by Skye Jones
“I don’t get why Mom wouldn’t turn. We live a long life compared to humans. We’re strong. Fast. We don’t suffer disease. What’s not to like? But Mom always insisted she’d been born human under the eyes of God and would die the same way.” He sighed and scrubbed at his jaw.
“It meant I only had a 50 percent chance of being able to shift into my bear. It also meant Dad watched Mom age and die. Right before his eyes, she withered away, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Now, he’s all alone in the world, and it’s a fucking sad thing to see.”
She understood him then. His fear of this thing between them made perfect sense. If things progressed between them and she faced her own crunch time, would she turn? Maybe. Or maybe she’d let him down. Decide to remain human. In this moment, she couldn’t say. Being strong and disease-free sounded amazing. But being bonded to one person for a long, long time scared her to death. Her own parents’ crappy marriage made her all too aware of how ending up with the wrong person caused a lifetime of pain and regret. But the idea of her and Bren appealed. She didn’t particularly have much in her life. Her mum loved her but recently had become terribly involved in the local women’s group, meaning she had little time for Charlie. Her dad moved away years ago. Her brother didn’t live nearby anymore, and they saw him a couple of times a year. She had a few work friends, but they were more acquaintances than anything else. And her job was okay. Interesting enough, but not amazingly so. Her life came in various shades of beige. Not bad, but not good either. What would life with Bren be like?
Chapter 8
Bren spent the next two days getting more and more wound up. Despite using a condom, having sex with Charlie pushed him closer to her. Made his bear crazy about the damn woman. His plan to drive her out of their home became delayed by more blasted snow.
He decided, if she couldn’t leave, then he’d do the next best thing and ignore her. Avoid her as much as possible. So he’d hit the gym twice a day, needing the workout to stop him from marching into her room and taking her all over again. The intense exercise took hours and provided a handy excuse to avoid Charlie and the rest of the clan.
He’d also spent time with Justin in one of the big barns by the house, watching with fascination as Justin created a ring out of iron for Charlotte, to protect her from the fae.
He’d overheard her tell Aiyana she still experienced the voices. The two women had been cooking up a storm in the kitchen with Eric.
Charlotte explained how the good ones were urging her to give things a go with him, but the bad ones, the dark fae, whispered at her to leave.
Eric and Aiyana had moved around one another seamlessly, every now and again touching an arm or a shoulder. Their love shining out from each gesture and each look. He noticed Charlotte taking stock of their bond and saw her own eyes soften at one point when they kissed. Unsure how he felt about any of it, he’d taken the coward’s option and crept down the hall away from the bustling kitchen.
The evening meals consisted of strained conversation, many darted glances among his clan, and Charlie doing her best to act cheery and upbeat. Already half lost in her, Bren sensed her true emotions. Confusion. Anxiety. A fair bit of anger, which he assumed she held for him. Not that he blamed her. What sort of coward ran away from their problems? He did, came the unhappy answer.
His avoidance meant they didn’t talk much, but she did speak to the others at dinner. Whilst he might not have chatted with her himself, he listened carefully to all she said. He learned her friends weren’t particularly nice, her job was okay but nothing amazing, and her mum had become wrapped up in her own life recently. Basically, Charlie sounded lonely, and it made his heart ache. At one point, she’d mentioned how if she lived where they did, she’d have a mini Shetland pony, and she’d spent about half an hour telling Aiyana how cute they were.
So, yeah, she might not know it, but Bren was getting to know Charlie, even if he kept his distance.
He made his way to the living room, where he sat and scowled at the TV, dreading another uncomfortable meal where he suffered the torment of being in the same room with Charlie and not holding her. Not touching her.
“Guess what?” Kyle came into the room.
“What?” he grunted.
“Snow’s stopped.”
He hoisted himself up and strolled over to the window. Light gray skies greeted him, but not one drop of snow fell.
“Went out to see to the horses a bit ago, and it feels warm out there compared to yesterday. Maybe if it melts all day, you can get her out of here by tonight. If you still want to, of course.”
