Shifter Country Bears: The Complete Collection

by Roxie Noir

  Daniel didn’t say anything as he unfurled the fabric in his hands. It was a long flannel robe, so big that it fell to the floor and probably could have wrapped around her twice, and Charlie was no twig.

  She inhaled sharply as the material brushed over her back, but then Daniel was there, his hand on hers, holding her upright.

  “Sorry,” she whispered.

  He didn’t say anything, but he straightened the neck of the robe, then tied it around her as best he could without the belt digging into her back. The flannel was warmer than Charlie expected, and she finally felt herself begin to relax.

  I still wish they’d talk more, she thought. This is a little weird.

  “Dinner,” Kade said again, his voice lower this time.

  “What is it?” Charlie managed to ask.

  “My mom’s rabbit stew,” Kade said. Then he turned his back to her and walked back into the kitchen, the line of his shoulders straight and hard.

  Charlie closed her eyes.

  Don’t cry, she told herself. No matter how much it fucking hurts and how mean you think he is, don’t you fucking cry.

  “Will you help me?” she asked Daniel. “Walking is kind of hard right now.”

  “Of course,” he said, and took her hand.

  Then something crossed his face, and he looked over at the table.

  “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll bring you stew. I think that’s easier?”

  Charlie just nodded, totally exhausted from standing on her own for a few minutes. Daniel walked her to the table, still stained with her blood, and she sat down, practically hanging on his arm for support.

  She didn’t even say anything about the blood. At that point, she felt utterly beyond caring if her own blood was on the table where she ate.

  Hell, she was alive. What else even mattered?

  Daniel caught her looking, and frowned for a moment.

  “Hunter cleaned everything up pretty good while you were out,” he started.

  “How long was I out?”

  “A couple hours,” Daniel said. “It’s pretty late now. Almost midnight.”

  Learning that only made Charlie even more tired.

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  “I’ll be right back,” Daniel told her, and left the room again.

  Charlie managed to prop her elbows on the table, staring around the room while they were gone.

  For the first time, she really took the place in.

  Then she began to wonder where on earth she’d found herself.

  At one end of the room, which seemed to be some sort of combination dining room and sitting room, was the big, stone fireplace. It was beautiful and well-made, at least as far as she could tell, but she wasn’t an expert on fireplaces. There was something homemade about it, though. It wasn’t exactly uniform, the stones a little unevenly spaced, the whole thing not exactly symmetrical.

  As she looked around, Charlie realized that everything in the room was like that: the wooden table she’d been on was beautiful, but the edges flowed with the natural grain of the wood, rather than being perfectly straight.

  The walls themselves had the same quality, giving the cabin the impression that it had grown, rather than been constructed. The furniture was mostly wood and had the same organic, flowing, beautiful quality to it.

  Whoever made this is very, very good at it, she thought. Well, maybe not at fireplaces, but who cares.

  Opposite the fireplace were huge bay windows, looking out onto a small clearing, though it was too dark to see anything outside. Still, Charlie stared.

  There could be wolves, she thought. Don’t their eyes glow yellow?

  Her skin crawled.

  Just in time, Daniel and Kade emerged from the kitchen, Daniel carrying two bowls of stew, Kade carrying one and a handful of spoons.

  “We even got silverware,” Daniel said proudly.

  It was kind of an odd thing to say, but Charlie barely noticed by that point. The moment that the bowl was in front of her, she grabbed a spoon and started shoveling the stew into her mouth, one shaking hand gripping the spoon in her fist.

  She knew she probably looked like an animal, but if anyone was going to be okay with that, it was these guys.

  They, on the other hand, seemed to be making an effort to be polite in front of her. Kade in particular was spooning stew into his mouth very delicately, making an exaggerated face every time he opened his mouth, doing his best not to get the soup all over himself.

  “It’s really good,” she said as her spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.

  “Want more?” offered Daniel.

  She did, but she shook her head.

  “I better not.”

  “Why?” asked Kade, bewilderment in his voice as he looked her up and down.

  “I don’t want to get nauseous,” she said. “Remember?”

  Kade just nodded.

  Too tired to do anything else, Charlie leaned on her hands, her eyes beginning to slide closed almost instantly.

  “Hey,” said Daniel. He touched her shoulder gently, and she came awake. “Not yet. Kade made you a bed in the back bedroom.”

  Kade did? She wondered, flicking her glance over to the other man, who was still determinedly eating soup.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll help you there.”

  He had to practically lift her out of her chair, and Charlie got the impression that it would have been easier for Daniel just to carry her, but she walked stubbornly, putting one foot in front of the other over and over again until, at last, she was in front of an army cot with blankets and pillows on it.

  Daniel pulled the blankets over her, then went to the kitchen and returned with a straw in a glass of water and two bottles of pills.

  “Come on,” he said. “Drink up.”

  Charlie hesitated for a moment, then opened her fist and tossed the pills into her mouth.

  If they were trying to kill me, they’d never have saved me, she reminded herself.

  The moment the pills hit her stomach, she felt herself being pulled under, like she was slowly sinking into a sea of drowsiness and blankets.

