by Godiva Glenn
He fell back from the bars and circled the center of his small confined space as she shifted from her svelte human form into the fierce bear he remembered. She charged the cage, once, twice. Again, and again she struck his prison. The walls creaked and plaster loosened where the bars were lodged.
The crisp scent of blood filled the air, but she didn’t relent. Her side slammed into the metal even as the men shouted for her to stop—she was hurting herself. A second bear tumbled into the room, familiar but he couldn’t place her.
She joined Chell and they hit the cage one final time, cracking the wall enough that the bars bent from the joint. They pried it back and he moved forward now, doing what he could to help, though that wasn’t much.
The second bear shifted back to human and he recognized her. Mara. She studied the collar around his neck, then placed a hand on Chell, holding her back.
“This.” She pointed to it.
Chell leaned forward and bit solid through the collar. As it fell away, he collapsed forward, no longer trapped as a bear but now free as a man. Chell wrapped her large forelegs around him and pulled him past the wire and bars. Once clear of the wreckage, her body shrank and became naked flesh against his own. The men reached forward to help, and though she allowed them to aid her in walking, she looked only at Valdus and held him tight against her.
Blood dripped from her nose and the corner of her mouth, but when he reached to touch her injuries, the room spun and went dark.
“Chell?” he asked.
She pressed her tear-streaked cheek to his. “I’m here.”
Who is he?
Valdus.
But who is he?
He was Chell’s… first love.
Valdus tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t cooperate. He knew Chell held him, could hear her heart beating against his ear and smelled her scent underneath the lingering skunk perfume, but where they were, he couldn’t guess.
They moved, though. Up and down, though very subtle. Noise seeming in the background of their existence indicated rushing wind. Fingertips ran through his hair, again and again. Reassuring. He strained to touch her in return, but he couldn’t tell if he did.
Splashing. Something was splashing.
Valdus opened his eyes, and at first, thought it was another dream. Chell loomed into view, face scrunched into an expression torn between happiness and grief. He reached up, thankful when his hand obeyed him and caressed her cheek. She was soft and real.
“I don’t understand,” she said with a broken voice.
Of course, she didn’t. He’d always assumed she would be searching for him but seeing her shock during the rescue had revealed that she hadn’t even known he was missing. Whatever he’d missed, he couldn’t imagine. But it could wait. He didn’t want to waste his breath on explaining the past.
“I love you,” he croaked.
Her lip trembled, and fresh tears welled in her eyes. The slow trickle of salt water dampened his fingertips as he touched her and marveled. She leaned down and kissed his forehead but didn’t return the sentiment.
His heart ached, but had he really expected her to say it in return? His Chell would have. The stern leader with a gentle side hiding beneath the exterior, she could say it. But this version of her was rougher. He hadn’t noticed at first, but he saw it now, up close.
She brought a glass to his lips and it took a second for him to register that she wanted him to drink. He grasped her wrist as he drank, needing the closeness.
Her eyes were wiser. Harsher. Whatever had led to this moment had silenced her, but he knew that the love was still there. If anything, it was his fault that she couldn’t say it. Back when he’d had her, when they’d tiptoed around mating, even when they knew—KNEW—they were meant to be together, he’d avoided sentiment.
He’d told her he wanted to mate, but he’d never before told her he loved her. He was a fool.
“Are you cold?” she asked.
“No. Should I be?”
“You shake.”
He blinked and for the first time took in his surroundings. She had been his world, and now he slipped back into reality and away from his myopic focus. They were in a strange room, large but with only a few pieces of simple furniture. He was on a massive bed. Blankets covered his body, though underneath he was unclothed. But he was warm. Warmer than he’d been in a long time.
“My muscles ache,” he said.
“I see.”
Her hand rubbed his thigh, and now he felt the shake she spoke of. “It will go away,” he said. It was a guess, but also a necessary affirmation. “My body is adjusting.”
She’d seen the collar and had to have guessed its purpose. He’d been kept shifted in his bear form. He hadn’t seen his own hand in who knew how long.
“I have so many questions, but I don’t even know where to start. Or if I could handle hearing the answers,” she said softly. “But they will all pay.”
“I don’t need revenge. I just need you.”
“But I need it,” she growled. “I will gut every last one and burn their clan to the ground.”
“Mate,” he admonished. “Power lies just as much in restraint as in action.”
Her eyes had widened at his tone and word choice. “Valdus…”
“Not a day passed where I didn’t regret not binding my heart to yours. I have a second chance, and the second I am able, I plan on correcting that mistake.”
“In two years, you never gave up on me?” She closed her eyes and turned her face away. “I didn’t even know to be looking.”
“Two years,” he breathed. It sounded unreal.
“Did you not know?” She shook her head. “Of course. What is time to a bear?”
“We haven’t lost much time.” Two years sounded like more than it was. It was longer than he’d wished to be away from her, certainly, but they still had centuries before them.
“Have you been on Earth this entire time?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.
“I believe so.”
