He sank to his knees beside her, gathered her into his arms and held her, his cheek pressing to hers. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around him, needing to hold on to him, afraid too now as his words echoed in her mind and she heard a different meaning in them.
She didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want him to leave her. And for some reason, she felt convinced that was going to happen, as if it was inevitable, already written in the cards for them.
They were going to be parted.
Again.
And it killed her.
Knox drew back and her gaze darted to the bear and the man again, her mind still struggling to process the fact he was petting the damned thing, calming it by degrees as he murmured things she couldn’t hear to it. Was it a tame bear? One trained to attack on command maybe?
Knox palmed her upper arms, regaining her attention, and she looked at him, felt a little dazed as she gazed into his eyes and saw all the hurt in them, the fear, and what looked a hell of a lot like regret.
He looked as if he was breaking up with her.
She had seen that look on men’s faces a few times, enough that she automatically braced herself for the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech she felt sure was coming. Or maybe it would be the ‘it was nice, but…’ one.
He drew down a deep breath that shifted his chest beneath his shirt, stretching it tight across his broad shoulders, and exhaled hard.
She braced herself, tried to deny the tears that were already welling to the surface.
His eyes darted between hers, his dark blond eyebrows furrowing a little. “Skye, there’s something I need to tell…”
Her eyes widened, his words lost on her as the bear behind him did the damnedest thing.
It rose onto its hind legs and transformed into a man.
A man!
A very naked man.
The huge brute stood even taller than the black-haired one, had glacial blue eyes that held no trace of emotion as he stared at her. The scar she had seen on the bear was there on him too, darting from his left temple up to the crown of his head, and there was a notch missing from his ear on that side. He looked like a fighter, was bigger than the other man, his muscles heavy and hard, making him look as if he would have enough power in one punch to knock a man out.
Or kill him.
Skye looked from him to the kitchen counter, to the half-empty bottle of whiskey that stood off to one side, close to the left wall.
She was either dreaming or really drunk. But she swore she hadn’t touched a drop since the night they had arrived. Maybe it was the shock of everything making her see things.
“Fuck,” Knox muttered and then glared over his shoulder at the two men. His jaw flexed and he gritted, “You two get to clean this mess up while I clean up your damned mess.”
What did he mean by that? What mess had the men made? Her eyes slowly widened further as Knox pulled her onto her feet, as he helped her to the front door, shielding her gaze with his hand. Stopping her from looking at the bodies that littered the lodge.
Was he talking about Cooper? The man—bear—whatever he was had killed him, making a mess.
Or was he talking about the fact that same man—bear—whatever he was had transformed before her eyes?
Oh God.
She looked at Knox as they stepped out into the chilly air, a thought hitting her hard. The idea that had pinged into her head only grew clearer, gripped her more fiercely and made her want to put a voice behind the crazy notion, when the two men in the lodge behind her spoke to each other.
And one of them muttered, “How was I supposed to know Knox had a human with him?”
A human.
“Either I’m going crazy… or you can all…” She didn’t want to say it. She wanted to just pretend none of this had happened. She wanted to go on with her life as it had been. Only she couldn’t. There was no burying her head in the sand and forgetting what had happened and the things she had seen. She needed to know. “You can all turn into… bears?”
Something else hit her as Knox’s face crumpled and he reached for her and then dropped his hand to his side and stepped back from her, a hurt look entering his eyes. That same look he’d had just minutes ago, when she had thought he was going to dump her.
“This is the reason you left that night.” She closed the gap between them, unwilling to let him place any distance between them again, whether it was physically or emotionally. They had brought down their walls, shed their armour over the past few days and she was not going back to a hollow life without him. She wasn’t going to let him give up on them. She wasn’t going to run, even when he clearly expected her to, had braced himself for just that several times since that bear had barged into the lodge. She lunged for him and seized his hand, some desperate part of her pushing her to hold on to him, to make him see that she wouldn’t let him go. She couldn’t. She needed to know the truth though, sought it in his eyes. “This is why you left me, isn’t it? Because you’re like that man… those men… you can turn into a bear.”
His throat worked on a hard swallow and she cursed the bleak look that entered his eyes, one that left her cold inside and had her feeling he was drawing away from her, desperately bringing up barriers to protect his heart.
Because he was convinced this was it for them.
Well, he was wrong about that.
He hadn’t taken the time two years ago to find out whether she could live with the truth about him. He had convinced himself that she couldn’t. He had given up before he had even tried. And that look in his eyes told her that he had spent every day of those two years building on that foundation, constructing and cementing his belief that this thing between them could never work.
He was wrong about that too.
“Prove it.” She released his wrist and stepped back to give him room.
His blue gaze darted between hers and she knew what he wanted to ask her. He wanted to ask her not to do this, because he was scared. He was soul-deep terrified that she would run from him the second she saw him as a bear. He had feared that for two years.
