by T. S. Joyce
“What is she doing on this land?” His voice was low and lethal, and gooseflesh raised in waves across her forearms.
“I’ve come to ask for sanctuary,” Jeremy said.
“You can’t. Not after what you did.”
“Not for me.” Jeremy pulled her closer. “For her. I’ll call it my endowment if you do me this favor.”
“I have your endowment in the safe, Riker said. “You can have every penny of it right now.”
“I don’t want money!” Jeremy’s voice took on a frightening snarl. “I want this woman to live and she can’t do it out there.” He jabbed his finger at the dirt road behind them. “She’s as good as dead if I take her back. This is our last resort. You,” he said, voice trembling, “are our last resort.”
Riker’s left eye ticked once and his jaws clenched so tightly it had to hurt. “Whatever she’s gotten herself into, it isn’t our concern. Challenges are going on right now.”
“You can trust her.”
“Says you!”
“She’s better than me,” Jeremy said low. “Her fate is here.”
“My answer is still no,” Riker barked out. His chest heaved as he steadied his breath. His voice became deadly quiet. “Leave with her. Now.”
Jeremy stared long and hard, then threw his necklace on the ground by his feet. “Keep your fucking money. Her life was worth more to me.”
Was. He had given up and this was truly her last chance. If Jeremy thought so, it was true. His instincts had never failed her. His profile was stiff and red crept up his straining neck. Whether it was true or not, Jeremy believed he was begging for her life. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she exhaled a shaky breath.
“I don’t know who you are, or where I am, but Jeremy has worked for a year to keep me safe. I’m hurt, I’m tired of running and if he thinks I’m safe here, it’s my last shot at living.” She dragged her gaze over the defeat in Jeremy’s eyes before beseeching Riker. “Please don’t let his sacrifices be for nothing.”
A flash of softness jutted across Riker’s eyes. She almost missed it, but it had been there. He had a heart, a soul. She had never begged in her life, but the desolation on Jeremy’s face scared her.
“Please,” she pleaded, sagging to her knees. The motion pulled and tugged at her stitches and pain seared through her but she stayed upright, never taking her eyes from the grim set to Riker’s mouth.
His nostrils flared and his thick brows drew down. His gaze fell to her chest, but her bandages were hidden beneath the thick material of her cotton hoodie. The only proof of her discomfort was her stiff posture.
The stairs creaked at his approach and he knelt in front of her. His gray eyes searched hers, held hers. “You bring risk to my people. Your life can’t be more important than theirs, do you understand?”
No, she didn’t understand any of this. She wasn’t going to give away their hippie commune secrets or do an investigative report on the brand of brainwashing they did on their members. She was here for one reason. Survive until tomorrow. He didn’t know her though and owed her nothing, so she nodded instead.
“I’m sorry,” he said, leaning close as his gaze dipped to her lips. “I can’t grant you asylum.”
Closing her eyes against the loss of her last chance, she sighed and fought the burning tears that blurred her vision. Jeremy pulled her to her feet, but Riker stayed where he was, watching them leave, elbows rested on his knee, shredding a piece of long grass he’d plucked.
She watched him until her eyes were covered with the gauze again, and as they made the painful journey back to the car, she swallowed her heartbreak. Something was wrong with her leaving. She felt pulled toward where Riker had been, and the farther away she got, the more she panicked at the gnawing instinct that he was the last man in the world with a shot at keeping her safe.
The loss was monumental and the dove gray hues of his eyes haunted her. They wouldn’t torture her for long though. She wouldn’t last the week.
Chapter Three
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy said, hands gripping the wheel like he was soldered to it.
“It’s not your fault. You tried your best.” Hannah’s voice sounded monotone and detached, even to her.
“No, not about that. I mean, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”
She frowned and smiled at the joke she didn’t quite get yet. “What are you about to do?”
He pulled his pistol from his shoulder holster and cocked it, aimed it at her.
