by Vonna Harper
In the past, changing had always been a conscious effort, a move dictated by practical matters. Today was different. Unstoppable.
Barely aware of the two pairs of eyes on him, he moved as far as he dared into the middle of the room so he’d have more space in which to become a bear. As his neck thickened and thick brown hair began covering his human skin, he realized he wouldn’t be able to get through the door once the transformation was complete. Songan must have had the same thought because, springing to his feet, the elk shifter yanked open the door.
The moment Ber stepped outside, snow and wind buffeted him. Glorying in what he accepted as nature’s gift, he surrendered to the inner force he might never understand. Moment by moment he became less human and more animal. Bigger. Stronger. Solid. At home here.
As a bear, his eyesight wasn’t as sharp as he’d like, but his sense of smell and hearing made up for it. With paws and claws instead of feet, he easily dismissed the cold, snow-dusted ground. Not even a blizzard could penetrate his thick fur. A heart capable of supplying a half-ton body sped blood through his veins.
Because the door was opposite the window, he doubted the shooter had seen him come out. But if more than one person was involved—
As if in answer to his question, another pop rocked the air. A bullet slammed into the just-closed door, sending wood splinters onto the snow. Grateful for the shooter’s poor marksmanship, he whirled to the right and bounded into the trees. Whoever had shot out the window wouldn’t have had time to run around the cabin, which meant at least two would-be marksmen were out there. As for whether whoever had just fired had seen him turn into a bear, hell, it didn’t matter.
He’d heard people maintain bears were lumbering, clumsy creatures, but they were wrong. Given reason, he could move as silently as any deer. Lifting his heavy head and inhaling, he caught the stench of gunpowder and a hint of human. Much as he wanted to charge, he forced himself to be patient. To think. Plan.
Three shots, the first two twins of each other, the last sounding different.
Two would-be killers with separate weapons.
One knew he was out here and in grizzly form. The other didn’t.
One had deliberately shot at Rane and come within inches of striking her. The second had fired at him.
Growling under his breath, Ber slipped through the trees heading for where the first shots had come from and whoever had tried to kill Rane.
Chapter Nineteen
“Why isn’t he still shooting?” Rane demanded of Songan. “My God, if Ber has been hit—”
“He hasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“We would have heard him.”
Songan was right. There were rifles with enough firepower to bring down a grizzly, but that wasn’t what had just torn into the door. Going by the sounds, she surmised the shooter was using a deer rifle, maybe a 30-30 since that was the caliber of choice for local hunters. Ber might be wounded but thank goodness not dead. No, not wounded. Ber would have let them know if he needed help.
“There’s more than one man out there,” Songan said.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Instead of asking for an explanation, she accepted what Songan had told her. So much had changed since she’d fed off Songan and Ber’s bodies. Watching snowflakes enter through the shattered window, she ached to go back in time. “Two,” she said unnecessarily. “Trying to kill us.”
“Yes.”
Instead of staying on the floor as he’d ordered her to do, Songan had gotten to his feet and was pacing from one side of the cabin to the other and back again. Every time he reached the door, he cracked it open. She wanted to point out that the chance of seeing someone was slim; at least she wouldn’t be able to.
Today was no longer about trying to solve her mother’s murder and thus, somehow, win forgiveness. Neither did it have anything to do with exploring a level of sexuality she hadn’t known she was capable of. Everything had become a matter of life and death. Even worse, her damnable obsession was risking the lives of the two most important men in her world.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have never let you come up here.”
“I insisted.”
Had he? She couldn’t remember. No, that wasn’t the truth. Despite everything she’d been through today, she couldn’t deny a simple fact. She hadn’t wanted to come to Wolverine alone. She’d told the men she’d appreciate their help in trying to determine where her mother had been shot, but that hadn’t been the only reason she’d been grateful for their presence. She’d been afraid her emotions would swamp her if she was alone.
Now the laugh was on her. Her emotions had been swamped, all right, but not for the reasons she’d thought they’d be.
“Rane?”
Shaking off the useless thought, she realized Songan was handing her mother’s rifle and to her. Why hadn’t she already claimed it?
Instead of grabbing her pistol, Songan knelt beside her. “I didn’t tell Ber the whole truth,” he said.
“About what?”
“I can still think, at least a little, when I’m in elk form.”
Songan wasn’t darkly handsome like Ber, but there was a loyalty to him that had touched her from the moment they’d first met. Of course he was loyal. A bull elk was hardwired to put his harem’s safety ahead of his own.
“I’ve told you some about how it is,” he continued, touching her knee. “Even on four legs, there’s more to me than instinct. I have a basic ability to reason and decide.”
“What are you saying?”
He indicated the rifle. “Can you handle it if I go outside?”
Two evil men had tried to kill them. Right now Ber was outnumbered, but if a powerful bull elk joined him—
Shuddering, she covered Songan’s hand with hers. “I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.”
“He’s out there. Is it different for him?”
Was Songan asking if he was more important to her than Ber? Didn’t he know she couldn’t answer that, might not ever be able to?
