by V. Vaughn
The only thing they agreed on was that it was a time of renewal.
And how could you be against renewal?
Krista had dug her ugliest sweater out of a storage bag. Why had she saved it? She’d moved to Bearfield from New York only a few months ago and she’d left most of her things behind. But not the sweater. Had she known on some level she’d need it? Had the Great Bear been calling her even then?
The sweater was handmade and showed a dog and a cat both dressed for the holidays kissing under mistletoe. “Love Not Hate,” it said. It was a hideous clash of colors, but at least the slogan wasn’t bad. And it was definitely a talking point in case she bumped into any city leaders or local business owners who could open their hearts and wallets to feed the homeless.
Her charity already operated on a shoestring budget and if they couldn’t get a new influx of capital in the new tear, they wouldn’t even have the shoestrings.
She was going to the ceremony with ulterior motives. They weren’t the same ulterior motives that her cousin hoped she had though. But Krista figured that if you were going to be sneaky, doing it to feed and house people made it okay. Especially on Christmas.
The neighborhood gossip said it was going to be a crowded year at the lightning ceremony. Families from all over the west coast were expected to be there to ask for blessings, to seek out community, and maybe to marry off their eligible sons. It was an old fashioned way of doing things, sure, but shifters had a way of sniffing out their fated mates, so it made sense to get a whole bunch of them together.
She’d expected a crowd—maybe a hundred people—but what she saw was madness.
Ten thousand people filled the downtown streets. Every inch of sidewalk and avenue was absolutely stuffed with people. They squeezed into doorways. They filled the cafe and the bakery and even the movie theater. And at the edges the people filled the quiet neighborhood streets.
It reminded Krista of protest marches, but without the signs or the police presence.
As she walked down the street and joined the march, Krista saw every one of her neighbors and old faces from the past. It wasn’t just the shifter families or the shifter-kin like her. She saw witches as well and other people that made her nose tingle in that supernatural way. And loads of normal people all singing and hugging and just being so damn nice to each other.
And as grumpy as she may have been when her cousin was pestering her, she couldn’t deny that being amongst all those big-hearted people didn’t fill her with an optimism for the future. Despite herself, she found herself smiling and singing with a group of women who for some reasons were running down all of Beyonce’s greatest hits.
And they were about half way through Single Ladies, with Krista shaking her ass and singing about putting a ring on it, when she saw none other than Brandon Carver himself staring at her from across the block.
2
He scented her before he saw her.
Even in a crowd of ten thousand people, he recognized Krista Foster immediately. How could he not? She was the one he failed. She was the guilt he carried like a stone in a his heart. She was the only girl he’d ever loved.
He’d come to the Yule ceremony with friends—other guys from the squad and their wives and boyfriends and children. He was the only one of them who was still single. It was him, Bran Carver, the lone wolf, and twenty other people who were all happily entangled with each other. He loved his friends. They’d put him back together after he got discharged from the Marines. He’d been half a man—maybe less—but with their patience and care and giant open hearts, he’d found a way forward.
But—and it hurt to admit this—being with them was sometimes worse than being alone. If he was alone at least he couldn’t see quite so clearly what he was missing. He wouldn’t see the smiles and the gentle love and the happy children if he just kept himself away from the world. His best friends of the bunch were a married couple, Adrian and Zuzanna. They were standing at his side when he spotted Krista across the crowd. Adrian was a shifter like him. And like with him, the war had been extra hard to shake. But in Zu, Adrian found himself, and in their little daughter, Sasha, he’d found a wellspring of love that was blinding to witness.
Little Sasha was only three, but she had a hand-made sign grasped in her rainbow mittens that she’d drawn herself. It was a mixed media collage of My Little Pony stickers, glitter glue, and feathers that swirled together to make something that looked sort of like a heart. Whenever Adrian spoke to her, Bran could sense the love in his friend. With his enhanced shifter senses, every scent told a story. Every sound was a symphony. And ever since Sasha had come along, Bran could hardly stand to be around his best friend.
It wasn’t jealousy—he didn’t want Zu or Sasha for himself, no. It was envy. Adrian had gone through the same hell in Afghanistan that he had. He’d been broken in the same ways. But here they both were now and in such different circumstances. Adrian was a whole person now and Bran yearned for that same completeness.
“Carver, who is that?” Adrian asked in a pointed tone. What scent was Bran giving off, he wondered distantly, that made his friend sound so alarmed.
Bran heard him, but his attention was fixed on Krista.
How could she be there? It was impossible.
After what had happened, after he’d betrayed her, and after he’d come home from his tours of duty he’d ran as far away as he could. Right to the edge of the continent. Literally, he’d ran the entire way. Sometimes as a wolf and sometimes as a man. He just had to get as far from her scent as he could. The Marines had dropped him off in Cali, but he hadn’t even gone to see his father or his old pack. No, he’d just run and run and run.
The pack never reached out to him when he was in Afghanistan, so why should he reach out to them when he got back?
He’d run so far to get away from her.
She was supposed to be in New York.
He should have been safe.
