“Hey,” she ventured. “How were you able to fight those shifters so well? I mean, no offense, but...”
She looked him up and down. He was athletic, and strong certainly, but he was on the thinner, wiry side. There was no way he could possibly hold his own against two raging grizzly bears.
Ansell smiled mischievously, lacing his fingers together and propping his pointy chin on his hands. His yellow cat-like eyes narrowed, and it suddenly hit her.
“You’re a shifter, too!” she gasped.
“I am, indeed,” he replied.
“A grizzly?” she questioned skeptically.
“Cougar.”
She leaned back in her chair and took another sip of coffee. “Oh, wow.”
“Even I’m no match for two bear shifters, strength-wise,” he said, running his hands through his dirty blond hair. “Taking on two grizzlies is a death wish for most cougars. But I’m known for my speed and agility. I can run circles around a grizzly. Attack them from behind. Sink my claws and teeth in them, rip out their flesh before they even register what’s going on.”
Jules felt herself grow nauseated again. Her mind automatically pictured the scenes of carnage. Flashes of her two beloved shifters fighting to the death in the forest. Growling, roaring, bleeding... dying. She forced the thoughts out of her head, knowing that if she didn’t, she’d either start crying or throw up. Or maybe both.
Ansell laughed. “Of course, I’m probably getting ahead of myself. I doubt I could’ve finished them both. The injured one, sure. But not the other one, too. Grizzlies are tough. I’ve witnessed a single grizzly tear four cougars to shreds.”
Jules warmed slightly and started to smile before she forced it away. Ansell seemed like an okay guy and all, but she couldn’t help but feel a bit of satisfaction at the thought of a grizzly shifter tearing him to shreds.
“Does Nick know that you’re a—”
“Of course. Why do you think he hired me? Shifters are many times more powerful than the average man. The strongest human on earth pales in comparison to the weakest shifter. Plus, we heal quickly and can escape from the cops easily.”
Heal quickly? Jules felt a glimmer of hope that perhaps Max would be all right after all.
“I had no idea,” Jules said. “I didn’t even know shifters existed until the other day when those rangers shifted right in front of me.”
Ansell waved his hand through the air. “Oh, don’t feel stupid. Nick himself had no idea until a few months ago. Since then he’s been trying to bring more shifters into his crew, but it’s tough since most are already aligned with other gangs. I’m the first he’s done business with.”
“Why doesn’t everyone know about you guys?”
“We do our best to stay hidden in plain sight. Of course, it’s becoming harder and harder as time goes on. With video cameras and the internet, it’s nearly impossible. The government has done a pretty good job of covering up the evidence so far, but the public is starting to see through it.”
“Why do you try to hide?”
“Well, humans and shifters used to live peacefully side by side. Then things got complicated. Shifters were blamed for all kinds of evils. Our ancestors were arrested, tortured, burned at the stake. So we retreated, left the humans alone, and existed among our own. The shifters who wanted to stay a part of human society learned to hide their true identities. After a while, shifters became nothing more than legend and mythology. We became fodder for children’s bedtime stories.”
“If shifters are so much stronger than humans, why didn’t they fight back?”
“Oh, they did. Succeeded, sometimes. But that only made the backlash worse. Our population has always been small. There’s not enough of us to hold our own against millions of humans. Plus, we’re always fighting amongst ourselves. Bears and wolves the world over have always had a bloody rivalry. Here in Yellowstone, cougars and bears aren’t the greatest of friends, either.”
Jules nodded. This was so much to take in, but it was incredibly fascinating. It made her feel special to know she was privy to a secret world that most of society didn’t have a clue about.
“How did Nick find out about you?” she asked.
Ansell sipped his coffee. “There have always been shifters involved in the drug trade. In all kinds of organized crime, really. It’s naturally attractive to us. Well, some of us.”
“And the government knows about you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “The government’s always known. The military has been putting us to good use for centuries. Plenty of shifters work as cops and rangers, as well.”
