by Fleur Smith
Copyright © 2019 by Michelle Irwin writing as Fleur Smith
Cover Artist: Danielle Fine at Designed by Definition. Cover content used for illustrative purposes only, and any person depicted is a model.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The following story is set in the USA and therefore has been written in US English. The spelling and usage reflect that.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all other inquiries, contact:
Michelle Irwin P O Box 671 MORAYFIELD QLD 4506 AUSTRALIA
www.fleursmith.com / [email protected]
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
BAMBI’S FIRST WARNING that the road wasn’t the safe haven it had been moments before was the squeal of worn brake pads and the chittering of tires as the driver attempted to avoid her.
The car flew toward her down the narrowed streets. It had to be going at least seventy miles per hour. The guy inside seemed to be watching behind him and not the road ahead.
By the time she heard the sound, it was too late for Bambi to move out of the way. Too late to avoid the impact. Once she had, she couldn’t move. It made her understand the phrase “deer in the headlights” wasn’t entirely metaphorical. Or headlight, considering the way one flickered off and on.
The car twisted left just as she managed to gather her wits enough to go right. She willed speed into her limbs as the rear of the car swung loose and barreled into her.
She heard rather than felt the impact as the rear fender struck her torso. The snap and pop of bones shattering and the crunch of metal bending around her form filled the air. The blow knocked her a few feet from her location before she’d attempted to run. Her body smacked against the roadway.
When she drew her next breath, the pain started.
Radiating from her shattered ribs, it squeezed her heart and stole her lungs. Her breaths grew shallow. It seemed fitting that this would be the way she’d die.
The car pulled to a stop just feet from her position on the road, and a door opened, suggesting someone might have been coming to help.
“Jesus Christ, I think I hit something.” The voice filled her ears, but she couldn’t focus on the person who had issued it. Not when the tightness in her chest was claiming so much of the oxygen she needed.
“It’s just an animal,” another voice added. “Leave it alone. We have to get out of here.”
“What if it’s dying? Shouldn’t we . . . you know.”
Bambi wasn’t sure she wanted to know what “you know” entailed, although she was certain she could guess.
“Look, you can spend the time hunting around for whatever was in the road if you have to, but do you really think that thing behind us is going to give a shit that you’re being compassionate?”
Bambi’s thoughts ran the length of her emotions in seconds. From a desire for them to help her, to the fear that “you know” might mean putting her out of her misery—a quick snap of the neck rather than a drawn-out death. All of her thoughts disappeared behind a mist of red that coated her vision. Proof she was dying.
“You’re right,” the first voice confirmed. “We need to get the hell away from that . . . whatever that thing was.”
Within seconds, they were back in the car and back on the road at breakneck speeds.
Bambi’s eyes sank closed.
For a moment, she was willing to let the red fade to black and move on to whatever came next for people like her. Freaks like her.
Her desire to let go disappeared when a blood-curdling scream filled the night. A rush of wind blew past, and Bambi opened her eyes in time to see a banshee sail through the air overhead. It paid her no attention, but its shrieks gave her renewed strength. She didn’t want that to be her last sight.
It took her a moment to assess the damage. One leg—the one she could no longer feel—was twisted at an awkward angle.
Worse, it was caught up in her antlers.
The fact she even had antlers was a whole other story.
Exactly what might happen if she tried to shift back to her human form as damaged as she was she didn’t know, but the thought filled her with a new chill. She’d never attempted something like that before. Certainly not with injuries so severe. Would she end up with an arm on backward? Or would it be in the right place but still shattered into as many pieces as it appeared now?
Would some miracle occur during the shift, leaving her without any injuries because she’d only sustained them in her current form? Would this part of her die off, leaving her unable to shift back into animal form later on? Would she even be able to shift back to her human self?
There were so many questions she wanted answers to. So much she didn’t know. The family she’d been raised by had tried to explain the rules, but they only knew about their own shifts—their own anatomy and rules—and as Bambi had learned over the years, there was a big difference between her and her bear brothers.
She didn’t need meat to survive for one. She’d happily been solely vegetarian from an early age—much to her adopted parents’ disgust. She didn’t get dragged down by the weight of hibernation either. For her whole life, her family had grown irritable and unable to shift when it came time for the bears within them to sleep. As a young child, she hadn’t understood why her brothers no longer wanted to shift and play in the forest.
Not for the first time, she wondered how different her life might have been with a different family. Her real family.
She resisted the call to close her eyes again. That way led to death; she was certain of it.
Instead, she took the risk and shifted back before regretting it instantly. In her animal form, she was stronger. More able to tolerate the broken ribs and shattered limbs. Now, everything throbbed with each beat of her heart.
