There was a violent crunching and popping like the sound of breaking bones. All of the men were crying out in pain, but their shapes began to change.
The three men who had attacked them had shifted into the forms of black bears, but Dylan remained on his hands and knees, his body contorting.
Amanda watched, breathless.
The three bears began to circle Dylan and at the last possible moment, his flesh erupted into white fur in the dark night. He stood on his hind legs, a great white bear. He roared at the other three. They roared back.
One of them jumped onto him and he effortlessly swatted him off. The bear was knocked to the ground and scrambled to its feet, whimpering. The bear that had been Dylan growled at the other two like an invitation to fight.
The three bears that had attacked suddenly ran off into the night.
The Dylan-bear turned to face Amanda. She quickly got into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition.
Amanda looked down at the dash, trying to find the lights. When she did and she looked up, Dylan was standing at the driver’s side window looking at her. She screamed again.
“Amanda! Let me explain!”
“What the fuck was that?!” she yelled.
“Open the door,” he said calmly.
Amanda thought about it for a moment. She had no idea what had just happened. She couldn’t really even believe her own eyes, she thought.
She slowly unlocked the door and crawled as far as possible from Dylan’s side of the SUV. It wasn’t like she hadn’t another way back down the mountain tonight.
He shut the door and leaned back in his seat as though he was exhausted.
“Okay, so,” he began, still looking straight ahead. “The thing is, I’m a shifter.”
Amanda looked at him completely clueless. Was that sentence supposed to explain everything? Or even make sense?
“I change forms,” Dylan elaborated. “My family can become the Kermode Spirit Bear. It’s like a black bear, but white, and much more powerful. We’ve been able to do it for thousands of years.”
Amanda was speechless.
“Those guys—that Sean guy, he’s part of the black bear tribe up here. They’ll do anything they can to keep my kind from repopulating the area.”
Amanda wondered if they’d been watching them all night.
“I’m sorry,” he said, finally looking at her.
“It’s okay,” she managed, not even sure of what was coming out of her mouth.
It was okay, she thought. No one had gotten killed. That didn’t make it any less strange. She tried to accept that this was reality. It felt a little bit like the hallway at school on the day she found out her dad had died.
“So, does this happen often?” she asked gently.
“More often than I’d like it to,” Dylan said with disdain in his voice.
“I’m sorry,” she said, echoing his apology from earlier in the conversation.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I shouldn’t have asked you out. This is why I can’t be with anyone,” he sounded like he was extremely disappointed in himself. Amanda wanted to tell him that wasn’t true, that she was different.
She had faced so much in the last week. This was hardly anything compared to losing her father.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
Dylan smiled sadly at her.
“You don’t have to make this your fight,” he said. “You barely know me.”
“But I want to know you,” she said softly.
Dylan’s face changed from sadness to hope. She wondered how many girls had walked away from him after finding out his secret. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to be one of them.
She smiled at him and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
Chapter 4
“Let’s go for a hike,” Dylan said over the phone.
“I’m not exactly a hiker,” Amanda replied.
“Oh, come on. With me as your guide, you’ll do great!” he said with enthusiasm. It was infectious. Amanda couldn’t tell him no.
“I guess with a hunting guide, I’m sure to see some wildlife, right?” she asked sarcastically.
“Well, with me you’re always seeing wildlife,” he said playfully.
“Har har,” she said.
Dylan chuckled. They said goodbye and he had agreed to come pick her up in about an hour. It had been two days since the incident with the black bears and Amanda was starting to regain a sense of normalcy in her life.
Well, as normal as life can be without your father, she thought.
She threw her phone onto the bed and went to the window that peeked right into the woods behind the cabin. She wondered what her father would think of everything that had happened the other night. What would he do?
He’d always been her strength and had always taught her to be braver than she actually felt. She was trying desperately to live up to that. She had real feelings for Dylan, and her dad would have told her to never let fear get in the way of having what she really wanted, although she wasn’t entirely sure he had this exact situation in mind when he’d said all that.
She smiled at the thought of telling her dad what was going on. They’d been so close. Much closer than she and her mom were, and that was saying a lot. A pang of grief hit her deep in the stomach. It felt like the opposite of butterflies, like a deep hollowness that could never be filled up.
Amanda tried to shake the thoughts from her mind. She wasn’t going to be sad today. She was going to enjoy her hike with Dylan, even if she’d never hiked more than half a mile in her life and had complained the whole time to her Girl Scout leader.
