by Kim Fox
Ellis held her body as she sunk to the ground. “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she stammered through sobs.
“It’s okay,” he said, kissing the tears from her cheeks. He had secrets too.
She shook her head. “No. It’s bad. I have a fiancee.”
The words hit him like a kick in the gut. A fiancee? He had a sudden desire to run. To race down the mountain faster than he ever had before. His bear kept him grounded. His bear didn’t care about fiancees or boyfriends. It was black and white to his bear. She was his and he was hers.
“His name is Greg,” she said, staring at the ground. The tears had stopped but she was still upset. “He is the son of my parents’ friends. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”
Ellis was speechless. He just held her close, hoping that it wasn’t the last time that he got to hold her body to his.
“On paper he sounds great,” she continued. “Rich, powerful, good looking and my family loved him. But he has a dark side. There were signs when we were dating but I ignored them. I was living in a fantasy land, more concerned with my wardrobe and nightlife than the monster I was attaching myself to. We got engaged a few months later. My parents were thrilled. But then everything changed.”
Fresh tears flowed down her cheeks.
“First it was the insults. He would call me fat and stupid and ugly. He would say that I was disgusting and tell me that no one would want to be with a pig like me. It got to the point where I started to believe his words. I looked in the mirror and saw a fat, ugly slob looking back at me.”
Ellis clenched his hands into fists. Now he wanted to race down the mountain for another reason. To find this Greg and unleash his bear on him.
“A month before the wedding was the first time that he hit me. I had ordered the wrong flavor for the cake. He wanted chocolate and I ordered vanilla. After that day, there wasn’t one day that went by when he didn’t hit me or kick me or slap me.” She shook her head. “It was horrible. I went to my family for help and my dad told me to stop being so dramatic. My mom looked at my bruises and told me that I was making up stories because I had cold feet.”
She took a deep breath. “They just hung me out to dry. They’d rather their daughter be in an abusive relationship than upset their precious friends.”
Ellis ran his fingers through her hair. “When did all of this happen?”
“My wedding was supposed to be last week.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t go through with it. The day before the wedding I drove to the bank, took out all the money I had, a little over four thousand dollars in cash, threw out my cell phone, threw out my credit cards, bank cards and anything else that could be used to track me down, and started driving. I didn’t have a map or GPS. I just drove and drove and drove. For days. One morning I stopped for breakfast in your mom’s diner and saw the hiring sign in the window. I asked and she hooked me up with a job and a place to stay. She’s been great.”
“It’s okay,” Ellis said, stroking her cheek. “He’s out of your life. You never have to see him again. You can stay with me.”
She looked up at him with worried eyes. “There’s more. He knows where I am.”
“Good let him come,” he said, gritting his teeth.
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, gripping his wrist. “He’s a very powerful man. He knows lots of bad people.”
“Look Alexi,” he said, placing his hand on hers. “I haven’t been completely honest with you either. There are things that I can do…”
What was that?
There was a brief change in the wind and a strange, familiar smell hit his nose. Shit. Not now.
He sprang up. “We have to go. Now.”
She looked at him with confusion as he stood up and sniffed the air. They’re close. Too close.
Ellis pulled Alexi behind his body as two shirtless members of the Flint crew popped out through the trees. Ryder was the first one to emerge. He was fit and muscular with short blond hair. He looked more like a male model than a lumberjack. Clay followed closely behind him. He was easy to recognize with tribal tattoos all over his arms and a big, bear claw tattooed on his right pec.
Ellis planted his heels in the ground, separating his feet in a fighter’s stance. These two were lesser members of the Flint crew but he was still outnumbered.
His bear was struggling to get out. It was taking a lot to keep him from drawing to the surface. Ellis wanted to avoid a fight if possible. Alexi was behind him and very vulnerable. A flying claw or sharp tooth could easily take her out. She didn’t have the fast healing that he had.
Ellis spoke first. “If you guys turn around now I’ll forget that you’re trespassing on our territory.”
Ryder looked at Clay and they started laughing. “Since when do the Hudson crew care about territories?” he asked. “Or did you forget that you’re always parachuting into our area, putting out fires?”
“What do you guys want?” Ellis asked. “I’ll go with you, just leave the girl out of this.”
“Why would we want you, baby alpha?” Clay asked.
Ryder and Clay looked past him at Alexi. Ellis’ stomach dropped.
“Are you Alexi Winters?” Clay asked.
Ellis glanced at her over his shoulder. Her face was a ghostly white and her hand was trembling. His bear pushed forward but Ellis held him back. It was still best to settle this with words. If that was possible.
“Your husband is looking for you,” Ryder said.
“He’s not my husband,” she said.
“What’s it to you,” Ellis asked, stepping to the side, blocking their view of his mate. They turned their eyes to him.
“Her husband is Greg McCoy. Of McCoy Industries.”
Ellis’ mouth dropped. Her ex was the owner of the company that the Flint crew worked for and these evil bear shifters were on his payroll.
Clay stepped forward. “She’s coming with us.”
