Bears of Burden: STERLING

by Candace Ayers

  I found it baffling that the man I was sitting with was the same man who tended to my ankle in the woods only a few nights ago. They seemed like they were two different people entirely, and it made me curious. I wondered which one was the real Nathan – the one in the thousand-dollar suit sipping wine, or the one who trekked the wilderness of the Rockies tending to wild animals.

  “Well, we don’t do animal testing, and the bear is making a full recovery in a sanctuary not far from here.”

  “Which sanctuary?” I asked, knowing that Brianna would want to look them up.

  “A good one,” he replied sternly, “Please trust me on this - the bear is safe,” he added, a little gentler.

  I did trust him. I wasn’t exactly sure why. I wasn’t really in the habit of trusting strange men that appeared out of nowhere, who I then repeatedly ‘bumped’ into, but with Nathan I did. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, the desire for this man who made my pulse race to be honest and good on the inside, too. Whatever the reason, I uncharacteristically decided to let it go.

  “Okay, I trust you.”

  “Thank you,” he replied softy. The midnight blue of his eyes started to glow again, the electric flairs dancing in his irises. I must have leaned in closer, because he jerked his head backwards and laughed softly to himself.

  “You have a curious effect on me, Chloe Carpenter.”

  “I could say the same thing about you. I don’t usually agree to go to dinner with clients.”

  “And I don’t usually ask,” he replied, “But, with you I had to make an exception. I hope it doesn’t cause any issues with your boss.”

  I recalled the vow I’d made earlier to untangle myself, and to gently assert that this wouldn’t be going any further. Yet, I felt the desire to untangle melt away with every passing second.

  “Well, she doesn’t need to know right now. We’re both adults. I’m sure we can handle…whatever it is this is,” I finished lamely.

  “This is me dating you. Or trying to, once you stop wondering if I’m some crazy stalker,” he quipped.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes.”

  I blushed. I had agreed to go out with him, and it did seem kind of rude to continue to doubt his motives. Still, what girl on a first date didn’t keep an eye out for red flags?

  “I’m sorry. It’s just… you strike me as…unusual,” I said as delicately as I could. He wasn’t offended. Though I did feel like he was smirking at his own private joke.

  “And you’re not?” he asked, leaning toward me. He reached out and ran his thumb across my bottom lip, just barely skating the skin. It was a wildly intimate gesture, and it sent molten lava running around my insides and down to my core.

  “You’re driving me crazy, Chloe Carpenter. What is it about you?” He asked quietly, staring at me as if I was some great enigma that he hadn’t managed to solve.

  “My winning personality?” I croaked, trying to lighten the mood. He smiled and removed his hand, which I immediately missed. I ached for him to reach for me again, wanting to feel the heat of his touch. I cursed my flippant response. It was such a classic reaction of mine when faced with any real intimacy.

  After that, we continued a more first-date line of conversation; brief summaries of childhood, families, schools, films and books. The time flew by, till we were the only ones left in the restaurant and the candle on our table was nothing but liquid wax.

  “Let me drive you home?” Nathan asked as we walked onto the avenue.

  “I’ll get a cab,” I replied sleepily, “It’s easier.”

  “Easier for you to get home, or easier meaning less potentially complicated?”

  “Both?” I smiled up at him, grateful that he understood.

  In the next moment, his arms were wrapped around me, solid and warm, and his body was pressed up against mine, hard and unyielding. I inhaled sharply at his surprising, but not unwelcome, boldness. His lips brushed my forehead, and I thought I heard a soft growl escape his chest.

  “Let me see you tomorrow night?” His voice sounded low and husky.

  “Yes,” I whispered, no longer able to pretend that I could stay away from this man any longer than twenty-four hours.

  His lips touched mine, lightly, sweetly – sealing the promise. I was the one that deepened the kiss, sliding my hand up his chest. He gripped the back of my neck, angling my head as our lips molded together. He tasted like wine and warmth. As his tongue gently brushed over the seam of my lips; they parted. I heard myself release a small moan as his tongue delved into my mouth, exploring, tasting. The man had my head spinning, and my whole body tingling in an erotic haze. His hand reached up to cup my face, his fingers lightly grazing my earlobes and shivers erupted around my neck.

  He ran his other hand down the curve of my spine, gently pushing my backside further into him as he firmly cupped my ass. Through the flimsy material of the skater dress, the heat of his touch was almost searing. The hardness of his erection dug into my abdomen. The sensation made my stomach flutter and my panties damp with arousal.

  “We need to stop,” he gasped, “I can’t…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, but I was right there with him. I couldn’t control myself. We were on a public street, but my body was responding to him like we were alone in a bedroom.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I replied, trying to get my breath back. He nodded, and then physically stepped away – giving me some space.

  He turned and hailed a cab from the steady stream of traffic that hadn’t abated despite the hour. One came all too soon. He opened the door for me, and then made sure the driver knew where he was going before letting me ride off.

  Alone in the cab, watching the bright lights of the various bars and restaurants reflect on the window of the car, I sat back and exhaled. I still had so many unanswered questions about Nathan.

