by T. S. Joyce
“Don’t trip,” was all he said before he pulled her toward a line of towering pines.
Jesse didn’t seem to have any problem seeing in the dark, but even so, she did her best to point the light down near his feet.
“Reese and Tarran went south. Ethan is going to search a crossing point in the river in case they switched sides, so we’ll try to pick up their scent going north,” he explained in a whisper.
The fact that a big, strong bear like Jesse felt the need to talk quietly told her he wasn’t the only predator in these woods. Chills rippled across her shoulders, and she pulled the sleeves of her sweater farther down to cover her hands. Jesse’s cargo pants were the color of the woods, but her bright red shirt probably screamed for the bogymen to eat her first. She’d picked it to match her wedges. God, she was a terrible camper.
Jesse paced the tree line, drawing air into his lungs over and over, and she followed as quietly as she could.
“The scent is old and has saturated everything. I can’t tell from here if they went this way or not.” He frowned down at her, but his look was faraway. He grabbed her hand again and pulled her into the woods.
The frogs and cicadas were deafening here by the bank. Over the noise, she could hear the soft babbling of river rapids, but couldn’t see the Snake River. A bird took flight above them, and she hunched her shoulders up to her ears like that would protect her from the sound of the fluttering wings.
Heart threatening to burst through her sternum, she stepped around a log and held on a little tighter to Jesse’s hand. There wasn’t any grass here, but that was likely due to the thick evergreen trees that blotted out the sunlight. A blanket of pine needles covered the forest floor and muffled their steps.
“I spent the night in a graveyard once on Halloween,” she whispered, desperate to take her mind off the fear that hummed through her veins.
“See any ghosts?” Jesse asked.
Her shoulders sagged with relief that he was actually following the conversation. Just hearing his voice, all calm and collected, settled her.
“We saw two raccoons. They stole our box of donuts right out of the car we’d driven there.”
“Who were you with?”
“My ex-boyfriend and my college roommate.”
Jesse shot her a thoughtful look and led her up an embankment. “What was your ex like?”
“Dreamy. I always thought he was out of my league, and as it turns out, I was right. We didn’t last long after graduation.”
“He sounds like a tool.”
“He wasn’t a tool. He deserved better. Now he has a wife and two daughters. He sends me a Christmas card with a picture of them all sitting by a fireplace every year.” She swore to everything that if she cried right here in front of Jesse, she was going to stomp her own toes. “He has a beautiful family.”
“Yeah, well only a tool would send his ex-girlfriend a picture of his new family. It was you who deserved better.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head at his back. “You don’t understand.”
He offered his hand and helped her around a boulder. “Make me understand.”
She wanted to tell him everything but needed him to like her for a while longer. To not pity her. Right now, he seemed open with her, and if she told him her great shame, he’d shut down forever. Which would be fine when they weren’t handcuffed, and she could go back to her life in Portland.
“What about your girlfriend?” she countered. “What’s she like?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Then whose shoes am I wearing?”
“You’re wearing Miranda’s hiking boots. My ex. She used to live here with me. Now she doesn’t.”
“Is she a werebear, too?”
“Stop calling us that. And yes, she is a bear shifter.”
Her voice dipped lower, and she rushed the question before she could chicken out. “Do you still love her?”
He didn’t answer her for a long time. Instead, he led them deeper and deeper into the dark woods. Finally, he murmured. “I thought I did, and I didn’t want to move on because she broke me apart when she left. Now things are different.”
“What things?”
“Shh. Do you hear that?” he asked, frozen in place, his eyes on the horizon.
She strained her ears, but if she was a betting woman, she’d bet her bra human senses sucked compared to Jesse’s. “I don’t hear anything but the wind.”
It had picked up, and the branches above creaked and swayed.
“This way,” he said, and pulled her forward at a quick jog.
Rae struggled to keep up as they cut in toward the river. The rapids grew louder as they approached until it was all she could hear. A thin trail weaved along the bank, and Jesse began to run.
