It wasn’t long before Tom returned with Savannah jogging close behind. Nick brought Jo up to speed on what was happening, and when he’d insisted that she stay behind, she reminded him sternly that she’d never do such a thing.
“Besides,” she finished as Savannah silently gave Dan a kind pat on the arm. “I’m safest with you guys anyway. Any bear could loop around and best me easily alone.” Human or not, Dan had to admit, Jo wasn’t someone he wanted to be on the losing end of an argument with. She knew her way around words.
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Nick conceded. “Everyone’s here anyway; we aren’t afforded the luxury of bickering.” She scowled firmly at him and he kissed her quickly before turning to the others.
“You guys know the drill,” he began. “Stay safe. If you find yourself caught out, try to escape. If you can’t escape, signal for help. Do not, under any circumstances, try to fight alone.” He turned back to Jo. “Stay in the truck, no matter what. If you absolutely feel the need, you can ram a bear or two.” He smiled grimly. “Just remember that Dan’s on our side, this time.”
Dan tried to chuckle, but a smile wouldn’t form. His bear was ready to take off into the forest, tearing anyone and anything limb from limb if it dared keep him from Lucy. His mate, Nick had called her. He couldn’t say he was surprised. Now she was out there, possibly hurting, and he was sure that Lucas and Dominic were to blame. The very thought set his blood to boiling once more.
Nick gave the go ahead, and at once, everyone dove into the brush to change. Dan’s bear burst from his skin to the chorus of snapping bones and tearing musculature, standing to stretch and sniff the air for any signs of his mate.
Nick’s bear stepped from his cover, a low growl trickling from his throat as the others joined them. He was wondering if Dan had found anything, and with a grunt, Dan tilted his nose to the dirt in the direction that he felt was most likely for her to have run.
There, on the north side of the forest, a faint hint of Lucy’s scent lingered behind, headed in the direction of the scenic hill they called their own.
“This way.”
Chapter Eighteen
The pack moved as a unit beginning with Dan, Jo trailing behind as best she could in the old work truck. Dan sniffed the earth frantically, double and triple checking to make sure he hadn’t gotten side tracked. Deeper into the forest, other scents mingled with Lucy’s and with a panicked skip of his heart, he confirmed to the others that Dominic had come into contact with her at some point along this trail before setting off in double time. He knew that Nick and Tom would be working on deciphering the other scents; to him all that mattered was Lucy Winters and the insane brother that had captured her.
“Stop.”
Dan did as Nick ordered, the party slowly coming to a standstill. Dan’s body grew tense in the inactivity, knowing that every moment they spent dormant was another moment that Lucy slipped through his fingers. Something in the wind of the forest shifted, and an alert shiver ran up Dan’s spine.
“They’re here.”
Tilting his snout skyward, Dan scented the air. Lucy and Dominic’s scent still remained, along with a couple others that he’d originally pinpointed, but others were joining the medley while he was too focused on finding Lucy.
Now they were almost completely surrounded.
The truck coasted up behind them, and as one, they waited for the Northern Wind to make the first move.
“Well, well, well,” came a loud, booming voice. Dominic’s voice sent shivers up Dan’s spine, rage tinting his vision red as he fought against the urge to tear off in the direction of the voice. “So this is that pack you’ve been so chatty about, eh cousin?”
“Yeah,” came Lucas’s disembodied voice in response. “That’s them, alright.” Dan thought his voice sounded a bit… off. He’d spent a great many years under Lucas’s tutelage, it wasn’t often that he sounded like anything more than the power-crazy tyrant Dan knew him to be. Did something happen to Lucy that Lucas didn’t approve of? A growl bubbled up his throat, but he quelled it. None of the what ifs mattered, he reminded himself, retuning his attention to the task ahead.
“Huh,” Dominic, tutted, his voice sounded disappointed. “I thought they’d be… bigger.”
Leaves rustled to Dan’s left, snapping him to attention. He took a single step before Nick’s grunt warned him off. The alpha was looking intently in that direction, his stance defensive. Turning to follow Nick’s gaze, Dan could only see a faint shape in the dimness of the tree cover. It seemed to wiggle, but never move, and as Dan’s eyes settled against the darkness of the woods, Lucy’s writhing figure appeared before him.
