Runaway (Fox Ridge Shifters Book 1)

by Marianne Hull

  As he told Sheriff Warren a story about walking home from a flat tire and finding a bear-mauled man in the road, his thoughts strayed again and again to why Bernie would be there. He assumed it was about Crissy. He punched the side of his truck after she left, angry she refused to see it. She insisted upon staying until Bernie was safely away. It wasn’t jealousy on his part. Thanks to the mating cord, he knew her love ran deep and true. It was more he feared Bernie would eventually get to her because she couldn’t see how dangerous he was.

  Crissy admitted she’d caught Bernie following her once. When he asked why she hadn’t said anything, she shrugged and said, “He’s not a danger to me.”

  In the harsh light of emergency vehicles, amid the chatter of the deputies, the sheriff leaned over to examine the bumper of the Porsche. “Looks like he hit the bear. Look at the hood. This is really strange behavior for a bear.”

  “Yeah, really strange. Check out the windshield.”

  Neal arrived, parking his Mercedes at the edge of the road and striding confidently toward the sheriff. “I heard there’s been some trouble,” he said, his tone almost conversational.

  The sheriff wasn’t fooled. “I know who you are, Baumann. More importantly, I know what you are.” He gestured toward the Porsche. “Don’t try to convince me a bear did this.”

  Unperturbed, Neal said, “I can promise you that none of my people did this.”

  “So you know who did?”

  Neal strolled over to the SUV and surveyed the damage. “We aren’t the only shifters in the world. But seeing that windshield, I’d say there was a human mind behind the damage.”

  A deputy backed out of the driver’s door and said, “No prints on the driver’s side. Judging by the position of the hole, he was dragged out from the passenger side.”

  The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “Maybe we should talk about this in town.”

  “You have no jurisdiction, Warren,” Neal said, his voice firm. “Call the FBI if you wish, but you can’t detain us for stumbling on a dead man in the road.”

  After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, shifters were given citizenship but also a certain autonomy. Like the Native American nations, shifter crimes fell under the umbrella of the FBI.

  “I know the laws, Baumann.”

  Luke tensed. This could get dicey.

  “If your affairs involve humans, I have a right to intercede.”

  Neal, still relaxed, said, “Do you have anything to prove we were involved, other than my uncle’s bad luck to stumble on the body?”

  The sheriff inhaled. For a few strained seconds everyone remained silent before he said, “Who’s your contact?”

  “Agent Madison out of Sacramento. She’s the shifter liaison for all of the northern valley. I’ll get you the number when I return home.”

  After the sheriff released Luke and Neal, they still needed to meet the tow truck to have Luke’s truck taken to the tire shop. By the time Neal drove him home, it was midnight.

  “Luke,” Neal said before they got out of the car, “I’m forbidding you taking any action against Bernie Schmitt.” Neal had listened to Luke’s grumbling for an hour.

  “I wasn’t planning anything.”

  “Maybe not, but you would take any opportunity that arose.” When Luke protested, he said, “The only thing we know for certain is that he saved your mate’s life tonight. Think on that.”

  Neal got out of his car and strode up to the house with an uncomfortable Luke following.

  Crissy dozed in his bed, Dwight Yoakum playing softly on the stereo. He shut it off, and she opened her eyes. When he sank down beside her, she held out her arms to pull him close. For a long time they lay there, quiet, but he had to say something.

  “Crissy, you kept things from me, and you lied.”

  “I’m sorry, Luke.”

  “I’m not going to say that it’s okay, or that I don’t care, but I will say I understand and I forgive you.”

  She didn’t cry. He worried she might be in shock after all that happened. “Just promise me you won’t do it again.”

  “I won’t, but hiding is my way of dealing.”

  “You can’t hide from me, you know. I knew when you lied, and I knew you were hiding something. We are linked forever.”

  She laughed a little. “Why do I find that reassuring instead of scary?”

  “Fate brought us together, Liebchen. We each have something the other needs. You need me to be there for you. I need to be there for someone.”

  “You think it’s that simple?”

  “I’m a simple man.”

  They talked a little about what happened, but Crissy’s speech slurred. For the first time, she lay relaxed in his arms and had no trouble drifting off to sleep.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Think about it, Crissy. You’d never grow old, never get sick, and almost nothing could kill you.”

  In Luke’s big, shadowy workshop, Crissy watched, fascinated, while he used what he called a dovetail saw to cut into the edge of a hunk of wood. “Hunk of wood” being her technical term, not his. He said he was making a dresser drawer.

  “What is that piece of wood called?”

  For a moment he wore an incredulous look on his face. “A board.”

  “Oh.”

  “As I was saying, there’s a lot of advantages to turning.”

  “I wouldn’t die, but all my friends would. So would my family.”

  Over the raspy sound of the saw, he said, “You turned your back on your family long ago and, from what I see, all your friends are shifters.”

  She thought this over for a minute. He had a point. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s fun. You think animal thoughts and do animal things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, chase prey and enjoy being alive.”

  “Animals enjoy being alive?”

