She darted into the bus station, exchanged a few words with the station master, and ran back out. A charming flush shimmered across her cheeks, and her lips parted to catch her breath. “Come on. Where’s your luggage?”
“I don’t have any.”
Raven pulled up short. “Why not?”
“I didn’t bring any. I just came like this.”
She looked him up and down. “Do you mean you came all the way from Bruins’ Peak with nothing but the clothes on your back?”
“I’ve got my wallet and my phone. That’s about it.”
Raven turned away with a shake of her head. “I don’t understand you people at all, but whatever. Come on.”
Azer fell in at her side. “What will your family say when you come back with a Bruin?”
Raven snorted. “Stranger things have happened. At least I’m not mating with one of them.”
Azer scanned the town falling away on either side. “No.”
“Is your family worried about Melody?”
Azer nodded. “My papa’s heartbroken about her leaving.”
“Did he send you to bring Melody back?”
“No one wants to bring Melody back—no one but me, that is. They let her go. Anyway, Papa wouldn’t send me anywhere. It’s Mattox I would have to talk to about it.”
“I know that name.”
“He’s my Alpha. He’s my other sister’s husband, and he’s in charge of our tribe. He’s Melody’s Alpha, too. He gave her his permission to leave, and he gave them a car to leave in. I guess that means he isn’t too heartbroken about it.”
“Did he give you permission to come here?”
“I told him what I was doing, and he gave me some money. He only told me not to get my hopes up about convincing Melody to come back.”
Raven gazed into the distance. “Sounds familiar.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been talking to Melody, too. I don’t think she’s going anywhere any time soon.”
Azer humphed under his breath and fell silent.
“How about you?” Raven asked. “Have you got a mate back home?”
“Nope. Not yet. I guess I’m too young.”
“You’re never too young.”
He cast a sidelong glance her way. “Is that what your people believe?”
“We start whenever we feel like it. We don’t mate with one person for life the way you do. We just hook up with anyone we want to. We keep it loose and fluid. That’s the Midnight way.”
“That sounds like a disaster.”
She faced him. “Now you’re talking like Riley. He says some very strange things since he came back from Bruins’ Peak. That place infected him, or maybe screwing around with a Bruin all the time poisoned his mind.”
“Is that what you think?”
Raven whirled away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He shrugged and walked on in silence.
Raven led him out of town. Where the last houses thinned out and gave way to thick woods, the sidewalk turned into a winding dirt path. It twisted and turned, past a broken down barn, and climbed into the hills.
Trees closed over Azer’s head. He started to relax into the easy pattern of woods and trails and sky, but he snapped alert when Raven passed in front of him. The spicy scent of panther wafted off her hair into his nostrils. That scent set every nerve tingling. He had to keep his wits around her.
Raven shot a wicked grin over her shoulder and set off running straight up the hill. The trail ran up steep embankments, but she didn’t slow down. If anything, she ran faster and faster. The wind blew her hair out from her head. Azer ran behind her. He could keep up with her without breaking a sweat.
The faster they ran, the more mischievous her grin became. She errupted into wild laughter. That sound washed over him on gusts of air, and his heart burst open. He understood this better than anything. Under her cat scent and her dangerous blackness, she was just like him. She was primal. She was a shifter.
Raven slowed down on a ridge overlooking wide mountains spread out all around. Jagged peaks stuck up over impenetrable forests. The wind howled across that wild country. Azer surveyed the complete circle to the far horizon. He never saw a country like this before. He knew Bruins’ Peak. How tiny that closed little world seemed now.
Raven swept the view with her hand. “Isn’t it magnificent?”
“Is that your territory?”
She pointed to a sloping path of rugged, tree-studded rock angling off one sheer mountain crag. “That’s Midnight Moraine. We stick to our own territory. We don’t go to the mountains beyond.”
“What’s that over there?” He pointed to a line of a dozen sharp peaks. A solid wall of granite joined them without dropping to a valley in between.
“That’s Renegade Ridge. No one lives there.”
He could believe it. The place gave him the shivers.
Raven turned away before he finished looking. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of territory to cover.”
She started running again, faster than ever. He ran behind her and called over the wind whistling in his ears. “Do you travel like this all the time?”
“All the time. This is the way we usually get from home to town.”
“Don’t you have cars?”
“Sure, but this is so much more fun. Besides, I don’t have a car of my own.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you don’t have money.”
“I have plenty of money. I just don’t want to spend it on a car. I can get my brothers or my cousins to give me a ride if I need one, but I like to run it.”
Azer liked to run, too. Any girl who liked to run the way she did couldn’t be all bad. Maybe Melody had a point coming here. She wouldn’t stay with a guy she didn’t love, and unless the Midnight held her captive somewhere, she could always come home. Mattox said that over and over again to anybody who talked about bringing Melody back. She was always welcome to come back whenever she wanted. He even kept her room for her.
Raven ran for more than an hour, and when she finally stopped, a happy rosy glow lit up her face. She brushed her hair off her forehead and nodded. “Here we are.”
Azer looked around, but he didn’t see anything. “Here we are where?”
“Midnight Moraine.”
