by Meg Ripley
Coming to a decision, Sasha realized that she needed medical attention; one of the other members of the clan, a doctor in the small town of Green Tree, could see to her wounds—and should. Sasha glanced at the three clan-mates who had followed him. Tell the others, he told the three mentally, projecting an image of himself in human form, carrying the woman in the direction of the small town they lived in. She will need to see Nathan. Sasha felt the querying mental touches, the suggestion of “Couldn’t we just leave her be?” that was not quite a complete thought. He shook his head, letting out a low growl. He wouldn’t leave the woman to be attacked again; and from the looks of the tears and punctures in her skin, she would need stitches and other medical attention. She might have been injured even more than the obvious—he had heard the noise she’d made running through the forest.
Groaning, Sasha crouched down on the ground and started the transformation into his human form. His preternatural strength would make it much easier for him to carry the woman into town, but he would have to just hope that she would remain unconscious long enough for him to get to the hollow log where his clothing was secreted. And then too, Sasha thought bleakly, he would have hell to pay if she woke up before he came up with some explanation. A more human-sounding groan left his throat as Sasha’s bones tingled and crackled in his body, shifting and moving. He itched all over as the fur retreated, as his hands transformed from paws, as every molecule of his body rearranged itself into a human configuration. For a fleeting moment, he let himself look at the stranger on the ground, feeling a rush of resentment that he had to change back into his human form on such short notice, long before he had wanted to. But it wasn’t her fault ultimately; bad luck could happen to anyone. Go back to your foraging, Sasha told the other three werebears. There’s no point in all of us losing the best part of the night.
****
Alexandra woke up slowly, aware of a dull, aching pain in her arms and legs, particularly her right leg. She felt hot all over, and so exhausted that she wasn’t even sure why she was awake. She groaned, turning onto her side, and realized that she was not on the ground anymore. Alexandra gasped, opening her eyes, as the last moments before she lost consciousness flooded back into her mind. She remembered the wolves dispersing—and then the sight of a huge brown bear, its eyes golden in the moonlight, hovering over her.
When she opened her eyes, Alexandra’s confusion deepened. She found herself on a bed, small but comfortable; she was naked, which sent a new jolt of alarm through her brain, but as she sat up, she realized that part of the reason she was undressed was because at some point while she had been unconscious, someone had attended to the gashes and punctures on her arms and legs—she saw ugly black medical thread and bandages marking some unknown doctor’s ministrations. Throwing the blanket off herself, for the moment heedless of her nudity, Alexandra saw that her left leg—the one that hurt the most—bore a brace at the ankle, tightly wrapped.
The sound of a door opening made Alexandra yelp, her hands fumbling for the blankets, pulling them up to cover her nudity as she looked around in panic. Her gaze fell on the doorway to the small room she was in, and Alexandra’s grip on the blankets tightened convulsively as she saw a man stepping through the door. He was tall—easily over six feet—with a lean, muscled physique that was not concealed by his sweater and jeans. The man’s sandy blond hair was cut short, maybe three or four inches long, brushed back from his forehead. Hazel-gold eyes widened at the sight of her awake, and the man opened his mouth, though no words came out for a span of several fluttering heartbeats. “Where am I?” Alexandra asked, the words leaving her lips all at once. The man took a step back, licking his lips and glancing around the room.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a faint accent on his voice. “I thought you were still unconscious or I would’ve knocked.”
“Where am I?” Alexandra repeated, looking around the room. She could see part of what she assumed was the same forest she had been lost in through a small, bare window. The man cleared his throat.
“You’re at my house,” he said. “Are you in pain? I have some pain pills if you’d like one—the…doctor mentioned you’d probably be in pain.” Alexandra shifted in the bed, uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was naked underneath the blanket. She was in pain, but being naked in the home of a strange man was a slightly more pressing issue, somehow.
“Uh—ah…do you happen to know where my clothes are?” The man relaxed slightly, his lips twitching in an almost-smile.