She wouldn’t tell Dylan about that.
She pulled out some of her toughest jeans and a pair of boots that she’d actually only brought in case of emergency. They would work. They were actually meant for hiking, so who would know that she hadn’t intended to use them for that?
After she got dressed, she made herself a snack in the kitchen and started to pack any supplies that she would need. There was some left over first aid stuff in the pantry from trips her family had taken here. She grabbed that. She got some water bottles and a stick of beef jerky, just in case. Not that it would sustain them for very long should they somehow get lost. She was counting on the fact that Dylan took tourists out to hunt big horn sheep all the time.
By the time she had eaten and packed her bag, Dylan was pulling up in front. She saw his Bronco through the kitchen window that was over the sink. She grabbed her things and met him out front.
“About time,” she teased. Her confidence around him was growing ever since he’d shared such a secret part of his life—a part of his life that had alienated him from so many others.
“Like you weren’t just now packing,” he said with that crooked grin that got her every time.
She climbed on in and they were off, curving around forested roads up to a different part of the mountain.
“This is my favorite hiking trail,” he said as they pulled up to an actual parking lot this time. That was a good sign, she thought.
They got out of the car and got their packs strapped on and Dylan led the way.
Amanda found it alarming how fast you could get lost in the woods. They had only been hiking for a couple of minutes and now they were surrounded by trees. Without Dylan, she didn’t know if she would find her way back out. She could follow the trail back, she supposed, but it made her wonder how the trail got made in the first place.
She tried to keep up with his pace, but her short legs weren’t allowing it.
“Slow down!” she cried out after him.
It was as though he’d forgotten his companion was so short, or even that he had a companion at all. Dylan seemed perfectly at ease in the woods while Amanda was a nervous wreck. A branch fell to the ground off to their right and she startled, becoming suddenly still.
“Chill,” he said, chuckling. “It�
�s just a branch falling. No need for alarm.”
“How do you know?”
“Spidey sense,” he joked.
She decided to trust him on this one. They kept meandering through the forest, just following the trail. At one point Daniel stopped.
“Look here,” he said, kneeling.
There were three large prints that crossed the trail. Amanda didn’t know what they were. Maybe a wolf.
“Cougar,” Daniel said with a satisfied smile.
Amanda’s eyes widened.
“Relax,” he said reassuringly.
Easy for him to say, she thought. If you turn into a bear at the slightest provocation, it probably isn’t too much of a worry when you see the tracks of a mountain lion, but it was a different story for a human like her.
“Sure,” she said, slightly on edge.
“Let’s keep going. Try to enjoy yourself,” he said.
They kept walking, winding around through the woods. The sunlight was obscured the deeper in that they went.
Amanda followed Dylan. They trekked on relentlessly. Amanda was sweating now even though it was about fifty degrees. The forest obstructed all wind so it felt humid even in the cool fall air.
After a few more moments of hiking, Dylan stopped dead in his tracks.
“What is it?” Amanda asked, expecting to see more tracks of unexpected wildlife.
Dylan didn’t say anything. Amanda stepped up beside him and saw what he was looking at. The tracks were even bigger than the mountain lions. She wondered what they were and suddenly had the feeling that she didn’t want to stay and find out.
“It’s them,” Dylan said finally.
“Who?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Sean. His group,” he said and looked around as though they might be watching.
“What does it mean?” Amanda asked as she got more and more nervous.
“It means they aren’t respecting my family’s boundaries.”
Amanda stood still and silent as though that could keep her safe. She pretended that it would make her unseen. She dreaded a repeat of their encounter.
“It means there’s going to be a fight,” Dylan said with finality.
Amanda swallowed hard. What was she getting herself into? Could she handle this?
“Let’s go,” he said and they took off down the trail.
Chapter 5
The next few days were strained. It was obvious that Dylan was extremely stressed about what was coming. Amanda tried to give him space and tried to let him talk about it when he wanted to. On Friday night, they were going to dinner at the diner again. He met her there.
“Hey,” she said with a smile.
“Hey,” he smiled back. He wrapped his arms around her in a big hug. She took in his scent. He smelled like the mountains, rough and rugged. Manly.
They ordered and their food came. They mostly ate in silence. Finally, Dylan spoke.
“So how are you enjoying your time in Mountain View, miss?” he feigned a country accent.
