by T. S. Joyce
A dirty blond giant of a man with sparking gray eyes jumped out of the back of the truck, and a dark-haired man with blazing blue eyes slid out from the passenger’s seat. He looked tired and irritated, his face streaked with sweat and dirt. The T-shirt under his flannel was soaked straight through, but when he saw Emerson, he forced a smile. “You must be Emerson.” His voice was hoarse like he’d been yelling all day, but he offered his hand for a shake, and his eyes slightly darkened from their inhuman, icy color. “I’m Mason.”
“It’s really good to meet you, Mason.”
The blond wasn’t so polite, though. He spat on the gravel road and hooked his hands on his hips. “Clinton,” he gritted out under Harrison’s glare.
“I’m Emerson.” She held out her hand, but he only stared at it.
“You shouldn’t be here—”
“Again?” Audrey snapped. “Seriously? Clinton, you can’t stop anyone from pairing up. Stop being so fucking rude.”
“None of you understand what’s really happening,” Clinton barked out. “Every time someone in these mountains pairs up and adds to our numbers, you put a fucking target on our backs.”
Harrison sighed a pissed-off sound. “What are you talking about, man?”
Clinton shook his head for a long time, the silence growing thick in the trailer park. “Did you go to the doctor today? Are you growing a human fetus or what?”
“Clinton!” Harrison barked out.
“It’s fine,” Emerson rushed, not wanting to be the cause of any friction in the crew. “No, I didn’t go through with it. I need more time.” And hell no, she wasn’t ready to tell this rude man about trying for a cub with Bash. He would suck all the joy from their decision.
“Well, good,” Clinton said low. “Bash can’t be gentle enough for a baby, and you don’t need anything tying his bear to you. He wouldn’t leave you if you got pregnant, and now you can still get away from him, too. Look, I can’t stop you. I can’t stop anything. I tried.” He pulled her hand from her side and shook it startlingly hard. “Welcome to hell, Emerson, ’cause that’s what this place will be soon enough.” With one last fiery look for Bash, Clinton turned and strode for his trailer. The blue tarp flapped loudly as he slammed the door behind him.
“That actually went better than I thought it would,” Harrison muttered, his dark blue eyes zeroed in on where Clinton had disappeared.
“Me, too,” Audrey and Kirk said in unison.
Mason shook his head and said, “I need a vat of beer to wipe today from my mind. Kirk,” he said, swinging his attention to the goliath beside Emerson, “you made the right decision leaving when you did.”
“Why is he being so ridiculous today?” Audrey asked.
“The party for Emerson,” Harrison said. “He doesn’t react well to change.”
“This is my fault?” Emerson asked.
“No, it’s his fault,” Mason said, kicking at an ant pile with the toe of his work boot and crossing his arms over his chest. “Clinton likes to fight everything.”
“Should I go talk to him?”
“No,” Bash and Audrey said in unison.
“Just let him be. He can come to the party or not, his choice,” Bash said in a strange, monotone voice. “Come on. I need to fire up the grill and feed you.”
“I’ll meet you out there,” Mason said as he strode for the middle trailer across the road. “I’m gonna clean up first.”
“I’ll get you a vat of beer,” Bash called darkly.
He strode for his trailer, but Emerson jogged and caught his hand. “Bash, Clinton is wrong. You’ll be plenty gentle with a baby.”
When he turned around, Bash’s eyes were the dark color of pine needles, and he looked sick, as though he’d been socked in the stomach. “How do you know?”
“Because of how gentle you are with me.” She shook her head and searched his sad eyes, then whispered, “He’s wrong about everything, Bash. I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Twelve
Bash blocked out the entire sun with his wide back as he carried a giant blue cooler over one shoulder like it weighed nothing at all. Moments like these shocked Emerson. Bash was sweet and gentle with her, but she couldn’t deny the raw power he wielded.
He hid his strength well in Saratoga, but up here in the wilderness, he let his animal side slip out more and more. She loved it.
He pushed a giant limb out of the way and waited for her to pass through before he let it go behind him. “I like this view better,” he rumbled, and just for him, Emerson wiggled her butt.
