by Leela Ash
Bear-shifters were used to coming and going as they pleased, without having to answer to anybody. He wasn’t going to apologize for going out to get some air. The motel had left him feeling caged and confined enough as it was. There was no way he was going to stay there even one second longer than he had to.
Still, he did wish that there was a way for him to go to the girl and explain to her what had been going on with him. It was personal though, and he didn’t feel like trying to make his case to someone who had already passed judgment on him. It would be a waste of time and frankly, one that he didn’t have the patience for.
“Mr. Mills, hi. It’s Kent. Something happened.”
“Kent? What’s going on, Mr. Black. Is everything all right. How is my daughter?”
Logan’s voice was high strung.
“She’s all right, but she almost wasn’t. The dragon-shifters launched a sneak attack on her house. Two of them came and tried to attack from above. Somehow their magic was working here. I fought them off but I’m afraid that this is just the beginning.”
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Mr. Mills demanded.
Kent rehashed the story, trying to remember every detail possible.
“The corpses are still here. I don’t know what to do with them. I can’t get rid of them. I’m afraid they may strike again and I’m not going to let them catch me off-guard. I won’t let anything happen to Adrian.”
“We’ll have someone come out to take care of the bodies. I need you to take Adrian out though, so she doesn’t see what’s going on. Can you find a way to do that?”
Kent nearly groaned out loud. How was he supposed to do that when he wasn’t even wearing any clothes? He supposed he could quickly head down to the convenience store. Most public places had changing rooms for shifters that offered a basic set of clothing for anyone who was in a pinch.
“I guess so,” Kent said, “but I’m not leaving until they get here. I need to make sure the area is secure.”
“Of course,” Mr. Mills said. “You said there were two?”
“Yeah. And their magic was working somehow. If it had been anybody else out here, I’m afraid she would have been burnt to a crisp. Those guys were powerful.”
“Damn it,” Mr. Mills sighed. “This is bad.”
“Well no shit it’s bad!” Kent exclaimed, nearly at the end of his patience. “I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do. What if they bring an army next time? I need to protect her, Mr. Mills. I can’t let anything happen to her. But how am I supposed to do that when I don’t even know what to expect?”
“Stay calm, Kent. They aren’t going to bring an army in. They know they don’t have what it is they need in order to win a war against the bear-shifters, especially not on our own turf.”
Kent sighed heavily. “Then what are they going to do?”
“They’re going to keep coming, but you’re going to have to fight. Just fight until there’s nothing left. I can have Coty watch over her through the night to keep you both rested and sane, but it’s you I need to trust in this matter. She’s easy to keep track of at night. During the day, when she’s busy going about her life, that’s when I worry. And Coty needs to take care of his side of the mountain.”
“Mr. Mills, please. Just tell me what’s going on. If you tell me more, then maybe I can help you to—”
“No, Kent,” He interrupted. “This is confidential. If I were going to tell you I couldn’t do it over the phone anyway. You would need to speak to me in person, in our ancestor’s tongue. Do you know it?”
Kent pursed his lips. After his parents had died he’d had nothing. All he had was time. Time he used to study as much as he could. There was nothing he couldn’t learn, and when he put his mind to learning martial arts, Blaine had taken an interest and led him to one of the ancient caves where he began to teach him how to read the hidden scrolls. There were many warrior stances that helped to align the bears with their hidden power; a power that was strong enough to obliterate both wolf and dragon-shifter races combined. They didn’t need that power, but Kent had begun to utilize it and nurture it during his training anyway.
“I’m familiar with the mother tongue,” Kent said. “Can we meet tonight once Coty takes over?”
“Yes, you know where to find me.”
Kent sighed. Yes, he did. “All right, we’ll talk then… and I need you to be honest with me. Because if you’re not, then it could mean your daughter’s life. You understand me?”
“We’ll talk,” Mr. Mills said noncommittally. The line of the phone went dead and Kent growled softly. He was getting tired of all the secrets. Just because he wasn’t technically part of Blaine’s big operation yet didn’t mean that he wasn’t trustworthy. They had to know he had it in him by now.
As insulting as it was not to be trusted though, it was nowhere nearly as bad as having to find some excuse to spend the afternoon with Adrian. She couldn’t know about the attacks. He was going to have to find some way to get back to her good graces. As impossible as that seemed, if being a martial artist had taught him anything, it was that where there was a will, there was a way, and he was going to find it.
12.
“Kent! What the hell are you doing here?”
Kent was standing on the porch of the cabin, shifting awkwardly. He looked handsome that day, dressed in a black button up shirt and snug jeans, and she had to look away before she allowed herself the chance to remember just how delicious the muscular body concealed by those clothes happened to be.
“I’m here to ask you if you might want to have lunch with me. There’s something I want to show you.”
“Lunch?” Adrian asked, raising her brow at him. “You know I don’t want anything to do with you, right?”
“I know,” Kent said with a burdened sigh. He looked down at the ground, his chiseled face seeming lost for a moment. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Then why are you here?” Adrian asked, putting a hand on her hip.