She could hear it now. Someone was crying for help.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, as the fear in the girl’s voice made Rae run faster.
“Help us, please!” the girl screamed at the top of her lungs. Sobs accented her words as she repeated the phrase over and over again.
She and Jesse came to a craggy part of the bank, and Rae stumbled over the loose rocks, desperate to reach the children. She slipped and pain zinged up her leg. She grunted at the ache in her knee and kept on, determined not to slow Jesse down. At a clearing, he came to a stop so fast, she ran into the back of him.
Panting, she looked around his wide shoulders. Something dark and big was clawing at what looked like a pile of brush, and when she lifted her headlamp to the thing, it turned furious eyes on her.
A giant black bear stood on its hind legs and roared.
“Rae, get to those kids,” Jesse said low, unbuckling his pants.
“How?” she asked, panic closing her windpipe until the word sounded forced.
Jesse kicked out of his clothes and hunched in on himself, and with a smattering of pops that sounded like gunfire, his bear ripped out of him. Rae screamed as her arm was yanked forward. Jesse’s claws raked across her forearm, and the force of his change sent her sprawling between him and the wild bear. Wheezing for breath, she gripped the pine needles under her palms and looked up slowly. Jesse wasn’t in the handcuffs anymore. The metal had been mangled and only clung to her now.
The wild bear charged, and Jesse barreled over her. The sound of their clash wrenched a whimper from her throat.
“Is someone out there? Help us!” the girl cried out from somewhere behind the brush.
Adrenaline pumping through her system, Rae shot upward and bolted for the gnarled mass of brambles and logs that had likely washed up in a flood. Her headlamp shook with each jerky movement. Her knee and arm were on fire, but Jesse had told her to get the kids, and if he was going to fight for them, then so was she.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she chanted, pulling at the logs at the pile.
“In here,” the girl sobbed.
A log moved, and Rae pulled it with all of her strength. The sound of the brawling bears fueled her panic. Roaring and slapping, and she knew every claw against Jesse’s skin would make those same horrible marks that were on his shoulder. Injuries that would match her arm now that it dripped with warmth and burned like hellfire.
A girl’s face appeared behind the log, smudged and tearstained. “My brother’s hurt,” she said, voice trembling.
Rae threw two more of the logs out of the way and put her hands under the boy’s arms, then braced her legs and pulled. He wasn’t moving, but he was still warm to the touch and a soft moan came from his lips.
“The bear got him,” the girl whimpered. “We were trying to get in here for shelter, but it hurt him. Braylan was trying to protect me.”
“That bear is going to get us all if we don’t move. Let’s get out of here.”
Jesse had dragged the fight into the woods, but Rae could still hear the battle clear as day. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t just leave Jesse to whatever outcome a wild bear fight would bring him.
“Here, get under your brother’s other arm and help me drag him. There’s a radio somewhere over here. We have to call for help.”
The boy was heavy, and Rae had to strain her legs so they wouldn’t lock up on her. She frantically scanned the forest floor near the pile of Jesse’s discarded clothes and found the radio near a tall tuft of bunchgrass.
“Hello?” she asked. Jamming the button harder, she said, “Ethan or Landon or Reese or Tarran or anyone. We’ve found them. The boy is hurt and Jesse needs help. He’s in trouble. Please! Is anyone out there?”
“Where are you?” came Ethan’s voice over the speaker. Static followed, and she looked around, wide-eyed, as the beams of light from her hat illuminated the shadowy woods. Where was she? In the fucking forest! There weren’t exactly road signs.
“Rae, easy,” Ethan said in a soothing tone. “Look around. What do you see?” The sound of an engine revved just before the radio went to static again.
“The Snake River. We’re right on the bank.” Think, think, think. “We parked by the kids’ car in some sort of parking area. Reese and Tarran went south, so we went north.”
“Good girl. I’m coming. We’re all coming. Just keep those kids safe.”