“Why does the government deny your existence?”
Ansell smirked. “My, my, you sure ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”
Jules sunk back in her chair. “Well, wouldn’t you want to know if you were me?”
“I suppose I would,” he answered. “But we have plenty of time to discuss these things. You’re probably going to be here a while, after all.”
He raked his eyes down her body critically. “You’re filthy, you know. Why don’t you hop in the shower while I cook us up a lovely dinner?”
As soon as he uttered the word, her stomach lurched and groaned painfully. She was starving, and thirsty, too. She hoped a shower and a good meal would help her think a little more clearly.
Jules’s chest heaved up and down as she took long, deep breaths of humid air in the shower. Steaming hot jets of water cascaded down her body in rivulets.
God, it felt so good to get clean. She swayed a bit on her feet, still a bit dizzy and weak from everything that had happened. She’d only been in the wilderness for a day, but it felt like she’d braved the elements for weeks. It must’ve been all that running without much food or water to use as fuel. Her muscles still ached painfully from overexertion. Then there was that night in the cabin, where she’d gotten a different kind of strenuous exercise.
She sucked in a breath, her fingers traveling down her belly towards the tender apex between her legs. Flashes of that intimate evening played in her mind. Carter and Max’s solid, muscular bodies. Their thick shafts sliding in and out of her. The way they grunted and growled with animalistic lust. She still couldn’t get over the way they touched her.
To an outsider, it would’ve looked like a scandalous one-night stand with two total strangers. But she knew deep in her heart that it wasn’t about that. These weren’t two horny dudes who just wanted to get their rocks off. The way they gazed into her eyes—the cool blue of Carter’s, and the magnetic slate gray of Max’s, sent shivers down her spine. It felt serendipitous. It felt right. For the first time in a long time, perhaps for the first time in her life, she’d actually felt content. At home. At least, briefly.
Jules winced, the pain still so fresh and new, and most of all baffling. She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
How could they betray her like that?
Jules had grown accustomed to cruelty in recent years. She’d witnessed violent acts. Bloodthirsty men who relentlessly pursued money and power at the expense of everything else, including the sanctity of life. Men who tortured, who seemed to be entertained by inflicting pain on others. Yet it all paled in comparison to the betrayal she felt at the hands of those two shifters.
She felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t felt this kind of pain in years, not since her father had passed. She felt empty. Lacking. Grief rolled through her in one debilitating wave. She doubled over and let the tears fall from her swollen eyes as she mourned a loss that she couldn’t even put into words.
16
Max opened his eyes and looked around. He was in a log cabin, in a small room with one tiny rectangular window looking out into the pines. Carter sat next to his bed, his chin in his hands, looking somber and more serious than Max had seen him in a long time.
“Hey—” Max’s throat seared with pain as soon as he opened his mouth. He lifted his head slightly and daggers of agonizing pain stabbed his ent
ire body from the waist up. He gritted his teeth.
Carter, concerned, leaned over to the bedside table and grabbed a glass of water, helping Max take a few sips, which did little to soothe the pain.
“W-what happened to me?” Max croaked, his voice hoarse and gravelly.
Carter sat back in his chair, defeated. He shrugged his shoulders heavily. “We got attacked by a fucking mountain lion.”
The sound of the cat’s piercing high-pitched roar replayed vividly in Max’s ear-drums. Memories began appearing little by little as incomplete, muddled flashes.
“I remember now,” Max said.
“I don’t know who that was or why he attacked us,” Carter said, shaking his head.
“You think it was a shifter?”
“Definitely.” Carter ran his hand over his blonde stubble, thinking.
The events replayed in Max’s mind, settling on one memory in particular. Jules’s frightened yet determined wide eyes as she furrowed her brows and pulled the trigger, followed by the bullet slicing through his flesh and burying deep as he was flung backwards to the ground.
“She shot me,” he said simply.
Carter nodded. His eyes were normally the color of the clear blue sky, but today it looked like clouds had moved in. They were still blue, but now grayer.
