by Joyce, T. S.
“Toothpaste?” Hannah asked hopefully.
“Riker. Not as much as I should after last night, but he’s there.”
“I did use his shower,” she said with a suspicious frown as yet another thing didn’t add up. “But I get the feeling that’s not what you mean.”
“I have something to show you,” Jenny said with a sunny grin. “You have questions and they’ll be answered when Riker’s ready. Until then, he’s busy doing alpha stuff and us girls have some time to do some bonding. You up for it?”
She had planned on waiting around all day for Riker like a pathetic school girl, knowing he had to come home sometime, but Jenny’s offer intrigued her more. It was beautiful out here and the offer to go exploring with her own personal and knowledgeable tour guide was irresistible.
“Okay, as long as you aren’t going to lead me into the woods and haze me or anything.”
“Ha! No hazing, but you do need more durable shoes than flip flops. Do you have any?”
“I have sneakers.”
“Go put them on and meet me on the porch.”
Jenny, bless that woman, held two disposable cups of coffee when she stepped onto the porch. Fragrant steam drifted from the tiny lid holes and she took hers, grateful for something to warm her hands.
Leading Hannah down a trail behind the house, Jenny asked, “What do you think this place is?”
“A commune.”
Jenny snorted. “Wrong. Wait, what do you define as a commune?”
“I don’t know. Like a group of people who go off the grid and live outside of society for religious reasons?”
“Okay, yes to everything but the religious gloop. We are off the grid, mostly. Look.” She pointed to rows of solar panels set up over a square building with stone trim. “Our electricity comes from there. Our water comes from the mountains and we grow and raise most of what we need to survive.” She climbed a rough wooden fence and Hannah followed. Leaning into the breeze, Jenny pointed with her chin. “Meat.”
A huge herd of cattle in every color imaginable milled inside of the giant enclosure.
“How many people live here?”
“A hundred and fourteen. Next week it’ll be a hundred and fifteen. Got a baby on the way for one of our families.” She beamed like she was the one expecting, and Hannah dropped an accidental gaze to her midsection. “Not me, Hannah, but every birth is a big deal for the people here. It’s a promise that we’ll continue.”
“Oh.” Embarrassed, heat flushed her cheeks.
Jenny rested her chin on her arms and watched the bellowing cows. “We’re allowed to leave you know. Some of us even keep jobs in the closest town. It’s not like any of us are trapped here. We’re here because it’s safe. We’re here because we want to be.”
Jenny eventually led her through a wheat field that stretched as far as Hannah could see. A thin trail wound through the middle, and they walked, brushing the tops of the swaying waves of grass with the palms of their free hands.
“I married someone like you,” Jenny said. “Blaine. We were married two summers ago.”
“Will I meet him?”
“Yes. You can come over for dinner tonight if you want. Riker’s usually busy until sundown, but I’ll ask him as well.”
“I doubt he’ll come. He’s really pissed at me.”
“All be—all boys have tempers. He’ll come around.”
Hannah shook her head and took a sip of coffee, now cool enough to drink without setting her mouth on fire. “Where is everyone?”
“At their jobs. A lot of them are probably near the corn fields. You want to see them?”
“Sure.”
A mile of beautiful land stretched between the fields and the walk was relaxing. It had been a long time since she got lost in a conversation without looking over her shoulder with the suspicion she was being lured to her death.
Jenny was an easy talker. She spoke of summers growing up out here, of trouble she and Riker found as kids, of her parents and the sadness she and her brother had felt when they’d moved back to Utah. She talked about her friends in the commune, or whatever it was, and about the ones who stirred trouble for Riker since he’d taken over as alpha. She didn’t talk as if it were gossip and she didn’t seem to need Hannah to react to each person she talked about. She just spoke to her like Hannah should be storing the information away for later.
