She stiffened. Dane. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Ginger, you didn’t spend any real time with the shifters at the Gathering, and you know what? You need to. I’m serious—they’re your family now. You need to know them. You need to come back with me, on Miss Grizzly.”
“Why do I need to know them?” she snapped, tossing her hair.
“It’s not like it was before, when you were human. Now you’re one of us. They want to know you, Ginj. They’ll take care of you. No one will try to hurt you!”
“I’m not interested in getting to know people who were ready to kill me two weeks ago.”
“Gunnar’s messed with their heads,” he sighed. “Given them weird, bad ideas. But those ideas can’t touch you now. You’re a bear just like any other bear.”
“I’m not interested,” she repeated.
“I’m trying to help you,” he insisted, gripping her arm, pulling her around to face him. “Have I steered you wrong yet? No, huh? Well, this is good advice, too: Get to know your own people. You need them, Ginger!”
“I don’t! I have you!”
Something softened in his face. “Yeah, you have me. But…”
She rose up to nuzzle his neck; he let her, then leaned away.
“Stop it, Ginj. Don’t try to distract me. I have to take you back to the Gathering.”
“You don’t have to! You want to!”
“I do have to! For your sake! I can’t be the only bear you know, girl.” The gold in his eyes flamed. He meant everything he was saying. “You need to know the world you’re part of now. It’ll help keep you safe—and keep you from being lonely. You need to meet more bears… more bear women, Ginger! Make friends! Learn the names of the people who are ready to love you, to accept you!”
I. Don’t. Want. To.
Her mouth flattened, stubbornly. She wanted to tell him that his love was enough, that she didn’t need theirs—but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. She wasn’t supposed to love him, or want him, or need him. She couldn’t admit any of it was true.
“Ginger,” he said, and his voice gentled, “they’re your family. I’m serious. They want to take care of you.”
“How can I trust people who wanted to murder me, Hunter?”
“Some of them are limited, it’s true… but not all of them.” He gripped her shoulders. “Catríona’s kin were good to you. There are others just as decent as they are. You can’t run away from us, Ginger—you’re a part of us. Let me take you back to your people. I’ve taught you everything I can alone. You need others now, women—”
She squirmed away. “I can’t. I won’t. My people are in Boston! I don’t want to go back to Storm Isle!”
Although, a small, wheedling voice whispered, Dane’s there.
The thought made her tense as concrete. Some deep, resilient part of her still wanted to see him. It was a part that she’d tried to stamp out, like the stubborn embers of an old fire, but it never truly died.
She’d tried to hate him, and for awhile she almost had, but now… Now sometimes, at night, she dreamed about him… Dreams she tried hard to forget in the morning… Anyway, how could she want him when a man—a good man—was right here? How did that make sense?
Hunter sighed, put his hands on her waist, and drew her close, into his body heat. It brought her back to the present—and back to him. “It’s the best thing for you, girl. I swear it is.” His voice was a low, rough burr. “What are you gonna do during fishing season, when I’m gone for months and no one who knows what you are—who understands—is there to help you? To guide you? Or just to talk to you?”
The warmth of him—the strength of him—the pressure of his arms on her back—It was softening her like butter.
“I’m scared,” she murmured, eyes flickering closed. His chest was hot and hair-prickly against her cheek. It felt good. “The first time you took me there, bad things happened to me. I don’t want to go back.”
His arms tightened on her. “Sweet Ginger. You know I’m sorry for that. I always will be.” He spoke into her hair; he knew that always melted her. “But this is different. This is now, not then. We gotta do what’s best for you now.”
“Promise I can stay with you,” she demanded, clutching his muscled arm.
“Ginger, you—”
“Hunter. Promise.”
His voice changed; lightened.
“Nah, girl. I don’t want you around.”
“Hunter.”
“Of course you can stay with me, Ginger! Shit, if I had my way, I’d tie you to my side—that’s how bad I want you around.” The way he was holding her felt so, so ridiculously good. Men had never made her feel the way Hunter—and Dane—had.