But here she was.
It was like that Death in Samara story Adrian used to tell on patrol: A man, on his way to the market, sees Death himself in the middle of the road. Death looks surprised but before the man can even think, he turns and runs. He never goes home. He never goes to the market. He sells all he has and buys a train ticket to Samara, but as the train is pulling into the station there’s a screeching sound and it derails, killing the man and so many others. The man stands up from his body and sees Death himself there, all skeletal with robes and a scythe. And the man says, “How can you be here? I thought I left you behind on the road to the market?” And Death doesn’t laugh, Death doesn’t smile, because Death can do neither of those things. Death just says, “I was surprised to see you on that road, for in my schedule I knew I should see you today in Samara.”
Adrian told that story all the time. The point being, Bran guessed, that you can’t run from fate. If a Taliban bullet has your name on it, there’s nothing you can do. Better to face your fate like a man and do your best on the way.
Bran had run from Krista.
But she’d found him here, in Bearfield.
She looked better than he remembered. His father had confiscated all of the photos he had of Krista before he’d sent him to the Marine recruiter, so he didn’t even have a snapshot of her to carry with him, just his memories.
He’d expected that in the five years since he’d seen her last, his memories had idealized her. There was no way anyone could really be that beautiful.
The dimples when she smiles? Imagination.
The way her hair caught the sun and looked like fresh honey? He’d made that up.
The swell of her hips? The fullness of her breasts? Her wry smile and those bright eyes? All figments of his imagination.
But, no. They weren’t.
She was with a gaggle of women of all ages, dancing hypnotically to some pop song. They must be her friends, her community. Look at all the love she’s found for herself, he thought. Look at how fulfilled she is.
; Her scent told him nothing. It just screamed Krista at him over and over, like an alarm. Was she well or ill? Happy or sad? Single or mated? These were things a shifter could tell from scenting someone, but not her. Never her. Her scent was too perfect, too right. It was the best possible thing to smell at any given second of any given day and it broke his heart anew with each breath.
Adrian shook him. “Are you okay? Is the crowd too much?” He turned to Zu. “I think Carver is having a reaction. We need to get him out of here. Take Sasha, I’ll escort him back to base camp.”
His friend tried to get him to walk by pushing him and pulling him. He said words, but Bran didn’t hear them. His thoughts just screamed Krista over and over.
“We have to leave,” Adrian said.
Krista, his senses told him. She’s here.
“You can’t panic shift in front of all this people, Carver. These are mortals. Well, most of them are. They can’t know about you,” Adrian said.
Krista, his senses told him. She’s right there.
“Soldier, this is an order,” Adrian said in a tone of voice he hadn’t used in half a decade.
Krista! his senses screamed.
Then Adrian brought his mouth right up next to Bran’s ear and growled, putting as much wolf into it as he could without terrifying every animal for blocks around.
Bran blinked and shook his head. “Adrian,” he said. “Over there. That’s Krista.”
Adrian stood straight. “What? The Krista? Your Krista? The one you never shut up about?”
Bran nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “I have to go, Adrian. Now. She can’t see me. She can’t ever see me. My wolf wants her but I can’t do this. I can’t face her.”
Zuzanna came over, with Sasha in tow. “What’s going on?”
Adrian smiled. “Over there, those Beyoncé dancers? One of them is Krista.”
“Holy shit,” Zu gasped.
“Mom said a grown-up word,” Sasha laughed.
“Get over there, you dummy.” Zu slapped Adrian’s arm.
“I can’t, Zu. I just can’t. I love her. I always have. But after I vanished how she could still love me? I don’t deserve that. I know she doesn’t. She never wrote. She never tried to see me. She never asked about me. If I go over there and she looks at me with disgust or hate in her eyes, it will kill me.”
Adrian sighed and exchanged a look with Zu.
“Bran,” Adrian said. “You can’t run away from Samara.”
Zu jumped up and down and screamed, “Hey, Krista!” She waved her arms around like a windmill having a slap fight with an octopus.
And before Bran could dart away or shift or do anything, she turned.
Krista turned.
She saw him.
She recognized him.
And she smiled.
3
It was Bran. Bran Carver. The man who haunted her dreams. The man who had broken her into little shards of glass. And he was walking over to her.
He looked different. The past five years had changed him. It was still unmistakably Bran, but it was like all the soft boy bits had been rubbed away and what was left was pure man. He’d been an awkward teenager, lanky and clumsy and loveable. But that boy was gone. Now he may as well have been carved out of marble for how perfect he looked.
“They should’ve sent a poet,” she breathed as he slipped through the crowd toward her. His eyes never left hers.
As he neared, she had time to appreciate how he’d changed. His hair was cut short now and maybe she at first missed his messy mop hanging in his eyes, but the cut suited him and revealed his high cheekbones and his gorgeous gray eyes. He was wearing a white t-shirt that strained against his biceps with every step. It threatened to rip and Krista found herself rooting against the thin fabric. His arms were solid and thick and strong, with one of them heavily inked up and the other not. He had broad shoulders and a trim waist that she intensely wanted to wrap her legs around.