By the time the tips of the corn stalks came into view, Hannah was laughing at Jenny’s story about how she and Riker went out hunting frogs one night, only to put them under a childhood bully’s porch. They’d received a dozen lashes on the bum from their dad when the girl freaked out on her way to school the next day, but the way Jenny told it, it was safe to say the woman thought the punishment worth it.
A huge pump to the west of the field sat in a puddle of mud and several men were working on it. Others were spread out in the field, placing hoses. As she and Jenny approached the pump, Riker stood up in the group, hands covered in mud and eyes serious as he listened to what one of the others said.
He talked, gesturing before he leaned down again and took a wrench to the machine. Confident moves said he knew his way around machinery, and as he checked and rechecked various knobs and wires, he grimaced with concentration. When the machine sputtered to life, they stood back and one of them clapped Riker on the back. His answering smile was infectious and she felt the same reflected on her lips.
He looked up, his gaze colliding with hers, and the smile dipped from his face. In its place was a calculating seriousness that brought a shiver to her spine. He dragged his attention away and followed the group of men into the woods without a backward glance.
“Ew darlin’, you did piss him off, didn’t you?” Jenny said.
Hannah’s mood plummeted. Miserable, she shook her head and made a single tick sound behind her teeth. “I think he picked already.”
“Don’t even joke.”
“I’m not. You saw the way he looked at me. He’s still mad.” Staring off in the trees where he’d disappeared, she felt like her heart was shredding to pieces. “This is crazy. I just met the man yesterday. Yesterday! I shouldn’t care like this.”
Jenny slung an arm over her shoulder. “It doesn’t happen like this in your world. Out here, it’s different though, because we’re different. I knew the second I saw Blaine he was mine. Come on. I’ll show you our cabin so you can find it tonight.”
Casting one more look into the trees, she followed Jenny down a small trail beside the corn field. “How did you two meet?”
“I worked at a diner in town. We were famous for our pies, and on his lunch breaks, he’d come in and order whatever pie I recommended. I loved him from moment one, but he was the sheriff and, well, it was too dangerous to start a relationship with him. The man was relentless though,” she said with a conspiratorial smile. “He followed me home one day and that was that. He had to choose whether he was in or out. Like you’re having to do now.”
“He’s a cop?” Panic laced her words. No one could know she was here, especially cops. All it took was him poking around her past to stir up Stone’s hornets. If they tracked the searches to any town around here, they’d find her for sure and none of them would be safe.
Jenny’s dark eyebrows furrowed and she squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. He’s a good one.”
“You don’t understand.” Hannah lowered her voice. “Cops are the ones giving away where my safe houses are. I was in the witness protection program, but Jeremy brought me here after we almost died. I’m out in the wind, Jenny. No one can even get a clue I’m here or it’ll bring trouble for everyone.”
Jenny stopped and grabbed both of her hands. “Hannah, breathe. Blaine is as good as they get. If he knows how important it is to keep you under the radar, he’ll do it. He keeps lots of secrets.”
Or, Jenny could just not tell him about why she’s here. But maybe that would be worse. He was a cop and they got suspicious over everything. He could loo
k into her past without knowing the danger. She searched Jenny’s dark eyes in panic. What would Jeremy do? What was the right move here?
Large movement moved in the woods behind Jenny and Hannah’s breath caught over what she thought she saw. Scanning, searching, she tried to make sense of the oversized shape, covered in fur. He stood still, watching her with soulless eyes.
“B-b-bear.”
“What?”
“Jenny,” she breathed. “There’s a bear behind you.”
She turned and huffed a chuckle. A chuckle, for crying out loud. This was definitely not funny.
“Oh, he’s all right. They live all around here.” Jenny’s hands clamped painfully onto her own. “Unless.”
“Unless what?” Hannah squeaked, quaking so hard her knees knocked. She couldn’t move. The back of the animal was taller than her, huge. She couldn’t even convince her feet to turn and run.
“Unless that’s Merit’s older brother.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Hannah blurted out.
