Innocent. Far too innocent.
He couldn’t taint her.
He wasn’t the angel she thought he was and if she knew the things he had done, how he had treated females while caught up in the high of being crowned the victor in a cage fight, she would look at him differently.
Like the demon he really was.
Maverick turned on his heel and walked away from her.
Chapter 10
Bronwyn stretched and smiled as she woke, savoured the warmth of the blankets and sank into the mattress, feeling relaxed from head to toe. She idly twirled a lock of hair around her fingers as sleep gradually fell away from her. Why did she feel so sated this morning? Maybe she’d had a delicious dream of Maverick again.
She licked her lips as it came back to her, wanted to moan as she recalled how bruising his kiss had been, how it had felt as if he was claiming her with the hard press of his mouth against hers and his hands firmly gripping her backside.
Her eyes snapped open.
She shot up in bed.
Cursed when it hit her that it hadn’t been a dream.
She had kissed Maverick.
A blush burned up her cheeks, seemed to set every inch of her aflame. Oh gods. She’d had far too many beers and then she had kissed him, had practically thrown herself at him. She groaned and rolled, buried her head under the pillow and curled into a foetal position on her side. What had she done?
Her heart pounded, loud in her ears as she remembered the kiss, how delicious it had been at first.
And then Maverick had pushed her away from him and had looked at her as if she was pure evil.
He hadn’t been able to get away from her fast enough.
Bronwyn groaned again, her face screwing up. Maybe if she stayed here, under this pillow, and never saw him again he would forget what she had done. She knew in her heart that hiding from him wasn’t going to solve anything though. Sooner or later, either he or Rune would come to check on her. Gods, she hoped Rune came, but she wasn’t sure she could even face him. He would say that he had told her so, would point out what had become blindingly apparent to her last night.
Maverick was definitely her fated male.
The beer had loosened her up enough that she had forgotten the nerves she normally felt around him, had felt bold and maybe a little beautiful, and it was his fault. The way he had looked at her had revealed he wanted her. He hadn’t needed to say a word. It had been right there in his eyes.
His kiss had revealed just how deeply that want ran.
And then he had pulled away, had left without a word, and now she wasn’t sure what to think.
Had she been reading into things, seeing something that wasn’t there thanks to the beer, or did Maverick really desire her? She wasn’t a fool. He hid it well, but he had never been able to hide from her that he had a low opinion of himself. She had only known him a handful of years, but in that time, she had witnessed things about him that she knew were a source of shame for him.
And she knew deep in her heart that was the reason he had stopped things last night.
The look he had given her—the one that called her evil—hadn’t really been aimed at her. It had been aimed at himself. He had thought himself a monster for kissing her like that, for holding her so tightly, for changing things between them.
And they were changed.
She couldn’t go back to how things had been. There was no way to undo the past. She could blame it on the beer, they both could, but it would be a lie. She wanted him, always had and always would.
She loved him.
Bronwyn tossed the pillow aside and huffed as she rolled onto her back, debating what to do.
Finding Maverick would be a good place to start, and while she was doing that she would make a decision about what she did next.
Apologise or kiss him again.
She wasn’t sure.
Her head ached as she shifted her legs over the edge of the mattress and stood, and she pressed her hand to it and frowned. Last night, beer had been amazing, the best thing ever. In the cold light of morning, beer sucked.
She pulled her jeans and camisole on, and then a purple sweater one of the females had dropped off for her. The air was chilly again this morning, had her hurrying down the stairs to the log burner to get it going. She made fast work of cleaning it out and building a fire, latched the door and stood, her gaze scanning the room. She must have left her boots somewhere.
Bronwyn frowned when she found one by the far end of the room and spotted the other near the door.
Grimaced when she recalled removing them in anger after Maverick had walked away from her and throwing them when frustration had got the better of her.
She grabbed them and tugged them on, and opened the door, her mind on finding Maverick and probably apologising.
She almost jumped out of her skin when her phone rang.
Bronwyn turned away from the open door and looked for it, following the jaunty tune. It wasn’t on the couch. Her pulse raced, heart hammering against her ribs as fear trickled through her veins, swiftly building into a torrent that left her breathless. It was the hunters. She knew it. She hurried upstairs to the loft bedroom and found it on the nightstand.
Grabbed it.
It went silent.
Damn it.
She stared at the screen, trembling badly, unsure whether she wanted them to call back again or leave her alone.
Jumped when it rang again.
She hit the answer button. “Hello?”
“I thought I was going to have to punish your brother there for a moment.” The familiar female voice hit her hard.
Bronwyn frowned when the line crackled, pulled it from her ear and looked at the signal bars. They were non-existent. If she wasn’t careful, she would lose this call.
And probably her brother with it.
“I want to talk to him,” she said, aware she wasn’t in a position to make demands, but she needed to know her brother was all right. She remembered something else about last night.
Saint had mentioned they might have taken her brother to the Vancouver HQ of Archangel.
