by Sable Sylvan
“I’d recognize you anywhere...Cedar Asher, of Asher Lumber,” said Martha. “Martha Ackerson, Martha’s Makeup, a small brand you’ve never heard of, I’m sure.”
“I’m sorry to say, I’m unfamiliar with your brand,” said Cedar. He wasn’t really sorry to have never heard of the makeup, as Martha’s face was heavily made up, so heavily it looked like it would melt off, and it was the worst advertisement for one’s own product that Cedar had ever seen.
“Well, let’s dig in,” said Martha again, insistent. She put one of her own slices of cake on a plate. “Isn’t that scrumptious?”
Cedar sniffed: the cake seemed fine. There was something chemical in it, but he couldn’t trace it. It smelled exotic: maybe it was juts vanilla bean. He plated himself a slice of the cake, and took a nibble. “It is pretty good,” he said. It was a regular plain white cake, pretty hard to mess up. Martha didn’t look like a woman who could cook, but the cake was delicious.
The aunts all took slices too, and Talia plated herself the slice with the pink rose. She took a bite: the cake was pretty tasty, a vanilla cake with a cinnamon taste. The cinnamon taste got stronger with each bite...until she felt something more than just heat. There was something in her throat, irritating her, making it hard for her to breathe, and she started to feel faint and hot, not just from the food, but from the inside.
Talia grabbed at her throat. “Wh-what’s happening?” she said between chokes.
Cedar let his plate fall to the floor and shatter. He pulled Talia close, holding her in the Heimlich maneuver. “I’ve got you babe,” he said. He pulled and Talia threw up the cake...but even with the cake out of her throat, Talia was still spasming, and growing hot, even by shifter standards, in his arms.
“Is she an epileptic? What’s going on?” asked Cedar, sitting Talia back down gently and helping keep her upright.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” said Lorraine, pulling out of her phone and dialing 911.
“She’s not allergic to anything, but it has to be the cake,” said Helen. She looked up at Martha, or rather, the space where Martha had been, but Martha was already gone. She’d slipped out when everyone had started eating.
“Call the cops,” ordered Cedar, following Helen’s gaze. “I’ve got a murderer to hunt down.”
Leaving his mate was the hardest thing Cedar did that night.
What was about to come next was easy.
It was natural. It was nature, and it was his nature, because Cedar was a bear, and nobody messed with a bear’s fated mate and got away with it.
Nobody.
Cedar started stripping down as he reached the front door of the Ackerson house and got down on all fours once he hit the street. He could still smell Martha’s scent in the air: pomegranate. There was no mistaking the smell of pomegranates for anything else. His bear shifter senses were heightened, and rainy, cloudy Port Jameson wasn’t exactly known for its pomegranates.
Cedar arched his back and as a roar ran through his body, his bear took over. The bear and the man had their agreement: the bear held back when the man had to do what he had to do. But when the fated mate was in trouble?
Whoever had woken the bear had better run.
Cedar’s bones changed as his body restructured, fat and muscle redistributing, the body hair that covered Cedar lengthening, from the peach fuzz on his arms to the five-o-clock shadow on his face. Cedar let out another roar as he ran down the street, following the scent of the pomegranate perfume.
Cedar was the last of the Asher cousins to marry, but the one who had the biggest bear and the best relationship with his bear. His bear was like his body guard: the bear was always watching, always waiting, but quiet, a friend and confidant, who kept its emotions hidden. Cedar was cool, calm, and collected on the outside, but once someone poked a bear and threatened their fated mate, all bets were off.
Martha had been one step ahead of them all: at least, she’d thought she could get away with the murder of her niece, but she hadn’t banked on her niece’s beau to be a billionaire bear shifter who had more physical and societal power than whole countries. With every step, Cedar got closer to her, and she had no idea.
It was hard to follow the scent as Martha was in a car but Cedar ran in the direction it smelled strongest...a scent that lead to the woods that surrounded Port Jameson. The smells of the forest world overpowered most people, but to Cedar, the smells of the human world overwhelmed him.