“Run!” Jenny yanked her arm so hard it rattled her bones, and Hannah’s feet pumped as she dodged trees.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to run from bears,” Hannah cried. “Play dead. We should play dead!”
“That won’t stop these bears.”
“These bears?” Hannah’s breath chugged so hard her lungs hurt and her stitches pulled with every step over the uneven ground.
Crashing branches and trees thundered behind them, gaining ground with every passing second. He was coming and she was helpless to go faster. Her legs already burned, she barely had time to watch her step and her injured lung ached every time she drew a breath. The bear was so close, Hannah imagined his breath on her neck. After everything, she was going to die in the wilderness from an animal attack. Fuck. Jeremy.
A crash came from the woods in front of them, and Hannah slowed as another bear, darker than the honey colored grizzly behind her, plowed the forest toward them.
If Jenny couldn’t see him, she was legally blind. “Another bear,” Hannah screeched.
“That one’s a good one.”
A good—what the hell was happening? A roar from behind her brushed her skin with the powerful vibrations and spurred her forward. A whimper wrenched from her throat as Jenny dragged her forward.
“Duck,” Jenny yelled, pulling her down behind a huge fern.
The larger grizzly, black as night and scarred on his shoulders and neck, leapt over them like they were daffodils and crashed into the other bear with the force of a mac truck.
“We gotta give them room,” Jenny said, crawling away. “This is going to get ugly.”
Mewling, Hannah crawled behind a giant pine and peeked around. They should run away while the beasts were battling. They’d been lucky, too lucky, and it shouldn’t be wasted cheering on a wild bear fight. Jenny, however, was watching it like she wished she had a bucket of buttered popcorn.
“All right, crazy,” Hannah said over the roaring bears. “Time to go.”
“You don’t want to watch your man fight for you?” Jenny asked. She watched Hannah like a cat about to pounce.
“What are you talking about?”
Jenny gripped her chin and shoved her face toward the black bear. “Hannah, meet Benton Riker.”
Slapping her hand away, she looked at Jenny in horror. “You’re crazy. We have to go.”
Jenny’s words came out in a rush. “Think about it, Hannah. Why do his eyes glow? Why does he growl? Why are mating and fighting so important to our clan?”
“Fuck you, Jenny. I want to save you, but dudette, you’re off your rocker and I can’t drag you in my condition. Are you coming or not?” Geez, Riker was going to kill her if she left Jenny behind.
“I’m a werebear.”
Hannah shoved her fingertip in her ear and wiggled it around. “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you over the fighting bears! Please don’t ever repeat the word werebear, if that is in fact what you just said to me.”
“Werebear.”
Growling, Hannah crawled away. Jenny was just going to have to make her own escape. From the winner of the bear fight and from looney-tune land.
This commune wasn’t for criminals.
It was for crazies.
Chapter Seven
Crap, crap, double crap. Trees, trees and more trees and no trail to lead Hannah from the woods.
Roaring and snarling sounded behind her as the bears tumbled, slapped, bit, and fought, felling entire trees in the wake of their violent destruction.
Her heart was doing its best to leap from her throat and roll in the mud she was stomping through. Werebear. Freaking Jenny. Was this her plan today? Drag her out to the middle of nowhere and mess with her head?
Not even a near death experience by grizzly could convince her werebears existed.
She turned at a snuffling noise and screamed as a bear poked her in the stomach with its massive snout. It wasn’t the ones from the woods. This one was smaller, and chestnut colored. Scrambling backward on her hands and feet like a klutzy crab, Hannah sucked air to scream again, but the bear sat like an oversized lap dog and canted her head.
Hannah’s back hit a tree and she froze, locked in a glare war with the bear.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she chanted. “Think.” An idea dinged in her head like a microwave timer and she went limp against the ground. “Bleh.” Her tongue lolled out and she hoped she looked dead.
The bear huffed a sound that reminded her disturbingly of laughter and she opened one eye. The bear had laid down too, and definitely looked like it was mocking her. Hannah sat up. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Jenny, if this is you, give me a sign.”
