by T. S. Joyce
All she cared about right now was making sure Samantha lived. Because after all they’d been through, if Bron lost his mate now, he would spiral and take the few bear shifters left in the world with him.
But more than that, Muriel wanted Samantha to live because she cared about her.
It was dark, but the moon helped where her night vision struggled. And she knew these woods like the back of her eyelids. She’d changed here for the six years she’d been married to Bron. It felt strange being in a place that no longer belonged to her bear. It was like sitting next to a familiar stranger at a bus station. This place belonged to Samantha now.
Even if she hadn’t known this place so well, the pungent scent of iron would’ve led her right to Samantha anyhow. The broken brush and snapped branches of the woods told her she was getting close.
Dillon’s massive form hovered over Samantha, and a low rumble emanated from behind his curled lips.
“It’s just me,” Muriel breathed, holding the medical bag she’d brought up in surrender. “I need to help her.”
With a wary grunt, Dillon slunk into the shadows of the forest. He was still here, watching, but Muriel was relieved not to have him hovering over her shoulder as she worked. There was a definite possibility she was going to bleed tonight, and she sure as hell didn’t want to face off with two bears.
“Sam, I have to put this on your wound,” she said, showing the heavily breathing bear a vial of slate gray powder.
Samantha was one of the last Andean bear shifters in the world, and her features were striking. Fur as black as pitch shone in the moonlight, but her face was the color of cream. Her lips were tinged in red from where she’d been licking the wound on her stomach.
Samantha’s eyes tracked her approach and one side of her lip lifted to expose her teeth when Muriel stood directly in front of her. “Bron is all right. Dodger is dead. He won’t ever hurt you again.”
Samantha’s soft brown eyes widened. So that was the trick to dragging her humanity back to the surface. Muriel had to keep her mind on Bron.
“You shouldn’t change back for at least a day,” she murmured, kneeling beside the massive animal. “Bron can stay a bear with you. From what I remember, he has trouble staying human around big fights anyway, so I bet he’ll want to stay with you like this. Let me see.”
Gently, Muriel pushed Samantha’s leg up and brushed the matted hair away from the wound. A sharp grunt of pain came from Sam, but she held still enough. Before she could worry over a clawed slap to the face, Muriel poured the herbs into the wound and pressed them in with the palm of her hand.
It should’ve hurt badly, but Sam didn’t move. Afraid she’d passed out, Muriel arched her gaze to the bear’s face. Agony, fear and sadness churned there. It pulled at Muriel’s heart that this had been done to Sam after everything she’d endured to fight for Bron. A lash of hatred for Dodger ripped through her, and an image of the fallen alpha’s matted body on the lawn looped through her mind.
She was glad he was dead.
Dodger had always been a bully. He was part of the reason she and Bron had been forced into the marriage that almost shredded them both. And now, he had hurt her friend. More than hurt her, he’d tried to kill her.
His control over the lives of his people was through. Muriel had never loved Bron, but she was proud of him—of the man he’d become. He would make a good alpha for his people. After everything, she couldn’t imagine him ever choosing a mate for another, and he was fair and fearless.
And now a Cress was alpha again, and she had to believe it was important. That him standing up to an unjust leader and taking his rightful place was a good omen for the few bear shifters that remained.
Sam could help him to reach his potential—if she lived.
Chapter Two
Muriel’s phone rang for the fifth time in twenty minutes. She’d checked the caller ID the first time and had no interest in picking up her father’s call. Sure, he was the alpha of a small clan of shifters, and sure, he was scary as hell at intimidation, but she’d distanced herself in the years since she’d left his house to marry Bron.
As long as she put off pledging to a clan, he had no control over her for the first time in her entire life. And that was a glorious feeling to be savored.
“What?” she asked, finally irritated into answering.
“We need to talk,” Dad’s deep, authoritative voice rang out over the line.
“No, we don’t. I’m not ready to choose a clan yet. I need more time.”
