by Anya Nowlan
Jackie crinkled her nose at the thought. It was about time that she got in contact with her brothers. If Ryder was talking to his lieutenants, then she was almost required to let her Alpha know that she was mingling with the Alpha of another clan. Of course, in her case she’d just receive gruff congratulations from Jackson (asking her when she’d bloody well be coming back to Montana and taking the Bitterroot brood with her), Julian would send her a text because he was somewhere in the Caribbean (on ‘business’ with a swimsuit model, most certainly), and Jonah would snort that he always knew that Ryder was just the right kind of bear for Jackie, and she better get working on the next generation of werebears right quick before all the precious werebear magic ran out. It would be a pleasant enough exchange with all three of them, but things weren’t the same since their father had passed.
Werebear clans simply weren’t as tightly knit anymore. There was scarcely a need to battle for land, and there was a silent truce between most of the clans. There was no immediate threat that kept the bloodlines together, so everyone kept drifting apart. Not anything new by human standards, but a painful shift as far as werebears were concerned. As much as they preferred having some distance between one another for territorial and temper reasons, it also meant that with less bears close to one another, their magic got weaker. So for one thing, it had got a lot easier to shift, when she’d come to Bitterroot. The spark in the air, not to mention Ryder, had made it well worth ditching her otherwise rewarding life.
While Jonah had been off in battle, finding his place in life, Jackie had been getting her life in order in a much different way. Like her mother, she had always felt the need to express herself through art. It didn’t make for a particularly well-paying career, but certainly a happy one. After a particularly ugly fight with Ryder about something she could hardly remember now, she’d left Montana, found a safe haven in Maryland and thrown herself into her art until the pain of watching her family disperse was thoroughly clustered into a tight compartment in her mind, and her art took precedence over all else. She preferred acrylics, stark colors and soft backgrounds. Something always demanded contrast in her. It had been a good life, a quiet life. Yet, the longer she stayed away, the less she wanted to.
One day, she’d simply realized that life wasn’t worth living if she wasn’t completely sure she’d tried to do what was right by herself. She’d packed up, got into her truck and driven straight to Bitterroot. Ryder hadn’t asked any questions and welcomed her back with open arms. After all, it was how they worked. Both having far too much passion for their own good, they couldn’t deny a peace offering if one was put in front of them. Jackie knew as well as Ryder that as hard as they might have tried to ignore it in their youth, they were made for each other. No one else could put up with Ryder’s brand of intensity, and it would be a rare man who could stand for Jackie’s sharp tongue and even brighter mind.
Jackie smiled to herself, finding that though her eyes had been reading the book, her mind was far, far away. One hand kept landing on her belly, stroking it softly without conscious thought. The sunlight flooded the living room, making everything warm and happy. For a moment, everything was perfect. She knew her place in the universe, and she was particularly pleased with it. Best of all, she could soon call Jonah, and when he would tease her about getting on the important business of securing the next generation of werebears, she could tell him that she was already on it. She hadn’t wanted to jinx it, werebear pregnancies being fickle and dangerous in the first few months, but it seemed to her that the immediate dangers had passed. Soon, she would start showing, and she knew she needed to tell both her family and her husband to be before that happened.
Telling Jonah should be an easy enough warm-up to telling Ryder. But maybe I’ll do it tomorrow… Jackie grinned cheekily, flipping back a few pages to the spot where she had started completely ignoring the book from. Procrastination was the highest form of virtue those days in the secluded mountains of Bitterroot. A ray of sunlight twinkled off the polished stone of her ring.
***
The pain that ripped Jackie out of her sleep was blinding. It was so visceral and sharp that she forgot to breathe, gasping dryly for air that didn’t come. A heaviness rested on her that seemed to be all-consuming, filling her world with only the purest sensation of pain. If she could have, she would have screamed, but the sound didn’t exit her throat, bubbling somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach. The pain was centered there, right where her hand had kept going to as she had read the book. Jackie’s eyes shot open, blue orbs glancing around wildly, trying to make sense of the immediate, horrific pain that enveloped her.
She was still in her bed, tucked away under soft covers with her blonde hair spread around her head as a halo on the pillows. But the bedroom around her was quickly disintegrating. Slowly, she became aware of the harsh, deafening crackle of the blaze that had consumed her home, licking at the walls with red tongues of molten heat. The realization of what was happening came much too slowly. By the time she had understood that it was not just a nightmare but her reality, the flames were already beginning to bite at the sturdy wooden base of the bed.
Air was scant, and smoke ate up what little oxygen there was left. Jackie pawed desperately at the heavy beam that had landed across the bed, scorched by the flames that had spread across the ceiling and out the bedroom door before spiraling down. Just touching it burned her hands. Adrenaline kicked in, pounding through her with desperate rage. She swallowed her pain, burying the distinct, horrific thought that wanted to take hold of what little time she had left.
Later. Just get out of here, she said to herself as the beast was allowed to take over. She began to shift just as the insidious licks of fire were reaching her.