The bear sat up and stared.
“That’s what I thought.” Creeping around the tree, she prepared to back away when the bear followed. Tracking closer and closer until Hannah backed into a giant shrub and closed one eye. She held her hands out to protect herself but this was it. She was going to die with nary a weapon to fight back.
The bear slapped her hand, like a high five.
“Stop it,” Riker growled, shoving the bear in its giant block head. “You’re scaring her. Hannah,” he said soothingly, like he was calming a wild animal. “Put the stick down. I’ll explain everything.”
She was, in fact, clutching a stick. Maybe she’d yanked it from the bush that was trying to swallow her whole like an anaconda right now. “No. I’m not giving up my weapons until someone explains what is going on. Trained bears, and bear fights, and psychotic Jenny. You know your sister is crazy, right?”
The bear shrank and its fur retracted, and there stood Jenny in all of her naked, perfect little tittied glory. “I’m not crazy. I told you I was a werebear. You’re the one who tried to play dead after I told you that wouldn’t work. Who’s the crazy one now?”
“Me,” Hannah squeaked. “You’re a... He’s a...” She gulped and sat heavily at the stump of the bush. Werebears were real. That or she’d gone skinny dipping in the pool of insanity a lot earlier than she thought she would.
Riker knelt beside her and touched her shoulder.
She pulled away. “Don’t touch me.”
“I wanted to tell you about it when the time was right, in the right way. Bralan forced my hand.”
“The other magical werebear?” She sounded hysterical but so what? “The one who was actually trying to kill me?”
“He’ll be punished for it, Hannah, I promise.”
“Excellent. And where are your damned clothes, Riker? Do all of you just waltz around with your perfect bodies and…Merit. She’s a bear too, right? That’s why you’re supposed to pick her?”
He nodded and the tears that had been building spilled over. It was too much to take in. Monsters were real, but they were in the form of heartless mobsters like Stone and his enforcers. Real monsters, the furry nightmare kind, didn’t exist. But they did. As was obvious from the long, bleeding claw mark across Ri
ker’s chest.
She reached out and touched the jagged edge. He winced but allowed it.
Bear or not, the injury looked bad and she worried. “We need to find Daria.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said flatly.
“Don’t.” She growled, holding her hands out like she wanted to choke him, then swung her gaze to Jenny. “Is stubbornness part of werebear make-up? Please say yes.”
She pursed her lips and crossed her arms like she was trying to hold in a laugh. One nod and Hannah scrambled upward. “I want to go home.”
“Where do you live?” Riker asked with a frown that said he didn’t like it, but he was game.
“Not…my home. Our home. Dad-blastit, your home.” She cleared her throat and smoothed leaves and bugs from her snarled hair. “I’d like to go to your house.”
“I like her,” Jenny said, her grin wide and white as the fluffy clouds above. Riker threw her a stormy look but she only shrugged. “Dinner’s at six. Don’t be late. Bring your mate!” Her laughter trailed behind her as she disappeared behind a thicket of trees.
Maybe Jenny really was crazy.
“You look mad,” Riker said.
“I’m not mad.”
“Okay, you look pissed.”
“I’m not. Why would I be pissed that I got eaten out by a werebear?” She yelled the last word.
He laughed, blast that man, he laughed at her. “Regrets, cupcake?”
She rubbed her eyes and groaned. Maybe if she blinked really hard, this nightmare wouldn’t exist. Nope. When she opened her eyes, Riker was still standing there like a sexy bodied Adonis with his arms crossed over the gaping wound on his chest. Blood pooled in the bowl his arms created.
“Can we please find Daria before I lose my breakfast, and find you some friggin’ pants, and then can we please, please go back to your house and talk about all of this before any of your crazy bear friends try to kill me again?” She wanted a nap. Honestly, she could probably sleep for three days with all of this overwhelming swamp of new information that had successfully turned everything she thought she knew about the world completely upside down.