out loud his attraction to the Princess. But he couldn’t deny to himself that his heart had beaten just a little faster when Princess Isa looked directly into his eyes. She was an objectively beautiful woman. Too bad she was the daughter of Satan himself.

  The door to the room burst open with a sudden, sharp bang. Leo sat up abruptly, startled by the noise. He wouldn’t have thought that his reflexes could still work that quickly in his hunger-induced fog, but apparently adrenaline was one of the last things to go when you were starving to death.

  The guards seemed just as startled by the intrusion, which told Leo that it wasn’t even close to time for a shift change. He stared at the doorway, unable for a moment to see who was coming in because of how bright the light from the hallway was. He recognized the voice before he could properly see the person.

  “All of you guards, out!”

  Princess Isa is back! Was it possible that she had managed to snag some food for them after all? Leo blinked desperately in the direction of the doorway, trying to get his weary eyes to adjust to the change in light enough to be able to see clearly.

  “My Lady, we have orders to—”

  “You dare argue with the Emperor’s daughter? I desire a private audience with the shifters and I will have it. And I will not suffer such disobedience and disrespect from a bunch of lowly guards. Unless you want to lose your jobs, get out. Now.”

  “Y-yes my Lady.” The guards all scrambled to the door, tripping over their feet in an attempt to obey the Princess. When the door shut behind Princess Isa, Leo could see that she was holding two giant bags.

  “This is all I could carry, and we don’t have much time,” she said. She reached into the bag to pull out a pair of sandwiches, handing one to Otto and one to Kate. Then she reached in again, pulling out another two sandwiches and handing one to Leo and another to the shifter in the cage to his right. Leo wasted no time in sinking his teeth into the sandwich, almost weeping with joy as the flavors of fresh bread and salty roast beef hit his tongue. Working quickly, Princess Isa made her way down the line, giving each shifter a sandwich. There was one extra at the end, which she gave to Leo.

  “Here. You were the first one to speak to me last time I was here, so you get rewarded with an extra sandwich.”

  Leo stared up at her, wondering if this was some sort of joke. “I did speak to you first. But I wasn’t exactly nice.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t say I blame you, after the way my family has treated shifters. At least you spoke, even if your words were harsh. Take the damn sandwich if you want it. Otherwise there are at least a dozen more shifters in here who would be happy to eat it, I’m sure.”

  Leo didn’t hesitate again. He was the kind of guy who normally would have tried to do the polite thing and offer the sandwich to someone else first. But his hunger had grown so great that he was beyond politeness. He wolfed down the second sandwich in about three giant bites. Princess Isa was pulling several flasks from the second bag and beginning to pass them out as well. When she handed one to Leo and he drank, the cool water in the flask soothed his parched throat.

  A sharp knock sounded at the door and everyone in the room froze. Had Princess Isa been caught?

  “Everything okay in there?” It was only one of the guards.

  “It’s fine,” the Princess yelled back in a sharp tone. “I’ll let you know if I need assistance.” Then she turned back to the shifters. “Listen. I don’t have a lot of time. If my father knew I was here he’d probably put me on trial for treason. It doesn’t matter that I’m his daughter. No one is above the law in his opinion.”

  Leo snorted. “The law? Tell me, Princess Isa: what kind of law requires starving people to death?”

  The Princess closed her eyes for a moment, a look of pain evident on her face. “Please. Just call me Isa. I’m no Princess. I only have the title because my father is the Emperor, but I don’t want any part in his corrupt government.”

  “Then leave it. Leave Gilt Hollow,” Leo challenged.

  Isa shrugged. “I could. Or I could stay and use my position to help you like I did today.”

  “What do you propose?” Leo leaned against the back of his little cell, crossing his arms and giving Isa a look that said he clearly didn’t trust her. In the cell next to him, Otto was also unimpressed.

  “Look, Princess Isa,” Otto began.

  “Just Isa. Not Princess Isa. Please.”

  Okay, fine. Isa,” Otto corrected himself. “Listen. We’re grateful for the food you’ve brought. But how do we know this isn’t a trap? You’re the Emperor’s daughter. And it’s nice that you say you don’t agree with him, but if that’s true than why haven’t you stood up for us before? Why are you now, all of a sudden, saying you want to help us?”

  Leo watched Isa carefully. Her eyes looked tired but determined, and he had to admit that there was something about her expression that seemed genuine.

  “I’ve already told you that I’m sorry I haven’t done more,” she said. “I’m embarrassed that I haven’t, in fact. But I can’t change the past. I can only change the future. And it isn’t entirely true that I haven’t helped you before. I did stick up for Oskar during the last death match.”

  Leo’s determination to distrust Isa faltered a bit. He uncrossed his arms and looked over at Otto, who was still staring suspiciously at Isa. Otto distrusted everyone, even many shifters. He’d become slightly more open over the last few months, but only slightly. Overall, Otto seemed to go by the philosophy that it was better not to trust someone until they gave you a reason to trust them. And Isa wasn’t giving him enough reason.

  Leo was a bit more open, though. And he remembered well the incident Isa was referring to. Several months ago, one of the shifter competitors, Oskar Warden, had been forced to fight a death match, which had clearly been rigged so that it was impossible to win. Oskar was on the brink of death when Zora Severson, a former Severson noblewoman who was now Oskar’s lifemate, had spoken up for him and stopped the match. Or she had tried to stop the match at least. Zora’s powerful father had yelled at her to step down, but then Princess Isa had stood up for Oskar and agreed with Zora. In front of the entire city of Gilt Hollow, Isa had saved the life of a shifter. That might not seem like much, considering how much the shifters had suffered, and how many shifters had been killed by Gilt Hollow citizens. But still, it had required courage. And it had sav
ed the life of at least one shifter—a shifter who happened to be one of Leo’s best friends.

  “If you’ve really changed so much, and want to help us, what do you propose doing?” Leo asked.

  Otto swung his head around to look at him. “No, Leo. It doesn’t matter what she says. We can’t trust her.”

  Leo hesitated. Otto was considered the leader of the shifter resistance in Gilt Hollow, so Leo knew it was probably best to defer to his judgment. But at the same time, Otto had proven on more than one occasion that he was too cautious. And Leo wasn’t sure that now was the time for caution.

  “What choice do we have, Otto? We can trust her, or we can rot here in these cages.”

  Otto narrowed his eyes at Leo. “I haven’t given up hope yet that Bear Hollow will come through for us.”

  “I hope as much as you do that the Bear Hollow shifters find a way to help us. But I’m not sure it’s wise to pin all our hopes on them. Their resistance force is new and inexperienced, and they’ve suffered a lot of losses in the recent raids. They might not have the manpower or expertise to help us, no matter how badly they want to.”

  Otto shook his head. “They’re still our best hope. You’d rather trust the daughter of Gilt Hollow royalty than our own people?”

  “What I want to do and what options we actually have are two very different things right now. I say we at least hear Isa out.” Leo turned to Isa. “So tell me. What are you suggesting?”

  Isa looked uncomfortably down at her hands for a minute before looking back at Leo. “I was actually hoping you guys could suggest something. I’m not an expert in how to fight against a government, so I’m not sure what the best thing to do would be. But I want to help however I can.”

  Otto laughed. “Yeah, see? She doesn’t know what to do…she just wants us to tell her our plans. Wake up, Leo! This is all a ploy by the Emperor. He thinks he can send his pretty little daughter in here to trick us into giving away whatever plans the Bear Hollow shifters might have. No way are we talking to this woman. She’s just like all the rest of the Gilt Hollow scum.”