Bloodrunner Bear

by T. S. Joyce

  Pain, pain, pain and then…nothing.

  Aric blasted backward and broke clean through the sheetrock of the opposite wall. Bats poured from the hole, squeaking a sickening sound as the arms of smoke flowed this way and that. Aaron stood in front of her now, his shoulders looking even more massive as he clenched his hands and heaved breath.

  Alana slid to the floor on her numb legs as a wave of bats circled Aaron. “No,” she whispered, desperate to claw her way toward him. She had to do something, but Aaron didn’t need her help. He reached into the smog with unbridled focus and precision, and then slammed something onto the floor so hard the boards shook beneath her. Aric’s form solidified, his throat in Aaron’s hand. Aaron’s muscles bulged as he squeezed.

  “Please. Don’t!” Aric begged, and it was then that she saw it. Her coffee table was toppled over, and in Aaron’s grip was the fourth splintered leg, pressed against Aric’s chest right over his heart.

  “Tell me why I shouldn’t give you your final death,” Aaron growled in an inhuman voice.

  “I was going to be gentle. I have to avenge Arabella. Please, just let me explain. I’m trying to avoid war!”

  Aaron slammed him on the ground so hard Alana could hear the sickening crack of Aric’s head. He pushed the table leg into the vampire’s chest by millimeters, and behind Aric’s gritted teeth came a pained keening sound, like nails on a chalkboard.

  “If you kill me, that will be a queen and a king, and that can’t be forgiven, Bloodrunner! It won’t just be the Asheville Coven wanting revenge. You’ll have the entirety of my kind fighting over your deaths. Nothing will save you then.”

  Aaron straddled the monster. Every muscle bulging and tense, Aaron glanced over at Alana with wild eyes. “Look away.”

  “Aaron, listen to him.”

  “Alana,” Aaron warned. “Look away now.”

  “I care about human life! I wasn’t going to kill her, only Turn her.”

  “She isn’t yours to Turn, Aric! I fucking tried with you, man. I tried working alongside of you after all that you’ve done. Your queen tried to break Wyatt. Your coven came for Harper. You ripped my fucking throat out, and now this? It isn’t her fate to be a monster!” Aaron roared, the veins in his throat protruding. “I’ve watched you work to save human life. I’ve seen the look in your eyes when you lose one. It affects you, so how can you do this to Alana?”

  “Because we don’t work like you! We don’t have the same rules. A Bloodrunner killed my queen, and yeah, she deserved it. Aaah!” Aric made a choking sound as Aaron pushed on the leg of the table. “She deserved it! Arabella was too old to rule, was undergoing The Sickening, and she played with Wyatt to make her feel steady. I hated it. We all did, but she was our queen. The first rule for a new king or queen is to avenge the last! I have to avenge her, Aaron! I can rule my people better, but not without meeting the Rule of Vengeance. A life for a life. My people want the dragon. They want Harper, but I don’t want war. This is the best I could negotiate. A life for a life. I was going to Turn Alana, not kill her. It would’ve satisfied the blood debt. Don’t do this. Don’t start a war. No one will survive.”

  “Fuck!” Aaron yelled, pulling the make-shift stake from Aric’s chest. He shoved off him and paced to Alana, then back to the vampire. “Her fucking pupils are blown out, man. Get out of her head. Fix her. Now!”

  The relief was instant. It was as if she’d been suffocating with a plastic bag over her head, and it was that glorious moment when her lungs filled with beautiful life-giving oxygen. Alana’s muscles relaxed, but then tensed again when she scrambled upward, cupping her throbbing neck.

  Aric was on his hands and knees now, gasping and holding his chest where he’d been inches away from wood through the heart. Aaron wasn’t okay. He was snarling savagely and pacing, and the air in her small apartment was almost too thick to breath. “She’s mine, Aric.”

  “I know. That’s why—”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen! She’s mine. My claim, my mate. If you can’t convince your coven to leave her alone, you’ll have that war. Only it won’t be two hundred vamps against the Bloodrunners. I’ll call in every fucking crew of shifters on the goddamn planet. Every dragon, every bear, every boar, every big cat, every gorilla, every bird of prey will be fighting for your final deaths. You won’t be able to find a hole deep enough to hide from my wrath, is that clear?”