“Not about pledging, Muriel. I heard a rumor that you turned a human. Do you know what kind of trouble you’ve brought to us? The implications are huge. Why in the hell didn’t you listen to your mother? She gave you the book of old magic in confidence, and you turned your back on your entire lineage. Come home. Now.”
The line went dead and she glared at the phone she held clutched in her hand. Asshole. Where did he get off thinking he had any say in her life anymore? He’d thrown that away when he sold her off to the highest bidder. He was just as much to blame as Dodger for the last six years of her miserable life, and now he was ordering her to come home?
Home. She didn’t know where that was yet, but it certainly wasn’t at the ranger station under the He Devil Mountain with the man who’d given away his only daughter for some stupid alliance. And twenty-four was much too old to be minding unreasonable parental demands.
There was one reason she considered going though, and that was Trent Cress. Her late brother-in-law had been burned alive last week, and even though he’d been obnoxiously loud about his preference for Samantha being Bron’s mate, he was still someone who’d been important to her life in Hells Canyon.
Oh, she’d heard the whispers about who was to blame for his death. Someone had murdered him, and if Dad was the one who’d done it out of some sick retaliation for her finally filing for divorce from Bron, she was going to find out.
If her father was the one who murdered Trent, her decision to stay a rogue would be the easiest one she ever made.
Grounding out a curse, she pulled her silver jeep from the grocery store parking lot and pointed the nose of it toward He Devil. Shopping would have to wait because now she was fired up and ready to find out some answers.
Her ride made a strange clattering sound and then seemed to fix itself. It had been doing that ever since some of Dodger’s hit men had flipped it to try and assassinate Samantha last week. Now, the entire driver’s side was dented and scuffed, and one of the headlights had been shattered. As soon as she found out which idiot bear thought that was a good idea, she was going to give them the verbal lashing of a lifetime.
She loved her jeep, and though it ran well enough, she was going to have to sink some serious money into fixing it. Money she didn’t have.
The pothole riddled pavement of East First street turned to gravel, and then to dirt roads as she wound her way through the Hells Canyon Mountains.
She couldn’t even remember the last time Dad had called her. Two years, at least. When she’d filed for divorce, he’d sent her a letter so harsh it burned her just to touch the tattered paper. Spots of ink dotted it, deep slashes tore through and the paper was ripped like his fury had leaked from his hand to the pen.
Ungrateful human being.
Selfish daughter.
Useless.
Out of control.
All of the phrases a father should probably keep to himself, but not Steven Marsden. He liked to say exactly what was on his mind, and he rarely nurtured kind thoughts. In the letter, he had implied that she treated Bron like shit and didn’t deserve him anyhow. Unfair, because he hadn’t been there to see how hard the marriage had been on both of them. She’d done the best that she could, just as Bron had done, but they’d already bonded with other people, and forcing them to mate just to breed was disgraceful and unforgiveable.
She’d burned the letter so she couldn’t read its hateful words again. It was just another obstacle in her jo
urney to figure out who she was. She was definitely not the things listed on that piece of paper.
As she turned up the long drive that would lead to the ranger’s camp where her birth clan lived, an unfamiliar rumble filled the forest. Pulling to the side of the road, she put the car in park and canted her head, listening.
The throaty noise was getting louder, and the birds in the pines near the washed out road she was sitting on flocked up into the sky.
It sounded like a motorcycle, but no one she knew up here drove one. They didn’t do well on these roads, especially during the rainy season. And seeing as how winter was a month away, anyone dumb enough to drive one would have their ass frozen to the seat by the first snow storm.
Sure enough, a Harley in sexed up shiny black and chrome picked its way down the road, slow and steady, and growling like a feral animal. Its rider was a dark-headed man with designer facial scruff and triceps threatening to rip out of his tight leather jacket. Dark jeans hugged his taut waist and heavy shit-kicker boots rested on the gear shift. As he passed, his gaze tracked her, and though she couldn’t make out what color his eyes were, she could definitely see her gawking face reflected in his sunglasses.