He looked at her again, his eyes flashing darkly in a way that only the shifters’ eyes flashed, in a way that on Kent seemed raw and powerful. A surge of longing shot through her body and she swallowed hard. How was she supposed to resist this man?
“I want to talk to you,” he said. “And apologize. I shouldn’t have left you so abruptly that night. I know you didn’t expect anything of me and really, we should talk about it. I want to explain.”
He turned away from her mysteriously, as if expecting her to follow. Adrian sighed irritably, annoyed by the way his agitating confidence seemed to inspire her to do just as he expected. Kent was most certainly the alpha type. He commanded respect and compliance, even if he was kind of an asshole.
“Fine. But you had better make this good,” Adrian snipped, locking the door behind her. “Where’s your motorcycle?”
“I thought we could take a walk, if you don’t mind. There’s a really beautiful trail not far from here. It leads to one of my most and least favorite places.”
“That’s kind of strange,” Adrian said, jogging a little to keep up with Kent’s long strides. “And slow down, would you? I’m little and I’m human and I’m a big girl. The term ‘leisurely strolls’ were made for people like me.”
Kent turned to her and grinned, but it wasn’t the kind of grin that made her prickle defensively. He wasn’t smiling that way to make fun of her or tease her. He was smiling because he seemed to genuinely like to hear from her. She was amusing him.
“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice a soothing rumble after the chaotic and confusing afternoon she’d had. Somebody had been prowling around outside of her house, making a ton of noise. Nobody had confessed to it, which made her glad in a way. She wouldn’t have known what to do with herself if she did. Her father had always taught her to lead with her best foot forward, and that success was more in your attitude than in anything else. Especially for a human who wasn’t born into any type of alpha ranking.
“It’s all
right,” Adrian said, looking down at the ground. Kent had slowed his pace considerably, and now they were striding side by side as he led her down the mountainside. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Kent was silent, then cast a sidelong glance at her. Again, she was stricken by just how handsome this man was. He looked like he belonged on a movie set, not out on a mountain walking with a chubby girl to some mysterious location.
“Well, first, like I said, I wanted to apologize about the motel. I had a great time with you that night.”
“Oh,” Adrian said, stopping abruptly. “I know what this is about.”
Kent quirked his eyebrow. “I doubt that.”
“You want me to sleep with you again, don’t you? You’re just trying to make up so we can do it again. Like a booty call or something. But I don’t play that game, man. I’m going home.”
Adrian turned to leave, but Kent gripped her arm and whipped her around to face him. His face was pensive and fierce, and he looked more serious than she had ever seen anyone look in her life.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he informed her, “and even if I did want to sleep with you again, which I would because you’re a very attractive woman, it has nothing to do with what I’m trying to tell you. Now you can either be courteous enough to listen, or you can go home. It wouldn’t bother me any!”
Somehow though, she could tell by the look in his soft brown eyes that it would bother him. A lot… and somehow that made her feel terrible.
“All right,” Adrian said as evenly as she could. “Let go of me and maybe we’ll talk.”
Kent released her arm and put his hands up in the air, then turned to continue walking. She let him go on ahead, taking in his broad, muscular form from behind. God he looked good in those jeans.
“Are you ready to listen now and not to jump to conclusions?” he asked. “Because I really don’t like to be interrupted. This is hard enough for me to talk about as it is.”
“Well, I can do my best,” Adrian said, glowering at the ground now. “No promises though.”
“I guess that’s better than nothing,” Kent sighed. “We’re coming up on what I wanted to show you now…”
They stopped in front of a small house. It was idyllic, a lot like something Adrian would have expected to see out of a book of fairy tales. Still, it was very small, and Kent stepped forward, then hesitated.
“I used to live here,” he finally said.
“You did, huh?” Adrian said, trying to ignore the pang of sadness in Kent’s voice and keep things light. “I can’t imagine a man as big as you are being comfortable in a little place like that.”
He turned to her, a sad smile playing at his handsome lips. “I was a child then. I lived here with my parents.”
“Your parents? Where do they live now? this place looks like it has been deserted for decades.”
When she spoke, she suddenly realized her mistake. Kent’s eyes flashed with pain and she knew without him saying so his parents were dead.
“I had to leave here as a boy after I found out what happened. They were killed, actually, so they don’t really live anywhere except in their final resting places. I don’t come here a lot. It upsets me. But I thought you should know why I did what I did.”
“And why did you?” Adrian asked, her voice as kind as she could possibly make it. She hoped that Kent wasn’t just feeding her a line, but somehow, she seemed able to sense and understand him easily.
“To start off with, I never even thought of my house as small until you said that, but now I can see what you mean. When Blaine told me what had happened to my parents, I was in a mine. It was small, narrow, and dark, and I felt like the world was coming in to crush me. I had never felt so hopeless or alone in my life, you know?”
“Yeah… I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you.”
“It wasn’t just hard,” Kent said quietly. “It was devastating. It ruined my life and as far as I knew, it made me realize I would never be loved again. I don’t think you can imagine what that might feel like.”
