by Elle Thorne
She studied him, looking up and down. “What happened to you?”
Shit. He’d forgotten to change clothes from the fight. Gaze stayed focused on the blood and ripped shirt, the abrasions on his arms, a scratch on his lip that had already begun its shifter-quick healing.
“It’s nothing. No big deal.”
“Tell me.”
Why? Yes, he wanted to be hostile. To ask her why. To know what she wanted from him since she clearly didn’t want him.
The look on her face brought him up short, shattering his hostility, melting his resolve. The innocent, hurt Mac he’d met years ago, vulnerable from her parents’ neglect stared back at him, in the depth of her eyes, where she probably didn’t even realize it resided.
“Cross. His bear. Mine.”
“The same thing from before?”
“The same thing from all my life. Our bears and their consummate hate, their determination to kill each other.”
“I’d have thought that would have gone away. Have you seen each other much since you—he—since you both left?”
“We haven’t seen each other at all.” Lance moved and leaned against the bed. “His bear is hell-bent on killing mine.”
“And you still don’t know why?”
He didn’t know five years ago when he’d discussed it with Mac, and he didn’t know now.
“No clue. He attacked me when I was coming after you. It caused Mae a bit of distress.”
“I thought your bears couldn’t shift without you allowing them to?”
A long exhaled breath was ripped from his lungs. “There seems to be a time when we can’t control them. I know my brother wouldn’t want to kill me. But his bear does. And so his bear clearly wrestles control from him. My bear does the same. I can’t stop his appearance when Cross’s bear comes out.”
Definitely a good thing, since Cross’s bear could kill me in my human body.
“Still no clue why that happens?”
MacKenzie’s pulse changed. Her scent had changed too. Lance’s bear realized it before Lance did, and alerted him. Gone was the scent of her intense displeasure with being around him. Her scent was friendlier; her pulse had normalized—almost completely.
Could they at least be cordial? Could Lance hope for a friendship?
“None. What’s the tattoo about? What do you mean—it didn’t work?”
MacKenzie eyed him, reminding him of a wild animal that wasn’t sure if it could trust.
She strode toward the desk he had set up in the corner and sat in the chair, leaned forward, elbows on knees, knuckles on chin. This was the farthest place she could sit in the whole room.
So much for the cordial and friendlier thing.
“A man said he could help me.” She paused. “He gave me an address.”
“What man? What are you—” He pushed back the jealousy that reared its dark and ugly head. He’d walked away. He had no right to be jealous. No right to be pissed.
“Just a man. I met him through a friend. He clearly knows shifters.”
When did she get to know shifters and when did she meet someone who clearly knew shifters?
“So what did this man who clearly knows shifters do?” He wasn’t sure he kept the jealousy or irritation from his tone.
“He has a cousin in Seattle. She put some sort of solution into the ink of a tattoo gun. Then she did this.” MacKenzie waved at the tattoo.
“What was it supposed to do?” He hadn’t heard of this before. “Did you pay them?” Was she suckered?
MacKenzie shook her head, as if disappointed. “Five hundred.”
Five hundred dollars? For what? “What was supposed to happen?”
She looked away, as if she didn’t want to tell him. “Break the couplebond. Set me free of you.”
The searing heat of pain drove through his chest. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs were paralyzed, immobile. They left him struggling for air. She was trying to break their bond. Lance turned to face the window so she couldn’t see the expression on his face. He studied the whiteness outside.
A whiteness so void, so empty, it was like looking into the reflection of his heart, his life, and anything that involved MacKenzie not being a part of it.
Chapter Fourteen
Mac wished she’d been sitting anywhere but where she was.
Why?
Because she could see Lance’s face in the window’s reflection. The whiteness outside made his reflection and his face easily read.
His expressions told of his pain. He looked as if he’d had the worst news ever.
How can this possibly hurt him when he walked away, never looked back, never reached out?
She thought of the Lance she’d always known. The Lance who took a long time to open up, even though they’d been together. The Lance that didn’t want to share his pain, didn’t want to let anyone into his chamber of demons.
That’s what he’d called his weaknesses—his chamber of demons. She’d tried to tell him what he thought was a weakness was not. It was a normal reaction to life’s curveballs.
Then again, who was she to speak? She had her own chamber of demons. It just happened that her demons were different from his.
She studied his face, his back, the way his spine was stiff, his shoulders squared. She knew him too well. She knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to work his way through the notion she wanted him out of her heart and out of her life.
A part of her ached for his pain. She knew it too well.
Shit. She’d lived it for four years.
“I did this to you.” His voice was low. “I pushed you to that extreme.”
She wanted to tell him something to make him feel better. She couldn’t. It would be a lie. Yes, he did push her to this. He was the solitary driving force behind her misery.
“I’m going back to Seattle. Back to that witch doctor woman.”
“You should get a refund.”
A refund from a witch doctor?
The notion was so damned wacky a smile made its way to her face, though she could see he was dead serious. Sometimes he said the funniest things.
