Another earth-shattering shudder passed through him. His whole being revolted against this, but he couldn’t stop it. It already took hold of him and swept him away somewhere he’d never been before.
He stretched out on the bed with his clothes and boots still on. Blowing out the lamp never entered his mind. He stared straight up at the ceiling. Sure, the place was nice enough. It wasn’t what he was used to, but so what?
Her scent clung to everything. The whole bed smelled of her, dark and musky and earthy. She smelled like no Bruin he ever knew. She smelled of bear. She-bear.
She was a different brand of she-bear, but he understood her bearness. He didn’t have to understand anything else about her. The bear in him smelled her. That smell drove the last nail into his coffin. The bear wanted that smell. The bear wanted her.
Her scent drifted into his nostrils from the quilt, from the pillow under his head. He couldn’t escape it. She left her stamp on the whole place. She went to a lot of work making this room nice for him.
Why couldn’t he have her? Why couldn’t he stay with her, either here or on Bruins’ Peak? Who said they couldn’t be mated for life? Why couldn’t he let himself go instead of holding all this tension inside?
Her scent drove him crazy. Lying in that bed drugged him full of thoughts of her. He saw her above him, below him, all around him. Those images hurt worse than anything. He wanted her, and he would never have her.
He wanted to punch himself in the head to stop himself from thinking about her. He wanted to do something terrible to himself to stop this becoming real. It already was if he was thinking about her that way.
He lay stiff and still on the bed, but he couldn’t fall asleep. His eyes stung from fatigue, but he only stared at the ceiling until the lamp burned out. It used up all the oil, and the wick blinked and died.
He stared into the dark. Nothing would stop those crazy images dancing before his eyes. How could he stop them? He could think of only one way. He stood, groped his way to the door, and strode out into the night.
7. Chapter 6
The night world outside opened its arms to Ash. He relaxed into the velvet dark. He lived in this world at his very core. His senses came alive, and he picked up shadows and smells in the starlight.
The whole Ridge seethed with bear energy. He could hear them moving out of range, but he didn’t have to worry about them. They were his own kind.
He didn’t shift right away. The night glowed with too much beauty for that. He could enjoy it just as well as a man as he could as a bear—almost better. His heart went out to the night creatures, the wind, owls hunting. He saw and heard and smelled it all.
He walked halfway down the hill before he shifted. He fell onto his hands, and his fingers extended into claws. He lowered his head between his shoulders. His shaggy brown fur sprang out of his skin.
He ambled between the trees with his nose to the ground. He plowed his snout through dead leaves. He overturned fallen branches. He had no idea where he was or where he was going. He didn’t care.
He wandered for hours without thinking much about anything. The bear hunted for food, but something kept bothering him. He kept thinking about that scent. The bear wanted a mate. His search for food turned into a search for that, but he wouldn’t find it out here in the woods.
All of a sudden, he caught the scent of fresh blood. It distracted him from that other scent. He bent his keen nose, and his whole brain flared to life. He had to find it. He had to follow it to its source. Droplets gleamed warm and dark in the dim light. Nothing fired his excitement like that smell.
The trail led him all the way down the hill and over the divide to some rolling country on the other side. He left behind the steep jutting hillsides for thicker forest. The whole time, the blood trail got hotter, more sizzling, more tempting until the bear couldn’t stand it any longer.
He trotted along the trail. He let his eyes soften and used his nose to hunt it down. He got so worked up that he broke into a run. He burst through a patch of bushes and stopped dead in his tracks.
A black panther stood in front of him. The cat straddled a dead deer. It lifted its blood-stained muzzle to bare its teeth at the bear. It hissed and spat at him, but the bear wouldn’t back down. He wanted that blood.
He swung his burly head from side to side and strode into the gap. The cat crouched and screamed at him, but the bear didn’t break off its advance. He walked in a circle around the panther and its kill. He growled low in his chest.
The cat flattened itself against the carcass, but it couldn’t match the bear. They both knew that, but the cat didn’t run off the way Ash hoped it would. He would have to get tough if he wanted to rob the panther of its prey.
He didn’t hesitate. He gaped his mouth wide and charged in with all his weight. The cat shrank before the onslaught, but it still didn’t retreat. Ash rose on his hind legs and batted one paw and then the other at the panther.
The cat yowled in rage and dismay. It slathered its black lips back from its fangs. It lashed its claws at the bear, but it couldn’t fight back. Ash drove in, but he didn’t even try to go for the cat’s throat. He clamped his mighty jaws behind the panther’s neck and flung it away.
The panther skidded across the ground. Leaves and sticks bunched around its feet. It floundered to catch its balance and came up spitting. Ash rounded on the creature and shivered the forest with his thunderous bellow. The cat hissed and screeched, but it knew better than to rejoin the fight.
The panther crouched to spring, but it left Ash in possession of the dear. The bear planted his legs over his prize. He barked out one last menacing snarl before he plunged his nose into the delectable scent of blood and meat.
The panther watched for a moment. Then it turned to slink off into the trees. At the last moment before the cat disappeared, Ash raised his head. He craned his neck back, and his spine straightened so he could stand upright. His bear self fell away, and he took his own form as a man. “Hey, wait a minute.”
