by J. K Harper
His eyes still bored into hers, the expression on his face that she couldn’t read seeming darker and darker.
Why was she still talking? Shut up, she ordered herself. But she couldn’t. Mouth open, stupid words blurting out. “I feel really out of place. Everyone makes me nervous. I don’t belong here.”
Riley’s face turned suddenly hard, thunderclouds moving behind his eyes. Whoa. His bear was pushing against him the same way Marisa’s cat always, always pushed against her.
“You’re right.” His voice snapped out, so harsh and sudden she flinched. “You don’t belong here. This isn’t your home, and I don’t know why you’re still here.”
Unexpected hurt thwacked her chest at his words. Her cat yowled inside, the sound of it scattering painful shadows through her head. Breathe.
Then—snarl.
He, the angry bear guy, was yelling at her?
Her chest heaved with the sudden furious need to explode words out at him. “I know I don’t belong here.” Her voice lashed out, loud and sharp in the quiet forest. “I know this isn’t my home. I don’t belong here because I don’t belong anywhere. I never have.”
Unstoppable, her voice kept rising. “I don’t know why I’m still here either. I don’t have any secrets about the outcasts to share with all of you. I have nothing against any of you, and there’s no way in hell I’m ever going back to them.” Damn it, she couldn’t stop talking. The words surged over her control, spilling out like she was crazy. Ha-ha, crazy Marisa. What else was new?
“I don’t belong anywhere and never will, do you understand me? My animal is out of control. I can’t handle her. That’s why I want to be put down, Riley. I cannot control her.” She took a step toward him, feeling an overwhelming need to force him to understand the importance of her next words. “Your bear’s out of control too. Isn’t it? Can’t you understand me, then? Can’t you see why I need to be put down?”
His face wasn’t blank now. He was caught somewhere between shock and horror. Maybe even disgust. Gasping air stuttered in her chest as she finally managed to shut up.
Slowly, staring at her like she was an alien life form, he shook his head. “No. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand not wanting to fight for your life at all costs, no matter how fucking sad and broken you think you are. What the hell is wrong with you, Marisa?”
Suddenly, he was shouting at her. “Why do you want to be put down? Why do you want to die?”
She almost doubled over, the word seeming to slam into her gut like a fist punch. Her cat screamed in her mind as a growl bubbled out of her throat, followed by another, then another.
“No,” she moaned, shaking her head. “Please, no. Not like this,” she whispered. When it happened like this, it hurt. It hurt so badly she would scream. A scream that sounded like it was out of a horror movie.
She didn’t want him to see her like this. She didn’t know why, but she just didn’t. Without another word, she turned and hurtled into the forest.
“Marisa!” His voice called after her, alarmed. Maybe even regretful? She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. The cat was in control.
A scream ripped out of her throat, followed by another. Awful. Awful, horrifying sounds. Screeching, yowling, raging. So loud she was sure it could be heard at the barn.
She didn’t even have time to shuck off her clothes. The cat forced her way out, exploding through Marisa’s skin in a fury of golden fur and deadly claws and the bloodcurdling shriek of her kind.
She bolted away, deep into the forest, leaving everything behind her. Fleeing the man who still called that name, Marisa, over and over behind her. Barreling into the silent, snowy mountains, letting them swallow her up whole.
5
Riley stood in the quiet of the snow-blanketed trees, his heart thumping erratically as he watched Marisa bound away from him on four legs.
What the hell had just happened? Her outburst seemed to come from nowhere. So had his. As he thought that, something tickled at him. An uncomfortable something that felt like…shame.
He had no right to lay into her the way he did. His bear rumbled inside him, moving with the forceful darkness that always made Riley stiffen.
She was right. His bear was out of control, no matter how much meditation or aikido and deep breathing he did. But how the hell had she known? He kept it so well hidden from everyone. He huffed, his breath showing white in the chill air. That was probably why. She didn’t know him like everyone else here did. She didn’t have preconceived notions of what he was supposed to be like, how he was supposed to act.