  “There are rules—”

  “Aric, I’m saving your people from extinction right now when all I want to do is stake you and piss on your fucking ashes. Yes or no? Is. That. Clear?”

  The vampire’s eyes glowed with fury in the moment before he wised up and dropped his gaze from Aaron’s. “We’re clear. I’ll handle my coven.”

  “Get out.”

  Aaron’s greenish gold eyes tracked the vampire as he strode immediately out the open doorway. The door was lopsided on the frame, held up by one bent hinge, and the small window on it was shattered. Where it had been locked, the deadbolt had ripped right through the doorframe. Aaron had forced his way in, and now she realized how much power he’d been hiding from her. She knew about vampires. Everyone did, and they were supposed to be the strongest beings on earth. Someone had lied to the humans. Aaron Keller had just cowed the King of the Asheville Coven, and he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  Shifters ruled the world, and no one even knew it but them.

  She had stayed strong up until the moment Aaron’s attention swung slowly to her. The feral snarl was gone, and in its place, worry. “Are you okay?” he whispered, approaching her slowly.

  What was the point in lying if he could sense it? “No.” She looked around her apartment, which had been trashed by Aric’s bats. The floor was covered in shattered glass and debris, and her neck stung like Aric’s teeth were still piercing her. “I didn’t mean to let him in.” She hated feeling weak, and for some reason, this all felt like… “It’s my fault.”

  “No, it’s really not.” Aaron shook his head, and his blazing eyes filled with ruthless honesty. “This is his fault. It’s my fault. It isn’t your fault. Let me see.” He pried her cupped hand away from her neck and grimaced. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

  “No.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Because I’m not a shifter, Aaron. Maybe you bleed all the time, but I’ve never had more than a papercut in this apartment. I’m Steady Alana, remember? Boring life. Safe life. No bleeding, no need for first aid.” She wasn’t being fair. This really wasn’t his fault either, but she was panicking and desperate to place the blame somewhere just to cope with what had happened.

  Aaron drew her in close, crushed her against his chest. “Alana, you’re okay. I swear I’ll keep you safe. That’ll never happen again.”

  She closed her eyes and clutched onto his shirt as a sob wrenched its way up her throat. How would she ever be able to feel truly okay again? Aric had controlled her mind, her body. She was supposed to be some blood-debt for the Bloodrunners, whatever that meant.

  Aaron sighed and pulled her behind him to the bathroom. He dug through the linen closet and found a washrag, then pressed it against her neck. And without any explanation, he started shoving some of her clothes willy-nilly into an oversize black tote bag.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To Harper’s Mountains.” His hand shook as he reached for a blouse on her bed, and he hesitated, clenched his fist like he was trying to steady it. “You can’t stay here. Not when you’ve already invited Aric in. Not when the damn door is off its hinges.” His voice was an unrecognizable growl now. It was clear he was struggling with something she didn’t understand—his bear perhaps?

  She rested her hand gently on his back, and he tensed. Locking his arms against the bed, he said, “Please don’t fight this, Alana. I can’t be away from you right now. I just can’t.”

  “Okay. I want to go. I want to stay with you.”

  The rock hard muscles of his back relaxed fractionally, and h
e pulled his cell from his back pocket and told her to, “Pack what you need for tonight,” as he punched buttons on the glowing screen.

  The second she was finished packing her toiletries, he shouldered her tote and pulled her through the disheveled living room and out the front door. He spent some time settling the door snugly into place, then led her at a jog around her café to the small parking lot out front where his motorcycle sat gleaming under the single street light.

  “Wait, we’re riding on that? Without a sidecar? Or airbags, or a seatbelt?”

  “You’ll be fine, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  And she believed him. She trusted him. He’d come for her, stood between her and that vampire, and threatened war between the two biggest supernatural bodies in the world. Aaron Keller had threatened to bring hell to earth to protect her, and every fiber of her being believed he would actually follow through.

  Aaron slid his leg over the seat of his bike, jammed the kickstand up with his heal and turned the engine. It was much louder up close than she’d expected, but with only a second of hesitation, she slid her palm onto his offered one and eased onto the motorcycle behind him. Aaron adjusted the bag over his shoulder, pulled her hands around his waist, and told her to, “Hold on to me.”

