by Sophie Stern
There’s something else, though: fear.
They don’t know what my play is, and it’s bothering them. They know I took off with the kid, but they don’t know why. They don’t know why I cam here. They don’t know where I’m going.
“Why do you want this baby, anyway?”
“That’s my grandchild,” Greg says. “He’s mine.”
“You didn’t seem to want your own daughter,” I say. “Why do you want her baby?”
Greg opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Andrew steps forward and slaps me in the face.
What.
The.
Fuck?
I reach for my cheek, rubbing, and it takes all of my energy not to completely lose my shit. He slapped me. He actually slapped me right in the face. Wow. It’s been a long time since anyone treated me like that: an eternity, actually. Visions of professors being assholes to me in med school run through my mind. There was one time when I dated the wrong person who thought smacking me around would give him a leg up while we were doing our clinicals.
Oh, he was wrong.
He was so, so wrong.
And now I’m dealing with it all over again because this guy thinks he has the right to hurt me just because I asked him a question.
“You watch your mouth,” he says.
“Or what?” I ask. I’m not done feeling sassy. Far from it. Brandon has almost calmed down, but he’s holding onto me tightly. He might be a baby, but he understands that something scary is happening. I want to silently tell him that it’s going to be okay, but I don’t know if that’s true.
Everything might not be okay.
But I know something these guys don’t know.
I know that there’s a bear walking around to the front of the cabin. I know that he’s going to sneak up behind these assholes.
And I know he’s going to give them the fight of their lives.
“Are you going to hurt me like you hurt Alexis?” I ask.
“Alexis was an idiot,” Andrew says.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he rolls his eyes. “All she had to do was say yes.”
“To marrying you?”
“To carrying his child,” Greg says.
“Why did you want her to carry his child?”
“Because he’s a shifter,” Greg tells me, as though the answer is obvious. “Alexis was a perfect human specimen, just as Andrew is a perfect shifter specimen. Together, they could create an incredible child that would be able to take over the police force once I’m gone.”
“Wait a minute...”
I must be missing something because this is even stupider than I imagined.
“You wanted Alexis to breed with Andrew to create super-cop shifter babies?”
“Precisely,” Greg says. “Can you imagine? Close your eyes. Envision it!”
“I’ll pass.”
“You stupid bitch,” he says. He lifts up his hand as though he’s going to slap me again, but Andrew grabs it. He keeps his eyes on me.
“Not just yet,” he says. “Let’s play with her before we kill her.”
So this is it.
This is how I die.
That can’t be right, though.
I’m not ready to die.
I close my eyes for just a second, and then I shake my head. When I open my eyes again, my heart soars because he’s here. He’s finally here. Jace has entered the cabin from the front door and he’s quietly walking up behind Greg. His eyes are steely, and sharp, and I know that he heard every word they said.
More than that, he’s pissed off.
He’s going to make them pay.
Both of them.
I set Brandon down on the bed and I walk up to Greg, who is still standing in the doorway.
“Oh, old man,” I murmur, shaking my head. “You messed up.”
Then I shove him, hard. He’s caught off-guard and he stumbles backward into the living room. Jace is there, ready to end the life of the man who stole Alexis’. He killed her in cold blood and now, it’s time for him to pay the price. Greg falls into the living room and before he even lands, Jace slices his throat with a claw. Blood splatters everywhere, and I turn away, unable to look.
Andrew seems to catch on to what’s happening, and he screams. I think he’s going to jump at me, at first, but he doesn’t. Instead, he barrels past me into the living room and throws himself at Jace.
Then the real fight begins.
Chapter Ten
Jace
I’ll be honest: I sort of expected the cop shifter to be something fierce: a lion, a tiger, a bear. Hell, maybe even a dragon. This guy, though, shifts into something I couldn’t have possibly imagined.
He shifts into a fucking rabbit.
That’s right: Andrew, the guy responsible for my fiancé’s death, is a damn rabbit.
If he wasn’t trying so hard to bite me to death, I would laugh, but this is no laughing matter. The truth is that he took someone I really cared about. Not only did he ruin her life, but he stole it away entirely. I am normally a very forgiving person, but this is something that even I can’t forgive.
So I don’t.
He jumps at me, bares his teeth, and tries to bite me.
I’m having none of that.
Not today.
Not ever.
With a swipe of my paw, the rabbit is finished.
He dies instantly, falling to the floor, and I look down at him for a minute.
That was it.
There was no big, huge fight. There was no crazy tug-and-pull. I’m going to walk away from this completely unscathed – at least physically.
I shift back so I can speak to Polly and Brandon. They’re both in the bedroom, and I honestly can’t believe how well Polly managed to handle herself. She was a real trooper, as Alexis would have said. She really held it all together.
