by Kate Rudolph
What the hell?!
She held herself very still and kept her eyes closed. They said that you were supposed to play dead to keep safe from bears. They - and she wasn’t quite sure who they were - never said anything about the bear carrying people away while cradling them in two arms, but she wasn’t going to make a fuss when those very dangerous, wicked sharp claws were close enough to tear her to shreds.
This wasn’t even the most dangerous spot she’d ever been in. Weirdest, yes, but for danger, it only made the top five. Maybe the top six.
The air against her shifted and it felt like they’d gone inside somewhere. Sandra cracked an eye open and spotted the stone walls of a cave. Was the bear bringing her to his den to eat? And why hadn’t he just dragged her, if that was the case?
Thank goodness for small favors.
The bear set her down gently against a surprisingly soft surface. When he ambled away, she turned around to investigate and found something that seemed almost like outdoor furniture, built into the cave wall. It felt more like a couch than stone.
Maybe this had been a hangout of someone who used to live near here? A bipedal bear would drive anyone out of their surprisingly nice cave.
It was brighter than she expected, once Sandra had her eyes open, and she discovered that she could see everything just fine. She almost jumped off the floor when she heard a garage door close.
She was in a cave! What kind of cave had a garage?
Oh, no, she hadn’t been abducted by Batman’s trained bear, had she? No, that was ridiculous. Batman didn’t have a trained bear. Also, Batman didn’t exist.
Maybe passing out hadn’t solved all of Sandra’s problems. Was this shock talking? It had to be, otherwise she would be screaming about the freaking bear who carried her to a cave that had a garage door.
Or had she been abducted by Bigfoot?
She shook her head and the migraine reared to life again, filling her head with pain but banishing the silly, useless thoughts. It hurt to think, but she needed her wits about her if she was going to get out.
Knowing it was going to hurt like a motherfucker, Sandra opened up her senses, whimpering a little as her psychic muscles stretched, causing the pain in her head to contract and expand, throbbing, rumbling around her brain and leaving no corner untouched. She’d kill for some Excedrin at the moment, or a fifth of vodka. Anything to make the pain go away.
But she wasn’t going to get either of those things and she needed to concentrate. She and the bear hadn’t traveled far. That meant she was probably still in range of whoever had fallen in the water. She hoped that man was okay. And she hoped that he had friends with him.
She still had a few tricks up her sleeve, and it was time to use them.
No one would ever accuse Derek Lacroix of being a quick thinker. He wasn’t unintelligent, but his thoughts took time to form. The bright side of this condition was that he rarely dove into plans half-cocked, hoping for the best. The downside was that when he stumbled into those half-cocked plans, the outcome was usually less than stellar.
But couldn’t a bear fish in his own goddamn stream without some cute, curvy woman wandering in and startling him? He would have never climbed out of the water when he did if he had known she was there. But he’d been distracted, slipping when he tried to catch a particularly fat salmon.
Given the fact that she fainted before he could do anything threatening, he doubted she had much of a killer instinct. But there was nothing around for miles except for some abandoned, rotted out old house and he couldn’t just leave her unconscious on the bank of the river.
Carrying her home in his bear form might have not been his smartest move. The physiology between a bear shifter and an actual bear was slightly different. Different enough that it made walking on two feet for a few miles possible, if a bit uncomfortable. But by the time he got her home and laid her out on one of his couches, he realized that he might have made a mistake.
She was going to think that he had abducted her.
Derek had done a good many things in his life, but he’d never kidnapped anyone. And as he shuddered and groaned, enduring the painful shift between bear and man, he tried to think out the possible ways that she would react and how he could make her feel at ease.
Scenario one:
She woke up with no memory of him by the river bank and thought that he kidnapped her from wherever she was coming from.
Reaction one:
As bad as this was, Derek hoped this was the situation. He would explain that she’d fainted in the woods and that he’d brought her to his place. Then he’d drive her home or to the hospital. All would be well.
Unless:
She freaked out, wouldn’t listen to reason, and tried to attack him.
Then he would:
Offer to call the sheriff. Asher was an old friend and fellow bear, but he’d calm the woman down and see her to safety.
Okay, Derek nodded. He could handle scenario one. But that wasn’t the only possibility.
Scenario two:
She woke up, remembered that there was a bear, but couldn’t remember how she got to his place.
Reaction two:
He’d say that he frightened the bear off and brought her back to his place in case it came back.
He winced even thinking the thought. Bears were misunderstood enough as it was, and now he’d need to go about fearmongering. But it couldn’t be helped if he was going to get out of this mess.
So she would:
Be grateful? He hoped she’d be grateful. After all, he’d scared off a - purely hypothetical - enraged grizzly!
Scenario three:
She was actually injured and didn’t wake up.
Reaction three:
Hospital. Immediately. He hadn’t smelled the blood of an open wound, and while carrying her felt like carrying a feather, her soft curves didn’t suggest starvation or malnutrition. Those curves were something he loved to see.
