Bears of Burden: WYATT

by Candace Ayers

  And then the pouring rain.

  It came down in sheets. It was hard to see even a few feet in front of us; the ground immediately softened, sucking at us with each step.

  “Fuck,” I heard Matthews say loud enough to be heard over the sound of the spattering rain, from somewhere near me.

  I was struggling with my bag, trying to find my poncho, my hair plastered to my head, blinking away the drops that were making it hard to see.

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to have rain,” I called back to him.

  “We weren’t,” his body was close enough to touch mine, his hand on my elbow. “This isn’t the right time of year for rain like this.”

  It was dark and I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear something I didn’t like in his voice.

  Something like worry. Something I had never heard from him before.

  “We have to round up the cadets, and get them somewhere else.”

  In the darkness and the rain, I could see him turn slowly in a small circle, like he was trying to intuit where that space we could take them might be.

  “Where should we take them?” I asked.

  He was looking up, even further up from where we were.

  “I don’t think we have a choice. We need to get somewhere flatter, drier, before this ravine becomes a raging river. And these trees…Dammit.”

  He didn’t need to go on. We weren’t supposed to be having a storm, but that didn’t matter, because we were.

  And, though he was new in town, he seemed to know that when we did get storms like this — they were a big deal.

  He was sliding down the hill toward the cadets. I could hear the mud splattering, his boots sticking as he went, and I realized I hadn’t yet put mine on.

  He was, apparently, the kind of man who slept with his boots on. I didn’t actually think those men existed, but Matthews was here to prove me wrong.

  Another thunderous boom sounded overhead, and it felt like we might as well be in the middle of an open field instead of under the cover of the woods. I could hear Matthews down below, pulling the cadets together, listing off what they should grab, and what they should bring.

  I heard him say three times it wasn’t a drill.

  While he did that I hurried into my clothing. It was soaking wet by the time I finished putting it on, but I pulled the emergency poncho I had in my pack over my head, hoping it would protect our supplies, our phones, and radios, because once the worst of the storm cleared we were going to have to phone in our location and that we were okay. The base would be waiting to hear from us.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” I heard him calling as he came back up the hill toward me, more slowly than he had gone down.

  The water was coming down hard and fast, sitting on top of the ground, making everything slick and loose, waiting for one wrong step, one wrong footfall to pull free an entire mountain side.

  He had been right. We needed to get out of there. And we couldn’t take our time.

  The cadets were tuned into his urgency, and they were scrambling along behind him, sticking in their little groups, keeping count of one another.

  Trial by fire. It was how I had learned on the emergency room floor of the hospital, too.

  He stopped near me long enough to pick up his belongings and then he careened along up the hill.

  I waited for the cadets to pass, bringing up the rear. As the second most senior leader, it was where I belonged, ready to scoop up anyone who might fall behind, who needed the extra help. If that person was me, I was going to be in some serious trouble.

  We were scaling a steep part of the cliff, going wherever it was Matthews seemed to think we needed to go, when one of the cadets near him lost his balance and reached for a tree.

  We’d gone over it a dozen times, but it’s always different in the moment, which is why we do the damn simulations in the first place. It’s hard to override your instinct with what you’ve learned.

  He reached for a tree, which would have been fine two hours earlier, but the whole damn thing came up by its roots sending him flying backwards into the other cadets.

  It was like watching in slow motion, his vague, dark form clutching a tree trunk and free falling, getting ready to go flying over the edge of the cliff side. It was impossible to see how far the cliff dropped or into what.

  I was moving toward him as the cadets scattered the best they could, some of them losing their footing and crashing to the ground, others standing stock still lost in the horror in front of them.

  I never saw him move, but suddenly, Matthews was right next to the cadet, reaching for him, pulling him back and spinning, so the cadet was catapulted back toward the others.

  It was like a bad frame in a bowling game, the one who’d fallen crashing into the others until they were littered on the mountain side like so many upset pins.

  It was great news for the cadet.

  But not so great for Matthews who couldn’t change his trajectory in time to avoid slamming into a large tree.

  This one didn’t give way beneath the assault.

  I heard the crack, and the sound of the air escaping Matthews.

  And then quiet.

  The worst kind of quiet.

  I was scrambling toward where he lay at the bottom of the tree, the cadets still righting themselves.

  “Keep moving!” I yelled to them. “Get up that hill, and for Christ’s sake, do not grab on to anything. Assume nothing will keep your ass from falling. Keep your center of gravity low.”

  They grumbled their responses, or didn’t bother to respond at all, I wasn’t sure, because I was already focusing on Matthews.

  “Doing alright, soldier?” I asked, like I’d asked countless men and women who’d ended up on a gurney with me, some out in the field, some in the E.R., some in the comfort of an exam room.

  Up close I could hear him breathing right away, even though I couldn’t see him well enough in the dark to determine what had been hurt.

  That was alright, though, because any doctor worth her salt wasn’t going to be using her eyes anyway.