The forest was where he belonged as a bear and he followed the scent of human and pomegranate up the woods, taking a faster path than any human could, until he found a cabin. He peeked in the windows: the cabin was sparse, but there was a room with a wall covered in notes and a desk covered in papers. Small black boxes were on some of the walls, near the ceiling. A small kitchen had the dirty materials for cake making on the counter, waiting to be washed. That was all that Cedar needed to see.
Cedar roared outside the cabin and got on his back legs.
Martha opened the door and leaned in the door frame. “You stupid, stupid bear...shouldn’t be with your ‘fated mate’?” asked Martha, using finger quotes when she said “fated mate”.
Cedar shifted back into his human form. “She’s got people that love her taking care of her...so I’m taking care of one of the few people that for some reason, hates her,” said Cedar.
“And what are you going to about it, you big teddy bear?” asked Martha with a simpering sweet voice that made Cedar sick to his core.
“There’s more than just a bear inside of me,” said Cedar. “There’s a darkness. I keep the bear back, and the darkness, Martha. And right now, you should be begging for my forgiveness, my mercy, because you and I are alone in these woods, and if I wanted, I could rip you to shreds. And nobody would ever know. I can end you, Martha. You can run, but you cannot hide. If you hide in a city, I will find you with my money and my network of contacts. If you hide in the woods, the bear will take over and sniff you out like I did today. The game is up. The police are coming, and it’s a good thing too, because if they didn’t, I’d have to deal with you myself.”
The hairs on the back of Martha’s neck stood up on end and a shiver ran down her spine. “There’s...no way you would ever do that. You’d get caught, go to jail.”
“I wouldn’t get caught, Martha,” said Cedar. “I’m not just dangerous, I’m skilled. I’d bury you out in the woods, in a place only the shifter officers can find, and bury you twelve feet deep. Six feet above you, I’d bury the carcass of a wild boar so that people though that the boar had set the wolf shifters off.”
“So are you?” asked Martha.
“No,” said Cedar with a smile. “Because unlike you, I obey the law. I have a code of honor. A code of conduct. I would never, ever murder someone...especially not my own kin. And whether you admit it or not, Talia is your kin, and that makes you my kin, because she’s my fated mate, Martha. Unlike you, a woman with nothing, a woman who dedicated her bitter life to vengeance, a woman without a family, without a husband, Talia found true love, and you’ll find yourself on the inside of a prison cell, for attempted murder.”
“Good luck trying to prove that,” said Martha with a grin, picking up her bag and walking out the door. “By now, I thought a baby would have taken that tart to her grave. I guess...accidents happen.”
Cedar pulled his hands up. “You want to run? Run. But I will find you, I will catch you, and I will take you down, Martha. Legally.”
Martha smirked as she backed up away from the bear shifter and she turned and walked out the door and into the night, down the stairs into her car which was on the cabin’s gravel drive.
Cedar heard sirens: the Port Jameson police had arrived on the scene, and just in the nick of the time.
A wolf shifter cop got out of the police car. “Martha Ackerson, we have a warrant for your arrest in the attempted murder of Talia Ackerson,” said the officer. “You have the right to remain silent when questioned, anything you say or do
may be used against you in a court of law.”
“Arrest him, officers, he was trying to assault me!” ordered Martha.
Cedar put his hands up behind his head. “Officer, you’ll find that Mrs. Ackerson has a system of security cameras in her cabin. The cameras should provide you with any evidence of an assault...if there was an assault.”
Martha gulped. “Officer, I do not give you permission to search my cabin.”
“That’s fine, we have a warrant,” said the officer, pulling out a paper and handing it to Martha. Another officer got out of the car as the first officer started to cuff Martha to take her to the car. Martha started to struggle and scream, and head butted the officer in the face.
“Assault on an officer, you saw it,” the officer said to Cedar. “Alright, lady, get in the frikkin’ car.” The officer led Martha over, still struggling, to the back of the cop car.
He tossed her in the back and walked back to Cedar. “You going to press charges?” asked the cop.