  He blew sawdust off his “board” and set the saw for another cut. “You enjoy being alive because animal thoughts don’t have a lot of worry. The human takes a backseat without disappearing completely. Otherwise, you’d become lost and never be able to shift back.”

  “Lost?” She hoisted herself up on the workbench, shoving tools out of the way.

  He eyed the bench. “You know, there’s some pretty sharp things up there.”

  She hopped down. “How do you become lost?”

  “Mostly by spending too long as the animal. I’ve never even come close to it—I’ve got good control of my bear—but you can forget how to think as a human, and then you forget how to shift back.”

  “That could happen to me?”

  He put down his saw. “I won’t lie to you. It’s a little more dangerous for humans. We’ll give you training on how to shift and how to shift back.” When she said nothing, he continued, “At first we wouldn’t let you shift alone, and then only for a few minutes. Then gradually you’d do it longer and longer. Like anything else, it takes practice.”

  “What’s the longest you’ve ever been the bear?”

  He frowned at this. “A week. Someone died. I couldn’t deal with the grief. Anyway, we wouldn’t let you get lost.”

  Crissy knew he deliberately changed the subject. She sensed he would never lie to her, but he would steer conversations away from subjects he would rather not talk about.

  “You know, you hide from me, too. There are things you haven’t told me.”

  “They are painful, Liebchen, even after all the years.”

  Deciding to let it go for now, she drew closer and tugged at his flannel shirt. “I’ve been learning a little German.”

  “Ja?”

  “Ja, Bärchen. Knuddelbär.”

  “No one has called me a little bear in a long, long time, and not cuddle bear in my entire life.”

  “Then it will be just ours.”

  He put his arms around her. “Think about it, Crissy, please. It’s important to me.”

  ###

  “No, Luke. You can’t. It’s too
soon, and she’s not the sort to trust so soon.” Neal ran his fingers through his hair.

  Luke and Neal sat in Neal’s office with the door firmly shut, long after midnight. Crissy slept upstairs after a rough shift at the bar. Even with Sean dead, Luke might not ever breathe easy without Crissy at his side, unless...

  “I didn’t turn Eva, and looked what happened. I almost lost Crissy, too. She needs to be a shifter.”

  Neal tapped a pen against his desk. “I’m not saying that she shouldn’t. I’m just saying it’s too soon. That woman has trust issues, and the procedure requires a lot of trust.”

  “I can’t live with the worry.”

  “Have you told her what the procedure entails?”

  “I—”

  “Have you told her about Eva?

  “I—”

  “Or what happened to Elizabeth? I can tell by your face that you haven’t told her any of it.”

  Luke managed to get a word in. “Elizabeth was not a mate. We didn’t know the procedure was failing.”

  “Luke, I won’t approve the procedure under any circumstances unless she does it willingly and fully informed. Do you understand? I will question her to make sure.”

  “I will tell her.”

  “Everything, including how horrible Elizabeth’s death was.”

  Luke understood why Neal was being so stubborn, but he simply could not accept it. “If you don’t allow Charlie to help, I’ll turn her the old-fashioned way. I said it the night I first saw her: she’s going to be a shifter before the Schmitts can do anything to harm her.”

  Neal leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “I’m still not convinced Bernie was trying to abduct her the night he killed McGowan.”

  “Why else would he follow her around? Crissy admitted she’d seen him months ago.”

  “And yet he made his move the night she was in the most danger and killed McGowan?”

  He tried to think about it, but his brain wouldn’t go there. “No. Bernie has been after revenge for centuries. Why would he give up now? If he was protecting Crissy, that’s a total reversal of everything he’s stood for since before I was born.”

  Neal shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

  Luke seized on this. “So she needs to be turned.”

  Neal studied him for a moment. “You really would turn her on your own, wouldn’t you? What if she didn’t agree to the old-fashioned way? Would you do that to her?” When Luke couldn’t answer, Neal said, “So your threat has no teeth.”

  Neal remained with his arms crossed for a long minute, then unfolded them and leaned forward. “If you really love her, think about her needs and not your own.”

  Defeated and shamed, Luke resorted to the one thing he had left. “Neal, please. I can’t lose another mate. Please.”

  Neal pursed his lips. “Get her to agree to do it of her own free will, and I’ll arrange it with Charlie.”

  ###

  That night Crissy, lying at Luke’s side, lost the battle with restlessness and sat up.

  “Can’t sleep again?” Luke murmured.

  “I keep thinking about turning.” She clutched the blankets to her chest to ward off the chill in the room. “Why, Luke? Why is it so important to you?”

  The bed shook as he rolled over and sat up. Light hit her eyes from the bedside lamp. “Sorry,” he said. “Should have warned you.” He leaned back against the headboard, head raised and eyes closed.

  “It’s about more than growing old,” she said. “If it were just that, you’d be willing to wait a little. And whenever you talk about it, I feel fear.”

  “Ja,” he said and sighed. He patted the bed beside him. “Come. I need to tell you anyway.”

  She sat beside him and curled into his warmth, her head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head.