Ellis’ bear surged to the surface and there was no stopping him.
Ellis let him come.
eight
Alexi should have known that Greg would find her. He had connections everywhere, owned companies all over the country. She had no idea that he owned a logging company here in Montana, but she wasn’t surprised either.
Not only was she going to be sent back to a pissed off Greg, but she had put her new friends in danger.
Ellis stood in front of her with his hands clenched into fists, and his muscles jacked. He looked like he was going to fight to the death for her.
He looked terrifying, but those two other guys looked scary as well. They were just as big as Ellis and had chilling orange eyes.
“She’s coming with us,” the one full of tattoos said. He stepped forward and a wild, savage growl surged from Ellis’ chest.
Alexi stepped back as her new love’s back grew, like an inflating balloon. Millions of small brown hairs popped out of his skin as his body swelled before her. She stared in horror as his insides crunched, ripped and snapped. He growled viciously and with a blink of an eye Ellis’ possessed body exploded into a massive grizzly bear.
Ellis stood on his hind legs and roared so loud that Alexi had to cover her ears. The bear standing before her looked like a monster. Over ten feet tall with long, thick, black claws that looked as sharp as swords. Its burly, muscled back was brawny and powerful, its dark fur, long and thick. Her heart raced so fast that it hurt her chest. She swallowed a scream, unable to make any noise.
The terrifying bear turned around and looked at Alexi with silver eyes. Her legs and knees went weak and she almost fell to the ground. The eye had a touch of sadness to it when he looked at her and she recognized that it was Ellis. This beast was Ellis.
Alexi looked past him at the two members of the Flint crew. Their heads were swelling as their skin turned dark. Her mouth dropped as their noses extended forward and their hands curled with long claws sprouting forth from their fingertips. Their bodies ripped and cracke
d as two black bears burst out of their bodies. They stood on their hind legs and roared.
Alexi awoke from her trance, turned and ran. She sprinted through the trees until the three bears were behind her. She jumped over logs as tree branches whipped across her face. Her heart was pumping, adrenaline coursing through her veins, as she ducked under a branch and pushed forward.
Birds flew out of the trees as vicious, inhuman, snarling and growling erupted from behind her. A large cracking sound filled the forest and then the falling of a tree as she forced her trembling legs to work harder.
Her lungs were on fire. The sound of blood pumping in her ears, somewhat muted the hair-raising sounds of the bear fight behind her. She tripped on a root and went flying forward, raising her hands to break her fall. Her elbow slammed into a rock and her head hit the ground. She looked up dazed and heard something coming from behind. She glanced back and saw the tops of the trees swaying as something made its way after her.
“Shit,” she cursed. She pushed her body up with her hands and her right arm gave way. She collapsed back to the dirt.
She turned and screamed as a grizzly bear burst through the trees. He stopped in front of her and looked at her with sad, silver eyes. His breathing was heavy and he had several long gashes across his body. He was bleeding from a deep cut on his snout. He raised his nose, smelled the air and then curled in on himself. He started shrinking, the long brown hair receding back into skin.
Alexi gasped as the large bear paws turned into human fingers and the long snout shriveled into a human nose. The bear was gone and a naked Ellis was crouched in his place, breathing heavily and wincing in pain.
Alexi reached out and touched his shoulder and he flinched. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He had a long, nasty gash on his nose. His chest was raked with claw marks, with blood gushing down his skin.
“We have to go,” he said, with a strained, raspy voice.
“Your chest…”
“Will heal. I have to get you out of here. Back to the crew.”
He lifted her up in his hands and ran down the mountain. He ran fast and nimble, leaping over logs and ducking under trees, protecting Alexi from the branches with his body.
He was moving so fast. She closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting for the painful fall that never came. The ground evened out and before long they were back at the camp with Beckett running over and trying to take her from Ellis’ arms. He refused and carried her to her cabin. He opened the door and placed her on her bed.
“Are you okay?” he asked, cupping her cheek.
“I’m more worried about you,” she said, sitting up and looking at his chest. His wounds were healed. All that was left was a red line and dried blood. How is that possible?
“I guess I have some explaining to do,” he said, covering his lower half with the blanket.
“A little bit.”
“I’m a bear shifter,” he said. “We all are.”
“You’re a werebear?” she asked in shock. She had heard the legends of shifters but she thought they were just fantasy. As real as the Easter Bunny, leprechauns or Kanye West’s over-inflated sense of self-importance.
She brushed her fingertips over the healed cuts on his chest, that minutes ago were bleeding profusely. “How could I not have seen it before? The changing color eyes, your unnatural strength, Barbara scaring those two guys off and her shredded clothes after. It all makes sense.”
“Are you angry?” he asked.
She shook her head and ran her fingers down his bicep. “I think it’s cool. Sexy.”
Redness flushed up his neck.
“How did you become a werebear?”
His tense shoulders relaxed. “I was born one. We all were. But you can also be turned.”
“Turned?”
“If you found a true mate for life you can be turned. But it’s dangerous. It takes a strong human to be able to stand a transformation.”
