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

  Leo turned back to look at Isa, who looked devastated now. She was reaching to gather up her bags with a crestfallen look on her face.

  “I’m not scum,” she said in a tone that was growing angry now. “I was trying to help, but if you don’t want to believe me then there’s not much I can do. I can’t force you to take the help that’s being offered to you.”

  Some strange emotion that Leo couldn’t quite place tugged at his heart as he watched Isa. He had always been a pretty good judge of people, and something told him that Isa was different. He tried to think of all the times he’d interacted with her over the years, or had seen her interact with other shifters. He’d been so young when he first came to Bear Hollow—only a boy of fifteen. She’d been even younger, if he was remembering correctly. But he’d watched her grow up, and he’d seen her at the Seversons’ house quite a few times, since her parents were close friends with the Seversons. He tried to remember a time when she’d ever been rude or mean to a shifter, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t think of anything. In fact, he remembered a few specific times that she’d shushed Loki when Loki had been harassing shifters.

  Isa is genuine, Leo thought. But how could he accept her help when Otto was determined not to? He didn’t want to start a fight right in the middle of this damn room of cages. If the shifters were going to have any hope of coming out of all of this alive, then they had to stick together.

  Leo’s frown deepened as Isa turned to leave. He had to do or say something, and fast. With the way Otto had driven her away, she might not come back. She might assume that none of the shifters wanted anything to do with her. And who could blame her for that? Leo frantically tried to think of something to say that would make her stay without angering Otto too much. And then, suddenly, it came to him.

  “Take me to see your father.”

  The room fell completely silent for several long moments after he said those words. Otto stared at him with a gaping expression. Isa turned back toward him with a similarly shocked look on her face. And then, in unison, both Otto and Isa said, “What?!?”

  Leo took a deep breath and nodded, looking straight into Isa’s eyes. “Take me to your father. Surely, you can figure out a way to get me out of here to have an audience with him. That’s all you have to do. Get me a chance to talk to him, and I’ll believe you that we can trust you.”

  “But…he’s not going to be nice to you,” she said weakly.

  Leo laughed. “I’m not expecting him to be. Let me worry about what I’ll say and how he’ll treat me. You just get me in front of him.”

  “Leo, you’re insane!” Otto said, his voice full of alarm.

  “Maybe. But I have a plan.”

  Isa considered this for a moment. “Okay. I’ll do my best to get you in front of my father. As long as you understand that I can’t guarantee your safety once you’re there.”

  “I understand.”

  Isa nodded. “Alright. I’ll be back soon. And I’ll try to bring more food when I come again. But in the meantime I hope you at least feel a little better after the sandwiches. It was the best I could do for now.”

  “We appreciate it,” Leo said. “Truly.”

  Otto said nothing, as was typical of the man. Otto didn’t trust easily or say thank you easily, but Leo was hoping to make up for that. He was hoping to find a way to use Isa to their advantage. After all, they were running out of other options.

  Isa turned to leave, but before she opened the door, she turned around and smiled at Leo. He felt strangely weak at the sight of her smile, and he gripped the side of the cage he was trapped in to steady himself. A small thrill of excitement passed through his body, and he wondered what it meant. Was he attracted to her?

  She disappeared through the doorway, leaving Leo to wrestle with these thoughts on his own. A few moments later, the guards sullenly came back into the room, but Leo hardly noticed them. He sat down at the back of his cage and tried to figure out why his heart was beating faster than normal just from the thought of Isa.

  She was a beautiful woman, true. No one could deny that. Isa had inherited her mother’s dark hair, olive skin, and violet eyes. She also, it seemed, had inherited her mother’s tendency toward kindness. The Emperor’s wife was known for being softhearted and for treating the shifters much nicer than most Gilt Hollow citizens. The Emperor’s horrid actions outweighed all of his wife’s kind words, but knowing that Isa’s mother wasn’t a complete monster gave Leo hope. Surely, Isa wasn’t a monster either. Surely, she could be trusted?

  Leo had no way of knowing for sure. The only way to find out was to trust her and see if she kept that trust or broke it.

  “You’re crazy,” Otto whispered at him in a low hiss, breaking into Leo’s thoughts of Isa. “What are you even going to say to the Emperor?”

  “I don’t know,” Leo admitted. “I still have to figure that out.”

  Otto rolled his eyes. “You’re gonna get yourself killed, man.”

  “Maybe. But I’d rather die doing something than sit here starving in a cell.” And I won’t be able to rest until I can figure out whether Isa is a friend or an enemy.

  Leo wasn’t like Otto. He couldn’t so easily write off Isa as untrustworthy. And deep down inside, Leo had a feeling that trusting Isa was going to be the key to the shifters winning this war. There was just something about her that told him she was different.

  He hoped he could trust his gut on this one, because the shifters were running out of options and running out of time.

  Chapter Four

  Two days later, Isa once again walked into the room where the shifters were caged. This time, her guard was trailing her. She’d been able to shake him off the last time she’d come, when she’d brought food. But that had been late at night, and this was in broad daylight. He had insisted on coming, and her father had insisted on it, too.

