How It's Meant to Be

by T. S. Joyce

  “Bear shifter.” He turned in the yard and dropped his jacket to the ground, then peeled his shirt over his head, and holy hotness. He had a chiseled six pack, and that perfect line between his pecs, and hip muscles, and lots of scars, but now those made sense because he was her little murder bear. She would call him ‘friend’ all he wanted, but deep down, the secret little hollows of her heart, she was going to call him hers.

  Aurora sat on the top stair of the porch.

  He was wearing a necklace that shone silver. It was a simple silver teardrop emblem on a chain that settled right between his muscular pecs. “Want me to hold that for you?” she asked.

  Moore unclasped it in the back and he strode toward her. She held out her hand for it, but he leaned forward and clasped it around her neck instead. “It’s yours now.”

  Stunned, she lifted the teardrop up. It was warm to the touch. “Are you sure?”

  “This is a lot,” he murmured. “I know it is. Least I could do is thank you for not running.”

  “The day is still young,” she teased.

  The smile faded from his lips, and he looked so striking right now, inches from her face, the sun throwing a halo of light behind his head and casting his chiseled cheekbones in shadows and highlights that belonged on some model on a runway. But he wasn’t that. He was gritty and capable, and handy, and grumpy at times, and protective, and quiet, and he was a trying man. He gave effort, and didn’t just quit on the world, when he could’ve so easily done that after what he’d been through.

  He was a beautiful mess and the most interesting part of him? He hadn’t flaunted any of the good things about him, and he hadn’t told his story asking for sympathy. He’d carried it all these years alone. Strong man.

  His bright silver eyes dipped to her lips. “Don’t run, okay?”

  “Because your bear will chase me?”

  “No, because I want you to stay.” Moore leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. The current was there, and it ached for a moment, but it didn’t pulse like before. Moore eased back and looked as stunned as she felt. He leaned in again and this time his mouth collided with hers. His hand went to the back of her hair and gripped her hard, and his tongue thrust past her lips. He tasted so damn good, and she made a wanting noise in her throat as he pulled her upward and wrapped her legs around him.

  He angled his head the other way and walked slowly as he held her tight against him. His skin was smooth and warm as she clutched onto him in desperation. She’d never been kissed like this. Never. Never felt anything as big as this moment right here.

  A soft growl rattled his chest and she planted her hand on his throat to feel the vibration there. She didn’t care what he was in this moment. Bear or man. He was just Moore.

  He slowed the kiss, lapped at her, tasted and enjoyed her, learned how to kiss her and paid attention when she made a noise of pleasure. She knew because he would do that more—whatever she liked. He kissed down her jawline to her neck and back up to her lips. Slower, slower. Slower still until he settled her onto her feet and gripped her loose hair at the sides of her throat. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, inhaled slowly. The pulse of electricity was throbbing through them where their skin touched, but it was softer than it had been before. Maybe she was getting used to it. Maybe because she expected it, the pain wasn’t so bad. Not when the pleasure was so consuming.

  Moore opened up his bright silver eyes and ease back a few feet with a wicked grin on his face. Then he shoved his jeans down his legs and morphed into a gigantic dark-furred, scarred-up grizzly bear. She would’ve been afraid if he hadn’t just kissed her into a stupor. And when he lowered to all four paws in the snow, he immediately circled her, bumping her with his massive body. He didn’t curl his lips back or bare his teeth at her. He didn’t growl and he was careful of where he put those weapon-clad paws.

  Heart hammering, she reached out and brushed her fingertips against his fur as he passed.

  Nothing in her life would ever compare to this moment. His kiss was still warm on her throbbing lips, and he was staying close to her, allowing her to touch him all she wanted. There was such power beneath her touch. Such raw strength. The crows in the trees began crying their song, and lifted into the air. The sky was peppered with them as they circled.

  Moore lifted his head into the air and stood on two feet in front of her. He let off a warning roar that shook the ground beneath her feet.

  The crows scattered in the sky.