Her eyes closed and she breathed deep. He understood just as she did. Time passed differently on Nova Solara than on Earth, just as it did on Nova Aurora. If he’d been missing for two years back home, it meant he’d been imprisoned roughly ten years on Earth.
“They will pay,” she said again, to herself.
“You always liked my mature side,” he said attempting to joke.
Amusement didn’t reach her face. When her eyes opened, they were like pools of liquid coal. There would be no quenching her anger, though now that the extent of his torture had come clear to him, he felt his own share.
Shockingly, in using his bear shape to torture him, they did him a favor. As Chell said, time was nothing to a bear. He never counted the days. Never dwelled.
She reached behind herself and he finally saw the source of the earlier splashing. A basin of water which she used to wet a small towel. She wrung out the excess water and pressed it to his cheek, which stung in response.
He didn’t recall being injured, but there was no other explanation for the sharp pain that shot through the right side of his face. “Did I cut myself?”
“Escaping, yes. I don’t understand why you aren’t healing faster.”
“I would imagine it will take some time for the drugs to leave my system.”
The dark line of her brows hardened. “Drugs. A collar. I fear to ask everything that they put you through. I can guess so much already from the scars on your skin.” She removed the cloth and returned it to the bowl. “Your back and arms are covered with the evidence of their abuse.”
“Does it make me less attractive to you?” Not knowing what he looked like, he couldn’t tell if there was enough of a physical change to make him undesirable.
She traced the line of his jaw with a damp fingernail. “No,” she said simply. “You are as handsome and remarkable as ever, my love.”
He caught her hand and stared into her eyes. “My love.”
She
pursed her lips a moment then nodded. “Yes.”
“Why do you fight it?”
Her gaze lowered. “It’s not a fight. It’s confusion. I thought you had left me. And while a part of me forgave you, assumed that whatever your reason, it was just, the other part of me grew to hate you. Wondered if our bond was a lie. If my happiness, and the happiness I saw in you, was a delusion.”
“Never a lie. The only lie was that I left you. I was stolen away from you.”
“I know that now, but how do I reconcile it within my heart and mind? Seeing you is only slowly erasing the fears that burdened me for so long. The weight of feeling not enough to keep you… it is lifting, and clarity is blooming, but there are other changes in my life.”
He kissed her hand and pulled her close. Reluctantly, she curled against his side. He pressed his nose into her dark curls and inhaled. “Tell me.”
He listened to her gentle breathing for a moment then she licked her lips and spoke carefully.
“The humans. They are to be my mates. Or rather, there is a high possibility.”
“You didn’t learn from our mistake? Putting things off?” he asked, though he was rather thankful that she had not yet sealed herself away from him.
She chuckled softly. “They are deciding. It’s not as easy for humans. They have only just found out about our planet, and now are being asked to move there. And Solara has not changed so much since you left it—they would be the first humans to join us.”
Annoyance filled him. “There is nothing to decide. Why would they choose a life without you?”
“Why would you champion for them to pick me? Do you see the situation you’ve come into?”
He tucked an arm beneath her and yanked her to roll on top of him. Every inch of him ached and screamed at him, but it was worth it to feel her body against his own. His hands reacquainted themselves with her, stroking her back and shoulders.
Sharing her had never been a possibility before. No one else had suited her. Yet his absence had sent her down a path, and now that path had found her with two other males. Males that had helped save him, and for that he owed something.
Multiple mates weren’t unheard of. It was only the aspect of her other mates not being shifters that made the situation strange.
“They must be remarkable for you to even consider them,” he said finally.
“They are. You saw, they risked being caught by Solomon’s clan to help me. They wanted to do so alone, though I am glad I joined them.”
Valdus couldn’t imagine the mettle required of the men. He had not spent much time with humans at all but had always thought they were cowards. It made him relieved to hear that in this case, at least, he was wrong. He searched himself but couldn’t imagine walking away from the love that had kept him whole during captivity.
“When I was in pain, when I feared death, I thought of you. Your face emblazoned in my mind, your voice… kept me strong. I lost you once. I won’t lose you again.”
Her lips curled into a gentle smile, but it faded. “Will you challenge them?”
“Would you want me to?” he asked arching a brow.
She shook her head.
“I don’t fear for my place with you. I had your heart first. Had your body first.” His hands slid down to cup her rear. “You have enough love within you for more than me. It would be unfair of me to limit you.”
“Spoken like the reasonable man I fell for,” she whispered.
“It seems to have rubbed off,” he pointed out. “You’re different.”
“But am I still your love? What if that has changed too?”
He dug his fingers into the nape of her neck and directed her face to his. They kissed, and it ignited every part of him. She had freed him, and now he truly lived again. Her exterior may have hardened, but her kiss was still one of the passionate female he’d met years ago.
He bit down on her lower lip until she moaned and hissed. Her eyes glowed golden as she smirked down at him.
“You are forever my love,” he promised. “If they choose correctly, I will join them. If they are fools, then I’ll gladly do what I can to fill the void.”
