by T. S. Joyce
When she dared to look back at the landing, it was all over. Bears were turning back to humans, and the team that had planned on annihilating the entire Ashe Crew lay scattered about the piles of logs and rumbling machinery.
Matt and his Gray Back Crew had come through, and when she counted heads, she realized the Boarlanders were here, too.
She sagged to her knees in disbelief that this had all happened. She’d been pulled from the SUV to find the Ashe Crew on their knees, but they hadn’t been cowering to the men who had come for them. Their fearsome faces had said they were biding their time. They’d had a plan, she just hadn’t known it. Pride surged through her that the crews had taken their territory back and fought together. They might’ve been competitors in the Lumberjack Wars, but when it came to real danger to others of their kind, they’d come running, no matter the physical danger to themselves.
Denison was crouched beside his brother near the tree line. Brighton was on his hands and knees. He had his fists clenched and was leaning hard on them, his teeth gritted as if he was in pain. Denison talked to him as he gripped his brother’s shoulder, then rubbed his back, then gripped his shoulder again.
Brighton’s pain gutted her. Twins had a special bond, and she’d seen the connection between them. That ability to say a hundred things without saying a word. They would share this pain together. Brighton rocked back on his heels and stood, embraced Denison hard, and clapped him on the back. Then Brighton pushed away and stalked off into the woods.
Denny watched him go, hands on his hips and throat moving as he swallowed. He twitched his head, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt, then lifted his agonized gaze to her. He looked so vulnerable for just a second before he sighed and gave her a ghost of a smile.
A giant flapping of wings sounded, and a falcon bigger than any wild bird Danielle had ever seen stretched its curved talons out. As her feet hit the ground, her feathers disappeared and were replaced by human skin.
“No losses,” Skyler said. “Drew took the worst of it before we were subdued, but he’s already healing. We all are.” She stretched her head to the side and flicked her dark locks out of the way to expose a long gash across her collar bone.
Good God, Danielle wished she could heal like that. If anything, her injury felt like it was getting worse.
Skyler knelt down in front of Danielle and ripped open the canvas hiking shirt she’d worn to the meeting with Reynolds. Danielle sucked air through her teeth and tried her best to ignore Skyler’s stark nakedness. In fact, she was trying to avoid looking at the mass of naked, eight-pack wielding, big armed, tattoo-riddled men who were greeting each other and talking low in small groups on the landing. Only a few remained as bears, who meandered through the crowd.
Skyler made a clicking sound behind her teeth and turned Danielle’s shoulder to look at the exit wound, which felt like hell.
“He got you good, didn’t he?” Skyler lifted her bright green eyes to Danielle’s and grinned. “Looks like you got marked after all.”
“Yeah,” Danielle murmured, confused, “but not by Denison. And it didn’t Turn me. It doesn’t count.”
Denison was jogging toward them, limping less with each step.
Skyler lowered her voice and leveled her a look. “It does in my eyes. You took a bullet for us, and you called in reinforcements. The Boarlanders and Gray Backs were already on their way here before I even got to them to beg their help. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Danielle nodded her head, too overcome with emotion to find her voice.
Skyler lowered her eyes to Danielle’s torn shoulder again. “You’re Ashe Crew now.”
Danielle’s happiness at those words overpowered her insecurities. All those years feeling like she didn’t belong anywhere dissolved away. The loneliness and fear of never finding her place in the world would be nothing but a dim memory now.
She’d found Denison, and she’d found her people.
Denison scooped her up in his arms and hugged her close. His whiskers scratched against her face, such a contrast to the soft fur he’d exposed to her yesterday. Man or bear, she didn’t care at all, as long as he was alive and here with her.
Crying, she wrapped her good arm around his neck as he settled her into the passenger’s seat of his Bronco. “Is it over?”
“It’s all over. You’re safe,” he said.
The door shut so hard, it rocked the car, but he was rough because Denison was still riled up. She could tell because his eyes were too light.
“Is Brighton okay?” she asked as soon as he slid in behind the wheel.
“No. But he will be.”
“He was the one who hired me, Denny. Reynolds planned to use me as his bargaining chip to be Turned this entire time. I think he’s been watching you and Brighton all along. Watching me, too, even after I moved away. He followed my career and offered the perfect lure to get me back here.” She explained everything that had happened on the way down to the trailer park, from the ad she’d found in the paper for the job, to the first phone call with Reynolds when he hired her, to the text messages she’d sent to Matt and her fear that he wouldn’t respond to her plea for help.
And every time Denison took his eyes off the winding road to glance over at her, he looked so proud. It made her braver, made the pain in her shoulder easier to bear when he looked at her like that.
It was obvious seeing her hurt like this was hard on him. His eyes stayed fever bright the entire time it took him to draw a bath and gently scrub her clean. They remained silver as he cleaned the wound and stitched her up with a medical kit that made her wonder just how often bear shifters needed this kind of first aid. His eyes didn’t darken to his normal stormy sky gray as he settled her onto his couch or busied himself with heating a gigantic pot of beef stew on the stove. It wasn’t until the pain pills he’d given her kicked in and she leaned back and sighed in relief that he began to look like himself again.
