by J. K Harper
The room started to haze out.
Breathe.
She breathed, blinked hard, made herself focus. Focus on what? Ah. She pounced, latching her attention onto the two children. Finn and Laney. Despite herself, she softened, caught by them, feeling suddenly wistful. Kids were cute. Fun. She liked kids, always had.
The minute she’d met these two, a pair of nearly twelve-year-old twins, she’d naturally loved them like they were part of her own family, like they were a niece and nephew she adored. They’d gravitated toward her too, instantly liking her back. They showed her all around the Silvertip Lodge that was their home. Oh, they were so sweet. Silly, playful, and they didn’t worry she might be a danger. She was no danger. Not to them. Never. Even bad kitty seemed to like them.
But that didn’t matter. Grabbing the inside of her lip with her teeth, she worried at it. Marisa would never have children. There was a hundred percent chance she’d screw them up beyond repair. Being raised by bad seeds meant children came out as bad seeds too. She’d never inflict that sort of terrible future on a child. Especially not now.
“Dad!” Finn’s voice launched across the barn, pure childlike joy in it. “Catch it if you can!”
He lobbed a snowball directly at Riley. Turning swiftly so she wouldn’t miss it, Marisa witnessed the thing wash over Riley’s face that always startled her, coming from the man with dead, cold eyes: softness. As he raised up a fast hand to deflect the snowball, a genuine smile suddenly crinkled up his expression, making him look less monster-like than she could have imagined. In fact, he looked positively pleasant.
Riley Walker, the shifter with the uncontrolled bear and some sort of dark anger everyone knew about and allowed to exist, was a loving father. It never failed to surprise her. Did his clan know he harbored a raging, angry, violent beast inside him? Did his children?
Before her perplexed mind could follow those strands, Laney caught sight of her and made a beeline straight over, a giant smile lighting up her cute little face. Oh, that girl would be a knockout when she was older. She needed someone to make sure she knew how to handle it.
“Marisa! We made tornados in a bottle at school yesterday! It was so cool! I know how to do them now. Finn and me will show you.” She raced over, sliding to a stop just before Marisa. She stood there and beamed, keeping herself maybe a foot away. They’d learned unasked-for hugs were something Marisa couldn’t tolerate. Not even from them, much as she wanted to.
“Finn and I,” Riley automatically corrected. His face also automatically turned into a frown as he looked at Marisa. With a powerful will, she ignored it.
“What’s a tornado in—” Marisa managed before Finn turned and also bounced over, his happy grin as big as his sister’s.
“Marisa, we have to show you, it’s so cool! Dad, can we show her? Please?” Finn used his best begging voice, as did Laney, both of them giving their father pleading looks.
Marisa felt her cat balance quietly inside her, watching with the calm she never had except around these two children, as she waited for Riley’s answer.
3
Riley just barely managed to keep his mouth closed as his cubs surrounded Marisa like she was the best thing since barbecue. Fuuuck, the woman was so pretty. Why was she so pretty? Why did he have to notice it? But damn. She was.
That little crop of dark red hair with glimmers of gold strands. Those green eyes, almost blue-green, like the pine needles at the height of summer, with sliding shadows in them that said she was hiding big, dark stuff behind their prettiness. Her small body, a compact package, in good shape but thin. Too thin. Those outcast assholes hadn’t kept her well fed. That, or she couldn’t hunt very well.
He studied her more as she interacted with Laney and Finn, a genuine smile ghosting over her sharp little face as they turned back to bombarding her with details about their school day when he didn’t reply to their question right away. Oh, no. Kitty-cat could hunt. Her mountain lion was a lethal hunter. He could tell by the wiry muscles in her arms that showed through the dark gray long-sleeved tee shirt she wore, the controlled energy of her body, the way her eyes tracked everything in the room. Keeping watch. Making sure nothing escaped her gaze.
