She ran to the fence before she let herself glance back toward the house. No one came after her. Her parents would never know she was gone. Dax would never tell them. No one told them anything, ever since Walker took over as Alpha. They dreamed their last days away in blissful ignorance.
She vaulted over the fence and headed into the darkest trees. She could travel better and find her way as a bear, but she still couldn’t bring herself to change. She hadn’t gone that wild – not yet. Maybe a few years with Austin Farrell would bring out her wild side, but for now, she would travel as a woman.
She started running, and the blood surging through her veins told her everything she needed to know about living in the woods. Trees flashed by and scratched her face, but their vicious fingernails only electrified her soul more than ever.
She turned her feet toward Farrell territory, but Austin wouldn’t be there. He left his Homestead for Dunlap territory, but he could be anywhere by now. Should she shift and track him with her nose? Should she go back to Farrell Homestead and wait for him? No, that would waste too much time.
She crossed the Cunningham-Dunlap boundary when she picked up a scent she didn’t recognize. She stopped running, and her animal brain flickered through the smells logged over years of Bruin gatherings. Dunlap: it was definitely Dunlap, but which one?
She followed that scent and picked up another scent, a scent all too familiar that set her blood on fire: Austin. She couldn’t turn aside if she wanted to. Austin’s scent led her on in combination with that strange Dunlap scent. He must have made it to Dunlap Homestead and roused one of the boys to come with him.
If she let the bear go, she wouldn’t have recognized where she was and where that scent led her. It guided her with unerring accuracy back to the road where the two trucks sat with their smashed bodies interlocked in a twisted mess of gnarled metal.
She didn’t get there, though, before a third scent stopped her in her tracks. It was human, and not just any human. She placed that scent in the bar. It was Bain Campbell. His trail bee-lined off into the forest, and down into the old coach road. Was he going to town, or was he heading for Horner’s Gully? She didn’t give herself a chance to question, but turned off in pursuit. Wherever he was, she would find him.
She hadn’t gone more than ten paces before the trail took a sharp left and cut straight uphill. He wasn’t going to the Gully, and he wasn’t heading back to town. He’d changed his strategy entirely. Why and how, she couldn’t guess.
Only one thing happened to make him change his mind between now and when he talked to his friends in the bar. Austin crashing his truck must have alerted him that someone knew his plan. He’d lost the element of surprise, so he changed his plan.
Where did he plan to lay his traps now? Austin and Brody and this mysterious Dunlap and anybody else who came out to find Bain would look for him in the wrong place. They wouldn’t find the traps until it was too late. Maybe no one would ever find them until they wound up dead.
Aurora was the only person left to find Bain and stop him. For the first time in her life, the weight of responsibility weighed on her shoulders. She stood up straight and tall under that responsibility. It made her complete and strong and true as nothing else ever had. Her people depended on her, and she couldn’t let them down.
Her love for Austin made her complete and strong and true, as well. Did she just think those words? Did she really love Austin? His presence and his scent hovered before her in all its mind-blowing power. She could think of only one sure way to find out if she really loved him or not. If he was her true life’s mate or not, or if their kiss was a random fluke, she had to find him.
She moved on into the forest, always heading uphill, when she heard a man’s voice just ahead. She crouched in place and waited until she heard it again. She crept forward one inch at a time until she beheld Bain Campbell moving between the trees.
He carried a ripped backpack over his shoulder and muttered to himself under his breath. He bent over and did something on the ground. Maybe his shoe lace came untied. He stood up and walked on. Then he bent over again, so it couldn’t be a shoe lace.
Aurora trailed him for half an hour. She waited until he moved on before she dared creep up on him to keep him in sight. She stayed just out of sight until she came to the place she first spotted him. A flash of silver winked in the dawn gloom and Aurora almost put her foot right into an enormous jaw trap buried under piles of dead leaves.
Aurora stared down at the thing lying open and deadly at her feet. Death surrounded it in a ghostly glow. It could sever a bear’s leg and leave it to bleed to death, miles from its home and friends. Was Austin out here somewhere, walking straight into danger?
She looked all around her. She knew by instinct where she was. She’d been here once with Walker when she was a little girl, but never since. Bain was setting his traps on a high ridge deep on the far southern flank of Bruins’ Peak. No human ever set foot there. Most Bruins didn’t even go there. What was Bain doing here now?
Now that she knew what he was doing, Aurora took more care while following Bain. She came to each place in turn where he bent over to set his traps. She marked every spot in her mind. The trap line snaked through trackless woods to cross the ridge and down the other side. That devious crud! Somehow, somewhere, Bain Campbell found a line that covered most of the major intersections between the Bruins’ territories. With one trap line, he put every tribe in danger in their most vulnerable spots.
This trap line would do more damage than Bain could ever do in Horner’s Gully. She hung back and watched him like a hawk. She made sure she found out where every single trap was set and the lines connecting them until she memorized the whole string.
When he set the last trap, Bain straightened his shoulders with a satisfied smirk. He sat down under a tree and pulled out a thermos and a brown paper bag. The strong scent of black coffee and tobacco smoke filled the woods, and Aurora turned away to hurry back the way she had come.