Who he was supposed to be.
Riley ground his jaw for a long moment, staring after the spot where she had disappeared. The mountains would take her, give her enormous space to run. To breathe. To simply be. That, he understood. That was why he was out here too.
Swearing, he turned and began to walk northward. A voice behind him drew him up short.
“Riley! Hold up.”
Riley blew out a breath before turning around. Quentin. He had his big brother voice on. Ah, shit. Since their parents had left on their crazy yearlong second honeymoon, leaving Quentin officially in charge of the lodge as well as all his brothers who lived here, it had been interesting, to say the least.
But the concerned look on Quentin’s face quelled his annoyance. Quentin strode up to him, peering past him. “Is she out here? Did you see her?”
Instantly, Riley bristled.
“See who?” He bit the words off, giving his brother a challenging look.
Quentin snapped his gaze from the woods to Riley, his brows lowering at the tone in Riley’s voice. Tersely, he said, “Abby said Marisa was helping decorate the barn for the dance, but then suddenly she was just gone. She said you,” he jabbed a finger at Riley, “specifically asked her to keep an eye on your cubs, so she didn’t come out here herself to find her.”
Now it was Riley’s turn to give his brother a searching gaze. Something in Quentin’s tone was off. Slowly, he said, “Abby sent you out here to look for her. Because Abby’s worried about her. Right?” Riley held his brother with a look.
Quentin’s gaze narrowed slightly as he nodded. “Exactly.”
“Bullshit.” Riley brought his fist into the palm of his other hand, making a slamming sound that was loud in the stillness of the day. His bear roiled inside him. He needed to get out there into the woods soon himself. “You just want to know where she went. Where she is. Who she might be talking to. Because you still don’t trust her.”
Just as quickly, Quentin shoved the words back at him. “Neither do you. So why are you calling me out on it?”
They stood for a few seconds, half glaring at one another, Riley’s bear roaring inside him with some strange sort of urgency. A need to go out there and follow her. Which was crazy. Riley had work to do. Keeping tabs on Marisa the crazy shifter wasn’t part of it.
Quentin didn’t back down an inch from the glare match. There was a reason their parents had left him in charge of everything, Riley had to grudgingly admit. Quentin was sharp and paid attention to everything. Which was usually a pain in the ass.
Finally, his brother shrugged. “You know I don’t trust her. I don’t know what her endgame is. Abby’s convinced she’s found another poor lost soul to rescue, but I'm still not sure about that. Those outcasts were a little too organized for my taste.”
Riley couldn’t argue. The bridge battle had been not only well organized, but highly orchestrated. The outcasts they’d managed to catch and toss in the holding cells designed to contain shifters in the basement of the town jail still weren’t talking. Most of them were halfway to insane anyway, but the way they’d clammed up made everyone here uneasy. Riley didn’t like it, and he knew Quentin didn’t either.
Quentin jerked his chin at the woods. “So. Are you going after her? I saw her, Riley. And I heard the two of you yelling from half a mile away. I think the entire lodge could hear her when she was shifting.” He grima
ced in sympathy. “Sounded like it was a bad one.”
Riley clamped his lips over his teeth for a moment, the echo of Marisa’s agonized screams still ringing in his ears. When the shift was that bad, things definitely were not good between the human side and the animal side. That was obvious to anyone as far as Marisa was concerned, though. Any shifter who wanted to die as badly as she apparently did sure as hell didn’t have a good relationship with her animal.
At the reminder of her bizarre quest, he felt the anger at her desire to be put down slip over him again. But this time, another feeling joined it.
Sympathy.
Or maybe empathy was the right word. Ah, fuck him. He sure as hell didn’t want to die, no way, but he and his bear were struggling, and he knew it. She’d been right. He did understand her. For some reason that made no sense no matter which way he looked at it, he thought maybe he understood her in a way no one else in the world did. And that was the fucking saddest thing he’d thought in a long time.
