And it would be for the best.
Because she was gentle, sweet, delicate, and far too innocent to belong to a monster like him.
“Maverick?” Her soft voice curled around him, teasing his ears, making him ache to tug her to him and at the same time burn with a need to push her away, to keep her safe.
To protect her.
From himself.
“He spacing out again?” Rune tapped a cold bottle against Maverick’s left temple.
Earning himself a growl.
He slid a black look at Rune, who looked unrepentant.
“I think so.” Bronwyn looked worried now as she glanced between him and Rune.
Rune shoved the beer at him. “Here. Drink up.”
Maverick snatched it and downed the old one he was holding, grimacing at how warm it was.
“Come on. Let’s get you a drink.” Callie tugged on Bronwyn’s arm, stealing her away from him, and Maverick wasn’t surprised when Rune followed them.
He breathed a little easier as the distance between them grew and wrestled with his out-of-control feelings as he swigged the ice-cold beer Rune had given him. Doing his damnedest not to look at Bronwyn. He needed to get his head on straight when it came to her, but he wasn’t sure he ever would, not now that he had realised a few things.
Like the fact he was crazy about her.
Saint strolled over to him, a warm look in his dark eyes that made Maverick want to sigh, because apparently everyone wanted to coddle him tonight. It wasn’t like the big brunet bear to make a fuss like this. Hell, it wasn’t like Rune to make a fuss over him either, and that was exactly what his friend was doing in his own way.
“How are you doing?” Saint stopped beside him and turned to face the same direction, so they stood shoulder to shoulder.
Maverick didn’t want to think about the answer to that question, so he grunted, “Fine.”
Felt his alpha slide him a look.
“I know you, Maverick. We all do. You can grunt and deflect all you want, but there’s no mistaking you’re not in a good place.”
Not in a good place.
That felt like the understatement of the century.
He took a long pull on his beer.
“I think I just need to run again.” His gaze shifted to his cabin where it stood a few hundred feet away, near to Rune’s cabin, and beyond it, to the head of the valley and the glacier there. “Maybe hit up the lodge for a few days… or maybe just keep running this time.”
Saint’s sigh said it all. “Running doesn’t solve anything. It won’t change anything. In my experience, it only tends to make things worse.”
Maverick slid his gaze back to Bronwyn, deeply aware that his alpha was right and there was no running from his feelings for her. It wouldn’t change anything. It would only leave her vulnerable, without him there to protect her, to help her.
He barely bit back the growl that rumbled in his chest as Knox handed Bronwyn a beer, the too-handsome blond grizzly flashing her a wide smile as she hesitated to take it. She waved him away, an apologetic look on her face, and then crumbled and took the long neck bottle.
When she swigged it, she pulled a face, and everyone laughed.
Fire swept through his blood when she looked wounded, had him on the verge of crossing the clearing to her and beating the crap out of Knox and the others, but then she smiled and laughed too.
Captivating him.
“How long have you known her?” Saint’s deep voice rumbled in his ears as Maverick gazed at her, bewitched all over again, unable to tear his gaze away from her as she smiled and tried the beer again.
She didn’t grimace as badly this time.
“Only for five years or so. She didn’t arrive long before you and the others freed us.” Maverick almost smiled as Holly said something and Bronwyn’s whole face lit up, her smile bright enough to illuminate the world.
Hell, it illuminated his, chasing back the darkness in his soul and the shadows from this world, making everything look different—better.
She cast a look in his direction, lingered when she found him looking at her, and hooked her hair behind her ear again. Rune said something, stealing her attention away from Maverick, and she talked to him, and it felt good to see her so animated, so happy, as if all the weight of her troubles had been lifted from her heart.
“I want to know about this trouble she’s in,” Saint said.
Maverick nodded. “She mentioned hunters in Whistler and that she felt sure they had recognised her, and she believes they might have taken her brother.”
“Doesn’t sound good. Have you managed to get anything else out of her?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t had the chance to speak with her about it.”
Saint nodded towards her. “Bring her over. I want to talk to her.”
Maverick wanted to growl at the male, the need to protect Bronwyn rising inside him as he caught the look in Saint’s dark eyes, one that said his alpha had no intention of being nice and gentle with her. He didn’t want to talk to her. He wanted to interrogate her.
The thought of subjecting her to a grilling when she had just started smiling and laughing, had begun to look as if she was more at ease, rankled and he barely leashed the urge to bare fangs at Saint and tell him to back off. He didn’t want to kill that smile.
He didn’t want to extinguish that bright light in her eyes and he knew he would if he dragged her before his alpha.
He tried to put himself in Saint’s position, told himself on repeat that his alpha was only trying to protect his pride. He couldn’t be furious with Saint when he’d had the same feeling about Bronwyn, a sense that something wasn’t right and she wasn’t telling him the whole truth about her situation.
Maverick forced himself to trudge across the clearing, swore he would stick by her side and make sure Saint wouldn’t cross a line with her as he closed the distance between them.
