by Zoe Chant
But my clan still lived like shifters used to live in the old days. We didn't have anything to do with humans. I only learned how to read because my mom taught me from a few old magazines she found in an abandoned cabin. We spent as much time as possible shifted into our bears, living and hunting like bears. We didn't bother wearing clothes very much. We were almost feral.
I guess they still are.
And we got away with it because humans never came into our woods. If they tried, we'd chase them out. We were the mountain guardians, the giant bears of the deep woods. In the old days, there were legends about us. Ghost bears, spirit bears. We walked like bears, but we were as smart as men. We knew how to spring traps, how to sneak up on a hunter's camp at night and steal their guns and ammunition. The strongest and fiercest of all the alphas of the mountain clans had the title of Guardian—the alpha among alphas. When I was growing up, my uncle Zeus was Guardian, and I guess still is. I always got the feeling Zeus thought I was going to be his successor someday.
When I grew up, I became the alpha of my clan. As the alpha, I was responsible for the clan's welfare. We lived according to the old ways, and one of the old-time duties of the alpha is to make sure everyone has a mate. In some clans, this means stealing women from other clans, or forcing your own women to mate with people they don't want to. That's what happened to Saffron; it's what she was running away from when she met Remy and recognized him as her true destined mate. But I never wanted to do that. I let the women find their own mates, and I had a rule that no one could bring a mate into the clan unless she wanted to come. My mother had been mated to my father against her will. She came from one of the less wild clans, and she really missed the city. She missed things like books and nice clothes. I'd seen how unhappy she was, and I wasn't about to let that happen to anyone else.
So, what happened is that my sister decided she wanted a human for her mate.
Now that I've met you, Daisy, I know that she didn't choose. She must have been as surprised and freaked out as I was. She wasn't even supposed to have had any contact with humans at all, but she found a lost, injured hiker in the woods, and because she was a kind woman—like you—she couldn't just leave him there. She took him to a safe, dry cave, and brought him food and water. And while she was taking care of him, she recognized that he was her mate. And he fell in love with her, of course.
I think they were planning to sneak off together, knowing I could never agree to their relationship, but some of the other members of the clan found them and brought them to me.
What was I going to do? I should have had her lover killed. By our ancient laws, I should have had her killed too, because she had revealed us to the humans, breaking our oldest taboo.
But my sister told me that a lot of the things we'd grown up believing weren't true anymore. Shifters were no longer hiding from humans. Her lover knew about us. Shifters were living openly with humans. Sometimes they even married them. The world was changing.
For us, the world hadn't changed. It couldn't change. We were the mountain guardians and had always been, and we were always going to be. My sister and her human mate were a threat to our way of life. They had to be killed.
I wasn't going to do it, no matter what. I told them to run and, when they got to the edge of the woods, just keep going. Go find somewhere to live where they would be happy and safe. And then I turned to face the rest of my clan.
They were furious. Tried to tear me apart. A clan turning on its alpha like that—I tried to appeal to my uncle Zeus for help, but he attacked me too. That's how I got this scar. I fought back, but in the end, all I could do was flee. They chased me as far as the next clan's territory, and left me there in the belief that another clan would kill me for trespassing.
And some might have. But, as my sister had said, the world was changing. Instead of killing me, Alec took me in as part of his clan. For that, I'll always owe him. He saved my life and gave me a new purpose when I'd lost everything.
The Circle B Ranch clan—the clan you'll be a part of, if I claim you as my mate—sits between the old ways and the new ones. They keep to tradition in some ways. Alec's parents were very traditional. But he's starting to change, and the clan is changing too.
And I'm glad. If my clan had been more like Alec's clan, then maybe my sister wouldn't have had to run away.
***
"What happened to your sister?" Daisy asked softly. "Did she get away?"
Gannon shook his head. "I don't know. If she's still alive, she probably thinks I'm dead. I don't even know how to look for her."
"But you should," Daisy urged him. "She'd want to know you're alive. And you want to see her again. I can see it on your face."
It startled him how easily she could read him. He was used to people thinking he was unapproachable and frightening. But it was as if Daisy could see straight past all his walls to the heart underneath.
But, of course, she was his mate. That was her talent, and her destiny.
And now she was reaching out with one of her tiny, soft hands, touching the edges of his scar. Gently, so gently, she traced it with her fingertips.
"This is a badge of honor, not a mark of shame," she said quietly. "I don't understand why you think telling me your story would make me hate you. If anything, it makes me love and trust you more. You protected your sister and her lover against the anger of your entire clan. Gannon, that makes you a hero."
He shook his head, reluctantly pulling back from her caress.
"I'm not after praise. I'm just telling you that so you know what my clan is like. The thing I'm afraid of, Daisy, is that my clan is somehow involved with what happened to you."
He told her, briefly, about finding the backpack in the Black Mountain clan's territory, and about the new road and the logging operation.
"If letting my sister mate with a human was a violation of our oldest laws, then something like that is a travesty. I don't know what's wrong with my clan. All I know is, it's not just the Black Mountain bears. When we got run off and Axl got hurt, there were other clans involved, all working together. I didn't recognize most of those bears."
