by C. D. Gorri
They could snap their pictures, but the hell with smiling. It never ceased to amaze him how these fiends all looked the same with their ill-fitting rumpled clothes from hiding in corners and behind bushes to get photos for whatever rags would buy them.
Still, if it sold tickets, he owed that to Madoc, the stars, and the dozens of employees at the theatre. Shows ran for however long they were popular, and newspapers and bloggers helped spread the word.
“Look this way Mr. Pax!”
“Can we get a smile Pax?”
“Ollie?”
His head snapped in the direction of the softly whispered nickname that only one person in the world had ever had the gumption to call him.
“Teresa,” he whispered.
Mate, his Bear roared.
“Ollie,” she stood over a dozen feet away, but he heard her loud and clear among the shouting crowd.
Oliver’s whole body tensed. Feelings he’d worked hard to suppress over the past two years threatened to erupt inside of him like a volcano. His Bear pushed to be let out, to do the things his human side wouldn’t, like go to her side.
He watched as her jade green eyes filled with tears. It couldn’t be her. Why here? Why now? Anger and hurt welled inside of him.
“Please, Ollie?”
“Pax, who is that woman?” Chance asked him, but Oliver couldn’t answer.
“No one,” Oliver said hardening his heart to her beauty and his beast’s natural impulse to go to her.
The sound of her gasp was heart-wrenching, but he ignored it and her. Painful as it was, Oliver turned his back on the one woman the universe had created just for him. The only woman he’d ever loved and who’d thrown his love back in his face.
Yes, he turned his back on her, but not before he saw her reach out her hand as if to touch him. She retreated as if burnt and brought that very same appendage back to her lips in some vain attempt to try and hold in the sob that had already escaped.
“Pax?”
He shook his head at Chance. There were some things he simply would not discuss. Teresa Witherspoon was one of them. His breathing came deep and heavy as he tried to get control of his internally rampaging Grizzly Bear. He hardly noticed Chance lunge forward.
“Holy shit. Stop! Wait!” Chance yelled, but it was too late a warning.
Oliver turned in time to see the woman who’d broken his heart run from his cruel rejection and straight into oncoming traffic.
The sound of tires squealing on the wet asphalt and the grinding of brakes were nothing compared to the crunch of Teresa Witherspoon hitting the windshield of a yellow cab right outside the theatre.
“No!” he roared as he ran over to her broken and blood-soaked body.
“Ollie,” she whispered before closing her eyes.
“No. No. NOOOOOO!”
“Someone call 911,” Leandra’s voice reached him, but he couldn’t look at her or anyone else. His eyes were riveted to the pale face of the woman he held to his chest.
Blood soaked through his ten-thousand-dollar suit, but Oliver couldn’t have cared less. The sounds of sirens reached him through the roaring inside his head.
He let go of her reluctantly so the EMT’s could do their job, ready to walk away and follow when her hand reached out and grabbed his.
“Get in the back,” yelled one EMT above the thunder.
“Go ahead, Oliver, Leandra and I will follow you there,” said Chance.
“Yes,” Oliver nodded.
The EMTs worked together feverishly hooking her up to all sorts of machinery and some kind of IV drip. Oliver had to fight to stop his Bear from snarling at the men. They were only doing their jobs.
He looked down at the pale hand gripping his so tightly before it suddenly went lax. That moment was the single most terrifying in his life. He felt as though he were in a trance, as if he wasn’t really there.
“What is happening?” he asked trying hard not to let despair take him.
“We’re losing her,” one of them said, “is she your mate?” he added almost imperceptibly. Oliver gave a single nod in response.
“Then you might say something, anything to help bring her back while we work on her, alright?” The soft glow of that one EMT’s eyes told Oliver all he needed to know.
The man was a Shifter, like him. He understood the pain and the agony that came with losing a mate, but what he couldn’t know was that Oliver had been dealing with that pain for a couple of years now. He’d thought himself immune to her, but he’d been a fool.
It was true, Oliver was the biggest damn fool in the world to think this woman did not matter to him anymore. His Bear roared inside of him and he felt his heart constrict in his chest as the men brought out the defibrillator.
That precious pale hand was so small in his, he wondered how he ever let her go. Her blood pressure dropped, the machine monitoring her heart let out a long single note, and then Oliver knew real pain.
“No! I can’t lose her now! Do something!”
“We are. Clear!” yelled one of the strangers.
Oliver watched helplessly as the EMT’s worked frantically to get her back. She couldn’t turn up again in his life simply to die now. He wouldn’t allow it. No, she had to wake up and answer for what she’d done. He needed an explanation. He deserved one.
To hell with all that, his Bear snarled. Mate!
“Teresa, come back, come back to me dammit, I won’t watch you die!” he yelled, and felt wet tears streaming down his face without embarrassment.
Two years might have passed, but he remembered every single moment of their time together. The way she laughed at his jokes and clung to him during their lovemaking.
She’d been new to passion. A virgin when he’d met her. That precious gift she’d given to him and how he had savored it and her. Dammit! He couldn’t watch her die. Not now.
So many nights he’d dreamt about her. The ghost of her had kept him awake for months on end. He’d written scores about it. Musicals and movies describing his longing and his hurt.