  It hadn’t been easy to convince her father to agree to an audience with Leo. Her father had scowled and told her that he didn’t negotiate with shifters. He’d said that Bear Hollow could either surrender completely or watch the shifters in Gilt Hollow die slow deaths of starvation. It had been all Isa could do not to react when her father talked about starving the shifters. She didn’t even want to know what he’d do to her if he found out that she’d smuggled food in to the cages.

  That food hadn’t done much to help the shifters, though. Isa could see the hungry, haunted look in their eyes when she entered the room. One sandwich in four days wasn’t enough to keep these shifters from slowly wasting away. The shifters had all been big and muscular to begin with, but those muscles were slowly starting to fade. Her eyes landed on Leo, and she winced at the gauntness in his face. His body still looked strong, but she could see that he’d lost weight. Dark circles had formed under his eyes as well, and she wondered if he’d slept at all.

  Isa swallowed hard and told herself that she needed to act tough. She had a part to play in all of this, and if she stopped playing that part and anyone suspected her of sympathizing with the shifters, her opportunity to help them would be lost.

  “You,” she said sharply, acting like she was annoyed at just being in the presence of the shifters. “Come with me. The Emperor will speak with you.”

  The guards in the room looked uncertainly at each other, and then at Isa’s guard. When Isa’s guard nodded, the other guards finally went to open the cage.

  The guards in here don’t trust me. They know I’m up to something. Well, no matter. Let them distrust her. All she was doing right now was taking Leo to the Emperor, which the Emperor was well-aware of. No one could pin anything on her.

  Not yet, anyway. Isa had a feeling that by the time all of this was over, a lot of shit was going to be pinned on her. So be it. She just had to keep up appearances long enough for the shifters to get the foothold they needed, whatever foothold that might be. She still didn’t see how talking to the Emperor was going to help Leo, but he seemed to have a plan. At least he hadn’t complet
ely written her off, like that other guy, Otto.

  “Come along,” she said to Leo, who had been freed from his cage but was now wearing shackles on his hands. “We don’t have time to dilly-dally.”

  She tried to sound stern, but her voice trembled slightly. She couldn’t completely hide her nerves.

  Leo followed her out of the room without a word. Isa’s guard walked behind him, his dagger drawn and ready in case Leo tried to make even the slightest of moves against her. Isa wasn’t worried about that, though. Leo was trustworthy enough. She had seen that much in his eyes. She wished her guard would fall back a bit so that she could talk to Leo, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Her guard was following him more closely than his own shadow. If Isa wanted to speak with Leo, she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. Trying to speak with Leo privately was going to make her look suspicious, but she had to take the chance. She wanted to know what his plan was before they got to the palace.

  “Give us some space,” Isa said sharply to her guard. “I wish to discuss matters of state privately with this man before he makes a fool of himself and wastes my father’s time.”

  Isa’s guard frowned. “My Lady, surely you know you can trust me with any matters of the state. And my orders were to stay close enough to you that I could assist if this shifter scum attempted to harm you.”

  Isa crossed her arms and glared at the guard. He was becoming so obnoxious lately. Isa was sure her father was behind that. The shifters weren’t the only ones who didn’t trust Isa. The Emperor didn’t trust her either. Of course, Isa’s father had no idea just how out of line Isa had gotten. He would have had a heart attack if he’d known she was trying to help the shifters escape. But he didn’t know. At least not yet.

  “I am the daughter of the Emperor, and I am giving you orders to give me some space. This man is shackled, and we are out on the street in broad daylight. He’s not going to be able to suddenly kill me just because you take a few steps back. Do as I say, or I will report you to the Emperor for insolence.”

  The guard hesitated for a moment, probably weighing in his mind the likelihood of anything happening versus the hassle of trying to explain to the Emperor why he didn’t want to obey whiny Princess Isa. In the end, thankfully, the guard decided that giving Isa what she wanted was a better option.

  “Very well, my Lady. As you wish.” He held back until Isa and Leo had walked several paces in front of him. When Isa was sure the guard was out of earshot, she turned to Leo.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “I still don’t have one.”

  “What?!? You’re just going to appear in front of the Emperor with no plan?”

  Leo nodded. “Yes. This wasn’t about getting to the Emperor. It was about giving myself a chance to talk to you without anyone else listening in. Otto is a great guy, but he’s too paranoid. And right now, we can’t afford to be paranoid. I trust you Isa. And we need your help.”

  Isa swallowed hard, both thrilled and terrified by the intensity in Leo’s voice. “Okay. I told you before, I want to help you guys. I just don’t know how to do that.”

  “I have an idea. Otto would kill me if he knew I was talking to you about this, but what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”

  Isa took a deep breath and nodded. “I won’t say anything to him.”

  Leo nodded, then looked right and left to make sure that no one was close enough to hear what he had to say.

  “The best way to end this is to take out the Emperor.”

  Isa’s eyes widened. “You want me to help kill my own father?”

  Leo shook his head. “No, no. I would never ask you to do that. But if you’re willing to destroy your father’s home—the palace—that would essentially destroy him enough that Gilt Hollow would be done. The whole city is hanging on by a thread as it is. We just need to cut that thread.”