He was all white t-shirt and blue jeans and James Dean lean and every molecule in her body both craved him and wanted to run away as fast as possible.
He’s going to hurt you again, a little voice inside said. He’s going to kiss you and make you fall in love with him and then he’ll disapear and you’ll be even more broken than before.
How many broken people did she see every day when she fed the homeless? Hundreds? She’d heard so many of their stories and knew how fast life could turn on you. All it took was one bad diagnosis. One accident. One broken heart. It just took one really bad day to take everything away from you.
Brandon Carver might have looked like the best thing in the world to wrap your arms and and legs around, but Krista knew in her soul that he was that One Bad Day made flesh.
He walked through the crowd of revelers, maneuvering without looking, using that preternatural shifter grace to never bump anyone, never trip. He was locked on her like a heat-seeking missile and he was going to detonate and destroy her heart all over again.
And then he was there.
Right in front of her. Brandon Carver himself. His eyes were shadowed and she couldn’t guess at what he was thinking. They were inches apart, breathing the same air, and the scent of him was all cinnamon and clean sweat. His smell hit her and she lost her breath. How could she have forgotten how perfect he smelled? No one else in the world smelled like this man.
He watched her without speaking, his gray eyes flicking between her lips and her eyes.
For a moment, Krista wondered if he was real or if she was hallucinating. He was like this beautiful ghost from her past returned to haunt her.
She put up a hand and touched his chest—his solid chest that burned with his shifter heat. Her heart exploded in her chest, beating so fast that any passing hummingbirds would tell her to cool it down a bit.
“Bran,” she said and her voice caught and broke.
He stepped closer, too close, so close. It was the kind of closeness that could only mean one thing. He took her face in his hands and brought his lips to hers,. He kissed her gently at first but then with a savage ferocity. It was the kind of kiss that you never forget, the kind that reaches deep into you and marks you forever. It was so hot and real that she thought her clothes might just fall right off her body, but so what if they did? Bran was here. Bran who she’d lost. He was back and he was kissing her and she wanted to be naked with him immediately.
Her blood boiled and with every stroke of his tongue against hers, the flames inside her grew. He had rekindled something she thought had been dead with just a kiss, just one long slow deep kiss that lasted a thousand years.
Something inside her begged her to run, now. To get away before it was too late. But it was already too late. From the first touch of his lips, it’d been too late. She was under his spell.
Bran’s hands slid down her back, pulling her close against his hot and firm body. He took her ass in his hands and kneaded it hungrily and with every touch Krista’s pussy grew more and more damp, until her panties were soaked and her juices trickled down her leg.
His mouth on hers gave her life and his tongue reached deep into her, taking away any shred of resistance. Oh god, she was his. She’d always been his. How could she have forgotten?
Silently she said a prayer to the Great Bear spirit. Let me have this. Even if it’s just for one day, let me have this. Please.
Krista’s hands fluttered against Bran’s firm torso, alighting on his arms, his face, his back. She didn’t know where to touch, everything about him felt so hard and hot and right.
Bran’s fingers moved down her ass and between her thighs and rubbed at her sex through her clothes and it felt so deliciously right that she nearly came right there. She stroked his back, tracing the lines of his muscles, dragging her nails against his skin. She was rewarded for her scratches with a deep growl that rumbled out of him and into her like a golden fire. Krista was drunk on him and with each kiss the intoxication deepened.
Around them the
crowd of thousands began to sing.
She scratched him again, harder, and he growled again, deeper now. There was a possessiveness to the growl, a note to it that said to her in a way she couldn’t begin to articulate You are mine. His finger stroked her and the slick folds of her pussy opened for him, craving him. She was nothing but lust now, all the way down to her core.
Was she still standing on the street with thousands of people crowding in on all sides? It didn’t matter. There were only two people in the world now. Bran pressed hard against her, his hips rocking as he rubbed himself against her. His cock was harder than iron and impossibly big. It was like a special effect. The crotch of his jeans should come with a warning: Caution Objects Inside Are Way Bigger Than They Appear.
Krista’s hands caressed his chest and then slid down between them. She traced the outline of his hardness with her fingertips. In all their years of dating, she’d never seen his cock. Never touched it.
Because she’d been so good.
Because they’d been so careful.
Because he’d left her without warning.
Even though her blood was a savage boil and every hormone in her body was singing hallelujah, Krista pushed Bran away. She turned, and stumbled into the crowd.
“I can’t do this,” she sobbed. “You can’t hurt me like this again.”
The thinnest thread of sanity saved her, yanking her away like a bungee cord tied to normalcy. Without looking back to see if he was chasing her, she ran away.
4
There’d been so much he wanted to say, to explain to her. He needed to tell her why he left, about the things that had gone down with his father. But as soon as he’d gotten close enough, he’d lost all control.
He couldn’t have spoken a word if his life depended on it.
Being near her—it was like every fantasy of the life he’d ran away from had come crashing down on him in an instant and for a moment he was living in his dreams.
