Loved by a Bear (Legends of Black Salmon Falls Book 1)

by Lauren Lively

  "What are you doing, Lynx?" Pyra asked as he caught up with Lynx walking toward the front of the compound.

  "We need to know what happened to the people here."

  "We already know what happened. They got locked by the Covra."

  "Right, but there has to be at least one person who fought. One of the Light Ones had to have tried to fight back when they were locking everyone throughout the settlement. We need to find him and see what he did."

  "You've lost me."

  Lynx stopped in the middle of the road and turned to look directly into Pyra's face so he could make sure that the larger warrior was listening to him and would follow him.

  "I told you that I could see the last few seconds of Rain's life." He felt strangled by the words that he had just said. He didn't want to think that it was true. "The last few seconds before the Covra locked her," he amended, "What if she's not the only one who I can do that with? If there's something about me that lets me see that for all of the locked people, we can piece together exactly what happened."

  "It might not work that way," Bannack said.

  "Ty can move things with his mind. Ero is impossibly fast. Ciyrs can heal. If they can do those things, why is it so hard to believe that I might have something like that, too? If there is even a chance, we have to try."

  "He's right," Pyra said, looking out over the men who had gathered, torches glowing with the flames that they had picked up from the fireplaces and solar-powered light sticks adding their illumination to the pool of light that surrounded them, "This is why we came out here. We want to know what else is out here, and this is part of it. We have to find out what happened."

  Lynx led the men to the front of the settlement, wanting to keep what would likely prove to be a long and exhausting search through every street and building as organized as possible. They gathered at the front gate and he turned to the rest of the men.

  "We'll start here and head down the main street first. I'm guessing that's where most of the people will be. We'll work our way down, going into all of the buildings, and then we'll figure out where to go from there."

  As one of the youngest and least experienced warriors, it felt strange to be taking charge in this way, but Lynx knew that he was the only one among them that had the ability to learn what he could about their last moments, and possibly discover how they would be able to reverse the lock and free the entire settlement from the imprisonment they had been suffering unknowingly for so many years.

  In the darkness, the unmoving forms of the locked people looked disturbing and Lynx felt himself recoiling from them even as he approached the first person, a man who was frozen mid-step toward the main street. A few of the warriors held up their lights to illuminate the man's face and Lynx could see that his expression didn't seem frightened or anxious, more like he was just walking toward the settlement and was locked without him ever knowing what was happening, just like it was with Rain.

  Lynx stepped up to the man cautiously and stared at him for a few seconds, questioning for a moment if he really wanted to do this. It was one thing to look into the last few moments of consciousness for the woman who he knew to be his mate, but this man was a complete stranger, someone who carried no connection for Lynx, and he didn't know if he wanted to go so far as to delve into the privacy of what happened to him right up until he was locked. He knew that he had to do it, though, if the Denynso were ever going to accomplish what they set out to do, and if he was ever going to have a chance to release Rain and be with her in reality.

  Apologizing to the unknown man in his mind, Lynx reached out with both hands and rested his palms on the man's arm. Immediately he got the same sensation that he had when he first touched Rain. The world around him seemed to brighten and fade at the same time, and suddenly he was standing not under the cloak of night and the glow of the torches, but in the thick sunlight pouring like amber out of the sky. It was the same late afternoon sunlight he had seen coming through the window of Rain's bedroom in his vision of her last few seconds, and something pulled at his heart as he realized in the seconds that he was experiencing with this man, Rain was down in the main street in her home, brushing through her hair, and readying to climb into bed where she would lie for decades. He wanted so desperately to break away from where he was standing and run down to her house, to fight the Covra that were going to climb out from under her bed, and to protect her from her fate. Something told him, however, that he couldn't do that. He was stuck right there, unable to control himself in the space or anything that was going on around him.

  To his side he watched as the man who he had just touched walk from the gate leading into the settlement. He walked calmly with the casual gait of someone who didn't have anything troublesome on his mind. He certainly didn't look like someone who was on guard or worried about an impending battle. The man took several long strides and then Lynx saw one of the Covra scurry through the gate and lash out at the man, digging the end of his sharpened leg into the man's back just as he had done to Rain's stomach. Without even so much as a groan, the man stopped, his foot not quite touching the ground and his eyes still cast down as they opened after blinking. It happened so quickly and then the Covra was gone, rushing down toward the settlement as Lynx saw others starting to climb through windows and across roofs. He couldn't figure out where they were coming from, but they were swarming the settlement at an incredible rate, and none of the Light Ones, the humans whose existence on the planet had either been forgotten or covered up in the generations since this moment, seemed to notice that they were there.

  Several hours later Lynx took a long breath and approached the final person standing on the second street they had explored. Ero stood beside him, the journal in his hands already halfway full of the notes that he wrote down each time that Lynx came out of his vision. They had started the exploration with enthusiasm, talking and sharing ideas as they moved their way along the main street. After more than a dozen people and little information, though, their talk had started to fade. Now Lynx only talked when something extraordinary happened in one of his visions, which meant that for the most part they were walking along in silence.

