by Roxie Noir
“Not yet,” said Craig. “But there’s a first time for everything, right?”
“I went to one square dance at a different ranch a couple of years ago,” Jasper said. “I nearly tripped over my own feet at first, but I had a great time. You?”
“I used to tap dance when I was a kid,” Olivia said. “I don’t think I was very good at it, but I had a great time.”
“You should have taken that act on the road,” Jasper said. “I bet a tap dancing bear would still be a big draw in the seedier circuses of America.”
Olivia hesitated.
Do they know about me? she wondered. That I was feral for so long?
“I’m not sure I’d have been the kind of act they’re looking for,” she said, trying to be both careful and clever at the same time. “Usually they want more entertainment and less ‘tear everything in sight to shreds’.”
“It’d be a specialty act,” Craig said. “Call yourself the Amazing Tap Dancing Demolition Bear, wear a tutu, and you’re in business.”
Olivia burst out laughing. It started as a giggle, but within seconds she was full-on howling with laughter, leaning back against the wall of the barn with tears coming into her eyes. She was too loud and she knew it — dancers and other people milling around were starting to look at her funny — but she couldn’t help it.
Craig and Jasper just grinned.
Finally she stopped, breathing hard, and wiped her eyes with her hand.
“Sorry,” she gasped out.
“What’d I miss?” asked Austin, showing up with two cups. He handed one to Olivia: hot apple cider, the cinnamon scent wafting up to her nose.
“Tap dancing bear talk,” she said, stifling another giggle. “They think I should be in the circus.”
Austin raised both of his eyebrows, his frame stiffening just a little.
Jasper spoke up quickly.
“She said that she used to tap dance, and I told her she should make money as a tap dancing bear act,” he explained.
“It was a joke,” Olivia went on.
The three men looked at each other for a moment. Olivia sipped on her apple cider, oblivious to the sudden awkwardness.
6
Jasper
The moment Olivia’s companion walked up, Jasper could feel his hackles rise. His bear wanted out, and he had the wild and completely unreasonable urge to throw down right there, right then with the guy who’d taken his mate away from him.
He resisted the urge. It was hard, but he did it.
Instead, after a long, uncertain pause, him and Craig both staring at this guy and the asshole staring right back, he remembered his human manners and spoke up.
“I’m Jasper,” he said. He stood and held his hand out.
“Craig,” said his mate. He also stood.
The both of us could take this guy, no problem, he thought. The uncivilized animal in him wanted to just tackle the guy right there, knock him to the floor and beat the hell out of him.
It was the easiest way to take care of business, after all.
“I’m Olivia’s cousin Austin,” the man said, shaking both their hands.
Oh.
For half a second, Jasper’s mind went totally blank in relief.
Then he grinned so hard he felt like his face might also split into separate pieces. He glanced over at Craig, and realized that the other man was also grinning like an idiot.
“Great!” Craig said.
I can’t believe that didn’t occur to me, Jasper thought.
“I work at the Double Moon, so I thought it could be a fun thing to do on a Saturday,” Austin said. “They usually do a beginner hour starting around now, so you’ve still got your chance to get out there. Assuming you’re not square dance experts already.”
“Definitely not,” said Craig.
Just then, the music stopped. The two musicians put down their instruments and picked up bottles of beer, and the caller’s voice rang out over the barn alone.
“We’re gonna take a quick drink break, and then it’s time for all you new dancers to come on and join us!” he said. He had a gray mustache and a country twang. “In the meantime, buy some drinks and tip the band.”
With a crackle, he put the microphone back in the stand.
Just ask her to dance, Jasper thought. Come on. You’re not in middle school.
“Want to dance?” Craig asked.
“Hey!” said Jasper.
Olivia looked surprised, her cup frozen halfway to her mouth.
“Too late,” Craig told him.
“She has to say yes first,” Jasper pointed out.
“Sure,” Olivia said, her cup still hovering mid-air.
“Ha,” Craig said.
“I could switch off,” Olivia offered.
She didn’t seem like she knew quite what to do with the sudden attention from the two of them.
She was a bear for ten years, Jasper reminded himself. The last time she was human she was seventeen. Remember what you were like at seventeen?
A shudder went through him.
“Fine,” Craig grumbled in mock-irritation.
Normally, Jasper wasn’t a bad dancer, but he was finding it difficult to concentrate. Even though Craig got to partner with Olivia first and Jasper was partnered with a wolf shifter, he couldn’t help but watch her and Craig as they danced, Craig fumbling through the moves, Olivia moving with surprising grace and skill.
“Ow,” said his partner as he accidentally elbowed her in the back again.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Just pay attention,” she said gently, following his gaze. “First date?”
“Sort of,” Jasper said.
He and Craig switched off.
Concentrating got harder as he wrapped one arm around Olivia’s waist, letting her thread through his arm, spin, swing around and face him again.
She was glowing, her face slightly flushed with the heat of physical activity, and the whole time she was grinning like a madwoman. Whenever she screwed up the steps she laughed out loud, her red-gold hair swirling behind her like the trail of a comet.