The panther glanced over its shoulder at him. Ash took a deep breath. This was it, the moment of truth. He traveled all the way from Bruins’ Peak for this moment. He better make it count. “Hey, I want to talk to you.”
The cat didn’t move. It fixed its yellow eyes on his face. Every muscle under its Midnight coat tensed to spring and fight, but it stood still and waited.
“I came out here to see you and talk to you,” Ash went on. “I come from a different bear people over the mountains—Bruins, we’re called. Maybe you’ve heard of us. Melody and Azer Mackenzie belonged to our people, and I came here to make peace with you. We’ve had some rough spots, your people and mine, but I think we can come to an agreement. What do you say?”
The cat blinked and looked away. Ash waited on tenterhooks. Would the panther leave? Would he tell his people some crazy Bruin actually had the silly idea to make peace? That would be the perfect ending to this disastrous trip. Ash could slink home with his tail between his legs, and the Midnight and the NightShade and the Bruins could all shoot each other up until not one shifter remained in these mountains.
Ash shrugged. “Anyway, it’s just an idea. I understand why you don’t want to. I just wanted to tell you.” He broke eye contact with the panther and turned away. “You can have it back. I didn’t really want it. I just wanted to talk to you.”
He turned his back on the cat in a gesture of trust when a gravely male voice called out, “Hold on a second.”
Ash spun around to find himself face to face with a tall, dark man instead of a panther. His straight black hair brushed his shoulders. His black jeans and black T-shirt hugged wiry muscle under his dark olive skin.
The man took a step toward Ash and stuck out his hand. “Don’t walk away. I want peace, too. I’ve been working night and day to get the Midnight to make peace. I can’t believe I actually met you out here.”
Ash’s arm rose from his side of its own accord. He grasped that man’s hand to stop himself from drowning in
confusion. “I’m Ash Dunlap.”
The man’s lips parted in a toothy smile. “I’m Jordan Faulkner.”
Ash started out of his trance. “Faulkner! You must be related to Riley and Raven.”
Jordan nodded. “They’re my cousins.”
Ash’s heart pounded in his chest. This was happening. It was really happening. He was standing in the forest in the middle of nowhere, talking to some Midnight about making peace. “Do you…I mean, did Riley and Raven get you to make peace?”
Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know if it was them, exactly. We haven’t seen Raven in weeks. She ran off with Azer and never returned. We’ll probably never see them again, but Riley and Melody are still here.”
“So what made you change? What made you stop bear-baiting and choose peace?”
Jordan’s eyes flashed. “We haven’t stopped bear-baiting. If you understand anything I say, you better understand that. A lot of Midnight still want to bear-bait. That’s why my brother and Cole Archer came up here earlier today. Maybe you saw them. They said they had a run-in with some NightShade.”
Ash looked away. “Yeah. I know all about that.”
“They came up here to catch themselves a bear,” Jordan told him. “We haven’t bear-baited anything since Raven left. She ran the ring, and she took her secrets with her. No one has been able to restart it without her, but they tried. They’ll do anything to get it going again. All they really need is a bear and they’ll get it started again.”
Ash’s mind whirled. He fought hard to process so much information at once. “Then they don’t want peace at all. They’re just as dangerous as they ever were.”
“About half want peace and the rest want to keep going the way we always have.” Jordan shook his head. “I don’t understand it, but something happened to us. It must have come from Melody and Azer, because they’re the only new elements to enter our world for a long time. After Riley brought Melody back, the Midnight started to change. More and more Midnight started mating for life. First Raven ran off with Azer. Then a bunch more people hooked up for good. It even happened to me. I never thought I would fall in love with one woman like that, but I did.”
Ash’s mouth hung open. “Are you serious? How is that possible?”
“I can’t explain it, and I’m the one it happened to.” He eyed Ash. “I understand the Bruins mate for life all the time. Isn’t that right?”
Ash looked away. Those words stung now more than ever. Mate for life? It would happen to him someday. It was happening to him right now. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“What’s it like? What happens when your people mate for life?”
Ashe dug his toe into the ground. He didn’t want to talk about this. “Not much. Two people get interested in each other. Pretty quickly it becomes obvious to both whether it’s the real thing. If it is, they mate.”
“Melody says with your people a person never gets interested or excited enough about someone to do it with them if it’s not their true mate.”
“That’s sort of true and sort of not,” Ash replied. “Sometimes two people will do it, but it doesn’t really take off. That happened to me, and I know other people it’s happened to. Why do you ask? Did it happen to you that way?”
“I’m different,” Jordan replied. “I was going along my merry way, playing around with anybody I wanted to, and blammo. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I already did it with the girl a couple hundred times before it happened. I did it with her sister and a lot of other people, but it happened with her. I really don’t understand it, and no one else on Midnight Moraine understands it, either. It’s the people who have mated for life who want to make peace. The others want to stay fluid, and they want everybody else to stay fluid. They think if they kill all the Bruins, we’ll go back to the way we were before, but it ain’t gonna happen. We changed. I can only hope everybody changes. Otherwise, we’ll never have peace in our own society.”
