by Kyrii Rayne
Some of the theories they had come up with about why he was doing this had involved romance, but it just didn't ring true for Jake. Gray was still too divorced from humanity to find himself drawn to a woman in any real, non-crushy and healthy way. He just couldn't see it happening. Not Gray. And certainly not yet.
They ran until the sun rose before taking a break to get their bearings. Darrin turned back and checked for a signal on his cellphone, but the property's tower was too far off yet. He cursed quietly and tucked it back in his pocket. “No service yet, sorry. They should be in Jackson by now.”
Jake shook off his extra bulk and heaved out a deep breath as he straightened. “That's fine. How many hours ahead of us did Helga say Graypaw was, and how fast has he been going?”
“Uh... dead run, most of the time, from the length of his strides and how often he's just sheared off branches as he passed them. He's really single-minded about whatever is at the end of this scent trail.” Darrin seemed bothered by this. “Problem is that I can't track what he's tracking. Whatever is out there, either his nose is better than mine, or he's picking up a signature that only he's sensitive to.”
Jake's mind went back to Darrin's argument about mating pheromones, and he wondered. What the hell is out here for you, Gray, and why are you so obsessed?
Two months ago, he would have been glad to have seen the back of Graypaw. He would have been glad to have seen him dead in a ditch, for that matter, and it had been almost completely mutual. But now....
He's what I've got left of close blood family. He's trying. He's becoming someone I might want to actually have in my life. My father degenerated out of that instead. I gave up on him, I severed ties, I let him go. But now there's Gray. And up until now he really has been doing his best.
But now... now he wants Anna, and now he's running off into the woods and getting everyone stirred up. This is crazy. I don't want to have to end up fighting against whatever part of his nature my father has permanently messed up. There had better be some kind of motive behind all of this that we can all live with.
“I don't know if we can outrun him. Maybe catch him when he sleeps....”
Darrin trailed off as he peered down the ragged track shoving its way through the brush in front of them.
“If he sleeps. He spent at least three hours running through the dark this morning. He may not stop.”
“Not until he gets where he's going.”
Darrin frowned...then settled back into his bear form. So we'd better keep moving, and hope the trail doesn't end in the middle of Jackson.
Chapter 7- Reunion
“Do you think that Graypaw could have some kind of business in Jackson that he didn't tell us about?” Anna tried to avoid looking out the helicopter windows as they swept over the mountains. She really, really hated heights.
“Mmm, it's possible, but if so, he has kept it to himself for months. Also, I don't think this is anything he's doing entirely... intentionally.” Helga watched out the window as they spoke, an almost childlike fascination on her face as she watched the world go by beneath them. “Gray is a very emotional creature. He lived most of his life so far as a caged animal. The need to be free and follow his instincts is very important to him.”
So, what do we do when his instincts tell him to screw his future sister-in-law? Or go running off to the nearest town and endanger every bear shifter in the Lodge in the process? “That's understandable, but instinct and emotion have to be balanced out with things like logic and empathy. He's not being logical right now, and he's certainly not thinking about what his little jaunt is doing to the rest of us.”
Helga nodded sadly.
“You're correct, of course. Right now, I haven't seen him this confused since the first week that I worked with him. Or this upset.”
She watched out the window a little while longer, her hands folded on her lap.
“I can't imagine what that was even like,” Anna admitted, thinking of the anguish she had seen on Graypaw's face more than once.
“Acceptance took time. There was denial, at first. Repetition of what he had been taught, talking about humans as if they were prey animals, going from regret over having killed his father to anger at his father for keeping him in a cage. The anger was the first genuine emotion I found in there, and so I had to promise him then, to gain his trust: no cages. Not ever again.”
“Except now, he's run away.”
Helga wiped her eye, not so much as a shake to her voice and her face stoic. “Yes. I hope that when we find him, he will tell me why, in a way I can understand.”
Anna pressed her lips together and thought carefully before speaking again. “Gray... is jealous of Jake. For having me. He wanted me to teach him about sex, to teach him how to do it with a human woman without... breaking her.”
Helga's eyebrows went up. “...Oh my.”
“Yeah. I decided that telling Jake would probably be a bad idea.” She blushed, wincing slightly.
“I dare say so. I'm certain that Gray meant no actual harm—”
“Oh, I know that.” She held up a dismissive hand. “But he seemed so desperate about it that it was intrusive and kind of scary. He's never been like that before. And it's not just because he's curious about what Jake and I get up to.”
Helga perked up.
“Ah yes, I had meant to ask. How is that going?”
Anna blinked.
“Uhhh....”
Helga snorted. “I'm not asking about your sex life, girl, you're both too young for me.”
Anna had to laugh a little at that. “Okay, just checking. Um...” It was shifting gears, but she could tell the talk about Graypaw had them both uncomfortable. “Really pretty good. There are snags. I don't really like living out of a guest room. He snores and sometimes I can't drag him away from video games with Darrin for a while. Typical stuff. And the good things make up for it all about ten times over.”
“That's good, that's good.” She ventured, with the slight hesitation of an older relative who feels entitled to ask but fears impoliteness, “Has he mentioned anything about a future together?”
