To Love a Bear

by Emilia Hartley

  Emmy sank back into the truck seat, her shoulders sinking. He reached for her and took her hand in his. At first, he thought she would pull back. He thought she wouldn’t hold him in return. Instead, her fingers tightened around his and she flashed him a warm smile.

  He didn’t deserve her. How could he if he couldn’t even keep her safe? Boomer wanted to lock her in the cabin forever, but he knew that would only lead to more problems. He wondered if she would rebel if he asked her to take an escort with her every time she wanted to go into town? He could send Dominic or Reid. Even Morgan.

  He wasn’t sure he trusted Orion to keep his hands to himself.

  “I’m okay now,” Emmy whispered. “No one is hurting me.”

  “I did,” he croaked. “I hurt you.”

  She looked stunned. “How?”

  His chest tightened painfully. Tears threatened to burn his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them fall. He refused to break before her, even though the fissure that’d cracked through him when he realized she was gone was still healing. Boomer needed to protect her. If he couldn’t do at least that, then what good was he?

  “Theodore,” she whispered. Her hand was warm on his, gliding like silk across his skin.

  He turned over his hand to grasp hers. She anchored him with a strength he hadn’t expected. Despite all that’d happened, Emmy smiled. His gaze dropped to the hand-shaped bruise around her arm and a thought flickered in his mind.

  She’d asked to be like him. He didn’t think she knew what it was she’d asked for, but perhaps she had. If he gave her what she wanted, a beast of her own, then she would have the strength to fight off men like Hayden on her own.

  No. He wouldn’t harm her like that. The beast was a burden. The second voice in Boomer’s head created a constant battle ground. The two sides could hardly agree on anything. This was one of those moments. The beast was eager to give her a bear, to make her hardier. Boomer, on the other hand, refused to put her through any more pain.

  What if the transition hurt? What if it was the worst thing she ever endured? Boomer couldn’t force that upon her after the life of pain she’d lived. That kind of pain would hang between them forever, and he knew it. Emmy wouldn’t look at him the same. She would see the hurt he’d caused and not the love he felt for her.

  Eventually, his chest deflated. Emmy sat, quiet.

  Once she fell asleep, Boomer would go on a hunt.

  “What you did for me back there was exactly what I would have asked of you. I’m tired of Hayden acting like I’m a possession someone stole from him. I’m tired of all the fuss he keeps throwing over me. All I want is peace and quiet, just long enough for me to find a little bit of happiness.

  “I’ve found that with you, with our little home out here and the other shifters, but Hayden won’t leave long enough for me to enjoy it. I feel like he’s going to turn my life upside down at any minute. Part of me was afraid that you’d kill him, and I’d lose you in a torrent of legalities. Then, when the cop showed up, I was afraid you’d try to have Hayden arrested—”

  “He should have been.” He hadn’t meant to cut her off, but he couldn’t stop the growl in his voice that needed to be let out.

  “No. Because that would mean hours and hours of answering questions about Hayden’s behavior and our past. I would have been dragged through all of that all over again when I could be making new memories with you. With the other shifters.”

  He jammed the truck into a lower gear while they chugged up the hill. He wanted Hayden gone and putting him behind bars could have done the trick. Yet, he understood what his mate was saying. She didn’t want the fuss. She only wanted a new life.

  He was honored that the new life she wanted involved him. She’d been worried about his wellbeing. “Wait. A torrent of legalities? You’re worried about me getting arrested, but not at all concerned about my urge to kill him?”

  Emmy leaned back, lips pursed. That was the moment he saw it, this core of steel that she’d been forced to adopt. Her life had hardened her in ways that had stolen softness and goodness from her. Boomer hated that this had all been against her will. He would do anything to make her life soft and happy again.

  “You wouldn’t have to worry about me if there was a way to change me into a shifter.”

  “It’s not that there isn’t a way…” Boomer snapped his mouth shut, immediately knowing he’d said too much.

  “So, there is a way?” She twisted in her seat to face him, eyes accusing.

