by Elsa Jade
Ben narrowed his eyes. “Well, that’s not going to happen.”
Thor flexed his big hands into fists. “I commanded you to leave her.”
Jerking back in shock, Ben stared at his cousin. “You can’t command and say you won’t be king.”
“Until I’m not, I can.” With that truncated logic, Thor took a menacing step forward. “She’d never ask to be rescued. She didn’t ask for you.”
That truth Ben couldn’t deny. But the bear wanted to rip apart the words anyway. “She’s in trouble.”
“She is trouble,” Thor corrected. “But she’s doing exactly what she wanted.”
Again, Ben couldn’t argue. Gin had always done what she wanted. Which—as his cousin had so astutely noted—didn’t include Ben. Except that once, of course.
“Snow like this isn’t right,” he said stubbornly. “You think I should be rex ursi. Well, this is the sort of thing I should check out.” There, that’d shut his cousin up.
“The snow will be gone before the sun rises.” Thor tilted his chin toward the mesa. “And she’ll be gone too.”
The bear bristled. “What the hell does that mean?”
Thor shrugged. “She only wanted to finish the anti-love potion. Obviously, she did. Nothing left to keep her here.”
The noxious stew of dread and fury and jealousy jolted Ben a step toward his cousin even when every sane part of him was yearning for the mesa. “What do you know about Gin’s spell?”
Another one of those heavy shrugs. “She told me about it. I said I could help.”
That staggered him more than any threatening growl. “She…let you?”
“My father used Symphoricarpos to quell the mating urge.” Thor’s dark eyes flickered caution-yellow at mention of the old king. “I gave her some.”
Ben rubbed one hand over his mouth, holding back the bear’s confused moan. Why had Gin gone to his cousin?
He stiffened. “You wanted her to leave. That’s why you helped her. That’s why you told her that I wasn’t free to take a mate.” A sick anguish churned in his gut. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“I told you.” Thor’s snarl was implacable. “You will be king.”
For a heartbeat, the power of the rex ursi surged over Ben, trying to bend his neck.
I get to decide what I want.
Gin had told him that, and even the immovable bear had to make way for her.
He lifted his head to glare at his king. “I won’t. I’m going to find Gin. Maybe she doesn’t want to be saved, but maybe she’d be willing to save me from a king with unreasonable demands, a cousin who doesn’t care, a friend who wants me to be alone.” He pivoted to the truck.
“Listen to me.”
Thor’s growl ripped through the night. His next command might be one Ben’s bear couldn’t fight. Or one that would destroy any warm feeling he had left for his cousin.
Pivoting again, Ben cocked his fist.
Thor’s jaw was slightly slack, maybe about to add to his kingly orders, maybe smug with the assurance that the clan bond would force Ben to obey.
Anyway, his teeth clacked together with satisfying ferocity when Ben’s knuckles connected with his mouth.
His shaggy dark head snapped back as the force of the blow ricocheted through him.
He went down like a boulder off the edge of the mesa. His big body slammed into the snow, sending up a halo of white, and he lay sprawled like a pretty little snow angel.
Ben shook out his fist, glaring just long enough to make sure his cousin was still breathing. “You better hope the snow is gone before you freeze off your cajones.”
He jumped into the truck before Thor could shake off the stun. It wouldn’t take long, not for a king bear.
And Ben had only a one-sided love to save him.
As he sped through the melting dark toward the mesa, he finally translated what his cousin had said. “Symphoricarpos.” He snarled the scientific name of the plant they often used in landscaping for its hearty nature—otherwise known as snowberry. “Goddammit, Thor. You wanted this to happen.”
He’d never forgive his cousin for putting Gin at such risk. He himself had only asked her to risk her heart, but summoning the elemental spirits of the mesa—the primeval force that quickened all shifters—risked her very soul.
At the start of the road up the mesa, a slick of black ice made the way impassable, and he had to abandon the truck. But he had another form of four-wheel drive.
He got out of the truck, and keeping his nose to the wind, he stripped out of his clothes. Tough as he was, the chill bit hard. He let the ache hasten his change, and the bear tore through him with a savagery he welcomed.
The rage powered his rapid ascent up the empty road to the snowberry field. When he found the VW bus—its cheerful yellow bluntness hunkered down under the dark clouds that were still hunting the mesa, low and hungry, still spitting snow—his throat tightened.
Giving in, he let out a roar.
The sound shivered in the icy air, but the clouds swallowed the echo. Even if Gin heard, she wouldn’t be able to answer.
He swallowed back another furious cry. The cold was too deep for one slender female, no matter how tough. He stayed balanced upright, huffing the feckless wind, seeking her scent.
There! Sweeter than honey, earthy as root beer.
Dropping to all fours, he thundered through the ghostberries and the snow, plowing up drifts knee-high in places. If anything happened to Gin…
The bear ran faster to get ahead of that terrible thought. It had found her—would find her again—and this time it would not lose her.
Ben was buried too far to remind it the choice wasn’t theirs alone.
And they might be alone again when the snow melted.