“Come on,” she teased him. “Ow. Stop stepping on my foot. No, your other hand. Pay attention.”
Her smiled was infectious, and Jasper found himself laughing along with her, even as he got all the steps wrong.
He and Craig traded back and forth through the night, and both of them finally got good enough to not embarrass themselves when beginner hour ended and the real dancing started. Normally, Jasper knew he’d feel a little more self-conscious about being in front of so many people screwing up so badly, but with both his mate and Olivia there, it didn’t matter.
Let them stare, he thought. I couldn’t care less.
At the end of the night, the music stopped and the caller thanked everyone and the three of them stayed in the middle of the floor, Craig and Jasper both took turns spinning and dipping Olivia as she laughed, until finally, they turned the lights out on the dance floor.
As they walked out, Olivia waved to Austin, deep in conversation in one corner of the barn with a wolf shifter. He nodded and held up one finger in the universal sign of “be there in a minute.”
The cool air felt wonderful on Jasper’s skin, and he realized how much he’d been sweating.
“Austin’s truck is over there,” Olivia said, pointing, their feet sinking a little into the soft grass as they walked.
“You know, we’ve still got your book,” Craig said.
Olivia turned her head and looked at him, a smile just barely crinkling the soft skin around her eyes.
“Think we could give it back to you over dinner?”
Olivia’s smile froze, and Jasper’s heart sank.
She didn’t answer.
She’s going to say no, Jasper thought.
Then he realized she was staring at someone behind them, looking like she’d seen a ghost or something.
Jasper followed her gaze, but there was nothing there — just a grou
p of wolf shifters standing around, talking.
With a sudden whoosh, Olivia shifted before Jasper had any idea what was happening, and then her huge bulk flew past him, charging at the group of wolves, teeth bared growling.
The only thing that Jasper had time to think was oh no.
Then she came to a sudden stop, digging the claws of all four feet into the ground, tearing up the grass.
In a blink, the wolves had all transformed except for one, the oldest man and the one who seemed to be in charge.
Olivia roared at them. She had a crazed, terrified look in her eyes, and Jasper could see the whites around the edges.
She turned and ran back past them, charging between the cars, over a fence and into the forest.
Jasper didn’t think.
He just shifted and went after her, following her retreating form into the forest. He could hear Craig right behind him as they both ran.
Whatever had gone wrong, he was afraid for Olivia. Something had happened back there. Something he didn’t know about or understand, but he knew one thing: he didn’t want her to deal with it alone.
Olivia ran and ran and ran, splashing through streams and clambering over rocks. Jasper knew that they were sort of headed back toward Granite Valley, but in a circuitous, winding path.
Every so often she’d look over her shoulder at the two bears following her, almost like she was waiting for them to give up on following her, but Jasper would have rather died.
I finally found her, he thought. The hell I’m giving her up without a fight.
Gradually, Olivia slowed down, her pace slowing to a canter and then a jog, then a walk.
Finally, next to a massive downed evergreen tree, she sat and looked at them with enormous sad brown eyes.
Jasper walked up to her and nuzzled her, rubbing his face against hers. He could sense her heartbeat thundering through her veins, her rapid breathing.
Craig came up beside them and did the same, sitting down next to Olivia and putting his snout under hers, nuzzling against her neck.
Jasper thought the message was clear: you’re not alone.
We’re here.
Olivia closed her eyes and the three of them stayed that way for a long time in a big pile of warm, comforting fur.
Then, at last, she opened her eyes and stood.
Jasper tilted his head in the direction of Granite Valley, still a long walk away.
Want to go home?
Olivia shook herself off, and then started walking in the right direction; Jasper and Craig followed her.
7
Olivia
Being a bear was comforting, almost like being wrapped in a warm hug, but a hug that kept you from thinking too much or too deeply, from worrying about the problems of life. So, like a hug that was also some kind of drug that shut down a lot of the brain, except for the really vital parts: food, water, danger, direction.
Olivia was vaguely aware that it wasn’t like that for most shifters. It hadn’t always been that way for her. Before she’d gone feral, shifting had only caused a slight change in consciousness; more sensory input, less thinking about what homework was due or whether that bitch Katrina was going to make fun of her hair again in calculus class.
But being feral did a number on the brain, it turned out, and it took a long time for a brain to fix itself. Hell, Daniel had told her that years after he’d come back from being feral, he still had the urge to shift and run into the woods forever.
It wasn’t the first time she’d shifted since reverting to human. Shifters couldn’t just not shift. But until now, she’d done it in a controlled environment, with supervision: Kade and Daniel, sometimes Austin, sometimes her dads, sometimes the other cousins.
She walked a long way, and the whole time, she was intently aware of the two bears following her, Jasper and Craig. Like her twin shadows, except every time she stopped, they came up and nuzzled her, somehow encouraging her to go on.
Olivia knew without having to think that she was walking home, toward her parents’ house, and she had an easy time simply shutting her human brain off and only taking in stimuli: the wind in the trees, the rustle of leaves, the damp smell of the forest, the sound and scent of the two bears behind her.