"Do you think the Black Mountain bears are working for the logging company?" Daisy asked.
"I don't know." It didn't make sense, and neither did Daisy's involvement. She wasn't a shifter; if she had an animal, he would have seen it when he looked in her eyes. Daisy was plain, ordinary human, and therefore he could see no reason for his clan to hold her prisoner. And yet it appeared they had been doing so, or at least were working in league with the people who had.
"Well, we've got the phone. My phone, I guess." Daisy glanced at the backpack. "There might be answers on it."
But she made no move to get it. Gannon put a hand under her chin and tipped her head back, looking into her gorgeous eyes. He leaned in, and kissed her long and gently, tasting her sweet mouth.
When he broke the kiss, he said quietly, "No matter what's on that phone, it won't change us. You're still my mate. You're mine, and I'm yours, forever."
Tears swam in her eyes. She blinked them away. "Forever," she murmured, and got up to retrieve the phone from the backpack.
Chapter Nine
The phone booted up in Daisy's hands. At first her heart sank when she was confronted with the unlock screen. But all she had to do was touch the screen and go with her instincts. Her hands knew the code, even if her mind didn't, confirming (if she'd had any doubts) that the phone was definitely hers.
The phone's background picture was a field of flowers, which made her smile. Maybe she really hadn't changed that much.
"I don't know where to start," she admitted.
"I've never used one of these things, so I can't help."
"Really?" she said, looking at him in surprise. "You've never used a phone?"
"Not one like that. I made a couple of calls from the one in the ranch house, but that's it. Not a lot of phones in the woods."
"No, I guess not." Their lives had b
een so different. She might not actually remember her life all that well, but she was starting to remember more: little flashes of a bedroom with posters of boy bands and unicorns, a mental image of a sleek red car that someone had bought for her when she turned sixteen, vague recollections of walking on the sidewalk holding a woman's hand. She seemed to have grown up in a family that had quite a bit of money.
Enough that someone might kidnap her for it?
Well, the answer might be in your hands.
"I'll start with the address book," she decided. Seeing familiar names might jog her memory some more. There was also the possibility that she had a boyfriend, though she hoped not. She certainly didn't feel as if her feelings for Gannon had any competition.
Daisy's—or Jennifer's—lists of contacts was fairly short. There was a faint, nagging familiarity to many of the names, but nothing that set off a klaxon in her head. She hesitated over "Dad" and "Dad Work"—of course the old Daisy had family. Should she call them? Would they have called her?
This made her think of voice mail, another source of clues. There were four messages. Daisy put the phone on speaker and held it out so they could both listen.
"Hi, this is the Red Cross, reminding you that blood donation can save—"
Daisy skipped that one.
The next message was a male voice, one that rang a loud bell of memory. "Hi, Jenny. I know you said you'd be out of touch, but it's just your old Dad calling to check in. Hope you're having fun. Give me a call when you get back to civilization."
The message was dated three days ago.
The next one was the same voice. "Jen, hi, it's Dad. I know you sometimes take an extra few days and I guess you're still out in the boonies, but keep in mind, the old man worries when you go camping by yourself. Don't forget to give me a call when you get phone service again."
This one was dated yesterday.
Daisy stared at the phone as a kaleidoscopic array of fragmentary memories danced through her head. She couldn't quite see her father's face, but she remembered the feeling of his arms around her, hugging her when she was a little girl. She remembered him putting her up on a pony at the fair. She knew, now, who had bought her the shiny red car, and she felt a confusing mix of emotions, love and trust and resentment all mingled together.
Was she estranged from her father? She couldn't be, not if he was leaving friendly messages while she was away on her camping trip. But she could tell that the old Daisy had felt ambivalent whenever she thought about her father. She loved him, but she also wanted to establish herself as an adult in her own right.
Should I be calling myself Jenny now? What is my real name?
"Do you think you ought to call him?" Gannon asked. His deep voice held a trace of sorrow. He couldn't talk to his family at all, she thought, and pushed away the first beginnings of self-pity.
"I don't think I will quite yet." She didn't like to think that her father had been involved with whatever had happened to her, but how could she know for sure? Maybe it was better to stay out of touch for a little while yet.
The last message was also dated yesterday. This was a woman's voice. "Hey, it's Felice. Just checking in to see if you got the shots. How's it going? Stay frosty and call me when you're back on the grid."
"Shots?" Gannon asked. "Do you think you were hunting?"
"I don't think so. That doesn't feel right. I bet she means photos."
She thumbed her way to the photo gallery. Most of them showed pictures of nature. It seemed that the old Daisy had really enjoyed the outdoors, especially the mountains. She'd snapped pictures of mountain valleys, alpine wildflowers, and hiking trails. One picture showed a camp set up, with the same little blue tent that Daisy remembered crawling out of. She checked the timestamps on the photos and found that they'd been taken over the last couple of years. Apparently Daisy went hiking and camping a lot.
Then she came to the latest batch of pictures. These were very different from the others. Instead of an unblemished wilderness, they showed a muddy wasteland, with tree stumps sticking up from churned soil. Big machines, blurred with activity, had been caught in the act of hoisting full-sized logs.