She doubted that was the case, but she couldn’t stop her mind from conjuring images of Andrew in a cold white room, strapped to a table and being tortured by Archangel scientists as he screamed in pain.
“No.” The female continued before Bronwyn could say anything. “Have you secured our assets?”
Bronwyn pressed a hand to her stomach and sagged onto the bed, feeling sick all over again and not because of the hangover. She hated how this woman talked about Rune and Maverick as if they were a possession, something they owned, not living, breathing people.
“I need more time.”
“That’s unacceptable. Do you want us to hurt your brother?” There was a note in the huntress’s voice, one that said she found the thought of hurting Andrew appealing, and Bronwyn tried to shun the images of him on his knees with that hunter looming next to him, a blade poised to cut his throat.
“You’re sick,” she muttered, tears lining her eyelashes and the bridge of her nose burning. “Don’t hurt him. Please? I’m close. I just need a little more time.”
“You don’t have more time,” the huntress snarled. “Either you deliver our assets or we kill your brother.”
Bronwyn struggled to hold back her tears as a war erupted inside her, tearing her in two all over again. She couldn’t hand Maverick and Rune over to these people, but she couldn’t abandon her brother either. What was she supposed to do? Andrew wasn’t strong. He wouldn’t survive if the hunters pushed him into a cage fight.
Maverick and Rune were strong. They were still fighters. There was a chance they would survive long enough for Saint to rally his allies, the ones he had mentioned kept an eye on the hunters and were still actively looking for compounds. Saint could save them again.
But gods, they would hate her. They would never forgive her.
“It seems you want us to kill your
brother. Very well.”
“No! Wait. I’ll do it.” She clutched the phone, hating herself as those words fell from her and she realised that she would. She would put Maverick and Rune through that hell again just to save her brother. She was despicable.
As evil as Maverick had called her with that look he had given her last night.
“I think I have their trust now.” Those words leaked from her, made her feel worse, as wretched as she really was for doing this to two males she loved, two bears who had taken great care of her and had kept her safe.
“That’s good. Bring them to the location I’m going to send you. I don’t care what you have to tell them to get them there, just get them to that place by nightfall tomorrow.”
Bronwyn swallowed hard. “What if they won’t go? What if I need more time?”
The huntress snapped, “You don’t have more time. Your brother doesn’t have any more time. Either you bring us our assets, or your brother dies. Do you want your brother to die?”
“No.” She shook her head.
But then she didn’t want Rune and Maverick pushed back into cages either, forced to fight again to entertain the sick bastards who had held them before. She didn’t want Maverick to go through that again. He was so different now, so much lighter. He smiled now.
She didn’t want to kill that smile.
It lit up her world.
She sighed and sagged, all of her hope rushing from her, because what other choice did she have?
“I’ll have them there by dusk tomorrow.” She ended the call, her heart heavy as she thought about what she was going to do, as she tried to think of a way to turn this around on the hunters somehow and make sure everyone she loved survived.
Tensed as Maverick’s deep voice rolled up the stairs, a black snarl that had her heart shooting into her throat.
“Get who where by dusk tomorrow?”
Chapter 11
Maverick was worried about Bronwyn. He had spent all night thinking about her, had lain awake on his bed mulling over that kiss and his past, and tangled in knots about the things he wanted. He wanted her. Plain and simple. Not because she was his fated female, but because he had feelings for her, because she was beautiful and a light in his dark world.
She was everything to him.
He feared he had ruined things with that kiss though. He hadn’t been gentle with her, had let his urges get the better of him when he should have been tender, treating her in the way she deserved to be treated. She wasn’t one of the females the hunters had rewarded him with whenever he had provided good entertainment. She was soft, and kind, and gods take pity on her, he loved her.
A bend in the track had him snapping his focus back to the forest and watching his footing as he pounded around the corner and followed the path as it dropped sharply into a basin. His legs ached as he pushed himself to keep running. Sweat trickled down his bare back and the chilly kiss of morning air against it did nothing to cool him down.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been running.
The second it had been light enough, he had taken off into the woods, had made it to the lodge by the time the sun had peeked above the mountains, threading the fingers of cloud in the sky with gold and pink. He had been tempted to stop there a while, but the need to see Bronwyn had grown to an unbearable level as he had watched the sunrise.
The need to explain things to her had had him turning back around and heading back to Black Ridge. Maybe if he explained some things about himself, she would understand and wouldn’t view him as some kind of monster.
Maybe if he let her in so he was no longer afraid of her finding out about the darker side of himself, the one he had kept hidden from her, in the heat of the moment, then he could have a shot at being with her. It might change things. It might change him.
A male could only hope.
She had changed him by degrees, he was aware of that now. From the moment she had walked into his life, he had been gradually changing for the better, had been taking small steps towards becoming a better male, and he hadn’t stopped striving to achieve that once they had been separated.
He cursed.
He felt sure that after they had parted he had only tried harder to become something better, someone worthy of her, working towards the day where he felt ready to find her and tell her that he needed her.