“You should eat something. How about a sausage?” Skye swept her chestnut braids over her shoulder and grabbed the tongs from Lowe. She snapped them as she ran them along the line of sausages on the grill, her face lighting up with a wicked smile as she settled on one. “I have just the one for you, Bronwyn. It’s big and a little dark. Think you can handle it?”
She grabbed the sausage and turned towards Bronwyn, who giggled. He had never seen Winnie laugh like this, and it hit him hard. He thought about how tough things had been for her—for all of them—and how different she seemed now. So normal.
And he was glad.
Skye spotted him and locked up tight, still holding the sausage aloft.
Bronwyn frowned at her and then turned to see what she was looking at, and the moment her eyes landed on him, she blushed.
Hard.
He hadn’t been born yesterday, knew Skye had been making a filthy innuendo with the sausage, no doubt trying to link it with him in order to make Bronwyn blush. As the only unmated pair at the Ridge, it was expected that they would be the source of entertainment for the others, but he still didn’t appreciate it.
He glowered at Skye and she was quick to toss the sausage back on the grill.
“Lighten up,” Knox muttered. “It was a perfectly innocent offer of sausage.”
Winnie’s cheeks went so red that she looked like a tomato.
He had never seen her so embarrassed, and the fact it was over him had his blood racing, the nerves he had managed to vanquish returning.
Callie held another beer out to Bronwyn.
Maverick intercepted it. “Saint wants to talk.”
The light in Bronwyn’s eyes faded.
“Uh oh.” Skye grabbed another beer from the pail and shoved it towards her. “You might need this!”
Winnie was quick to take it. Maverick scowled at Skye. The female was trouble. He gave Knox a look that told him to keep his mate under control, but Knox shrugged it off.
Maverick pivoted on his heel and followed Bronwyn as she bravely strode towards S
aint where he waited by the firepit, sticking close to her so she didn’t feel nervous about talking with him.
Thankfully, Holly had joined her mate, already had the hard edge smoothed off his expression as she spoke to him and lightly stroked his arm. Saint’s dark eyes shifted to Bronwyn as she stopped before him, keeping a few feet between them, and he silently thanked his alpha for waiting for him to reach her before he started with the questions.
“Maverick said you have hunter trouble. Something about you feeling they have your brother?”
She nodded, lifted her hand and stroked her fingers over the locket. “I told Maverick he’s been going to Vancouver more frequently recently and this time he didn’t come back, and then I saw those hunters in Whistler. I’m worried about him. Andrew isn’t… He’s not the strongest bear.”
Maverick wanted to put in that he really wasn’t. Andrew was one of the rare males who had been assigned to clean up duties and working in the mess hall rather than being made to fight. The hunters had taken pity on him.
Probably because he had literally pissed himself when they had put him in the cage, and it had only been a training match.
Andrew also hadn’t been the best of brothers to Winnie. Maverick wouldn’t be surprised if the male had just gotten caught up in the buzz of Vancouver.
Hell, he had been there and done that.
Whenever he and Rune went there for winter, it was like stepping into a completely different world, one that was enticing and bewitching. It always took him some time to readjust to the quietness of Black Ridge when he returned in spring, but he preferred it here. Vancouver was nice for a while, but this was where he felt at home. At peace.
He wasn’t sure he could say the same of her brother. When they had been at the compound, Andrew had often talked of the city. He hated to think that the male might have decided to stay there this time, might have been caught up in the excitement of it and just forgotten to call his sister, leaving her afraid for him.
“I told Maverick I shouldn’t come here, in case the hunters are following me.” Her voice was small, holding a note of fear that had Maverick wanting to step closer to her to reassure her.
Saint slid him a black look. “I’m inclined to agree, but you’re here now. We’ll help any way we can. I can get in touch with my contacts, see if they know of any compounds in the area.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “That would be… I’m not sure what to say. Thank you?”
“Don’t thank me yet. Archangel clamped down on the illegal arenas a few years back. If hunters did capture your brother, chances are they weren’t rogue and they’ve taken him to the Vancouver headquarters.” Saint’s tone was grave and Maverick kept a close eye on Winnie.
This was going to hit her hard.
She blanched. “No. I mean… no. They couldn’t have. If they took him there—”
She didn’t need to say any more than that. Everyone knew what fate awaited anyone who was taken to an official Archangel building. Studying. Which was the Archangel way of saying experimenting on and torturing non-humans, usually until they were dead.
Bronwyn swallowed thickly. “I… I don’t feel so good.”
She turned and hurried away from them, and rather than heading for the group near the grill, she made a beeline for the space between the rear of Saint’s cabin and the outbuilding that stood in the centre of the clearing. When she disappeared into the darkness, the urge to go after her was strong.
Maverick told himself not to follow, but he was powerless to stop himself.
He hurried after her, catching up with her near the creek, where she had stopped. Her head was bent, her back to him. What was she doing?