Max began to shake his head but stopped when he felt pangs of sharp pain in his neck. He didn’t know what to say.
He made his hand into a fist and gritted his teeth, steeling himself against the emotional pain brewing inside him. A pain that was a thousand times stronger than his physical wounds.
“Did you kill the cougar?” He asked.
“No. It ran off. I could’ve followed it, but I needed to get you help.”
“And Jules?”
“She escaped. I couldn’t run after her, either. Max, you were looking real bad. I thought you’d—”
“You don’t have to explain. Thank you.”
Carter’s eyes softened and glimmered. A tear threatened to fall, but he grunted and looked away. He inhaled deeply. “Zariah says she thinks Jules is okay, wherever she is.”
Max realized then where he was. Zariah’s cabin. Surely she was the one who’d patched him up, too. He’d have to thank her. He and Zariah never really got along, but she certainly knew how to make herself useful, and she was a huge asset to both Yellowstone and their clan.
“That’s good to hear,” Max said.
There was a long silence. Carter stirred in his chair uncomfortably, and Max could tell he was working hard to stay quiet. After a minute or two, he finally broke.
“I just don’t know, Max,” he said, his voice pained. “I don’t know what we’re gonna do now. I mean, I should go back and look for her. I need to find her. And then—”
“And then what?” Max challenged.
“Well, I don’t know.”
Max gritted his teeth. “You’ll have to turn her in, Carter. There’s nothing else to do. We were foolish to think we could ever—”
“But she’s our mate, Max!”
“I don’t know about that,” Max lied.
Carter gripped the arms of his chair and heaved his body up, floorboards creaking under his weight. “Don’t you dare, Max.”
Carter paced back and forth, shaking his head, turning to Max every few seconds to point an accusing finger. “You might be banged up. This might be a shitty situation. But I’m not gonna let you become cynical again.”
“Cynical? It’s called realistic, Carter.”
“Don’t deny your bear, Max,” Carter grunted. “I know the bear inside you has chosen Jules. So has mine. We can’t give up on her.”
“Maybe our bears are idiots,” Max grumbled.
Carter stopped in his tracks and growled.
“My father’s bear chose my mother,” Max continued. “And look how that turned out.”
“This has nothing to do with your parents, Max! This has to do with us. With Jules. With our destiny.”
“Maybe our destiny is to make Jules our mate when she’s released. Five, ten, twenty years from now. Her rap sheet is growing, Carter. She just shot an officer of the law.”
“We’ll keep that off the books,” Carter said quickly.
Max sighed. “We’re gonna have to tell Burke everything.”
“We don’t have to tell him that. In fact, why do we have to tell him anything? We got into a scuffle with some mountain lions. We never even saw Jules.”
Max shook his head. His sense of duty and moral obligation made him sour at Carter’s intentions. “And what happens when Jules gets caught and tells everyone about the two undercover cops that slept with her? Hell—she might even get a taste for the spotlight and tell the whole world that we’re shifters.”
Carter clenched his fists, his face flushing red. “Jules would never do that. She’s a kind-hearted person. She would never do anything to—”
“To hurt us? No, I’m sure she’d never to anything to maim our reputation,” Max seethed. “But shooting us with a gun? Sure, why not?”
Carter swallowed. His eyes were narrowed, his hands shaking in anger.
“Carter,” Max said softly, hoping to subdue him. “I’m not trying to make you upset. I just want you to look at this situation realistically. We have to be smart. We have to think with our heads, not our hearts.”
“You do you,” Carter replied. “But I trust my bear. I don’t care what you or Zariah or anyone else says. We need to find Jules and talk to her. Explain ourselves. Get her to understand.”
“It’s bigger than that, Carter,” Max argued. “It’s not just about the three of us. There’s more to this story. We can’t just decide to become criminals so we can keep Jules to ourselves. We have a duty, as rangers and police officers, to our clan, and to society in general.”