Now, she was going to prove to him that he was wrong about her. Fear had made him weak. It had coloured his judgement and had made him ruin something that could have been amazing, tearing it all down before it had even got started.
When she realised he wasn’t going to do it, she squared up to him again.
Looked him deep in the eye.
“You told me that we don’t belong together even if the universe said we do.” She searched his eyes, catching the barest hint of hope in them. Her brow furrowed and she reached her hands up, framed his face with her palms and kept his gaze on her. “Do you remember what I said?”
He nodded. Swallowed again.
But just as he had that night, he didn’t say a word.
“I’m getting a say in this Knox, whether you like it or not… because this… this second chance we’ve been given… this is the universe telling us that we belong together. You can be scared. I am too… but I’m not the sort of woman who gives up when things get a little scary. When shit gets real, Skye Callaghan doesn’t run, Knox. She fights.” She brushed her thumbs across his cheeks and sighed. “When shit gets real for you, Knox Grayson… You’re a fighter too.”
She dropped her hand to his chest, placing it over his heart.
“I know you, Knox, better than you think I do. I know that deep in here, you want to fight. You want this as much as I do. I’m not running. Am I?” She smiled for him. “You expected me to run and I haven’t. I won’t. But I need to see the truth about you, Knox. I need to see it with my own eyes.”
His face twisted and he looked away from her. He blew out his breath and his shoulders sagged, all the tension draining from him as he closed his eyes.
Nodded.
He stepped back from her and stripped his shirt off, followed by his black pants, stood before her naked and very distracting, and sighed again. The look he gave her offered her
one last chance, an out she could take if she wanted it.
She gave him one in return. A look that demanded he get on with it.
Her mind struggled to compute what she was seeing as fur swept over his body, as it morphed into that of a bear, the whole process happening in only a few seconds. She stared at the big grizzly before her, and as the initial shock of seeing him transform from Knox into a bear slowly subsided, she realised something.
“You’re the bear from the woods.” She stared into his eyes, recalling how those same dark eyes had locked with hers that night. “You’re the one who killed Patrick and then charged towards me. At the time I thought I was going crazy, because you looked so desperate to reach me.”
Before she could find the courage to run her fingers through his fur, he shifted back, becoming Knox again. A terribly naked and tempting Knox.
“I was desperate,” he whispered and reached for her, touched her cheek again and lowered his hand to her neck. He slid it around her nape and held it as he stared deep into her eyes and husked, “I was so scared you were going to get hurt. I wanted to get you out of there and I couldn’t stop myself… When I’m in my animal form, instinct can take over, the logical human mind falling away as the animal one takes control. I couldn’t stop myself from trying to reach you.”
She cupped his cheek as she saw in his eyes how much he meant that, how badly he had needed to get her away from Karl and his men. He had managed it in the end, had brought her through this whole ordeal unscathed.
But altered.
Her entire world was different now. She was different. But in a good way. She felt that deep in her heart, in her soul. From here on out, things were going to be better, brighter. They were going to be everything she had wanted for the last few years.
“I know we’re too different, Skye. I know I don’t belong in your world.” Those words leaving his lips left her cold and she wanted to curse him for trying to bring up that wall between them, for letting fear get the better of him and ruining her moment.
She was having that future she wanted with him, whether he liked it or not. All she had to do was come up with the perfect counter-argument and he would crumble. She could see it in his eyes. He was reaching, desperately trying to get her to break down his defences and show him that she wanted him, that she felt something for him, and that the fact he could turn into a bear didn’t change a damned thing.
Which sounded crazy as she thought it.
But she always had been a little crazy.
“It seems like the same world to me.” She looked around at her and took a deep breath, savouring the cold air, the crisp scent of snow and Knox, and how bright everything was. How beautiful. “Same small town. Same wild valleys.”
She shifted her gaze to him.
“Same Knox. Same Skye. All I see before me is the man I fell for… an idiot who walked out on me. Don’t walk out on me again.”
He stared at her. “Fell for?”
And there it was.
That spark of hope, of resolve. The fighter coming to the fore now that his fears had been silenced.
“It was never a one-night stand to me, Knox. It was never too much whiskey and too many lonely nights.” She sighed. “I fell for you a long time before that night.”
His blue eyes softened and warmed, shining with affection. “It was never like that for me either. I think I fell for you the second I set eyes on you.”
She smiled at that, warmed from head to toe, not feeling the chill of the winter air as she bathed in the heat of the look he was giving her. She wanted to kiss him too.
His gaze dropped to her lips, growing hooded as he gently pulled her towards him.
Skye wrapped her arms around his neck, embracing her future, as crazy as it might be, and kissed him.
