Storm Bear

by Bianca D’Arc

  “It’s a pretty name, for a pretty lady,” he complimented her, which made her feel all warm and fuzzy.

  She followed up with a question, just to take the focus off herself. “Is your name really Ace or is that short for something?”

  He shook his head. “No, it really is Ace. Our parents were dealers in Reno, Tahoe, you name it. I have a little brother named Jack, and the middle one is named King. I’m the oldest, so I’m Ace.”

  “Creative,” she told him, and he was struck by her unique viewpoint. Most people, on hearing the brothers’ names, made some sort of crack. Mostly, they asked who the Joker was, but there were other variants people thought were clever. The three of them had heard them all from a young age. But nobody had ever said their names were creative, as if complimenting their parents’ ingenuity.

  “Do you think anybody followed us?” she asked, her mood changing as she looked at the road behind them.

  “If they did, they’re well back,” he replied honestly. “We need to keep moving, but I think it’s safe to stop for the night. They won’t be able to travel at night any better than anybody else, and we’ve put a lot of distance between us and them today.”

  “I’ve never been on the run before,” she whispered, turning away to get on her bike.

  “Don’t think of our ride that way,” he counseled. “Try to look at it as an adventure. I mean, how many people do you know who’ve ridden through the Rockies on a bike with a grizzly at their side?” He smiled at her, hoping to lighten her mood.

  She smiled back, shaking her head. “Well, uh, nobody,” she replied. “I didn’t even know any grizzlies until you rode into town this morning. And when you shifted…” Her eyes widened. “You were huge!”

  Yeah, his inner bear liked hearing that. The furry bastard preened under her praise inside Ace’s mind.

  “As you probably noticed with the wolves, shifter forms are generally bigger than their natural counterparts,” he said in as offhand a manner as he could manage while his inner bear basked.

  Ace mounted his bike after securing their purchases in his saddlebags. The mostly empty cargo bags were starting to fill up. He’d made sure to get saddlebags for Sabrina’s bike back at the dealership and had put all her supplies in them. If, somehow, they got separated, he wanted her to be equipped.

  Less than an hour later, they pulled in to a motel parking lot. Ace went in to deal with the front desk clerk while Sabrina stayed outside where he could see her, but nobody else really could. He got a key to a room on the end of the building, in short order, and went back out to his bike.

  Within moments, they’d parked under a small carport provided for guests, within sight from the room, and gone inside. It was small, but it would do for the night.

  “Um…” Sabrina said hesitantly. “There’s only one bed.”

  “And it’s yours,” Ace said quickly. “I’m not trying anything funny here. We’re here strictly to sleep. We’ll both need some rest if we’re going to make tracks tomorrow.” He dumped her saddlebags on the bed and put his own on the single chair in the corner. “You can have the bathroom first while I order up some dinner. Burgers okay with you?” he asked.

  “Well done with cheddar cheese and fried onions, if you can,” she told him, already pawing through her saddlebags. “Oh! And French fries, too, please.”

  Mission in sight, Ace began looking through the information binder on the small desk next to his chair that had food recommendations. He found the burger joint the clerk had mentioned when he’d asked and picked up the phone to call in their order. While he was on the phone, Sabrina disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the shower go on a moment later, and he tried his best not to think about the fact that she was in there…wet…and naked.

  Down, boy.

  The food arrived before she came out of the bathroom, which was fine with Ace. The less people who saw her, the better. He paid the delivery guy and gave him a tip, his stomach rumbling as the scent of the burgers hit his sensitive nose. He’d ordered a few bags of food since they hadn’t really had time to stop and eat much during their day-long ride.

  Ace moved the small table over next to the bedside, then set up the dinner as best he could so they could share it. She would sit on the edge of her bed, and he would take the chair he’d claimed earlier. He was unpacking the bags of burgers and fries when the bathroom door opened, and a swath of steam hit him, stopping him in his tracks.