Somehow, despite everything she’s faced in her life, she managed to make the most of a horrific situation, and she totally kept her cool.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
It’s the stupidest question I could have possibly chosen.
Of course, she’s not okay.
Of course, Brandon isn’t fine.
Of course, none of us are going to walk away from this situation without emotional trauma or scars.
What has happened: this invasion into our home, into our lives...this is unforgettably horrible.
“I’m not okay,” she tells me. “But I’m going to be. Jace, you were incredible.”
I shake my head as I look down. I wish there was another way this could have ended. I wish there was another way I could have ended this threat to our lives. Part of me hates myself for what has happened. Part of me despises the fact that I’m responsible for taking two lives today.
But there’s another part of me, a different part, that thinks what happened had to happen.
If Greg and Andrew weren’t stopped by me, then they were going to hurt people again. Guys like that never stop. They were out for blood, and they got it. They just didn’t realize they were going to get their own.
“I’ll be back,” I say sadly, and she nods. Without another word, Polly closes the bedroom door, and she leaves me alone in my living room with the two men I destroyed. I need to get the bodies out: bury them or something.
The snow is still falling and swirling around, but I’m not going to stay in my home with them here.
Not with the people who tried to destroy me.
So I leave.
I consider whether I should bury these men who were so evil and terrible, but I decide against it. No, they don’t deserve that. Burying someone shows respect and love. These guys didn’t love anything or anyone but themselves.
Instead, I take the men to a place I know: a cliff.
I throw them off, and then I sit at the top of the cliff for a very long time, and I let myself wallow in my thoughts.
I’m in my bear form, so I’m not cold. The snow doesn’t
bother me when I’m like this. In fact, I love it. I’m so happy with the fact that it’s finally cold and the snow is falling and it’s wrapping itself around me.
It’s like total comfort and complete peace.
But then, as I sit there, I think about everything terrible that has happened to me so recently, and I wonder how I’m going to learn to live with this pain. I know I need to be brave for Brandon and Polly. I get that. I really do. They deserve to have me at my best: not when I’m feeling weak or scared.
The reality is, though, that I do feel scared.
And weak.
And sad.
I failed to keep Alexis safe and I almost failed to keep Polly and Brandon safe.
What kind of bear am I?
What kind of father am I?
I sit on the edge of the cliff for far too long. Finally, I get up and go back to my cabin. I shouldn’t leave Polly and Brandon alone any longer. They’ve been through enough. They don’t need to deal with me worrying.
When I get to the cabin, I stop on the little porch. The door is closed – but barely. When Andrew and Greg kicked it in, they damaged it, but not so badly that it won’t close. I’ll need a new one, but that can wait a day or two. Right now, I’m more concerned about what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door.
When I go through the door, Polly is going to see me for the first time since it happened. What if her impression of me has changed? What if she doesn’t like me anymore? What if she thinks that I made the wrong call?
What if she wants to take my kid and leave?
There’s a little voice in my head whispering that I’m overreacting, so I take a deep breath, shift into my human form, and step inside the cabin.
And she’s there waiting for me.
“Welcome back,” Polly says. She’s standing in the center of the room, and I instantly notice the scent of chemicals: not blood.
“What happened?” I ask, looking around. The entire room looks spotless: pristine. It looks completely clean. Did she...clean?
“I cleaned.”
“Why? You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to,” she says.
“Where’s Brandon?”
“He’s asleep in the bedroom. Jace,” she crosses the room and places her hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say.
“No,” she cups my cheek and shakes her head. “I don’t think you are. Tell me why not.”
There are a million reasons rushing through my head all at once. Which one do I start with?
“I killed people.”
“They were bad men, Jace.”
“I shouldn’t have murdered them.”
“It was self-defense, Jace. They would have killed all three of us if you hadn’t stopped them.”
“I don’t want you to think less of me.”
“Oh,” she says, and I can tell she’s surprised. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“Yes.”
“Jace, I would never think less of you. I mean, you saved me. Jace, you fucking rescued me like a damn hero. You get that, right?” She wraps her arms around me, and she hugs me tightly.
“That’s it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you aren’t mad?”
“Jace, I could never be mad at you.”
“Polly, there’s always an alternative to violence.”
“Really?” She raises an eyebrow. “Did you know that Greg had a gun?”
What?
He did?
I didn’t even see it.
“Yeah,” she jerks her head toward the kitchen table. “He must have dropped it when he tried to fight you because I found it next to the door. Jace, this guy wasn’t letting us walk away. He was going to go all out when it came to destroying us. You literally saved us, Jace. You’re a hero.”
Polly kisses me, and I can taste her.
I can taste so much of her in this moment.
I can taste her desire.
I can taste her happiness.
