by Kimber White
Stefan pawed the ground and locked eyes with me. Over his shoulder, in the distance, I saw Tobias. I saw Anya. Not one of Arkady’s bears had turned to give chase as they ran toward the other side of the river. It was enough. It had to be enough.
I lowered my head toward Stefan again and prepared to die for the woman I loved.
Chapter Fourteen
Anya
I hadn’t wanted to leave. When Tobias grabbed me and started to run, I resisted. Then I felt Arkady’s teeth sinking into Cullen’s flesh as though it were my own. He was going to die and nothing would stand between Arkady's men and me. So, I ran for my life.
As I felt Cullen’s blood drain from him, so did my heart. I was angry with him. I had so many questions, but he was my life’s blood and I was going to lose him. No matter how much it hurt to run in the other direction, I couldn’t let his sacrifice be in vain.
All of it sounded good until we crossed the narrowest part of the river and found ourselves surrounded by the rest of Arkady’s clan.
“Son of a bitch, kid. I thought this would work.” Tobias gripped my hand and stopped running.
Stefan stepped forward. While the rest of the clan stayed in bear form, Stefan had shifted human and stood before me, sweat pouring off his chest. His pants were torn where he’d shifted in them earlier, and blood streaked his temple. Had Cullen done that?
Stefan put up a hand and walked toward us. Tobias growled, but we were outnumbered. There was nowhere left to run.
“This was Arkady’s fight,” Stefan said. “And now it’s done.”
I looked behind me, then up at Tobias. His own face dropped. “Well, son of a bitch,” he said again.
“What does that mean?” I asked. My voice sounded strained and it hurt to talk. I still felt Cullen’s pain as my own.
“When Arkady brought us here, we were a clan of twelve. Now there’s just the six of us. What the old man said is true. This is not our territory. We cannot afford to draw attention to ourselves. Killing another bear, whether he has clan protection or not, will raise questions. Arkady couldn’t see that. I can.”
“So what the hell is this?” Tobias asked. “A truce?”
Stefan nodded. “You’ll tell your clansmen what happened here today. Arkady’s fight is over.”
“No.” I stepped forward.
“No?” Tobias whispered behind me.
“No,” I said again. “I know what this place is. Other women like me come here. People like my sister. Arkady told me what happens to them. Avery fought. She tried to get away. I did too. But there have been others, haven’t there? Other girls that your clan has taken and shipped off to Russia or your clan lands against their will.”
Stefan lowered his head. When he lifted it, his bear eyes glinted. He couldn’t deny it.
“You’re finished in Blackfoot,” I said. “You’re finished in North America. Go back to your own territory and never come back.”
“If we do that, it could be a death sentence for us.”
“If you stay it’ll be the same,” Tobias said. “The girl’s right. And you can’t survive a clan war. Arkady made sure of that picking off your members when they didn’t agree with him. Am I right?”
Stefan let out a slow breath and flared his nostrils.
“You have twenty-four hours. Find the next plane back to Siberia and don’t look back,” I said, emboldened with Tobias’s solid weight behind me.
Stefan lifted his hands and held them palms up in surrender. His five remaining bears retreated, hanging their heads low and growling. Stefan took two steps backward, dropped his head low, and shifted. He was the lone polar bear left in his clan. The other grizzlies had already retreated back toward the woods. Stefan rose up one last time, swung his head, then ran on powerful legs after them.
I turned back toward Tobias and my legs finally gave out. He caught me just before I hit the ground.
“Whoa there, girlie. Hold on. Don’t fall apart on me now.”
“God, Tobias. It hurts.”
“Where? Did they do something to you?”
“No.” I clutched my side. “I just can still feel it. I can’t breathe.”
“Feel what, honey?”
“I feel Cullen. When Arkady bit him.”
“Right now? You feel pain right now?”
I nodded. I tried to stand up again but couldn’t. “Shit, honey,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“What?”
“If you can still feel Cullen’s pain, that means he’s still having it. He’s not dead yet.”
