BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset)

by Parker, Kylee

  And now, after they’d had little Sax, it wasn’t that lonely after all.

  Saxon was a big personality in a small body. He was five years old, and he’d been different than any of the other people in the village from the start. He played in the group with the other kids when Jenna took him to playschool three times a week, but it seemed like he did it to humor them more than himself.

  He asked questions that normal children wouldn’t think of. It wasn’t surprising, of course. The child of a shifter wasn’t going to be normal. But Jenna’s human influence meant that Saxon was human too, and even though he was different, Bruce was relieved he was safe. There were enough dangers out there for a regular human, without throwing the war between the shifters and the Assassins into it.

  A child was the quickest to die in a war like that. If they could catch the shifters before they were big and strong they could stop them from becoming more. It made sense. And it made Bruce nervous. No, as a human, with Jenna, Saxon was safe. She understood enough about Shifter life to keep the boy out of harm’s way and still give him the human life he deserved.

  When Bruce pushed open the door to the cabin, Saxon ran to him on bear feet. His dark hair bounced as he ran and his green eyes were shimmering. It thudded on the wooden floor and Bruce scooped him up. Saxon’s mouth was open in a silent squeal. Jenna was still sleeping.

  “How’s my boy?” Bruce asked in a whisper when he put Sax down again.

  “Good,” Saxon answered. “I’m coloring.”

  “Let’s see it,” Bruce said and followed Saxon to where he’d been sitting on the floor with pictures and crayons scattered all around him. There were marks on the raw wood where he’d colored off the edge of the page, but Bruce wasn’t going to say something about it. Everyone had to know that falling off the edge wasn’t always a bad thing.

  Bruce picked up the picture and studied it with mock interest. It was a stick figure with red and yellow scratched all over it.

  “Tell me about this wonderful picture,” he said.

  “It’s a fireman.”

  Right. Bruce saw it now.

  “From the story mommy read me last night.”

  Bruce put his hand on Saxon’s hair. “This is amazing. So artistic! Is that what you want to be one day? A fireman?”

  Saxon shook his head and shuffled the papers around until he found another picture. A round shape with brown all over it and sharp teeth on the face.

  “I want to be a bear, like you!”

  Bruce smiled, but his gut twisted for no reason at all. It wasn’t going to happen.

  “Not everyone gets to be an animal too,” Bruce said. “Every person has something special, and one day you’ll find what yours is.”

  “Why can’t it be the same as yours?” Saxon asked.

  Bruce forced a smile. “Because you have your own kind of special. You can’t have the same kind as me, then it’s not special anymore.”

  Saxon thought about it for a moment and then shook his head.

  “I still want to be like you,” he said.

  Bruce got up and held out his hand so Saxon would take it. The boy got up by himself.

  “How about we make mommy breakfast?”

  Saxon smiled and followed Bruce to the small kitchen. They were making eggs and bacon when Jenna walked into the kitchen. Her red hair was a wild mess from sleeping and her eyes were soft and smiling when she watched Saxon mix eggs in the pan and spill it over the edge.

  “What are my two men doing?” she asked.

  “We’re trying to make you breakfast in bed,” Bruce said and walked over to Jenna, kissing her. He loved it when she’d just woken up. She was soft and cuddly then, with the lines on her face a little softened and worries of the day still invisible.

  “It smells really good,” she said. “When did you get big enough to be so good in the kitchen, Sax?”

  He smiled at her and she smiled back. Bruce could almost see the bond between them. It was the kind of bond the pack shared, and he shared with Jenna as his mate. It was rare of two humans to bond like that, but nothing in their household was normal anymore.

  “Can I go play outside?” Saxon asked. Bruce listened and heard the other kids in the street. He glanced at Jenna who nodded once.

  “Go on, I’ll finish the egg,” he said and Saxon ran out of the kitchen.

  “Stay out of Mrs. Smith’s garden,” Jenna called after him. That was probably exactly where the kids were going to end up. Bruce smiled and picked up the spatula.