Chapter Sixteen
Gabe
Gabe stood beneath the hot spray of water and rinsed off the third or fourth layer of thick soapy suds. He must have showered at least twenty times in the last four days, but when he tried to sleep each night, the smell of skunk returned. Perhaps it hid deep in his nostrils, but he drew the line at shoving soap up there. Instead, he desperately used every drop of hot water and berry-scented body wash in the cabin.
And as if the smell wasn’t a bad enough reminder, he could still recall what had led to him stinking of skunk. Mara’s bright idea to hide their invasion from the bears was to coat themselves with musk. And the muskiest shifter currently vacationing at the shifter resort was a skunk.
Chell had tried to negotiate with a deer shifter, as they were also quite high on the list of shifters that stink, but the deer shifter had gotten offended and refused.
Ravi, the skunk, was more than happy to oblige. In his small form, he’d crawled around Gabe, Troy, and Chell. Then he’d shifted to his human form and rubbed against them. Naked.
There weren’t enough hot showers to remove that particular memory. He still had nightmares about how he’d mistakenly put down his hand and touched Ravi’s junk. Of course, it wasn’t all that pleasant to recall that Ravi had slithered all over Chell, as well.
Though she’d glared the entire time, and the golden glow in her eyes had made Ravi hurry the process with her. He’d taken his time with Gabe and Troy.
Gabe shuddered and shut the water off. Wrapping a giant fluffy towel around his waist—the shifter resort’s towels ranged from hand-sized to sheet-sized—he walked through his room and was immediately bored. Showering only took so long, and only occupied so much of his busy thoughts. He finished drying off and dressed then went to find entertainment.
With Chell tending to Valdus and Mara gone back to Solara to report Dagger’s treachery, the place seemed empty. Gabe walked through the quiet rooms and found Troy in the kitchen making sandwiches. He looked up as Gabe entered.
“I don’t think she’s remembered to eat, even if she’s feeding him.”
Gabe sat at the counter, watching Troy for a few minutes. “What are we doing here?”
Troy didn’t answer but gave him a look that conveyed that he was as lost as Gabe was.
“Does she still need us?” Gabe grumbled.
“She still wants us,” Troy said. “I believe she would’ve said something otherwise.”
“And him?”
“All I know is we should make our decisions and go from there. If you don’t want to join Chell in Solara, it shouldn’t matter what’s going on with Valdus.” Troy grabbed a bag of chips and a tray large enough to hold everything he’d made.
“Maybe I don’t want another guy in the equation.”
Troy leaned on the counter and stared across the room, toward the hall that led to Chell’s bedroom. “I can’t lie and say I wouldn’t prefer it to be just us. But honestly? He doesn’t bother me. From everything Mara says about him, he’s a great guy.”
“Wonder what he thinks about us.”
“I’m sure once he’s up and moving, we’ll find out quickly. He’s supposedly the reason behind Chell’s straightforward demeanor. Mara said Chell was always focused, and a natural leader, but after spending time with him she became more… in your face, I guess.”
It would have been nice to still have Mara around. She had called their clan on Solara, but they were concerned that somehow, their communications had been tapped. The only solution was for her to travel back home. There had never been an incident this complex. Shifters from two planets were plotting, and they didn’t know how wide the trouble had spread.
All in all, it seemed a poor time for him to be moping about his feelings and needs, but there was no off switch he could find. He didn’t want to be jea
lous of Valdus, but he was. Chell was with him day and night. And yeah, the poor guy looked like he’d been run through a wood chipper, and two years trapped as a bear was anything but a walk in the park but still…
She’s mine.
“Can I just say something, because I don’t know if I’m the only one thinking it?” He stared directly into Troy’s eyes. “I feel like the bottom line is that I’m going to Solara just to be a sex toy.”
“Dude…”
“Hear me out. I thought I didn’t have any emotions one way or another, but something in me connected to her—”
“Then why do—”
“Let me finish!” He rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin, re-organizing his thoughts. “She hasn’t said anything about loving us. She hasn’t said much more than that she likes us and would like to mate us. What if the emotional stuff is all on our end? What if she only loves him, and we’re just for fun?”
Troy shook his head. “No. No way. You know what Pierce said.”
“Maybe Solaran shifters are different.”
“I doubt they’re that different.” Troy gave Gabe a look of pity. “You’re just trying to change the situation so that you aren’t choosing between the job and a woman. But that’s what you’re doing, and you know it.”
The truth sucked, and he hated to hear it aloud. He wasn’t the only one stalling, though. “Then why haven’t you made your decision already? The job isn’t your life. We both know that.”
The question caught Troy off-guard and a moment of sadness crossed his face, which didn’t seem to make sense. As far as Gabe knew, Troy was a magic moment or two away from being madly in love with Chell, and he definitely wanted a wife—which seemed to be what a mate was.
“Well?” Gabe asked.
Troy rapped his knuckles on the table lightly as his jaw clenched and his expression grew distant. “The dream.”
“The dream? Wife, kids, picket fence?”
“Yeah, that,” Troy answered slowly. “Life with Chell won’t be the nuclear family dream I’d planned for. A mate instead of a wife. A clan instead of in-laws and co-workers. And even though I wanted you with us, how does that work as parents?”