Her breath caught and she froze under the fear and adrenaline. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Get out.”
His eyes were hard and dead and she shook her head in denial that Jeremy, her Jeremy, would do this to her. “They said no. I can’t just live in the woods, Jeremy. I don’t have any training!”
He shoved her from the car and tossed her duffle bag onto the ground beside her.
Her knees were caked in mud and she slipped as she stood, horror filling her. “This place isn’t approved by the witness protection program, is it?”
“The department doesn’t even know about it.” The gun shook in his grip. “There’s a mole in the force, or how else would Stone have been able to find you? He knew everywhere we went. Every fucking safe house. The police can’t know where you are. They are just as dangerous as Stone’s enforcers until I can find the rat. I’ll work as fast as I can and will be in touch as soon as I think you’re safe, but I can’t smoke him out with you around.”
Her voice came out a squeak. “Where do I go?”
“Follow the dirt road in. They’ll find you eventually.” He leaned over and placed his hand on her door handle. The gun lowered as he hesitated. “Whatever you see out here, you take it to your grave, Hannah. You understand?”
“No.” Reaching for the door, she missed as he slammed it closed and locked it from the inside. “I don’t understand any of this. Please, Jeremy. Don’t leave me here.”
Jeremy ripped his gaze away like he couldn’t bear to look at her. The old station wagon’s tires spun out as he hit a patch of gravel, caught traction and peeled out.
“Don’t leave me here,” she screamed as he disappeared.
****
Riker ran a thumbnail absently over his bottom lip as he stared at the ink drawing of the mountains on his office wall. Why did he feel gutted at denying that human’s request? It had to be because she was a woman, and soft and firm in all the right places and his dick had been trying to do the thinking for him.
No, it wasn’t just that. She’d begged. Pleaded like she didn’t have a shot in the world, and just before she’d been blindfolded, she held his gaze and he’d almost felt…touched.
Shit, he was losing his edge.
A soft knock sounded at his door and he straightened his spine. “Come in.”
“Sir?” Cameron, his second in command, asked. “It’s time.”
Hissing air between his teeth, he stood and fisted his hands against the desk. He hated challenges. Once a year was too often for him. He’d held his alpha position for two years, but tonight could be the end of his reign as king of this clan of bear shifters. His lack of a mate weakened him.
Tonight, if he won against his challengers for the third year in a row, he’d have to take a mate as part of clan law. He scrubbed his hands down his face and nodded to Cameron.
What could he offer a woman? He thought of Merit and shook his head. What could he offer a woman he wasn’t interested in mating? Clan business took up all of his time and he wasn’t exactly a loving, caring man. He was hard and serious and didn’t connect on the heart level needed for a good pairing. The qualities that made him a good leader made him a shitty lover.
Maybe the challengers would win and he wouldn’t have to choose.
“Who?” he asked. The office door clicked closed behind him.
“Darren and Blake,” Cameron said, frowning at a clipboard in his hands. “Blake is up first, but it’s Darren you’ll have to worry a
bout. He’s been training for tonight.”
Smart bear. The up and comer had probably been studying his fight moves in every challenge to prepare for tonight. Riker had done the same when he fought for alpha the first time.
He thought of the pleading woman, with her honey blond waves and eyes the shade of summer moss. Her nose was feminine and turned up a little on the end. The thought had crossed his mind to kiss it when he’d been close. That had sealed her fate. If he’d wavered on his answer, his interest in her would turn out to be downright dangerous for the entire clan. He’d made the right decision to send her away. His sister Jenny was mated to a human, and he couldn’t shoulder the kind of worry she endured. It was a miracle Jenny’s husband, Blaine, was still in one piece.
Mated? That human woman didn’t belong in the same thought process. Merit was the available female interested enough to become his. Her personality fit. They matched. She was cold, calculating, and good under pressure. She was commanding and her presence respected when she approached clan politics. Who needed a spark when they shared common goals for the good of their people?
