Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7)

by Erin D. Andrews

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Larissa didn’t seem concerned about Harper’s panic. She just shrugged and stood to collect her things, conversation and visit officially over. “You know. Whispers. Don’t put too much stock in them. They’re here, and then they’re gone. Better get back.”

  Harper stood while Larissa went back inside and closed the door behind her. “Bye, nice talk,” she muttered to the door, then moved over to the latch in the porch floor so she could head down to solid ground. Larissa’s lift was one that could be operated by the person riding it, so she slowly lowered herself as carefully as she could. When her swing touched the earth, she stepped off and felt the ground pitch forward in the way that happens when one has been in the air for too long.

  With a hand on a tree trunk, she stood still while the crowd slowly noticed her and then gathered around her one by one. They waited patiently, eyes wide with hope that this had simply been a fall and no other sinister thing.

  She disappointed them all with the shake of her head.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. Everything above us is perfectly intact. All I found were some bugs eating leaves, but they aren’t touching the vines. Also, I spoke with Larissa. She saw the boy lower himself down on a lift. It wasn’t a fall.”

  Faces around her drooped in pure despair. If this event had been the result of anything other than a fall, that meant that somewhere in the jungle was a predator out to kill children. And with so many places to hide in the trees and the foliage, it could be literally anyone – shifter, human, or a whole new thing altogether.

  “Don’t worry,” Harper said, straightening up and allowing her chest to swell for a moment. “It’s okay. I’m going to find who did this so we can bring the culprit to justice.”

  She paused, certain this announcement would be met with accolades and cheers, but she heard only silence. Harper looked around and saw herself surrounded by doubt. Didn’t they think she could do it?

  “Um,” a female wolf chimed in, “is Grey going to help you? He knows everyone. And he’s so smart.”

  “So am I. I was privately educated for eighteen years.”

  This got her a round of eye rolls. No one liked hearing about her days of luxury back when she was the president’s daughter, a true Bachmann, encased in her palace in the mountains.

  “Well,” the pretty wolf tried again, “maybe you could just ask him. You know. Can’t hurt.”

  Realizing that she would have no emotional or verbal support until she had at least the suggestion that Grey was working with her toward solving this mystery, she relented. “Yeah. You’re right. And he is very intelligent. And he knows everybody. He could be a great help.”

  The wolf gave a relieved “Yeah,” as she smiled and nodded at her new savior. The rest of the crowd joined her and patted her on the back for her sound decision to ask her boyfriend for help. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. She felt her incisor teeth extend, ready to bite off their hands. She forced a smile and breathed. Not today.

  Later that night, Grey came to the burial of the poor, dead boy. By then, his family had been located and gathered at the central square, the only clear intersection left in the city, for a kind of funeral.

  The boy was the first to die in the new jungle. Everyone had felt so lucky to be alive as nature renewed itself and experimented with new flora and fauna that to see death staring them in the face was a shock. Life in this new place was generally happy and had a kind of floating lightness to it. To see this dark, heavy thing in their beautiful community of trees left them all speechless with shock.

  Together, they listened to the boy’s mother sob. She didn’t cry softly; her cries seemed to be ripped from her one by one, each more painful than the last. Harper remembered once hearing a friend of her father’s say that it was every parent’s nightmare to bury a child. She could see at that moment that it was true.

  The boy’s short, muscular father moved forward to say a few words.

  “My son, Marcus, was a beautiful, spirited creature. He was a beautiful flier, a wonderful storyteller, a genuine person. This world will be a darker place without him.”

  He reached over to his wife, but she batted his hand away, the very thought of affection making her cries louder. He glanced over at Grey who took over.

  “At the parent’s request,” he said somberly, “our dear Marcus will be left to the jungle. They ask that no one disturb the body so that the plants may reclaim his body as our sacrifice for this new home we have found. Please respect their wishes.”

  One by one, each mourner approached the parents and hugged them or shook their hands gently. As Harper touched the weeping mother’s hands, she didn’t make any promises or proclamations, Instead, she made a fierce and silent promise to herself.

  I’m going to find Marcus’ killer. I will. I will.

  Chapter Three

  Rainfall

  The next morning, Harper woke to the sound of a heavy rain falling. She stayed under the covers. Now, even rain had a new shape and therefore more of an impact as it fell. The New Rain, as everyone still called it, came in big, fat drops that could fill your mouth in one splash if you had the urge to turn your face up to the sky. The same drop would fill your nostrils and threaten to drown you altogether if you didn’t run back in, and you had better, because there would still be water left over to fill your ears, flood your eyes, and slick back your hair. All of this would happen in less than a breath and would be followed by drop after drop, each reproducing the same effect. No one walked in the rain anymore.

  The huge, pouring drops outside meant that no one would be doing anything for the next couple of hours. Harper was emotionally exhausted from her trip through the sky, and she was happy for the excuse to sleep as she wriggled down under her army blanket. Every house had one. They had hung onto them after several trees broke apart old supply stores and one root system lifted an emergency bunker right out of the ground. While the canned food had burst open and the flares had no one left to signal, the blankets turned out to be a great find. The giant blobs of water falling from the sky cooled the air significantly and would have them all shivering in their beds if not for the scratchy, grey material each house had at the ready.