  The warmth had stopped trickling down her neck, and the pain had eased. Her adrenaline dump had left her feeling mellow and like she was floating outside of her body. As Aaron eased onto Main Street and toward the Smoky Mountains, she rested her cheek against his back and sent a silent thank you to the heavens that he cared enough to put himself between her and that monster. He’d told that vampire she was his claim, his mate, and though she’d been too scared at the time to realize what he was declaring, it hit her like a lightning strike to the heart now.

  My claim, my mate.

  Alana held on tighter to his taut waist as he hit the gas outside of town. When the wind kicked up and something massive blocked out the stars and moon, she tensed, terrified that it was the bats back to finish her off.

  “It’s Harper,” Aaron assured her over his shoulder. “She’ll be watching over us coming in.”

  But he was wrong. It wasn’t just Harper protecting them as they blasted toward her mountains. Alana smiled tentatively at the giant raven and snowy owl that glided alongside of them on the edge of the woods.

  Alana tilted her face back and looked up into the sky at the golden underbelly of the massive dragon above. Harper’s wings looked dark, a forest green perhaps. She scanned the woods around them, snaking her long neck this way and that as she thrashed her wings against the air currents.

  Alana should feel scared right now. Terrified even. Her neck still burned, and her muscles remembered how awful it was to be frozen in place. But Aaron had declared her his, and the Bloodrunner Crew being here said they accepted that. They accepted her.

  She’d never been in more danger in her entire life.

  But somehow, someway, Alana had never felt this safe either.

  Chapter Twelve

  The throaty pa-pa-pa of Aaron’s motorcycle slowed with their speed as he drove them through a gate Wyatt was holding open. His eyes were glowing brightly in the moonlight as he watched them pass with a nod of his head. When they were clear, Wyatt closed the gate behind them and followed the motorcycle at a jog. In a clearing up ahead, a cabin appeared surrounded by towering trees. The moon was full tonight and cast everything in a neon blue glow, so perhaps that was the reason Alana got chills when she laid eyes on the old log cabin with the sagging front porch.

  “Is this your house?” she asked, awed at its ethereal beauty.

  “No. Mine is up that trail.” Aaron nodded at a dirt track that wound around jutting black rocks. Up the hill, she could just make out a couple more cabins in the tree line. “This,” he said, jamming the kickstand down in front of the first house, “is ten-ten.”

  The raven spread its wings and extended its legs, and in a moment, Weston landed near them in his human form.

  “Oh my God, there’s a dick.” A giant one, eek! Alana ripped her gaze away from Weston’s tatted up, rippling, naked body only to land on Ryder, who was standing nearby with his hands on his hips and a giant erection at half-mast. The white of his teeth flashed right before she squeaked and looked away. Harper strode around the house, naked as the day she was born, perky boobs bouncing. She looked completely comfortable with her nudity, but Alana was not. “Tits and dicks,” she blurted out, then buried her face against Aaron’s back as he chuckled. “Can everyone put clothes back on. Please.”

  “Naked bodies are completely natural,” Ryder explained.

  She looked up to argue, but he was flapping his long pecker from side to side against his legs with a big grin on his face.

  “Ryder, cut it out,” Aaron muttered, but his shoulders were shaking with laughter, and this was not funny!

  She would simply close her eyes. That worked until Aaron got off the bike and escaped the range of her searching hand. With a growl of utter mortification, Alana eased her eyes open, angled them at the ground only, and stumbled off the bike. Her legs felt like noodles after the ride in, so she bounced this way and that, hands cupped above her eyebrows so she didn’t have to see all the swinging dicks. She followed Aaron’s boots up the creaking porch stairs and into the open doorway.

  Inside, the warm glow of the lights urged Alana’s shoulders to relax. Harper was pulling on a pair of jeans near the kitchen table, and thankfully the beefy nudists outside didn’t seem inclined to follow them in.

  “You’ll stay here tonight,” Harper said.

  “What?” Aaron asked. “No, I need her with me.”

  “Then you can stay here, too.”