  Boomer said nothing more. He wasn’t going to support her fantasies. Life as a shifter wasn’t as easy as she suspected. Things were already bad enough for her. Boomer would protect her from any pain.

  At any cost.

  Chapter Twelve

  His mate snored peacefully on the fully dressed mattress. She snuggled old blankets. He wished she could have gripped that soft pink blanket he’d wanted to buy for her. If Hayden hadn’t shown up, things would be different. Emmy wouldn’t be staying in his cabin.

  It would be theirs. Her feminine touch would have been all over the cabin, making it feel more like a home to her than a waystation. He wanted to give her that much, at the very least. Especially when he couldn’t bring himself to give her what she’d actually asked for.

  The trek down the side of the mountain and into town was slow, but steady for the bear. His leathery paws didn’t catch on any stones and no creatures dared bother him. The edge of town came into view. He dropped the pack he’d carried in his maw and let the change begin to slide over him.

  The bear didn’t want to give up control. It wanted to hunt Hayden and rip him limb from limb. The hunger for blood filled his mouth as Boomer fought to be free from the beast’s body. Copper flooded his tongue, but he knelt on the ground, panting and heaving. The first fight was over.

  Boomer knew his beast would strike for blood the first chance it saw, but he didn’t want to kill Hayden. Not because he felt any kind of moral responsibility. If he had his way, Boomer would have taken the man into the mountains and left him to die, but Boomer wasn’t about to betray his sweet and gentle mate.

  Emmy would be mortified if she learned that he’d killed her ex-husband. He wouldn’t put that on her. Nor, would it become a secret Boomer had to shoulder for the rest of his life. Instead, he would push the beast back and do his best to scare Hayden out of town. He would let the man see his desire to kill him, to hurt him for every small pain he’d forced Emmy to suffer.

  The pack on the ground had a pair of jeans, underwear, and other clothing appropriate for the season. Boomer didn’t want to stand out. As soon as he was dressed, he stashed the empty pack in the brush.

  He turned to his beast, asking the bear which way to go. Hayden’s scent was faint, but the beast caught it and propelled him forward. Boomer slunk through the night, his tan skin and dark hair disappearing into the shadows. No one would see him through their window, not if he could help it.

  Hayden needed to disappear without any connection to Boomer. It was the only way this would work. He and the beast tracked the scent to a small motel on the edge of town. There were flickering lights on in some rooms. Other rooms had the dull, red glow of a lamp in the window, as if it signified something. Perhaps it was the room of a sex-worker. Or, it was the beacon of a drug deal.

  Either way, Boomer knew Hayden’s choice of establishments wasn’t the nicest. He mused at Hayden’s choice while he searched for the right door. Was his mate’s ex-husband partaking in drugs and women while he searched for Emmy?

  Boomer approached the door, straining to hear past it. The hushed din of voices inside made his blood race with adrenaline. The bear growled, preparing for a fight.

  ***

  Boomer had left.

  She knew the moment the door closed. She listened to the soft grunts of his shift outside the cabin and waited for him to return. Instead, her mate disappeared into the night. She crept to the window, searching through the darkness for any sign of him.

&nb
sp; He’d slipped earlier. All this time, Emmy thought there was no way to turn her into a beast like him. She’d thought it was something she needed to be born into. His slip of the tongue had revealed not only that there was a way, but that he refused to do it.

  For a moment, she considered running to Orion. The loose cannon seemed like the type that would give her what she wanted. If she could get him to change her, then she could be a bear like them. If that was how it worked. She didn’t know if she would be a bear, a muskrat, or something else.

  It wasn’t fear of this change that kept her where she was. Instead, it felt like a kind of betrayal. Asking Orion to change her behind Boomer’s back felt wrong. She wasn’t going to betray her mate like that.

  Mate.

  The word struck her over and over. The time she’d spent in Boomer’s presence had been minimal. A handful of days, and yet she felt so deeply for him that she could imagine no other life now. She wondered if that same bond would have snapped into place had someone else picked her up out of that bush, or if Boomer was the only one she’d been meant for.