  Harper let the sound of water rushing off her roof and cascading down to the ground like a gushing waterfall fill her ears. She thought of Marcus’ body out there in the forest. She wondered if Grey was still asleep or watching the rain like he almost always did.

  Grey. Just his name was enough to make her smile. She turned onto her side and drew her knees up to her chest. Her eyelids got heavier and heavier with each breath as she reviewed her memory of Grey and all the beautiful details of his face.

  Grey had soft, blond hair that was always a bit of mess sitting on top of his head – and it always appeared to be truly sitting, as if it had collapsed from exhaustion on top of his head – that caught the sun as they walked together. He hated shoes nowadays and was almost always barefoot, his toes spread far apart. She was a little embarrassed by how much she liked his toes, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. They were strong and sturdy. They pushed him up trees as he climbed and held the sides of the trunk as well as any hand. How was it possible for a set of ten toes to be so muscular and so agile?

  Of course, if Grey’s feet were beautiful, his hands were even more so. His hands were…

  Almost without realizing it, Harper had slid her own hand between her thighs. She wasn’t surprised to discover that the center of her body was completely wet and warm despite the cold air. She drew her fingers up along her secret slit and then back down again, loving the feel of the soft, delicate flesh slick with thoughts of her crush. She could just see him smiling, see his bare chest sweating as he worked in the sunlight to fix a neighbor’s door or bring up a lift.

  She rolled onto her stomach and pressed her hands against herself, then rocked her hips up and down against the mattress. The friction she cre
ated was exquisite, and she could feel a small, modest orgasm building. Almost as if it were waiting for a nod from her, it moved forward once she’d acknowledged its existence and then walked up to meet her, growing with each step.

  “Grey… Grey,” she whispered to herself and imagined him calling her name and his hot, naked body pressed against her own. The orgasm came and was small enough to be a bit frustrating. She let it pulse through her, then rolled over onto her back and looked at her ceiling. She was alone, surrounded by a violent rain and no longer interested in sleep.

  She swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood to stretch, going up all the way onto her toes, then walked to the little shelf that she had pillaged from an old, broken house.

  In the early days of setting up the village, she and her friend, Blue, used to go out with the raiding parties and see what they could find in the old buildings. Most of those little excursions had been purely social – no one had anything of much interest. But one house had possessed an impressive collection of novels, and Harper had helped herself. She’d been told her whole life that all the novels had been destroyed as per the presidential family’s orders, but as she had learned so many times, a person could hide anything. At the sight of her bounty a few, of the others got mad at her; they had just learned how to read and accused her of keeping all the good books to herself, but she just shrugged.

  “Oh, stop your whining,” she’d admonished them. “You’re all welcome to borrow whatever you’d like to read once I’m done. Just bring me a different book and we’ll swap.” There were some final grumbles after that, but they left her alone after she offered to share. A few took her up on it, but most of them went on to build mini libraries of their own and got surprisingly territorial about their books.

  She picked up the one she had been reading for the past few weeks. It was a decaying paperback called Black and White. It said on the back of the book that it was meant to be a thriller, but Harper found that she had no interest in the conflict of the plot. It was the world of the book that pulled her in. The story unfolded in a past era full of people who couldn’t even begin to imagine the ways their planet would evolve and change. The book referenced places that Harper had never heard of – names like Kansas and the Midwest made her head spin. What did those places look like? She was sure they had been achingly beautiful – everyone in the book seemed oddly devoted to the places they lived as if held there by forces beyond their control. Harper had no idea what such a thing felt like.

  She got so engrossed in her book, trying to imagine a farmhouse or a well, that when the rain came to a stop she almost didn’t notice. It was her grumbling stomach that snapped her out of her quiet moment.

  Peeking out her window to make sure she wouldn’t be knocked to the ground by a rain drop, she saw that several pieces of delicious fruit had tumbled onto her porch. She quickly scooped it up and chopped it, and then threw on some nuts. She was about to take a bite when her lift bells jingled. Someone needed a ride.

  Harper quickly got to work pulling her visitor up and tried to get a look at who was coming to see her. She hoped it was her love, her beautiful Grey, but she had a feeling he was out checking around the village for any roofs that needed patching or railings that needed a repair. Maybe he had come to see her first? Yes, that was possible.

  The sight of a head covered in dark hair made her hopes fall. They fell a little further when she saw that it was Alex, a human who was an active member in the Alliance. What did he want?

  She decided to skip any pleasantries. “What are you doing here, Alex?”

  “Well, it’s nice to see you, too.” He smiled at her as if they were sharing some private joke, but Harper did not return it. Alex had briefly been her hero, but since helping her escape her self-imposed captivity a few years ago, he had done nothing but let her down. She just hoped he wouldn’t stay long; she didn’t want neighbors seeing her with him.