Crimson trickled down the metal of the handcuffs as she lowered the boy to the base of a giant spruce tree. She raked the headlight from her hat over the claw mark across his chest and gasped. She really, really hated the sight of blood, and today had been bathed in it. The girl huddled close to her brother, a whimper eking from her throat with every breath. She looked around, her eyes huge and frightened, her curly hair wild and whipping in the wind.
“Everything is going to be okay. Courtney, right? I’m here, and my friend is in those woods protecting us, and we have a whole fleet of badass forest rangers on their way here right now. I’m just going to pick this branch up, and you stay there with your brother.”
Rae swallowed a lump in her throat and turned, holding the branch in front of her like a bat. “You motherfuckin’ motherfucker,” she muttered under her breath. “You better not come back.” Her voice sounded much stronger than she felt.
A movement on the edge of the woods had her jerking her light, but nothing was there. She couldn’t hear the bear fight anymore.
“Jesse, Jesse, Jesse, please be okay,” she murmured under her breath.
Another flash of movement pulled her attention, and she glanced to the right. Her light illuminated an enormous bear that stood just at the edge of the shadows, watching her. For the life of her, she couldn’t be sure it was Jesse and not the wild bear. They looked so much alike.
Her arm hurt so badly, but she fought to lift the branch higher, gritting her teeth against the pain. The sound of an engine echoed through the woods, and the bear twitched his head toward the noise. Apparently giving up, it backed into the shadowy woods, and Rae bit back tears of relief.
“Rae!” Ethan called, his voice booming. “Where are you?”
“We’re here!” Her voice cracked with emotion. “We’re by the riverbank.”
Minutes later, Ethan emerged from the tree line, and the branch sagged in her arms. The blond-haired woman, Reese, and another woman, Tarran, she assumed, followed and rushed to the children. Reese called out numbers, coordinates perhaps, into a radio at her shoulder while Tarran, knelt down with an oversized first-aid kit next to the boy.
“Jesse!” Ethan called, pacing the woods.
“There was a bear,” she said. Casting her gaze to the teenagers they’d just rescued, she lowered her voice and clarified, “A wild bear.”
Ethan frowned at her and grabbed Jesse’s pants from the ground, then threw them into the forest. “He’s fine then. Stay here and wait for him. I’m going to take the kids to where the medical team will come in.”
“What if he’s not fine?” Rae asked in a terrified, mousey voice.
“I’m okay,” Jesse called from somewhere in the woods.
“Oh.” Jeez, it was unsettling that he could hear from that far off.
Ethan yanked her arm upward and studied the shallow marks on her forearm. “You’ll live,” he announced, then pulled a tiny, gleaming key from his back pocket. She sighed at how good it felt when the handcuff fell away from her skin.
“Aren’t you afraid I’m going to run?” Rae asked, defeated.
Ethan’s eyes held an unnatural reflection in the light from her headlamp. “No. You’re part of this now. We’re having a get-together tomorrow. I want you to come and meet my people. Really meet them. This is me trusting you. Don’t make me regret it.”
He leaned down and picked up the boy. Tarran walked beside him, holding a wad of bandages to the boy’s chest. The girl, small and frightened looking, followed Ethan closely.
Reese lifted Rae’s arm much more gently than Ethan had and examined it. Her blond hair fell forward, hiding her face. “He doesn’t give his trust easily.” She lifted kind eyes to Rae’s and smiled. “You did well tonight and impressed my mate. His animal just won’t let him admit it out loud is all. Jesse will be here soon. I can hear him coming.” She squeezed the uninjured part of Rae’s arm and whispered, “Take care with him, Rae. He’s a good one.” Then, she turned and strode off after the other rangers.
When Jesse walked out of the shadows, Rae wanted to collapse to her knees with relief. He’d scared her so badly, and not just because he meant safety for her, but because she cared if he was okay.
She couldn’t even see any new injuries on him, and a sob filled her throat as she lurched toward him.