The tension left his shoulders as he stretched out above her and pressed his lips against hers.
He eased away. “Are you going to leave?” Worry etched in a deep wrinkle across the bridge of his nose.
“Never. I’m not a runner anymore.”
A soft knock sounded against the wooden frame of Denison’s front door.
“Can we come in?” Tagan asked, though he was already halfway through.
“Come on,” Denison said. “Dinner’s ready.”
So that was why he’d made that huge pot of food. He was feeding his people.
One by one, the Ashe Crew filed in. Brighton was missing, but she wasn’t surprised. Denison had said he disappeared sometimes. He would come back, and she hoped that when he did, he could start to heal now that the man who’d hurt him was gone.
Haydan, Drew, Kellen, Skyler, Tagan, Brooke, and Bruiser all looked exhausted as they filed into the kitchen. Denison settled a steaming bowl in her lap, then leaned on the back of the couch above her, like her own personal sentry as he blew on a bowl of his own.
Danielle’s arm was still throbbing with a dull ache, but as soon as Tagan touched the bandage with the brush of his fingertips, a strange warmth spread through her, numbing the stinging nerve endings. The alpha settled on the couch near her feet, and Bruiser touched her bandage next. Kellen followed, drawing a tremble of awe from her as the pain disappeared completely. Brooke watched with a curious smile on her face and a hand placed protectively over her stomach as Drew and Haydan touched her shoulder, then sat on the floor near their alpha.
This dinner was different from the boisterous bonfire meals she’d been sharing with them most nights. There were no jokes or laughter, no constant hum of easy conversation. There was only comfortable silence and a stark feeling of relief and gratitude. Today could’ve been disastrous, but they’d all survived it. Together.
For as long as Danielle lived, these bears would have her heart. And one in particular, the man who had waited for her to be ready for love, would have her soul. No m
atter what happened now, no matter what dangers lurked in this life she chose, she wouldn’t go through it alone.
She had the adoration of the best man she’d ever known, friendship with people she respected deeply, and a sense of purpose here.
Denison looked at her like he couldn’t believe she’d chosen him, but he had it wrong.
She was the lucky one.
Epilogue
Danielle sipped her drink as Denison pulled the microphone closer to his lips and dedicated his last song of the night to the “girl I love.”
Pleasurable heat flooded her cheeks when he winked at her. She’d sat in the first row this time so he could see her under the spot lights. Also, so she could escape the swooning groupies near the bar in the back. It had been strange watching him preform without Brighton over the last few months, but hopefully his brother would come home soon.
Denison plucked clear notes from the strings of his guitar, and at last, he leaned toward the microphone and belted out the first lyric in his deep voice. This song made her emotional every time she heard it on the radio. It was about a man who loved a woman he deemed too good for him. Denison stirred feeling from her with just the first few lines, and she closed her eyes as his voice filled her.
Today had been perfect. He’d taken her into Saratoga on his day off and bought her lunch, then taken her to an action-adventure flick at the tiny cinema there. He even took her into a boutique and bought her a dress she liked. She’d worn it out of the store because he couldn’t seem to take his eyes from the white, eyelet cotton material. She fingered the fabric that brushed her knees under the table and smiled to herself at how beautiful he made her feel.
Her life had undergone some major changes over the past few months. Damon Daye, the man who owned the Ashe Crew’s land had hired her to keep him abreast on the thinly balanced ecosystem here. It had felt like a dream come true the day she’d signed a year-long contract with him. He was a good boss, and unlike Reynolds, was actually interested in their weekly meetings and her findings. He was a man who loved his land deeply. And while he was perfectly well-behaved with impeccable manners around her, she was also pretty sure he was a recluse and scary-as-hell shifter of some sort, but she hadn’t figured out what yet. And every time she asked Tagan, he just smiled to himself like he enjoyed the secret too much to tell her. Once, she’d asked Tagan what had happened to all the bodies on the landing, and he’d told her Damon Daye had taken care of them, and that she didn’t have to worry about it. She’d been too afraid of the answer to ask more about how Damon Daye knew so much about body stashing.
Beyond that, everything had fallen into place as she’d settled into the trailer 1010. She hadn’t been able to stomach the Airstream after everything that had happened. She didn’t want any reminders about Reynolds’s violent mark near the trailer park. She even set up a pen off the back for Bo, who was now fifty pounds of gray furred, bouncing, climbing, gobbling naughtiness. He was also her companion when Denison was too busy with work up on the jobsite to go exploring the woods around her new home with her.
Every Friday night was her and Denison’s time together, though. A day in town together, followed by his show at Sammy’s Bar.
She felt someone watching her, so she turned and squinted at the bar. Matt sat there, nursing a beer. He lifted his drink in a silent toast, and she smiled, then raised her half empty cranberry vodka. He didn’t bother her anymore. Not after the battle.
Denny sang out the last line of the song and thanked everyone for coming out. When the applause died down, he packed up his guitar into an old case and unplugged the amp. He grinned from ear to ear when she hugged him close and told him how much she loved the set he had picked tonight.