“I’m sorry,” the man said, leaving the door open behind him as he came further into the room. “I can let you borrow some clothes; they had to cut yours off. The blood, you know.” Alexandra swallowed, nodding.
“I’d like some clothes first,” she said. “And then probably one of the pain pills, if you’re feeling generous.” The man chuckled.
“It’s not generosity,” he told her, moving to a dresser in one corner of the room. He opened one of the drawers and took out a pair of soft-looking, faded flannel pajama pants and a tee shirt. “The doctor wrote a prescription for you, so they’re yours.” The man carefully tossed the clothes onto the bed, giving Alexandra another quick smile. “I’ll go get the pills and something for you to drink. Be careful getting dressed; you don’t want to pull your stitches or injure yourself.” Alexandra nodded, watching as the man walked in near-silence out of the room.
When she was once more alone, Alexandra climbed slowly out of the bed, every movement sending a new wave of throbbing pain through her body. She steadied herself as she stood cautiously, one hand on the headboard of the bed, and slowly—slowly—Alex shook the flannel pants out and slipped them on, swaying slightly as she balanced her weight on the better of her injured legs. She tugged the tee shirt over her head, wincing as the movement sent new painful jolts through her.
By the time the man came back into the room, Alexandra had sagged, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. “Here,” he said, approaching her slowly and extending the plastic pill jar towards her. “What’s your name, by the way? I wasn’t able to put that information in at the urgent care clinic I took you to.” Alexandra smiled weakly, accepting the pill jar and then the bottle of water he extended towards her. She read the label: hydrocodone. Well, at least I won’t feel like a truck hit me, she thought.
“Alexandra,” she answered. “Alex.” She popped open the bottle and shook one of the pills out, glancing up at the man. Questions still swam in her mind: how had he discovered her? Where was she? What had happened to the bears? “You?”
“Sasha,” the man said, sitting down in a chair a few feet away from her.
“What happened to me?” Alexandra tossed a pill into her mouth, the bitter taste of the medicine coating her tongue for just a moment before she washed it down with water, swallowing with difficulty. “I remember a bunch of bears…and then nothing.” A look like guilt flashed through Sasha’s hazel-gold eyes, and he glanced away before meeting her gaze once more, steadily.
“I found you in the woods—probably only a moment or two after you passed out. I brought you to a friend who runs an urgent care clinic in town, he patched you up. I thought you’d probably prefer to spend the night here, instead of waking up there.” Alexandra shrugged.
“Probably would have been just as confused either way,” she said, shifting on the bed. The man had seen her naked; he had to have, in order to have put her in the bed. She couldn’t discern any sense that she’d been violated—but then so much pain throbbed and shot through her body that Alex thought it would be hard to separate out one particular pain from the rest. “What happened to the bears?” she asked, glancing at Sasha again.
“They…dispersed,” he said. Alexandra frowned.
“You didn’t kill any of them, did you? And how did you find me?” The story didn’t add up. Sasha glanced away again, and Alexandra’s heart started beating faster. Oh God. He’s some kind of axe murderer. And like the idiot I am I just took a fucking pain pill. Shit, shi
t, shit.
“The bears aren’t dead,” Sasha said quickly. “It’s been a long night for you. How did you come to be in the woods?” Alexandra scrubbed at her face, trying to think. Her stomach had been empty when she took the pain pill; it seemed like it was hitting her all at once, making her brain fuzzy, making her tingle all over. A wave of nausea swept over her and the room spun slightly as Alexandra tried to sit up, to lean against something.
“I—I was trying to get to Waynesboro,” she said slowly. “My car overheated…I broke down in the woods and tried to find my way back to town.” Sasha nodded and rose in a quick, fluid movement. Alexandra thought—feeling curiously separated from the real world as the opiate began to take effect—that she should probably be afraid, and yet she wasn’t.
“Did you have anything packed? Stuff you might want?” Sasha was only inches away from her, and Alexandra tried to focus on him.