“The Flint crew. Are they all bear shifters too?”
He nodded. “But don’t worry. As long as you’re here. You’ll be safe.”
“But you won’t,” she said. She felt awful that he got into a fight for her and almost died. She traced the new scar along his nose. What if they came back and he didn’t survive this time. What if Keene or Quint or Beckett got hurt, or worse…
She wouldn’t be able to live with herself. She knew Greg and once he wanted something he stopped at nothing to get it. He would be back and he would come to win. He might have fifty werebears on his payroll. Maybe even more. The Hudson crew would never be safe as long as she was here. There was only one thing she could do to protect them. To repay their friendship.
She would have to leave.
Alexi woke up in the middle of the night. How do you sneak away from a pack of werebears? It turns out that it was easier than she thought.
Keene snored so loudly that they all seemed to be heavy sleepers. She tiptoed down the steps of her front stoop, avoiding the stair that creaked, and sneaked past Keene’s vibrating cabin. It sounded like someone was holding a megaphone to a bulldozer in there.
When she was far enough away from the cabins she turned and took one last look. She zeroed in on Ellis’ cabin and held her bag to her aching chest. I didn’t want it to be this way, she told him in her mind. I love you. That’s why I have to go.
She turned and quietly opened her car door. She stepped into her expensive Lexus, a gift from Greg, and looked at herself in the review mirror. She swallowed hard and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Not now. You can fall apart later.
She turned the key in the ignition and, once again, drove away to a life on the run.
nine
Ellis leapt out of bed in excitement and rushed out the door. He sniffed the air as he jumped down the steps of his cabin. Her smell is weaker. A twinge of panic hit him.
He ran around back, careful not to make too much noise. He didn’t want to wake his sleeping beauty. He jumped up to look through the tiny bedroom window. Her bed was empty and already made.
Her bed is never made.
He ran to the front door and knocked. His bear was groaning inside as if something was wrong. He listened to hear her footsteps or fumbling around inside but there was only silence.
He opened the door. “Alexi?”
His mouth and shoulders dropped as all evidence of her existence had disappeared. Her dirty clothes no longer littered the floor and her open suitcase was missing from the couch.
There was a letter on the bedside table.
Ellis’ stomach rolled and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He held his breath, shuffled over to the table and picked up the letter. It smelled like her. It smelled like sadness.
Dear Ellis,
These last few days with you have been the happiest of my life.
But my past is chasing me and I can’t put you or your brothers in the crosshairs of my mistakes. The only thing that I want more than to be with you is to see you safe.
I’m sorry.
Love
A
The fire alarm sounded as Ellis crumpled up the paper and collapsed on the bed.
“Ready in sixty,” Matteo yelled from outside. The engine of the plane started in the distance.
Ellis shuffled down the steps of the cabin like a zombie with a broken heart.
Shit. Alexi glanced in her rear view mirror at the flashing police lights. I wasn’t even speeding.
She pulled to the side of the road, driving over shrubs coated by early morning dew, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn’t as good looking as she was in her early twenties but maybe she could still try charming the cop.
An older man, with a large, round hat and a Sheriff’s badge pinned to his chest, stepped out of the car and approached her.
She rolled down the window and greeted him with her best smile.
“Are you Alexi Winters?” he asked.
Her mouth dropped.
“Turn the car o
ff.”
Ellis buckled up his fire retardant suit as he stared at the wall of the plane with glazed over eyes.
“I’m sorry buddy,” Keene whispered, tapping him on the shoulder.
Ellis stared at the ground and nodded.
How could she leave? Until he was with her he never realized that life could be that good. And until she left he never realized that life could be this hard.
“This is a big one,” Beckett said, standing in the plane. “We’re going to have to work together to put this one out. The trees are dry down there, the winds are picking up and its spreading fast.”
Beckett approached Ellis and leaned into his ear. “You can sit this one out if you have to,” he whispered.
Ellis shook his head. “I’m with you guys. I’m sorry I was so uncooperative in the past Beckett. I was just…” He looked at his brother with sad, tired eyes. “She changed everything for me. She made me see. From now on I’ll follow orders.”
Beckett squeezed Ellis’ arm and nodded. He stood up and looked out the open door of the plane. “Out in five!”
“Am I under arrest?” Alexi yelled through the steel bars of the holding cell. Nobody answered.
The Sheriff had handcuffed her as soon as she stepped out of her car and brought her to a holding cell in the small police station. The building consisted of a tiny office with stacks of papers piled on the desk and a dying yellow plant in the corner, a bathroom and a holding cell, which looked like a closet with a steel bar door.
The Sheriff had locked her inside, refusing to answer any of her questions or acknowledge her request for a lawyer. It was illegal to hold her here without just cause but these small town Sheriffs played by their own rules. She shook the bars in frustration. The Sheriff sat as his desk playing Solitaire on the computer. He didn’t look up.
She sat down on the wooden bench against the wall. Her stomach grumbled. She had been there for at least three hours, without a snack or even a glass of water.