The critics called his unrequited love stories angsty and unfinished. He supposed they were. Just like him.
“Come on, Resa! Wake up, dammit! Fight, you fight and you tell me why you’ve come back now! Wake up!” he roared.
“We have a pulse,” the Shifter EMT smiled and nodded his head.
“Thank God,” Oliver breathed and pressed his forehead to hers.
Mate, chuffed his Bear.
Chapter Two
Teresa’s entire body felt as if she were on fire. Like that burning sensation of pins and needles in your back when you cough too hard or hold your breath for too long.
What happened? Where was she?
She opened her eyes and blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights. The acrid smells of cleaning detergent and disinfectant made her want to gag, but there was something in her mouth preventing her from doing so.
“Easy, don’t fight the tube, it is helping you breathe,” said a deep, rumbly voice next to her head.
It was familiar, and so welcomed she wanted to cry and smile at the same time. Her thoughts were hazy, even she recognized that. Teresa tried to move to see the owner of that voice, but she couldn’t.
What the heck? A deep throbbing ache pulsed from her ribs and her shoulders. An accident of some kind? She recalled the sounds of wheels spinning on asphalt and the crunch of broken glass.
Crap. She blinked slowly, willing herself to calm. Then he came into view, and her heart started pounding once more inside her chest as panic took hold.
Ollie.
Deep brown eyes so dark they sometimes looked black stared at her from a face so handsome and familiar, so loved and missed that she could hardly breathe. His hair was shorter and his beard longer now, but she would know him anywhere.
He’d gotten older, more cynical, but she was probably to blame for that. It didn’t matter, he was still handsomer than any other man in the universe as far as she was concerned.
<
br /> Oliver Pax. His name lit up inside her brain like a neon sign. It all came pouring back to her in a storm of memories overwhelming every other thought. She couldn’t stop the echoes of the past from filling the space between her ears.
Two long years since she’d last seen him, lying asleep in the bed where they’d made the sweetest love and created a life he didn’t know about.
Thomas! Her son. Their son. Teresa had to get back to him. She tried sitting up, but Oliver pressed her back into the bed with a firm, yet gentle hand on her shoulder.
“You can’t move yet, Resa. You’re hooked up to a million machines here. Calm down, okay? I’ll call a nurse,” he went to move but she grabbed his hand.
Just then a strange man and woman came into the room. Panic rose and once more she struggled to sit up, he quirked an eyebrow at her. His expression hard and curious. She couldn’t blame him. Not after what she’d done.
“Oliver?” the woman said his name and ran to him.
She embraced him in a quick little hug that made the darkness inside of Teresa rise up in jealousy. No, she told the thing and furiously beat it back to the cell where she’d trapped it. She visualized the hard iron bars until the dark thing inside of her quieted once more.
“Pax, is she okay?” the man said.
He was handsome, she supposed, with neatly combed hair and an easy smile, but he had nothing on her Ollie. Except, he wasn’t her Ollie anymore.
Yes, she could have had a life with him once, but she’d given that up in order to protect him. Not that he knew about any of that. It didn’t matter now. Only Thomas did.
“She is awake,” the woman had a nice face, and a pleasing smile, “we were so worried. I’m Leandra and this is my husband Chance. We work with Oliver. I found your purse in the street and brought it with me,” she said, and held up the tattered canvas tote Teresa had been using as a pocketbook for some time now.
To think she’d once donned the latest in fashion trends. She’d had her choice of haute couture hanging in her closets and the shoes and accessories to match. Nowadays, it was thrift stores and garage sales for Teresa.
She didn’t mind as long as that meant she had more for Thomas. Her sweet boy was growing like a weed these days. His solid little toddler body seemed to need new clothes and shoes every few weeks.
Thomas. Her boy needed her. It was why she’d sought out Oliver to begin with. She hated herself for the secret she’d kept for so long, but now she knew there was something wrong with her.
Something had finally risen after she’d escaped from her father’s and Witherspoon Tech’s strange experiments. She needed help protecting Thomas and who better than his father?
“I see our patient is awake,” a man in a white coat came in and she looked hard to see if she recognized him from her father’s labs.
She couldn’t be sure, so she waited seemingly complacent. The so-called doctor smiled and asked everyone to leave the room to which she violently shook her head.
“Oh, I think we’ll stay,” said the woman, Leandra, with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Teresa decided right then and there to like her. Oliver stood closer to her bed, and the man, Chance, mimicked his position on the other side of her. She watched the doctor and saw anger in his eyes before he placed a fake smile on his face once more.
“Alright then I will be right back with some medicine,” he ducked out of the room.
The second he was gone, Teresa sat up and yanked the tube out of her mouth despite the cries of the three in her room. She coughed and held her throat. It would stop in a moment, another side effect of her father’s madness. Teresa was a fast healer. Like magically fast.
“Teresa?” Oliver wore his concern on his sleeve and for that her heart swelled with a long since felt emotion.
“Ollie,” she gasped, her voice rough from the tube, “we have to go now. That man is not a doctor. Have to leave.”
“What?”