Chapter 9
A twig snapped. Austin swung his rifle off his shoulder and dropped to one knee with the shotgun’s butt stock jammed into his shoulder. He sighted down the barrel toward the sound coming toward him. Every nerve stretched to its limit when he caught a different scent. This particular scent exploded in his mind with thousands of glittering starbursts. Aurora!
She stepped out from behind a tree and smiled at him aiming his rifle at her. Austin just stared at her in wonder. She nodded at his hands, one that was still clenched around the trigger grip. “Were you looking for me?”
Austin stood up in a stupor. The rifle hung from his limp hands. “Star said you went home.”
“I did, but I came out again. I had to find you. You’re not where I thought you would be, either.”
“I was hunting Bain.”
“I was, too.”
Austin took a good look at her. He never beheld such a beautiful sight in his life. He read his destiny in her eyes. “I thought maybe…”
She waited for him to continue speaking. When he didn’t, she walked up to him. He wavered back and forth on his feet. He couldn’t figure out who or what she was. She was something beyond his understanding, but precious beyond words. He blinked, but his thoughts wouldn’t clear.
She came closer, but he still didn’t respond. He dared not touch her. If he blinked, she might disappear. Her whole effect on him might change. If he closed his hand around hers to hold her, she might fly away.
Aurora let out a deep breath and crossed the last inch of space between them. She threaded her arms around his waist and pressed her body against him. She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes.
Austin stared down at the top of her head. Could this really be happening? Could he really feel her body through his shirt? The rifle fell out of his hands and hit the dirt. Somehow, his arms found their way around her and everything came crashing into reality with mind-blowing clarity.
He closed his eyes and nuzzled his
nose into her hair. She was real, and she had her arms around him. She was real, and she loved him. She wanted him. They were mated, really truly mated for life. Nothing could stop that now.
She lifted her face to meet him, and their lips found each other in the cosmic space between her face and his. Nothing could tear them apart. His essence became her essence, and her flesh became his flesh. His tongue belonged to her exploring lips. She tasted his being, and her warm breath filled his mind with beautiful imaginings.
His eyes drifted open only to find her looking at him. Her eyes bored into his soul and laid him bare for her inspection. His heart overflowed for her. He wanted nothing more in the world than for her to read him and know him. She would rearrange his being to match her desire. He would make himself over into anything she wanted him to be, but she had already found him good and right and true. She didn’t need him to be anything other than what he already was.
He could weep and laugh and sing and shout all at once for pure joy. His rising ecstasy burst out of him in a torrent of rapid motion. He stroked the sides of her head. He ran his hands up and down her back. He fought to get at her any way he could.
She matched him in ardor. She slid her hands up his sides inside his shirt to find his ribs. She set his skin on fire with her touch until he couldn’t stand the intensity. She tore her mouth away from his to nibble down his neck and up to his ears.
Over and over in his mind he repeated the same words. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening, but it was. His whole world changed in her. She occupied his cells and infected his blood with her being until he couldn’t live without her.
His mind worked overtime to find a way inside her clothes. He had to take her right now to seal the bargain. He had to take her into himself now before she slipped through his fingers. He couldn’t go back to the life he led before he fell for her. Wild horses couldn’t drag him back there.
He tugged her shirt out of her waistband and found the ivory smoothness underneath. He was just starting on her under wire bra when she gasped out, “Bain!”
“Let him wait!” Austin worked on the hooks behind her back.
She tugged her lips free from his mangling kiss. “He’s up on the ridge. He laid his traps crisscrossing all our territory. We have to stop him.”
Cold clarity wormed into Austin’s mind, and his blood eased. “Where is he now?”
“I left him up by the fence line between Dunlap territory and Dodd territory. I thought I saw where he put all his traps, but he may have others to put out.”
Austin couldn’t tear his hands away from her glorious skin, but the reality of the situation nagged at him. She was right. Bain couldn’t wait. Aurora would wait. He would have her all in good time, and no force on God’s green Earth could keep them apart. They were mated, as surely as if they’d done it under the clear blue sky.
When she put her arms around him, she had claimed him for her own. Their hearts had merged in an eternal dance of Bruin love, and they would stay together always from now on. With a massive effort, he pulled his hands out from under her shirt. “Alright; show me where he is.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m gonna blow his brains out. Aiken Dunlap gave me permission to claim the kill in his place. Bain Campbell is a scourge on this mountain, and I’m gonna put him down, once and for all.”
“Wait a minute, Austin.”
“What for? Don’t tell me you want to spare that piece of tripe.”
“If you kill him, another hunter will come up here in his place. There’s a better way to deal with Bain.”
“What do you have in mind? I hope it involves long, slow torture, although I never pegged you for the sadistic type.”
“Bain hunts bears for a living. He originally planned this trap line to get skins to sell. I know where most of his traps are, but if we follow him without letting him know we’re here, we can find out where all of them are. We can tell all the Bruins where the traps are so no one gets hurt – no one but Bain. He’ll come up empty-handed, and that will hurt him a lot more than pulling off his fingernails or whatever you have in mind,” she said assuredly.