  The steam smelled of warm woman and some kind of soap. Delicious. Mine, the bear inside him insisted.

  Whoa.

  Sabrina came out, fully dressed, her hair wrapped in a towel. She was wearing black leggings and a black sweater she’d picked out at the outdoor store. She looked like an angelic ninja in the unrelieved black that left only her hands, feet and head bare. Wait. Scratch that. He saw she was wearing black socks, too, when she walked closer.

  “That smells really good,” she said, her gaze going to the wrapped burger he still held in his hand. She dropped the clothing she’d worn earlier on the other side of the bed then took her seat on the edge behind the table he’d moved.

  That stirred him into motion as he realized he’d been staring in kind of a frozen stupor. Silly bear. He was a little too fascinated by the woman he’d been sent to rescue. That couldn’t be good. He had to focus on the mission.

  Just at that moment, the mission was food. Right. He had the food, and now, they needed to eat. His stomach rumbled, again, as he sorted out the burgers he’d ordered.

  “Well done with cheddar cheese and fried onions,” he read off the ticket attached to the wrapper.

  “Yum,” she said, accepting the wrapped burger he handed her. “Thank you.”

  “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to drink so I got a selection of soft drinks and iced tea,” he told her, unpacking the sack of drink cans onto the table. “And they put all the fries into one big container,” he explained as he set the large styrofoam box on the table between them.

  He shook packets of ketchup onto the table as she selected a can of soda and popped the top. Unwrapping her burger, she checked under the bun and arranged it a little more neatly before taking a dainty bite. Ace was fascinated with her fastidious manners and tried not to be too barbaric as he gobbled down his own burger. He’d ordered several for himself, but he’d share if she wanted more than one. He wasn’t sure how much human females needed to eat, not having spent a lot of time around any.

  She declined another burger after finishing the one, but that was okay. Food never went to waste when Ace or any of his brothers were around. Bears ate even more than other shifters, which was to say—a lot. He ate four to her one, and they both finished around the same time. They’d shared the fries, and Ace had been careful to let her have half, without being too obvious about it.

  They hadn’t talked while they were eating, both tired from the long day of travel and too hungry to waste time talking while there was food in front of them. But, as they slowed down, lingering over the last few French fries, Sabrina started a conversation.

  “Thank you for this,” she said slowly, looking down at the table. “For today. For everything.” He could hear the emotion in her voice.

  “No need for thanks. I couldn’t leave you in danger from those creeps.”

  “They were awful, weren’t they?” she asked quietly, still unable to meet his gaze.

  “Evil,” he agreed. “Their magic felt slimy against my fur,” he admitted. “Blood path mages. Both of them.”

  “Seriously?” That made her look up. She seemed shocked. “Are you sure?”

  Ace nodded. “Absolutely sure. I’ve felt that kind of evil before, I’m sorry to say.”

  “They gain power by killing other people, don’t they?” she asked in a small voice.

  “Torture fuels them, too. Anything that spills blood of the innocent. And, if that innocent is magical, so much the better for the blood path mage.” Ace shook his head. He hated to be the one to tell her abou
t these things, but she really needed to know what they might be up against. “Just recently, there was a case where a blood path mage was discovered to be working with a ring of humans traffickers. They were abducting women for resale to foreign buyers with the mage’s help. One of the things he got in return was first choice of the women. He was separating out those with the slightest hint of magic and keeping them in his basement. He had cages down there, and they’d somehow managed to capture a shifter female along with several humans with minimal magical powers. He was draining them slowly, torturing them a little at a time until he’d used them up, then he would kill one to get what was left of her power and replace her with another abductee. It was really sick, but a colleague of mine managed to take him down.”

  “A bear shifter?” she asked.

  Ace nodded, but he had to tell her the whole truth. “There was a werewolf woman involved, too. She’s a private investigator. And a half-fey, half-human mage was with them, as well.”

  “It took three of them to take down one mage?” Her tone held fear and a hint of hopelessness.