  “I was thinking of taking Saxon out with me tonight,” he said. He concentrated on the eggs, watching them intently. He felt Jenna’s eyes burning his back, but he refused to turn around.

  “How many times are we going to talk about this?” Jenna asked. “Knowing daddy is a bear and seeing the change are two different things. You don’t look like the pictures he sees all the time. You’re a scary predator.”

  “He keeps saying he wants to be like me. If I take him with me, and show him what it’s really like, maybe he won’t want it anymore.”

  “So you want to scare him to death to put him off it?” Jenna asked and Bruce finally turned around, pulling the pan off the stove as he did.

  “Either that, or he’ll feel part of it and then stop saying it.”

  Jenna shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her on the table where she was sitting.

  “He’s too young, Bruce. Besides, it’s not wrong for him to want to be like you. He’s a boy and you’re his hero. This is normal.”

  Bruce was edgy. It wasn’t irritation, but he was struggling with the topic. It felt like an itch he couldn’t scratch and the kitchen suddenly felt very small and stuffy.

  “Nothing in this house is normal, Jen,” he said.

  Her face became hard and stony.

  “This is normal for us. This is what we do. We’ve all adapted to this life that we’re living here, and there’s no reason to upset it all.”

  “Who says it’s going to be an upset?” Bruce asked. He was aware that he was starting to raise his voice, but he felt trapped and a trapped animal was never a good thing.

  “Don’t shout at me,” Jenna said. Bruce rolled his eyes. He wasn’t shouting yet. They stared at each other, the atmosphere suddenly so thick around them and loaded with the potential to turn very ugly. But Jenna sighed and her face softened, and just like the energy in the room drained again and there was space to breathe. She got up, walked around the table and put her arms around Bruce. He pulled her tightly against his body and marveled at how perfectly she fit against him.

  “It’s too soon, Bruce,” she said against his chest. Bruce put his chin on her head. Maybe she was right. Having a child was scary. He didn’t know how to bring the two worlds together. It was okay when it was Jenna, who’d chosen to be part of a group of people that she had nothing in common with. Even the danger, the war that had taken place so many years ago and Jenna had beheaded an Assassin, was a choice. She didn’t have to come back.

  But Saxon hadn’t had a choice. He was born in a life that was exceedingly difficult, and he was already so different from his friends that Bruce was scared he wouldn’t fit in anywhere. He wasn’t going to fit in with the pack, and he wasn’t going to fit in with the humans, not if he wanted to be an animal instead. Not if he wasn’t one already.

  “I just don’t know how to protect him,” Bruce finally said.

  “You don’t have to do it alone. We’re both here. And what’s there to protect him from? He’s a little human boy with an eccentric father. It’s not going to kill him.”

  Jenna was right, of course. There wasn’t that much that could happen to a human boy living in a small town in the mountains. Not if the human boy had normal human parents. But he didn’t have normal human parents, did he? No, Saxon had Bruce for a father, and Bruce was a shapeshifter.

  The one thing Bruce wasn’t able to admit to Jenna was that he was scared he wouldn’t be able to protect Saxon from the shifter
world he would inevitably meet. From the dangers, that might take his father away from him.

  And most of all, from his father, the bear shifter, himself.

  It was almost full moon. Bruce could feel it crawling under his skin, a knowledge that was inside of him. When the sun set again, the moon would be full. Bruce pulled away from Jenna and dished up breakfast. They sat together at the kitchen table and ate.

  “Why don’t you and Saxon go visit Murray tonight?” Bruce asked.

  Jenna nodded. It wasn’t necessary to say why, anymore. Murray didn’t know about shifters, or if it did he didn’t mention it. But he knew more about the preternatural world than the other villagers, and if Jenna and Saxon were going to be safe anywhere during full moon, it would be there.

