by Ava Sinclair
He’d dropped his guard. It had only been for a few minutes. But that had been all it had taken.
He fell to his knees by the truck. He could feel himself losing control and could feel Wolf awaken, unfold, felt Wolf pressing against his insides. His senses began to change. Small noises became blasts of sound. Faint scents filled his nose with clarity, bombarding him.
No! He fought back, digging his fingers into the pavement at his feet.
“Are you all right?”
A voice. He stood slowly, composed himself, turned. A gallery employee, a woman in a pencil skirt and up-do was looking at him, and when Lakota turned to face her, she took a step back. What did she see? The wild look in his eyes? The animal spirit staring back at her?
“I’m fine,” he lied.
Lakota turned, climbed into the truck. The key was still in the ignition and his fingers shook as he turned it. He put his forehead on the steering wheel, panting, and then straightened up and backed the truck out of the space.
Bear had her. He knew it. He could smell his scent and he had to check his emotions again. Not since his youth had he felt so weak against Wolf’s rise, and his muscles felt fatigued from the battle within.
He drove toward home, but then pulled over. He could not go home. He had to go where she was. But where was she? The phone in his pocket buzzed and he pulled over to the side of the road, his wheels throwing up gravel.
Lakota pulled the phone from his pocket, his heart pounding as he pushed the icon indicating a text notification.
He groaned deeply and gripped the wheel, doubling over in his seat, fighting Wolf back. He could not let him rise. Not now. Not yet. “Please!” He’d never begged his animal nature, but knew his emotions were putting him at the mercy of his inner beast. He took what comfort he could when Wolf receded.
But what came next was almost as hard. He dialed his sister’s number, simultaneously fearing that she’d not answer, and fearing that she would. When her voice came on the line, for a moment he struggled to speak.
“Sabine…” He had but to say her name for her to know something was wrong.
“Lakota… something’s happened.”
“Listen to me,” he said. “I have to do something…”
“Tell me…”
“I can’t… just listen. Don’t say anything. But if I don’t come back, make sure…” His voice fell away. Make sure what? None of the others aside from Sam wanted the role of pack leader, and Sam wasn’t ready.
“Help him,” he said, tears in his voice. “Help Sam, if I don’t come back. Teach him to lead.”
She was crying. “What are you saying, Lakota? What’s happening? Tell me! Please!”
“I can’t,” he said.
“Damn it, Lakota Longtree, you will!” There was a ferocity in her voice, and Lakota knew he could not just leave her hanging.
“He’s taken her, Sabine. Bear has Carly.”
“Oh, god. No.”
“Yes. I can’t just… I have to go after her.”
“But the pack!” Sabine was sobbing. “Me… Sam…”
“She’s my mate,” he said. “We bonded.”
She was quiet. “You should have told me.”
“I thought Sam would have,” he replied. “He knows.”
The line was quiet save for his sister’s sobs. “I understand,” she said. “I know Caine would have done the same for me. But Lakota… oh, god. I can’t lose you.”
“I’ll be careful,” he said. “But I have to do this alone. I won’t lose anyone else.”
“I understand,” she said. He started to hang up. “Lakota!” He could hear her voice and put the phone back to his ear. “What?”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, sis.”
He clicked off, wiping away tears from his face. He drove fast now, his truck bouncing along the logging roads that ran deep into the hills. He could tell feel the undercarriage hitting roots and rocks as he forged ahead. This part of the road wasn’t made for trucks, but he kept driving as far as he could until there was a pop and a hiss of steam. Lakota got out of the truck, amazed that he’d gotten this far.
He stepped back. “Come on,” he said. “I’m ready.”
Inside of him, Wolf had been waiting. He was ready. He uncoiled from inside and took over. Lakota was on all fours then, running into the deep wilderness, ready for what he knew would be his final confrontation with his enemy.
Chapter Eighteen
“Wakey, wakey!” The voice was deep, playful.
Carly brought her hand to her thudding head and groaned.