  Aurora shouldn’t feel safe at all, but she did.

  Moore liked her. She could tell.

  And his bear liked her just fine, too.

  Chapter Seven

  March 29th

  Almost time. Getting closer. My belly is growing so much. Do they know how loved they are already? Can they feel it?

  Chills rippled up Moore’s arms, and he closed the journal. He stared at his fireplace, chewing on the edge of his thumbnail. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said out loud.

  Usually, he kept his thoughts in his head, and dwelled in silence, but she was here—Aurora.

  She poured the popcorn into the bowl and made her way around the kitchen counters. She didn’t say anything, just nestled her way between his legs and under the journal. She relaxed against his chest, all splayed across the entire couch.

  “You may continue reading now. Out loud at your leisure, sir.”

  Her hand brushed his neck and a painful spark zinged through him. He jumped and so did she.

  “I feel like friends don’t do this,” he muttered, stroking her hair from her face, careful not to touch her skin.

  “It’s our friendship, we can do whatever we want.”

  “Mmmm,” he rumbled. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he didn’t like that term anymore—friends. And he really didn’t like that they hurt each other with touch.

  He wished she was the one—not just because of the power it would give him, but because she made him feel…well…she made him feel.

  “I’ve never had peace,” he admitted softly.

  She ran her finger down the spine of the journal he held in his hands in front of her. Aurora’s nail was painted a soft lavender. His favorite color had been black until now. “That’s sad,” she said.

  “I just want to keep it tonight. Just one night.”

  “Why can’t you keep it longer?” she asked, twisting and lifting those soft brown eyes to his.

  “Because the crows will be coming.”

  There was worry in her eyes and he didn’t like it, so he handed her the journal. “You read it.”

  “Out loud?”

  “Yes. It won’t be hard if it’s in your voice.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  The popcorn smelled good, and the fire crackled in the hearth, and she was so warm and soft against him. So fragile. So important. The paper of the old journal rustled as she turned to the page he’d marked with a little scrap of paper. She cleared her throat quietly.

  “March twenty-ninth, almost time, getting closer. My belly is growing so much. Do they know how loved they are already? Can they feel it? Cyrus is worried. There are crows in the trees, always watching. Waiting, but we’re good. We’re the good ones. He keeps having meetings with them. Trying to explain. We will raise our cubs different than we were taught. Our numbers are zero. We’ve worked so hard to keep them at zero.” Aurora swallowed hard before she continued. “The crows killed our families. They killed so many, but we try to keep peace. God, let us have peace. There’s something so lonesome about being the last two left. Last two bears. But not now. Now there will be more and we won’t be alone. If the crows allow it, we won’t be alone.”

  Aurora turned the page.

  “April first, I played an April fools joke on Cyrus and told him my water broke. I poured water all over my lap and Lord, to see his face. He turned white as a ghost and ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. This place feels more alive already. Not so de
solate. The boys will be here soon. I know there are at least two. There’s always at least two. Cyrus is working so hard, but there are changes in him. He’s quieter. He stares at the sky for hours a day. He paces the house and checks the perimeter at nights over and over and over, like he can’t help himself. I’ve never seen him scared but I think that’s what this is. He’s scared to lose them. He won’t work because it will pull him away from me, and money is getting tight. I’m so ready for the cubs to be here. So Cyrus can settle, but also so I can just hold them. I love them so much already. I’ve asked Cyrus to hang a tire swing in the big oak out front for them.”

  And Moore could imagine it. He could see the old house the way it used to be. There was a tire swing out front when he was a little boy. His dad had cut it down in a rage one day when he and his brothers hadn’t stacked the firewood like he’d demanded. They were five.