She didn’t have the energy to change back again though. Besides, even damaged, her human legs would likely carry her further than having to compensate for two potential broken ones if she changed back.
With some effort, she dragged herself from the ground. The pain in that action alone sent a dagger through her body. Her tongue felt too big, and she gagged on the coppery taste that assaulted it. After spitting out the contents in her mouth—a mixture of blood, grass, and gravel—she held her injured arm close to her body, put one foot in front of the other, and headed back in the direction of Motor City.
It had taken her less than twenty minutes to get to the field, but she’d been able to take long, graceful leaps then. She’d gone to that place because of the morels that grew there, running in trails along the fences that lined the farms on that section of road. Those little mushrooms were like chocolate to her—and after the week she’d had she needed something like chocolate.
Just a few hours earlier, she’d been at a witch’s house trying to find answers that had eluded her for years. The truth about her family—who they were and why they’d left her alone.
The witch had mixed up a brew of the weirdest ingredients, forced her to drink it, and then sent Bambi back on her way to l
earn the truth. It had been a useless exercise though. A complete waste of time and money. Neither of which she had an excess of. Especially now.
Her trip to the field was to temper her disappointment and get the taste of the witch’s brew from her mouth. She had hoped to complete her trip and be back in time to start work at nine.
Fat chance of that happening with her injuries. She tried to focus on something other than the pain that started as a burn in her chest and radiated outward relentlessly by considering how her regulars would cope without her appearance. The distraction lasted about as long as her patrons would worry when she didn’t return to the stage. Seconds after learning their little Bambi hadn’t shown, they’d happily settle in to watch someone else gyrate on stage for their pleasure.
The only one who would suffer from her no-show was Bambi herself. The rent would still need to be paid. The electricity would still be overdue. Only now she’d have hospital bills to add to all the rest.
She really needed a new job.
She loved her job though. Some might say it was demeaning, but up on the stage, she was in control. She got to set the price the Johns had to meet before each article of clothing was stripped away, and had the ultimate say in who got a private lap dance. With her big, brown doe-eyes and long legs, she commanded attention on the stage and a buttload of tips to boot. It was the best job she could hope for giving her unique nature and upbringing, and so far it had kept a roof over her head.
Doesn’t do me much good now. She spat on the ground again, another glob of blood-stained spittle.
Each breath was a little harder to draw than the last. She tried to calculate the distance back to town, and how long it might take in human-sized steps. Limps really. The calculations didn’t work, but they didn’t have to—she still got the answer she needed. It would take more time than she had left.
On her next step, one leg gave out, and she fell to her knees, leaving them scraped and bloodied on top of her other injuries. She started to wish for “you know.” It would’ve been better than trying to fight her way back to civilization alone, naked, and in agony.
She would have given anything for one of her adopted brothers to stumble across her then like they had when she was a child. She couldn’t recall anything of her life before then, other than a memory of thunder roaring through the air. She hadn’t even known her name. Her adopted family had given her one as a joke. By the time they admitted defeat in the search for her parents, it had stuck.
So, she was Bambi—a deer shifter raised by bears.
It would’ve made a terrific joke if it hadn’t been her life.
Or at least had been her life, up until the car.
That was the last fleeting thought she had as she fell to her knees once more. Only this time, she didn’t have the strength to push herself back up. She sank to the ground and reached out for the light that had appeared in front of her.
CHAPTER TWO
AS THE DARKNESS faded and consciousness returned, Bambi opened her eyes. Her first glance around the room provided no helpful information. A rich aroma of pine filled the air. The space was damp and dark.
She moved her fingers, confirming she was in her human form. Once she’d grounded herself with that action, she wiggled her toes. First one foot, and then the other. They moved relatively easily and didn’t cause too much pain. At least, no additional pain to the all-over ache she’d experienced since waking.
Trying to figure out what the hell was going on, Bambi sat up. Or she attempted to. She was stopped almost immediately by some fabric secured around her chest. Across her body was a strap of some sort, holding her in place.
Her gaze traveled down her torso, but she could only see a glimpse of cream-colored material covering her chest.
She took a deeper breath to find the air she needed to scream for help. She cut off the intake when a jagged knife pressed into the side of her chest.
Tipping her head toward the pain, she found herself alone.
Not a knife.
There was no one there, so she couldn’t understand the agony that echoed through her.
What strange torture device had her captor come up with?
More important questions were,9 who had captured her and why, but they lingered behind the other.
She tried to cast her mind back to the last thing she could remember. Headlights. Pain. Blood.