“I’m in trouble. Please,” her eyes pleaded with him to believe her.
To her surprise he nodded his head and looked from her to his friend. Chance and Leandra nodded and the woman smiled at Teresa.
“Go, take her with you, Oliver. Get her to safety and then let us know where you are,” Leandra said and started removing her coat. She handed it over to Teresa along with her jeans and a pair of white sneakers.
“I’ll wear Chance’s coat. You just put these on, here Chance give her your tie, she’ll need it as a belt.”
The slightly curvier woman giggled and helped Teresa don her haphazard outfit. It was perfect. She impulsively hugged the woman before leaving.
“Thank you,” Teresa said.
“He’s coming back, let’s go the other way,” Oliver grabbed her hand and pulled her along down the corridor.
Once outside, he flagged down a cab and closed the door.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“High Falls Towers-”
“No, we have to go to 201-B Allen Street, please,” she sat up and gave the cabbie the directions to the apartment she’d been sharing with a young would-be actress.
“Why there?”
“Ollie, there is a lot you don’t know-”
“Oliver. My name is Oliver,” he corrected her and her stomach flipped.
“Okay, Oliver then. Look, I have a lot to tell you. I don’t expect you to just forgive and forget but believe me when I say I need your help,” her voice cracked at the end and she bit the inside of her mouth to stop from crying.
She didn’t expect pity, hell, she didn’t even deserve it. But this was bigger than her. It was bigger than them both.
“Can you wait?” she asked the cab driver who nodded his head.
“Teresa, where are we going?”
“I have to get something first, then can you get me out of town?”
“Yes,” he nodded. Just like that.
“How are you feeling?” Oliver squinted at her as she took the stairs to the second floor two at a time.
“I’m fine,” she shrugged.
“You have five broken ribs and a fractured clavicle,” he said.
“They must’ve been mistaken,” she said.
“I saw the scans, Teresa,” he said and grabbed her arm.
“I will explain, but we have to move fast. Please,” she insisted.
She hated keeping it from him, but she needed to get to her son first. It wasn’t fair to keep it a secret, the darkness inside her, even as it healed her quickly, was something that was growing and would soon take over. She couldn’t risk hurting her son.
Oliver had to keep him safe. Besides, like father like son. Teresa knew Thomas was a Shifter like his dad. The boy already showed signs. Oliver could teach their boy how to control his own Bear.
Oliver had told her everything back when they were together. He’d confided his wondrous secret of being a Shifter when they were carefree and in love. Back before she’d known the truth about her father and his nefarious deeds.
“You seem different,” he said and followed her down the hall.
“I know and I will explain, but first I think you need to prepare yourself,” she started.
“For what?”
“Ollie, I have a-”
Before she could finish her sentence the door to the apartment burst open and the almost two-year old whirlwind also known as Thomas Pax came crashing into her legs, nearly toppling her to the ground.
“Mommy!!!” her boy shouted and rained a dozen sloppy precious little kisses on her cheeks when she’d scooped him up.
“Hello, sweet boy,” she rubbed her nose against his and winced a little as his very-big-for-his-age forty-pound body wriggled in her arms hitting any one of the bruises she had left from the accident.
“Mommy’s late! Nancy sleepin’.”
“She is? How did you know I was here?”
“Sniffed ya, Mommy,” he giggled.
“You did, huh?” she smiled at her curly-haired
son and breathed a sigh of relief that he was with her and safe.
“Teresa?” Oliver’s near black eyes met hers and she knew he’d scented the truth without words.
“Mommy, who’s the man?” Thomas whispered loudly as most children his age tended to do.
“Thomas, this is Oliver Pax.”
“My name Pax. Thomas Pax!”
“Yes, it is, sweet boy. Oliver, this is Thomas. He’s our son.”
Chapter Three
Oliver’s chest squeezed painfully around that useless organ that dwelt inside. A son? He had a son.
Too many emotions to count raged through him as he took in the dark haired little boy who had the same brown eyes and stubborn chin as him. This was his boy, his son.
Our cub, corrected his Grizzly Bear, and all he needed was one sniff to scent the truth in both words.
He smelled the familiar deep pine forest scent that was his own with a bit of peaches and some sunshine thrown in. Oliver smiled. The small cub was his and he was a Shifter too.
He could scent the fur beneath the skin and even that was strange. Most Shifters did not have their first transformation until after puberty, but this young cub’s seemed much closer than that.
“I need to get our bags from the closet, can you stay here with your Daddy?”
“Uh huh, hi Daddy,” said Thomas.
He looked up at Oliver curiously. Fear and apprehension were both absent, which immediately had Oliver’s previously unknown paternal pride soaring to ridiculous heights. The boy was brave. So fragile and new, his paternal instincts came rushing forward and regardless of what had happened in the past he knew he would do anything for his son.
“Hello, Thomas,” he greeted his cub.
Not the bells and whistles, triumphant introduction of a prolific composer to his long-lost progeny, but what else could he say. A few minutes ago he hadn’t even known the child existed.
“The bad men comin’?” the boy, his son asked.
His inner Grizzly snarled at the words. What bad men dared threaten his young? That could wait though.