  Unanswered questions and a vague feeling that he wasn’t quite what his image portrayed. I was certain that there was something else about him, something that he was keeping hidden. I could feel it in my bones.

  What was even stranger was that, aside from overwhelming lust, when I’d been wrapped in his arms and held against his warm body, I had felt safe. Safe and protected, as if we could hold the world at bay.

  Chapter nine

  “This the place ma’am?”

  The taxi pulled up outside my apartment building.

  “Perfect. Thanks. I’ve only got a twenty.” I waited for him to give me change and then pulled myself out onto the sidewalk. It felt like it had grown slightly cooler since I’d said goodbye to Nathan, but it was probably just my fatigue starting to make itself known.

  I dug for my keys as I walked up the steps to the lobby entrance. My apartment was on the fourth floor of an old converted bottling factory. The factory had been divided up into modern apartments, all with an industrial décor- high ceilings, polished concrete floors and huge old factory windows that let the cold in come winter and made it blazing hot in the summer.

  As I was struggling to get the lobby door open, cursing our super for not replacing the decade-old lock, I noticed a man standing at the far end of the street. My building wasn’t too near the main avenue, so it was rare for people to dawdle in this area. His presence made me slightly uneasy, and I glanced the length of the street to see if anyone else was around, but found it otherwise deserted.

  Eventually the lock gave, and relieved, I stumbled inside. Another man, broad and muscular, dressed head-to-toe in black, was standing by the bank of mailboxes that ran alongside the right wall of the small lobby.

  He turned and nodded in my direction with disinterest. I figured he was a new resident in the building, so I returned the nod and made my way toward the elevator.

  I was starting to wish that I’d invited Nathan back for coffee. There was a perceptible tension that hung in the air. The loitering men had the hair on the back of my neck standing at attention. As a result, I became hyper-aware of the sounds around
me – the creaks of the elevator as it shuddered and jolted its way down to meet me, the pipes that ran through the walls of the old building, groaning and moaning with age.

  When the elevator doors opened, I stepped inside. The man in the lobby dashed inside with me, and I backed away into the corner of the compartment in surprise.

  He didn’t say a word to me, and kept his eyes straight ahead. I pressed the fourth floor button, and the doors closed.

  “Are you new here?” I asked, my voice small.

  He didn’t turn around, and he didn’t reply. His silence terrified me. I rapidly took in his attire; black work boots, jeans and a long black-sleeved t-shirt.

  You’re in danger. Get the fuck out.

  As soon as the doors opened, I made a run for it. I dashed toward the emergency exit at the opposite end of the hallway. There was another man waiting outside my apartment.

  I yanked the emergency door open and took the steps down, two at a time. My heart hammered wildly in my chest, and my throat ran dry. I heard them clattering down the steps behind me.

  I can’t outrun them.

  Starting to panic, I missed a few steps and skidded painfully on the sharp edges of the concrete. I righted myself quickly and kept going, racing down as fast as I could go. I guess I was less than a couple yards ahead of them the whole way. Had they been yelling or shouting at me it may have helped, but it was their silence, even as they ran, that made my blood run cold. Professionals.

  The exit lay ahead of me, and I wanted to cry with relief as it came into sight. I at least had a chance.

  Flying through it, I heard the door bash angrily against the brick wall. I leapt out from the top landing, and smashed into the body of a third man. As he caught me, his vice-like grip tightened around my neck. I struggled in his arms with what little energy I had left.

  Something hard slammed into the back of my head. For a brief moment I felt like my brain exploded. Bright lights danced screaming in my line of vision.

  And then nothing.

  Chapter ten

  Dinner last night had been amazing. Just being close to her, breathing in her scent, watching her sweet lips as they formed a smile. I hadn’t wanted it to end. When I’d held her in my arms, it took everything in me to slow down. I desperately wanted to make love to her, to bury myself in her warmth, to pleasure her until I could feel her explode in release.

  I’d had to cool it though. She was human. Humans didn’t feel the same kind of intensity for their mates that shifters felt. I’d known the moment I touched her in the forest that she was mine.

  It hadn’t been difficult setting events in motion so that I could see her again. It was simply a matter of getting my investigator to track her down using her friends license plate numbers, then hiring her PR firm.

  Now, I’d have to prove my worthiness to her- and have patience. Allow her feelings to develop. And, at some point I needed to reveal my bear without her riling in disgust or running scared. Simple. Not so simple.

  This morning I’d had to go for a ten mile run just to try and keep my bear sated and beneath my skin.

  When I got back to the apartment to shower and change, my brother languishing on the sofa didn’t help my mood. I considered his presence to be an unnecessary pain in my ass. He had a home of his own to go to – albeit a crappy shitstain that stunk of take-out, but that was his problem, not mine.

  Evidently my housekeeper, Lucinda, agreed. She kept muttering under her breath as she went from room to room trying to vacuum up the crumbs and collect the empty beer bottles he left in his wake.

  “Byron, please tell me today is the day you’re getting the hell out of my home?”

  I used the end of a pen to pick up a pair of boxer shorts that he’d left strewn over the coffee table. The kid was disgusting.