When she turned to give him a cheeky grin, Bash was adjusting an obvious erection. “Boner,” he said, completely unabashed.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry any of those,” she asked Audrey, who was walking along the thin trail in front of her now. Her back was packed down with bag chairs, and she held her heavy tote as well.
“Nah, I’m good. Shifter muscles,” she said over her shoulder with a wink.
Right. Emerson kept forgetting Audrey was probably one-hundred-forty-seven times stronger than her because of the freaking white tiger that dwelled in her middle.
Emerson could hear Bear Trap Falls long before she first laid eyes on it. The rush rush of the waterfall hitting the river below got louder with every minute of hiking, and eventually, she could smell the mist, too. Evening sunlight sprinkled the forest floor with gold, and branch shadows stretched across the trail, creating beautiful webs everywhere she stepped. The air was crisper up in these mountains, cleaner smelling than down in Saratoga, with a hint of pine sap and rich earth. But it was her first glimpse of Bear Trap Falls that had her slowing to a stop in awe. The banks on both sides of the river were sandy, like beaches, and beyond each were moss-covered rocks and giant fern-like plants that painted the landscape a jungle green. The waterfall itself wasn’t too tall, and there was a trail up the rocky cliff that said someone didn’t mind jumping from midway.
Bash’s hand slid around her from behind, cupping her stomach. He leaned down and murmured against her ear, “This side is Boarlander territory, and across the river, that’s Gray Back land.”
“Bash, this place is beautiful.”
“You like it?”
“Very much.”
“Okay, turn around and look up.”
She did as he said and looked up into the creaking evergreen branches of the trees that lined the bank. Across several large trees was tied a hand-painted sign that read Happy Baby Making Day. The grin that stretched her face felt good. “It’s perfect.”
Bash hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her lips to meet his. His mouth went soft against hers, and he sucked her bottom lip gently, dumping desire between her legs. With a little moan, she ended the kiss and closed her eyes in an attempt to slow her pulse. In a barely audible whisper, she asked, “Maybe tonight, can you stay in ten-ten with me?”
Bash’s smile dipped from his face, then came back slow as he stared at her like he’d never seen anything more beautiful. “I want that.” He clapped a hand on his leg and pointed his index finger at her. “First I need to feed you and give you the best night. I brought wine for you. Three boxes. Red, white, and pink. But then I remembered”—his eyes darted to the other Boarlanders who were firing up the grill and setting up the bag chairs on the beach—“we’re trying for a cub so I brought you some fruity strawberry-mango juice Audrey likes. It don’t have a single drop of alcohol.” He shot the others a look again and pressed his hand lightly to her stomach. “Even if it takes us a hundred years to get pregnant, I’ll take care of you.” He lifted her hand to his lips and smiled through the kiss he laid on her knuckles. Then he made his way toward the grill and settled the giant cooler in the sand.
And her heartbeat raced on.
Five minutes later, Emerson was sitting in a chair, red plastic cup of juice in her hand and tank top stripped off. The sun was hitting her skin just right to get a little tan before it set. Audrey sat beside her and ad
mitted, “I may or may not have cut up cucumbers for us to put on our eyes. I have no idea what that’s supposed to do, but I saw it in a magazine, and the boys just laughed at me when I tried it with them. Well, all but Bash, but he ate all the cucumbers.”
Emerson laughed and squinted at Bash, who stood with a beer in one hand and a pair of tongs in his other as he settled food on the giant grill someone had dragged out here. “That doesn’t surprise me. I’ll do it.”
“Yes,” Audrey said with a little fist pump. She dragged a plastic baggie of sliced cucumbers from her tote bag and handed her a couple.
Emerson stretched her legs out, heals on the sand, as she relaxed back into the chair and settled the green, soothing circles over her closed eyes.
“Thank God,” Kirk said from right beside her. “I’m glad she has someone to do girly shit with. Audrey tried to paint my nails last week.”
“I did not! I wanted to try one line of color on one fingernail so I could see if I liked it better than the one I was wearing, and you pitched the biggest tantrum.”