“That’s it. Come on, Little Red. You can do it.” The singsong voice lured her up through the murky depths of oblivion, even as some force of self-preservation warned her that she didn’t want this awareness.
She’d not seen Bruce Holder since he’d been escorted out of her adoptive father’s memorial service. He wore the same smile he’d worn then—the same smile he’d always worn whenever she’d seen him. Cocky. Arrogant. Self-assured.
In her hazy mind, Carly was struck by the random realization that every time she’d seen Bruce Holder, he’d been wearing a suit. Today he was dressed in black jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jean jacket. He was a large man, and his teeth were white against his close-cropped black beard as he smiled at her.
“Surprise!” he said, spreading his arms. “It’s a party!”
He pulled her to sitting, and it wasn’t long before the sick reality of her situation dawned on her.
“I know,” he was saying. “Most guys invite girls to parties in the conventional way. ‘Hi, how are you. Would you like to have dinner.’ But me?” He’d stood up and now turned back to her with a wide grin. “I prefer to steal them away from their stupid hippie boyfriends and get them out in the woods so they can see what a real man is like.”
Carly sat up slowly.
“I do have to say he does dress you mighty cute, though.” Bruce walked back over to kneel down in front of her. “That little dress rode up some when you were passed out in my SUV, and then in the plane I landed out on the bay. Those thighs are kind of distraction. Please tell you haven’t let any dogs go sniffing between them, because…”
Carly slapped him before she realized she was even capable of it, and before it could even register that he’d moved, Bruce Holder had her pinned on the couch, his jovial expression gone, a warning in his deep voice.
“Look,” he said. “I can appreciate that you might not like being kidnapped. But your old man cost me a lot of time and money keeping what I’m entitled to away from me…” He squeezed her pinned wrists as he spoke, and Carly cried out. He relaxed his grip, but his tone stayed firm. “Now, it’s not my intention to scare you. But you need to understand that you can’t just come home and think you’re going to rebuild what I’m in the process of destroying.”
He let her go and stood, holding out his hand. “Come on. Let me show you around.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t tell me no.”
Carly took his hand, knowing she had no choice. When Doc had been alive, he’d kept her apprised of his legal issues with Holder, which began after she left for college. She’d only seen Holder a handful of times, and he’d always made her uneasy. At the end of the lawsuit, Miles Fowler had told her he was glad to be rid of the ‘evil’ man. But Carly was quickly realizing that Bruce Holder wasn’t just evil, but also a psychopath.
“Do you like it?” he asked, sweeping his hand out to indicate the interior of the house. It was roomy, and judging by the number of animal heads mounted on the wall, obviously a hunting lodge.
“I never took your dad out here. He’d have shit himself if he’d known I was a big game hunter. I hid that from him when I agreed to invest in his little nature-retreat-slash-research-station. He wanted to study wolves. But the only good wolf…” they’d reached a door now and he slung it open and pointed to the other side of a large home office, “…is a dead wolf.”
Carly stared in silence at the mounted wolf. He didn’t have to tell her that it was Caine. She instinctively knew. She swallowed a lump in her throat.
“I brought this here from my office in town last week. Lovely, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “So what do you think?”
She looked at him. “I think you’re a murderer,” she said. “And I think you shame BearKind.”
His expression darkened again. His chest swelled with rage. Then he seemed to regain control.
“So you figured it out,” he said. “Good. I’m sure your mangy friends filled your head with sob stories about how ruthless I’ve been. But they’re the ruthless ones, using their numbers to run the last of us bears off the land, and then hiding behind a human to protect them. I have every right to fight for what’s mine. In any form.”
He walked over to the mount. He’d illuminated it with track lighting that cast the diorama in a soft glow. Beside it was another wooden platform, this one with a rock on it. Holder pointed at it. “Now this is where your boyfriend is going to go,” he said. “Once he comes here to save you, I’ll be waiting.”