“It’s not a case of wanting,” he ground out. “You know as much. It’s about what is best for both of us. Me and her.”
“You’ll be like a bear with a sore head with her gone. Maybe more so than when you met and she tried to bash your bear brains in with a rock,” Kyle quipped.
“Ha-bloody-ha.”
He decided to hit the gym for one more workout and see if, by the time he was done, they’d be able to get the truck out.
Thirty minutes into a punishing set, Aiyana came through the door, a deep divot between her brows telegraphing her worry.
“You seen Charlie?” she asked
“No. I thought she was with you guys. Why?”
“Can’t find her anywhere.”
Brenin stopped lifting and set the weights back down. He calmed his mind, shut down the constant stream of thought from his human side, and let his bear take over. He scented the air, listened, and opened himself to the deep sixth sense bears shared with those they bonded with. Nothing. Absolutely nada.
A nasty sliver of unease wormed its way through his body.
“Come on.” He jumped up from the bench and out of the gym, Aiyana hot on his heels. By the time he reached the long corridor, he’d broken into a jog.
He headed for the porch and grabbed a jacket. Pausing for a moment, hand on the door handle, he tossed his head toward the stairs. “Take another check upstairs. I’m going out to see if she’s in the barn with the horses or hanging out with Justin.”
Ten minutes later, Bren came back to the house empty-handed. He opened the door and stomped the snow off his boots against the step. Aiyana rushed out of the kitchen.
“She’s nowhere, Bren. I’ve looked all over and so has Kyle.”
The usual smug, piss-taking expression Kyle had worn since Bren became leader had been replaced by a worried frown.
“Fuck!” He hit the wall, and something huge washed over him. A tidal wave of grief. Struggling to breathe, he tried to tamp down his panic. Holy shit, what if she’d gone out there and gotten lost in the snow? She’d die of exposure in the weather up on these desolate moors. The grief intensified, and his stomach rolled as he pictured her lost and cold.
He’d imagined that by keeping away after his tactical error of getting horizontal with Charlie, he’d avoid any attachment. More fool him.
He still didn’t plan on letting her stay, but he needed to know she’d be back home, safe. Needed to picture her out there in the world somewhere, living her life.
This is your fault. You pushed her away, and now we will always live with the knowledge we failed our mate. His bear pulled no punches in the stark message it gave him.
“She’s not our damned mate,” he snarled aloud.
Kyle raised his eyebrows, and for a moment, his usual snarky self returned. “Jeez, he’s arguing with his own bear. Not long now before he ends up losing his mind altogether.” He rolled his eyes at Aiyana, but she smacked his arm and turned to Bren.
“Do you sense her?”
“Now, no. But normally, yes.” Despite locking himself in his room or the gym for the last two days, he’d been aware of her presence in the house. An emotional splinter digging under his psychic skin. He hadn’t sensed her for a couple of hours, he realized with a sickening jolt.
“She’s been gone awhile.”
“I hope to hell she didn’t try to hike out of here,
” Aiyana said.
His thoughts precisely.
He rushed to the porch and checked the coats and boots. “Doesn’t look like she took anything. She knows her jacket is useless in this weather, and I don’t see her running off without a proper coat.”
“Come on.” Kyle clapped him on the back. “Let’s shift. Go out there and see if we can track her down.”
He nodded. Yeah. Time to let his bear out and hope to God the damn thing didn’t take over and refuse to let him be in charge.
“I’m coming, too.” Aiyana started to shuck off her clothes.
“No, stay here in case she comes back. I’ll grab Eric and Justin to come with.”
“Bren, don’t be obtuse. You know I’m the best tracker in our clan.”
She spoke the truth. How a turned bear ended up with the best nose of any of them was a mystery, but she did. He grunted his assent and tore his own clothes off.