  “April eleventh,” Aurora read. “Two days ago, the boys arrived. I thought I would die. There are three. Three cubs. Now there are five of us. Moore, Auxor, and Bricken. How could I have ever known I would love anything this much? The world around us seems so small when I’m looking at them. Like it doesn’t matter. They are hard to tell apart. Cyrus won’t touch them, but it’s because of what happened the day they were born. I’m still hurting. Still tired. But if something happens to us, I wanted to write this into my journal so my sons would know how much they were loved. So they know how much we fought for them.” Aurora nuzzled her cheek against her chest and asked, “Are you okay? Do you want me to keep reading?”

  “Yes,” he said simply. He rested his chin on top of her head, and it sparked hard. It stung, but only once. He rested there and stared at the flames as they licked at the logs he’d set in there. “Keep reading.”

  “The crows came by the dozens. The whole sky was black. I was inside with the babies, and I thought a storm had rolled in. I guess it had, in a way. I could hear Cyrus roaring. Could hear him fighting, and when I came out with my shotgun, he was covered in them. Birds everywhere. Two of them were in their human forms, running up the steps toward me, their eyes on the room behind me. The boys were crying so loud. I shot them. I shot them. I shot them both. My number was two that day, but Cyrus? His number was so big. And he didn’t come back to me after that. Not the Cyrus I knew. I took a picture of him in that field of dead crows. Felt like I was supposed to. I knew from that moment on, he and I would never be the same. When he turned around to look at me, I thought there would be worry in his eyes. For me, bleeding down my legs, standing there scared to death. There wasn’t worry though. He was knelt there in the dirt, the yard stained red with the deeds he’d done to protect our cubs, and he wasn’t worried. He was smiling. I had thought I’d known loneliness when it was just the two of us left, but out there, in that field of dead crows, I knew I had only just begun to understand loneliness. And I got it. I understood, because right after I pulled the trigger on those crows, my bear felt bigger. She felt…awful. She felt bigger than me. She still does. I don’t know how to shrink her back again. All I know is, if I had to do it all again, and my cubs were in danger from those crows, I would do it all the same. Cyrus would, too. Killing does awful things to the bear. I can feel the darkness. At night it feels like it’ll swallow me whole. And Cyrus? He only stares at the babies, but there is nothing behind his eyes but anger. My Cyrus is gone. The crows did this. They took him from me. They took me, too. They forced us to make a number. I hate them.” Aurora’s voice went all thick at the end. “Your mom just wanted peace, Moore.”

  He tried to fit these words scribbled into the journal with the woman he remembered, but he couldn’t. His mother was savage. She hadn’t known how to show an ounce of love. An ounce of care. He’d known from as long as he could remember that there was something wrong with her and his father. Something really wrong, but was it this? Was it their animals glutted on bloodlust? Was it the animals growing bigger and bigger with each kill until there was no humanity left in them?

  Aurora read on. The entries were patchy after that. Some of them didn’t make sense. It was like watching his mother slip into insanity, and he could only imagine what his tyrant father was going through if she was slipping so badly. His kill number was so much more than hers.

  Moore had always tried to understand the crows, but getting to know his mother and how she ended up being a killer made his blood boil. He’d always hated the Crow Blooded. Hated that they meddled in others’ lives, hated that they hovered and spied. Hated that they tried so hard to manipulate and shape he and his brothers’ future, but before, he’d thought it was understandable, because bear shifters had always killed so many more crows than the other way around.

  “March twenty-first,” Aurora read aloud. “It has to be Moore.”

  He perked up from his thoughts of crow war, and read along with her.