  “I can’t go home. I’m telling you, the Bow Mar clan has it in for me. It’s not safe,” he groaned from under a blanket, “And, what time is it anyway?”

  “Time you got out of bed,” I muttered, downing some black coffee before I had the urge to do more damage to his already broken arm.

  “It’s not like you haven’t got the space. I swear Nathan, you’re one cold-hearted motherfucker.”

  I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. Byron had a convenient habit of forgetting those times I did things to help him, and holding onto the times when I’d decided enough was enough and pushed him to stand on his own two feet.

  We came from a pure-bred bloodline of Colorado’s most powerful shifter clan, and had he in anyway been inclined to work for it, my brother could have had all the wealth and power that he wanted. Instead, he chose to get drunk. And high. And drunker.

  “I’ve got to be in the office in five. You want me to take you anywhere?” I offered.

  “No man, I’m telling you - they’re out to get me. I’ll be a dead man.”

  “Byron, it’s your own goddamn fault. I swear, next time you get into a fight with a Bow Mar, I am not going to be around to help out.”

  The Bow Mar clan were another of Colorado’s old shifting families. There had been years of antagonism between the two clans, that in the last decade I had been doing my best to smooth over.

  They were a mean bunch, vicious, cruel, and entitled. They spent years terrorizing the Littleton district till we eventually came to a peaceful agreement, which cost me millions. To have my brother’s antics threaten to mess it up when we were experiencing our first few years of peace was infuriating.

  “Whatever. They started it,” Byron retorted, “I just refused to back down. That jerk got what was coming -”

  “What was coming? That jerk got away clean. You’re the one with the broken arm,” I laughed at him, “Anyway, I’m leaving and I’m calling Lucinda at lunch time. If you’re not out I’m coming home to drag your ass out.”

  He mumbled an expletive under his breath which I ignored.

  I drove to work, blasting an oldies station so loud that the body of my car shook. For some reason, it was the only way I could actually focus, by drowning out everything else.

  The office was calling my cell, but I ignored it. Whatever it was, it could wait till I arrived.

  Chloe. My bear wanted her so badly. I wanted her. The whole thing was unusual, a human and a shifter creating such a bond. I’d slept with countless human women before. None of them had called to my bear – none had produced the same effect on me that Chloe did just by smiling, just by walking across a gas station parking lot in short shorts.

  Fuck.

  I punched the steering wheel. I wasn’t a man who harbored an abundance of patience. When I wanted something, I got it.

  I wanted Chloe.

  Some asshole in a Hummer ripped past me, laying on his horn. I realized I’d been stopped at a green light. I really was losing my mind over her. I cut the music and drove the rest of the way to work in silence.

  As I pulled into the underground garage, Elle came running toward me.

  “Nathan, Nathan – shit – something’s happened!”

  Her face was ghostly pale, and she reeked of fear.

  “Elle – calm down, what’s happened?”

  “It’s the Bow Mar’s – they’ve got your date, Chloe,” she took a deep shuddering breath, “They said you need to come alone to meet them, or they’ll kill her. I’m so sorry!” She cried out in anguish.

  “It’s okay, Elle.” I tried my best to comfort her. Inside, I’d turned to stone.

  Fear ran through me, shutting down any emotion and letting an icy rage take over. I would arrive alone. But it wouldn’t stop me from ripping each and every one of those bastards to shreds. If they had so much as harmed a hair on her head, I would annihilate their entire clan.

  “Where did they say to go?” I asked calmly.

  Elle looked up at me, wide eyed in shock.

  “There’s an old barn on South Summer road. They said you’d know it,” she whispered, drying her tears and trying to match my composure.<
br />
  “I know it.”

  I did. It had been the place where shifter feuds where once resolved through fights to the death. Well, if that’s what Bow Mar wanted, that’s what they would get.

  Chapter eleven

  I didn’t know how long I’d been out, or where I was, but a shooting pain throbbed in my temple. Looking around the room, I assumed I was in a basement of some kind, but it was too dark to be sure.

  Above me, I heard footsteps, a low murmur of voices, and the occasional shout of laughter. I didn’t know, and couldn’t even begin to imagine, who these men were or what they wanted with me. The only thing I knew for sure was that I’d been specifically targeted. They had known where I lived, and had hunted me down with purpose. But, why?

  The room was cold and dank, and I had no coat or sweater to keep me warm. I sat in the corner, too frightened to move around, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  Just as I was beginning to make out the shapes of what I guessed to be farming equipment in the far corner, light flooded the room.

  Two of the men who had attacked me walked in. They turned on the light, a dim, solitary bulb that hung naked in the middle of the room. Beneath it they set out chairs and an old wooden crate.

  “Why am I here?” I asked eventually, watching them move about the room as if I didn’t exist.

  They ignored my question. They ignored me. Not even once did they glance in my direction. One of the men took out a deck of cards whilst the other popped open a beer.

  “Please – what’s going on, goddammit!”

  The silence was starting to gnaw away at me, like I was losing my grip on reality. I didn’t understand how I’d been out on a date on a summer evening, dizzy with lust and longing, and had now been transported into a hell that made no rational sense.

  “Lady, keep your mouth shut.”