  Harper crossed her arms and leaned against her door frame. “You gonna tell me what this is about, or not?”

  “Wow. I didn’t know you were such a serious lady. I’m just here on a friendly visit. Don’t see why that’s a problem.” He touched her as he finished the phrase, and she shot his hand a glare of hate. Every time he touched her, the part of her skin that he came into contact with was ice cold for the next several days. She hated it.

  “Come on, Harper,” he tried again. “Why can’t I just come and hang out with a friend?”

  “Because,” she said, standing straight up, “we’re not friends. We haven’t been for a long time. And,” she paused, noticing some neighboring shifters moving out onto their porches, “you only come around when you want something. Well, let me save you the effort. I can’t help you. I don’t want to help you. Even if I had something of use, I wouldn’t share it with you. Now, if you’ll just get back on the lift I’ll lower you down–”

  “I don’t need anything from you. I came to invite you to live with the Alliance again.”

  She rolled her eyes and started to argue with him, but he stopped her.

  “Harper,” he said, a hand held up to silence her, “there is a murderer on the loose. That boy did not have an accident. He was killed because he was in the way, and I’m worried you could be next.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “Oh, come on!” He let go of all of his friendly, smiling pretense, and the perpetually frustrated face she was used to seeing on him returned. “Why doesn’t anyone listen to me anymore? The Alliance is trying to help everyone, and we get treated like criminals.”

  “Then break up the Alliance. It’s that simple,” she informed him, and turned to go back inside her house. His big, cold hand covered hers and stopped her before she could open it.

  “We’re on your side, Harper. We don’t like what we’re hearing about this plan to keep Grey away from you at all costs. Just because you’re not a full shifter–”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  He pulled back, leaned against the wet rail of the patio, and raised his eyebrows at her. Now she wanted to talk. She waited.

  “Well,” he started slowly, making sure he had her full attention, “it appears that not a lot of people think you and Mr. Grey shouldn’t be together. He’s always been such a pillar of the shifter community, and with you being the daughter of the former president, well…”

  Harper closed her eyes a moment. Hadn’t she tried to tell Grey over and over that there was a real effort happening to keep them apart? And how many times had he laughed at her, told her she was imagining things? She shook her head and let the long incisor teeth in her jaw touch at the tips, then slid them back and forth, listening to the soft, sharp sound they made. What was wrong with everyone?

  “Just shifters, or humans, too?”

  “Sorry?” Alex raised his eyebrows again. She took a slow breath.

  “I’m asking,” she explained, “if only shifters are against us having a relationship, or is it the humans as well?”

  “The human opinion is split. A lot of them think it’s a bad idea, but you have some people on your side. The problem is that you have no label; you’re not quite a member of either group. No one’s quite sure what to make of that. After all, what would happen if the two of you had a baby?”

  “What?” Harper’s mouth fell open. “Why is that anyone’s business?”

  He shrugged. “You know how small the community has gotten. Everything is everyone’s business nowadays.”

  Harper found herself unable to speak. She looked at the space around her and suddenly saw how unfamiliar it all looked. Where was her big, beautiful bed? Her glowing vanity? Her servants and messengers waiting at every corner to take an order from her? How on Earth had she ended up in this ramshackle tree house, eating bugs?

  “Hey,” Alex said in a low voice, “I’m sorry to have to play messenger. I thought you already knew.”

  “No,” she said flatly. “No, I…I didn’t quite realize. Well,” she straig
htened up, looking Alex square in the eye, “if no one approves of me I can tell you right now that being seen with you will only make things worse. Please go.”

  “But I can help.”

  “I highly doubt that. Now leave. Please.”

  She went back in her house and shut the door behind her. She slid the wooden beam that served as her lock across the door so that Alex couldn’t push it open, though she knew he could easily climb in a window if he was truly determined. No protests or shouts came from outside. Alex had fallen silent.

  She waited near the door until her feet hurt from standing, then she moved back to her little reading corner. Along the way, she shuttered up her windows. She didn’t slam them, but she locked them up all the same. There. Now he was completely locked out.

  Harper did her best to relax and read, but the occasional squeak or creak from her porch kept her looking up from the page. Darn that Alex. She couldn’t believe she had ever considered him her friend. He was a menace who knew what power tasted like, and now he was beyond dangerous. And what was that about her having what he needed?

  She slammed her book closed and stood up to give that meddling boy a taste of her frustration when a soft, shushing sound stopped her mid-step. Something had just come from below the door.

  Bending down to take a closer look, she found it was a note left for her by Alex. It read:

  I’m not the enemy. However, you do have people out for you. Be careful. I want you to know that the alliance is not responsible for that little boy’s death. We’re hoping to help everyone heal, but we need your help. You can be as much of a leader as Grey. Why give him all the glory?

  We’ll be at the old square tomorrow morning. Early. Hope to see you there.

  A knock made her jump and forget the note in her hands. What was with her lately? She was normally a fairly relaxed person. Now everything was startling her.

  “Hello? I’m looking for a beautiful young woman. Strapping and handsome young man seeks mate. Any takers?”