Austin frowned. “I was so looking forward to splattering his brains all over the trees,” he responded while still sounding a little disappointed.
Aurora bit back a smile. “Sorry, honey pop; maybe another time,” she said consolingly.
Austin picked up his rifle and cleared the dirt out of the barrel. “Oh, all right. We’ll do whatever makes you happy. I’m just glad you’re not some secret dominatrix who wants to cuff me to the bed and drip hot wax on my nipples,” he said with a sigh of relief.
“Don’t tempt me,” Aurora shot back half seriously.
Austin shuddered, and they tramped off through the woods in the direction of the high ridge. Austin’s spirits soared to be walking at Aurora’s side, but she didn’t pay any attention to him. She kept every sense trained on the path in front of her. She slowed her pace and picked her way through the trees.
Austin watched her out of the corner of his eye. For a pampered Bruin princess, she picked up woodcraft and tracking in no time. Once she tapped her bear nature, her instincts told her what to do. Her nose and ears and eyes caught information from the forest she had never noticed before. All of a sudden, her hand shot up. With a quick motion, she silenced Austin and signaled him into a crouch. Austin brought his rifle up when he spotted Bain up ahead.
Bain meandered through the woods, coming back down the trap line on his way to the road. He checked his traps, one by one, and even hummed a little ditty under his breath. He’d done his work and gotten away clean – or so he thought.
He got to the last trap and tested the spring before shouldering his empty bag for the last push back to the road. He cast a quick glance around the forest and turned, only to stop dead in his tracks. He froze when he came face to face with a young woman with curly blonde hair and gentle brown eyes. Her tight clothes showed off her assets – they were more than enough to make any man drool – and her polished nails glistened at the ends of her graceful fingers.
However, her appearance didn’t fool him for an instant. She was all Bruin, right down to her black leather lace-up boots. Bain drew back with a shriek and bumped into something solid. One touch of his hand told him that something was no tree. He whirled around to find himself face to face with a tall man in a black sleeveless tank top. His buzzed hair clung close to his head, and rough sideburns framed a fierce, harsh face.
Bain jerked away from him with another terrified screech. All he knew was that Bruins hemmed him in on all sides. The girl’s benign smile terrified him far more than the rifle in the man’s hand. He spun first one way and then the other. When he saw one of them, he ran away and bumped into the other one.
He whirled away from Austin, and when he faced Aurora again, the gentle smile disappeared to be replaced by cold, hard malice. She bared her teeth. Bain froze in his tracks, but the girl changed right in front of his eyes. Her head swung forward, and her shoulders broadened to cover his whole field of view.
Her lily-white face turned dark brown, and her soft eyes changed to beady black flints in her round face. Austin watched in amazement as the bear took her. It devoured the magnificent woman he called his own and left in her place a raging, wild demon.
The she-bear surged toward Bain with a tremendous bellow. He sobbed once, and his feet skidded through the loam in his haste to get away. Aurora didn’t chase him away. She let his fear do her work for her. With a ragged cry, he broke away and ran. He bolted into the forest without looking where he was going.
He ran up the hill toward the ridge, straight into Bruins’ territory. He would have done better to run toward Austin and Aurora, but he didn’t think of that; in fact he didn’t think at all. He was in total flight mode. He tripped on a broken twig and pitched over on his face. He clawed his way to his feet again and ran on.
Somewhere along the way, he dropped his bag t
o run faster, but he didn’t get much farther before he fell over again. He flipped over on his back and scrambled a few feet further. He didn’t see where he was going. He saw only Bruins hunting him, threatening him, gnashing their teeth to tear him apart.
His hand slipped in leaf meal and he splayed onto his back. He scurried to his feet and stumbled up the hill when his shoe lace came untied. It caught on some hidden obstacle. He had caught his shoe lace on the anchor peg of one of his own traps.
Aurora took a step forward, but it was too late. He thought she wanted to menace him and he tried to run, but the shoe lace yanked him back. He landed flat on his chest with his head in the jaw trap. The jaws heaved out of the leaves where they had been hidden from view. They surrounded his head with two sharp jagged lines of razor teeth and snapped shut on his neck.
His strappy body gave a wretched jerk. His hands tore at the powerful jaws as they crushed his neck. Blood oozed from the wounds, but nothing could save him. His one huge muscle spasm ran through his body and his heels kicked at the loose earth. Then he lay still.
Long moments of silence passed with no one moving a hair until Austin shook himself. He strode up the hill to the trap and touched Bain’s foot with his toe. Bain didn’t move. His eyes stared straight up into the sky with a startled expression. That was probably the last thing he ever expected to happen when he laid those traps.
Austin poked Bain in the ribs with his rifle barrel. Was he really dead? What demonic miracle would free Bain from that trap to send him after the Bruins again?
The hunter laid still and silent as the grave. Austin let out a shaky breath, but when he turned around, he found the woman Aurora at his side. “I guess that’s not exactly what you had in mind,” Aurora said quietly. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to blow his brains out after all, considering what we’ve got.” She just looked down and shook her head.
“This is just as good, I guess. I don’t think I could have killed him any better myself,” Austin replied good-naturedly.
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