He cautiously moved around her and frowned when he found her staring at her locket, at the photographs it contained. The moon cast pale light on them and on her, threading her chestnut hair with silver. He stepped closer to her, lifted his left hand and flexed his fingers, hesitating only a moment before he placed it against her back. Her bare skin was cold beneath his palm, but soft too, had him aching to gather her into his arms to warm her and feel her pressed against him.
“You okay?” he murmured.
She sniffed and nodded, swigged her beer and then looked up at him.
The tears lining her lashes hit him hard.
He frowned at her, his brow furrowing as he searched for something to say.
The words came easily this time.
“I’m sure Andrew is fine. He’s probably just got caught up in Vancouver and forgot to call you.” His words felt hollow as they left his lips, and how was he meant to make her believe them when he didn’t believe them himself?
She shook her head, her face crumpling. “I know he’s not fine. I know it. Hunters have him.”
He wouldn’t be surprised if they did, or if the hunters were targeting her too now to keep him in line. Saint didn’t believe there were any arenas left on this side of Canada, but Maverick did. Archangel might have shut some down, but it would have only made the rogue hunters who ran them more cautious, more careful about keeping their wretched business secret from their superiors.
That business was far too lucrative to stop hunters from finding a way to make an arena happen and to keep it open.
Winnie swallowed another mouthful of beer, lowered the bottle and wiped her eyes, and then took another long draught.
She sighed, her look despondent as she stared at the creek, her brow furrowed and shoulders sagging. “They have him… and gods only know what they’re doing to him. I’m so scared, Maverick.”
He stepped towards her, every instinct he possessed demanding he comfort her, hijacking control to have him sliding his arm around her shoulders and tugging her against his side. “We’ll get him back, Winnie. I promise.”
She looked up at him, her gaze soft, bewitching him all over again as moonlight bathed her skin.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
His gaze fell to her lips, his thoughts turning to kissing her. She was so close to him. He only had to dip his head and he could know the taste of her. His fingers tensed against her shoulder and he caught himself, released her instead. She frowned as he moved a step away from her and he tilted his head back, pretending he had wanted to look at the stars.
Shutting down his unruly desires.
She swigged her beer again, wobbled a little as she walked away from him, a sigh escaping her. She tipped her head up and her mouth fell open as she gazed at the heavens.
“So many stars,” she murmured and he frowned at the slight slur of the final word.
Looked at her.
His frown intensified as she slowly turned, her eyes still on the sky, her motions wobbly. It wasn’t the uneven pebbly shore that had had her wobbling as she walked. It was the beer.
He huffed, strode over to her and snatched the bottle from her. “That’s enough of that. You, Winnie, are a bit of a lightweight.”
She giggled and dropped her head, hit him with a grin that had his stupid heart skipping a beat. “I’ve never had alcohol before. Does it always make you feel like this?”
“Like what?” He tried to figure out how many beers she’d had before he had cut her off.
She sidled closer, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper. “Bold. A little reckless. A lot wild.”
Maverick swallowed hard.
Gods, he wanted to kiss her when she looked at him like that, as if she really wanted him.
“I think you should call it a night.” He also thought he should move back a step as she advanced on him, but he couldn’t convince his damned feet to cooperate.
Her eyes grew hooded, her look far too sexy.
He muttered, “You really can’t handle your drink.”
Shook off the part of him that was roaring at him to kiss her.
He took hold of her arm and ignored her little gasp that teased his ears, because he wasn’t going to surrender to the urge to kiss her. She was drunk. He was damned if he was going to take advan
tage of her.
He paused and looked at her.
It hit him that he was different around her.
Back in the day, at the arena, plenty of inebriated females had come on to him, and he had never turned them down after a fight. He had never cared that they were drunk.
But he cared that she was.
The thought of kissing her when she wasn’t fully in control of herself, when her inhibitions had been stripped away by beer, didn’t sit well with him at all.
“Come on.” He tugged her towards the river, doing his best to ignore how her gaze set him on fire as it lingered on his profile, or how she placed her hand over his and stroked his fingers in a maddening way.
Maverick lifted her onto the steppingstones and waded through the river beside her, helping her across the gaps between the boulders. By helping, he meant lifting her from one to the next, touching her curvy waist only as long as was necessary to get her to the other side of the creek without her falling into it.
He set her down on the bank when they reached it and marched her to the door of her cabin, opened it for her and waited for her to go inside when he released her.
She turned and pressed her hands to his chest.
And kissed him.
Heat flooded Maverick, her peaches and cream taste driving him wild in an instant, rousing a fierce hunger inside him that had him kissing her back as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. She yielded to him, slid her arms around his neck and opened to him, and he growled as he angled his head and deepened the kiss, every inch of him on fire, his heart thundering as his tongue stroked hers. He backed her against the doorframe, pressed her there as he claimed her mouth, itching to claim far more than that.
When she moaned, he saw a flash of her on her back on a table in a sterile holding room, spread before him as he pounded into her.
Maverick gripped her hips and shoved her back as he wrenched himself away from her, was quick to release her as he breathed hard.
Her wide eyes locked with his.
Awakened by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears Shifter Romance Series Book 5) Page 8