Emerson stifled her laughter so she wouldn’t dislodge her face-fruit. Carefully, she pulled her cup out of the holder on her arm rest and took a long sip.
“It’s good you have another girl around here,” Mason said in a somber tone. “You deserve to build some healthy relationships.”
“Mason, Diem turned out fine. Stop feeling guilty about that.”
“Who is Diem?” Emerson asked.
Audrey explained, “Mason used to be the driver slash bodyguard for Damon, the last immortal dragon. Or at least, he was the last one until he gave up his mortality for his mate, Clara…anyway, long story. So he raised his dragon shifter daughter in solitude, and Mason helped.”
“Helped keep her in solitude?”
“Yeah,” Mason gritted out. “It wasn’t my favorite part of the job. New subject. Babies. So you didn’t have fake sex in the doctor’s office today?”
Emerson choked on the drink she was sipping, and her cucumbers fell off. When she could speak again without wheezing and coughing, she carefully told the shirtless boar shifter who sat in the sand in front of her, “No. I didn’t have fake sex.” She’d had real sex with Bash.
“Nards had babies,” Bash said helpfully.
“Really?” Mason asked.
“Yeah, three of them,” Audrey said.
“I call one,” Mason said quick.
“Man, what are you going to do with a baby mouse?” Harrison asked from beside the grill.
“Put it in my trailer.”
Harrison rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and groaned. “Sounds great. We’ll just get overrun with mice in every single trailer.”
“Nards Junior,” Bash said happily. “I want a magic mouse, too.”
Harrison’s eyebrows arched up so high he made forehead wrinkles. “They shit little chocolate droppings everywhere.”
“You call them droppings,” Bash said, flipping over a steak. “I call them presents.”
Harrison growled and opened the cooler, then pulled out a beer and popped the top. And then he chugged it. Audrey looked at Emerson and made a ha-ha face, so Emerson took a sip of her juice to hide her grin.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Bash pulled a plastic container of fruit salad from the cooler and offered it to Emerson. “I packed girl food.”
“Bash, that isn’t girl food,” Audrey muttered as she snatched it from him and wrestled the top off. “It’s just healthy food.”
“It ain’t meat,” Bash said. “How healthy can it be?” He took a draw of his beer and looked pointedly at Audrey as though he’d won that argument by a landslide.
With his back to them as he manned the grill, Bash lifted the metal tongs and clicked them once. “Poop Chute Clinton is here.”
“Stop calling me that, asshole,” Clinton said as he appeared out of the woods.
“I’m making you a steak, Clinton,” Bash said, ignoring his vitriol. “It’s small and shaped like an anus.”
“You guys make me so tired,” Harrison said. “No fighting tonight.”
“What about arguing?” Clinton asked.
“No, because there ain’t no difference in this crew. Arguing always turns to fighting. Why don’t you just shock us all and get along with everyone instead?”
“I’m trying to save your lives.”
Kirk snorted. “With abstinence?”
“I have in my hands proof that Emerson Elliot,” he said, pointing a stack of papers at her, “is an anti-shifter traitor right here in our midst. That’s right. I Internet searched you.”
Harrison narrowed his eyes and asked in a dangerous voice, “What are you talking about?”
Bash abandoned the smoking grill and placed himself between Clinton and Emerson. “Careful, Clinton,” he warned, and now his voice was too low and growly to be mistaken for human.
A chill snaked up her spine as she stood slowly from her chair. “I’m pro-shifter.”
“Except for the fact that you edit newspaper articles for the Saratoga Hometown News, and your name is on a bunch of openly anti-shifter propaganda pieces.”
“Oh.” She rolled her eyes heavenward in relief and huffed a laugh. But when she looked around, everyone was staring at her like they’d never seen her before. “That can be explained. I’m a freelance editor, and I don’t get to pick my articles. I’ve edited hundreds of them. I wish I could pick and choose, but they pay me to stay neutral.”
“Neutral?” Clinton barked out, squeezing the stack of papers in his angry grip and shaking them in the air. “Quote from the article that released this morning on page four. ‘The shifters of Damon’s mountains should be taken seriously as a threat.’”
