Finally, she came to the landing, and peered into the cave. There was a ragged covering pulled partially across the entrance, but Jennifer was able to see into the hollow just fine, and what she saw startled her; apart from the fact that the walls were stone, the cave almost looked like a regular home—if a little quaint and old-fashioned. The floor of the cave was covered in wooden planks, shining in the candlelight with some kind of varnish and covered in one or two places with thick, dark rugs. There was a small, rough bed against one of the walls, and a carved fireplace along the back of the cave. While there was no antique wingback, there was clearly hand-made furniture scattered around the space: a table, a workbench, stools. In one comfortable-looking, high-backed wooden chair, the mysterious man sat, head tilted back as he panted. Jennifer’s eyes widened as she saw he had torn away the dirty, faded shirt he had been wearing; briefly, irrelevantly she wondered what had happened to his clothes when he had transformed. He was still wearing dusty, worn jeans, but his chest glistened with sweat, streaked with blood that had smeared and dripped from two wounds: one to his arm, and the other close to his ribs. Jennifer saw the man wince as he started to sit up, clearly intending to do something about them, but dazed and confused by the pain.
“Let me help!” she called out, stepping through the rough curtain and into the light of the rough home. The man’s eyes flew open wide and he stared at her in unabashed shock as she came into his cave-house, looking around for something that she could use to bandage his wounds—wounds he had received in the process of helping her get away from Liam.
“You ran away,” the man said, almost accusingly. “You shouldn’t be here—you should be on your way back into town.” Jennifer shook her head, watching with only a little wariness as she approached the man. He had cleaned out the wounds themselves, though not the smears of blood that had transferred to other parts of his arm and chest. Jennifer pressed her lips together, examining the wounds from a distance.
“I realized you weren’t chasing me, and then I thought… I thought you might be injured, and you are.” She looked around once more, trying to think of what she could use as a bandage. There was nothing at hand; she frowned and looked down at her clothes. Her leggings would have to do. They were clean enough, apart from her sweat. Jennifer slipped them off of her hips underneath her skirt, kicking them down from her knees and away from her ankles.
“I don’t need any help,” the man said harshly, his dark brows puckering in a frown. Jennifer rolled her eyes. He started to rise and Jennifer, unafraid, gave him a firm push down onto the chair. She ripped lengths of her tights into makeshift bandages, scowling at him firmly and pressing her lips together.
“Shut up. You got these helping me; you’re going to let me help you dress them.” The man watched her with a kind of wild animal wariness as Jennifer folded a piece of her leggings into a patch and then secured it over the wound on his arm; she ripped the seam of her legging lengthwise and wrapped it around and around the muscled limb, tightening it and tying it down with a knot. She did the same with the wound along his ribs, wrapping the fabric awkwardly around his torso, trying not to notice the rippling of muscle along his abdomen.
“You’ve helped me. Go away.” The man struggled once more to stand, and Jennifer sighed; he may have saved her from Liam, but he seemed to be every bit as bull-headed as the man he had fought off for her safety. She slipped his arm over her shoulders and started to guide him towards his bed. Jennifer shook her head, wondering at the fact that this man had apparently lived off the grid for a long time and seemed to be doing so quite comfortably. She wondered just how he managed, on his own the way he was. The bigger question of his nature—of what kind of man could transform into a bear—still plagued her as she helped him to settle heavily on his rough bed. He had lost a good bit of blood on the trek back to his quarters; that was the only explanation that Jennifer could think of for the fact that he didn’t seem willing to fight her anymore.
As the bear-man settled into a quick, deep sleep, Jennifer felt fatigue creeping into her own bones. She had certainly not been planning to have an altercation with Liam, or to climb up a cliff, or take such a long hike in the woods; and the last thing she thought the night would hold would be to bandage a strange man who had taken injuries helping her get away from Liam, much less help him into bed. She bit her lip; he was obviously safe. Incapacitated as he was, he was no threat, and Jennifer couldn’t shake the kind look of his eyes when he had been in his bear form, looking at her in the darkness. No—he was no threat to her.
Exhausted, she slipped into the tiny space next to him on the bed. The mysterious man was as warm as a furnace, and in moments, Jennifer found herself breathing slowly and evenly, sleep overtaking her almost as quickly as it had him. Maybe in the morning, she thought idly as she began to drop off into unconsciousness, she would find out just what kind of person was capable of turning into a bear.
Chapter Three
Jennifer woke suddenly, aware of light in the cave and the absence of the heat of the mysterious man’s body behind her. She sat up in the strangely comfortable bed, looking around startled. For a moment she was disoriented, unable to completely remember what had happened the night before or why she was in the homey cave. Memory flooded her: Liam’s crude come-on, his attempt to force her to get close to him, the appearance of the strange man and his transformation. Jennifer gasped, remembering finally that she had crawled into bed with the strange man after dressing his wounds and watching him fall into a deep sleep. “You!” she cried out, looking for and finding the strange man as he moved about in the early morning gloom of his cave. He had a bundle of clothes under his arm, and when she cried out, he turned to look at her with his odd golden eyes.