“That’s not even how people from around here talk,” she said with a little laugh.
It felt good to hear him joking. Maybe he was loosening up. Maybe this whole thing would just blow over, she thought.
Dylan smiled crookedly at her, flashing his bright white teeth. She felt her insides turn to mush as he did it. She kept thinking about where they got interrupted that night in his SUV. She wondered if she did the right thing by stopping him. It didn’t matter, she concluded. It would have ended anyway because of the attack.
She tried not to think about that.
They went on eating with more jokes and more laughter. When dessert came Dylan pointed out the window. Amanda felt her stomach drop. She hoped it wasn’t what she thought. She looked out.
When she turned her head, Dylan used his spoon to put whipped cream on her nose. She turned back with a smile. She was so relieved that she didn’t even pretend to find it humorous.
“What? Not funny?” he asked, putting the spoon in his mouth and licking the extra whipped cream off of it.
She forced a smile.
“Cute,” she said in mock anger. “Real cute.”
When they finished dessert they walked out to their cars. Amanda felt like she might throw up because of what she was about to say. She was more nervous than she ever had been in her life.
“Why don’t you come back to my place?” she blurted out.
Dylan took her hand and smiled.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m positive,” she said, acting more sure than she really felt.
She kissed him quickly on the cheek and got in her car before she could second guess herself. With him behind her, they drove back up to her parents’ cabin.
She got out and locked her door and waited for Dylan to get out of his Bronco. That was when something moved in the corner of her eye.
She whipped her head around to see Sean walking out of the woods. He was wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans. His greasy dark hair fell around his face.
“I’m not here for you, city girl,” he said to Amanda. “Or maybe I am,” he said suggestively, licking his lips.
She backed up.
“Dylan,” she said. She felt like it came out as barely more than a whisper.
Dylan had gotten out of the car and was standing beside her now.
“Your beef’s not with her, Sean,” he said and stepped forward.
Suddenly, Sean’s two look-alike henchmen stepped out of the woods. It was like they came out of nowhere, Amanda thought.
They looked from her to Dylan and back again. She shifted nervously.
“Leave him alone,” she said, speaking before she even thought about it. She stepped in front of Dylan.
“Amanda!” he hissed.
“No!” she said back. “This is ridiculous,” she said facing Sean. “Get out of here and leave him alone.”
“Oh, little girl,” Sean said with a laugh. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”
He stepped forward and traced a long fingernail down her cheek. She shuddered at the sensation of his touch. It felt like the entire world went cold.
Dylan shoved her behind him.
“Let’s get this over with,” he growled at Sean.
Amanda stepped back and watched what unfolded before her.
All of the men dropped to their hands and knees. The transformation was beginning. She took a couple more steps back. Dylan’s face contorted in pain and his muscles contracted like he was having a seizure. She wanted to step in and stop it but she knew it was beyond her control.
Suddenly, white fur was growing out of his skin. It was like he was being torn apart from the inside out—being born again as something entirely inhuman. Amanda watched in horror.
Finally, it was over. The four bears looked at each other. Three of them on one side with Dylan on the other. He paced back and forth, sizing them up.
The bear than had been Sean raced forward, striking out at Dylan with a clawed hand. Dylan fell back onto the ground, rolling twice and getting up at Amanda’s feet. He roared back at the other bear and charged it.
Dylan and Sean rolled into a tumble at the edge of the forest, both of them struggling for dominance. Hair flew as they scratched and bit at each other, neither of them getting a footing in the fight. The other two bears paced around the scuffle, waiting for their turns.
Amanda felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. She didn’t know what to do. She grabbed a branch that was on the ground beside her and began banging it on the hood of the Bronco.
“Over here, assholes!” she shouted.
In unison, the two black bears that were Sean’s buddies turned to face her. She gulped, realizing that all of their attention was now focused on her. Quickly, she darted for the driver’s side door of Dylan’s SUV. She climbed in and slammed and locked the door only in time to hear the claws scraping against the metal of the SUV. She clapped her hands over her ears
in an effort not to hear the ear-splitting sound.
The other black bear jumped onto the hood of the Bronco and clawed at the window. Under its weight, the window began to crack. Amanda could hear the fight between Sean and Dylan escalating outside of the vehicle. She scrambled over the front seat and into the back, looking for anything that she might use against her pair of attackers.
Billionaire Alpha Romance: The Proposal (Mature Gentlemen Book 2) Page 195