I can taste her gratitude.
She really believes all of those things she just said, and maybe I owe it to myself to believe them, too.
“Polly,” I whisper. “I don’t know what to do next.”
“Well,” she smiles. “That’s the beautiful thing about love, isn’t it? We can figure it out together.”
Epilogue
Jace
Six Months Later
I’m standing on a mountain holding my son, and the world has never seemed brighter. The sun shines down on us like it knows just how much we’ve been through: just how much we’ve survived. And that’s a lot. My family has been through hell, but right now, I kind of think that everything is going to be okay.
Somehow, we’re going to figure this thing called life out, and we’re going to do it together as an incredible, unstoppable team.
Two years ago, I found my mate. I knew that Alexis and I were destined to have an incredible life together. I hoped for it. I dreamed for it. I knew that it would be absolutely perfect and fantastic. Everything I had ever dreamed about was definitely going to come true, and then disaster struck. It was unexpected, and I didn’t know what to do next.
A year ago, I thought I’d lost everything. I said goodbye to my dreams, to my darling, to my child. I said goodbye to a perfect life full of happiness and joy. I walked away and I didn’t look back because I knew that if I did, I’d lose everything. I knew that if I spent too much time mourning Alexis, I’d never move forward. I knew that I’d lose myself to the pain.
And then six months ago, everything changed.
When Polly stumbled into my cabin on that stormy night, I didn’t know just how drastically everything was going to change for me. I never could have predicted just how incredibly things were going to turn around. I couldn’t have possibly predicted that she was going to be my mate or that she was going to help me raise my child.
I never could have guessed that together, we were going to have a second chance at life or at love.
Polly is the most fantastic wife a bear could ever wish for. She’s gentle and sweet, but she’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Just like me, she’s been through hell. She’s been through an eternity of chaos and she’s come out stronger on the other side. Polly understands that sometimes, life can be painful, but she’s still willing to try.
She’s still willing to keep going.
She’s still willing.
Now, I stand on the mountain and I look down at our little cabin. Soon we’re going to need to expand it. We’ll add on some rooms and we might even build a second floor. After all, if Brandon is going to be a big brother, he’s going to need some extra room to play with his new brother or sister.
“Hey,” Polly says. She pops up from behind a boulder, and I turn to see her.
“Hello, beautiful,” I murmur.
Brandon squeals with happiness and reaches for her as she approaches. She takes him, smiling and tousling his hair, and then she reaches for my cheek. She touches it softly before giving me a gentle kiss, and I know that in this moment, everything really is going to be absolutely fantastic.
My happy ending didn’t come in a way that I thought it would.
It didn’t arrive neat or tidy or bound with a little bow.
It’s everything I’ve ever wanted, though. I have an incredible son and a wonderful wife and more than all of that, I have the hope that tomorrow is going to be even better than today.
There is always hope.
THE END
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Author
Sophie Stern loves reading, dancing, and video games she can lose herself in. She writes contemporary, paranormal, and science fiction romance stories with sassy heroines and wonderful heroes. You can find out more when you visit her website at www.sexysophiestern.com or join her mailing list HERE.
> The Bear’s Virgin Darling
Did you enjoy By Hook or By Wolf? Do you want to read more stories about paranormal creatures and the humans who love them?
I have six books out that take place in Honeypot, Colorado and that feature sweet, sexy, and sassy shifters. Check out a chapter from The Bear’s Virgin Darling now. Then consider reading one of my other stories:
The Bear’s Virgin Darling
The Bear’s Virgin Mate
The Bear’s Virgin Bride
The Polar Bear’s Baby
The Tiger’s Baby
The Jaguar’s Baby
Each story is wonderfully sexy and has a guaranteed HEA.
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Chapter One
Hope
Hope.
That’s my name.
My parents struggled for years to have a baby and then finally, they had me. They named me Hope to remind themselves that things can always get better. No matter how tough life gets, there’s always a way to make things better.
Always.
It doesn’t matter if you’re old or young or skilled or uneducated. No matter what you’re going through, you can get through it.
As I grip the steering wheel of my beat-up Saturn so hard I think my hands might bleed, their words run through my mind.
“Sorry, Mama,” I whisper. “There’s no hope this time.”
The highway is empty and I’ve been driving for hours. I still have at least two to go until I reach beautiful, isolated, far-from-home Honeypot, Colorado.
I don’t know a damn thing about the town except that it’s a 12-hour drive from my rink-a-dink hometown in Missouri and that I have a job interview with some ranch.
Like I know anything about ranching.
That doesn’t matter though. I learned this great skill in drama class called “fake it ‘til you make it,” and that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Holbrook can kiss my ass and so can Jacob Clint. Did he really think I wouldn’t find out he was fucking my best friend?