  “Daniel,” she murmured, her eyes already closed. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

  She felt fingertips trace across her forehead, sweaty hair moving out of her face.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Charlie tried to concentrate. Somehow, this had become vitally important, all of a sudden.

  It’s the drugs, the last rational part of her brain whispered, but she ignored it.

  “Kade,” she sighed, sleep finally dragging her down. “He doesn’t... have a...”

  The last word, mate, died on her lips as she fell asleep, Daniel leaning down toward her.

  Charlie slept for three days.

  The only thing she was aware of was Daniel, waking her up morning and night to gently feed her more pills, give her food and water — always the rabbit stew, always water with a straw — or help her stand up so she could go to the bathroom. Sometimes Kade was there, in the background, standing around with his arms crossed, and sometimes he wasn’t there.

  She knew that some of the pills were sedatives and some were painkillers, and between the two of them, the waking world seemed fuzzy and strange, more like an underwater dream than reality. Sometimes she woke up, something urgent on her mind, only for whatever it was to sink immediately back below the surface and leave her there, blinking sleepily, grasping for words and thoughts that just wouldn’t come.

  There was something important, she could tell. Something that she’d left back in the woods, something about people coming for her, but in her dreams everyone eventually turned into a wolf and then chased her until she started wake.

  Every so often, she’d float to the surface of whatever dream she was having, and she’d over hear the two of them talking, though more often than not, there was no talking at all.

  “Is that the bathrobe?” she heard once. She thought it was
Kade’s low, concise, clipped voice.

  “Yeah,” said Daniel.

  No response. Charlie slipped back under.

  Another time, she floated upwards to hear Daniel’s voice, almost sounding worried.

  “It’s been a day and a half.”

  “Hunter said it was okay to keep her under a while.”

  Silence. Then Kade spoke again.

  “He said she was healing well. No infections.”

  Hunter was here? She thought. He looked at my back and I didn’t wake up?

  Then she was asleep again.

  She woke up in broad daylight, the morning sun streaming through the windows of the back room that they’d made hers. The men were in the next room, but the woods were so perfectly quiet and still that Charlie could hear them.

  “They’re going to come back for her,” Kade said. There was a click, the unmistakable sound of ammunition sliding into a gun. Charlie shivered, despite the pile of afghans and quilts on top of her.

  If they wanted you dead you’d be dead, she managed to remind herself.

  “Why her?” asked Daniel.

  Silence. Charlie’s alarm began to fade and she started to fall back asleep.

  “I think they don’t want humans interfering,” Kade said. “Hard to prove that a wolf attack was a shifter attack. Besides, think of how well they could have hidden the body. Out here, no one would ever find her.”

  More silence.

  Then, Daniel spoke.

  “Does this mean Olivia’s gone, then?”

  Kade sighed. Charlie fought sleep, but it took her over and moments later, she was dreaming.

  The last time she woke up, she was on her stomach on the cot, a comforter underneath her, Daniel kneeling next to her. He’d gotten her bathrobe down to her waist, and he was pulling at her bandages. The pain roared dully through her, followed by intense itching.

  “Daniel?” she whispered.

  He smiled, looking down at her.

  “There you are,” he said.

  She blinked a couple of times, testing her awakeness level. The last thing she needed was for Daniel to turn into a wolf, too, chasing her through the house. She was starting to feel like she was in an awful, hallucinogenic fairy tale.

  “I need my backpack,” she said, suddenly.

  That was what she’d been trying to remember, she realized.

  “I need to tell my team that I’m okay. They’re looking for me. They’re probably out there now, combing the woods with helicopters and drones and stuff. They’ve probably found your house.”

  “Shhh,” Daniel said. He tore one more bandage off, and it hurt then itched, just like all the others.

  Charlie thought she heard a hint of sadness, or remorse, or something in his voice.

  “I don’t want them to find you,” she said. “They don’t know about you. They think it’s just Kade, alone.”

  Daniel raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t exactly look surprised. He looked more like he didn’t know how to explain something to her.

  “What do they think about Kade?” he asked, softly.

  He reached into a big case and pulled out latex gloves. They barely stretched over his huge, calloused hands, and he squeezed a paste onto his fingers and began rubbing it into her back.

  Don’t tell him, Charlie thought. No matter what, you can’t tell them that you know about Kade.

  She felt hazy, but less hazy than she had in a while.

  “Did you give me less drugs?” she asked, changing the subject. She didn’t think Daniel would notice.

  “Hunter came by again, said to only give you half the sedative and see how you were.”

  Charlie thought about it a moment. She still hurt, but she hurt less. She felt sluggish and stupid from all the sleep, and more than almost anything, she really wanted to shower.

  “I feel a lot better,” she said.

  Then she yawned. The paste on her back tingled and then numbed her, feeling warm.

  “Daniel,” she said, feeling her eyes falling closed again. “Why’re you with him? You’re so nice.”

  He stopped putting the ointment on her back for a moment, his gentle fingers pausing.

  His dark eyes locked with hers, and right away, even through the drugs and the soft arms of sleep pulling her down, Charlie knew she’d fucked up.