Anna drew a deep breath. And the subject suddenly becomes awkward again. Okay. “We haven't gone ring shopping or anything, but I heard him talking about kids once or twice.”
“Ah, that's good, that's a start. I know you're both young and have only been together a little while, but... my own time is limited, and I'd love to see you off to a good start.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled warmly, and Anna smiled back a bit more awkwardly, thinking well, that was the subtlest “so when are you giving me grandkids” questioning I've ever gone through.
She wondered about it sometimes herself. Mark, heroic, furious Mark who wanted her and distrusted the bear shifters, had pointed at the shifter mating instinct as evidence that Jake was only seeking offspring from her, and had no desire for lasting love. He worried for her safety around the shifters. He would have been in a complete froth knowing that she had spent over a month keeping company regularly with Graypaw.
She knew that Mark meant well – but, if anything, his protectiveness of her got a little overwhelming at times. But he simply had no clue about the world she was now part of. It was all framed by him as potential threats he had to watch. Where she saw friends, family and her lover, Mark still saw the cage that madman Anthony had thrown them into before releasing them in the woods for the hunt. He had softened a bit toward Jake and Darrin because she was close with them, and he didn't seem to know what to make of Helga. But every time she saw him, he worked on her to leave the Bears behind, and didn't understand why she would not.
“How do we keep this from happening again?” she asked softly as they swept toward the Jackson airport.
“Well, I daresay that we won't know how to do that until we know why he left in the first place.” She checked her watch. “We have perhaps twenty minutes before we set down. I've been calling out to Graypaw the entire time we have flown over t
he forest and I have sensed nothing, but he could simply be refusing to answer.”
“Why would he do that? He's always...”
“I know,” Helga replied grimly, taking off her glasses to polish the lenses. “He has always done his best to listen to me and behave. But right now... I do not believe that he is thinking straight. I will keep trying. But in the end, Darrin's nose may be what finds him first.”
Jackson airport was tiny - a single row of check-in counters along the back wall, two luggage carousels and a thin, bored-looking crowd of travelers, mostly ski bunnies in bright, puffy clothes. Anna and Helga walked slowly through the cavernous space, Anna carrying both their bags. Helga didn't handle the cold well, and her arthritis was making her hobble. She was so busy keeping half an eye on the Bear matriarch on the slippery floor that she didn't notice the familiar figure standing by the exit doors until she was but a dozen feet away.
Mark Sanger leaned against the wall, his fatigues clean and pressed and his arms folded across his broad chest. He was a tall, well-built black man in his thirties, his hair cropped to a fade and his dark eyes calmly intense as he watched them. As they drew near, he stepped away from the wall and headed for them, moving slowly and easily. “Well, well,” he rasped gently as he addressed them. “It's a pleasure to see the two of you again.” A pause. “...or is it?”
“Specialist Sanger, good day,” Helga replied in a polite but guarded tone. Meanwhile, Anna's heart sank. Maybe she should have guessed that a guy as on-the-ball as Mark would already know that something strange was up. If things like that got past him, he wouldn't have been able to help save her life back when they had been hunted. But she lifted her chin, and smiled.
“Hey Mark.”
“Hey yourself, pretty girl. What's this about? Because I know the helicopter's schedule, and you guys made the pilot leave his breakfast going cold at the diner this morning.”
Anna opened her mouth to tell him the truth, but Helga spoke up first. “We have a Lodge member who has gone missing in the forest between Jackson and our mountaintop. He's somewhat impaired in his judgment right now, and he's inexperienced, so we are trying to collect him before he—”
“Kills anyone?” Mark finished for her, eyebrows going up and a tight, hard smile on his face.
“That's highly unlikely.” Helga looked tired as she readjusted her glasses. “He's searching for something. He has no interest in confrontation, but his behavior isn't entirely normal either.”
He eyed her, then turned to Anna, looking almost excited. “I knew my gut was right on this one. There's trouble. Isn't there?”
She frowned at him. “Look, if there was that big a problem, don't you think I'd be a little more freaked out?”
Mark's eyes narrowed, and he nodded, calming slightly. “Okay, fine then. So, you have a lost... Lodge member. Who, and why do you think he would come here?”
Helga sighed, and looked around. “I'd very much like to be sitting somewhere private, preferably with a cup of tea in my hands, before we continue this conversation.”
Mark considered her for a moment, and then nodded. “My truck is outside. Please, follow me.” His tone was polite, but the wry twist to his lips gave it all the irony it needed.
Mark had bought land with Helga's settlement money, and was wintering in a heavily weatherized trailer while he planned his house build. The lot sat on the edge of Jackson, near the one truck stop and the road to the airport. Lived on two months, it was still mostly barren; the mailbox was up, there was a path to the trailer's front door laid down in gray gravel, and the building pad for the house had been laid down upslope from the trailer, giving the hillside a trimmed-off look. Mark parked his 4 x 4 under an awning beside the trailer and led them inside, helping Helga up the stairs gently despite his earlier bitter sarcasm.