Yes, she was a good hunter. But the outcasts hadn’t let her hunt enough to feed herself. Riley felt a growl working its way up his chest. Didn’t matter if he didn’t want to trust her. Didn’t matter if she came from outcasts. Shifters shouldn’t let any of their group go hungry. Ever.
He sensed something a little sad about how she acted around his children. He always sensed that about her, the weary sadness. Something haunted her. Unexpectedly, he wondered if she had younger siblings or cubs of her own. The thought of her having cubs of her own brought a rumble into his chest.
Was she mated?
That thought made his bear inexplicably irritable and restless.
He got irritated at himself. This was ridiculous. He didn’t need to worry about the history of some lion shifter girl who wanted to be put down. He opened his fucking dumbass mouth and said, “Are your hands broken too? You’re not much help just sitting there. Fine way to pay back how kind my clan has been to you.”
“Riley,” Abby warned in a low, shocked tone. Anger simmered under her voice.
Fuck. Even for him, that was out of line. His bear snarled inside him, feeling dark and heavy. Shit, shit, shit. He needed to get out of here. Now.
“Abby.” Riley glanced at his brother’s mate, using sheer force of will to keep his voice even. “Can the cubs stay here and help you for a while? I have to go out on patrol. I’ll be back in time for dinner tonight.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marisa startle slightly. Odd.
“Of course,” Abby said. Her voice was neutral too. She didn’t know why he’d popped off, but she was accepting his request as a half-assed apology.
Too bad she wasn’t the one he needed to apologize to.
Abby glanced at the cubs, softness crossing over her face as usual. Everyone loved his children. “I can tell there are two young shifters in here who have a lot of energy to blow off right now. I can use all their help I can get.”
“We can help lots, Aunt Abby! Rawr!” Finn made a mock growl.
“Behave, hooligans,” Riley warned. But he flashed a fast grin at his two mischievous kids before giving them an appropriately stern look. They both giggled, nodded, and zoomed toward Grant, who grinned a drooly little-kid grin at them. He loved them as much as they adored him. Tugging him along, they found a box and started pulling out whatever the hell decorations were in there for the lodge’s latest guest event. He couldn’t keep track of that stuff since he didn’t officially work here.
He turned for the door, aware Marisa still stared at him. An apology tripped on the edge of his tongue, but if he said it now, in front of everyone else here—shit. He had to escape before he made things way worse. He was being an asshole, and he didn’t even know exactly why. She might be a stranger, but that was no excuse to be a total shit to her. Or to be a bad role model to his kids.
Whatever the fuck was wrong with him, he didn’t dare open his mouth again right now. Who knew what the hell else might fall out of it with his bear snarling around inside him?
As he passed by Marisa, closer than he wanted but he had no choice in order to leave, she pushed out a whisper only he could hear. “You just lied to them.”
What the fuck? Riley stopped dead, pinning her with a glare. His vow not to speak again went out the window. “Who the hell do you think you—” he began, but she shook her head, hard.
“I don’t know why I said that,” she said, still in a whisper. “But it's true.” Her eyes were beginning to glow, an indication her mountain lion was close to the surface.
This close to her, Riley couldn’t help but notice something else that pissed him off.
She smelled good. So good. Like jasmine and fresh raspberries and those sweet little oranges Riley kept around the cabin because the cubs liked to sn
ack on them. She smelled…edible. Edible. What the hell?
Head spinning with confusion, he opened his mouth to say something harsh again. Mean. Anything to keep her away from him. To keep her at arm’s length—hell, at football field’s length—away from him. Instead, the idiot words “Are you wearing perfume?” came out instead, like he was some kind of prize fool.
Her brow wrinkled up. After a long pause, she shook her head. “No.”
She studied his face. She was really looking at him. Right at him. Most days he saw her, she seemed to sort of ghost out and stare through folks rather than meet their gaze directly.
For a long second, they just looked at each other. Riley’s pulse banged so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear any other noise in the room. Then, something even more crazy just busted right out. “Well, you smell good.”
The words came out easy. Real. True.