Chapter 19
Knox put the black truck into park and slipped from the cab. He squinted and covered his eyes as his boots hit the sidewalk, tilted his head back and gazed at the endless blue sky. Around him, insects buzzed, busy as the chill of winter finally gave way to the warmth of late spring. He slammed the door of his old, beaten-up truck and tugged the long sleeves of his black T-shirt up his forearms. The temperature in town was warmer than it was in the valley still, the added altitude keeping Black Ridge cooler. He had ditched his shirt already and was regretting wearing a long sleeve now.
The people coming and going along the main street of the small town paid him no heed, went about their day as if there wasn’t a bear shifter standing among them, just the way he liked it. He hated it when people stared. It always put him on edge and made him worry that they knew what he was.
He locked the truck, slipped the keys into the pocket of his black jeans, and turned slowly to face the direction of The Spirit Moose. The bar was set back on an open lot, with space in front of it for tables and chairs, and a car park off to the right. It looked like an old lodge, with thick posts and beams that were dark with age and a carved wooden moose head hanging on the log wall above the door. The pitched roof overhung on one side, providing shelter for a seating area on a large deck, and at the gable too.
Outside, several of the tables were already busy with patrons enjoying a cold glass of something in the warm sunshine.
Another busy day for the bar.
He could already see how happy Skye would be, how there would be a bounce in her step and a smile on her face as she worked hard.
It made him smile too.
Several months had passed since she had discovered what he was and she had taken it all in her stride. When he had returned her to town once he was sure she was over the shock of everything that had happened, she had told him to come by that weekend to pick her up for their first date.
They had been dating ever since, with him always coming to her bar and spending a few hours talking to her whenever she had a moment and watching over her to make sure none of the local males got ideas about hitting on his female. Apparently, he was an excellent deterrent. Not a single male dared to even look at her for longer than it took to order a drink, and many of them didn’t even manage that. Most of them stared at their hands or the bar counter while he glared at them.
The bear side of him wanted Skye far away from all the unmated males who frequented her bar.
The human side of him knew this was her home. It always would be, no matter how things turned out for them.
The Spirit Moose was important to her, a part of her life she couldn’t leave behind and he would never expect her to do such a thing. It was part of the reason he had continued living at Black Ridge while she had remained living in town at her bar.
The rest of that reason was the fact that if he spent more than a day or two around her, his primal instincts had him dangerously close to claiming her, the need to sink his fangs into her nape and bind them as mates becoming unbearable.
Whenever that happened, he made his excuses and left.
Five weeks ago, Skye had called him on it, demanding to know why he insisted on leaving her at times—sometimes when things between them were just getting damned good.
Seeing in her eyes that she believed he was losing interest in her, feeling the fear in her and the hurt, had helped him find his balls.
He had confessed that she was his fated one and what that meant, part of him expecting her to end things or finally change her mind about them. Not his Skye. She was right. She didn’t run when things got scary. She fought.
She had told him that when she was ready, they could be mates.
Knox had been utterly blown away by that.
For two years, he had been convinced she would never be his mate, and now he felt agonisingly close to having her as just that. Gods, he wanted it. He wanted it so badly he’d had to leave the second she had told him that and had struggled to stay away from her for a week, giving himself enough time to cool down.
It was getting harder and harder for him to keep his head around her now.
As much as he loved visiting her, as
eager as he was to see her, he dreaded it too.
He strode towards the bar, paused as the wooden troughs that were a recent addition caught his eye. They lined the front edge of the deck and were spaced at intervals around the seating on the asphalt too, forming a sort of perimeter. Someone had planted flowers of different shapes and sizes in them, providing a sprinkling of colour that seemed to herald that summer was here and brightened everything.
Knox stole one of the pink flowers, one that resembled a large daisy with a thick stem, and hurried up the steps onto the deck. He eased the door open, wanting to surprise Skye since he wasn’t due to be here for hours yet. He had been too restless at the Ridge, eager to see her, and Lowe had told him to get the hell out of his cabin and stop bugging him and Cameo.
So Knox had come to town early.
To surprise his female.
Only the damned door creaked and gave him away.
Skye dazzled him with a smile as she lifted her head and looked towards the door, pausing halfway through wiping down one of the wooden tables. Her rich chocolate eyes lit up as they landed on him. She wiped her hands on a towel and jammed it into her dark blue jeans as she hurried to him, her smile infectious, causing his lips to curve into a grin.
He caught her as she hurled herself at him, lifted her and kissed her as she draped her arms around his neck. The kiss was over too soon, ended just as he was getting into it.
“Hey there, handsome.” She gripped his shoulders, smiling down into his eyes as he held her aloft. “I’m guessing you missed me so much you just couldn’t stay away another second.”
Gods, this female knew him too well. Saw straight through him.
“Guessing you missed me too, judging by that welcome.” He eased her down to him and captured her lips again.
He wanted to groan as her lips brushed his, sending heat rolling through him, but was deeply aware they had company.
Skye broke the kiss again and pushed back. Her dark eyes fell to the flower he gripped in his other hand and darted back to meet his.
Saved by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 3) Page 16