Forcing himself to take a long, deep breath before he answered, he realized from the shaky control inside him that he’d have to do another aikido session before bed tonight if he wanted to hang on to anything even remotely called centered. Or sane.
“She didn’t want anyone to go after her. She wanted to be alone. I don’t think she’s going anywhere. She…wasn’t in control of that shift.” He felt his eye twitch as he thought of her horrific shift. “Her cat took over. Trust me, if she’s still in cahoots with the outcasts, then they all must be crazy. Because that girl is a complete lunatic.”
He ground that last sentence out, trying to sound casual. Forcing it over the suddenly deep snarls of his bear. Knowing it was partially true while at the same time it was a huge lie. Marisa had some sort of big issues, that was for sure. She was messed up. That was a definite.
But something in her was worth saving, and her cat knew it. Hell, he knew it.
His bear rumbled in him. Dark, angry, and fuming with something Riley couldn’t figure out but knew was about to burst out whether he wanted it to or not.
Damn it. He had to shift, now.
“Gotta go. I’ll tell you if I see her,” he managed to toss out at his brother’s skeptical face before he turned and slammed into the woods, fast.
Away from his brother. Away from the lodge. Away from Marisa.
The truth was hitting him hard. Knocking him on his blind, dumb ass.
Marisa wasn’t a lunatic.
Marisa was in despair.
The howls as she’d shifted were filled with it. He’d recognize the feeling anywhere. He just had to admit it. Despair and Riley knew each other way too well.
Marisa didn’t really want to die. She was running. Hiding. She wanted to give up from a pain that was so bad it was destroying her from the inside.
Riley knew that pain as well as anything in this world. It was still trying to eat him, but he fought it every day.
And fuck him if he wasn’t going to convince that lion girl to do the same thing.
6
Riley grunted as he struggled to lift his end of the box. “You’re killing me, human,” he growled at the man straining at the other end of it. “What do you think this is, the flyweight division of weightlifting? Pretend you’ve got the strength of more than a fucking butterfly.”
His boss and best friend Joe snorted a laugh as he also strained to lift his end. “Well, I’m not blessed with super shifter strength over here. Doing the best I can, bear,” he drawled out.
A snarl lifted Riley’s lip. “Whatever. We must both be wimps. Who knew fucking paperwork would weigh this much?”
Joe groaned in reply as the two of them finally managed to heave the overly large, overly heavy box up onto one of the sturdy shelves in the storage room at the back of the national forest ranger office. Panting slightly, he swore, “Filling this big of a box up to the brim was possibly the dumbest thing you and I’ve ever done. Let’s never tell anyone about this.”
Struggling to hold back the sharp retort that Joe had been the one to fill the box, Riley managed a tight nod. “Agreed.”
He got a sharp look in return. Riley ignored it. He’d been behaving like an ass all day long. What else was new?
They walked in silence back down the hallway to the front office. The budget was so tight these days the state had said they could no longer afford a full-time receptionist. Their regular one now worked only part-time. Between Riley and Joe, they covered the desk and the phones the rest of the hours. It was bureaucratic idiocy, having two outdoor-trained guys working the phones and answering emails, but someone had to do it.
Riley’s bear grumbled inside him. Yeah. Among all the other things, this was one of the reasons he knew he’d been struggling more and more to keep a handle on his wild side. Sitting at the damn desk answering phones and emails didn’t do much to keep him or his bear happy. He’d taken the job as a free labor seasonal ranger the first summer after he graduated high school, earning his way up to a paid position by that fall. He’d done it because he loved being outside; he loved wandering through the backcountry. Even back then, when he was still young and stupid and didn’t know what he wanted from life, he was a big fan of keeping the forest in his mountains properly managed and open for people to do what they wanted, within reason. People and other shifters.
A growl rippled its way up his throat, muttered out on his angry breath. Frowning, Riley didn’t even try to hide it. Joe knew him well enough to not be afraid of his bear’s snorts and snarls when they came shuddering up through Riley’s human form. He knew they were never directed toward him.
