by T. S. Joyce
“Obviously.” She looked around the room, at the taxidermy moose head over the stone fireplace, the mismatched, ancient leather couches, and knitted bear pillows that sat in disarray on the cushions. There was a coat rack, but it only hung one jacket. “Where’s Trigger?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Don’t get a crush on that man.” Colton’s voice had gone so serious she spun and stared at him. His eyes looked strange. It bothered her she didn’t recognize his eyes anymore. The smile lines had disappeared from his face completely. He didn’t look like the good-humored brother she had left all those years ago. Right now, he looked different. He looked…fierce. Intimidating. Harsh.
“I don’t have a crush,” she murmured. “He’s not my type.”
“What’s your type these days, sis? Because I remember you liked a challenge in school. You liked them bad boys.” He jammed his spoon at the front window. “That mess is on a whole different level. He just got out of jail for the third time, Ava. You’re safe in this house, but don’t let yourself get attached to that man. You understand?”
Trigger was out on the front porch on a swing, elbows on his knees, looking down at where his hands cupped a can of food. He rocked gently. His head jerked once, twice, like he had a twitch, and his lips moved as if he was talking to himself.
Unable to take her eyes from him, she asked softly, “What did he go to jail for?”
“Fighting.”
“Fighting who?”
“The whole damn town.” Colton held her gaze a moment longer, then gave her his back and returned to eating. She’d been dismissed. Sometimes he reminded her so much of their dad. Just the memory of him made her feel hollow inside. She hated it here. She’d worked so hard to bury thoughts of her past, but this town was full of ghosts. Full of memories. Full of regrets and things she never wanted to think about again.
With a sigh, she approached the counter and sank onto a wooden stool on the end. With a flick of his fingers, Colton slid a silver can down the counter that landed directly in front of her. He was a lot smoother than she remembered. The tin can had one of those plastic sporks sticking out of it that made her think the boys had been getting their disposable dinnerware from the fast food restaurants in town. They were basically thirty-one-year-old frat boys.
She exhaled air and then began to eat her dinner slowly. It wasn’t bad, thanks to the steak, and it was still hot. Ava wouldn’t admit it out loud, but it did hit the spot after the snowy walk in. And thanks to her stomach being warmed up and the fireplace heating her outsides, she stripped out of her jacket about midway through dinner. The disgusted sound she made when she noticed Colton scarfing his fourth can down was a complete accident. He didn’t seem to care though, since his only response was, “I have to eat a lot more now.”
“I don’t understand where you physically put that much food,” she muttered, eyeing his big arms and trim waist. He looked so different than her jovial older brother who’d always slapped at his belly and joked he liked having a keg, not a six pack. “So you’re a gym rat now?”
“I don’t go to a gym.”
“Do you have work-out equipment here?”
“Nope.”
“You take steroids?” she asked, annoyed at his shortness.
“Also nope. This is just how I’m built.”
“This ain’t genetics, Colton. Dad was five-foot six and built like Santa Claus. If you don’t want to tell me about your life, okay. I’m just trying to make small talk.”
“You want to get to know me again? Here’s something real. I waited for you to come back here, Ava. I’ve been here the whole time. You’re the only family I got, and you never came home. Not once, until I called in favors and begged you here. I’m mad. I’m fired up. Where were you?”
“You know where I was. I was building a life outside this place.”
“No, not physically, Ava. I mean where were you when I needed you? You could’ve answered my calls. Could’ve called me back. Hell, you could’ve texted me every once in a while just to let me know you were okay. A postcard? Christmas card? Birthday card? Anything, and I would’ve pinned it to the damn fridge.” He jerked his chin toward the refrigerator, black to mismatch the stainless-steel stove. On it was a single picture under a magnet that was shaped like a bear claw. It was a black and white photograph of them sitting beside each other at a high school football game. She’d been mid-sentence, mouth open with whatever she was saying to the photographer, and Colton was looking over at her with a grin on his face as if she was telling a joke. The edges of the picture were tattered, like someone had handled it a lot.