  As he looked at this next person, a woman who seemed locked in the stance of suddenly turning and looking over her shoulder at something, Lynx thought he heard a rustling in one of the buildings to his side. They had just been in that building, however, so he turned back to the woman.

  "This has to be it for the night," Pyra said, "We need to sleep. We can keep going as soon as we wake up in the morning."

  Lynx gave a defeated sigh and started to lift his hand toward the woman. He heard the rustling sound again and he noticed that the other warriors seemed to be looking around like they heard it, too. It fell silent again and Lynx reached toward the woman. Just as he started to touch her, he could see the first spiked leg of a Covra coming around the edge of the front doorway to the building beside them. Before he could say anything, his palm touched the woman's arm and he disappeared into the vision of her last moments.

  The woman was walking away from him and he could see the shadow of a Covra behind her. It was another moment, one like he had had dozens of times since he started looking into these moments, when he wanted so badly to be able to call out to the person, to warn her of what was coming.

  Suddenly, almost as if she could hear the screaming in his head, the woman whirled around and confronted the creature. Her eyes flashed as she swung her arm around, bringing a blade up around her and driving it deeply into the eye of the creature. The Covra let out a horrific sound that was between a hiss and a scream, and reared back, pulling its pointed legs up as if ready to strike, and then suddenly collapsing and dissolving into a slick pool of vibrant green blood that seemed to soak down into the ground almost instantly. From one side another of the creatures approached the woman and she shouted. It stumbled back at the sound of her voice and instead of running, she advanced toward it, continuing to yell as she slas
hed at the creature with her blade. She caught that one in the eye as well, and Lynx watched it recoil and dissolve just as the first.

  He was beginning to feel hope when he heard a scratching sound from behind the woman. She turned, glancing over her shoulder, and in an instant before she could even react, a Covra buried its leg into her, locking her in place.

  As the vision disappeared around him, Lynx felt himself knocked to the ground. For a moment he had a sense of panic that the Covra had gotten to him again, but he could feel the weight of something massive on top of him and knew that another of the warriors had tackled him to the ground. He heard shouts and felt the weight lifted away from him so that he could roll over and look up to get his bearings about what was happening around him.

  The small group of warriors that had come along with him seemed locked in a battle. Three Covra hissed and scurried around them while Ty and an older warrior named Vax growled and rushed toward the other warriors. Lynx knew that they had been infected and that they needed to get rid of the Covra that were there so that they could get these two back to the house for treatment.

  "It is their eyes!" Lynx yelled and noticed that the Covra recoiled as if they could understand what he was saying, "Get them in the eyes!"

  "Lynx, Bannack, go after the Covra," Pyra commanded, "Ero, Gyyx, Ciyrs, help me."

  The warriors split off to follow their orders without question. Out of the corner of his eye Lynx could see Pyra pull off his shirt and the other men follow suit. They tore the garments into long strips and wound them around their hands, tightening the fabric so that it was taut between their grip. Pyra surged forward toward Ty, slamming his shoulder into his belly to flatten him onto the ground. The sudden movement took the infected warrior off guard, causing him to pause for a moment as he tried to catch his breath and get his bearings.

  Pyra took advantage of this momentary pause to flip Ty over onto his stomach and use the strips of fabric from his shirt to bind Ty's wrists together. Ero and Gyyx copied his movements on Vax, looping the fabric around his wrists to bind them together and then pulling them back as Pyra did with Ty to attach them to his ankles.

  As they did this, Lynx and Bannack advanced toward the Covra. For the first few steps, the creatures seemed to be retreating, then they paused in the still, angry silence of the night air and started rushing toward the two warriors, their hissing sound seeming to rattle through their bodies as they came toward them with their gruesome legs creating deep rivets in the ground and gouges in the side of the building.

  Lynx pulled back his blade and brought it over his head with all of the force that he could gather. The Covra in front of him tried to move out of his way, but was blocked by the one standing beside him. The tip of Lynx's blade dug deeply into the creature's eye and he watched it split before the Covra pulled away from him, stumbled back, and dissolved into the ground just as the ones in his vision had. Beside him, Bannack mimicked his action, destroying the Covra in front of him. The final one started scrambling up the wall of the building, and Lynx jumped onto a barrel positioned beside one of the windows and leapt up so that he crossed the path of the Covra, planting a kick in the middle of its body before it could disappear onto the roof. Its body tumbled to the ground beside Bannack, who immediately turned and drove his blade down into the bulbous, gleaming eye.

  Chapter Nine

  "Bannack, you need to slow down."

  Loralia held the compact as steady as she could as she rushed across the compound, struggling to decipher the words that Bannack was yelling at her through the glass.

  "We figured out that they can only be killed through their eyes," he repeated.

  "Their eyes?"