Ash listened in fascinated horror. As uncomfortable as this man’s words made him, his heart thrilled. Maybe, just maybe, he had a chance to get through to the Midnight after all. “Well, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to convince everybody to lay down their weapons and live with each other?”
“The way I see it,” Jordan answered, “no one has to live with anybody. Our three peoples can live separately in their own territory. All we have to do is convince those people who want to invade somebody else’s territory. I’m talking about Midnight who want to capture NightShade for bear-baiting, too. Everybody needs to stay in their own sandbox and not go sticking their nose in somebody else’s.”
Ash couldn’t help but smile. This man spoke his language like no one else. “Sounds good. So how do we convince the troublemakers?”
“Talking won’t do it. I’ve tried that.”
“I have, too,” Ash replied. “I almost went to war with my own brother over this.”
“So, what stopped you? Did you come to some understanding?”
“I came to an understanding with my brother,” Ash replied, “but quite a few Bruins still want to make war on you. You should prepare for that.”
“Don’t worry. My brother Hunter and his friends are preparing for it. I suppose we should just go home and keep working at it. Maybe they’ll come around little by little.”
Ash didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to let this man slip through his fingers. “Will I see you again?”
Jordan shot him a wide grin. “I can meet you out here. Let’s agree to come around here whenever we want to talk about something. One of us might have to wait a while, but that’s the only solution I can see.”
“What about the telephone?”
Jordan stared at him. Then he burst out laughing. “Go on.”
“All this traipsing back and forth, just to talk to each other. No one ever thinks of picking up a phone.”
“All right, man.” Jordan stuck his hand in his pocket and fished out his phone. “Give me your number.” The two men exchanged numbers. “You let me know when you’re ready to meet again and I’ll come meet you.”
Ash shrugged. “I don’t know how long I’ll be sticking around. I came out to meet the NightShade, but it hasn’t worked out too well.”
“Are they going for war?”
“It’s not that. I…well, it’s complicated.”
Jordan clapped him on the shoulder. “Isn’t everything? Well, you let me know what you want to do. Even if you go home, we can still meet somewhere. I can come to Iron Bark to meet you, or you can come to Burkes Road to meet me. The law still protects a man who wants to walk down the street in a public place.”
Ash nodded, but he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder. Something distracted him back there, up the hill on Renegade Ridge.
He turned around to find Jordan regarding him with piercing eyes. “You better go, man.”
Ash stuck out his hand. “It was good to meet you. You don’t know how happy this makes me.”
Jordan shook his hand. “You don’t look happy about it. You better go deal with your complications.”
“The best way to deal with it would be to leave, but I can’t do that.”
“You’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”
Ash turned away. “Give my regards to Melody.”
The next time he looked back, the woods stood dark and empty in all directions—not as empty as they should have been, though. A black shadow lurked in those woods. It watched him from the treetops. Ash turned his back on it and hurried away.
8. Chapter 7
June took her time walking back to her father’s cabin after leaving Ash alone in his own room. What was she going to do? She didn’t want to fall for Ash, but she couldn’t help it.
The touch of his hand, the shine of the lamp in his eyes—they hypnotized her so she couldn’t pull away. If anybody thought she could fall for Ash, her father and brother would drive him away. No one on Renegade Ridge wanted an outsider hanging around—June least of all.
Enough thorny complications tangled the NightShade’s lives right now. Nothing complicated their lives more than some stranger hanging around. What if Ash found out something he shouldn’t? What would the NightShade do to him to protect their secret?
June herself represented the front line in protecting the NightShade. If she let herself fall for Ash Dunlap, she would cave in. She couldn’t hide anything from him, and his warm fingers squirreled their way into her heart.
She lingered under the stars as long as she could. She didn’t want to go back to the cabin and face her family. She eyed the woods. The woods pulled her away from houses and beds and firesides. She could slip out there, and the dark would swallow her black fur. She hadn’t gone for a decent ramble in months. Her father forbade it since Hazel got caught.
Before she could slip away, someone met her heading the opposite direction down the path. Her brother Arryn stopped in front of her. She couldn’t see his eyes. She didn’t have to. “Did you show him?”
“He’s over there now.” June tried to push past him. “He’s probably still awake if you want to talk to him.”
“I don’t want to talk to him. I want to talk to you.”
June didn’t stop walking. “I’m too tired to talk now. Save it for the morning.”
He stayed where he was. “It has to be now, June. It won’t wait. You’re playing with fire, and I won’t let you.”
She called over her shoulder. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“You’re getting too attached to him. You know it, but you keep on doing it. You can’t get mixed up with him. I don’t have to explain why. It’s high time you walked away. If you can’t do it yourself, I’ll have to do it for you.”
She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. “You have no business sticking your nose into my personal life.”
“When it concerns all of us, I do. You’re falling for him, aren’t you?”
June hovered in the dark, but she kept her eyes closed. What was the point of hiding it anymore? She never could keep a secret from Arryn, and she didn't want to start now.
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