“I owe you. Let me go with you.”
She did a double take. “Why?”
“Seems the least I could do. Were we too young when we couplebonded? Did I rush you?”
Every pore in her body screamed no, but she remained silent.
“The thing that kills me…” He whirled around. “How much I still want you, need you, crave you. And my bear’s the same way.”
It kills me too.
The tattoo burned, the sensation traveling throughout her body.
“I’ll take you home in the morning or as soon as the snow stops and the roads are clear. I’ll make sure you stay safe.”
Lance strode toward the door, opened it, and closed it behind himself.
Mac then heard the front door open, and close.
Not even two minutes after he’d walked out of the room, she saw his grizzly lumbering through the snow, passing the same window he’d just been staring out of.
His bear’s stride was slow, his posture dejected.
Chapter Fifteen
Lance stayed in his bear form, took cover in a cave, and watched the cabin, tuned into MacKenzie’s heartrate. He knew she’d spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning. On occasion he saw her silhouette in the window, looking for him.
He knew when she fell asleep.
Lance concentrated, pushing his bear back, the bone crunching, sinew realigning creaking sounds echoed in the little cave. He snuck into the cabin, and made a call to Mae. Gave her a quick rundown of the situation, told Mae he wouldn’t be there when she got there, then slipped out when he heard Mac stirring.
Lance resumed his watchful spot, staying in his human form, bundled in his coat, listening to MacKenzie’s heartbeat, slow and steady in her slumber.
He heard the footfalls, coming from the back of the cave. He recognized the shuffle of an old friend. The cave had
a tiny opening in the back, where the footsteps were coming from, one that led to all the tunnels that had been in place under the mountain range for more than a couple hundred years.
Story had it, one of the local shifters, a Native American and grandfather to one of Bear Canyon Valley’s residents had put the system in place to keep shifters safe from attack.
Lance was now fully shifted into his human body. “Griz.” He called out to his old friend.
The old shifter he hadn’t seen in ages—more than four years—approached.
“Quite a storm.” Griz waved toward the cave’s entrance, where the sun reflecting off the snow blinded their vision.
“Yeah.” Lance studied the broad-shouldered, shifter. The scar on the older man’s face, splitting his eyebrow and reaching to his jawline had become lighter in color.
Lance hadn’t seen Griz since he’d made the decision more than four years ago to join the Compliance Unit.
“You show up at the damnedest times.”
Griz had always been elusive, rarely crossing into Lance’s life except at times when it seemed Lance needed advice or guidance.
“That right?” Griz cleared his throat, raised his brows.
“Seems like.”
“That would mean you’re in a dilemma, right now, wouldn’t it?” Griz cocked his head. “Are you?”
“No.”
“Sure. Because everyone wants to sleep in a cold cave when they could be in their warm cabin.” His laugh was low, but not overly derisive. “It’s what I’d do.”
“Maybe a small dilemma.”
“This involves the scent coming from the cabin?”
Lance narrowed his eyes. The older man always had too good a handle on matters. “Yeah.”
“That’s the one you couplebonded with years ago. What gives?”
“She got some kind of bullshit voodoo tattoo that’s supposed to break our couplebond. But it didn’t work. So now she’s going back. And…” Lance scrubbed his face with his hands, his days’ growth making scratchy sounds. “Hell, I don’t know.”
“Someone’s approaching.” Griz had the look of a man who heard something no one else could hear. Which was exactly what Lance was feeling, because he couldn’t hear anyone approaching.
He turned his back on Griz, stepped out of the cave and into the snow to get a look down the mountainside.
“I hear an engine. I don’t see anyone—” He turned back. “Griz?” The older shifter was gone. “Griz?”
Silence greeted him from the back of the cave.
Mae and Doc stepped out of Doc’s truck.
Doc glanced around. “Judge did a fine job with the cabin.”
Lance had to agree. His little brother did it up right.
Mae knocked on the cabin door. “Lance?”
MacKenzie opened the door. “Mae? Doc? What are you doing here?”
“We came to get you. The weather’s cleared, the roads aren’t too bad. We called a tow truck for your Jeep.”
“But Lance—”
Mae wrapped a blanket around MacKenzie’s shoulders. “Lance had to go.”
Lance thanked his lucky stars for the best goddamned foster mother a guy could ask for.
Chapter Sixteen
Mac spent a sleepless night feeling Lance’s presence in the near vicinity. Finally, when the sun came up, fatigue and the events from the day before pulled her into a deep slumber.
Hours later, judging from the sun’s golden glow, she woke. Hunger pangs made her stomach growl. A knock at the door must have woken her.
Mae and Doc to the rescue.
No Lance.
Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with me. Maybe he’s walking away again. For another four years.
She had to see the witch doctor again. Period.
* * *
Two days later, Mac was back at work in the clinic. She was lucky her cottage home was next to her job. So she didn’t have to drive to work.
Her tattoo still felt alive, then alternately as if it was on fire.
Lance was clearly still in the valley, though he’d vanished when she’d been at his house.