Forget Dane, Self! Fuck Dane! He’s the reason you’re like this!
But he only did it to save you. Because you jumped.
I had no choice! Where was he when Gunnar was stalking me, anyway? I did what I had to, to get away. I was ready to die to get away. He should have lived with it if I had. I’d rather be dead than what I am now.
Is that true, Self? Is it really all bad?
Yes!
Is it, though? Don’t you like the new strength—the new senses—the new orgasms?
Stop!
Face it, Ginger! Face that you’re starting to accept—
“We should go today. Just go back to the cave, get cleaned up, dress, and go.”
“I don’t wanna leave our island,” she whined, very softly.
“‘Our island.’ I like the sound of that, baby.” He turned her around in his arms, so her back was to his hot, powerful chest. “It’s a beautiful place, no question.”
It was still morning—coldly smoky—and sun was shafting through the conifer forest beside the stream, spangling the running water. Dawn fog and dust motes danced and drifted in the spotlights. She toed the muddy, pebbly ground underfoot, loving how wet and frigid and wild it was.
“But this is just a dream, baby. A beautiful dream,” he murmured by her ear. “We can’t stay here our whole lives. We gotta go.”
“I like it here. With you.”
“Good. I like to hear you say so. But today we’re leaving.”
She’d always known she’d have to leave sometime, if she survived the transition from human to shifter. And she had.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Hunter… thank you. For this time. For your help.”
“Don’t thank me.” He bit her ear. “Just stay with me.”
Would it be so horrible to be with him? To let him be my man, for real?
But what about Dane? another voice asked, quietly, insistently. You have feelings for him, too. Real feelings. Strong feelings. Maybe you should forgive him.
How can I forgive him after what’s happened? And when I think about what might happen next? There’s still the leadership of the clans to be decided. What if Dane becomes Alpha, and not Hunter? What if he kills Hunter to do it? Or—what if Hunter kills him? I couldn’t—handle it, I couldn’t—and there’s still Gunnar—I know he wants me—I can’t—
“Come on, then,” she said, breaking away from him. It was better for her dignity if she made the first move back to the cave—and better for her health if she cut these unwelcome thoughts off.
She splashed across the icy, shallow stream, dropping to all fours and bear-changing on the opposite bank. Breaking into a lumbering run, she disappeared into the trees—goading him to chase her.
***
She was staring back at their island, wearing one of the sweaters Hunter had bought for her in Saltspring.
It was salmon-pink and soft cable knit, very pretty. He’d picked well.
He was starting the gillnetter’s engines. She crossed one booted ankle behind the other and gripped the deck rail. Catríona’s jacket was warm against her neck.
The boat juddered to life; the roar was loud and scattered crazy, shallow vibrations on the surface of the sea. She wished she had some gloves.
“Ginger!�
� he called from the wheelhouse. “Ready?”
Ready? Nope. But there’s no choice. They hadn’t packed up all their gear and all their clothes for nothing.
“Yeah. Gun it!” she shouted back, over the engine and the wind.
Miss Grizzly turned, slowly, in the water; Ginger got a long, lingering view of the stony, driftwood-choked coastline of their island. Then, suddenly, the boat found its speed and cut away through the wave caps, bringing her back to the place on Earth she least wanted to be—and closer to the man she thought she least wanted to see.
Storm Isle.
And Dane.
Taming Two Bears
(Alphas of Storm Isle: Part 5)
By Sophie Chevalier
Table of Contents
(Part 5: Taming Two Bears)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 1
She knew something was wrong as soon as Storm Isle came into view.
There was smoke.
And there was fire.
The coastline was burning.
Hot tongues of flame shot up behind black pines, sloughing thick smoke into the air. A smoking spruce toppled crashingly into the waters of the strait. She was so shocked that for a long, sweaty moment, all she could do was grip Miss Grizzly’s railing and stare.
Storm Isle is on fire.