  “I miss the days when I could come with you,” Jenna said. In the beginning, she used to join Bruce in his trek up to the plateau and see the other shifters before they split up to hunt for the night. Dwayne used to teach her how to access her feelings. It was just the edge of being a psychic, but it was better than nothing.

  Since Saxon had been born she’d only been a couple of times, either when Saxon was young enough not to know what was going on, or when they’d managed to organize a babysitter.

  “The pack misses you, too,” Bruce said. “Rosa was asking after you.”

  Jenna nodded and took another bite. Rosa had lost Stephen during the war where Jenna had saved Tara. Somehow Jenna blamed herself for not being able to save Stephen too, even though it hadn’t been her fault at all.

  It hadn’t even been her war.

  She’d become fast friends were Rosa, for some reason she was the only one that could get through to her. Maybe it was because she was only a human and not a threat. Or maybe it was because she was a woman with a heart.

  “Maybe when Sax is old enough,” Bruce said. They could both go up with him, then. Jenna hesitated before she nodded.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  When it was time for Bruce to leave Jenna and Saxon were in the kitchen again, baking a cake.

  “I have to get going,” Bruce said when he stood in the door. During full moon, he wanted to be on the plateau before the night fell.

  “Be safe,” Jenna said, leaning against him without touching him with her flour hands and tipping her head up for a kiss.

  Saxon jumped off his chair and grabbed onto Bruce, making small flour hand prints all over his pants.

  “Be good, listen to mommy, and have fun with uncle Murray,” Bruce said. Saxon nodded.

  “Tonight is itchy, isn’t it daddy?” Saxon said. Bruce frowned, glanced up at Jenna. She just shrugged. It wasn’t the first time Saxon had said something like that.

  “I’m going to be late,” Bruce said without answering Saxon and then left the house. He started walking up into the trees. The night really was itchy, he thought. He could feel it prickling against his skin, tingling along his spine, and every time he took a breath it was like the air was alive. He climbed over the boulders and followed the path he always took.

  He was almost at the plateau when a wave of nausea hit him. It was so strong he had to lean against a tree to keep his balance, and he bent over in case he was going to throw up.

  He looked up. This was pure magic he was feeling. No one else was at the plateau yet.

  The tingling had gotten worse, on his left side especially.

  A jolt of panic traveled through him, and a hard tug on the bond and he realized it wasn’t here he was feeling all of this. It wasn’t his magic or his panic. It was Jenna. And she was in trouble.

  Bruce turned and ran. He jumped from side to side, dodging the trees. He ignored the path he’d used, taking the straightest way down the mountain. He tripped twice and fell, bruising his shoulder and a branch scraped across his face, but by the time he got to the cabin it would be healed gain.

  He crashed through the last shrubs before he reached the cabin, panting, and heaving. The bear inside of him was upset, roaring and clawing to get out. Jenna saw Bruce and came to him. Her eyes were wide and wild and her cheeks were white.

  The night had already crept in, the darkness was all around them and it felt like the bright light of the full moon did nothing to illuminate the forest around them.

  “I can’t find him anywhere,” she said. “I was packing a bag to leave and he disappeared. You have to find him, Bruce.”

  Bruce turned and scanned the trees behind the house.

  “He’s not close, I already called and searched the house and everything.” She was getting hysterical. “He’s gone, Bruce.”

  “I’ll find him,” Bruce said. “Go wait inside.”

  “I want to come with you,” she said, and Bruce knew she wouldn’t be able to just sit and wait. He understood. But she was distracting him.

  “You need to calm down, then. I can’t feel him when you’re freaking out.”

  She snapped her mouth shut and took one deep breath after the other. Bruce turned his focus inward, finding the bond he had with his son. It was vague, almost like it wasn’t there, but he had it. He started walking, following it like there was a line between him and Saxon.

  Another wave of nausea rolled over him, more magic in the air. Something was out there, something not human.

  “Do you feel that?” Bruce asked Jenna. She nodded, eyes wide.

  “You don’t think someone has him, do you?”