She needed to get this taken care of. She needed to get to Seattle. Like now.
The problem was, she didn’t have a car and the shop guy said it would be another week.
A week?
She’d practically screeched in his ear when he’d told her.
It didn’t seem as big a deal two days ago, but now… what with the tattoo acting up.
Yeah, it was a big deal.
Maybe I can borrow Mae’s car for a quick trip.
She was just reaching for the phone to call Mae when the bell above the clinic door pealed, signaling someone had opened the door.
Mac glanced up.
“You.” It was Larsen. The witch doctor’s cousin.
“Yes.” His scar had faded from the last time she’d seen him, though it still marked his face with a white line—just not as white.
“I was going to see your cousin tomorrow. You said you’d help me. You didn’t. She didn’t.”
“I said you’d get what you needed.”
What I needed? “And that was?”
“To not weaken your bond.”
“So I guess it’s no surprise to you that it didn’t work. That the couplebond hasn’t lessened.”
She controlled her fury. She had to. As much as she wanted to scream at him, she didn’t want him to call his cousin and tell her not to help Mac with a redo.
He nodded. “I figured as much, since the shifter you want to shove from your life is back in it.”
“So you knew that whatever she was doing to me wouldn’t work. That it would be worse. That it’s a sham. That there’s no way to undo a couplebond.”
Jesus.
It was getting harder and harder not to want to rip the man’s throat out for tricking her.
“No, to the contrary. There’s a very definite way to undo a couplebond. I couldn’t have you pursuing that. So, if my ruse made you think that it worked…” He shrugged.
“A placebo. You made me think it was working. Until I found out it wasn’t. The hard way.” Did he have any idea how difficult life was with this? Without Lance?
“I apologize for that, young lady.”
“Not. Good. Enough.”
“That man needs you in his life. You’re the only salvation for his tormented soul. He’s the salvation for yours.”
“How do you know him?
Chapter Seventeen
Lance glanced at Mae’s profile. “Where are we going?”
He was pretty sure he knew the answer to that already. This was the way to MacKenzie’s.
“A quick errand.”
Quick. Errand.
So why was his radar going off then?
“What have you planned, Aunt Mae?”
“Lance.” She glanced at him, taking her eyes from the road for just a moment. “Have I ever done anything that wasn’t for your good?”
He couldn’t argue that. He studied the flying landscape. He should have known when she invited him over for lunch that she had an agenda.
She pulled into the Bear Canyon Wildlife Reserve Vet Clinic. “I promise. This won’t be too painful.”
Yeah. Every time I see MacKenzie is more painful than the previous time.
He saw a car in the driveway. Was that Ariadne’s? Ariadne had told him she and MacKenzie were friends.
Mae parked. Lance got her door, then the door to the clinic.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Cross, Ariadne, Mac—surprise, surprise.
Griz was there.
Cross wore a scowl on his face.
Lance was sure this was from his bear. He fought to keep his bear contained.
“Seems like there’s a party going on here.” Lance’s bear bristled, clearly riled up by Cross’s bear.
MacKenzie looked from Lance to Mae then to Griz. “We were just having a conversation when Cross and Ariadn
e walked up.” She glanced at Lance and Mae. “Who called this meeting together?”
Griz nodded. “Call me Griz.”
“And who are you, Griz?” MacKenzie seemed to get stuck on the name Griz. Lance wondered what she thought his name was. She continued, “How do you fit in? Why have you called this assembly?”
“I should have done this long ago.” His face grew sad. “Long, long ago.”
Griz looked at Lance. “I was your father’s brother.” Then he turned to Cross. “And your father’s too.”
“We had the same father,” Lance countered.
Griz shook his head. “No. Your father and his father were half-brothers. Your father—” he pointed to Lance, “—killed Cross’s father, then took the baby—you—” he pointed to Cross, “—to raise. Cross’s father wasn’t the best sort, but one brother killing the other—I’m thinking Cross’s bear remembers that. And in the way of bears, it wants retribution.”
That’s a lot to fucking absorb. My dad killed Cross’s dad? We had different dads? Lance shook his head. “What about my parents, who killed them?”
“Cross’s father’s family. Vengeance.”
Cross squinted at Griz, then Lance. “So, we’re not brothers?”
“You are cousins. Raised as brothers.”
This was too much to process.
“So his family,” he pointed to Cross, “killed my family.”
“Yes, after your father killed his father.”
Lance crossed his arms over his chest. “And you’re another brother.”
Cross stepped forward. “And you’ve been here all along, in the mountain.”
“I am. I was born Larsen del Cruz. I go by Griz. I’m merely doing my duty. Keeping my nephews safe. From the world. From each other. From bad choices.”
Mae, Ariadne, and MacKenzie were silent, standing next to each other, at the counter. Lance wondered what they thought about this.
Lance turned his attention back to Griz. “What about Judge?”
“He’s your brother. Same parents as you.” He nodded at Lance.
Lance was curious. “Does he know about you?”