He pointed to the wall, where a gun was hanging. “And this is what I’ll use… my trusty Browning BAR .30-06. It took out Sabine’s mate, although that wasn’t entirely fair, shooting him from the air like that.” He laughed. “My bad, right? This is already loaded and waiting for when he comes to save you. I’ve found the Federal Fusion rounds to be the best choice when killing wolves. Once inside, they expand and mushroom, causing maximum damage.”
He stopped, staring down at Carly. “I’m sorry, darling. Is this upsetting you? Don’t worry. Just think of what happens today as losing your virginity. A little pain, some blood, and then it’s over.”
“What do you want?” Carly was gripped by a sick feeling of utter desperation. He’d planned it out, likely had stalked both her and Lakota in town, waiting for just the right moment. But she could stop it. She had to. “Tell me what you want. I own the land you want. I won’t give it up. But you could share it, you and the Sourwood pack. I have the power to…”
“It’s not your land!” he yelled at her, his voice unnaturally loud, a roar in the room. She quaked at the sound of it.
Bruce Holder stalked away from her and when he turned back, his face was grim. “There’s nothing you can do besides accept your fate. Sign the land over to me. Sign the land over to me and only Lakota will have to die…”
“No!”
“It’s the only way,” Bruce said. “He and Caine were the leaders. None of the others are as strong. Sign it over to me and I’ll spare you. Hell, I’ll even help your foundation build a shiny new research center on some adjoining land. You just let them know that they can’t go on what’s mine.”
“No. Not if Lakota dies,” she said.
He threw back his head and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “Follow me.”
Carly didn’t want to, but she was going completely on instinct now as she followed Bruce Holder through the house to the dining room, where the table was already eerily set with a candlelit dinner for two. As she sat down, he uncorked a bottle of wine and poured a glass for each of them.
Keep him talking, she told herself. Keep him distracted.
“Now, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that you have some bargaining power here,” Bruce Holder said. “I’m not negotiating when I tell you that I’ll let you move the pack after you sign over the land. Hell, I’m just showing you how merciful I can be if you’re nice. On the other hand, if you’re not nice, well…”
He lifted a cover on her plate and she stared down at the food.
“Cordon bleu,” he said, pointing at the perfectly prepared chicken entrée. “On a bed of fresh arugula with baby asparagus and hollandaise sauce on the side.” He paused. “I’m a gourmet cook in my off time.” He grinned broadly. “I’m just full of surprises.”
Carly picked up the knife, cut a piece of the chicken off, and popped it into her mouth. “Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked.
“Well, darlin’, that depends on you,” he said. “If you sign the papers I’ve drawn up and have sitting in my office, and promise to minimize the wailing when I shoot your boyfriend, then I’ll be enjoying the dinner I made for myself. But if not…” He paused, as if distracted. “How much do you know about grizzly bears?”
“In general or about you?” she asked.
He laughed. “We’re all the same when we hunt.” He lifted his hand. “We can kill with the swipe of our paw. It’d be really easy to break the neck of a little thing like you. But sometimes the victim plays dead. That works with some bears.” He rolled his eyes and sucked on his teeth, making a tsking noise. “Never works with me, though. Had a friend once… well, he wasn’t a friend. He was a guy who owed me money. I took him hunting and while he was in his duck blind, I excused myself to take a leak. Man, oh man, you should have seen the look on his face when a grizzly bear tore through that blind a few minutes later. Put a hurtin’ on him!” Holder threw back his head and laughed. “That bear dragged him out of the blind and just tore him up. Slung him around, ripped out his hamstrings, dislocated his shoulder, tore half his scalp off.” He leaned over. “Believe me… it was ugly. Anyway, bears like their meat fresh. So Bear just covered that guy up and let him suffer. Then he came back and just started eating.” He paused, letting the horror of what he was telling her sink in. “He died.”
“I kind of figured,” Carly said, trying not to let her demeanor betray her hammering heart.
He’s mad.