His eyes were so worried and serious as he caught her and lifted her off her feet. “I hurt you,” he murmured against her neck.
“You didn’t mean to,” she said, squeezing her eyes tightly closed and hugging his neck harder. He smelled like pine needles and animal, and she wanted to commit it to memory. It felt so damned good to be in his arms—to feel safe.
Easing back, he shook his head slowly, looking at her as if he couldn’t believe she was still here. “What are you doing to me?” he rasped.
His lips crashed down on hers, and she pulled him closer, opening her mouth. His tongue brushed against hers, and he set her on her feet, then rocked her backward until her back was against a tree. Everything hurt, and the bark was rough against her back, but she couldn’t stop herself from touching him if she tried right now. He was everything, consuming her, burning her up from the inside out as he kissed her.
What had she done to him? It was Jesse who was setting a change through her that she was helpless to stop. She felt strong with him, challenged by him, and when he looked at her like this, with his eyes churning silver and inhuman, she couldn’t help but feel beautiful.
His thumb brushed her bare skin under the hem of her shirt, and with a frustrated sound, she lifted her sweater over her head. Jesse’s hand brushed her back. Snick. Her bra fell forward and she allowed it to slide down her arms and drop to the ground beside their feet.
Dropping his gaze, Jesse’s eyes widened and looked nothing short of hungry as she stood vulnerable before him. His hands cupped the fullness of her breasts, and he lifted his eyes back to hers. For a moment, this strapping, invincible man looked defenseless.
“What about the bear?” she asked. “Will he come back?”
“My bear is still here, and the other is dead. We don’t let man-eaters live.” Jesse’s voice was different now, lower and gravelly. Sexy.
A strand of his auburn hair fell over his face, and as she brushed it out of the way with her fingertip, he closed his eyes.
“You don’t have to hide from me,” she murmured.
His breath shook, and his rigid muscles twitched as she smoothed her palm over his heartbeat. His erection pressed through his pants against her hips, and she felt reckless for more of him. She’d never had a one-night-stand before, hadn’t even considered one, but Jesse was different. Their fates weren’t linked, and it felt tragic, but if they only had a short time together, she wanted all of him. It wo
uld hurt to leave him, and this would change everything, but her heart was in this. She cared about him so much already.
He opened his eyes slowly and let her see him. Really see him. Face tense, teeth gritted, and those eyes… His eyes couldn’t pass for human as they were. He was beautiful.
“Did that bear hurt you?” she asked.
“No. I just couldn’t bring myself to kill it in front of you. I pulled the fight into the woods so you wouldn’t…”
“So I wouldn’t see how you can be.”
He rested his forehead against hers and exhaled a long breath. “Yeah.”
She brushed her finger against his cheek as he eased back and searched her eyes. He wouldn’t find fear there though, only adoration. “You don’t scare me anymore.”
He huffed a breath and the muscles under her palm relaxed. “I’d never want you to be. I’d never hurt you, Rae.” He lifted her marked arm, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Not on purpose.”
It sounded like an oath to protect her heart as well as her body, and she melted against him. “Jesse?”
“Yeah?”
“I need…” How did she explain to a man who was supposed to be a stranger that her heart was filled with him?
“You feel it, too?”
“What is it?”
“Something I thought I’d never have.” His lips brushed hers again, less urgent this time. “Something I’ve always wanted.”
It felt important, and with every kiss, her heart tethered to him more completely. It didn’t matter that tomorrow would be different, or that when Ethan told her to leave Jesse behind, her heart would hurt to go.
All that mattered was right now in Jesse’s arms.
All that mattered was feeling this connection she’d been scared she was incapable of.
As he lowered his head and drew her sensitive nipple into his mouth, she groaned and arched her neck back. Every lap of his tongue brought more heat to her middle until it pooled between her legs. When he angled his head and gave the same attention to her other breast, she brushed her fingers through his hair and gave a private smile. It was just as soft as she’d imagined.