“Suitcase,” she said absently. “I had…a job interview. Shit, I’m probably not going to make it there, am I?” Alexandra slumped against the bed, feeling as if all of the bones in her body had turned to jelly. “I think I left my phone,” she said as an inexorable wave of sleepiness washed through her.
****
Sasha watched Alexandra as she slept, wrapped in the haze of the painkiller she had taken. He was glad that the pill had taken effect so quickly; otherwise, the story would have unraveled. He closed his eyes, trying to breathe shallowly so as not to take in too much of the woman’s scent. If he did, he knew he would be doomed. As the scent of the woman’s fear had receded, more of her natural scent rose up—and the mingling of vanilla, sandalwood, and spice that made up her pheromones were enough to drive him wild.
Sasha clenched his teeth, remembering the woman’s car. It had been easy for him to track it down, once he had her scent. He’d followed her trail through the woods, taking advantage of the early-morning light and the strength of her smell lingering on the ground, along the trees she had brushed against. The rest of the clan had checked in through the night—verifying that the woman he’d saved was at his house, that she’d been patched up. There was no need for Alexandra to get a rabies shot; Sasha and the doctor alike had been able to smell that the punctures and bites bore no trace of the virus.
Sasha had retrieved Alexandra’s suitcase, along with her phone and its charger. The scent of her inside of the car had been overwhelming. Does she even know how good she smells? Probably not. Sasha opened his eyes at the sound of a faint murmur from the woman in his bed. That had been a mistake; but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to put her on the couch to recover from the attack. But now—now her scent would be on his sheets, his pillows drenched in it. It would be inescapable. Already Sasha could feel the tug of her pheromones. She isn’t a shifter, he reminded himself firmly.
She didn’t know about his clan, she didn’t know about his dual nature; her pheromones marked her as strictly human—she wouldn’t be able to understand. She couldn’t possibly be his mate. It didn’t make any sense. And yet, she smelled as though she should belong to him. Even carefully seated across the room from her, Sasha found it next to impossible not to get up, climb into the bed with her, and rub himself all over her to mark her with his own scent, to alert any other bears that she had already been claimed.
Alexandra stirred, and Sasha sat up in his seat, watching her intently. Her eyes opened after a moment and she groaned, burrowing into his pillows as if she didn’t quite want to wake up. “How do you feel?” he asked. Alexandra started, and turned her bright-eyed gaze towards him.
“Well,” she said with a sigh. “I feel faintly nauseated, a little achy, and like I have some kind of bizarre hangover.” She gave him a weak smile and looked at the window. “Shit—have you been sitting there all night?” She sat up. Sasha suppressed a groan at the sight of her ample breasts pressing against the fabric of the shirt he’d loaned her.
“It’s no big deal,” he assured her, smiling away the fatigue he could feel gnawing at him. “I have a couch I could have slept on if I’d wanted to.” The problem was that he hadn’t wanted to. He had wanted to stay in the room with her, breathing in her scent and watching her sleep. Sasha stood; he felt like he needed to move around, do something. “Do you want something to eat? I think I have some crackers if you think it’d settle your stomach.” Alexandra shook her head.
“I think it’ll pass on its own,” she said. She looked at him for a long moment. “The story you told me—it doesn’t make any sense.” Sasha nipped the inside of his bottom lip. He sat back down.
“What doesn’t make sense about it?” Sasha reached his mind out to the other members of his clan; he knew he should have anticipated questions, but he had been so caught up in the moment that he hadn’t considered an excuse.
“The bears. A normal guy doesn’t just roll up in the midst of a bunch of bears and walk out without a mark on him.”
“They had started wandering away,” he said. “I saw them leaving you. Must have lost their curiosity.”