“Hunter!” she yelled up finally, toward the wheelhouse.
“Ginger, get up here!” he shouted back from where he was piloting the gillnetter. His voice was tight, tense—angry.
She ran across the deck and swung up into the wheelhouse. Crushing herself right up against the skipper’s chair, she gripped its tatty, peeled-leather back and put a hand on his shoulder—being close to him calmed her down, a little.
As the boat came around the island’s side, they could see more fire: red, fast, hungry fire, eating through the islet’s forest. The outlines of cabins were burning close to the shoreline, sending up showers of sparks.
“Oh my God. Hunter, what’s happening? What’s—”
“I dunno, baby.” His jaw was tight. “I have no idea.”
She stared out the windows, watching the way the island was smoking and flaming. It made her think of a big, burning pie pan.
“Damn,” he muttered. They were sailing by the pier now. It was on fire, its timbers dropping like black matchsticks into the steaming water.
“Why didn’t we see the smoke before? On our island?” Ginger asked, shocked deep. Was Cat still alive to take her jacket back? Was Dane still alive to see her? Was he alive, or was he dead?
Dead.
“The wind,” he said, trying to watch both his instruments and the coast. “It’s been southerly for days. It blew all this smoke away from us… so we never saw it…”
“What’s happening?” she pressed. “It’s winter. It’s damp. This can’t be natural.”
“No. It’s not. Flash fires don’t …ah, shit. There’s my fucking cabin.” He gestured resignedly toward a plot of land engulfed completely in flame. “Could be worse, I guess. I could’ve been in there.”
“Maybe someone started it? Accidentally?” The sight of hemlocks and firs standing tall and dark against red sheets of flame chilled her to the core, stiffened her with fear. She felt like her stomach was full of ice.
“Or on purpose,” he said darkly. “Hang tight, baby. I’m gonna take us to Riona’s inlet.”
“Her inlet? Where is that? What is that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I’ve got a gut feeling this was no act of nature, and if it’s what I think, then Riona’s inlet is right where we should be.”
She had the same feeling—that this wasn’t natural, that it was intentional. It made her sick.
What if Dane’s dead, and he died thinking I hate him?
She thought she might have to go and throw up over the side of the boat.
***
Hunter had to anchor far off from Riona’s inlet. When they rowed ashore, he told her quietly that they were “going to hoof it now.”
This was a barer and rougher side of the island than she’d seen before: it was all steep, pitted rock faces, topped with windblown scrub and greeting a violent sea. She and Hunter had to shimmy between gaps and cracks in the lunar landscape of coastal rock, and she cut herself more than once on sharp edges of stone.
Finally they reached the inlet: it was walled in cliffs of rock, inaccessible except for the footpath they’d taken—its arms of stone only gaped out on the water, about fifteen meters from shore, and the waves were too rough to sail through that natural gate.
She followed Hunter along a curved beach of fawn-colored sand, one shadowed by the sea cliffs. Birds screamed overhead, disturbed by the inland fire.
“This is Riona’s?” she asked loudly, over the crash and hiss of the waves. “All this? This whole… cove?”
“Shh, Ginger. I don’t know if we…”
“Halt where you are!”
Ginger jumped and threw up her hands—automatically—at the sight of gun barrels. Hunter growled.
“It’s me, Dunahan, you fucking moron. I didn’t have any part in whatever wickedness was done here. Been gone for weeks. You seen me? No. You haven’t. Use that sad thing you call a brain.”
The couple of tired-looking men who’d popped out from behind the rocks slowly lowered their rifles.
“Hunter… shit, brother, we thought you were dead! We thought he’d killed you! But you were with this girl the whole time? Where? And why?”
“I have a name,” Ginger heard herself say loudly. “It’s not That Girl.”
Hunter reached behind him and gripped her wrist, dragging her forward. “Damn right she has a name. Remember, brothers, this girl’s one of us now.”