She was bound, neck, hand, and foot to the thick trunk of a tall tree, her mouth gagged and taped so that she couldn’t shout for help. Standing proudly next to the tree, as if to show off his greatest prize, was Dominic. Dan roared, setting off at a sprint to his mate. Tom cut him off before he made it too far.
“Not yet,” he warned.
Dan snarled, baring his teeth at the alpha in protest, but he knew that Tom was right. Lucy was in trouble, and possibly hurt, but he wouldn’t do her any favors by charging off into the dim forest and getting ambushed. As much as it pained him, he had to wait. Again.
Using Dan’s weakness as some kind of signal beacon, two bears shot out of the brush, lunging at the pack. Savannah took one, while Tom slapped the other down with a large swipe of his paw. The scent of blood filled the air almost immediately, and it only served to fuel Dan’s rage.
“What’s wrong, big boy?” Dominic called from where he stood next to Lucy. “See something you don’t like?” He had something like laughter in his voice, and it boiled Dan’s blood. How could someone be this way to their own sister?
As if Dan needed any more convincing that Dominic was completely heartless, he watched in furious horror as Dominic slowly raised one hand, balling it in a fist high above his head. Dan only had a moment to just make out the concern in Lucy’s eyes before Dominic struck her.
Dan roared as Lucy’s face rocked to one side, lolling downward in unconsciousness. A wicked smile played along Dominic’s mouth as something fell from his hand, and this time when the blood hit Dan’s nose, it smelled distinctively of his mate. Dominic’s sick laughter mingled with the battle that had already began, morphing to growls as he began his own change.
Dan couldn’t wait any longer. With a snarl of pure hatred, he tore off like a rocket towards the still changing Dominic.
“Be careful, Dan!” Nick called, turning his attention towards Lucas, who had finished his own change sometime while Dan was focused on Lucy.
Dan knew he should listen to Nick’s advice, but he wasn’t sure how. Rage coursed through every fiber of his being, his mind replaying the way Lucy’s head snapped to the side as Dominic struck her over and over again.
Dominic was quick to change, rising in his bear form as Dan came into lunging distance. Even filled with anger, Dan couldn’t help but blanch a bit at just how massive Dominic’s bear was. He wasn’t an alpha like Nick and Tom, but he may as well have been.
Dan attacked fruitlessly, Dominic batting away every attack he made easily. He didn’t know what else to do. Dominic was there, right there, and more terrible than Dan would have ever guessed from that night in the alley. Lucy was bound to a tree, and there was blood running down her face, and she wasn’t waking up. Frantic thoughts ran marathons in Dan’s mind, and all he could see was a red mist as his bear’s fury took over him. Even as Dominic smacked him down over and over, as skin tore and fur ripped, Dan only knew how to keep going.
“You’re weak,” Dominic laughed almost lazily, making Dan snarl. “I suppose that’s to be expected. Lucy’s weak, too, you see. Perhaps you both deserve each other.”
Dan’s growl was dangerously low, his paws digging angrily into the ground. “I won’t let you do what you please with her anymore.”
Dominic snorted, a short burst of white-hot breath curling around hi
s snout. “As if you could stop me.” He took a step towards Lucy.
Dan’s limbs coiled almost painfully, springing him upward and forward as he lunged wrathfully upon Dominic. He threw all of his rage, desperation, and fear into his leap, bearing down his full weight onto Dominic’s back as their bodies collided. He’d luckily caught Dominic off guard, watching as the brother turned away from Lucy long enough to see him descending from the sky. The both hit the ground gracelessly, Dan lashing out with tooth, claw, and everything he had before Dominic could retaliate.