That was the thing about Mark. He could be kind of an asshole about things, but he always turned around and did the right thing, no matter how crazy the situation got. He had saved Anna's life; he had helped all of them during the Hunt, once he realized that the battle lines were drawn not between species, but between those who hunted humans and those who fought for them.
The problem was that, as the trauma from what he had experienced had set in for him, Mark had second-guessed that realization, and had started second-guessing Anna's decision to stay with Jake more and more aggressively. He seemed genuinely worried that she would either end up with her heart broken, or dead, and he made no bones about telling her that.
“Please watch your step,” he said quietly as he let them in. Beyond was a spartan space uncluttered by many belongings; a pair of duffel bags leaned in a corner next to a card table, two folding chairs and a battered but clean couch. A map of the area hung on the wall, the space's only decoration. The bedroom was closed off, and had a steel mirror bolted to the back of the door. It reminded her of an army barracks.
He went to the small, white-tiled kitchenette and put the teakettle on.
“I don't have much in my pantry,” he said to Helga, almost apologetic as he pulled out a tin of very plain black tea.
“That's fine,” she replied quietly, settling herself on the couch.
Anna meanwhile went over to one of the windows and looked out across the rolling, snow-patched acreage. Her hand went to the phone in her pocket — but she knew that right now, Jake and Darrin were searching the woods and would be out of cellphone range for most of their journey. Damn it. Gray, where are you?
“You okay, kiddo?” Mark was watching her intently the whole time, the same way Jake tended to do when he was worried. Normally she liked having slightly overprotective men doting on her, but lately....
“I'll be fine. I'd just like to find our friend before he does something dumb like shape-shift in public.”
Mark's brows drew together. “What is it, a kid?”
“...Sort of?” she replied uneasily, and looked to Helga. “Helga knows more about him than I do.” This was only marginally true at this point, but as Lodge leader Helga was the one who should be deciding how much Mark knew.
The old woman sighed and looked at Mark for a moment. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall across from the couch, staring back at her. The teakettle whistled, and he went to get her tea steeping. She spoke, slowly at first, but with her usual grave authority.
“Gray was kept captive by the same bear shifter responsible for your captivity and subsequent hunt, Anthony Matson. He was never socialized properly, and he has had very little interaction with people. But he is curious about them, and now, he seems to be seeking them out.”
“Baby bear on the town.” He dropped the tea ball into a mug and poured boiling water over it, then turned back to them. “What's he look like?”
“Big,” Anna said concisely. “Bigger than you, bigger than Jake. Dark hair, kind of messy, to his shoulders. Brown eyes, around Jake's skin tone, almost always wears jeans.”
He nodded once. “What else does he dress in?”
“Uh, nothing else really. He doesn't really do shoes or shirts.”
“So he's running around like Tarzan in the middle of a Wyoming winter. That shouldn't be too hard to find.” The corner of his mouth quirked sarcastically as he looked over at Helga. “Honey?”
“And milk if you have it, thank you.” Helga's solemn gaze was fixed on a point somewhere far off outside the window across from her, and Anna wondered if she was calling for Graypaw with her mind again. It was something she wished she could do herself.
I wish I could reach out to him, and to Jake. I just want to know that they're both all right. Gray because he finally has a chance to have a life somewhere and now that's in danger, and Jake because... because... I hate being apart from him at all right now.
Mark doesn't understand. These are my people now, even if I'll never turn into a bear myself or really understand what life as one of them is like.
“My trail cameras haven't picked up any bears wandering into the area around here, but we'l
l see what we see. This guy... you have no idea what he's coming to Jackson for, do you?”
“Nothing that would make any sense without more context. Which we don't have yet.” Helga accepted the tea as he brought it to her. “Thank you very much.”
“Didn't even put rat poison in it,” he joked, but his attempt at a nasty tone was weak.
She just smiled. “Young man, I worry less about you poisoning me than some of my fellow Bears. Though now that we have done some house-cleaning, that is less the case.”
Mark went back to his spot against the wall, so startled by Helga's admission of trust that he didn't offer tea to Anna or make any for himself. He fumbled a little, latching onto a chance at change of subject immediately. “Speaking of which. You had multiple surviving members that were exiled. Were they ever placed under any sort of surveillance?”
“Absolutely. If you remember Darrin—”
“Little Bear? Yeah, I do.” He smirked slightly. Mark and Darrin had actually gotten along fairly well, which had helped in his choice to throw in with them when the time came to stand together against Jake's father and the hunters... and Graypaw.
“He has each individual followed, and I receive reports from him multiple times a week. There have been no attempts yet to cause further problems, but we are continuing to monitor.”
“Good. Because those guys are gonna want their revenge.” Mark looked over at Anna, who nodded mutely. She kept worrying that if she spoke up too much, she would give up information that he really shouldn't have. Like the true identity of the lost member they were looking for.
Mark saw Graypaw kill. Mark saw Graypaw eat. Mark saw more of what he did than I did. He actually shielded me from some of it. What am I supposed to do now, just tell him everything's fine with Gray now and expect him to take me at my word? He knows I'm biased. That I choose to be biased. And he hasn't seen all the hard work that we have done with Gray to help him recover from what his father did. He hasn't seen. He doesn't know. I have to find a way to show him, before he finds out.