Adrian looked down at the ground. Sure, she hadn’t actually lost both of her parents as a child, but she did know what it was like to believe she would never be truly loved. As much as Logan had done for her, and as much as her mother had wanted to support her, the truth was, they were both kind of absent during some crucial moments in her life, and it often left her questioning the nature of love. Especially when boys outside her house could be so cruel about her weight at times.
“I guess I’m an orphan now too,” she said quietly.
Kent looked up at her, surprise and sorrow etched deeply in the lines of his handsome face.
“I guess you are. But Logan is still your father. I mean, Mr. Mills loves you. You have no idea how much he loves you.”
Adrian smiled wryly. Yes, she knew her step-father cared for her and she loved him with all her heart. But there had always been a kind of distance between them that no amount of time or bonding could fix. She wasn’t really his daughter. And they both felt that pain acutely, no matter how close they became.
“Logan is a very good man, and he would do whatever he needs to in order to make sure I have anything I need, and that’s great, but that type of security is something a bear needs. Sometimes a human needs a little bit more than that, I guess.”
Kent nodded. “Right. That’s why I wanted to apologize. That night with you in the motel was great. But I just couldn’t let myself stay there another second. It wasn’t because of you. After everything that happened to me, I became really claustrophobic. I hate being indoors. I hate being anywhere small and confining and cramped. I hate everything about it. And I just couldn’t stay there any longer. I didn’t think about how a human might feel about that. Bears come and go as they please. We’re independent. We don’t even travel in groups very often. It seems strange to have to answer to anyone.”
“So you left because the room was too small?” Adrian asked, raising a skeptical brow. While it seemed possible that all of this was genuine, there was still the possibility he was just trying to get away with something. Yet, she wanted so badly to trust him. Her attraction to this man was unbelievably intense, however, she had been burned far too many times to just trust him on a whim like this. Especially after already having had so many personal experiences that have led her to a pre-formed opinion.
“That had a lot to do with it,” he said. “And I mean, we were done, so…”
“We were done?” Adrian asked, prickling again. She knew her inner bitch was about to flare up, and even though she didn’t want her to, there was no stopping it now. “You mean you were done gratifying your needs, so you just took off without so much as a ‘see you later,’ right? I had never felt that humiliated in all my life.”
Kent looked down at the ground, his brow ceased with puzzlement.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Adrian. I mean, I guess bears and humans are just different.”
“Damn right we’re different. At least humans have the common decency to say goodbye when they go, or maybe wait a minute or two after sleeping with someone to leave. It made me feel like I was contaminated or something!”
“I really didn’t mean—”
But Adrian had heard enough. Sure, his sob story was sad. He didn’t like small spaces. But why couldn’t he have just told her that at the time? He was a big boy. He had to learn how to communicate with people or he would never get anywhere in life. And how did she know that he wasn’t just making this all up to play her because he wanted something for her? She wasn’t about to become some random bear-shifter’s booty call, no matter how stupidly attractive he was.
“Adrian, wait!”
There was no stopping her though, and she continued to stalk up the path alone. She would go back home and take a bath. Maybe then she would be able to forget that any of this bizarre day had ever happened.
13.
Kent stood outside the doorway
of the lodge, taking a deep breath. He would have to collect himself before he went in to talk to Mr. Mills. Fortunately, he had escorted Adrian back to her house and the clean-up crew had already finished with the job of disposing of the dragon-shifter corpses. The last thing the human needed at this point was to realize she was front and center in an advanced murder plot that neither of them understood.
Now that Kent was finally going to be able to talk to Logan, hopefully that was going to change. He wouldn’t leave without answers, and if Mr. Mills refused to tell him anything, he was just going to have to quit his job. Pure and simple. There was no way he was going to work for someone who didn’t trust him implicitly. Not at this point. It was too important.
“Mr. Black,” Mr. Mills said pleasantly. “Welcome. Come and have a seat. I made some coffee. Do you want some?”
“Please,” Kent said.
“I suppose we have a few important matters do discuss then, don’t we?” Mr. Mills said with a heavy sigh. Kent nodded.
“It seems that we do,” he replied. “Just so you’re aware, I’m not going to go anywhere without my answers, so you had better spill.”
Logan took the coffee he was offered and sat down across from Kent, taking a thoughtful sip.
“Look, son, I know this has all been really hard on you. We didn’t want to give you such an important task right away, especially not without a grasp on the bigger picture, but frankly, we had to think of Adrian’s safety at this point.”
“Okay, so what does Adrian’s safety have to do with me knowing things about what’s happening?” Kent demanded.
“If you were caught up in an ambush and weren’t able to perform your duties as her bodyguard, then they would have been able to extract some very important information from you that could have led to a potentially more serious attack on Oak Mountain. Do you understand how dangerous that could have been? It isn’t that we don’t trust you to do the job properly, we just didn’t trust our own intel on the situation at hand. Now we have a pretty clear idea of what the dragon-shifters have up their sleeve, and it isn’t going to be good.”