Maverick slowed as Black Ridge came into view, his gaze snagging on the smoke that curled from the chimney of her cabin. Thoughts of getting cleaned up and more presentable before he saw her fell to the wayside and he headed towards her cabin rather than his, the need to see her too pressing to ignore.
He kicked off his trainers and waded across the creek upstream from the cabin, gritting his teeth when the frigid water chilled his legs through his sweatpants and numbed his bare feet.
Adrenaline was quick to flow through his racing blood as he thought about what he was going to say to her, unsure whether to dance around things a little to soften the impact or be direct and just lay it all out there. Blunt tended to be his weapon of choice when it came to conversations, but he had the feeling that this talk with Winnie was going to require more finesse if he wanted to emerge from it with his heart intact.
Being blunt with her would probably only drive her away.
Maybe breaking it to her a little at a time would be the best move.
He blew out his breath as he neared the cabin.
Pulled up short when he saw the door was open.
Maverick frowned and eased up the steps, stretched his senses outwards and felt her inside. It was a cold morning for leaving the door open, unless she had been overenthusiastic about building a fire and had made the cabin too hot for her tastes.
He cocked his head as he neared the door and heard her talking.
“I need more time.”
More time to do what?
He moved with stealth, listening in on her conversation, curiosity driving him even when he knew it was wrong of him to snoop.
“You’re sick,” she muttered, her voice tight. “Don’t hurt him. Please? I’m close. I just need a little more time.”
Her brother. She was talking about her brother. His blood burned at the thought the hunters had called her, had him taking a hard step towards the door, intending to go to her and deal with these hunters for her to spare her the pain.
“No! Wait. I’ll do it. I think I have their trust now.”
Those words stopped him dead and had alarm bells ringing in his head, that feeling he’d had back when Winnie had called him and asked him to meet her returning. His blood burned for a different reason, hurt swelling in his heart as he glared at the loft bedroom and he recalled what she had told him.
She hadn’t just thought hunters had her brother.
She had known they did.
She had known they had him and now it sounded a hell of a lot as if she had always planned to trade him and Rune for her brother. She had been playing him all this time, doing whatever it took to get close to him again and gain his trust.
Intending to lure him into a trap.
Back into that hell.
“What if they won’t go? What if I need more time?”
He ignored the hurt he sensed in her, sure it was hurt for her brother, that she was thinking about him, afraid for him.
“No.” Her voice was quiet when she added, “I’ll have them there by dusk tomorrow.”
Maverick stormed to the stairs, his voice a black snarl as rage got the better of him, as the thought that Bronwyn had lied to him, had been playing him, cleaved a hole in his heart.
“Get who where by dusk tomorrow?”
The acrid scent of fear that tainted her fragrance grew stronger and she swept down the stairs, pausing in the bend.
Her wide honey-coloured eyes collided with his. “Maverick.”
“Who are you planning to hand over to the hunters, Bronwyn?” he bit out, his mood taking a nosedive as she averted her gaze, confirming his suspicions. Fire
blazed through his blood and he took a hard step towards her, his eyes narrowing on her. Anger got the better of him, the pain too much for him to bear, and he barked, “Answer me!”
Her shoulders went rigid and she flinched away from him, and then lurched towards him, pain flashing in her eyes that made him want to scoff at her because she had no damned right to look hurt.
She locked up tight with her hand raised before her when he bared fangs at her, daring her to try to calm him by reaching for him. He wasn’t going to fall for her lies again. She eased her hand back towards her chest and tears lined her lashes.
Tears he ignored.
“Yeah. I see how it is now. I should’ve known better… but maybe I expected better from you. I expected you to be different,” he snapped and took another fierce step towards her as rage built inside him, stoking his bear side, making him want to roar at her and shake her, to lash out at her for what she had done. “I thought you gave a fuck about me and Rune, but I was wrong.”
She was quick to shake her head. “Maverick—”
“Don’t Maverick me. Don’t give me that look, like I’m the one at fault.” He prowled towards her, breathing hard as his heart thundered, as adrenaline surged and the urge to fight swamped him, clouding his thoughts and making it hard to retain control of himself and resist that black need to lash out. “You’re a liar. You lied to me and Rune. After everything we did for you. How could you?”
Her face crumpled and tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“Spare me the waterworks, Winnie. I’m not going to buy them.” He growled those words and closed the distance between them, lunged for her when anger got the better of him, pushing him to grab her and make her pay for what she had done.
To make her hurt as he was hurting.
She swiftly evaded him, was at the other end of the cabin before his hand cut through thin air where she had been, and he levelled a black look on her.
Her face darkened, her eyebrows knitting hard as the hurt in her eyes grew and anger joined it.
“Hunters have Andrew. I told you they had him. I told you in the only way I could. There was a video call. I saved it on my laptop.” Her hand shook as she pointed towards the closed device on the coffee table and her brow furrowed. “They hurt him, Maverick. They had him in one of those awful cells and a hunter had a knife and cut him and… and… what was I supposed to do?”
Awakened by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 5) Page 9