  “Moore is colder than Aux and Brick. He’s more like Cyrus. He sees necessity and acts on it. Doesn’t involve his emotions. He just carries out a task and moves on to the next. Cyrus took him hunting the other day. It was Moore’s first time to kill and eat prey as a bear. He didn’t cry or tremble or want to talk about it afterward. This was Cyrus’s test. Aux and Brick carried out their hunts, but they moped afterward and wanted to be alone. Moore just changed back and asked Cyrus if he wanted him to chop more firewood because the pile was getting low. He’s seven now. Sometimes I look into his eyes and I think he’s already like me and Cyrus. The me and Cyrus that were made after the crow war, and with the other killings. There have been more. I can’t help it. Cyrus can’t either. The animals require it now. Moore will be like us. Especially he will be like Cyrus. That breaks my heart as his mother, and I can’t do anything to stop it. I can’t even stop the darkness in me, or the man I love. I’m a terrible mother. I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep because I just want to hunt. Cyrus is in the woods all night, whether I’m with him or not. All the time, every moment of the day, the bear is so loud. I can’t hear the boys. I can’t hear them. When the time comes, Cyrus will make sure Moore is ready. It has to be Moore who ends us. And someday, he will end his brothers too. I’m glad I won’t be around to see it. The crows were right. We should’ve let the line die with me and Cyrus.”

  Aurora flipped to the next page, but it was empty. She turned a few more and found one last entry.

  The writing was shaky, scribbled. Letters morphed together and were hard to decipher, but it held remnants of his mother’s handwriting.

  “June tenth. It’s been years since I wrote in this old thing. In this old thing that used to make sense. I don’t even know the woman who wrote those other pages. I read them but I don’t remember. I don’t hear anything. I don’t feel anything. Only if something is bleeding, and then I get a few moments of peace, where the bear is quiet and my head is okay. I’m not okay. Cyrus isn’t okay. We talk about letting our bears have the town below. How fun it would be to just let go. So many will die. Tonight we killed a hiker. Moore has to do it now or we will kill dozens. He’s strong. His bear is big. He is cold. He will do what we need him to do. My son. My sons. I can’t hear them. I haven’t heard them in years. They grow before my eyes and I’ve missed it all. Moore will save more people than he will ever know. Right now I have to say it, while I can think. I’m sorry for all I’ve done. I know if Cyrus could think, he would be sorry, too.”

  Movement caught his eye, and he looked fast at the drop of water that dripped from Aurora’s jawline to her T-shirt. It made a splatter mark in a darker shade than the light gray of her shirt. He didn’t understand.

  Moore sat her up and studied her face. Her eyes were filled with sadness, and rimmed with more water. There were tear streaks on her cheeks.

  Moore reached for her to wipe them with the pad of his thumb, but hesitated. He didn’t want to hurt her.

  Her lip trembled and she leaned into his touch. He caught her cheek with the palm of his hand. Nothing happened. No shock, no electric burn. Just warmth and the softne
ss of her skin. Another tear fell and touched his thumb, and he smeared it on her cheek. “Why?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry you went through that,” she whispered, her heart in her words.

  “You didn’t do it,” he said with a frown. “Why are you sorry?”

  “Because it hurt you.”

  He parted his lips to respond, but he didn’t know how.

  “You were shown no love, Moore. You were raised like an animal, but that wasn’t all you were, and it isn’t all you are.” She brushed her fingertips against his beard. “You’re so much more, and you deserved to be loved.”

  “But I killed them,” he whispered.

  “You put them down. It was so messed up putting that burden on you, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m sorry it made your life quiet.”

  He didn’t know what this feeling was, boiling up inside of his chest. It was so big, so consuming. His eyes burned and he blinked hard to clear his blurry view of pretty Aurora. He couldn’t get a single word out. He was feeling too much emotion and all of it was confusing. Her words made his life make sense somehow. Validated his reactions perhaps.

  Someone in the world was sorry he went through what he went through. It was something he’d never expected. Not a single moment in the entirety of his life.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he finally ground out past his tightening vocal cords.

  “Why on earth are you sorry?” she asked.

  “Because I can’t be right for you.”

  She shook her head and huffed out a breath, gripped his hand on her cheek and pressed it there harder. No shocks. No pain. “Silly boy. I like your mess just fine.”

  He’d never heard the L-word. Never. Not once in his life, but that right there? I like your mess just fine? That felt just as big. Bigger perhaps.

  He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, gentle like a good woman deserved when she did something that changed a man’s life. He kissed her until her tears had dried and then he cupped her cheeks. No shock. No pain.