“Yeah, and what it said before I edited that sentence was, ‘The shifters of Damon’s mountains are bloodletting monsters who pose a serious threat to human children.’” She arched her eyebrows. “I’ve taken the sting off every one of that writer’s articles. And besides, I probably have a message on my cell phone right now telling me I’m fired for what I did to that article.”
Clinton’s furious grimace faltered. “Why?”
“Because read the author’s name, Clinton. His real name is Bartleby.”
Clinton squinted at the small type on the top page.
“Well, what does it say?” Audrey asked.
“Fartleby.”
Bash laughed loud and, beside her, Audrey peeled into giggles and kicked her heels in the sand. Kirk snorted. Mason wore a big grin, looking from Clinton to Emerson to Clinton again. Even Harrison was finally smiling.
“Okay,” Clinton conceded. “That’s kind of awesome.”
Bash leaned down, still chuckling, and kissed her. As he made his way back to the grill, shaking his head, he murmured, “Funny mate.”
“Don’t call her that,” Clinton said, sitting in the chair next to Emerson. He glared at her. “There’s still time to get out of this.”
“Clinton, if you don’t back off, I’m going to drown you in the falls,” Bash said over his shoulder. His eyes were glowing green. “I called her my mate because she is.”
Clinton dragged his narrowed gaze to Emerson.
“Sorry, old chap, but it’s true. I’m in his life to stay.”
“He didn’t bite you,” Clinton said. “You don’t smell like a bear, so I know you don’t have a claiming mark.”
Emerson strangled her plastic cup. It cracked down the side, and juice leaked out onto her legs. “Maybe someday he’ll claim me, or maybe I’ll choose to stay human and we’ll just get married instead. Either way, what we are to each other doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“The hell it does!”
“Emerson and I are trying for a cub,” Bash said from right behind her.
She startled at how fast he’d gotten to her, and the look on Clinton’s face was nothing shy of terrifying.
“No, she wants artificial insemination from some human she found on the Internet. That’s wh
at you said,” Clinton gritted out through clenched teeth. Oh, now he sounded snarly, and the fine hairs on Emerson’s body lifted.
“She changed her mind. She picked me instead.”
“Bash, are you serious?” Audrey asked, sounding shocked. “You’re gonna have a cub?”
“Get away from her,” Bash rumbled to Clinton. “Now.”
The air was so heavy it was impossible to breathe, or even move. Emerson was trapped, frozen under Clinton’s furious gaze.
“Clinton, move,” Harrison said, his words sparking with a power Emerson hadn’t ever felt before.
“I’m not gonna hurt her,” Clinton said low.
Bash said, “You smell like a fucking bear, and you’re too close to my mate. She don’t heal like us, fuckwad. Move.”
Emerson couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating!
Something enormous brushed her arm, and when she dragged her terrified gaze downward, a massive white tiger rubbed her body against Emerson’s legs with a loud purring sound rattling the air. When the big cat turned to rub her other side against Emerson’s locked legs, Audrey opened her mouth, exposed horrifyingly long canines, and roared at Clinton. Then, panting, Audrey rubbed across Emerson’s legs again, just about knocking her over with the affection.
Clinton shook his head and looked like he hated everything, then stood up and made his way to the grill. With one defiant look over his shoulder at Bash, Clinton took something off the top rack of the grill and dropped it in the sand. A pizza roll with tomato sauce oozing out the side of it.
“Oooh, you touched Bash’s pizza rolls,” Kirk said. “He’s gonna kill you, and then Audrey is going to eat you, and then she’ll puke you out like a hairball, and then I’ll throw you off the side of a mountain, and then Damon will torch you, and then—”
“That’s good, Kirk,” Harrison said tiredly.
But Bash fist-bumped Kirk and told him, “I like your stories.” And then like Clinton hadn’t thrown a tantrum at all and Audrey wasn’t rubbing all over Emerson like a giant, lethal housecat, Bash grandly announced, “The steaks are done!”