  The idea that she’d been carved specifically for him delighted her. She lay back on the bed and let the idea flow through her. Her body hummed with their lovemaking, with the connection that they’d formed. It soothed old wounds to think that everything she’d gone through had been in preparation for this.

  Her life with Hayden had not only shown her everything that was wrong with a relationship, it’d made her sturdier. She was hardy and nigh immune to pain at this point. It made her feel confident walking among the other shifters. Men who could lift her with one hand. Not that any of them would hurt her, but that they didn’t have to worry about her. She could take care of herself.

  Even if she wasn’t a shifter like them, her pain tolerance made her feel like an equal. It was a strange thought, but it gave her a small amount of comfort while she lay alone.

  A knock on the door dragged her out of her thoughts. She jumped, clutching the blanket to her chest. She feared the worst. Somehow, Hayden had found her. Boomer wasn’t around, and Hayden had found her.

  Slowly, she crept toward the door. Her heart beat a thunderous rhythm in her ears, drowning out everything else. The person on the other side knocked again, the only reason she knew was from the thrum that rippled through the floor beneath her feet.

  Her trembling hand hovered over the doorknob. She could run back and lock herself in the bedroom. There was no reason she had to open the door at all.

  Then, through the sound of her own heartbeat, she heard a voice that wasn’t Hayden’s.

  “Emmy? It’s Reid. Can you open the door?”

  She’d never heard Reid speak before, so there was no way of knowing if the man on the other side of the door was actually him. Not unless she opened the door. Sucking in a deep breath and summoning courage from deep inside herself, she unlocked the door. When it didn’t immediately burst open, she grew more confident.

  It was, in fact, Reid on the porch. His lips were pressed into a grim line. He glanced about, searching for Boomer.

  “Is everyone okay?” Her first thought was of the others, Morgan, Dominic, and Orion. Why else would Reid show up in the middle of the night.

  Without answering, Reid huffed a growl. She could see his own bear, the beast dancing in his eyes as frustration bit through him.

  “Well? If someone is hurt, I can help. You just need to tell me.”

  “I’m afraid it’s your idiot of a mate who’s getting hurt.”

  Her stomach hit the floor. “What? How do you know? What would make you think that?”

  Reid raced toward the door without answering her. Emmy wouldn’t be ignored. She grabbed a pair of shorts and pulled them on as she teetered after him. He threw open the door to his car, pausing only to give her a strange look, as if surprised that she would follow him at all.

  “When did you last see him? Boomer, that is.”

  She backtracked through her mind, grateful it was working better now. “About twenty minutes ago.”

  Reid grumbled once more, the words nothing more than guttural sounds. When he threw himself into he driver’s seat, Emmy lunged for the passenger side.

  “Woman! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “If Boomer is in trouble, I’m coming, too.” She bucked herself in, afraid that Reid would shift into a bear and leave her behind the same way Boomer had.

  “I don’t know if he’s in trouble…” Reid eyed her.

  The look she gave him said she didn’t care. She wanted to be there, no matter what was happening. On the surface, Emmy hoped they only interrupted a late-night walk. Deep down, she suspected Boomer had other plans.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The door swung open, lock snapping free of the wall. Two men jumped back in alarm. Boomer stepped forward to fill the space.

  He didn’t expect the boom of gunfire or the blossoming heat in his stomach. He looked down, confused, and found blood spreading across his shirt. When he looked up, Hayden’s stunned expression twisted into victory and horror, as if he was in the process of losing his humanity.

  Boomer’s knees wanted to buckle, but after a moment of processing, he realized the bullet wasn’t silver. While it was embedded in his abdomen, it wasn’t going to kill him. Already, his body was healing around it. It would cause issues later, but he would deal with them when they came.

  The other man in the room was already rushing for the knife at his hip. It flashed in the dim light, revealing a serrated edge. Boomer didn’t stop to ask who he was before hitting him. His knuckles collided with the man’s jaw just as the knife dragged down Boomer’s arm. He pushed through the pain and reached for the man again.