What was this feeling? This ripping sensation in her chest? The hollowness inside of her was filling with something even more uncomfortable. Guilt?
She swallowed the bite in her mouth, but it felt like cement going down. “I should’ve called more.”
Colton’s blond brows lifted high over his muddy, goldish-green eyes. “Yeah, Ava. You should’ve.”
She pursed her lips and rested her cheek on her palm, her elbow on the natural wood counter. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, holding his gaze. “I really am.”
Colton froze, and for a few seconds, they just stayed like that, staring at each other, two almost-strangers, made that way by the canyon of years that stood between them. Clearly, they were both very different than when they’d been in the same room last.
Colton shook his head and made a ticking sound. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
It was a throwaway response, so to ease the tension she loaded a straggler bean onto her spork and launched it at him like a tiny catapult. It bounced off his smooth cheek, and he slid her a narrow-eyed glare.
“Forgive me,” she demanded. “Say it.”
He snarled up his lip as she fingered another bean onto her spork. “Say it,” she told him.
Colton ducked neatly out of the way of the next flying bean. “Stop it, you little monster,” he growled. “I forgive you. Whatever. It’s not like I really gave you much thought after you left. You were always annoying as hell. Apparently, that hasn’t changed. Now I’m glad you didn’t come back here.”
“I think you mean witty, entertaining, and gracious.”
Colton snorted. “More like obnoxious, conceited, and exhausting.”
“That’s not polite.”
Colton tilted his head back and emptied the rest of the contents of the can into his mouth. Well, his manners were exactly the same, so there was that.
She glanced over her shoulder at the front porch where Trigger was still rocking gently on the swing, but this time he wasn’t talking to himself. He was staring right back at her, and his eyes looked so strange. They were a pretty gold color in this lighting, and his dark brows were furrowed slightly as though trying to figure her out.
She gestured him inside to eat with them, but Trigger stood suddenly and made his way down the porch stairs and into the snowy yard. His boots left deep prints as he strode deliberately to the woods and disappeared into the shadows. Okaaay.
“Number one rule of the house,” Colton said in a gritty voice. “Don’t leave the cabin at night.”
“Why not?”
Colton slid a narrow-eyed glare at the place where Trigger had walked into the woods. The light above them made the scars on his face shine. “Because the predators come out at night.”
Chapter Four
This was the part that would haunt him tomorrow.
Trigger shrugged out of his plaid button-down shirt and yanked the white T-shirt underneath over his head. He chucked both of them at a tree, pissed the bear was asking to rip out of him again so soon. He’d Changed last night in preparation for Ava’s arrival so he should’ve had at least another week before he needed to do this. And what was he fuckin’ doing? Night one, and she was calling the animal out.
This right here was why he’d hated being around her when they were kids.
She made the bear worse.
And now he knew exactly
what kind of torture it felt like to Turn someone. A friend. He’d lost his mind and tried to kill Colton, his best friend, and now look at his life. Trigger had completely ruined Colton’s future. And if he wasn’t careful, he was going to ruin Ava’s, too. Or worse. The bear would just kill her.
Fuck, this was a terrible idea. A growl rumbled through his core as the animal disagreed. The beast liked blood too much for his own damn good. And by the way the bear had studied the dead cattle the other day, he must’ve killed them. It wasn’t the Darby Clan of mountain lions that had done that. He had no one to blame but himself. Trigger, the man, had no memory of doing it, but he’d slaughtered part of his own herd. Those cows had the perfect telltale grizzly kill marks. Claws deep down either side of the spine and deep bite marks right beside them. He hunted them and grabbed them from behind. That was his move. More cattle lost, more money lost, and Ava was going to see just how badly he’d screwed himself into the ground. A wave of shame washed over him and brought on a crippling slash of pain through his middle.
With a grunt, he fell to his bare knees in the snow. He didn’t even feel the cold. All he felt was the ache of the animal, the sickness of the insanity that was about to take him, the tingling of his skin as it prepared to rip apart and re-form as something other. As a monster.
