by J. K Harper
Don’t watch me. Don’t look at me. Leave me alone.
Riley snorted to himself after she disappeared, then turned his back to stride out of the room with newly angry steps. Fine by him. He didn’t want anything to do with her. Broken, fucked up outcast. Submissive lion girl, wanting to die, chickening out of everything.
He snarled. All she’d done in the week or so she’d been here was ask every strong shifter she came across to put her down. Beg them, even. She was giving up. Giving up on life.
That was something Riley couldn’t accept, wouldn't ever accept. His mate had died fighting for her life. Fighting for their cubs’ lives. Fierce to the end. She never would have given up.
Angered to his bones about Marisa just wanting to die, and even more angry that he gave a shit about it, Riley avoided her as much as he could. Yeah, he had no problem leaving her alone. She was damaged. Hell, she was fucking defective.
His neck immediately prickled at those thoughts. Bullshit. He growled under his breath, earlier relaxation completely evaporated. Fuuuck. It was a false thought, thinking he could easily leave her alone. Worse, trying to believe she was broken so badly she was beyond any fixing. Something told him she wasn't really that far gone. Not yet.
His jaw clenched even harder as the incessant question, the one he’d been doing his best to ignore since the moment he’d first seen her, roiled through his mind yet again with explosive force.
If he didn’t give a damn about the outcast Marisa, why was he utterly fascinated by the defensive, snarling lion girl who wanted only to be put down?
2
Marisa sat where she could see everybody. She quietly observed the high-spirited activity around her, taking in every detail with a hard-won practice she’d birthed long ago from plain necessity. Every doorway, every window was within her line of sight as the bustle of shifters in here decorated the barn for some sort of event coming up. What was it again? She frowned and forced herself to focus on the right here, right now. Oh, right. Valentine’s Day.
She huffed quietly to herself. Valentine’s Day seemed like a clever way for businesses such as this fancy lodge just for shifters to entice money made up of hope and starry eyes from people desperate for something they thought was love.
Love didn’t exist. Love was a bullshit concept made up by those who just wanted something they could use to control others.
“Marisa!”
Without moving her head, she shifted her gaze to the tentatively smiling woman who called her name. Abby. Wolf shifter, friendly, protective. Just as watchful as Marisa, but Marisa suspected Abby’s watchfulness didn’t come from the same reasons hers did. Abby was happy. She had a good life. She’d probably always had a good life. Marisa didn’t understand it, but she also found she didn’t care because it didn’t matter. Abby had the sort of life Marisa never would. Not worth the ripped bedsheets you were born on, the old taunt jeered at her.
Breathe. She listened to herself and took a deep breath, then another. Then she laughed, so deep inside herself only bad kitty could hear it. It was pretty damned ironic that the one simple mantra she’d used to survive her whole life was the one thing she wanted to stop forever: breathing.
Too bad none of the shifters here would answer her plea to end it. They all must be cowards.
Abby beckoned at her hopefully. “We could use an extra hand setting up. But only if you want to.” Her voice was inviting but not pushy.
Even so, Marisa shook her head immediately. No way.
Abby’s expression was understanding, if slightly disappointed. “Okay. If you change your mind, everything’s over there.” She gestured at the not-insignificant number of boxes and bags filled with decorations that the others were putting up around the inside of the barn.
Marisa huffed again to herself as she let her gaze sweep the building. They were decorating the place to look like candy hearts had thrown up all over it. It seemed a shame to embarrass a really nice barn this way. Well. Not just a really nice barn, but one she would bet was the fanciest in the entire state of Colorado. The stalls didn’t house horses, but chairs and tables and lights and a whole lot more decorations. The floor was swept clean with no signs any equine had ever stepped a single hoof in here. Heated with fancy glowing lamps affixed to the ceilings, built from large granite blocks and heavy, carefully constructed wood, the barn screamed elegance and money.
It intimidated the shit out of her.