But they wouldn’t leave her up here, regardless. He hunted and planted the mesa in all weather, but he’d never felt it so ominous, its energy crackling fiercer than the heat lightning that had brightened his one night with Gin. The spirits were roused, seeking expression, and no shape—human or shifted—would be enough to contain them while they played out in this world.
For long minutes, the wind tugged at his fur like it wanted to come inside. When he kept his nose down, it plucked harder, then swirled so wildly he couldn’t be sure he was still on course.
Until he caught Gin’s scent again. No, not her scent, more like a faint call, just the finest thread, which should’ve been impossible to hear over the wind.
He held tight, letting it guide him onward.
Crashing through the shrubs, flinging hard little berries in all directions like miniature snowballs, he almost stomped right over her.
She was curled on her side, half buried in the snow. The stark black of her robe almost froze his heart. It looked like…
He wouldn’t even think it. Plunging down on her, he shoved his snout into the circle of her body. Still warmth there, enough of it to thaw the terror in his blood. He breathed out hard, as if he could start a fire right there. But the mesa was no place for her; he needed to get her home.
Her lashes fluttered, and in the instant before her eyes opened, he abruptly remembered what she was going to see—
“With that hair,” she murmured, “I should’ve known you’d be a polar bear.”
On a long sigh, she closed her eyes again.
“Gin!” He hadn’t even meant to shift, but the bear had given up control to let him soothe her. Damn, the snow was cold on his bare ass. “Gin, you have to wake up now.” Wedging one arm behind her, he levered her out of the snow and into the shelter of his bare chest.
“I was dreaming of a hot day on ice cream.”
Her weak whisper raked him like cat claws. “You mean ice cream on a hot day.”
“Not really.”
Tightening his grip, he conceded the point. “I hate to bother you, but… Are you done here? What do you think about getting off this mesa?”
When he brushed a lock of red hair from her icy cheek, sh
e cracked one eye. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He lifted her into his arms, and he knew how close he’d come to losing her when she didn’t even comment on big bro bears—or bare bros, for that matter. She just snuggled down into his embrace.
The slack, trusting weight of her almost brought him to his knees, though he knew he could carry her for as long as she’d let him. How long that would be… Knowing she’d hate to be seen as vulnerable, he forced himself not to fret aloud as he reoriented himself in the shifting wind.
“My hatbox,” she said woozily. “I can’t lose it.”
He hadn’t even seen the box, obscured by the drift that had shaped itself to Gin’s fallen body.
When he bent to retrieve it, she grabbed the handle. “You can put me down. I can walk.”
“Really?”
She pondered. “Prolly not.”
“Could you hold on? We’d go faster on four feet.” When she nodded hesitantly, he almost reconsidered. She hadn’t seemed afraid of his bear, but she’d been barely conscious. “I don’t want to scare you.”
“You already did.” A cryptic reply, considering she hadn’t seemed afraid when she commented on his hair.
Hypothermia settling in, he supposed. He set her carefully on her two feet, and she watched sidelong, clutching her bag, as he crouched. He didn’t want to shift and be towering ten hairy feet over her.
Still, she took a wobbling step back when he shifted. He was feeling a little unsteady himself from the run and the rapid shifting, not to mention having her in his arms again, if only briefly. With slow deliberation, he swung his head toward her, dipping his shoulder in invitation. The bear tried for a smile.
Gin blinked. “Your eyes are black.”
He grunted, as much answer as she was going to get from him in this shape.
She seemed to get that as she reversed her stumbling steps toward him. “I just…hop on you?”
If only. He gave her an exaggerated nod.
“Sorry if I pull your hair.” She clambered up his side, her knee jabbing into his ribs before she settled herself, sprawled over his back. “You’re so warm.”
Since his insulated fur let out very little heat, he knew how cold she must be. He took a few tentative steps, trying to stay smooth even while his pulse jittered at having her so close to him. Yeah, he was saving her life, but still.
When her grip tightened, he sped his pace, gradually accelerating to the lope a great white bear could maintain for miles and miles of tundra while seeking its prey.
We seek, his bear informed him. We find. We claim.
After seeing Gin so close to death, he didn’t have the heart to explain the complexities of human emotion to the beast.
Also, he suspected the beast might convince him instead.
By the time they reached the VW, her grip was weakening, and she barely murmured when he shifted again, clenching his teeth at the seething pain in his bones. He caught her before she slumped into the snow. Luckily, she’d left the car door unlocked and the key tucked up in the driver’s side visor.
Maybe she was more of an Angels Rest girl than she admitted.
He settled her gently in the back seat along with her box while he started the engine and rifled through the interior. Since there were no extra clothes in the bus (okay, so not a girl used to hanging with shifters) he blasted the heater and pulled her back into his lap.
“Much warmer now,” she whispered.
“Got the heater on high,” he told her, rearranging her black robe to cover as much of her as possible, not that it was doing much.
“It’s you.”
He didn’t think she’d admit that aloud except for the hypothermia. What were the symptoms again? In the final stages, he was pretty sure people took their clothes off, thinking they were burning up. He was certainly feeling rather hot at the moment. “I’m going to kill Thor.”
There, that took his mind off his nakedness.
Gin let out a huff. “Snowberry. I came across its various names when I was researching the plant for my records. You don’t think he can do magic?”