  "Yes. Lynx thought that all along, but we spent all night…never mind. I'll explain it all later."

  "Are the rest of the men alright?"

  "Ciyrs is healing Ty and Vax right now. I think that he got to them in time and that they will be fine. Right now we need to figure out how to get rid of the rest of the Covra. We destroyed those three, but there have to be more. We can't risk them coming out and infecting more of us. If one of them got Ciyrs, there would be nothing that anyone could do."

  "Do you know how to lure them to you?" Loralia asked.

  "No. They just show up. Do you remember anything else that your grandfather used to say about the Covra? Anything about when they would come or how you could get them to come out?"

  Loralia scoured her mind, trying to recall everything that her grandfather had said, every story that he had told about the creatures and how enemies defeated them. The ground pounded beneath her feet as she ran toward the forest.

  "Silence," she said, suddenly remembering one of the stories as she dropped down onto the ground and moved aside a section of moss to reveal the hole leading down into her mirror realm.

  "Silence?" Bannack asked.

  "Yes. One of the stories that my grandfather used to tell was about how the greatest enemies of the Covra had a power that would weaken the creatures and was the only thing that could reverse their greatest defense, and that silence was their comfort and their joy."

  "What was the greatest defense?"

  "He never said."

  Bannack didn't respond and Loralia dropped down through the hole into the home that she had had her entire life before she met Bannack and agreed to go above ground to be his mate.

  "Locking them," Bannack said a moment later, sounding as if he was speaking more to himself than to her.

  "Locking?" she asked.

  Loralia listened while Bannack told him about the warriors visiting the prison that they had thought belonged to the Klimnu but they discovered actually belonged to the Covra, and how they found out about the kingdom that the Covra had locked. He detailed the Light Ones and how they appeared to be frozen in place in the same breath that they had been drawing when the Covra attacked them. As she listened, Loralia tried to understand what he was telling her, and what she might be able to do to help him. She had gone to the mirror realm to surround herself in what was familiar, hoping that it would help her to think clearly. She could feel that her mate was frightened and upset, and she wanted to do anything that she could to help him.

  She moved deeper into the caverns, exploring the chambers and venturing into areas that she hadn't visited in quite some time. Suddenly she saw something that made her heart pound faster and a smile come to her lips for the first time since the day that Bannack left.

  "Do you remember what I told you about the compact?" she asked, looking into the mirror at him.

  Bannack nodded.

  "Whatever reflects in your mirror, reflects in mine."

  "Yes. And do you remember what happens when something reflects in my bottom mirror from the top?"

  "It becomes real."

  Loralia nodded and looked back across the cavern.

  Bannack crouched down behind the barrel he had pulled into the middle of the street and glanced over at Lynx who sat beside him. The others had remained in the buildings on either side of the street, poised beside the windows and doors to watch what was happening, but staying out of sight.

  "Are you sure that this is going to work?" Lynx whispered.

  "It has to," Bannack answered. "In order for it to, though, you have to believe that it will. Loralia can only make this happen if you completely believe that it is going to work the way that she intends it to. If you don't, it won't exist, do you understand?" Lynx nodded and Bannack nodded back at him, "Good. Now we have to be completely silent."

  The two warriors fell silent and Bannack glanced down at the compact in his hand. Loralia's face gazed up at him from the glass, her beautiful lavender eyes calm and focused. Nervousness flooded through Bannack, but he knew that he had to steady himself so that he could do his part of Loralia's plan properly. After several minutes of waiting, he heard the rustling sound that told him the Covra were approaching. The sound seemed louder and deeper than it had before and Bann
ack knew that meant there were more of the creatures this time as if they had sent more to seek revenge on those who had destroyed three of their number just hours before.

  "They're coming," Bannack mouthed to Loralia, not making a sound.

  Loralia nodded. Bannack lifted up slightly so that he could look over the barrel and watch the Covra approaching.

  "Patient," Loralia mouthed to him.

  Bannack watched until they were close enough that they would be able to see him clearly and then stood, pulling Lynx up with him so that they were standing in the middle of the street, open to the swarm of creatures approaching. He could feel Lynx tense beside him, but Bannack stood steady. Lynx adjusted his grip on the blade beside him. It was meant as both a ruse and a backup plan just in case Loralia's idea fell through. They waited for a few more tense seconds, the time seeming to drag past as they allowed the creatures to get dangerously closer. Bannack's heart pounded in his chest and his head felt like it was swimming. If this didn't work, the entirety of the group could be killed, many by each other's hands.

  In an instant, the plan mobilized around him. The Covra climbing along the outside walls of the buildings got close to the windows and doors, and the warriors inside started to shout. As they yelled, the creatures paused and started to retreat from the sound. They started moving backwards back down the street, but several of the warriors streamed out of the building and made a line across the street, blocking them with a wall of sound. The creatures turned and started scurrying more quickly toward Bannack and Lynx, unable to go anywhere else.