She’d been hit by a car and then she’d . . .
She’d . . .
Nothing more would come to her.
Why was she in the dark room that smelled of pine?
Trying to halt the progress of the panic clawing its way up to her throat, using her ribcage as a ladder, she focused on the things she could control. Her body might have been restrained, but her senses weren’t.
She closed her eyes and focused on the things she could hear.
Nearby was a ticking clock. A little further away, someone was whistling. Further than that were sounds familiar to the deer within her—the creatures of the forest, running water, and a breeze shifting leaves.
She sighed at the night she’d had. Could things get any worse?
Bambi’s nose twitched as she focused hard on the scents around her. The smell of cut pine was old and permeated into everything nearby. It suggested her current prison was made of wood.
A cabin in the forest, perhaps?
Wouldn’t that be perfect—and just her luck?
Wasn’t that how so many horror movies started? A young woman struck down before being rescued by someone who liked to make insides become outsides. And people who’d had sex never lasted long in those things. Strippers even less. That left her two for two. She was lucky to still be alive.
The door cracked open a sliver before being pushed wide by the person on the other side. Light spilled through the empty door and brought a gust of fresh air behind, brimming with life from the forest beyond.
Bambi’s first instinct was to freeze. Her nostrils flared, and her gaze focused on trying to make out the details of her captor.
The scent of death lingered around the man. Old blood that was likely stuck to his boots or caked under his fingernails. He had a permeating quality that confirmed one thing—he was a hunter.
Her heart skittered in her chest as she tried to plan an escape. Her gaze darted between the man—his wide shoulders, muscled chest, and thick clothing—and the door. She tried to calm herself with gentle reminders that she was in her human form. As a deer, this man would be a danger to her.
As a human . . . Well, she still needed to figure that part out.
Still, it didn’t stop her from flinching away as the man took a step closer. That step took him far enough from the stream of light that she could make out his features. Dressed in plaid and denim, with thick black boots below, he looked exactly as she’d expected him to based on the odor of death that lingered beneath the scents of soap and minted breath.
Except his face.
Buried beneath an earflap hat that covered his hair, ears, and forehead, his expression was almost boyish. Round eyes, a wide nose, and chin dotted by a beard that refused to grow in places. Rugged, but seemingly innocent despite the scent on him. His eyes were the same green as the forest canopy, the strands of hair that poked out from beneath his hat were the color of bark. It was as if he was designed with the sole purpose of blending into the trees. She might have even considered him handsome, if not for that alarming smell.
When he took a second step, she whimpered and fought against the binding across her arms and chest.
“Don’t panic.” The timbre of his voice was smooth, comforting. Like a wind howling through a big, hollow log. It was just like her dear Papa’s—the bear who’d kept her safe during her childhood. The words settled over her almost as an instruction rather than a request.
As the glue of fear melted away with thoughts of her Papa-bear, all of the words that had been stuck to her teeth and on her tongue fell out in a rush. “Where am I? Who are you? Why a
m I here? What are you doing? Why am I tied up?”
“Woah! Hold up, little girl. I can only answer one question at a time. So what’s it gonna be?”
The list of questions paraded around her mind again, each one pushing and shoving at the others to be the center of attention. Without taking her focus off the man in front of her, she blurted one out. “Why did you tie me up?”
He shot back a little defensively. “I ain’t trying to hurt you.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’d say if you were trying to hurt me?” She’d seen that technique often enough from hunters. They would whisper sweet nothings and platitudes under their breath, all the while lining up their gun’s sight until they had a startled animal in their cross-hairs.
The mountain man chuckled. “Can’t say, but I suppose you’re right.”
He moved closer, and she flinched away again. His calm infused her with a little peace, but not enough to stop her heart from fluttering against her rib cage or stop her natural fear from taking over.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I found you last night, up by the highway. You were in a terrible state, so I brought you back here to patch you up.”
Bambi raised one brow at him. It was the limit of her motion. “Still not answering my question?"
“As you slept, you thrashed and rolled, and I worried you were gonna hurt yourself.”
It seemed like a reasonable explanation, at least until another struck Bambi. “If I was hurt so badly, why didn’t you call 911?” If she were in her human form, the hospital would have been the best place for her. And she had someone who could cover for any unexpected blood results.
“Didn’t have no way. And I wasn’t gonna drive you up to no hospital with all their forms and questions. Anyone would think I’d done this to you.”
“You don’t have a cell phone?”
“No, ma’am. I don’t own one.” He set to work, releasing the strap across her chest.
As he worked, she glanced up at him, locking gazes with him. “You don’t own one?”