At last, she came through the trees at the bottom of a hill to the back of a house. Her house, the windows still alight upstairs, the curtains shut.
Olivia sat on her hind legs and looked at it, then laid down, her head on her paws.
Jasper and Craig nuzzled her again, but she was already home. That had been the easy part.
Shifting back was harder. It wouldn’t be as hard as the first time she’d done it, when it had taken her most of a week, but it wouldn’t be easy.
She glanced back at the woods, where she could go and have less problems. Different problems, anyway.
Then, Jasper shifted. Olivia took a step back. She’d never really liked interacting with humans when she was shifted. She always felt huge and dangerous, like at any moment she might lose the very last scrap of the human inside her and just go completely berserk.
Jasper reached out and put one of her massive paws in his hands. Even though he was huge, way over six feet tall, his hands were dwarfed by hers.
A slight whoosh, and then Craig was there, holding her massive side close, stroking both her ears.
“Come on, Olivia,” he murmured. “What you’re doing is harder than anything most people have ever tried. Sometimes you’re gonna stumble. It’s okay.”
A vague, hazy memory of very much wanting to kill someone — Buck, she was certain it had been Buck — then stopping herself and running away.
Jasper raised her vast, furry paw to his lips and kissed it.
Olivia realized that they weren’t afraid of her. It would have been easy to split them both in two, ripping out all their organs, before they had a chance to shift themselves, but they trusted her.
She took a deep breath, reached down inside to her very core, and pushed.
After a few moments, just when she was afraid that it wouldn’t work, she felt the first ripple, and then another and another and then the head rush that was shrinking back to human size.
She felt the cold on her skin and the itch that meant her fur was going away. She was on her knees on the cold grass, both men still around her.
Olivia opened her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said right away.
Jasper just shook his head.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said.
“Thanks for bringing me home even though I freaked out and tried to murder someone.”
Craig laughed softly, then moved one hand to her shoulder. Olivia felt her whole body warm up, just a little as a tingle ran through her.
You did want to see them naked, she reminded herself. Though not like this.
Frankly, her fantasy had had more romantic candles and less cold grass.
“If you’d tried to murder someone, they’d be dead,” he said. “You didn’t hurt a soul.”
Olivia just sighed, feeling the tears starting to prick her eyes.
“I didn’t even mean to do it,” she said. “It’s just — I smelled Buck, and then wham. I couldn’t control myself. It just blindsided me.”
Craig and Jasper exchanged a look.
“Who’s Buck?” asked Jasper.
“He’s a wolf,” Olivia said. “He’s in charge at the Red Sky ranch, he owns it or manages it or something.”
She swallowed, still looking down at the grass, naked and on her knees.
“He’s one of the betas, I think? That’s how the wolf packs work, right?”
Jasper nodded.
“More or less,” he said.
Craig shrugged.
“I might have killed two of his pack members,” Olivia said. She said the words in a rush, afraid that if she didn’t just get them all out at once, they’d stick in her mouth and choke her.
There was no way that these guys would still be interested after they
found that out, but she had to say it.
“And in retaliation, Buck locked me in a cage in the barn for a couple days. Maybe a week, I don’t know.”
Instead of letting her go and backing away, Jasper just frowned. Not great, but not the worst reaction.
“Buck Reynolds?” he asked.
Olivia shrugged. “I didn’t ask to see his ID or anything.”
That got a smile out of Craig.
“He’s trouble,” Jasper said. “He’s been very quietly trying to build an anti-human movement and secede.”
Olivia frowned. “He already lives in Cascadia.”
“From the United States,” Jasper said. “I don’t think he’s getting anywhere with it, but he’s always doing dumb shit like refusing to pay income taxes, getting into it with the IRS, and then asking my dad to intervene on his behalf.”
“Does your dad do it?”
Jasper snorted. “No.”
Olivia was starting to wonder if they’d heard her confession about possibly killing two wolves. They hadn’t reacted at all, which was weird, especially since some people in town would cross the street to avoid walking near her.
“Well, I think he put me in a cage because I might have killed two of his wolves,” she said, trying to get a reaction out of them this time.
Craig scooted closer to her, wrapping one thick, muscled arm around her frame.
“No one worth a damn thinks you did it,” he told her. “The wolves have always been volatile and territorial, and honestly, they probably tried to attack a real grizzly who they thought was one of us. They’re also not very smart.”
Olivia swallowed and nodded. She wasn’t that sure either.
In the house, the upstairs lights went off, leaving the three of them in deep darkness. Olivia could feel the body heat of the two men next to her, and it stirred something inside her — something that half-pleased and half frightened her.
What about right here, she wondered. We could be quiet. I probably wouldn’t freak out and shift.
Probably.
Trying to act casual, she slid one arm around Jasper in the dark, biting her lip as she felt the ripple of muscles underneath his skin. He yielded to her touch in a way she couldn’t explain, but he came closer to her until she could feel the warmth of his skin without touching him.