“We’ll stop by the barn and let the others know what we’re doing.” Kyle kicked off his underwear and ran out the door, giving a holler as his feet hit the snow. He dropped onto all fours, and a bear appeared in his place with nothing more than a few grunts and cracking of joints. The change seemed painless, quick, but it always hurt a little.
Not as big as Brenin but way grizzlier in appearance, Kyle made a frightful sight.
Bren kicked his own remaining clothing off and joined Kyle out in the snow. The frigid air hit his naked body, stealing his breath. A moment later, though, he stood as his bear, and his thick fur protected him from the elements.
Once Aiyana joined them, the three trooped into the barn. Kyle flashed back to human form with a pained wince and told the guys what they were doing. Justin elected to join them, and Eric said he’d man the home front in case Charlotte showed up back at the house.
Out in the snowy fields, Aiyana and the others put their noses down and scented the ground, every so often stopping and snorting the air too. Bren concentrated more on the mental link between him and the female. He waited to see if at any point the familiar, pain in his butt, splinter in his side feelings made themselves known.
He realized how utterly stupid his plan to avoid her had been, when every single nanosecond, he’d been achingly aware of Charlie’s presence in his home.
His bear paced back and forth, hating the slow progress but knowing they needed to be thorough. After about an hour of walking over by the eastern edge of their land, Bren finally sensed something.
Charlie! Faint as a whisper, less a splinter and more a mournful echo, but it tasted of her.
He growled low to the others to catch their attention and indicated with his snout the direction to head.
They began to run, and once they reached the boundary of the fence, Bren simply crashed right through it. They’d fix it later.
Five minutes later, they reached a spot in the woods where the trees backed up against a high wall. Bren sensed Charlie here, in this spot, but no sign of her remained.
He raised himself up on his back legs and crashed his huge paws into the ground in frustration, letting out a massive roar. Where had his girl gone?
Chapter 9
Charlotte didn’t know how she’d ended up here in this strange place with these women. She’d been with the bear shifters, she remembered as much, and tried to cling on to the memory. Every now and then, a moment of clarity would hit her, sun shining through the cloud of her confusion. It never lasted. Most of the time she found herself confused and scared. Her head hurt all the time, and a deep, aching fatigue wouldn’t let her go. She’d been called outside the door of Bren’s home, into the snow and cold that much she recalled, but by whom? And why did she go? As she tried to focus on the moment, it skittered away out of her grasp.
The memories of her mum, her colleagues, and the bear shifters she’d met began to flicker, tentative flames about to go out. This kept happening to her. She’d grab on to a memory of her life, something real and tangible, and it would skitter away out of her grasp before she could properly examine it.
She stared out of the window across the snow-covered lawn and blinked. What had she been thinking about? She tried to remember, but it had gone, dancing away out of reach, like insects buzzing on a summer breeze. She sighed and looked around the sumptuous room. Somehow, she knew the house like the back of her hand. She ought to, the women she lived with told her. They said she’d lived here for years, but she knew it wasn’t true. She couldn’t have been here years. Time seemed to make no sense here though, so maybe they were right. Perhaps she’d been here a long time. The thought filled her with a sense of all-encompassing loss, but for what, she didn’t know.
What had she been thinking about, damn it? Whenever she tried to focus on all the things nagging at the corner of her mind, they slipped away. They taunted her thoughts, important things lurking at the edge of her consciousness, only to dance out of reach as soon as she reached for them.
Her home was so beautiful. She and the others who lived here were lucky indeed. The three young women she shared the immense dwelling with walked into the massive dining room, interrupting her thoughts.
One brunette, one blonde, and one redhead. They all looked like goddesses. Such curves and thick waves of hair. All of them possessed smiles to break any man’s heart. Where were the men? Again, she tried to focus on this particular conundrum, but it eluded her. A faint memory of a big, handsome man teased her, but she couldn’t quite picture him. Every time she tried, his face went out of focus. Something about him made her long for some other life, some other time. Bren! Of course, she’d been with Bren, and then she’d gone out of the house, into the snow. She needed to focus on the memory, not let it escape her yet again.