  First I snatched his pulse, which was elevated, but considering the strain we’d been under, appropriate. I leaned over him, trying to hear his breath sound between the roar of the rain, one hand on his chest, feeling for its rise and fall.

  “Good, good,” I murmured, waiting for him to regain enough of his breath that he could talk to me about what he’d hurt.

  He wasn’t struggling to get up, yet, and that was my biggest hint that he had, in fact, hurt something.

  Chad Matthews wasn’t the type to let a little fall keep him down. If he was still down, it wasn’t good.

  I continued to run my hands over his body, staring with his left shoulder, speaking to him the whole time.

  “Where does it hurt?” I asked, working my way down to the left wrist before moving back up and to the right side of the body.

  That was where I found the first break, confirmed by the malalignment and the sharp intake of breath.

  “Collarbone,” I said in sympathy, continuing to gently palpate the shoulder. It was probably the point of impact, so most of the injuries would be concentrated to that area.

  There was nothing we were going to be able to do for the collarbone. Not here. When we got to where we needed to be I could stabilize it the best I could, but otherwise he was going to be uncomfortable until we could get him back to base and some good painkillers in his system.

  The shoulder wasn’t going to be able to wait, though.

  “Christ,” I finally heard him mutter.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, not sure if he was even going to be able to hear me, before collecting his arm in mine, bracing myself against the tree he had connected so soundly with in the first place.

  I counted down in my head, because I didn’t want him to know it was coming. And then, with a quick jerk upward, I slammed most of my bodyweight into him, feeling the resistance and then the give as the shoulder popped
back into its place.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I murmured again, knowing it must be hurting like hell. “Think you can get up?”

  “Of course I can get up,” he said indignantly, and I couldn’t help but feel a little tweak of relief at his words. “Alright, then, I’ve sent the others on ahead. We’ll meet them at the top.”

  I reached for his hand — his good one — and helped tug him to his feet, standing close to make sure he wasn’t going to topple over from pain or the change in elevation.

  I could see his vague, dark outline, the injured side of his body stiff, his breathing more rapid than it should be.

  The rain was still coming down. Hard.

  An injury to the upper body is something you can’t really appreciate until you experience it yourself. It’s hard to imagine how connected it is to the rest of your body, just how much it’s going to impede every one of your movements.

  Until you’re struggling with one. Worse, when you’re trying to haul yourself up a mountain, working against gravity and nature.

  It was slow going, to say the least.

  We climbed in silence, me mostly trying to keep tabs on his breathing while trying not to fall flat on my face.

  I let him lead, which I was sure suited his ego. He didn’t need to know I wanted to be back there in case he lost his balance or passed out and toppled backward. He outweighed me by a good hundred pounds, so I didn’t anticipate being able to stop his fall, but maybe I would at least bring that fall to an end, and not have him somersaulting down to the bottom of the mountain.

  I didn’t even want to think about that.

  We’d long ago lost sight of the cadets — and I was hoping they were going to make it to the top, that they would somehow know exactly where Matthews had planned on taking them in the first place. I prayed we weren’t going to become separated out here — when we rounded a sharp curve in our makeshift path.

  It happened suddenly. So suddenly, it was like I didn’t know it was happening at all, until it already had. The earth gave out beneath us, and we both started to fall, feet first along the side of the mountain, our feet scrambling, looking for purchase.

  “Cover your face, watch your head,” I heard Matthews call, and I did as I was told, listening to him grunt as he tried to protect himself as well.

  We managed to come to a stop when we tumbled into an outcropping of rock, where things seemed to level out, where we were able to rely on more than just dirt for purchase.

  I would have been happy to just sit there, on that little ledge, but we’d barely stopped at all before Matthews was beginning to pick his way down the side.

  “Can’t we just wait here?” I asked. There was no way we were going to catch up with the cadets now. We’d only get ourselves more lost if we tried. We’d be better off waiting it out, and starting fresh in the morning, when the rain had cleared and we had some visibility on our side.

  “Trust me,” he was saying, not pausing.

  I guess I didn’t have much of a choice, so I scooted over toward him, feeling like I was on a ledge, waiting for something else to happen, one more thing that was going to send me over the edge.

  I wasn’t a huge fan of dangling over the side of the mountain in the dark, but I felt Matthews snag my boot, sliding upward along my calf and guiding me toward the ground.

  Damned if I didn’t have to remind myself that it wasn’t the ideal time to be stirred by his touch, and that, just like when I’d been roaming my hands over his body, it had been merely a clinical exercise.

  Of course I had happened to notice how extremely sturdy and well-muscled his body was at that time, but it was still strictly clinical.

  I thudded to the ground next to him and realized we were in a shallow cave. Everything around us was damp, but we were out of the rain, sheltered just a shade from the wind.

  I peeled off my poncho first. It was covered in mud, torn and useless.

  I wish I could say it had at least done its job and kept the rest of me dry, but it hadn’t. I was soaking wet and muddy.

  And then I started to shake.

  It was just a tremor at first, but then it was the real deal, head to toe quaking.