His eyebrows went up. “This?”
She laughed out loud. Her whole being shone bright and beautiful when she laughed. “This is just the forest, silly. The compound is over here.”
She turned a corner in the path. Azer followed her into a loose collection of every kind of human habitation known to man. Houses, trailers, lean-tos, and even a few teepees studded a big clearing amid stands of towering trees. The sun shone through the canopy, but the enormous trees shaded the place. Azer stopped in mid-stride. “Is this it?”
“It? This is just our family compound. The other clans have their own compounds all over the Moraine. Come on. I’ll show you around, and then I’ll take you down to Riley and Melody’s house.”
She strolled between the houses. A rough path wound through the compound with no particular rhyme or reason. Azer studied every detail of the place.
Raven pointed to a big log house. “That’s my uncle Wyatt’s house, and that waste of flesh on the porch is my cousin Jordan. Pay no attention to him. He’s useless. All he cares about is chasing girls.”
Jordan followed Azer’s passage with his eyes, but he didn’t move from the couch where he lounged in front of the door.
Raven swept her hand the other way. “That’s my mama’s house. That’s where I stay, and I suppose that’s as good a place as any for you to stay, too. We have an extra room since Riley moved out.”
“Who else lives there?”
“Well, there’s me and my sister Scarlet. There’s my mama’s boyfriend Sawyer, their two younger kids, and Sawyer’s other daughter Melinda.”
Azer stopped walking to stare at her. “That’s a lot. Does it get kinda crowded?”
“That’s nothing. You should see my uncle Wyatt’s house. He lives there with his brother Caleb. They’ve both got girlfriends, plus their kids, their kids’ mothers, the mothers’ boyfriends, the boyfriends’ kids from other women, my uncles’ girlfriends’ kids, their kids’ fathers, any boyfriends and girlfriends of the grown kids, maybe one or two random sex playmates anybody happens to be fooling around with…”
She stopped when she saw Azer staring at her with his mouth open.
“What’s the matter? Does that shock you?”
He closed his mouth and started walking. “That would never happen on Bruins’ Peak.”
“Well, it happens here. It happens all the time. That’s normal for us.”
Azer growled under his breath, “It’s sick.”
Raven waved her hand. “Call it what you want. Here’s Riley’s cabin.”
Chapter 4
Raven waved her hand at the little shake cabin tucked into the trees and stepped back to watch the fireworks. What a stroke of luck that she met Azer Mackenzie outside the bus stop before any other Midnight got near him.
The minute she realized he was a Bruin like his sister, her bear-baiting senses went on high alert. Raven might not be able to touch Melody with her idiot brother standing guard over her day and night. Who cared about Melody when this fool dropped into her lap?
One problem niggled her mind. Azer would be just as strong as his sister—probably stronger. No Midnight could tackle him head on. She only set her sharp eyes on him for a fraction of a second before the solution stuck out at her for all the world to see.
She had to get him back to Midnight Moraine without a fight. He wanted to go there, anyway, so what could be simpler? All she had to do was be nice to him, to lead him into the dragon’s mouth.
Riley wasn’t a total write-off. He showed Raven the way to catch these moronic Bruins. He hit on Marla and offered her a place to stay. He flattered her and made her think he was interested in her.
Now, Raven would do the same thing to Azer. Any woman with her radar tuned could see him checking her out. He gave her that knowing once-over with his eyes. He watched her hips sway when she walked. He fondled her tits and nibbled her lips with his eyes. He liked what he saw. She made herself the carrot to lure him into her net.
A smile here, a bat of her eyelashes in just the right place was all it took to get him to follow her like a puppy. Now here he was, right in the middle of Midnight country. He would visit his sister. She would take him back to her house and find him a comfortable place to stay. He would stuff himself on her mother’s home cooking, and Wham! He would wind up chained in the pit, all ready for the next bear-baiting ring. What could be more perfect than that?
Raven’s heart pattered watching Azer climb the porch steps. He strode straight to his doom with a sure, determined step, but he didn’t get halfway across the porch before the door swung open. Melody walked out and almost collided with her brother. Her eyes flew open. “Azer! What are you doing here?”
He nodded, but didn’t smile. “I came to see you, Melody. I came to take you home.”
Melody opened her mouth and shut it again. “Does Mattox know you’re here?”
“Of course, he does. I wouldn’t leave without telling him where I was going. I told him I wanted to come and get you. He said you wouldn’t come, and he said asking you or telling you to come home wasn’t respectful of your choice, but I had to come, anyway. I told him I had to see if you were okay. That’s when he gave me permission to leave.”
Melody burst into a beautiful smile. “I can’t believe you’re here. Sit down. Tell me everything that’s happened since I saw you last.”
Azer let her take his hand and sit down next to him in the chairs nearby. She held his hand and peered into his face while he talked. “Everything’s going good with the ranch. Mattox combined our herds, and he’s perfected his breeding program. He said he would breed one giant superherd that would take us over the top at the scales, and he did it. I’ve been working with him all these months. He’s the best thing that ever happened to our tribe.”