She kept staring, her expression curious but otherwise unreadable. Just as he finally turned, and this time really did stride out of the room, head still banging as if he’d just been shoved face first down a roller coaster track, he heard her soft, bewildered whisper behind him.
“Thank you. Riley,” she added even more softly, like his name was just floating on her tongue.
A weird little ripple of feeling shivered through him, tingling at his skin as he strode fast and hard away. His bear roared in his mind. Also bewildered. Also utterly fascinated.
Fascinated by the sexy, complex, sad little lion girl he couldn’t seem to shove away, no matter how damned hard he tried.
4
Marisa’s head whirled. Everything else around her was normal. The others were all back to laughing and goofing with one another while they worked hard putting up the decorations. She blinked, wondering if the short interaction with Riley had been a dream. But no. His cubs were here. Diligently putting streamers up on the bars of the stalls, following Abby’s directions. Everyone was so happy. So giggly. It was so…homey.
She suddenly felt suffocated. She needed fresh air. Any air. Her cat was clawing at her from the inside, pushing. Growling. Hissing and snarling, trying desperately to take over Marisa’s body. To knock the human out of the way so she could burst out and do whatever it was a mountain lion did.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe!
Sucking in a long, desperate breath through her nose, Marisa glanced over at Abby. But the sudden, crazy desperation still clutched her, making her feel dizzy. Panicky. Should she ask permission to leave? No. She wasn’t a prisoner. Right? Abby had told her she was a guest. She wasn’t under lock and key. Nobody watched her every move.
Okay, some of them did. Some of them definitely didn’t trust her. She could feel it, even though they were nice. Polite. But that was nothing new. Distrust was something she was used to. Distrust was something she understood.
She felt staticky. Like she was about to become unglued. Taking another deep breath, feeling it whistle into her chest, she shot a quick glance over the room one more time. No one was looking at her. No one noticed her.
Turning, she quickly and quietly hustled out of the barn doors that had just closed behind Riley. A friendly burst of laughter behind her, some dumb joke about a fisherman and a crane and some sort of smelly bait that one of the guys was telling the room, made her chest ache for second. Why? The feeling was familiar but at the same time unknown. Clenching her jaw hard, Marisa pushed her way out the door, shoved it closed it behind her, and went out into the hush of the cold day.
Instantly, her cat settled. Angry, big mountain lion. Such a huge animal inside her. Not as huge as Riley’s bear, though. His bear was enormous. Beautiful. She frowned. Could she say his bear was beautiful? Was that the right way to talk about his bear, a guy’s bear? An enormous, strong, raging bear that was out of control.
Marisa’s frown smoothed out as she moved faster and faster away from the barn, toward the woods. Yes, she could say that about him. Riley was big and sexy, and he thought she smelled good and his bear was beautiful. She could think that.
Pausing, she turned around to look at the barn. At the lodge beyond it. Oh, that lodge was gorgeous. This place was beautiful. Gorgeous, and so…quiet? What was a good word? Her head felt scattered. Serene. Yes. The Silvertip Lodge was serene.
Snow piled in huge white drifts everywhere from the recent storm. Pathways were neatly cleared, the road had been plowed, but everything else lay under a deep blanket of clean white. Fairytale beautiful. It was absolutely, breathtakingly fairytale beautiful here. Like nothing else in her life ever had been.
Looking at it all, feeling the quiet hush everywhere around her, the peace of a place well protected, safe, Marisa let herself dream for a just a second. Dream that this was her home. That she was safe here. Welcomed. That she belonged here, that she could fit in.
Her cat clawed at her. A sharp yowl rattled through her head, sent the beginnings of a growl rumbling up her chest. Right. Not for her. This place wasn’t her home. Sooner or later, everything would just get worse. Just like it always did for her. Her home was nowhere and never could be.
Inside, the animal claiming part ownership over her being screamed. She had to run. Now that she was outside, she had to get out and run. Her steps moved into a trot, then faster, as she fled the stifling closeness of the others back in the barn. Their genuine happiness.