“Sorry, sister,” Dunahan said, and to Ginger’s surprise, he met her eyes and meant it. “What do they call you, again?”
“Ginger. Ginger Graham.”
“Alright, sister Ginger. Look, you two follow me.” His face was slack and exhausted—and Ginger saw a shadow of fear there, too. “Riona will want to talk to you.”
***
There were a series of caves in the center of the cove; the largest one was crowded with people, sleeping bags, camping generators, tents, tussling children, dogs, and iceboxes. Fishing gear was stacked by the mouth, along with a mess of boots; she could smell trout, bass, and bait on the air.
“This is bad,” Hunter murmured.
It certainly looked bad to her. The shifters in the cave seemed like refugees.
“Hunter! Ginger!”
Ginger would have recognized Cat’s voice anywhere. Sure enough, she exploded out of nowhere to clench Ginger in a bone-breaking hug. The strength of the brown bear was just below the surface of Cat’s soft, pale skin.
“Where have you been?” she asked, her voice more relieved—painfully relieved—than angry. “We had no idea. No one knew. Dane said you were with Hunter—you were with him, weren’t you?—but no one knew—I didn’t know—we thought you might be dead, Ginger, we were so scared—”
“You were?” Ginger gasped, trying to get Cat’s squeezing arms off her middle. It was like disengaging from a safety lock. “I’m sorry I scared you, Cat.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Cat sighed, her grip slackening; Ginger took a quick, deep breath. “I know you were confused… mixed up… I was just so worried. And then, with everything that’s happened—”
“Yeah, about that. What’s happened, exactly?” Hunter cut in, arms folded.
Cat shot him a sharp, startled look, like she’d only just noticed him. “Hunter.”
“Last I checked.”
Cat rolled her eyes. Ginger couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under them. “You’re a riot, Hunter. You should do Letterman.”
“Brothers, sisters, Riona’s waiting,” Dunahan put in, sounding exhausted. “Cat, you could
come along, I bet. You’re close with the lady.”
“Yes, come, Cat,” Ginger said, closing a hand on Cat’s jacketed arm. “I want to hear from you what’s going on, too.”
“I—I don’t know,” Cat said slowly. “Eimhir’s alone with the cubs if I skive off. Because the men are all inland, looking for…” But she trailed off.
“Please?” Ginger pressed, squeezing her arm. “Just for a few minutes.”
Cat nodded slowly. “Okay. But Ginger, first, promise me—you’re really alright?”
“I’m fine.” More than fine. She’d finally learned to control her new self…well, mostly. Thanks to Hunter. “Let’s go.”
***
Riona had a small cave for her own, close to the tideline of the surf. A driftwood-and-sea-charcoal fire was burning inside, throwing hot light on the rock walls.
Some of the people seated around it were old, cloaked, and sinewy—elders, Ginger guessed. Others were strong and muscular, smack in their prime. It looked like the little group had been going over maps and sea charts.
Dunahan didn’t even need to announce them. Riona saw the little party approaching, and she stood, glided away from the fire, and came to them at the cave mouth. A grizzled man, elderly but powerful, limped out behind her leaning on a staff. Dunahan melted away.
“Hunter,” Riona said placidly. “You have been away.”
“I’m sorry,” he said seriously. Ginger glanced at him.
“Don’t apologize.” Riona waved his words off. “This changeling you love had need of you.”
“Hardly a changeling anymore,” Hunter said, with a hint of pride. “She’s a real bear now.”
“Hmm.” The old, strong-looking man at Riona’s shoulder grunted, then stroked his beard. “We’ll see. The girl still smells fresh—and human.”
Did she? What did it even mean to smell human? The humans she’d smelt on Saltspring had smelled like their soaps and their polyester clothes and their hair creams. Did she smell like that?
“Peace, Torin,” Riona said calmly. “If Hunter says she’s a sow, she’s a sow.”
Alphas of Storm Isle (Complete Boxed Set: Books 1-5): Werebear Shifter Menage Romance Page 22