“I think he set you up to wake the mesa spirits. He wanted you out of the way.”
“Away from you.” She rested her head against his shoulder.
Ben didn’t answer that, couldn’t focus on anything except the soft susurration of her breath across his bare skin. “What he did was wrong.”
“But not worthy of a death sentence,” she said. “The power isn’t malicious. It’s just…strong. And I didn’t respect that enough. I learned my lesson.” She sighed again. “Just when I thought I was finally done with lessons.”
He swallowed. “Did you get what you wanted?” An anti-love potion.
Her nod bumped her chin into the top of his pec. “It’s perfect. And very strong.”
Terrible. “I’m happy for you.”
She looked up at him, her dark eyes shadowed. “Do you…do you think we could go home now?”
He forced a smile. “Sure. Uh, I should warn you, when you stand up, I’m naked. It’s not… I’m just that way because…”
“Because you’re a bear, yeah.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “What I wouldn’t give for some Bear Buns baked goods right now.”
He was starving too. But he started to edge her off his lap.
“Ben?” She reached up to cup his jaw.
He froze. “Yeah?”
Her lips brushed his cheek. “Thank you. For coming to find me. I did some things wrong too, and I would’ve died for it if not for you.”
Obligation, gratitude, even that kiss, even a mating bond. None of that was enough, he realized. He wanted her to choose him the way she’d chosen the shadow path, however obscure and dangerous it might be.
The bear curled its claws, lethal and intractable.
“Let’s go,” he murmured.
And it let go.
Chapter 14
Seeing the polar bear emerge from the swirling snow had been the kind of shock that would’ve stopped her heart under normal circumstances.
Except it had saved her.
He’d saved her.
And he did it again—probably a few times—on the way down the mountain, manhandling the ungainly VW over black ice. When they finally reached the flats, the snow vanished as if…
As if by magic?
She wanted to laugh, but she figured it’d sound hysterical. Hypothermic, hysterical, and hella confused about what she wanted next.
On the mesa, she’d known she wanted Ben, but he was happy she had the anti-love potion. Had she broken the blossoming bond between them with her hyperfocus on one spell?
In the VW’s headlights, Angels Rest glistened like something newly born. It would dry and harden with the sun, she knew, but now she’d always see this fragile beauty underneath the rough surface.
As they passed the streetlight that led to the park, she let out a sound of dismay. “I hope the garden is okay.”
“Most things here are tough.”
She glanced at him, trying not to look like she was ogling—even though she was, cuz he was naked—trying to gauge his meaning. Did he mean he was tough enough to take her indecision? Or did most mean not him?
She bit her lip. She should ask him, but… It was a risk, wasn’t it?
Was she tough enough?
By the time they pulled up in front of the Victorian, she still wasn’t sure. She clung to the hatbox, and the potion inside felt like a time bomb.
She startled when the door beside her popped open, letting in the scent of rain-washed air. Ben had come around while she was lost in thought.
Inadvertently, her gaze dropped. “Hey. You’re—”
“A bear. Yeah. Let’s get you inside.”
Too well she remembered him inside her. Made it hard to think. Because he’d been so big and hard.
Yeah, definitely hysterical.
But not as frantic as her sisters when she tried to quietly open the door.
&n
bsp; In their Victorian-appropriate nightgowns, they crowded her like she’d been gone for a year, not a few hours, and their questions piled on too thick to answer.
“Can we get out of the doorway?” she asked instead. “Then I’ll explain.”
From that doorway, Ben cleared his throat. “If I could borrow the bus, or some clothes for the walk home, I guess I’ll be going.”
His chin went up but he didn’t blush as three pairs of female eyes swung his way. Maybe as a shifter he was used to being naked in front of other people, or maybe the hatbox he was holding in front of him was shield enough.
Still, she felt inordinately protective on his behalf. She bustled forward to stand between him and her sisters’ curious gazes. “I thought…maybe you’d stay and help me tell them what happened. Part of it I’m not sure I understand.”
He rocked from one foot to the other. “Not sure I can be much help.”
His reticence brought back the chill she’d thought the VW’s heater had banished for good. He’d never said no to her before. “Oh. I…” The tears that had almost frozen her eyes shut on the mesa prickled. She blinked them back hard. She was just wrung out, half wasted. “Well, I guess saving my life is probably good enough, right?”
“I’ll get you some clothes,” Brandy said softly. “Mac’s left some things here that should fit you.” She hustled down the hallway toward her bedroom.
“And of course you can take the van tonight,” Rita added. “Since you saved Gin.” She rolled questioning eyes between the two of them.
Gin couldn’t dredge up any resentment at the sisterly snooping. They’d done the same to Brandy when she was in trouble—although that particular trouble turned out to be a bundle of furry joy.
Brandy returned with a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. “I don’t have any shoes.”
“This’ll work. Thank you. I’ll make sure Mac gets them back.”
Gin took the hatbox from him while he took the clothes from Brandy and all of them looked studiously elsewhere while he dressed.
Mostly elsewhere. Gin snuck one peek, half afraid he’d slip away without a backward glance. “We should go get your truck.”