***
I’d never seen so much blood in my life. The grass beneath Cullen was stained red with it. Unconscious, he’d shifted. All color had drained from his gray, clammy skin. Thank God for Tobias. Without him, I never would have been able to get Cullen off that godforsaken field. And thank God Cullen had shifted, or Tobias wouldn’t have been able to lift him. He did so gingerly, while I pressed Cullen’s tattered shirt to the wound on his neck to try and stop whatever blood he had left from pouring out.
Tobias parked his pickup truck on the street in front of the Bluelight. He put Cullen in the bed and I crawled in after him. Then, Tobias sped out of there going so fast I nearly tumbled out of the back. But, I gripped Cullen’s hand and kept the cloth pressed against the worst of his wounds.
“Don’t leave me yet,” I whispered against his ear as Tobias made a sharp turn heading out of town. Where would we go? How in the hell could I explain to a doctor what happened? “I mean it. I’m not done telling you off.”
Cullen breathed. His chest wracked with spasms, then he went very still. Tobias took the highway, heading north. This wasn’t the way to the hospital. I pounded on the back window. Tobias had a phone to his ear and waved me off.
With each mile we drove, Cullen got worse. He stopped breathing twice. I pounded on his chest. He coughed and his eyelids fluttered, then he fell back, his head lolled to the side and out of my lap.
Tobias took an exit and went down a country road. God, if we didn’t get help, none of this would matter. Where the hell were we going? I took my eyes off Cullen’s just as Tobias made the last turn. His headlights illuminated a large, blue sign. Blackfoot Valley Airport. The place was a small, private airstrip with three hangars and an outbuilding. A small, twin-engine Cessna with blue call letters sat idling on the runway. A red Honda Civic was parked next to it. There was someone inside the car, but I couldn’t see who from this distance.
Tobias parked alongside the plane and hopped out of the driver’s seat. “Gotta move, darling,” he said. “I’ll take the Russians at their word for now, but you need to get the hell out of Blackfoot and don’t look back.”
He grabbed Cullen by the feet and pulled him out of the truck. I scrambled out behind him. The occupant of the little Honda had emerged and stood at the door to the plane. The wind from the propellers made her dark hair fly wild, obscuring her face. The plane’s pilot gave a quick nod to Tobias. He was middle-aged, balding, with deep green eyes that flashed with alarm when he saw Cullen. He was a shifter. Not bear. Not wolf either. I just hoped he was a friend.
“Where are we going?” I shouted, chasing after Tobias. He got to the steps of the plane and carried Cullen up. When I got to the landing, I recognized the other woman standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Connie?” I took a step back. Dr. Putnam’s nurse-receptionist from the clinic gave me a grim nod and gathered her blowing hair in one hand. She carried a medical bag in the other hand and motioned for me to go up the stairs ahead of her.
I gave a wary look to Tobias. He whistled down for me. “No time to waste, honey. You coming?”
I looked back at Connie, then charged up the steps. Tobias had laid Cullen on the floor in the small aisle at the center of the plane.
“This was the getaway plan?” I asked, kneeling next to Cullen. He stirred and coughed up blood. Connie muscled her way past me. She knelt at Cullen’s head and started to check his wound
s. She moved with determined efficiency, probing the depth of the cuts, then pulling supplies out of her bag.
“It’s better if we stay put until I can get the bleeding under control,” she yelled up to the pilot. He turned back and gave her a quick shake of his head.
“No chance,” Tobias answered for him. “You gotta get the hell out of here. Now.”
“What about you?” I asked, new horror creeping up my spine. Tobias was already on his feet and heading for the door.
“I’ve done all I can for you,” he said. “I promised Cullen I’d get you safely away. I have. The rest will be up to you and him if he makes it.”
“Where are we going?”
Tobias reached down and patted my shoulder. “It’s time for you both to go home.”
“Home? You mean the Yukon. To Cullen’s mother’s people.”
Tobias shook his head. “He doesn’t belong there. Neither do you.”