It wasn’t long before Dominic recovered enough to shake Dan off with sheer brute strength. The power surge that Dan had found earlier was already beginning to wear off, his cuts and bruises slowing taking their toll on his body. He used the last bit of advantage he had to throw himself between Dominic and Lucy’s unconscious body, his chest heaving as he worked to catch his breath. Struggling to keep his stance strong, Dan rose up on his hind legs, blocking as much of Lucy’s body as he could with his own. Dominic would not get Lucy, even if Dan had to die to keep her safe.
***
The world slowly became clear as Lucy resurfaced back into consciousness.
First came the pain. She winced, her head pounding, but when she reached up to see what the damage was, her arms remained firmly in place. She’d forgotten that her brother had bound her to a tree.
She noticed the large mass of fur standing before her next, instinct and a bit of scent immediately alerting her to who it was. “Dan?” she called, her voice weak and watery. He didn’t say much in return, only a small snuff to let her know she’d been heard. She couldn’t see much of him, but his back was marred with gashes and cuts, and the scent of blood was already heavy in the air. She didn’t know how whoever he’d been fighting fared, but if she had to guess, it was probably Dominic. By the way Dan was standing guard over her, she imagined that Dominic wasn’t nearly as scored and marked at Dan was.
This had to stop, or she’d likely lose her mate forever.
Though straining her neck was agonizing, she peeked carefully around Dan’s broad shoulder in a hope to get a glimpse at the rest of Forest Haven. She counted twelve bears waging war in the tiny clearing, the massive bear that was her brother standing off to the side directly across from Dan, as she’d predicted. Knowing that Forest Haven only had three more bears besides Dan, that meant that Nick, Tom, and Savannah were outmatched by over double. Her heart sank at their odds, until she watched them fight.
The smallest bear was fighting two. They were defensive, but not exactly losing. Two nearly identical bears were fighting the remainder, both of them alternating between two and three assailants a piece, yet they managed to hold their own fairly well. Lucy didn’t know how, but they were somehow winning this grossly outmatched battle. If she could just deal with Dominic, they all might be able to make it out of this alive.
“Dominic,” she shouted, her head screaming in protest. “Go the fuck away. Nothing you could do or say would make me follow you anymore,” she declared, voice strong and proud. She really had come such a long way. “You’ve wasted enough of my life. Forest Haven is my home now.”
Dominic snapped his jaws at her, his lip curing back to bare fangs. Next to her, Dan urgently stamped his paw, dust curling around them as he warned her to keep quiet. He shot her a quick glance to drive the alert home, and that’s when Dominic chose to attack.
Lucy saw the way her brother’s ample muscles bunched and coiled in preparation for the attack. If he made contact, Dan most certainly wouldn’t survive it. The risk of losing Dan because he loved her enough to protect her was too big a woe to bear. As Dominic’s glare flashed triumphantly in premature victory, Lucy’s bear exploded form her skin, the rope that tied her tearing like straw as she outgrew the binds.
The shift was agonizing, bones and ligaments twisting and popping as they bent and snapped against their will. Lucy fell to the ground, barely catching herself as the change completed. She didn’t have time to recover; a moment longer and Dan would surely be dead. Slipping around Dan’s battered form, she stood tall, roaring aloud to send a clear message to Dominic.
“I said fuck off, Dominic,” she growled, stepping protectively in front of Dan.
“Get out of the way,” Dominic glowered.
Lucy snorted once. “Not a chance.”
“What happened to your sense of loyalty?” Dominic roared suddenly, stamping the ground with a large paw before rising onto his hind legs. “You desert your own brother, for nothing more than trash that I’ll kill one day or another.” He glared daggers through her. “And make no mistake, everyone in your pack will die. Especially the worthless human bitch and the scum alpha that mated her.”
“I have no loyalty to you, Dominic,” Lucy growled back, ignoring his attempts to get under her skin by threatening her pack. “You beat it out of me long ago. It’s high time you find someone else to enslave.”
A large part of Lucy protested her methods. For all of her harsh words, there was a side of her that could do nothing but remember the strong older brother that had protected her and had kept her safe from the very harm that he’d become. She longed for those days again, but searching her brother’s eyes, she could find nothing of the person he once was within them. He was too far beyond saving.
A long minute passed between them before Dominic dropped to the ground on four paws.