  Bruce shook his head to set her at ease, but the magic wasn’t a good sign. Someone with magic was out there, in the same direction as Saxon.

  Bruce kept walking with Jenna flanking him. They stepped through the trees. The darkness was so heavy now, so thick Bruce could almost touch it, taste it, breathe it. Saxon was right up ahead now, he could feel it. And whatever else was out there. A lot of magic hung in the air almost like a thin powder. It was unstable magic.

  Right there. Saxon had to be right in front of them now. But he wasn’t. Jenna grabbed Bruce’s arm. He could feel her panic riding up his arm and into his chest, making him panicky, too. But he ignored it.

  A small bear suddenly appeared from the trees. It was a cub, pitch black, and it rolled over the mulch, then sat up and made small grunting sounds. At first, Bruce thought it was just a cub and the mother bear would appear any moment. But then another wave of magic washed over Bruce and it came from that cub.

  Jenna gasped as if the magic was too strong to breathe through. The cub heard it and looked straight at them, and it had the greenest, emerald eyes Bruce had ever seen.

  “Saxon?” Bruce asked. And the cub came running to him on all fours.

  Chapter 2

  Jenna froze, half-hidden behind Bruce and watched the little cub respond to her son’s name. The air all around them felt warm and alive like it was a creature in itself. It rolled over her in waves. When Bruce had asked if she felt it, she’d been relieved she hadn’t been the only one. The night had felt off-balance since two hours before sunset, and she’d thought the full moon had had something to do with it.

  Turned out it had everything to do with it. Saxon wasn’t as human as she thought he was. She’d been relieved when she’d had the baby boy and he’d been so normal. He’d always been a little different but considering what their family consisted of it had seemed like it was okay.

  Now it all made sense.

  “Oh, Bruce,” she said under her breath and a lump rose in her throat. “What are we going to do?”

  Bruce turned his head to look at her, and his eyes were dark and haunted, more afraid than she’d ever seen them before, and they’d been through life and death together more than once. It was like he was scared of the cub.

  Saxon had reached them and he stood on his back paws, clawing at Bruce’s chest like he wanted to be picked up. Bruce, not Jenna. The little cub wanted a bear to run to, his animal free. His human mother wasn’t important now that he couldn’t relate to who she was.

  The pain was worse than anything she’d felt. It shot through her chest, twisted h
er gut and clawed its way up into her throat, threatening to destroy the control she had on her tears. When she’d found out Bruce, the man she’d married was a bear, it was hard. But she’d dealt with it because she’d loved him. It was easy to accept because she was letting a package deal into her life. It was a choice.

  But with Saxon? He’d been a part of her. She’d carried him for nine months, felt him move inside of her. He was literally flesh of her flesh, and for that to become an animal ripped her apart. She hadn’t made this choice. And now she’d lost the last thread of normality she had to cling onto.

  “I’m going to take him with me to the pack,” Bruce said. He had his hand cupped around Saxon’s nose and his voice was low like he didn’t want to startle the boy, cub, whatever.

  “You can’t,” Jenna said, fear lodging itself in her gut, but at the same time she knew that Bruce was right. He had to treat Saxon like the shifter he was now, and the only way he was going to be protected was if Bruce took him to the pack and he became one of them. If he was a part of the Family, they would watch out for him too.

  And he needed it. He was only five.

  Bruce knew that Jenna agreed, even if she hadn’t said it. He nodded at her as if he was accepting her thoughts, not her words, and then he stepped away from Saxon and brought on the change.

  Jenna had thought Saxon would run away, seeing his father change like that. It was gruesome. Seeing a man change to a bear was not just ugly, it was scary. He more than doubled in size, but the fur and the claws and the teeth happened first, and it was paired with sounds that came straight from a horror movie.

  But Saxon didn’t run. In fact, he seemed comfortable with it. It looked like he was bathing in the magic that washed around Jenna like water now. Bruce hovered in a monstrous shape that wasn’t human or bear, just before he pushed through and took his true form and an animal.