Her body expanded, becoming wider and more powerful by the second. Light brown with muddled darker tips sprouted over her, tucking her safely in a thick coat. Her nose and mouth were twisted into a long maw, and sharp claws flashed into existence. The bear roared with ferocious determination, the large beam thrown off of her body after a few attempts. She jumped on the floor, the bed collapsing as she leaped off. The ground bristled under her paws, her vision blurring as the smoke filled her lungs. The pain was subdued by the incredible will to live, to conquer, to escape.
Blindly, Jackie rushed through the door and into the burning corridor. The flames of red, yellow and orange hissed, eating away at her home as she sped past. They singed her coat and marred her muzzle, the bear paying it no heed. Pain was temporary, after all. The heat threatened to suffocate her fully, and only when she slammed through the front door to freedom did she get a gasp of fresh air. She fell into the snow just steps from the house. Her lungs were filled with the thick, deathly smoke, and her body was twisting in pain from the burns. Before she could take a breath, a haunting, grief-stricken roar left the bear. Jackie let the bear leave her after a moment, tucking it safely away within herself. She knelt on the snow, her back to the cottage. Hot tears burned her eyes as she clutched her stomach, rocking back and forth the tiniest bit as her sobs fought with her breaths.
She could feel a sudden emptiness within her where before there had been life. A trickle of blood ran down her thigh, marking what she already knew had happened.
How could you let this happen, Jackie? she asked herself desperately, distraught. The physical hardships fell away, leaving only the knowledge that she had failed. She had failed her unborn cub, herself and her mate – she couldn’t see it any other way.
It was your job to protect him. Your only job, she wept, hysterical shudders taking over her. With trembling hands, she pulled off the ring and let it fall into the snow, the glinting stone mirroring the deathly blaze behind her. How could she ever look Ryder in the eyes when she couldn’t even do the one thing she was built for – protecting her cub?
CHAPTER SIX
Ryder’s heart constricted, listening to Jackie’s words. He’d pulled her against her when she was halfway through her tortured recant
ation of the night, and he hadn’t let go of her since. She stared forward with eyes that were all but dead, distancing herself from the memory that hung over her like a cloud of darkness. His insides twisted, and yet again, he was overcome with the irrational desire to wipe every single wolf off the face of the earth. Every tiny tremor that ran through her hit him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. In her mind, she had been the one failing him, but he knew that the fault rested solely on him. After all, was it not an Alpha’s job to protect his kin? To protect his mate? Yet, he had come out of it all without a mark, still healthy and strong, while his friends lay in the dirt, and his mate had gone through the worst loss imaginable.
He waited quietly for her to finish, her head resting against his chest. The tears she had spilled had been all for him, the cub they had never had.
“I knew,” he said simply, when she had quieted. She stirred, but he wouldn’t let her away from him. He couldn’t say what he needed to say if she looked him in the eyes. “I had known for about a month. You became more protective of me, of us. And, I could smell it on you. Your heat is not exactly easy to miss. It was pretty obvious, but I didn’t want to rush you into anything you weren’t ready to talk about yet. I figured we had plenty of time. I was wrong.” His barely plastered together heart was on the verge of bursting into countless particles again, all to be whisked away with the slightest breeze. Vulnerability was not something he was accustomed to, but he had become intimately acquainted with it over the last year.
“You didn’t fail, Jacqueline. I did. It was my job to keep you safe. It was my job to keep everyone safe, and I failed at all of it. That knowledge has been with me every single moment from that day on.” Ryder quieted, trying to swallow the mounting disappointment and anger at himself. Since then, he’d been caught in a spiral of lies and deceit, each day becoming more and more impossible to face. He’d made it his goal to make sure that his clan would be safe, but he was well aware that it didn’t quite look like that. Now, he had a chance to unburden his love from the terrible guilt she was carrying, and he could only hope that she would allow him to share the load.
He waited for a long time for her to speak. He’d almost given up on her finding her voice again, when she finally spoke.
“But, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to. I figured that if we could meet, I would tell you. But you were so adamant about getting away from me that after a while, I stopped trying. I stopped hoping. I could understand you not wanting to be with me any longer. I failed you in the worst possible way, and you deserve better. Dredging up wounds that were scarcely healing to begin with seemed like something I could only do if you were willing to face me.” The words felt hollow to him. How could he possibly convey how much grief he was carrying in himself? The culmination of a love he had known all his life, destroyed because he hadn’t seen it coming. Eternal anguish was a fitting punishment in his mind.
To his surprise, Jackie threw her arms around his neck and curled up in his lap, shaking. He latched his arms around her and cradled her, nuzzling his face into her shoulder. Breathing in her scent was dizzying and being allowed so close to her was a privilege he had scantly dared hope. She’d been with him through every moment, always at the back of his mind, but not for a second had he truly allowed himself to hope to hold her again like this. Perhaps it had crossed his mind that it was possible that he would see Jackie once more before her brothers struck him down, but it was always only a daydream, nothing more. He squeezed her as if he was never going to let her go, hot tears threatening to spill from his eyes, which had remained stone dry throughout everything that had happened. He swallowed them, feeling a hint of saltiness at the back of his throat.
“Jackie?” he said finally, reluctantly pulling away from her.