Right?
The challenge ring had been set up beside his house and the clan had already gathered. The hum of conversation and the excited chatter of last minute bets filled the still evening. The sun had half set over the mountain behind the corn fields. He smiled at Jenny and Blaine as Cameron led him to the ring. He pulled his shirt over his head and shook his hair out as the first tingles of Change rippled through his veins. The beast was ready. His bear had already been caged too long.
The first snarling challenger, Blake, paced the corner as eight feet of blonde grizzly. Power coiled inside of Riker, hoarding bloodlust until the bear inside him ripped his way out. His scream of rage turned to a roar, and he stood a dozen feet tall, enraged at the challengers who threatened to take away his position in the clan.
Teeth bared, Blake lunged.
****
That rat bastard weasely little fuck. Jeremy had left her out in the darkening woods after swearing up and down it was bad to even have car trouble out here. “They’ll find you,” she said in a mocking voice. “Yeah freaking right.”
She’d been bumbling around the woods for an hour and no one had come for her. Probably never would and two months from now, she’d be squatting in a homemade latrine eating squirrels off the bone because Jeremy decided to dump her like a box of unwanted kittens. Ass hat.
A whistle sounded from far away and she froze. Scanning the woods for a direction, a low murmur of cheers sounded. She had to be hallucinating. Maybe it was one of those auditory mirages people got, like when they were lost in the desert. Except she’d only been lost for an hour and if she was already hallucinating, she was in more trouble than she’d even thought.
No, the noise was faint, but it was definitely not a figment of her imagination. She ran the wrong way, but corrected her direction when she figured out the sound was fading. She watched the road carefully, determined not to break any more bones with a twisted ankle. Her body was shattered enough.
That dick Jeremy couldn’t even leave her the pain meds? Another layer of hatred slipped over her like a suffocating tarp.
Her body felt like it had been through a meat grinder and she thoroughly regretted passing on the offered pain pills earlier. Her injuries burned and the bandages stuck to her sensitive skin, pulling with every movement. The sketchy doctor who had patched her up had even told her not to move much for the next couple of weeks, and what did Jeremy do? Sent her on a freaking hiking trip through the wilderness. Fail. Fail for the witness protection program she’d landed in, and the douche bag cop who kept ratting out her hidey holes.
The cheering and jeering grew louder and she started to jog. Hurt ravaged every step, and the injury to her lung had her wheezing like an asthmatic, but the sound of the excited crowd spurred her on faster. Something big was going on.
Bursting into a clearing, Riker’s house sat atop the small hill, framed by the mountains in the background. Small log cabins dotted the hillside, but right in the middle was a milling, chanting mob.
Pulling her hair back with the band on her wrist to ease the heat of running, she loped toward them. They all watched something in the middle and she weaved through them, drawn by something just above her senses.
Riker stood in the middle of a cleared area, naked as the day he was born and bloody from head to toe. A devastatingly cruel smile ghosted his lips as he looked down at a man crumpled in the dirt by his feet.
“Alpha,” a man with a clipboard yelled, thrusting Riker’s hand into the air.
“Oh, my stars,” she murmured, eyes glued to his chiseled body. Even covered in sticky crimson, perspiration and dirt, he was possibly the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on. But the man below him? No one seemed concerned that he looked half-dead. She looked around, frowning at the cheering faces. What kind of commune was this?
Her head wrenched backward as a dark headed woman with whiskey colored eyes pulled her ponytail. Busted.
“What’s this,” she breathed, poking the heart shaped scar at the back of Hannah’s neck. The woman’s eyes went wide, and her graceful neck worked as she swallowed.
“A scar?” Hannah answered.
“Clan law says Riker must be mated by the summer solstice,” the man with the clipboard called out. “Candidates, make your intentions known now.”
“You,” the woman said, shoving Hannah forward.