“But—but don’t bears often eat carrion? Or…” Alexandra frowned. “It just—it doesn’t make sense. What happened?” Sasha sighed. There was no way around it; even drugged, she was too sharp. He thought of something—the only way out of the situation. He had sensed her response to him. In spite of her instinctive apprehension when she had seen him for the first time, Sasha knew that Alexandra was attracted to him; he had caught the shift in her pheromones, signaling the beginnings of arousal.
“I think it’s probably too fresh right now to think about very much,” Sasha said, making his voice as soothing as possible. “You should rest up. I’ll give you the gory details later.” Alexandra frowned again, but as Sasha stepped towards her, he sniffed—and caught the elusive scent of her flicker of arousal. “You can stay here for as long as you need,” he told her, moving slowly—slowly—closer. “I called someone to tow your car to the shop in town, and I got your things for you.”
“That was very thoughtful,” Alexandra said, licking her lips. “Thank you.” Sasha sat down at the edge of the bed, his gaze traveling over the lush curves of her body; he couldn’t help himself.
“I hope I don’t scare you,” he said quietly. “I swear, Alexandra—I have no intention of hurting you in any way.”
“I guess…” Alexandra glanced away from him and then met his gaze once more. “I guess if you did I’d be dead already, or at least not neatly stitched up.” She smiled slightly, and her scent washed over Sasha in waves.
Are you doing this to distract her, or because you can’t stand not to have her? It didn’t matter. Sasha leaned slightly closer to Alexandra.
“If you’re scared, tell me to stop, and I will,” Sasha told her. “Any time. You can even tell me to leave.”
“It’s your house though,” Alexandra said. Sasha caught the bitter tinge of gunpowder fear—but his sensitive nose also picked up the rising current of arousal threaded through her warm, spicy scent. It was enough to drive any man wild; he could feel the ursine part of his mind pushing him forward.
“Still,” Sasha said, pushing back the urge to rub himself all over her with an effort. “If you tell me to stop, or leave you alone, believe that I will do it.” He held her gaze for a long moment. “Even—even if you don’t say it, I’ll know if you don’t want me to continue.”
“Continue what?” Alexandra’s voice was full of confusion, but he could sense her body warming up, more of the delicious smell of her arousal threading through her scent. Sasha leaned in towards her carefully and brushed his lips against hers.
“You have to know you’re damn near irresistible,” Sasha told her, his voice deepening into a growl. He swallowed. Now is not the time to lose control. You have to get her on your side first. Then…then, maybe she can know about who you really are. Sasha deepened the kiss gradually, letting his hands carefully trail over Alexandra’s body. He kept his senses at their peak, searching for the slightest hint that she was hesitant, that she d
idn’t want him to continue. But as his tongue swept across her lips, Alexandra opened her mouth, and the scent of her arousal intensified.
Sasha’s arousal felt like hot lead in the pit of his stomach; he had never felt as drawn to any woman he’d been with as he did with Alexandra. “Irresistible?” Alexandra murmured against his lips, not quite breaking away from the kiss. Sasha growled lowly, cupping her breasts through the fabric of the shirt he’d given her. Her nipples stirred, hardening into firm little nubs as he rubbed and gently kneaded her flesh.
“Mmm,” Sasha moaned, shuddering lightly. He broke away from Alexandra’s lips, looking into her eyes. “Remember. Any time.” Alexandra nodded, her eyes darkening slightly with lust. Sasha leaned in once more, his hands falling down along her ribcage, seeking the hem of the shirt. He tugged the shirt upward, and Alexandra moaned against his lips, obediently raising her arms over her head.
Sasha carefully pulled the shirt up, guiding it along her arms and trying to avoid the stitches and bandages. He broke away from Alexandra’s lips to take in the sight of her body once more; he had seen her before, when he had laid her down in the bed. The sheer fact of her nudity hadn’t moved him then—he and the clan, in their transformations, spent plenty of time naked. But now, with the scent of her arousal filling his nose, the knowledge of her desire threading fire through his brain, Sasha felt his nerves tingling with a reciprocal flame. She doesn’t know it, he thought, but she’s mine. I just have to convince her.