Gannon let out a low, rumbling growl, which made her flinch. "Not you," he explained, putting an arm around her shoulders. He touched the screen with one thick fingertip. "This is my clan's land. I was just there tonight. You were at the logging site, Daisy. You took pictures of it."
"I—I don't understand." She stared at the pictures, flicking through them with her finger. They'd all been taken from a distance. Some had trees in the way. "These aren't just tourist pictures. I was hiding and taking pictures, I think ..."
As she said it, she got another flash of memory. She was sitting in an office, talking to a woman with frizzy red hair. "It might be dangerous," the woman was saying.
"I don't care," Daisy told her. "I want to do what's right."
The rest of the scene slipped away like smoke between her fingers. It was something to go on, though. And she was fairly sure the red-haired woman's voice was the same as the woman on her voice mail. "Gannon, I think this might be an illegal logging site. I was taking pictures of it. Maybe I was investigating it, and got caught."
"Then you were there to help my clan," Gannon said. "They just don't know it."
"I ... guess so." She felt as if some of the puzzle pieces were still missing. But this was a whole lot more than she'd had before.
"Is it possible to stop it?" Gannon asked.
"If they're doing it illegally, then of course we can. We just have to report them to the proper authorities, or tell whoever owns the land. Gannon, who does own that land? Does it belong to your clan?"
Gannon shook his head. "I don't know. It never came up. My clan tried to stay away from humans."
And therefore probably human institutions as well ... such as land assayers' offices. She wondered how many of the old-fashioned shifter clans like Gannon's were in a similar precarious position, not even aware that ownership of land was something that existed. They might be on state land, in a national park, or on a patchwork of land owned by different private individuals.
"Well, we'll check into it in the morning," she said. "That's a matter of public record. All we have to do is look it up online, and if it's not there, we'll need go down to the county records office to look at their files."
"Your memory is coming back," Gannon said softly.
"Huh?"
"You know all this stuff you didn't know before. And you sound a lot more ..." He hesitated, and finished at last, "—sure of yourself."
"Oh." It was true, she thought. In bits and pieces, it was coming back. And it was surprising to her how many things Jennifer Lennox seemed to know—a far cry from the sweet ingenue of a kidnapping victim that Daisy had thought she would turn out to be.
But right now, all that mattered was how uncertain Gannon looked. Now it was Daisy's turn to reach out and cup her hand against the chiseled side of his face.
"You said it yourself, you big, silly bear," she said gently. "Nothing is going to change. It doesn't matter what I find out about myself. I'll still be your mate. I ..." She hesitated; it seemed strange to say the words after only knowing him for such a short time, but she was sure of it, right down to her core. "I love you."
She felt a soft shiver go through him. "I love you too, Daisy," he said in that deep, slow voice she'd come to know and love so well.
Daisy brought his face down to hers, drawing him in to capture his mouth, and allowing herself to be captured in return. It really didn't matter, she thought as his kiss sent a pleasant shiver right down to her toes. A bond like the one she felt with Gannon couldn't be broken, not by anything. She was more confident than ever now that there was no one else in her life, no boyfriend or spouse. She hadn't seen anyone in her phone's list of contacts who gave her that feeling. Her love for Gannon was pure and true, a heart-and-soul connection that she knew she had never experienced with anyone before.
&nb
sp; Their kiss deepened and grew heated. Gannon ran his fingers through her recently washed hair. She felt him grin against her mouth. "Your hair feels great," he murmured, and kissed his way across the side of her mouth and down her cheek to bury his face in it. "Smells great, too."
"Yeah, that's what happens when it's not greasy from a week of camping in the woods," she said, laughing.
"You smelled great to me before, too. You always smell great." He nuzzled against her neck and nipped lightly with his teeth. She jerked at the resulting surge of heat in the soft places inside her. She was getting damp again, soaking the crotch of the clean underwear Tara had given her. How did he always have this effect on her?
Not that she wanted it to stop. Not ever.
"Daisy," Gannon said into her neck. He raised his head. "I want to put my claiming mark on you. So everyone will know. But only if you want me to."
"That's the scar the other girls have, right?" She could still feel a tingling where his mouth had touched her neck, and the idea of having him go all the way, having him take her like that, brought a wave of arousal so powerful it made her glad she was sitting down; her knees felt like noodles. "Yes, Gannon. I want one too. Please do it."
He grinned, a full smile this time, and once again it took her breath away with its sheer, heart-stopping masculine beauty. He closed his mouth over hers, and Daisy strained against him, rising up to meet his kiss.
Their earlier lovemaking at the cabin had been frenzied and urgent, both of them driven by the powerful need to join their bodies together. But this time, the tremendous urgency was gone. This was slow and gentle and careful. Gannon kissed her deeply and thoroughly, running his hands through her hair and down her body. They took off each other's clothes one piece at a time, Gannon carefully removing her dress, Daisy unbuckling his borrowed pants and helping him slide them off his narrow hips. Every touch was slow and gentle, the slowness only serving to excite them both to greater heights of need for each other. By the time he slid into her, she was dripping wet and so ready that she nearly came from the sheer power of their contact.