Marisa had been missing since her gut-ripping change yesterday. Her tawny backside and long, black-tipped tail had been the last he or anyone else had seen of her. Beautiful, messed up, scared woman. The thought of her out there alone all night and now most of the day, even in her shifted shape, was making him crazy.
He wasn’t her friend. He didn’t know her or where she came from. But the pain in her that had screamed at him in echo of his own had made him worry about her. He’d been unable to get her out of his mind, picturing her snatched up again by the remaining outcasts or slunk off to another set of local shifters to ask a big, strong alpha to put her down.
Worst of all, he kept picturing her getting her wish and being put to death by someone who didn’t understand her. Someone who didn’t care.
He snarled again, just barely under his breath. He didn’t care about her. Even if he wanted to help her find her way out of whatever lost hell she existed in, he didn’t care about her. He couldn’t.
He couldn’t care about a woman ever again.
His bear snarled, but not in accordance. In angry response, instead. One that said Riley was lying to himself. Again.
“Fuck me,” he growled out loud.
Joe immediately deadpanned, “Thanks, but no thanks. Natalie would kill me. After I killed myself.”
Riley rounded on his friend so suddenly Joe stopped right in his tracks. “Not funny. Don’t ever joke about something like that.” Riley’s voice was darkness itself.
“What the fuck is up with you?” Joe finally snapped back, though he kept his body language relaxed and didn’t offer any other challenge. He knew shifters very well.
Roaring his frustration to the uncaring hallway walls, Riley stalked toward the front of the building. “I’m being an ass, and I need to stop it,” he gritted out. Joe knew him. He knew whatever was up Riley’s butt, it wasn’t anything to do with Joe.
They stopped in the front office. By habit, both stood still for a second, each side-eyeing the other. Joe shrugged, but the sudden glimmer of a half grin tugged at his mouth. “You need to stop being an ass? Then fucking beat me to the chair, you lazy fuckin’ bear.”
Yeah, a good friend who knew how to not take Riley’s shit personally. He snarled back, though he let his own grin roll over his face, “It’s on, you slow-footed human.”
They each lunged for the rolling chai
r that sat behind the desk. Riley just managed to slam himself into it before Joe knocked into him and the chair both, sending all three sprawling to the ground in a sudden lurch of curses. Pinned under the chair with carpet fibers up his nose, Riley started laughing. He laughed until he roared, then he laughed some more. Joe laughed with him, shaking his head.
“Pair of idiots,” Joe said, which set them both off again for a few minutes.
Riley laughed until his sides ached. Good. This shit was cathartic. He’d taught himself long ago that laughter could be the perfect way to chill the hell out. He’d needed it.
As they finally hauled themselves up off the floor and Riley set the chair back on its wheels, he shook his head. “Thanks, asshole.”
“Anytime, asshole,” Joe returned good-naturedly.
That was all that needed to be said. The atmosphere returned to more normal.
“One of these days, we’re going to break our necks doing this,” Riley added.
Joe snorted, rubbing the stubble on his chin as a less playful look dropped over his face. “At least we’re trying to make this bullshit somewhat fun.”
Riley made a disparaging sound in the back of his throat. Joe was right. They’d each been so reluctant to start sitting at the front desk that they’d taken to making a stupid game out of it. Some days, at an unspoken signal, they’d each race for the rolling office chair at the front desk. Whoever got to it first and managed to sit his ass down in it was actually the one who got to not be saddled with desk duty the rest of the week.
Dumb, but it broke up the monotony. And, Riley thought in silent appreciation of his best friend understanding him, it made for a good way for him to knock off behaving like a jerk, stomping around all growly and irritable.
Even though Riley was faster than Joe due to his shifter reflexes, it actually ended up going half and half. Most of the time that was because Joe would take to outwitting him or flat out playing dirty by knocking Riley off balance or shoving something in his way to trip him. Today had just been a flat out run. “Sorry.” Riley clapped Joe on the back. “I actually really need this right now. Bear’s been going fucking nuts.”