She was almost to the tree line, her cat surging inside her, ready to leap free through the snowy landscape, when she saw a flash of movement ahead. Her quick steps skidding to a halt, she peered into the trees with each shifter-enhanced sense she possessed. Her heart beat uncomfortably fast in her chest as her breath snarled in her throat. Tensed, half ready to go leaping back toward the barn, she suddenly relaxed.
Riley. Up ahead of her, moving through the quiet forest with purpose.
Marisa hesitated. She didn’t want to see anyone else. She didn’t want to see him right now, that was certain. But her cat yammered and pushed at her, still eager to sweep out of her and run.
He had said she smelled good. Watching as his back disappeared into the snowy woods, chewing on the instinct to stay by herself and the other, overpowering instinct to keep going forward, she finally relented to her cat. As always.
On quick, silent feet, feeling herself already in the heightened state of awareness that meant the mountain lion part of her hovered just beneath the surface, watching out of her eyes and hearing out of her ears, Marisa pressed forward. Tentatively, then more quickly, she gained on him. He moved so gracefully for such a big man. His steps were nearly as quiet as hers. She hesitated slightly. Again, not wanting to startle him.
But just as she drew breath to call his name, he abruptly stopped, whipping around to face her.
“Are you following me?” Gone was the puzzled softness that had been in his voice as he whispered those startling words—you smell good—to her earlier. Cold tension spread through his words now.
Apparently, this had not been a good idea. Warily, she ventured, “No. I need to go on a run. I didn’t know where you were. This just seemed the quickest way to get away from all of the…buildings.”
His left eye twitched slightly at her. He grunted. “Buildings? The others is what I think you meant to say. Right?”
It was cold today. So cold. Not a single dripping sound of melting snow could be heard. The fairytale beauty of the lodge extended out here into a pretty winter wonderland Marisa knew full well was untouched by ugly things. The hush here at the edge of the woods felt bizarrely safe. Like a refuge that would never, ever let her down.
She finally shrugged at his probing look. “Them too, I guess. Everyone’s really nice, but I just felt—I had to get outside. That’s all.”
She sounded so calm. So normal. Weirdly, she felt both tense and relaxed around him at the same time.
The silence deepened. Marisa studied the huge bear shifter as he stared back at her. The skin on his face was smooth, as it seemed to be most days. For work, she guessed. Even so, she coul
d see the faint shadow of stubble playing over his cheeks, his chin. She figured he probably had to shave twice a day. From observing the ones in the outcast group, she knew male bear shifters’ facial hair grew very quickly.
His eyes were shuttered as ever, although she could see the hints of his animal glowing in them. Deep inside them. His short cropped golden-brown hair was uncovered by a hat, just as his hands, hanging casually at his sides but with a hint of tension she could sense, were also bare. It was, she thought somewhere in the back of her head as she stared at him staring right back at her, one of the benefits to being a shifter. Walking around on a winter day like this and not worrying about freezing was a definite plus.
How the minuses outweighed the little perks, though. So much so.
Her mouth opened before she could censor it, like it had earlier, back in the barn. “Why did you say that to me? I smell good. Did you mean it?”
Riley flinched backward, an unreadable expression finally shifting over what had been his stock still face. He swallowed, and her eyes traced the bob of his Adam’s apple down to where his neck disappeared beneath the gray uniform shirt he wore. When he spoke, she jerked her eyes back up to his.
“I don’t tell lies, Marisa. I don’t know why I said that to you, except that it was the truth.” His words came out softer than before but still cold. Perplexed. As if he was wrestling with himself.
Another funny silence held them for a long moment. Finally, she jerked a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. She didn’t care. Right? “Okay. I’m going on a run. My mountain lion is, I mean,” she added unnecessarily. Somewhere inside her, a part of her that apparently still cared what she looked like to others kicked herself.
“I need to be alone right now. I really didn’t mean to disturb you. I just want to run.” Babble babble. He didn’t need to know this. He didn’t need to know anything about her.