Dad always called the grizzly a gift, but he’d been wrong.
He was a curse.
Natural born shifters were males. All of them. Females didn’t make good monsters, but males…well, they suited the animal.
If he bit Ava, she could Turn, sure. But would she survive that first Change? Probably not. He’d watched Colton bleed out and stop breathing. Crimson had soaked the snow. Five years ago, he’d killed the human part of his friend, and still, half a decade later, he couldn’t get the vision of Colton’s dead eyes staring up at the stars. Or the memory of the exact second they turned from blue to gold. Curse.
Ava needed to do her job and get the hell out of here and away from Trigger as soon as possible.
Another wave of pain slammed through him, and the snap of bones sounded in the night as his spine busted and reshaped. Pop, pop, pop! Trigger gritted his teeth and tried like he always did to die quietly. Because that’s what this was, right? His human had to die so that the bear could live for a night.
Ava was so goddamn beautiful. She didn’t even know it either. She never had. Trigger bowed over as his arm bones snapped. He clung to the memory of her face. He shouldn’t, he knew. It was dangerous to let the bear see her, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted to think of something beautiful while he died.
She had short, black hair that she curled up pretty. It was shiny like raven’s feathers. She used to wear it long, but not anymore. He liked it better now. She looked tough. Pretty and tough. He imagined her profile when she’d smiled at Colton when they were eating. He hadn’t been able to stop watching her. The faces she made. God, she was so animated he could read every emotion she ever had just in her eyes alone. He’d witnessed guilt, regret, hope, and relief on her face tonight. Oh, he’d heard their conversation. Heard Colton call her out for not coming home. Watched her react. Pretty, short, raven-colored curls and dark lashes that brushed her rosy cheeks when she looked down. Blue eyes, but not a stormy blue. They were icy blue, like Colton’s used to stay. She had a round pixie face and full lips that always looked pouty. She wore red lipstick like she never expected to kiss a man. Perfectly arched dark eyebrows that told him exactly how she was feeling at any given moment.
He’d watched her like a damn hawk when they were younger, and she hadn’t changed that much in all these years. Maybe she was even prettier now. Curvier. Softer with an hourglass figure he wanted to grab and own. Maybe she was even more animated. More independent for sure, but that was sexy. Ava didn’t need anyone in the whole world, and all that did was make Trigger more interested in observing her. Dangerous game.
“Fuck,” he gritted out as his body broke.
Pretty Ava. Pretty face, but as the bear took him, an awful image came to his mind. Colton’s face morphed to hers, and her pretty face…her perfect, porcelain skin…was marred by the horrific scars that her brother now bore—Trigger’s claw marks.
This was why he couldn’t have pretty things. Why he couldn’t have delicate things. Ava was tough for a human, but next to him, she was still a hummingbird. Pretty to look at, enthralling, but one touch from him and she would be nothing.
And he couldn’t shoulder anymore guilt than he already did.
So just like when he was a kid, he told himself the mantra that made him leave her alone.
She deserves a normal life, and you destroy everything. For once, do something good. Leave that girl alone.
And then the bear exploded out of him with a horrific and triumphant roar, and in the seconds before Trigger ceased to exist, he prayed like always that the bear would stay away from the cabin.
Chapter Five
Okay, Ava was officially worried about Trigger. Colton had gone to his little cabin right before the snow hit, but now it had turned into a blizzard. Trigger had been right earlier about the storm. This was white-out bad, though, and he still wasn’t back inside.
She thought she saw movement and squinted out the front window, but nope, it was just more snow. Crap. Maybe she should call the police. Colton had promised her he was fine, but the windchill had it way below freezing, and how could he see in this weather? Maybe Trigger was lost or hurt.
Not that she cared.
No, scrap that, she did care. He was a person. Even if he was rude and weird, she didn’t wish him dead by hypothermia, a broken leg in a blizzard, or getting eaten by a bear or a wolf pack, or a mountain lion, or something. There were a lot of ways to die out here.