“No. It all happened so fast. Ber was gone before I could stop him.”
“Even if you’d tried, you wouldn’t have been able to. He’s doing what he believes he must.”
If she said the words Songan was waiting to hear, she’d be alone. Trapped in the cabin where her mother might have spent the last night of her life.
Her mother. For reasons she might never know, Jacki had come alone to Wolverine. Her daughter couldn’t do less.
“He needs you,” she whispered.
So do you, Songan’s expression and the hand on her knee said, but she refused to go there. A short while ago, the two men had treated her as if she was something fragile and precious, but she was no longer that sexual creature. Damn it, she was a strong and competent woman. Just as her mother had been.
“I know how to use this.” She indicated the rifle.
Songan didn’t respond. After running his hand up her thigh and making a lie of her belief that she’d buried the sexual part of her nature, he again stood. As Ber had done, he took care to stay away from the shattered window while he undressed. Naked, he reached for the doorknob. She longed to say something but couldn’t.
“I’ll bugle when I return,” he said. “That way you’ll know who it is.”
So you won’t be tempted to shoot me, she heard.
More winter air rushed in when Songan opened the door. Then the big nude man disappeared, and she was left to imagine the transformation taking place in the storm.
“Be careful,” she muttered. “I need you, both of you.”
Despite the trees, Songan had seen Ber bound past the window opening. Obviously Ber had decided to go after the first shooter. That left the bastard responsible for the third shot. Filled with determination and little else, Songan left the stack of wood he’d jumped behind the moment he came outside.
Before he’d changed, he’d cringed under t
he wind’s attack, but now he held his head and antlers high as he stepped into the trees. They closed around him. If circumstances were different, he’d be tempted to stay there, because despite the storm, it was still light enough for his intended target to see him. Speed, and what intellect he could hold on to, would keep him alive. Maybe.
Within seconds his nose alerted him to a human presence. Breaking into a run, he headed in the direction the last shot had come from. He made no attempt to be silent. In fact, he made a point of slamming his hooves against the ground.
Bam!
Snow exploded off a nearby branch. A moment later, the branch crashed to the ground. Furious and oblivious to danger, Songan plowed on. The closely spaced trees forced him to weave around them, and he tilted his head as he did. Pride in what he was capable of filled him. He inadvertently flattened a sapling under his weight, then slowed.
Facing him from maybe a hundred feet away with his back wedged against a thick, dark trunk and his rifle trembling stood a man dressed in camouflage.
Kill. End the threat.
Instead of surrendering to the animal command, however, Songan forced himself to stop. How would Rane react if he trampled the man? She needed answers, a confession, maybe words of regret. She might never forgive—
Something slammed into him, knocking him onto his haunches. His head rang, then throbbed. Struggling to his feet, he fought to keep his head up. Despite the pain and blurred vision, he realized the bullet had struck the base of his rack.
Reasoning shut down. He dug a front hoof into the ground. Challenge done with, he charged. He struck the enemy off center. As he spun the man around, the human’s shoulder collided with the tree. Instead of withdrawing from the screaming creature, Songan continued to push.
Garbled and pain-filled sounds flowed around him. His heart rate kicked up. Fighting other bulls during rut felt right, something he’d been born to do. The rest of the time, unless a herd member was being attacked, he gave no thought to battle. Today everything changed.
Elk and human were locked together. For as long as Songan wanted, the man would remain trapped between him and the tree. The man had dropped his rifle, not that it would have done him any good. He screamed repeatedly, and his flailing hands beat weakly at the air.
At length Songan grew weary of the one-sided fight and stepped back. Whimpering, the man slipped to the ground and curled himself into a ball with his back to his attacker.
Wishing the man had put up more of a struggle, Songan rose onto his hind legs and came down hard. The discarded rifle bent under his weight.
Done with what he comprehended was vital, he took another backward step. Only then did he turn his attention to the man who’d tried to kill him. The enemy’s arms and legs were still tucked against his body, and he shivered as if cold.
Songan slowly shook his head. His vision was clearing, and his temple no longer throbbed. He tried but couldn’t recall the emotion that had compelled him to attack.
Not caring what happened to his would-be killer, he turned his back on him. One thing he did know. His reason for shifting into elk form wasn’t over.
Growling frightened the man who’d covered himself in a mix of brown and green clothing because he stupidly believed he could move undetected through the forest that way. Careful to keep trees between himself and the sometimes wildly swinging rifle, Ber silently laughed at the poor excuse for a hunter.
If he’d wanted to, he could have already attacked, but not only did he respect the rifle, if the man was dead, Rane might never learn what role, if any, he’d had in Jacki’s murder.
So keep him alive. Disarm him and force him back to the cabin when they’d wrench the truth out of him.
But first—
Keeping the sound low so hopefully the man couldn’t tell where it was coming from, Ber again growled. He’d been chuffing and growling since locating the shooter and had discovered that beneath the camouflage lay the heart of a coward. The man had once believed that all it took to kill three people was to sneak up on them and fire repeatedly. Now he was learning how wrong he’d been.