“You’re dead to me,” he growled, and unlike Lucy’s harsh words, the truth of his hate and disgust in her rang loud and clear. “You stupid, worthless bitch.”
Different from the empty antagonizing threats he’d slung about killing Nick and Jo, the words he’d just uttered sliced through Lucy better than any knife ever could. She felt a part of her heart shatter with those words, the words that solidified without a shadow of doubt that she’d lost her brother forever. She hadn’t known that she’d been holding out so much hope for him until that faith lay broken and beaten on the forest floor, unable to be salvaged.
“When we return to end this sorry excuse of a pack, don’t expect any mercy from me,” Dominic warned, his eyes flashing with a hatred for her that she’d never since forget. “You’re no sister of mine.”
Turning his back on her and Dan, Dominic lumbered off back into the forest, sending some signal that Lucy didn’t see for the rest of the enemy bears to follow. They retreated almost immediately, tearing off into the darkness of the trees before any of the Forest Haven bears could properly react. None of that mattered though, not to Lucy.
Every member of Forest Haven was alive. They stood together, they stood strong, and as the Northern Wind departed, relief settled in. For now, they had won.
“Let’s go home,” Nick announced when the enemy scents had traveled far enough away.
Without a word, Lucy fell into step behind the rest of the pack. The fight or flight instinct of her bear form was wearing off, and she found her steps on four legs to be quite clumsy and awkward. With a passing thought, she wondered if this was how Dan must feel as a human.
The cold reality of her form surrounded her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it yet. At this very moment, she was a bear. She was walking around in a bear form she’d never wished to see again for as long as she lived. It personified everything wrong with her life, only bringing up images of the brother she’d lost long ago. She was sure Dan would be thrilled that she’d finally shed her human skin, but as far as Lucy was concerned, this was a onetime accident. The memories of her bear days were painful, topped only by the way her own brother had denounced her only moments ago. Nothing good came from this form.
She’d never get her Dominic back now, and though she couldn’t quite blame the bear, she felt like if she’d stayed in her human form, there may have been a bit more of a chance. Now she’d never know.
He was gone, and that, perhaps, was the worst part of this entire ordeal.
Where would she be able to finally shed this damned form?
“Guys, the workst
ation,” Nick ordered as they neared the mechanic shop. The men limped inside as the girls began their change in the trees.
Savannah slipped easily back into her human skin, letting out a long sigh of relief. Jo stepped out of the truck, brandishing blankets for them both as they changed back to human form. Savannah wrapped herself snugly in a blanket before looking inquiringly at Lucy.
Now that the moment was upon her, she wasn’t sure if she could do it. She’d had the help of adrenaline and protectiveness on her side when the bear form freed itself before. Now, once everything had long since worn away, she was sure that the pain was going to be unbearable.
“It’s okay, Lucy,” Savannah encouraged. “I know you’re afraid of the pain, but it’s temporary, I promise. You’ll feel much better in human form than you do now, I’m sure.”
Lucy agreed, whimpering softly as she feared what was to come. She hated this form. Hated it. This was yet another reason why.
Gritting her teeth, Lucy began to force the bear back. It struggled and fought, having only just tasted its freedom, but Lucy pressed on. Her bones snapped loudly, the muscles tearing and rending. Blood poured liberally from the gash in her head that hadn’t quite healed, and as her bear’s snout retracted into the face she knew best, the roar she hadn’t known she’d been baying morphed into a ragged scream. After what felt like an eternity, she lay crumpled in the fetal position, her breath coming in gasps as Jo hastily wrapped a blanked around her.
Savannah sat in the dirt beside her, pulling Lucy’s head onto her lap.
“Are you okay,” Savannah asked gently. “The first change back after a while can be a bit… rough.”
Lucy only swallowed, tears pooling freely in her eyes.
“There’s Dan,” Jo spoke, relief evident in her voice. “He’ll look after you.” Jo gave her a kind smile, even though concern filled her eyes. When Dan came into view from where she lay on Savannah’s lap, even he had a similar look on his face, and it only made Lucy want to cry even more.
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