“Yeah...but I can give you a statement later, I need to go, like, now,” said Cedar. “I can’t stick around to do that while my mate’s in trouble.”
“Your mate’s the Ackerson woman?” said the officer. “Then you better get your ass to the hospital. We can give you a ride and a change of clothes.”
“Thanks, but I can get there faster in shift,” said Cedar, getting down on all fours before he started running, turning into a bear mid sprint, the beast letting out a roar as the bear body carried Cedar down the forest, the shifter on a rampage as he made his way through the woods to his cabin, where he found a bundle of his spare clothes, which he held in his mouth as he ran through the forest and down the hospital. Cedar got changed into his clothes naked behind the hospital before going in.
Helen and Lorraine were in the waiting room, holding hands while Bertha argued with a nurse. “What’s going on?” asked Cedar.
“The poison...she’s still in a coma,” said Lorraine, as Helen was weeping uncontrollably. “The doctor’s never seen anything like it.”
“Then we need to get her to Seattle,” said Cedar.
“There’s a complication with the paperwork,” said Loraine. “We’re her kin and were her guardians so we should be able to let her go to Washington for treatment...but there’s an issue with the computers.”
Cedar balled his fists. Of course there’d be an issue with the computers in a podunk town like this. “There’s a woman’s life at stake, and these idiots are more concerned with bureaucratic bullshit than saving her?” said Cedar angrily, the bear inside of him roaring.
“There’s nothing any of us can do,” said Lorraine. “All we can do is wait.”
“Did the doctor say what the symptoms are now?” asked Cedar.
“She’s still in the deep sleep, and there are occasional spasms, as well as a high fever,” said Lorraine. “It’s like nothing they’ve ever seen before.”
“Because your psycho sister had some insane plan, but it looks like she wiped away any helpful evidence from her secret creep cabin,” said Cedar. “That’s right: I tracked her up into the woods and found her holed up in a secret house. The cops tracked my scent and they found us, and she’s in their custody now.”
“Thank you, so much,” said Helen through the tears.
“Don’t thank me yet,” said Cedar. “Not until I’ve saved our girl.”
Chapter Nine
Cedar Asher hadn’t put his phone down since he’d gotten to the hospital. Port Jameson, for all its charm, was not equipped with state of the art medical gear, and as Cedar was not married to Talia, he was unable to have her sent to a better hospital, up in Seattle, where his contacts were busy figuring out what had happened to Talia.
Tired of dealing with the bullshiz bureaucracy, Cedar shut his phone angrily. He wanted to shift, to run into the woods and figure out what he could do to save Talia, but he knew he had to keep a cool head and a human form to deal with this. He was one of the billionaire heads of the Asher Lumber Co., and he didn’t have enough power to heal his own fated mate?
That’s when he repeated the thought in his head: he was one of the billionaire heads of the Asher Lumber Co. Asher Lumber Co. Asher Lumber Co. hired all the top talent in the Pacific Northwest, and that included doctors. There was one man that may have the answer to all this, and he was just a phone call away.
Cedar went through his phone and hit the call button. It rang and went to voice mail. Cedar dialed again. Again, it went to voice mail. The second time, the man picked up.
“Hello?” asked the man groggily. “What is it?”
“Jace, I need a favor,” said Cedar. “It’s about my mate.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” said Jace. “What’s going on?”
“She’s poisoned, and I don’t know with what, but we need a cure, and fast,” said Cedar. “She’s at the Port Jameson General Hospital.”
“What’re her symptoms?” said Jace.
“Fever. Spasms. Coma,” said Jace bluntly.
“Any idea of how she got poisoned?” asked Jace.
“It was baked into a cake,” said Cedar.
“There’s only one poison that one could bake into a cake that would produce those symptoms,” said Jace. “That’s cobra shifter venom. And there’s only one cure. I’m going to need you to come up to Seattle immediately. By the time that it’s ready, I’m going to need you to take it back.”
“I’ll meet you at the lab,” said Cedar, hanging up his phone but not putting it away. He had one more person he needed to call:
His helicopter pilot.