A pit formed in my stomach when I understood what he planned. I shook my head. “I can’t go to Wild Ridge. He can’t go to Wild Ridge.” Simon Marshall was there. Cullen’s men had abandoned him there.
“It’s your best shot, honey. And it’s what Cullen wanted. Connie is a friend. You can trust her. And she’s good at what she does.”
“What do I do when we get there? What if they turn us away?”
Tobias shrugged. “Better hope they don’t. You’ll have a couple of hours on the way up to think of something good to say.”
Then Tobias gave me a wink and headed out the door. He slammed it shut hard and thumped his fist against the fuselage, signaling the pilot to leave. I left Cullen’s side long enough to press my forehead to one of the small oval windows. From the tarmac, Tobias gave a salute and a slow wave. Then we left him far behind as the pilot picked up speed down the runway. Tobias grew smaller then finally disappeared as we took to the air.
***
“Hold his hand,” Connie said. Her hands moved so fast, I wondered if she used some type of magic as she stitched the wounds in Cullen’s neck. “Talk to him. It seems to settle him when you do.”
I smoothed the hair back from his forehead and leaned down to kiss him. I had a million questions. Cullen had lied to me. He’d held back the truth when I told him what I knew about Avery. I was angry with him. Hurt. But, he still belonged to me. I still felt his pain as if it were my own. Mercifully, much of that pain subsided and Connie was right. My touch eased him and me with it.
“Thank you,” I said as she finished the last of her stitches and taped a bandage over his neck wound. I couldn’t imagine any man, shifter or not, could survive what Cullen had been through. As I squeezed his hand and pressed a finger to the pulse in his temple, I knew how close he teetered on the edge even now. He might still die. Then where would I be?
“I wish I could have done more,” Connie said, closing her medical bag. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead. She smoothed it back and rose. She practically staggered into the nearest seat and let out a sigh.
“Will he make it?”
Connie smiled. “Those wounds were about as bad as I’ve ever seen. Most men would have already died. But, he didn’t. I guess that means he thinks he’s got something worth fighting for. Hold on to him. Tell him you’re not going anywhere. Are you?”
I swallowed hard. So much had happened over the last few days and weeks. I didn’t know what I could trust. Cullen stirred. His grip tightened around my fingers as if he were trying to answer my unspoken question. Trust him. Trust us. Trust this.
“I don’t know,” I answered, honestly. “But thank you. You’ve done more than enough. The rest is up to Cullen I suspect.”
Connie nodded. “You’re right about that. But I wasn’t talking about him. He’s an Alpha bear. They don’t come any stronger than that. And he’s got you. Even if you want to murder him yourself, he’s going to keep fighting for you as long as he draws breath. Lucky thing, that. It’s probably what kept him alive long enough for me to get to him.”
“So what are you talking about?” The question hung between us. My heart pounded wildly in my chest, enough to make Cullen stir. I smoothed the hair away from his forehead again and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. Color came back into his face. He was getting better right before my eyes. My strong Alpha bear indeed.
“Your sister was strong too. And brave.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and let the grief wash over me as it always did. When I opened them again, Connie had shifted in her seat to face me.
“Were you with her when she died?” I asked.
“She was delirious through most of it, and I think that was a blessing.”
“Who are you, Connie? What are you?”
She smiled. “I’m a nurse. That’s all. I’ve lived in Blackfoot my whole life. They aren’t supposed to, but shifters keep showing up here. It’s been that way for hundreds of years. They’re no different than men. Some are good. Some aren’t. Arkady wasn’t.”
“He took girls like my sister and shipped them back to Russia. He trafficked in them.”
Connie nodded. “I saved the ones I could when they came asking for it. Avery asked for help too late, and I’m sorry about that. If we’d had more time, I think maybe we could have saved her. But, she hid her pregnancy very well. I think Arkady didn’t even know until the very end.”
“But it wasn’t his. It was this Simon Marshall’s.”