“Yes?” she replied, a tremble of a smile gracing the corner of her mouth. She looked gorgeous even when she was teary-eyed and red-cheeked. He doubted she could ever look anything but beautiful to him.
“I want you to know that not all is how it seems.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Ryder’s jaw squared, and he sat up a bit straighter, stroking the small of her back absent-mindedly. Every second he could spend feeling her curvy body against him was a moment of bliss that he was reluctant to let slip away.
“Just that. In any case, I don’t want you to feel like you have done anything wrong. The failure was on my part and my part alone. You did the best you could in an impossible circumstance, and I know there was nothing else you could have tried. Our cub was lost because of a senseless land war, one that we didn’t even have time to react to. And I should have stopped it before it ever got that far.” Jackie looked like she wanted to say something, but the steeliness in his gaze must have quieted her. He wanted to tell her more, to tell her everything that he had been hiding in him, quietly expecting the swell of violence like the tide that always came. If he told her, he’d be putting her in danger once more, and his bruised and battered conscience could not take any more of that.
***
Ryder had been in a daze since Jackie had left his home. It had been days, but he could still feel the lingering warmth of her touch and clearly see the tiniest outline of her lips and the curl of her hair. She filled his senses completely, mesmerizing him and taking him dangerously far from his goal.
“Ryder?” Drake asked, arching a brow with mild annoyance. Ryder shook his head, clearing the vision of himself kissing Jackie again from his mind. It was a pleasant thought, but not one he could allow himself to dream of when there was war to speak of.
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked what we’re going to do next. Now that you’ve decided to grace us with your presence again,” Drake grumbled, hushing the moment Ryder threw him a look that could have salted the earth.
He cast a glance across his lieutenants. Troy kept his eyes down, staring at his tied fingers. Most of the others avoided Ryder’s gaze as well, quietly waiting for what was to come. Ryder had done his very best lately to construct an air of insanity about him, and he’d been so successful at it that even he had to wonder sometimes if it was merely an act. Perhaps his sanity was truly fraying at the edges? After all, how much failure could an Alpha take before the ground crumbled beneath him and gobbled him up like a relic of a simpler time. He smirked, rapping his knuckles across the wood of the desk and leaning back in his chair.
“Well, well, Drake. We’re mighty demanding for a bear who got knocked out barely into the fight, aren’t we? Took Julian Arder a good few minutes to wipe the floor with your useless carcass. Tell me, Drake, do you think you are in any position right now to act disrespectful towards me? I should expel you from this sacred circle, not listen to your sneering remarks.” All emotion left his eyes as he looked at Drake. From the corner of his eye, he could see Troy looking up, sharing a mute conversation with the rest of his closest lieutenants. The circle had been bigger once, but two seats now remained vacant. Ever since Bitterroot, they had served as a painful reminder of what had come to pass, and they would have scarcely believed what was going on with the clan now.
“He has a point, Ryder,” Troy said, his voice low. Ryder cocked a brow, conjuring a wide, toothy smile on his lips.
“Does he? Enlighten me,” he said, sweeping broadly with his arm in a gesture of openness. Troy balked, but with encouraging nods from the others, continued.
“Well, what are we going to do now? We were supposed to settle the land dispute once and for all with the battle. Instead of clarity, it brought more confusion. Now, we’ve been huddled up here on a speck of land, licking our wounds, while you disappear into the nether with barely a word. Again.” The last word pierced through Ryder, sending his stomach in wild loops. He’d become quite the actor lately though, managing to take the jab with composed madness.
“I needed time to think. The addition of the Arder girl makes things harder. She’s not part of the trifecta, but she is another of th
eir bloodline, and it makes them even more powerful. Simply charging them all at the same time won’t work now,” he said, frantically spinning a web of deceit in his mind. It had been hard enough to get them to attack the Arders in the first place, and now, it was becoming almost impossible. They were tired of war, but Ryder couldn’t divulge the secrets he knew. It would only divide them, and divided they would fall. “I have been getting closer with Jacqueline again. I think she is the key. If I can neutralize her, then it will wound her brothers much more than any physical pain could.” The words felt disgusting on his tongue. They seemed to be equally as distasteful to his closest lieutenants, but yet, their expressions softened and slow nods followed.
More than anything, they needed a plan. Ryder had done his best to keep them preoccupied with the conflict, edging them on only enough to make them act, but not go overboard. So far, it had worked. How much longer could he keep up the charade was another question all on its own. As Ryder had expected, their simple decency and good souls had kept them from doing irreversible harm. But even the best of bears could only be surrounded by darkness for so long before it got to them. Yet again, he wished that he would have fallen on the field of battle as planned. Then, it would all be so much simpler. No such luck.
But then you would not have seen Jackie, he reminded himself. Death or love, as always.
“And by neutralize, you mean…?” Drake asked, his hands squeezed together so tight that his knuckles were turning white. Since losing his sister, Drake had become hollow, yearning for a cause. He was the easiest to sway, and Ryder couldn’t get over the feeling that he was picking on the weak and making them do things they would have never agreed to under normal circumstances. But such was the power of an Alpha, and their losses had only made that clearer.