***
At first there was darkness, and then, there was a light.
Talia didn’t have to walk towards the light: it pulled her in, down deep and far up at the same time. The light was brighter than any light she’d ever seen, but it didn’t sting her eyes or hurt at all.
Nothing hurt anymore.
Talia took a step: there was nothing around her but golden light, diffused by clouds, and she turned: nothing. She turned around again, and there was a white couch. She walked towards the couch and as she did, a woman materialized: a woman who looked like her, but older. Still, the woman was curvy, petite, and had auburn hair she would’ve recognized anywhere.
“Mom?” asked Talia as she ran up to the woman. “Mom, is that you?”
“It is, Talia,” said the woman, taking Talia into her arms and pulling her close. “I wasn’t expecting you, honey.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be here,” said Talia, keeping her head cradled in her mother’s shoulders. Her mother smelled of wild lavender. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you.”
“I’m glad I get to meet you too,” said Mama Talia, pulling away before leading Talia to the couch. Next to them, a small table with three tea cups in saucers materialized, and then, on top of the table, a tiered display of butter cookies faded in. “Although it seems...like it’s too soon. I can sense someone...on the other side. Make that four someones. Who’s waiting for you, Talia?”
“Three of your sisters: Lorraine, Bertha, and Helen,” said Talia, taking a teacup and saucer before nibbling into one of the butter cookies. They looked like butter cookies but tasted different, sweeter, lighter, butterier than any butter cookie she’d ever had. “They raised me when you passed.”
Mama Talia frowned. “And I supposed Martha hasn’t come around.”
“No, she...she’s why I’m here,” said Talia. She sipped at the tea: it tasted like rose petals, and the taste reminder her of the scent of Cedar’s cabin.
Mama Talia’s fists clenched. “I should have known. The signs were all there. But if Martha isn’t the fourth...who is the other person out there, on the other side?”
“There’s this guy,” said Talia with a smile, shaking her head. “I know it sounds stupid...but I fell in love with him at first sight. And he fell in love with me.”
“A shifter?” asked Mama Talia. “I’m sensing a strong energy from him.
Wolf? Tiger? Lion?”
“Bear,” said Talia. “He’s a bear. He’s big, and strong, and protective...but he’s also sweet and gentle and kind with me. He’ll do anything to keep me safe...but I’m still here.”
“You have to go back to him,” said Mama Talia. “You can’t sit here with me when you’ve got a whole life to live. You’ve got to go back to him if you love him.”
“I love him, but I can’t give him children,” said Talia, looking down at her stomach forlornly. “Maybe I shouldn’t have fallen in love with him, Mama. I know he wants kids: he’s told me so many times what a great mother I’d be...but I just can’t have kids, Mama. I just can’t.”
“You have my curves, my hips, my bosom,” said Mama Talia. “That’s all you need to have kids. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“But...what about you? And grandma?” said Talia.
“What happened to me had nothing to do with my pregnancy,” said Mama Talia. “It was a freak accident, Talia.”
“No, Mom, I...I killed you,” said Talia softly, feeling her eyes well with tears. “You should still be alive, Mama, and if it wasn’t for me, you would be.”
“You think you killed me?” said Mama Talia with a laugh. “Honey, things are never that simple.”
“But what about Grandma Talia?” asked Talia. “And the curse?”
“What curse?” asked Mama Talia.
“Aunt Martha said...she said that the name, Talia, was a curse upon the family,” said Talia. “She said that it killed you and Grandma, and that it’d kill me too. That I’d die in labor.”
“Your Aunt Martha let her bitterness turn her into a monster, and this curse of hers is some self-fulfilling bullshiz. Your grandma’s circumstances were different too,” said Mama Talia. “She was an anemic, and she hadn’t been diagnosed, but the pregnancy ended up being dangerous for her because of the blood loss too. If she had been treated for her anemia, she wouldn’t have had any problem with me at all, but after having quadruplets and losing so much blood...well, there was no way that she could’ve survived.”