A few minutes talking to Ted at the bar and a wave for Matt, and they were loading up the Bronco and headed back into the mountains.
“I had fun today,” Danielle said, rolling her head against the seat cushion to look at Denison.
He’d found his smile again after the battle at the landing. Especially today. Something was different about him, but she couldn’t figure out what.
Like now, he was drumming on the steering wheel in a fast rhythm, as if he was playing a rock song in his head as he said, “Good. I had fun, too,” in a distracted voice.
“You okay?”
More drumming. “Who me? Yeah, I’m okay. I’m great. More than great.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Spill it.”
“I don’t think I should bite you.”
Pain stabbed through her, and she shifted her shocked gaze to the road illuminated by the high beams in front of them. “You don’t want me?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. I mean…” He inhaled deeply and blew it out. “I like the way you are.”
“Human?”
“Yeah.” He slid his palm down her thigh and squeezed it reassuringly.
“But you said I couldn’t be as close to the Ashe Crew if I wasn’t a bear shifter.” She wasn’t trying to pout, but she liked the idea of being on the inside instead of the outside.
“What would you say if I asked you to marry me instead?”
Words failed her, and all that came out was a wha sound. Was he asking? This wasn’t how she’d imagined this happening.
“Denny, claiming is a big deal for bear shifters. And I talked to Skyler. Exchanging tokens of affection is a big deal to falcon shifters. Proposals and weddings are special for humans.”
A grin took his lips. “So you’re saying if I ask, it needs to be somewhere more romantic than the front seat of my Bronco?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious right now or not. It’s kind of a big thing to be joking about.” And it was something she’d been secretly dreaming of over the past few months, so his teasing like this hurt.
She’d agonized over her decision to be claimed and Turned or not, but she was happy with the way they were, and the pain of the Change didn’t feel necessary to prove her love. He had her—all of her—already. That didn’t mean she didn’t want something that bound them in tradition, though. And now he was teasing her.
Denison turned on the radio, and they drove in contented silence. She bit her thumbnail and stared out her window at the dark lodgepole pines they passed.
A strange glow flickered across the trees, and it drew her attention to the front window. Straightening her spine, she leaned forward as her mouth fell open. Someone had doubled up on the strands of lights that served to brighten the trailer park at night. From here, she could see Asheford Drive as easily as if it were broad daylight, and everywhere, on porches and along cracked sidewalks, were glass jelly jars of flickering candles.
It was beautiful.
“What is this?” she asked on a breath as Denison put the car into park just under the Asheland Mobile Park sign.
He smiled and got out of the car, then jogged around front to open her door. He held out his hand, and when she slid her palm against his, he kissed her knuckles lightly.
The Ashe Crew waited at the other end of the park near the bonfire someone had built up.
“I’ve been talking to Tagan about this because I wasn’t sure I wanted you to Turn for me. It doesn’t matter either way, if you’re human or bear.” Denison pulled her hand into the crook of his arm and led her to the middle of the road. Slowly, he walked her down toward his people at the other end. “When we decided we were good the way we were, I still wanted more. I wanted a commitment that would tell everyone that you’re mine, and I’m yours. So…” Denison turned and dropped down to one knee. He opened his palm, and on it sat a black velvet box that held a simple band of tiny, sparkling diamonds.
She laughed thickly as her vision blurred with tears.
“You’re everything good about me,” Denison said, searching her eyes. “Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
Danielle drew her hands in front of her mouth to stifle her crying. This was way better than t
he front seat of the Bronco. Unable to talk, she nodded her head and caught his hug as he launched himself against her. Her shoulders were shaking, and she couldn’t drag enough air into her lungs. She was crying all over his shirt as he lifted her up and spun her around, but she didn’t care.
This was it. This was her mark. He was here, telling her he didn’t need to bite her or change a single thing about her. He was here telling her she was enough, just the way she was, and she loved him deeply for it.
“She said yes!” Denison crowed as he slid the ring onto her finger.
She yelped as he lifted her over his shoulder like a sack of flour while the Ashe Crew cheered and whistled and catcalled.
“Denison Donovan Beck! I’m in a dress,” she admonished, trying to keep her butt from hanging out for all to see.
He had his hand over the fabric, though, so she needn’t have worried.
“That’s right. A white dress. Your wedding dress.”
“Wait, we’re doing this now?”
“Hell yeah,” he said, strutting like a proud rooster. “We’ve been planning this for weeks.”
She twisted and looked at the smiling faces of her friends. “All of you were in on this?” she called out.
“Trust me,” Brooke said. “You wanted us to be involved.”
Danielle snorted and imagined what kind of good old country boy antics the crew had probably planned before Brooke and Skyler stepped in. No doubt this would be followed with copious amounts of boxed wine, slurred singing, skinny dipping and night muddin’. She loved it. She couldn’t have planned a better wedding that suited her and the man she loved.
Denison smacked her soundly on the backside and settled her upright again. “We’ve just been waiting for Tagan to finish getting ordained.”
She beamed up at the alpha and couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled from her throat. “You’re going to marry us?”
“We figured it would be fitting,” he said, blue eyes dancing. “You’ll be one of my crew now.”