Not that she’d let any of them know it. But it made her feel…small. Really small, and really poor. The whole place did. She’d never in her whole life imagined something as fancy as the Silvertip Lodge could exist outside some glossy magazine in the supermarket checkout aisle. And the grocery stores she’d always shopped at never carried those kinds of magazines, anyway. Marisa Tully didn’t shop at nice places and never had.
In fact, not only was this the fanciest barn she’d ever seen, this was the third fanciest place she had ever seen in her life, period. The first two fanciest she’d only seen a few weeks ago. Number one was the lodge itself, a beautiful retreat open only to shifters who came from all over the country and even the world. They came here to vacation where they could safely let their animals roam around on the private, guarded property without fear of being glimpsed by humans. The sight of the stunning main lodge building had stopped her short when Abby had gently helped her to it after the bridge battle. She’d instantly felt outclassed by the shifters who lived and worked there, the powerful Silvertip grizzly bear shifter clan that had taken her in.
Taken her prisoner was more like it, but she’d sure never thought a prison could be this nice. Or, she grudgingly admitted to herself, that prison guards could be this nice too. Even if they did refuse to put her down.
The second most beautiful, deluxe place she’d ever seen was the cabin the clan was letting her stay in while she was here. She had shyly said something to Abby about how elegant it was. Abby, bustling around getting it sorted for her the day they’d tucked her into it, had laughingly said it was a decent enough cabin, but she wished they could have put her up someplace even better. She hadn’t said it unkindly or rudely. It was just matter of fact to her.
Marisa hadn’t answered. There was no point in letting these shifters know she was trailer trash who’d never been anywhere better than a Denny’s in her entire lifetime. If she did, they would judge her. Being judged sucked. No thanks.
But still. They were nice to her. A little wary, but nice.
She looked at Abby again, at the others so cheerfully putting up ridiculous red hearts and pink and silver streamers all over this beautiful, stupid-rich barn. Wrinkling her brow, she tried to remember their names.
Pix, the small woman who improbably enough was a dragon shifter. The tall, huge, stern-faced man who was her mate, a bear shifter. His name was…Barrett? No. Beckett. There was also Jessie, a pretty blonde with a really adorable little boy named Grant. Jessie’s mate, Shane, wasn’t here. He worked weekends at the lodge and was out fixing the lights in a building or something like that.
Marisa’s face softened as she gazed at their little boy, who toddled all over the barn on his sturdy little bear shifter legs, covered head to toe in rainbow glitter from a bag he’d gleefully explored before any of the adults had thought to check what was inside. Children, she always liked.
The lines in her forehead intensified as she watched them all. They were just so damned freaking nice. Each one of them, even though they didn’t have to be. Not to someone like her. As an outcast shifter with no clan to call her own, no group of shifters having her back anymore since the screwed-up bunch she’d been involved with had been either killed, captured, or fled after the bridge battle, she had no right to be treated well by the shifters here. The same shifters who’d been attacked by the outcasts. But that didn’t seem to matter. Every single one of them had just been plain kind to her so far, with varying degrees of friendliness. Some of them looked at her oddly now and then. Occasionally worse.
/> She knew it was because they all thought she was insane. That she was from bad blood. They also all knew by now she wanted to be put down. She’d been asking anyone who seemed strong enough to do it. No one would. Nefarious, that stupid name the leader of the outcast group had called himself, had told her she was worthless. But even he wouldn't put her down. He'd had a use for her. Using her, like everyone else in her life ever had except Derek.
No. At the thought of her brother, she shied away. She couldn't think about him. He was going crazy just as surely as she was. He'd escaped from the bridge battle, but the same madness he fought might have taken him by now. Dead and gone, dead and gone.
She closed her eyes for a second and dragged in a harsh breath. Nothing good ever happened. And if it did, it never lasted.
Inside, she felt dead and broken and knew it would never end. Beautiful lodge or not, spacious little beautiful cabin of her own or not, it wasn’t real for her and never would be. She wasn’t the kind of person who got to have nice things and never had been.