  The stranger was trained, quickly dodging Boomer’s grapple. He ducked and danced around Boomer. The blade bit into his skin again. The serrated edge tore through flesh. He was only grateful that it wasn’t silver. He would have been on his knees already.

  Hayden kept back, pressed against the wall as the fight unfurled. Boomer whipped around to face the stranger. He swung his elbow and caught the man in the sternum. Air whooshed from his lungs and he staggered. Boomer had an opening. He moved to knock the man to the ground, but once more he darted away.

  The sound of heaving filled the room. Boomer turned toward it. The man’s eyes flashed with anger and a dash of joy. This fight was a challenge, probably one he didn’t have all that often. Boomer wondered what kind of hunter this was. The man seemed to enjoy the fight.

  He’d been bartering a deal with Hayden when Boomer arrived.

  Each new movement pulled around the bullet now embedded in Boomer’s stomach. The pain pinched as he reached for the hunter. Tears stung his eyes and blurred his vision. Yet, if he stopped, the hunter would find a way to kill him.

  The wound in his side was healing, but slowly. Already, Boomer had expended too much energy with his first shift. The bullet had only drained him further. If the hunter could sink the knife hilt deep, then Boomer was in trouble.

  The sound of a car engine flared and died outside. Boomer paid it no attention until Emmy’s voice cut through the air. Just as he turned to see her, the hunter slammed the knife into his shoulder. Pain exploded through him.

  His knees shook, and one gave out. He crashed to the floor just as another man arrived. Boomer looked up to find a familiar head of golden blond hair.

  “What’s up, Reid?” The words were nothing more than air past Boomer’s lips. The wound in his shoulder stung, sending tendrils of flame through his body with each movement.

  Reid didn’t respond with anything more than a grunt. Truly a man of few words.

  Emmy rushed to his side. She dropped to a crouch beside him, already taking stock of his wounds. She gasped at the blood on the front of his shirt and lifted the fabric away to reveal the healed skin beneath.

  “I told you I’m a quick healer.”

  She stuck her finger through the hole in his shirt, slowly realizing what happened.
“There’s a bullet inside you. Isn’t there?”

  “I must say, I don’t fancy things inside me.”

  Emmy groaned, but he thought his humor lightened the moment. Reid stood between them as Emmy helped Boomer to his feet. He heard her grumble something about her flimsy human strength before she grunted, but Boomer rose to his feet all the same.

  She pushed him into Reid’s arms before turning on her ex-husband. Her dark hair flared around her like a magical force of its own. Boomer wanted to call out, to grab her and pull her away, but she was out of his reach before he could move.

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” She screamed in Hayden’s face.

  It was clear from the man’s expression that he hadn’t expected it. Both Boomer and Reid growled behind her, a warning to both Hayden and the hunter.

  “Were you going to pay this man to hurt us?” She flung her hand toward the hunter. “Is that really how low you’re willing to go?”

  Before either could speak, she spun and stormed from the room. Reid led Boomer after her. They both glanced back to make sure neither man thought to follow. Boomer waited for the telltale bang of the gun again. Instead, the hunter only followed to the doorway, a smile plastered on his face.

  He’d seen Boomer’s strength and the way he healed. To him, he’d found the perfect prey. Hayden had invited trouble into their lives. Now, this man knew there was something special about Boomer. If he was smart, he probably inferred the same of Reid. Boomer was thankful the rest of the crew hadn’t arrived to save him from his stupidity.

  Boomer threw himself onto the backseat of Reid’s car, uncaring of the blood that still spilled from his shoulder. Emmy crammed herself in beside him, taking his head into her lap so that he was forced to look up at her scowl.

  Clearly, his mate was displeased. He’d done this for her. The words sliced through his chest, begging to be let out, but he held them back and wallowed in his shame. She would leave him now. He’d proven nothing more than a reckless idiot. She would find no protection in his company anymore, no safety that would ease her fears.