Legs buckled, she fell into the ring at the same time another woman stepped out. The crowd went eerily quiet. Great first impression. She dusted the muck off her knees and stood with a smile and wave for Riker.
He stood there, looking lightning struck, and she swayed from foot to foot under his furious scrutiny.
“Who are you?” the raven haired woman next to her asked. She wore a red pant suit that matched the gloss on her lips.
Hannah offered her hand for a shake. “Hannah Michaels.” Bobbing her head at the crowd, she called, “Nice to meet all of you.”
The woman stared at her hand as if she’d offered her a dung beetle, and Hannah dropped it.
“What in the actual fuck are you doing here?” Riker yelled.
She hunched with the rest of them under his tone. Never in her life had she heard someone sound meaner or scarier than this man.
“I was walking through the woods after your dickhole friend, Jeremy, shoved me out of the car at gunpoint—”
“In the ring?” he bellowed. “What are you doing vying for a mating with me?”
“A what? No,” she said, forcing a laugh. “Misunderstanding, obviously. Someone shoved me.” She scanned the waiting horde. “Dark hair, dark eyes, digs scars. I swear, I was pushed. I have no interest in…mating.” God, could this get any weirder?
Riker looked at Mr. Clipboard. “Still stands,” the man said with a shrug.
She raised her hand and Riker canted his head. “Uhhh, what still stands?”
“You and Merit are now competing for Riker,” Mr. Clipboard said. “He’ll bed you both and his bear will choose between you by the summer solstice.”
She stared.
“Two weeks from today,” he explained.
“Right. There are bears here? And also no one is getting all up in my lady parts unless he’s wined and dined me, and paid for at least a movie ticket, so polite decline. No…mating with me.” She ducked her head politely. “Sounds awesome, but no thank you.”
“Her first,” Riker gritted out, grabbing Hannah’s arm and yanking her through the crowd.
“Benson!” Merit yelled from behind them. Damn, that woman could pack some venom into a word.
Glaring at the fingers Riker was currently digging into her arm, Hannah said, “Your girlfriend sounds pissed.”
“Yeah, well, thanks to your epically bad timing, you’re now as much my girlfriend as she is.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on, and unhand me before I knee you in the junk. I don’t wan
t to,” she said, dropping her eyes to said anatomy standing half-mast and all beautiful male. “But I will, consequences be damned.”
A feral snarl ripped out of his throat and she jumped. “Shut. Up.”
Oh, hell no. No one in the universe was allowed to talk to her like that, and she reached back to slap him good when he grabbed her wrist so fast he blurred.
“I wouldn’t do that, cupcake.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call me cupcake.” The pain in her chest and arm were blinding under the strain of him stretching skin that wasn’t ready to be taut yet. Shit. She sagged and gasped as stars blurred her vision.
Riker’s immovable arm wrapped around her waist as she fell, which only brought on another hot poker of anger searing through her gut. “Don’t touch me.” She pushed off of him and landed in a porch chair.
Some of the onlookers had followed them to the house and one of them shouted, “Looks like our alpha has his hands full with this one,” to the laughter and jeers of others.
Hands hanging loosely at his waist like he didn’t know what to do with them, Riker narrowed his eyes at her. “Please come inside with me so I can explain what is going on.”
Earth spinning, she stood and stomped past him with what little dignity remained. It took her three tries to open the front door, and when he finally reached around her, filling her head with his sexy manly smell and warmth, she gnashed her teeth at him for getting too close, then promptly fell on her face inside the entryway. She didn’t even bother to get up. Just lay there against the cool wood floors in a puddle of mortification.
“Cameron,” Riker said blandly. “Go get the healer for our guest.”
Chapter Four
Riker paced the room and Hannah watched as she sucked loudly on an orange slice the healer, Daria, had brought her. In the kindest act she’d witnessed since crossing the no trespassing sign riddled fence, the woman had brought her an entire fruit tray.