Derek shook his head. Not right now. Not when she could be on the edge of death on his couch!
He had his three scenarios, and he knew what to do if any one of them happened. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, but a quick glance in his mirror showed him that he needed to change. A shirt from a favorite band which featured a bleeding skull in its merchandise was not optimal for keeping his captive - no, his guest - at ease. He reached for a neatly folded black shirt, but at the last minute grabbed for a deep green one instead. Even solid black seemed threatening.
He even spritzed on a dash of cologne. Not because he cared that she thought he smelled nice, but because he was concerned that he might smell a bit like the river. That wasn’t a pleasing scent on any human.
Derek made his way down to the cave. It was the reason he’d build the house many years ago—easy access to the forest and the river, and a great place for him to sprawl in his other form. Not many homes came built into mountains.
Just before turning the handle on the door to the cave, Derek paused. Something was off. It felt like there was a gnat flying around in his brain. He swatted in front of his face with his hand, but that did nothing. This wasn’t something physical. It was all mental, all in his head. So he gave his head a quick shake and counted to ten in German. By the time he reached zehn the gnat had disappeared. His inner bear had swatted it away.
Derek pushed open the door and missed the rock being lobbed at his head by a centimeter. If he hadn’t moved with shifter speed and instinct, he would have been flat on the floor with a shiner the size of Rhode Island blooming on his face. He wasn’t even standing fully up by the time the second rock hit him. This one was even larger and beaned him in the shoulder.
“Ow,” it hurt. “What are you doing?” He tried to reason with her, but it was hard to speak with the dozens of rocks being pelted at him. He hadn’t even realized that he had so many rocks in this cave.
He tripped over a chair that had been flung in his path. Though it was close call, Derek didn’t f
all over.
Who is this woman? She’d had maybe ten minutes between when he left and when he returned. Another piece of shrapnel hit him and this time it was glass. The only glass in the room was from a table he’d pushed off to the corner.
He liked that table!
“Stop it!” He insisted.
“What?” she demanded. “You’re not so confident without that trained bear, huh?” She chucked another rock his way. He admired her technique. Rather than weigh herself down, she had them in a pile on the ground. It was one smooth motion to pick the rock up and throw it, then reach for another.
He hadn’t expected such deadly determination in such a sweet looking package. Her skin was honey colored, her hair dark and long, her bangs plastered against her forehead. She wasn’t short, but she would still only reach his chin if she were standing right next to him. And her curves, damn, her curves were something to admire. If she weren’t trying to attack him, Derek would try to eat her up.
Then he processed her words. Trained bear? “I don’t have a trained bear!”
She paused, hand hovering over her stones. “You don’t?”
“No!” He shook his head for good measure. He’d never keep a bear like that; circuses and the like horribly abused their animals. He could never imagine doing something like that to a creature that needed freedom and respect.
“Then who carried me here?” Her tone was still accusatory, but she slowly stood, moving inch by inch away from the rocks.
“I did.” And that was absolutely true. If there was any trained bear in this house, it was him.
CHAPTER THREE
He was taller than she'd expected. Sandra glared at the giant, bulky man, a stone in her fist, ready to lob it at him if he said one wrong word. She’d already hit him several times, and he should have been bleeding, but by some miracle he wasn’t even wounded.
She’d used the time he left her alone to prepare a defense. There was no one within her psychic range, or, more likely, passing out had done something to her powers. She couldn’t even get a read on this guy. All she could do was sense his presence—his thoughts were opaque, completely impossible to decipher.
And, as much as she hated to admit it, her captor was incredibly handsome. If she’d seen him out in public, she might have tried to grab a surreptitious pic to share with her friends. He had blond hair just long enough to be a little shaggy, like he hadn’t bothered to cut it in a few months. His eyes were a dangerous green, and there was something feral behind them that she could see he was keeping leashed. His skin was a bit ruddy, as if he’d just come in from the cold, and the red in his cheeks made him look uniquely invigorated and alive. This man was so very present that even without hearing his thoughts he dominated the room. He was just so big, so tall, so muscular, that she didn’t know what to do.
He claimed to have carried her here, but Sandra didn’t buy it. She was absolutely certain that there had been a bear, that she had been carried by a bear. And this man was big, but he was no grizzly. And, thankfully, he wasn’t nearly as hairy.
Though she obviously had no reason to be concerned about that.
But she had asked him a question and now she waited for his answer. Even if he hadn’t carried her, she’d ended up in this weird cave and he seemed to be the one responsible for her now.
“Why?” She asked. “And who the hell are you?”
His brow furrowed, confusion evident and taking away a little of the overbearing threat that his presence promised. It was strange. Some men, when confused, when they felt their intelligence threatened, only became more dangerous. But this man simply took his time to answer with no animosity at all.
"My name is Derek Lacroix. I frightened off the bear." He said it slowly, each word deliberate. "But you were unconscious," here he paused for a moment before starting again. "I couldn't just leave you in the woods. I brought you back here."