A faint growl vibrated the back of her throat. She swallowed it down hard and opened her eyes. Her cat, the big tawny beast living inside her, was getting restless. She needed to go out soon for another run to settle the creature. Abby had taken her on a run just this morning, like she’d done every day since Marisa had been here, but it hadn’t been calming. No, it had been unsettling. Nerve-ruffling.
All because of him.
Riley Walker. Enormous grizzly bear shifter, his coat a startling black with a silvery hump, he was also a really attractive guy in his human form. Okay, fine. A really sexy guy. But she didn’t trust any guys, especially not the sexy ones. They were usually the worst of all.
He’d stared at her from the upstairs window of what must be his house as they’d jogged past just after dawn. She had felt his gaze on her, tickling at her skin. The faint sensation of something riffling through her fur, like a breeze that blew her sideways, had turned her head toward the sleek, clearly hand-built log cabin tucked into the trees up by the lodge.
Looking down at her from the window, his face was unreadable. But his eyes—oh, his eyes. Dark, flat, and cold just like they’d been that day on the bridge, they’d stared back at her. Like they were bullets and she was the target. Something in him wanted something from her, though hell if she knew what.
She’d automatically curled up her lip at him as she passed, warning him away. I’m a big, bad mountain lion, boy. Don’t you mess with me.
Yeah, right. Like a huge grizzly bear would ever be scared of a kitty. But maybe he should be. Marisa’s mountain lion was a crazy wildcat, a terrible beast, a brute of a killer on huge silent paws.
He’d kept staring at her until she and Abby jogged out of sight, his expression impassive. Like he had secrets as dark as hers. What secrets could he have? He was just a huge grizzly shifter with glacially cold eyes who had refused to kill her on the bridge when Justin had been killed. Justin, that stomach-curdling piece of garbage who’d tried to ruin her life in so many awful ways. She knew they all thought she’d screamed with agony when he was killed because she loved him.
They were wrong.
She’d screamed because she thought his death might release her. It didn’t. She’d still been there, still trapped, still broken. It had hurt so badly, knowing the horrible truth that her nightmare would never end, that she’d just stayed crumpled on the ground in shocked despair until Abby and the others took her here to the lodge. Trying to save her.
But they couldn’t save her. No one could.
So Riley also thought she was broken. Fine. She didn’t care—except that with him, she did care. Dammit. Big jerk, big giant sexy shifter. It did matter what he thought of her. Her cat grew even more restless inside. Why? Why did she care? She didn’t know him at all, and she didn’t want him thinking he knew her.
As if her idiot mouth was disconnected from her rational side, Marisa suddenly called out to Abby, turning her head to look at the wolf shifter. “What’s the matter with Riley? Why is he so…dark?”
The room went abruptly, awkwardly silent.
Oh, crap. Every single adult shifter in there, the five or six who’d been chattering and laughing as they worked, just froze for a minute, though at least none of them turned around to stare at her. Marisa kicked herself. Freaking great. Now they would think she was even more crazy, even more fucked up.
Suddenly, she panicked. Maybe they would think she had designs on Riley, that she was some sort of danger to him. She knew some of them had to think she was bad, no matter how nice they were to her face. She’d been running with a pack of outcast shifters, after all.
Outcast shifter, outcast pack, crazy girl who wanted to die. That had to be a recipe for disaster to such a freaking good clan like this one.
Abby, also frozen in the midst of taping a giant pink heart with the words will u be mine emblazoned on it to the metal bars over the side of one of the stalls, her back still to Marisa, answered in a casual if somewhat tight voice. “He lost someone important to him a long time ago. It was very hard.”
Without thinking, Marisa blurted, “And he still hasn’t gotten over it?” God, that wasn’t fair. She’d had to get over so much, so many things, almost right as they happened. She’d never had a choice not to.
With a sudden fierceness that startled her, she deeply, desperately envied Riley’s luxury in still being able to live in whatever hurt he had, to know his people loved him, that they let him live in pain and they understood it. That they still supported him, even if his eyes were scary black and dead. No one had ever given a shit about her. She could tell everyone here gave a lot of shits about Riley and his pain, whatever it was.