She clacked her mouth closed and jerked her attention back to the road. He definitely wasn’t a bear she’d ever seen. He looked…dangerous.
Why did that revelation send her heart to galloping? It wasn’t fear that was speeding up her pulse behind her ribcage either. That man was sex appeal in a tight package, and it had been a long time since she’d felt a hormone surge like this one. Her bear was even waking up in his presence, and the man was already almost out of sight.
She stared like a stalker in her side view mirror but when he turned the wheel of his bike to hit the curve, the man fell over and the sound of the rumbling motorcycle died off altogether.
“Whoa, drama,” she murmured. He’d barely taken the curve and now he was lying on the ground, not moving. Maybe he was new to riding a bike and was a super-wuss, because that fall shouldn’t have hurt a shifter.
Unless he wasn’t a shifter.
“Are you all right?” she called.
She couldn’t even tell if the man was breathing from here. Maybe this was a trick to get her to get out of her car so he could kidnap her. People couldn’t be trusted, and the man had set off some serious alarm bells when he drove by.
But she couldn’t just leave him here, not knowing if he was pretending or not. “If you’re playing opossum, I’m going to be pissed.” Her voice echoed across the silence.
Not to be outsmarted by a serial killer, she reversed the jeep until she was right beside him.
She smelled it then—what the exhaust fumes had covered up. He reeked of blood, and her gaze collided with the sliver of crimson soaked material that peeked out from his open jacket.
“Oh, my gosh,” she murmured, jumping from the jeep. “Hey, mister?” Ripping off his sunglasses, she pried open his eye. Light brown, like the color of good whiskey, and otherwise completely unresponsive. His skin was pale and cold, and when she pulled the open zipper of his jacket away from his torso, she gasped at the carnage.
What the fuck was he doing here? Leaning forward, she inhaled the air around his neck. Animal and man. He was definitely a shifter, so why wasn’t he with the clan seeking medical attention for injuries like these?
Lifting the hem of his soaked thermal shirt, she stared at the shoddy bandage job and bit her bottom lip. She gasped when she pulled a corner loose and saw the long, razor edged gashes across his torso. It was painfully obvious he’d been attacked by a bear, which would explain why he was running from the clan.
Pulling out her phone, she dialed out and waited as it rang and rang. Finally, Dad picked up with a gruff, “What do you want.” Lovely.
“I found one of your bears. He is traveling alone and he’s hurt. What should I do with him?”
“He’s a rogue,” Dad spat out. “Let him die.”
Pursing her lips, she nodded slowly. Right now, she was a rogue. She supposed he probably felt the same way about her. The urge to chuck the phone into the woods was overwhelming, but instead, she hung up and clenched it in her shaking hand. Just like she couldn’t afford the repairs on her jeep, buying a new cell because of her lack of control was unacceptable.
Let him die? Dad’s heart had only grown blacker since she’d moved to Joseph. He was the one who always preached about how important each bear shifter was now that their kind was dying out. And here, he’d just let one of them die. What purpose did that serve?
Her gaze landed on the man’s slack face. He was handsome with dark eyebrows and chiseled jaws—if she were into that rugged biker gang, muscled type. Which her hormones were screaming she was.
What a waste of life. She hadn’t a guess at why he’d gone rogue, but she couldn’t just let him bleed out on the side of a dirt road. Even if he didn’t pose so many intriguing questions, she understood what it was like to live on the outside. Plus, her healing instincts were kicking in, and she was already ticking off half a dozen ingredients she would need for a poultice to relieve the inflammation.
The bike was heavier than she thought it would be, but she righted it and dragged it off into the woods. It wouldn’t fit into her jeep, so if he lived, he’d have to come back for his ride some other time.