“I know what you are!” the man shouted. “You ain’t no bear. You’re one of those damn shifters.”
Ber waited for the man to threaten to kill him, but he didn’t. Maybe the short speech had taken the last of his courage.
Ber let loose with a series of grunts the way he sometimes did when he found a beetle-filled log. Undoubtedly the man wouldn’t know he was being labeled an insect, a bug.
“You stop that!” The rifle went still. “Think you can hide from me? You’re wrong.”
One thing about spending a great deal of his life as a beast but with human intellect was that Ber studied other animals. He’d learned from all of them, particularly the predators, and now handled himself like a cougar. A bear plowed through life. Ruled by its belly and made bold by its size, a grizzly took what it wanted. Fortunately almost anything the forest provided sufficed.
In contrast, cougars needed meat to survive. Toward that end, cougars stalked—just as Ber was doing now.
Carefully selecting the best ground to walk on, Ber silently made his way around and behind the shooter. Much as he anticipated watching the man’s reaction the next time he growled, he didn’t for a moment dismiss what the rifle was capable of. His enemy might be thinking the same thing, because his arms and consequently his weapon no longer shook. Something about him was vaguely familiar, and if the conditions were better, Ber might have recognized him. Now, however, survival and exacting justice ruled him.
When he was in position, he crouched behind a tree stump. The snow continued to fall. Anticipating smelling fear, Ber took a deep breath. He caught that, all right, but there was something else. A faint and distant stench that made the hair on his shoulders stand up.
Distracted and alarmed, he had to force himself not to stand on his rear legs to have a better chance of identifying the stench. Instead, belly nearly on the ground and shoulders low, he backed away from the stump.
“Where the hell are you? Stop whatever the hell game you’re playing. Let’s get this on.”
The man who’d tried to kill Rane no longer mattered. And with the unsettling smell now coming hard on the wind, neither did Rane herself. Ber no longer cared about revenge and justice or even survival.
Turning his back to the man, Ber lifted his head and let the deadly but vital scent guide him. Wind gusts ruffled his fur, and snow landed on his face to connect him with his surroundings. This was his new home, the mountains destiny had brought him to. He shared it with the smaller black bears who in certain ways were his kin. Once he’d assured them that this was a safe place to live and eventually die, the rest of the Enyeto would join him.
He’d select a mate. The sow would give birth to what looked in every way like a human baby. Because his mate’s body was incapable of nurturing such an infant, he would turn it over to a human surrogate mother.
Rane.
Her name and everything that went with it drew him back into the real world, and his cock responded. Then the unwanted smell again assaulted him.
Feeling the size, weight, and intellect that separated him from the area’s indigenous bears, he reluctantly headed toward the smell. He still faintly heard the man he’d wanted to kill but that, like Rane, would have to wait.
Snow blanketed the rise ahead of him, and he concentrated on his route so he wouldn’t slide. One step followed another followed by yet more until he lost track of how far he’d come. There were fewer trees in this area and many boulders. From what he could tell, there were more rocks than dirt underfoot. Only a handful of trees and few bushes meant he could take a direct route to wherever he was being drawn. Despite the ease of travel, he didn’t want to be here. Dreaded what lay ahead.
Stopping, Ber looked back the way he’d come. Given the mountainous terrain, the man he’d been stalking couldn’t have brought a motorized vehicle, which meant he couldn’t quickly get away, but he might
find a hiding place. If that happened—
More wind. More smell.
Walking again, Ber acknowledged a moment of envy for Songan, who didn’t know the meaning of dread when he was in elk form. He even envied Rane, who was safe in the cabin with nothing to do except wait for her men to return.
Wind again. Smell getting stronger.
Lifting his head, Ber looked up and ahead. At first all he saw was the new snow carpet. Then he spotted a barely perceptible opening near the top of the rocky terrain. He wasn’t yet close enough to determine whether what he suspected was a cave was large enough to shelter a hibernating bear. Even if it was, it was early in winter for a bear to be in hibernation. Besides, his nerves and nose had already told him that whatever was in there was dead.
Ber bared his teeth. Death was as much a part of these mountains as birth, nothing to shock or alarm him. Nothing new.
When the long climb was behind him, he stood in front of an opening large enough to allow a smallish black to pass through. After searching in vain for a reason not to do this, he began tearing at the earth. At first the rocks defied his attack. Then they gave way. Dirt and debris flew about to cover the snow. He was grateful for the cold.
The opening was now large enough to for him to enter. No choice but to go inside.
Dropping onto his belly, Ber wiggled forward until he found himself in a space with enough room for him to stand. Moving to the side, he let in as much daylight as possible. All too soon, his eyes adjusted. He saw what was responsible for the death smell.
An adult-size black bear lay against the back of the cave. Long-dried blood stained the fur over its chest. It had been gutted. Two smaller, still forms huddled near the adult’s head. They too had been ripped open.
Wrenching pain closed around Ber’s heart, and yet he couldn’t fully wrap his mind around what he was looking at. The storm couldn’t reach him in here; even the wind was little more than a whisper.