It still didn't make sense to Sandra. Moving an unconscious person - an unconscious stranger at that - didn't make any sense. "Why didn't you call an ambulance?" That was the normal thing to do. "And how did you even find me? Where are we?" She was beginning to think that her attack was somewhat premature. Maybe she wasn't his hostage.
She might even buy his story about the bear. Maybe.
The man smacked his huge hand against his forehead. "That's what I should have done." He said it like a revelation, like it hadn't even occurred to him at the time. "I didn't have my phone," he explained. His excuses kept coming. "And we're only a few miles from the river. I couldn't just leave you."
Sandra gave up the pretense of reaching for another rock and dropped the one she was holding. She wasn't going to hit him again. She was off-balance, unable to read exactly who this man was. She rarely needed to judge a person based on instinct and those were rusty with neglect. But the feral thing behind his eyes was a protector, not an attacker; he could have overpowered her the moment she stopped attacking, but he had stayed near the solid-oak door, keeping several feet between them at all times with his hands up to ward off the rocks.
"Where are we?" She repeated. Maybe he wasn't a threat, but that didn't mean she had any intention of becoming his guest. She wanted to go home. The tiny-house was better than sleeping in a cave, even though it was a very nice cave.
"Six miles out of Oak Wood down Route 19," he didn't hesitate with the answer. That confirmed that he wasn't holding her hostage. Years in the Sector had made Sandra paranoid. She didn't know how normal people reacted. She'd never really known.
Sandra had seen signs for Oak Wood—there was a turn off on the drive toward Missoula, though she hadn't ventured down that path. She vaguely remembered the real estate agent telling her about the small town. There was a diner, a school, and a gas station, but not much else.
"East or west?" she asked.
"East."
Good, it was close enough to walk. Sandra had looked for a door when she was alone, but other than the small garage that he had closed when they got to the house, there was no way out except for the door behind him.
"Okay, then I want to leave now." Her sense of direction was good enough that she didn't anticipate any trouble in finding her way home. If worse came to worst, she would just walk along the highway. It would be a few miles out of her way, but she'd walked longer in worse weather.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the man asked. He took a step towards her and held a hand out, but stopped when Sandra stumbled back, rearing away from him. He held his hands up as if to indicate that he was unarmed. "I just wanted to make sure that you're okay."
"I'm fine!" she snapped, "Just open the damned door." The beginnings of claustrophobia were hitting her and all of a sudden the cave seemed small. It was already both dark and too bright from the fluorescent lights in the cave roof.
"You don't look fine."
Sandra held herself straight up, like there was a rod down her spine. She lifted her head and met those dangerous green eyes. "Listen, I'm fine." She kept her sentences short, succinct. "Please open the door. I'm going home." This wasn't up for debate. She'd carve a hole through the wall if he didn't let her out.
"Let me drive you," he insisted.
Sandra almost turned him down. She just wanted to be out of here and home. And standing so close to him, alone with him, was doing strange things. She found herself studying him in a way that she never studied people. The only way to have any idea of what he was thinking was to look, really look, at him and hope that he didn't hide himself away. She hadn't paid so much attention to a man, especially one as handsome as this one was, in a very long time.
That had gone...poorly.
Derek could already feel the bruises blossoming where her rocks had hit him. His shapeshifter healing was accelerated, but that didn't mean that he couldn't feel the injury. If he had been a normal human, she might have done real damage. But being a bear gave him two advantages: he was more resilient than a normal man, and he sprang back to perfect health faster.
It also meant it hurt a hell of a lot more. His rate of healing took hours or days where a normal man would take weeks or months. And in those hours and days he could feel his skin fixing itself, bones sealing cracks, flesh growing over cuts. He'd once asked a human friend to describe what healing a broken arm felt like, and while the process had seemed incredibly tedious, the man hadn't been feverish and ready to gnaw his own arm off to end the agony.
Still, Derek wouldn't give up his powers because of a little pain. Besides, the bruises would be healed by the time he was home; all he would need to do was grimace through it.
Luckily the light was dim enough to hide the too-quick blooming bruises from this nameless woman. She already fascinated him and he was desperate to learn more. What kind of person woke up in a strange place and immediately went on the offensive, using their surroundings for violence and survival? A cop, maybe, or a soldier. Though if she'd been in the army, he was thankful that they hadn't been able to get rid of her curves. He wanted to wrap his hands around her and pull her in close.
However, a move like that was still dangerous. He wouldn’t try anything like that until he was certain that she wouldn't throw more rocks at him.
Or worse.
Derek led her through the door behind him. A little mud room sat between the cave, the hallway to the garage, and the hall to the main house. He turned right, heading down the wide hallway to the garage. He almost flipped the light switch, but remembered that he'd had a small accident a few years ago and had gouged deep lines in the wall with his claws.
She'd question it, so he left the lights off.
They made it to the garage and he got into his truck and waited to start the car until she got in the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt, opening the garage behind them and taking off.