  “Okay.” He stared off into space for a moment, then said, “It began with my grandfather. He had one son, my father, but when my father was very small he adopted a baby from a nearby clan. Gundolf Schmitt. Gundolf was only about two when he joined the family, so he saw my father as his own. But he was curious about his parents, who had been potters from a nearby town, so when he was a teenager he asked Grandfather to purchase him an apprenticeship. Gundolf left to live in town, became a potter, and never came back.

  “Grandfather died in a disastrous raid. It should never have happened...” His voice trailed off. She waited for him to resume. “Raids weren’t usually like that, but—you go into someone’s holding to cause mayhem, I guess you should expect it.”

  “Then?”

  “Rainer, my father, inherited the farm and also control of Clan Baumann. I think they had about a hundred members then, about half of them human spouses and children. A very large, powerful clan for those times. Gundolf suddenly returned, demanding his share of the farm. My father wouldn’t give him anything.

  “You have to understand, shifters live a long time, and Gundolf and my father were already over two hundred years old. My sisters, Marta and Wilfrieda, were already grown, and Marta had given birth to Neal, who was about ten, I think. Don’t quote me on that. Franz and Bernie were alive then, too, but I’m not certain of how old they were.

  “Gundolf had begun to form a clan. Drifters and defectors from other nearby clans. He wanted power and would have happily wrested control of Clan Baumann if he could. When he couldn’t, he started a campaign to destroy us. His plan, according to the lore, was to decimate the clan and scoop up the survivors.”

  “He sounds vicious.”

  “Ja. First he started spreading rumors, and Father found himself ostracized from the town. Then the raids began. Small things at first. A single cow stolen. A few sheep. Things went downhill from there. Shops burned, then homes. By the time I was born, about eighty years later, they were killing our human families.”

  “What about the Baumanns?”

  He grimaced. “We gave as good as we got.”

  “It sounds like a war.”

  “It was. That’s what I grew up with.”

  She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Liebchen. A lot of time has passed.”

  “So they killed your mate.”

  “It wasn’t as simple as that.” He paused for a long time, then said, “I mated when I was nineteen. I was such a stupid kid. I pursued Eva with a single-mindedness that scared her right off.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “If find that soooo hard to believe.”

  He chuckled. “Believe it or not, I was very restrained with you. With Eva, I followed her around every chance I got. She was frightened, both of me and the war, and the fact that shifters had no respectability back then. Shortly after we bonded, she married someone else.”

  “Oh, Luke.”

  He kissed her temple. “Like I said, long time ago. But that left her unprotected.”

  “So they killed her?”

  “Not at first. Three years later, the Schmitts mounted a huge raid. All the heavies from their clan, including Gundolf, who was a huge bear, Franz, and Bernie, who was even huger. We were caught completely by surprise. Marta, Neal, and myself only survived by running away. My parents and my sister Wilfrieda were all killed.”

  “Let me guess, you mounted a raid of your own.”

  “Yes.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We attacked during the day when the men were gone. It just wasn’t done.” He inhaled. “It was wrong, but we were crazed with grief. Gundolf was there, and we managed to kill him.”

  “Wait, I thought shifters couldn’t die.”

  “It’s very difficult. Beheading is the only way to do it.”

  “So you killed Gundolf.”

  “Yes, then Bernie’s mate attacked Neal. She was an owl. She should have taken form and flown away, but instead she decided to attack Neal with an ax. He was in human form, since the horse isn’t much of a combat species. All I could see was someone was trying to kill another member of my family. Neal was like a second father to
me. I was in bear form, and overpowered her.”

  He paused, as if he were remembering. “I downed Magritte even though she was in human form, and Neal wielded the ax.” He swallowed. “Two days later I felt Eva die. Mates always do. I found both her and her husband lying dead in a field. Shredded by bear claws. It hurt so much...”

  Crissy didn’t know what to say, so she simply clutched him.

  “It wasn’t warfare. It was plain murder. I went berserk. That’s when I was a bear for a week. I was using his better senses to track Bernie. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I found out many years later that he went off into the forest and lived as a bear for a very long time. But I was ready to kill any Schmitt I could find. At one point both Neal and Marta had to physically restrain me. I couldn’t control my bear. They put me in chains, and the bear refused to shift when I wanted to break them. It was bad.”

  “What happened?”

  “Neal sued for peace. We were defeated. We agreed to abandon our holdings and left for France. Half of our remaining shifters chose to join the Schmitts rather than emigrate. We were down to twenty-six shifters and ten humans when we arrived in Lyon.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. “And that is why it is so important to me that you be able to shift. I need to know that you can protect yourself.”

  Crissy closed her eyes and inhaled Luke’s scent. She loved him so much, and through the mating bond she could feel his pain and fear. Even more than not wanting to die, she didn’t want to see him hurt any more.

  She raised her face to his and kissed his cheek. “All right. I’ll turn. How is it done?”

  ###

  And there the question was. How is it done? He knew he had to answer but hesitated.

  She lifted her head.

  “You have to understand, Crissy; shifting isn’t natural for a human. For those of us born with it, it’s as natural as breathing, but it takes a lot to get a regular human body and soul to accept the invasion of a beast spirit.”

  “What does it take?”

  “Near death. In that moment before death, the soul would accept anything to survive, and the beast can enter.”