“Now, I’d hate for that to happen to you, although I bet you are absolutely delicious.”
He was right. There was no way out. She realized that now, could see it in his eyes. He would toy with her and even if she did everything he wanted—even if he killed Lakota, took her land and let her go, which she wasn’t about to agree to—he’d still find a way to come after her again, to play with her, to prolong the torment.
She’d have to draw on what she knew about Bruce Holder the man and Bruce Holder the bear to beat him at his own game.
Carly could tell it was getting late. She’d been taken midmorning; it was nearly dark now. Bruce Holder knew Lakota was coming; he must have tipped him off to where they were. She thought about the room, the gun on the wall, the agreement he wanted her to sign. She thought about her father’s house, about what Lakota had said about how uncontrollably angry Bruce must have been to change in a place where he could have been discovered.
“Okay,” she said, allowing the quaver to come back into her voice. “If you promise…” Her voice caught in a hitch of breath. “If you promise to let me go… oh, god… I can’t believe I’m saying this… I can’t believe I’m about to betray him.” She folded her arms and put her head down on them.
“Hey, hey, hey…” He stood, walked around to where she sat at the table and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and it was all Carly could do not to flinch. “I know it’s hard. But you’re doing what you have to do. And a pretty thing like you? With all that you’ve inherited? Well, less five hundred acres… you’ll find some rich man willing to marry you and set you up in a place in the ‘burbs. Then all this will seem like a bad dream.” He took her hand and raised her to standing, and Carly let him lead her back to the office.
“Just sit down over here.” He led her to a chair across from his desk. The wolf diorama was right behind her, and she was glad that she wasn’t facing it. She was nervous enough, but looking at Lakota’s dead friend may have been too distracting. And she needed her wits about her.
“And here it is,” he said, pushing a sheaf of papers toward her along with a gold pen. “It’s a lot, I know. And there’s no need to read it. Lawyers, am I right? Just a bunch of wherefores and hithertos. The upshot is that you sign this, the land is mine for a modest price. And you get to walk out of here alive as soon as I kill your boyfriend.”
Carly picked up the pen, allowing the tears to roll down her face as she flipped from o
ne page to the next until she reached the end, where she saw her name, Carly Fowler, typed under a blank line awaiting her signature.
She put the pen to paper and pushed it back.
“Pleasure doing business with you, my dear. I’m thinking you’re a lot smarter than…” But he’d stopped talking now and was looking up at her. And she noticed his eyes were darker, and his voice was deeper when he spoke. “Is this some kind of joke?” he asked, tapping the signature line.
“Well, given that I’ve not legally changed my name to ‘Fuck You,’ then I’ll let you figure that out. You aren’t the only one full of surprises.”
She was on her feet before he could get to his, keeping the desk between them.
“You fucking little bitch,” he said, his white teeth gritted. He was getting angry. Good.
“Better a fucking bitch than a lonely washed-up bear who can’t even kill a wolf without a gun.”
He cleared the desk of papers with one sweep of his hand, lunging at her. Carly stepped back as he came over the desk, and she dashed back to the other side.
“Killing is killing,” he said. “And dead is dead.” He smiled meanly. “Just ask Doc. Oh, wait. You can’t. He’s dead. And I didn’t even do that. I just hired somebody to make sure his landing would be a few miles before the airport.”
Lakota had suggested this already, but hearing it confirmed was like a knife to the heart. But if Bruce Holder thought it would unbalance her, he was wrong. Carly was more committed than ever now to making the man who’d ruined her life pay.
“That’s because you’re a scavenger,” she said. “And a coward.” She laughed at him. “God, look at you. Why don’t you have a mate, Bruce? I was looking through some of Doc’s research papers and he mentioned Bear Clans in the north. The males there have mates. Let me guess… you tried to join and they chased you away.”
It was a wild accusation, but she realized there must have been something to it. Bruce was stomping, shaking his head as if trying to shake something off, clenching and unclenching his fists.