Melody listened with rapt attention. “How’s Papa doing? Is he…?” She broke off.
“He was sad when you left. I won’t lie to you about that. He still wishes you were at home. You know how old people are. Mattox defends you, though. He says you’re old enough to make your own decisions, and you’ll come home when you’re ready.” Azer looked around at the cabin and the forest. “What’s it like for you here? Are you happy?”
Melody glanced down at his hand in hers. “It’s not easy, but I never thought it would be. I won’t lie to you, either, Azer. It’s a hundred times harder than I thought it would be.” She stole a glance over his shoulder at Raven. “I…you know. I haven’t made many friends.”
Raven listened with all her ears. Melody couldn’t exactly come out and tell her brother she had no friends, that no Midnight besides Riley would have anything to do with her. She wouldn’t tell Azer how horrible Raven was to her all these long, weary weeks.
Azer leaned forward and murmured low, “Listen, Melody. I didn’t come here to feel sorry for you. I came to bring you home. You don’t belong here. Forget all this foolishness and come back where you belong.”
Melody gave him a sad little smile and shook her head. “I can’t, and I don’t think I would even if I could. I made a choice. I mated with Riley, and I left Bruins’ Peak. I won’t go running home with my tail between my legs just because things aren’t working out the way I hoped. Riley’s mother Violet and his other sister Scarlet—they’re really nice to me. They really try to be, anyway, even if they don’t really feel comfortable around me. I guess we don’t really know how to deal with each other. I knew it would be hard. I knew the Midnight wouldn’t accept me right off. Maybe they won’t accept me at all—ever—but my future is here. Riley is my future, and that means I have to stay here.”
“You can come home anytime you want. Everything’s waiting there for you.”
“Is that what Mattox said?”
“He says it all the time. He says you’ll always have a home with us.”
Melody lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles. “You’re sweet to think of me, Azer. I’m really glad you came. I never realized until now how much I missed you and all the rest of our family.”
Azer waited, but she didn’t say anything else. “Is that it? Just a flat ‘no thanks’?”
“You should have listened to Mattox. He told you I wouldn’t come back.”
“That’s not all. Foicks Dunlap is going around to all the tribes, gathering support. He wants to wage war against these bear-baiters and bring them down. He’s getting all the Alphas he can behind him. At the same time, his brother Ash is building support to negotiate peace. He wants to send a delegation over here to talk sense into these people to get them to stop attacking us. The two of them are at each other’s throats day and night, and the whole Peak is up in arms. Everyone is falling on one side or the other. It’s tearing the Bruin community apart.”
Melody stared at him with huge eyes. “Really?”
Azer breathed close to her face. “Come home, Melody. This is no place for you. You’ll never fit in here, no matter how hard you try.”
Melody lowered her eyes to the floor. “I know you’re right. I miss home more than you can know, and all our people and the Peak and everything. Maybe I’ll never fit in here, but I can’t leave. I…I belong here. I know it sounds strange, but it’s the truth. Maybe when you find a mate, you’ll understand how it is.”
Azer’s shoulders slumped, but he didn’t get up and walk away. He sat there with his sister, just holding hands. Raven watched and listened to their whole conversation from the bottom of the steps.
So, Melody had a family of her own somewhere. They missed her and worried about her the same way Raven worried about Riley. They lost the person they thought Melody was just like Raven lost Riley.
Maybe these Bruins weren’t the brain-dead
trolls Raven took them for. Maybe they felt the same way about their families the Midnight did.
Raven shook that thought out of her head. She couldn’t start thinking about these bears that way. She had a business to run and a balance sheet to maintain. That meant bears, and that meant bears in the ring.
She couldn’t start thinking about Melody and Azer and their loving family life back home. These bears meant dollars and cents to her—nothing more. That’s all they would ever mean. They were livestock.
These bears were just like the pretty little goats her people raised for meat. You could raise them on bottles and make them your friends. You could play with their little kids and laugh at their antics. You could love them and sleep with them and care for them and doctor their wounds and their sicknesses.
You could do all that right up until the moment you snapped their neck. You could do all that right up until you ran your knife across their throat and let their dark blood run out on the ground. You could care about them and love them as long as you kept in your mind at all times that you would kill them some day.
She could admire Azer and his handsome face and his nice shoulders and his angular hips. She could like the way his thumbs hooked in his pants’ pockets and the way he threw out his hip when he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. She could appreciate the way he kept up with her running through the woods. Pretty much no Midnight guy could do the same thing.
She could listen to Azer and Melody talk about their family and their home and their people. She could do all that, as long as she kept in mind all the time that these people would die on Midnight Moraine. She would find a way to bear-bait them, one way or the other. She would make a hefty profit watching them die a bloody death.
Chapter 5
Azer fell in at Raven’s side on the way back to her family compound, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Melody. She looked so sad, much sadder than he ever expected. He couldn’t leave her here. He had to take her back. He had to get her away from these cruel people.
Raven didn’t say anything, either. They walked in silence until the first houses appeared. Raven kept on walking when Azer stopped and looked around. “Didn’t you say this was your house?”
Bruins Peak Bears Box Set (Volume II) Page 27