  He reached across the table, trying to offer comfort, but he didn’t dare touch her. He didn’t want to scare her, and unauthorized touching wasn’t a good way to put her at ease when they had to spend the night together alone in this little room. He was very conscious of the lack of space in here, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “You know that not all mages are created equal. Plus, he’d had months—maybe years—of feeding off those women. He’d built up a hefty reserve of power, and he was incredibly cautious,” he told her, remembering the details he’d heard through the bear grapevine.

  “But there were at least two after me. Maybe more,” she pointed out.

  He shook his head. “Out in the open. Out of their territory. On the chase. They’ll make mistakes. They’re not like me. I know how to hunt. I know how to avoid the hunters and turn them into my prey if I have the chance. But your safety comes first,” he promised her. “Evasion is the name of our game. We’re going to dodge and weave and get out of Canada as quickly as we can. Then, we’ll deliver you to the Lords, and you’ll have a whole mountain of loyal shifters between you and anything that could threaten you, not to mention the power of the priestesses that live there. The Goddess Herself is said to watch over the Lords and their Lady. If you have their protection, you’ll be as safe as any being can be in this world.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she muttered, taking a final sip of her drink.

  “Look, we can be at the border crossing in a few hours. We’ll approach it slowly and see if anybody’s watching before we try for it,” he told her, figuring she needed to know the plan.

  He reached over to his saddlebag and took out the paper map he’d purchased earlier. Sometimes, the old-fashioned ways were better. Up here in the mountains, GPS signals weren’t always available. He’d planned to give her the map to carry after they looked it over together tonight. He wanted her to know she was well equipped to take care of herself in the unlikely event they got split up.

  He spread out the map as she cleared away the debris from their meal. Then, he began by orienting her to their location.

  “We’re here,” he said, pointing to the small spot on the map just south of Calgary. “We can cross here, at the Piegan-Carway crossing. They open at seven in the morning. I checked,” he said. “If it doesn’t look safe, we can detour either east or west. The closer of the two is west, at the Chief Mountain crossing, but they’re only open in the summer and the hours vary. Plus, we’d be farther west than we need to go for the Lords. It would add a little time to our ride, but not too bad. If we went east, we would be in Canada a lot longer, but we’d be better positioned to get to the Lords by taking the Sweetgrass-Coutts crossing.” Again, he pointed to the spot on the map and noted that she followed with interest.

  “What are the odds that, if they’re watching that first crossing, they could have allies watching all the others?” she asked, her question making him hesitate. She’d hit on the one flaw he saw in detouring the long way through Canada.

  “You’ve got a good point, which is why I’m leaning toward taking the direct route and, if that’s being watched, going up into the mountains to try the closer crossing to the west. If that’s also being watched, then there are ways we shifters can get across the border without any trouble, but it might be a little rough on you,” he told her. “Having bikes rather than a car will make it a lot easier, but there is still some potential danger involved and a long trek on foot, rolling the bike alongside over rough terrain.”

  “Better that than those mages,” she said, resignation in her tone. He had to admire her grit.

  “That’s why I insisted you get a pair of soft boots in addition to the ass-kickers for riding,” he told her.

  At first, she’d resisted his suggestion in the store, but Sabrina had eventually gone along with his request to find some light boots that were comfortable. She also had the sneakers she’d been wearing when they left town, which were broken in and hopefully comfortable. Having a few options could only help on their journey, because if a human had hurt feet, they couldn’t go far. Bears were different, but he tried to take into account her frailer nature in his planning.

  “You’re good at this,” she said, surprising him into looking up from his perusal of the map. “I mean, you planned all this stuff ahead of time. Like, you take it in stride.”

  “This isn’t my first rodeo,” he told her, trying to make light of her compliment, which touched him deep inside.

  “I guess you see a lot of action working for the Lords,” she observed.