“That’s what she said at the end, yes. When she came to the clinic she’d lost too much blood already. You see, there’s magic at work when a shifter comes into the world. Without proper guidance, the baby will try to shift in the womb. If the mother is human, well, most of the time neither of them survive. I have no magic. Like I said, I’m just a nurse.”
“Dr. Putnam said three women showed up and took Avery away at gunpoint.”
“Yes. It was the best I could do. I know women who have the kind of magic she needed to help keep her baby from shifting before he came into the world. Dr. Putnam wouldn’t understand. She would have called the police. Avery didn’t have that kind of time.”
“Was she scared? Did she ask for me?” I was sobbing now. I buried my face in my hands.
Connie reached out and rubbed my shoulder. “I went to her. After my friends took her away from Dr. Putnam. They did all they could too, but the baby was too far gone. Avery couldn’t be saved. But, the whole time, she begged them to save the child.”
“Such a waste. All of it,” I cried.
“Not all of it,” Connie said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I said we couldn’t get there in time to save Avery. And we couldn’t. But, she died at peace, that I can promise you. And she got to hold her son before she died.”
I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t think. Connie was telling me something vital, but I couldn’t make sense of the words in my head.
“Anya,” she said. “Avery died. Her son lived.”
“Oh, God. Connie. Where is he? What did you do with him?”
Her face fell and a tear formed at the corner of her eye. “I wish I could help you. I can’t. The midwives swore they’d look after him and keep him safe. I have to believe they told the truth. But, you have to understand, Arkady was coming for her. He wanted Avery and the baby. The women disappeared with him and that’s all I know.”
Cullen stirred. His eyes flicked open and he thrashed on the floor. His strength had returned. He growled and his skin rippled as he started to shift.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I shouted, dropping back to my knees.
“You ladies got control of things back there?” The pilot’s voice boomed through the cabin. “Drug him if you have to. I can’t have him shifting while we’re in the air. He’ll rip the damn plane apart.”
It seemed he would. Cullen clawed at the seats and ripped out white clouds of stuffing. I did the only thing I could think of. I hopped down and sat on his chest. I slapped his cheek once and made him look at me. His bear eyes flashed, but his pupils shrank to
pinpoints as he focused on me.
“Sit still,” I said, pointing my finger at his chest. “We’re almost there.”
“Where?” he asked, his voice half bear growl, half human.
I looked out the window. My ears popped as the pilot began his descent. I could make out the clear, blue waters of Lake Superior. My heart thundered in my chest. I knew this place even though I’d never been here.
We flew over a high, green cliff face as whitecaps crashed against the rocks below. I could make out a small airfield cut into the lush forest. This was Wild Ridge. It would be our sanctuary or our doom.
Cullen struggled into a sitting position and I shifted off his chest. He put a protective arm around me. Connie handed him a pair of pants from a bag on one of the other seats. I supposed Tobias was to thank for that detail as well. With great effort, Cullen managed to get dressed as the pilot circled then finally put the plane down.
Cullen’s pulse seemed to echo mine. His skin bristled as his bear stirred. He gripped my hand as we both struggled to our feet. Connie stayed seated and gave me a hopeful smile. The plane came to a stop and the pilot hit a switch, sending the stairs down. Dawn broke again and sunlight speared through the open door.
With Cullen’s hand in mine, we slowly descended the stairs and stepped out onto the tarmac. There, surrounding us on all sides, were what I guessed were all the Wild Ridge clans. Five clans, their Alphas stepped forward. Tall, strong men with fierce eyes filled with menace. Behind them, the clan members formed a circle, some men, some grizzly. Fear trilled through me as Cullen pushed me behind him and stepped forward to face them.
Chapter Fifteen
Cullen
A year ago, I left this place thinking I’d never set foot here again. Now, as the clean, crisp, wild air filled my lungs, I knew I could never live anywhere else. Wild Ridge seeped into my soul. From the ragged cliff face to the east of us dotted with tall pines and spruce trees, to the raging, churning waters where Lake Superior broke at the foot of them, this place was part of me.