  “I don’t understand, Harper. I have a cabin right up the hill.”

  Harper let off a long, terrifying growl that was so loud it filled every inch of the room. “Weston asked Wyatt and I to move out of here for a reason.”

  Aaron drew back like he’d been slapped. “Where are you living?”

  Wyatt handed Harper a sweater and told him, “We moved to the cabin at the top of the hill. The one against the cliffs.”

  Aaron settled his confused frown on Alana and pulled her tightly against his side. Then he murmured to Harper, “But you love ten-ten.”

  “And I always will, but Weston thinks there is good mojo in here.”

  “Harper—”

  “If Alana is to find sanctuary here, it’ll be in ten-ten,” Weston said from behind them. He was buttoning up a pair of jeans, and when he looked up, his eyes were black as pitch instead of the bright green she’d seen in them earlier. “Aaron, you didn’t grow up in Damon’s Mountains, and you didn’t see what that old trailer did for the mates. You think the original ten-ten gained fame because of ghost stories, but there was something about it. Something beyond this world that kept people safe. I knew these mountains were special the second I saw those numbers on the door. Your mate’s neck has the bite of a vampire, and from what I’m guessing, things could’ve gone very differently tonight. If there’s any chance of putting any good vibes on Alana, ten-ten is my vote.”

  Aaron’s voice softened as he murmured, “I thought you were against me pairing up.”

  Weston huffed a hollow sound. “I wasn’t scared of you pairing up, Aaron. You’ve picked someone fragile, though, and I don’t want you losing her.”

  Weston turned to leave, but that last comment pissed Alana off. “I’m not fragile,” she said, steel in her voice.

  Weston shook his head, but didn’t turn around as he said, “Not for long.”

  “What does that mean?” Alana asked.

  Aaron’s eyes were a frosty blue as he watched Weston disappear into the night. “Nothing.”

  But it wasn’t nothing. Suddenly none of the shifters in 1010 would meet her gaze anymore, and there was something big and unspoken hanging in the air between them. Something that festered and grew heavier with every moment she waited for an explana
tion they refused to share.

  After all she’d been through tonight, she deserved the whole story, and once again, she was being shut down. Fine. She wasn’t going to stand in here like a bump on a log waiting for answers that wouldn’t come. “Where’s the bathroom,” she gritted out. Damn her voice as it shook, but she was angry.

  “Through there,” Harper said, gesturing to a bedroom. “There’s a first aid kit under the sink.”

  “Thank you.” Alana yanked the strap of her tote bag from Aaron’s shoulder and made her way out of the living room.

  “I’ll help,” Aaron murmured, but Alana shut the bathroom door before he reached her.

  If he was going to shut her down, she wouldn’t share this part with him. This was hers to privately endure so she could wrap her head around all that had happened tonight. Alana slid her back down the cabinets and squeezed her eyes closed as her face fell. She prided herself on being a tough, independent woman, but tonight she’d gone through hell. Tonight everything had changed. Tonight had taken her on the highest highs, the lowest lows, and everywhere in between, and nothing but a good cry would make her feel better.

  And if Aaron’s answers to her questions were riddled with “nothings,” then he wasn’t allowed to see her vulnerable side.

  ****

  Aaron paced outside the bathroom, ran his hand through his hair, and then strode to the door, determined to escape. He couldn’t. Couldn’t move another step away from her, couldn’t lose himself to Bear right now. Not when that soft sniffle sounded through the door. It ripped him apart. She wasn’t the type of woman he would be able to protect by hiding the truth, and he’d been an idiot to forget that.

  What the hell was he doing?

  He’d been on autopilot since he’d heard her scream his name, scream for help. The sound of terror in Alana’s voice would never leave his memory as long as he walked this earth. It would replay in his nightmares over and over because he’d thought he was going to be too late. Aric had gotten too damn close to her. The rules for vampires were the same as for shifters. Legally, they could Turn one person, but only with consent, and only when choosing a mate. Alana would’ve been legally bound to Aric if he would’ve Turned her. All he had to do was convince Alana and the court that his draining her and raising her from the dead had been consensual. And he could’ve done it! Aric possessed the power of mind control.