  “Actually, I don’t.” He shook his head. “I mean, I don’t work for the Lords. I only met them a few days ago, though I’m friendly with a bear who is one of their top people. I went to Montana to visit him. He introduced me to the Lords, and the next thing I knew, I had a mission. Normally, I make my living as a mechanic these days, and I usually work with my brothers.”

  “So, where are they, now?” Her tone was gentle, as if she feared something amiss.

  “I’m not sure, but we all agreed on taking a little break from each other. Most bears are solitary—especially at our age—but we’ve traveled the road together for a long time. Recently, we all felt a call in a different direction. Nothing solid, but enough to make our inner bears want to take off on their own, following that elusive scent that wasn’t exactly a scent, but more a feeling.” He shrugged, not really able to put it into words. “We stay in touch, but we agreed to have our own individual adventures. I guess, this is mine. Or, at least, it’s the start of it. I’m not sure how long we’re going to roam alone, but I figure, at some point, we’ll meet up, again.”

  “Bears are solitary except for family groups, right?” She had been listening. He nodded, smiling at her.

  “For the most part,” he agreed. “But, in the past couple of years, a group of unrelated bear shifters have started a community on the Washington coast. It’s a unique situation, but they seem to be making it work. I have a friend there and a few acquaintances. I was thinking of visiting those guys after I get you to the Lords.”

  She looked down at the map, seemingly dejected, though he couldn’t fathom why. Was she feeling the same pang about the end of their journey together as he was? No. That was ridiculous. He wasn’t even sure why he was feeling that strange separation anxiety. No reason she should be feeling it, too. No, for her, the end of their travels meant the protection of the Lords. She should be looking forward to getting there with relief, not regret.

  Ace cleared his throat. “I’m really curious to see their town,” he said, hoping for a neutral topic. “It’s rare to get so many of us grouped together in one place who aren’t related by blood.”

  “What makes it work? Do you have any theories?” She looked, for all the world, like someone who was trying to put on a brave face, but he still couldn’t figure out why. Instead, he went with the direction of the conversation, ho
ping to find a way to make her smile, again.

  “The core group of men who came up with the plan were long-time coworkers. They served in the Special Forces together, as a single unit.” He paused a moment to think about it. “A family, you might say. Though they aren’t related by blood, they’re brothers of a different kind, but no less close. Even though they’re not even all the same kind of bear.”

  “What other kinds of bear shifters are there?” she asked, clearly curious. “You’re a grizzly. Are there black bear shifters?”

  He nodded. “Smaller than us, but wiry. And there are some big Kodiak bear shifters from Alaska. Polar bears. Kamchatka bears from Siberia. Pandas from China. Even koala bears from Australia, though they aren’t really bears. They tell me the one that settled in town always smells like cough drops from all the eucalyptus he eats.”

  That got a laugh out of her, and Ace felt like he’d won the lottery. Thank goodness. He didn’t like seeing her sad or worried, and she’d been a little of both ever since they met.

  “I can’t even imagine panda shifters,” she admitted.

  “There are only two in town, from what I hear. A widow and her child. Everyone is really protective of them, and the child is supposed to be really cute,” he told her.

  “Like a baby panda?” Sabrina’s eyes lit up at the idea, and he nodded. “That must be totally adorable.”

  “That’s what they say. I’ve never seen it myself, of course, but I’m intrigued enough to want to visit.”

  “I wonder if they’d let me visit. After all this other stuff is settled, of course. When it’s safe,” she added quickly.

  “I don’t see why not. The town is set up as a tourist stop. Lots of art galleries and shops for tourists on their way down the coast. But, if someone wants to move there, they have to be granted permission by the town council, which means the core group of bear shifters that set up the town. They don’t let just anyone stay, but there are a few witches and some Others.” He didn’t go into too much detail because he wasn’t sure how much was more or less public knowledge in the magical world, and how much was meant only for shifters. He probably shouldn’t have said as much as he had, but instinct told him Sabrina could be trusted.