Riley’s dark, angry voice shot out like a whip crack right behind her, startling her so badly she almost fell off the chair. “None of your damned business, lion girl. You don’t get to judge me. You don’t even know me. But I know you, and you’re pretty fucking broken. So broken you don’t even want to live anymore. So who are you to be asking questions about other people’s lives?”
Marisa stumbled to her feet, nearly tangling with the chair as she whirled around to look at him. Shock warred over her skin, which goosebumped up with the suddenness of his appearance. She’d been so deep in her thoughts, so mad about the crap deal she’d been handed in this life, that for a second she’d stopped keeping an eye on all the doors into the barn and missed Riley’s quiet entrance.
And oh, daaamn. Damn it, damn it. Like a kid eyeing a favorite piece of candy, Marisa just gaped at him, as usual. She couldn’t help it.
Damned sexy man. Sexy, sexy man. Even bad kitty got quiet when she saw him, watching him out of Marisa’s eyes with a stillness she never seemed to have otherwise.
Riley was huge. Muscles draped over more muscles, his entire body like a honed machine ready to attack at any moment if needed. His golden-brown hair couldn’t cover the darkness inside him, which bled out of him like a fury. His face, even hard with anger as it was now, was strong and drop-dead gorgeous, and she was unable to take her eyes off him. Oh, he was hot. So stupid man hot, the kind of hot that had women falling over their feet when they looked at him. Women like her, being an idiot. She wasn’t an idiot. Her cat wasn’t an idiot.
A growl rumbled deep inside her chest, threatening to work its way loose. Bad kitty trying to get out. Struggling, Marisa pushed her down. No. Not now. She ground her teeth and turned her stare at Riley into a glare to match her rising growl, to deflect the mountain lion trying to scramble out of her.
Now she was angry too. Good. Anger was good. It kept her alert and wary. He was so freaking gorgeous, and her hormones wouldn’t let her forget it. Even clad in jeans and a long-sleeved button-up work shirt, very rugged hiking boots on his feet, she could tell he was ripped. His biceps pushed hard at his sleeves, and his thigh muscles strained against his jeans.
But what really got her was the heaviness in his voice. The darkness. Worse yet, she heard something that
made a shiver rise along her spine, that made her cat yowl with sympathy—sympathy?—somewhere in the back of her head.
Broken.
It hit her so hard the breath almost whooshed out of her in a gasp. That was it. That was what she’d been sensing about him this past week, the thing she hadn’t been able to understand. The reason she was so stupidly fascinated by him, sexy man muscles or no.
Riley Walker was broken and desperate, and his bear was barely in control.
He was hiding it under cold rage, the blank eyes that didn’t share anything about him with anyone who cared to look. Marisa cast a wild glance over at Abby, who was staring at them both with alarm, and the others, who’d now turned around too. Couldn’t they sense his animal was in trouble? Riley’s bear was not only a beast but a savage one barely leashed.
Her cat was clawing at her to get out, to get at him.
Marisa blinked. Wait.
No. Not to get at him. Not to attack him or guard herself against him. But to—to run up and rub herself against him?
She couldn’t stop the confusion rippling over her face. What the hell? Bad kitty never wanted to rub up against anyone like she was a trained house cat. Never. Especially not big, dominant male shifters. She just wanted to brawl with them and show them what she was made of. She was made of vicious claws and deadly swipes and fire and brimstone spitting out of her howling mouth.
Marisa’s mountain lion was just as out of control as Riley’s bear. That was why she had to be put down. That, and other things Marisa didn’t want to think about anymore.
“What are you glaring at, kitty cat?” Riley’s voice was a challenge, the seesawing battle under it to keep his bear in check apparent to Marisa’s ears. But she caught something else in there as well.
Curiosity and surprise.
Well, that made two of them.
She opened her mouth to make a retort, something, anything. Before she could say a word, the barn doors smacked open in a flurry of noise. Two kids tumbled in, laughing and shrieking with delight as they tossed snowballs at one another.