  “It’s pretty simple,” Daniel said. He still spoke just as quietly, but now there was hard iron in his voice. “I love him.”

  But why? Charlie wanted to say, thinking of the scowling man who sometimes stood in the background, looking at her like he wanted her dead.

  Instead she gave in to sleep.

  The next time Charlie woke up, she knew it was for good immediately. Even though it was night time, everything was crystal clear where it had been murky before: the moonlight falling through the windows, the crackle and snap of the fire in the next room. Even the clean, sharp scent of the forest seemed better, more real than it had in days.

  I’m okay, she thought. She lifted one hand to her forehead.

  Can you even tell if you’ve got a fever yourself? She wondered, staring at the ceiling. Her back hurt and itched all at once, but it felt better — the pain no longer felt like a knife through her entire body, but only like her back was being sliced into.

  It was some kind of improvement.

  Slowly, carefully, she pushed herself up on the cot, thankful for the hundreds of pushups that the FBI academy had forced her to do, and soon enough she was sitting up on the cot, her knees close into her chest.

  Something moved in the dark, halfway across the room. Charlie froze, her eyes still adjusting.

  She waited for the shape to turn into a wolf and charge her.

  I knew I wasn’t really awake, she thought. I knew it seemed too real, too good to be true.

  Then, as she saw more and more of the room, she realized it wasn’t a wolf.

  As Charlie squinted in the moonlight, she finally made out the face of a sleeping man with pale skin and light brown hair that was almost red. Asleep, he looked peaceful for once, instead of angry.

  It was Kade, watching her sleep.

  Charlie gritted her teeth and stood, pulling the bathrobe around her. Then she walked to the bathroom very, very slowly, but by herself.

  6

  Kade

  Kade snapped awake the moment the cot creaked. Even though it hardly made a noise, he was so on edge, even in his sleep that it woke him instantly. The past few nights Charlie had been so deeply asleep that she’d barely moved at all, and he’d gotten used to waking up several times each night and walking over to her, just to make sure she was still breathing.

  He slept on the floor near her because he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. The wolves could come back any time for her, and when that happened, he was going to be there. And he was going to go down fighting.

  Charlie sat up, slowly, a tiny noise of pain escaping from her throat, and Kade squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his breathing to slow. She couldn’t know that he was awake, or that he felt the pull to watch over her, day and night.

  If she knew, she could use it against him, or worse, against Olivia.

  Just because he wanted her didn’t mean he trusted her. She’d lied about what she was doing in the woods. She hadn’t realized that he saw her point a rifle at him, even if it had been a rifle loaded with a tranq dart.

  With a deep breath and more creaking from the cot, Charlie stood slowly, wrapping Daniel’s bathrobe around her, wincing when she pulled the belt tight. Then she walked, very carefully, to the bathroom.

  Kade pretended to be asleep again, but it wasn’t until after Charlie was safely in bed, her breathing even, that he actually fell asleep himself.

  He snapped awake again the moment the sun heaved itself over the horizon, just like he always did. Even though he couldn’t see it from where he lay, he knew, with some kind of finely-honed, animal instinct.

  Kade was glad to be awake. He’d been having the dream
again. It was the same every time: his armored truck rolling through the desert. Him jumping off, then jogging thirty yards to take a piss in the dust. The truck lurching forward, his crew teasing him, pretending they were going to leave him there. Him shouting and flipping them off, good-naturedly.

  All of them in a great mood, because there was only a week left in their deployment.

  Then the explosion, the truck flipping over and bursting into flame, the shockwave hitting Kade as he zipped his pants. It knocked him twelve yards backward.

  In the dream, that was always where he woke up.

  He lay perfectly still on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, and went through his mental calming checklist.

  You are safe, it always started. You’re in the house that you and Daniel built. He is in the bedroom, probably still asleep, or maybe making coffee.

  He sniffed the air. No coffee. Daniel was still asleep.

  The doors are locked. The windows are locked.

  On her cot, Charlie stirred gently, and he added a new item.

  Charlie’s safe. You don’t know where Olivia is, but that’s nothing new.

  Kade felt his heart slowing, the adrenaline fizzling out of his veins. After a few more moments, he tossed off the blanket and scratched his naked belly, walking to the kitchen to start the coffee as the sun just barely began to peek through the windows.

  It wasn’t like they had internet, and the newspaper sure didn’t deliver to their cabin, so most mornings, Kade drank his coffee naked and stared out the window, watching the forest slowly come alive. He found it very soothing: the garden that he and Daniel had grown, the birds who flew from tree to tree, the squirrels fighting for territory.

  This morning it was a deer in that pink early-morning light. A doe, from the looks of it. She stepped gingerly out of the forest toward the garden, took a few sniffs, and retreated quickly.

  Kade smiled.

  I ought to bottle grizzly pee and sell it to farmers, he thought.

  Actually, it wasn’t such a terrible idea.

  “You might want pants,” Daniel said behind him.

  Kade turned to see Daniel, wearing a simple pair of black cloth pants that hung loosely from his waist.