She should definitely call the police. Ava shoved off the couch by the front window and motored down the hallway, her rainbow-colored fuzzy socks slipping and sliding on the wood floors in her hurry. She’d forgotten to pack her dang pajama pants, so she was currently wearing a tank top, fuzzy socks, a pair of bright red panties and a robe that she had kept tightly tied around herself just in case Trigger came back in unexpectedly. Right now, though…she had this awful feeling in her gut he wasn’t coming back to his cabin at all, so she didn’t care that the hem of her robe flapped behind her as she made her way into her room and ripped the cell phone off the charger.
Zero bars, zero service, and even standing on the bed, she couldn’t get a call out. Crappity-crap.
What should she do?
Plan A: Bolt onto the porch and yell his name so he could find the cabin through the snow.
Boom. Survivalist.
Ava made her way to the porch, remembered belatedly about Colton’s warning about predators, did an about-face, grabbed an iron poker from the fireplace, and stood on the front porch heaving panicked breaths. And then she sucked that frigid mountain air into her lungs and yelled Trigger’s name as loud and as long as she could. Three seconds between sets, and she was yelling again. And again. And again. Until her throat was raw and scratchy.
Maybe she should walk to Colton’s cabin and get him to help. She scrunched up her face and tried to make out Colton’s small one-room house through the blizzard, but she couldn’t see three feet off the front porch. It would be so easy to get turned around and lost. Trigger was no Romeo, and she sure as shit wasn’t Juliette, so she wasn’t dying with him tonight.
He was weird, but he was also super-hot, and the shallow, horny part of her thought it was sad the world would have one less hunk in it after tonight. Geez, what was wrong with her?
“Trigger!” she screamed again in a hoarse voice.
“Did Colton not tell you the house rule?” Trigger growled from right beside the porch.
Ava shrieked and skittered to the side, clutching her chest.
Trig was butt-naked, and holy hell, his dick was glorious. And huge. And half hard. She stared at his nethers like the cool girl she was, and that made her mad because she’d been
out here trying to save his life and now he was dick-stracting her from her fury. That was messed up!
“Where the devil did you come from? I’ve been looking for you! I thought you were hurt or dead or something. And you’re—you’re naked!” Her voice jacked up an octave. “Why are you naked?”
He uncrossed his arms and pushed off the railing he’d been leaning on and gestured to her torso. “I could also ask why you are immodestly dressed out in a snow storm, but I’m sure you have a good reason.”
Ava looked down at the open front of her robe, spied the red of her panties, and squeaked as she rushed to pull the robe around her like a tortilla on a burrito. “I was worried. And not concerned with how I was dressed.” And apparently not cold.
His eyes were glued to her crotch-region, so she kicked at the air and stabbed the log poker at him. “Eyes up here, Massey.”
“Are those rainbow socks?” he asked.
Ava was trying not to look at his body, truly she was, but Trigger’s chest was covered in tattoos, and he had a six pack that flexed with every frozen breath. His arms were huge, his legs powerful, and her earlier uncharitable thoughts about him being hung like a gerbil were completely, one-hundred-percent untrue. “Big dick,” she muttered before she could stop herself.
Trigger offered her a slow, devil-may-care smile and said, “Eyes up here, Dorset.”
Panicked, she dropped the log poker on the porch and muttered, “Righty-oh,” like a weirdo, turned on her heel, and bolted into the house. “I’m glad you lived,” she yelled over her shoulder as she speed-walked down the hall to the tiny guest bedroom.
Panting and her cheeks on fire, she slammed the door and stood in the crevice between the bed and the wall, eyes so wide she felt the need to blink four times in a row. Her mouth hung open as she remembered his big, perfect dick.
Trigger was a cowboy-boot-wearing Adonis. He was the perfect specimen of male. Cocky man with cut musculature that he obviously spent a great deal of time sculpting in the gym, tattoos that were perfectly chosen and placed, and the gold in his eyes was downright sexy, and less terrifying now for some reason.