If she thought the bike was heavy to wheel over the rugged terrain, his body was nearly impossible to get into her jeep. He was pure muscle and dead weight, and though she was stronger than a human, he had eighty pounds on her at least and kept slipping through her grasp like a wet bar of soap.
For all this effort, he was probably going to turn out to be a creeper.
With a grunt, she hoisted him into the front seat and leaned it all the way back so he wouldn’t flop over like a landed herring. By the time she’d buckled him, her arms were shaking from the chore of getting him situated.
She could count the number of cops in the small town of Joseph, Oregon on one hand, but knowing her luck, she’d attract them all as she tried to get the dead looking man home. So, she threw the gear into drive and busted a U-turn. She’d have to take the long way around to her house.
With a glance at the pale stranger, she hit the gas. He didn’t have time for her to waste.
When she pulled up in front of her cabin, she cut the engine and bolted around to the passenger’s side. With a quick check of his pulse—faint but steady—she unbuckled him and pulled him from the car. Her arms were done from loading him up, and he sank to the mud near her front tire. Her legs buckled and she gripped him tightly so his face wouldn’t hit the ground.
“Sir, you have to wake up and help me get you inside.” He smelled completely of animal now and a soft snarl rattled his throat. Good. Rearing back, she slapped him across his jaw so hard, the palm of her hand stung. “Help me help you, man!”
His eyes opened and she nearly choked on air. They were some feral inhuman color she’d never seen before, and she tried to scramble away. His hands gripped her upper arms in a motion so fast, he blurred.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded. “I’m trying to save you.”
His chest heaved and his jaw ticked as if he were trying to hold back how much pain he was really in. “You don’t hurt me,” he panted.
His words tore her open. Someone had done unspeakable things to this man in order for his words to sound so raw and strangled.
“I promise I won’t. I can’t carry you anymore though. Please, this is my house. You’re safe here.”
“Safe,” he breathed as his legs bunched under him. He stood with grace but doubled over, and she rushed to position herself under his arm.
His animal was calling to hers, urging her bear to claw and snarl inside of her, and she closed her eyes tightly against the urge to change. Stumbling forward, he lurched up the stairs and into her house. The couch was the closest place to lay him down, and as soon as she turned to rush for some linens to lay under him to protect the furn
iture, he inhaled a long ragged breath.
“What’s your name?” he asked in a serious tone like he’d die on the word she would give him.
“Muriel.”
His lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
“What’s yours?” she asked. He was fading, and in case he never woke up again, she needed to know who he was.
“Logan.” A soft sigh left him and his eyes closed.
Forget the sheets, he didn’t have time for her to protect her couch cushions. Rushing for her herb room, she searched frantically for the ingredients she needed.
Stop the bleeding.
Contain the swelling.
Avoid infection.
Stitches. Lots and lots of stitches.
Bottles clanged as she pushed piles out of the way. Everything in her house was organized but this room. This was her wild room.
Calendula, cleavers, goldenseal, plantain, yarrow, and she was going all out with a pain relief cocktail. Shifters didn’t react well to man-made medicines, but she could mix up something strong enough. Snatching a cloth bag from the table, she filled it with her gathered herbs, wads of sterile cloth bandages and added devils claw, turmeric, and feverfew.
Sutures and needle in hand, she shouldered the bag and bolted for the living room.
Struggling him out of his jacket and sweater was difficult, but removing the bandages was the worst. They were in various stages of drying and some stuck to his wounds.
The sight of his bare torso drew her up short. Wide-eyed, she traced the crisscross patterns slashed into his flesh with her gaze. They must’ve been made by a small bear, perhaps a female. Even a pair of puncture wounds looked too close together to belong to a grizzly.
“Who did you piss off?” she muttered as she threaded a sterilized needle.
Some of the wounds were older, and scars silvered with age and barely visible decorated his arms. His neck was the only part of his skin that seemed clear of old battle wounds. But if he was a rogue like her father said, who the devil had he found to fight?