“Oh, now you’re concerned with our clan? You never were before. I say fuck duty,” Carter snarled. “You were fine with protecting her until she shot you. Now you’re just angry and want to get revenge by locking her up.”
Max swallowed and winced at the pain. He pondered Carter’s accusation, but it only took a moment for him to ascertain that it wasn’t true. Max wasn’t angry with her. He was angry at the situation. He was angry at destiny, or fate, or whatever magical forces were at play behind the scenes. He was angry at his own bear for choosing her. Why her? Why a criminal on the run?
Why couldn’t his bear have chosen someone else? Another bear from their clan, perhaps. Or maybe one of the young rangers who worked for the park service. Why Jules, and why now?
It made him want to shut it all out. It brought out his stubborn side. Why should he listen to his bear? He was never one for convention anyway. He’d never wanted any part of his clan’s traditions. It was his idea to move away from their clan, and the only reason he returned to Yellowstone was because Carter missed his family and wanted to be closer. If it weren’t for Carter, he would’ve stayed far away. There was nothing for him here.
Memories bubbled to the surface of his awareness, but he struggled hard to push them back down into oblivion. He didn’t want to dwell on that. If he allowed himself to think about the sound of his mother’s blood-curdling scream…
He grunted, ridding himself of the thought.
No. It wouldn’t happen again.
Suddenly Zariah’s wide face and mass of brown curls popped around the door frame.
“Oh, you’re awake!” she sang happily. She looked back and forth between the two bears, her smile fading as the air simmered in awkward tension.
She walked in slowly and clasped Max’s wrist, taking his pulse. “I’m happy to say you’re going to make a speedy recovery. You took the bullet right under your collarbone… an inch or two lower and it would’ve been fatal. The cat took a good chunk out of your flesh here—” She waved her hand around the blood-soaked bandages on his chest. “But it wasn’t deep enough to do any real damage. And your bear is certainly working hard to heal you.”
“
Thank you, Zariah,” Max said with a half-hearted smile.
Zariah crossed her arms. “I’m sorry things have turned out this way.”
She turned to Carter, her face set in stern authority. “But you two have made a real mess, and you need to clean it up. Burke’s expecting you at the office, Carter.”
Carter’s eyes bulged with shock and fury. “You spoke to him!”
“He called earlier. I couldn’t lie to him, Carter. He was worried sick.”
Carter gritted his teeth, nostrils flaring. “Keep your fucking nose out of our business, Zariah.”
He spat out the last word viciously. Zariah only stared, unperturbed.
“Do the right thing,” Max breathed to Carter, his chest heavy with pain.
Carter wordlessly turned and stomped out of the room, each footstep on the creaky floor heavy with rage. Max pressed his eyes closed, his head pounding. His mind swam with confusion and grief, and he longed to return to a better, simpler time. He wanted to rewind back a few years, when he and Carter were cops in Los Angeles. Chasing bad guys. Coming home after long, exhausting double shifts, sinking into the couch, drinking beer and eating tacos, laughing at TV sitcoms together.
Taking road trips to Yosemite every week or so just so they could shift and enjoy their bears out in the beauty of nature. He hadn’t appreciated it at the time—no one ever realizes they’re living in the ‘good old days’ until they’re over. But looking back, it was perfect. There was no clan to worry about. No fated mate. Just pure simplicity—nothing was easy, but everything was simple. They worked hard, they played hard. They were concerned with no one but each other.
Max’s heart ached with the sinking realization that those days were gone for good, and no matter what happened now, he would never again get to enjoy such a simple, uncomplicated life.
17
“Tell me everything,” Burke commanded, his face twisted into an angry scowl. “And Carter—I do mean everything.”
Carter sighed heavily, leaning back into his chair. Burke paced back and forth in front of his desk, arms crossed, fingers tapping on his skinny forearms. The rhythm of the wall clock ticking was the only sound that punctuated the silent room, and it only increased Carter’s anxiety.
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