“Stop worrying,” the redhead said. She blew some sort of scented dust from the palm of her hand at Charlotte and smiled. The memory she’d been clinging to vanished, and she found she didn’t care.
Charlotte sighed and focused her attention on the table groaning with mouthwatering food. Sweets of all kinds decorated its gleaming surface. Turkish delight sat frosted in delicate silver bowls. Marshmallow trees stood sentry at either end of the table. Chocolates of so many varieties jostled for space on long, silver platters.
The drinks matched the food in their decadence. Fresh lemonade, iced teas, champagne, and rich red wines tempted her. Perhaps a drink? She needed something to calm her restless mind. Somehow, she didn’t belong here. Despite these women telling her she did. Despite having no solid memories of anywhere else, Charlie didn’t belong here. The thought poked at her, niggling away like a bad tooth. The more she focused on it, the more unreal everything seemed.
The table rippled as she stared at it. One moment, the feast to end all feasts displayed itself before her. The next, rotten apples, hard, crusty bread, and some sort of foul-smelling ale replaced the sumptuous delights.
“Oh, darling. Stop your musings.” Cassandra, the blonde, clapped her lovely hands together, shaking the moment from Charlie and bringing the room back into focus. “Let us eat, my dear. And drink. Have some more champagne. It is your favorite, after all.”
She accepted the glass thrust her way and took a delicate sip.
“More, my dear. Drink it all down. It’s a wonderful aperitif.”
Some faint but insistent instinct told Charlie not to drink the champagne. She’d been chugging the stuff back for what seemed a lifetime, and it served to make her fogginess worse. Along with the dust these women kept blowing over her. Instead, she pretended to swallow more. And why pretend to these dear females? Her…sisters? No, not sisters, they weren’t related. Close friends? Oh, here she went again with her flighty memories. Who were they again?
The ground shook beneath her, snapping her out of her head, and Cassandra let out a dismayed cry of surprise. A huge roar filled the room. Oh, the sound. So melancholy and angry and filled with regret. It made tears sting her eyes. It made her shake. It made her want to run toward it. Why would she want to move toward such a terr
ifyingly loud cry from what must surely be a fearsome creature? She did, though. She wanted to run out of this room and toward that sound with all her might.
“Make it stop,” shrieked Clarissa, the redhead. Or was it Claire? She forgot yet again.
The roar only intensified, and the ground shook once more. Suddenly, the room splintered right down the middle. One half remained a sumptuous banquet hall, but the other half transformed into a tired old room full of decay and mold.
The women next to her lost their beauty, their hair turning dull, pretty faces becoming hard, angry, and bitter. They were all hard lines and sharp angles with beady little eyes full of mischief. Not the good sort of mischief either but the bad kind. Evil, even.
Escape. Get away. An inner voice made itself known above the fog and confusion. She needed to run, but where?
“Charlotte!” a voice called out her name. Deep, gruff, and male. She recognized it.
“Brenin,” she shouted, unaware of how she knew his name. “I’m trapped.”
“You’re not, honey. Not in reality. Their magic traps you.” A woman’s familiar voice reached her.
Aiyana. She knew these people. Really knew them, unlike the three women moving toward her with determination in their steely stares. The bear shifters! She almost cried out with joy.
“This isn’t real.” She stomped her foot and then picked up a glass pitcher and threw it at the women with a yell.
The very air around her shattered, crystal-like shards burst into the air from nowhere, and she covered her ears at the high-pitched explosion. All around her, tiny iridescent drops floated down like sparkling confetti, and the women gave piercing screams as the illusion disappeared completely.
Cold. Freezing cold. She stood in the middle of the woods, snow all around her.
What the hell? Disoriented and dizzy, she tried to stay upright. Like a freight train, her memories rushed at her headlong, filling her mind with all she knew before dark magic took it away. Her head pounded and her heart fluttered high in her throat. Nausea overwhelmed her as she tried to process it all.