  I thought I was never going to stop.

  Matthews clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Come on, now, soldier,” he said, calling me something other than Doctor for the first time, bringing to mind the words I had said to him not too long ago — even though it felt like hours ago now. “You’ve got this.”

  He was right, of course, and through the fog that had accompanied the quaking, I realized everything was catching up to me and my poor body. Good old fashioned shock.

  He was moving toward the back of the little cave and I followed him.

  He sank down, his knees drawn up in front of him, his back against the wall.

  I was right beside him.

  Inside the cave, it was dark, the sounds of the rain muted, there was nothing to do but sit together. And talk. Or not talk.

  It was certainly not the kind of night I had envisioned us having during our first overnight survival training mission.

  But, it did seem fitting, somehow.

  CHAPTER 5

  Chad

  My shoulder ached.

  Everything hurt, if I was being honest.

  I could feel the swelling setting in, the burning that accompanied even the most basic movements.

  The landslide we’d gotten caught in was exactly what I had been afraid of happening when the rain began, but at our location on the mountain, the answer was to head up, not down. We would have only been more likely to get caught in a mudslide there, and when we did, it would have had momentum behind it.

  We’d been so close to where we needed to be when that kid had grabbed ahold of the tree.

  Christ. I hope they all made it. I could tell we were getting close to it. I could smell the vague hint of diesel and people. A hunting cabin, if I had to guess, and it would make sense in this part of the mountain, where large animals were plentiful.

  Thinking about that reminded me how close I was to the figurative edge. How difficult it had been to keep my bear in check when I’d hit that tree, how close I had come to shifting right then and there.

  If she hadn’t gotten there so fast, if she hadn’t put her hands on me, grounded me, who knows how things might have ended.

  She was still shaking next to me. Cold, probably, among other things. I’d seen what she was sleeping in. By the time she got dressed she must have been soaked to the bone.

  Of course, standing next to me by our bedrolls in the dark she’d probably thought there was no need to hide from me, in her little shorts and her tank top.

  Fortunately, my night vision was excellent, and I had certainly enjoyed the view.

  But then we had become swept up in our exit, and now we were here.

  I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but somewhere along the way we had managed to lose our packs. The cadets had them or the hillside had them, but whichever the case, we didn’t.

  Which meant all the things we could have used right now — an extra blanket, supplies to start a fire, even something to eat — weren’t doing us any good at all.

  I could still hear her body jumping beside mine, and I knew the cold wasn’t doing her any favors. Sure, most of it had to do with the adrenaline surge catching up with her, the fallout from the evening. Every moment of it had been creeping up on her, adding up, until it had this moment to begin to unravel.

  And she was definitely unraveling.

  I couldn’t let her go on like that, so I reached my good arm over her shoulders and hauled her over to me. Whether she liked it or not, we had to get her shivering under control.

  My injured side was still throbbing, but it was better than it had been and would continue to heal. Rapidly. By the time we actually managed to get off the mountainside and back down to a hospital, I knew I would be in the clear.

  And I knew I was going to have to find a way to
get in, get approved, and be on my way before Brenna had managed to piece all of those things together.

  There were some immediate drawbacks to being placed with a doctor when you were a shifter. Especially when that shifter found himself injured, in the middle of the night, out in the middle of nowhere.

  She didn’t complain about being hauled against my body like that, and even covered in mud and rain, beneath the tang of urgency and fear, I could smell that field of flowers.

  There was something about the woman. She was going to be my undoing. I was becoming more and more certain of it with each passing moment.

  We sat in silence for a long while, just looking out of the cave and into the dark. I could smell morning on the air, but I knew it was still going to be a long time in coming to the skies, with the storm.

  The rain had finally let up, now a drizzle, a heavy mist making it seem even darker than it was.

  Her shakes had long since subsided, but she had gone on pressing into me and I hadn’t been in a rush to detangle myself from her either, that floral scent engulfing me.

  “I’m going to go,” she said, giving a little nudge to the outside. “I’ll be right back.”

  I let her go. Whether she needed the space or go to the bathroom, I wasn’t going to ask. Truthfully, I could use a moment to regroup, too. Having her around seemed to make me suddenly unable to do any of the things I told myself I should be doing.

  Which was, first and foremost, not thinking about her. Especially not thinking about her naked.

  Unfortunately, that had started to capture quite a bit of my attention. Especially when I remembered that tattoo creeping up along her back, dipping in and out of her clothing.

  She was gone just a minute, just one minute, when I first smelled it on a breeze coming into the little cave.

  I was on my feet faster than I would have thought possible given the situation.

  It was a cat. A big one, and if I were to guess, he was probably wet and irritable as fuck.

  And Brenna was out there, traipsing around in the dark with prey written all over her damn self.

  I reached the mouth of the little cave and rolled my shoulder, touching it tentatively, wondering how far I could push things with it before I was doubled over in pain. “Brenna!” I called, and I realized it was the first time I’d said her name out loud.