  Isa considered this. “It’s a lot to ask. The palace is my home, too.”

  “I know. And I understand if you don’t want to. But it’s the quickest way I can think of to end this. And the longer this war goes on, the more people that are going to die, both in Gilt Hollow and in Bear Hollow.”

  Isa chewed on her lower lip as they walked, unsure of what to say. She would never in a million years want to do something to physically harm her father. He might be evil, but he was her father after all. But she agreed that he needed to be stopped. And did she really care about the palace? Yes, it was her home, but she didn’t feel right about living there in the midst of such wealth when the shifters had nothing. And what had she expected, anyway? When she volunteered to help the shifters, she had known it would mean hard decisions. If she really wanted to bring all of this injustice to an end, she was going to have to take massive action.

  Isa glanced at Leo, struck once again by how intense his eyes were. She’d never seen eyes so gorgeous and so full of soul. In another life, he might have been the kind of man she would have loved.

  You have a chance at another life. The thought took her off guard, and for a moment she resisted it. She had agreed to help the shifters because she wanted them to be free and she wanted the Shifter Games to end once and for all. But she had never stopped to consider what her life might be like after this war was over.

  She hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that she didn’t think she could go back to living like a normal Gilt Hollow citizen, even if such a thing were possible. Even if all the wealth and excess of Gilt Hollow was still around, how could she participate in it anymore? How could she bring herself to care about material things?

  And how could she ever find love with anyone from Gilt Hollow? As the Emperor’s daughter, she knew her hand in marriage was a great prize to be won. All of the nobles’ sons who were anywhere close in age to her were constantly attempting to woo her. But she’d never cared about any of them. She’d never felt attracted to any of them.

  There was no denying, however, that right now she felt incredibly attracted to Leo. Even in his nearly-starved state, with his tired eyes and gaunt face, he was far more handsome than any of the Gilt Hollow men had ever been, or ever would be. There was a simple, rugged handsomeness to him. Isa found herself wondering whether he would ever think of her as beautiful. Would a shifter ever find it in his heart to care for a full human who had been part of the awful Gilt Hollow regime?

  “Isa?” Leo asked, breaking into her thoughts. Isa realized that she still hadn’t answered him.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. “But how? I hope you also have a plan for that, because I’ve never destroyed a palace and I have no idea how to do it.”

  “I have an idea that might work. I know a guy in Bear Hollow who knows how to make explosives. Granted, he usually uses his skills just for making fireworks for kids on holidays, but I think he could make you a bigger explosive that would take out at least a good portion of the palace.”

  “You mean like a bomb?” Isa’s eyes widened.

  Leo nodded soberly. “Again, I understand if you don’t want to do this. But I think it’s the best, most efficient way. Could you clear the palace out of people, so that no one would get killed?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I could clear out at least part of it.”

  “I think it will work then.”

  “But, how do I even get the bomb? It’s not like I can just waltz over to Bear Hollow and pick it up. The Emperor’s daughter consulting with the shifters might raise a few eyebrows, you know?

  “You can sneak over. There’s a tunnel.”

  Isa’s eyes widened. “So the rumors are true, then.” Isa knew that her father and the Gilt Hollow Army had long suspected that the shifters had come up with some secret way to get back and forth between Gilt Hollow and Bear Hollow, but no one had ever been able to figure it out. She listened in shock as Leo described the tunnel and how it had been built. When he was done, she was speechless.

  “Wow,” she finally managed to say.

  “Yeah. So, you see, you could
get over there, meet with my guy, and get a bomb to bring back without anyone seeing you. As long as you’re careful, that is.”

  Isa felt her heart pounding. Could she really do this? Would she really do this? She looked up at Leo, and felt her heart flutter at the sight of his handsome face. She knew in that instant that she’d do anything for him. She barely knew him, true. But she couldn’t deny that there was some sort of deep attraction there. She was feeling things she’d never felt before, and she wanted to explore these feelings. And that meant she had to help save Leo, and save his people.

  “I really hope I can trust you,” Leo said when she was taking a long time to answer. “If you really are just spying for your father, and I just told you about the tunnel, then I’m screwed, as is all of Bear Hollow.”

  “No, no! I’m not working for my father. And I’ll do what you’re asking, on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You go with me.” They were almost to the palace, and Isa knew they had to finish up this conversation quickly.

  It was Leo’s turn to be speechless. “Wh…What?” he finally stammered out. “How is that possible? In case you haven’t noticed, I spend most of my time locked up these days.”

  “I know. But I think I can sneak you out. The guards are used to me coming in by now. And I’ve already removed you from your cage once, for this meeting with the Emperor. If I went in and demanded that they release you, they would probably do it.”

  Leo’s eyes had taken on an excited expression. “I would love to go with you. If you can get me out, I’ll gladly escort you over to Bear Hollow. Hell, I’d give anything to get out of that cage and see my old friends and my old city. But won’t you be in trouble if your father or anyone else realizes what you’ve done?”

  Isa raised an eyebrow at him. “Considering I’m planning to destroy the palace, I don’t think I can get in much more trouble for just releasing one shifter.”