“You didn’t have to help me,” he said, pressing his lips together. He was slightly pale, and he staggered slightly as he stepped away from the hamper he had taken the clothes from.
“You changed into a bear. How did you do that? What are you? Why do you live here?” Jennifer sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the bed.
“I would have been fine if you had just left me,” The man insisted, giving her a slightly petulant look. Jennifer shook her head.
“How long have you been living off the grid like this? And how do you manage to do this… how are you so comfortable?” Jennifer stood, gesturing around the cave of comforts. The man grunted, reaching down to shift the clothing in his arms. He let out a low growl.
“You should just go back to where you came from,” he said. Jennifer snorted.
“Not a good chance of that now. Besides, you still need help; look at you.” The man shook his head.
“I’m fine.” He started toward the entrance to the cave and then crumpled in pain, falling to his knees. Jennifer sighed. She was right; in some respects, the mysterious man who had come to her rescue was, in fact, every bit as bull-headed as Liam, although he seemed to be less interested in enforcing his will on her than he was in being left alone.
“You’re not fine. You’re still in pain, and you’re still recovering from those wounds. Let me help you. I promise I won’t tell anyone about your place or anything I’ve seen. I just… sort of feel like I owe it to you, since the only reason you’re hurt is because you went after Liam for me.” The man closed his eyes for a moment before sighing and gesturing mutely for her to approach.
Jennifer collected the clothes that had fallen from his grasp and helped the man back onto his feet. “Can you make the climb down?” she asked him, remembering that while the steps and handholds had made it easier for her, she hadn’t been injured. But then, she thought, he had managed to get up to his lair, hadn’t he?
“Yes,” the man said, his voice rough. She caught the sight of a bright flush in his cheeks and smiled slightly to herself at the thought of his wounded masculine pride. At least, she thought, if he was going to let her help him, she might be able to find out more about the man.
In spite of his wounds, the man see
med determined to get through his normal routine, and Jennifer went with him, helping him clean his clothes in the river, scrubbing and beating them against a rock. She tried to get him to talk about himself, but for the first hour at least, it seemed utterly impossible; he answered her questions with grunts or not at all, his monosyllables interspersed with grumbling comments that he was fine and that she could leave at any time. He insisted on hanging the clothes to dry himself, showing Jennifer the line he had set up away from view, behind the screen of trees and brush. The sun shone down on the fabric, the wind rippled through it, and Jennifer thought that in spite of the way the rough washing faded the colors, the clothes would probably come out of the experience smelling fresh from the breeze, and warm from the sun.
He broke his monotonous insistence on not answering her questions to bark softly to her to be as quiet as possible as he led her deeper into the woods, beyond the river. The green canopy of the trees filtered the light, but it was not nearly as creepy in the deep woods during the morning as it had been the night before. As they walked quietly—the mysterious man somehow managing to be almost completely silent, preternaturally so—Jennifer could hear the sounds of the denizens of the forest going about their own daily routines, scuttling through the brush, flitting from branch to branch. She identified a few of the bird calls, but not all of them. Unaccustomed to working so hard so early, Jennifer’s stomach began nagging, twisting with hunger inside of her; but she didn’t even entertain the notion of asking the man what he had available for breakfast. He didn’t even want her there with him—if she admitted to needing to eat, he’d probably just renew his efforts to get her to leave.
Abruptly, the man stopped, glancing at her with the faintest trace of amusement in his eyes before he leaned forward and stripped a low-lying bush of berries. The dark juices stained his fingers as he extended his hand to her. “Here,” he said. “They’re good. Sweet and ripe.” He ate a few to demonstrate the safety of them, and Jennifer plucked one from his open hand, popping it in her mouth. The berry burst with a rush of sweetness, and whether or not they truly were safe, she knew she had to have more. The bear-man chuckled as she snatched the rest of them from his rough palm, eating them quickly. “Your stomach was growling loudly enough to alert the prey,” he said with a glimmer of a smile twitching at his lips, leaning in and stripping another bush and handing her the next handful.
“My apologies; it’s not every day I’m indebted to a bear-man and feel the need to tag along with him without any breakfast.” The man snorted.
“You’re not indebted to me. You can leave at any time. I’m fine.” Jennifer shook her head.
“You got hurt attacking the asshole who was trying to… well, I’m not sure what exactly he had in mind, but I am pretty sure I would’ve gotten hurt in the process even if I’d been able to fend him off.” The man shrugged.
“If you’ve had enough?” he gestured that they would go on, and Jennifer nodded, half-wishing for something more substantial. The berries had at least given her a rush of something in her stomach, and they would help her keep up with the surprisingly agile injured man who was leading her… somewhere.
He stopped again and knelt in the underbrush, lifting foliage away carefully to expose a snare among the branches. Jennifer’s eyes widened at the sight of the rabbit caught in it, cleanly killed by a jerk of its neck when the snare activated. It was plump and healthy, and would certainly make a good meal. The shape of her strange benefactor’s days began to clear before Jennifer’s eyes as he extracted the rabbit and reset the snare, handing the dead animal to her to carry. “We’ll skin it at the river.” He moved to another snare and then another, each of them loaded with a small animal of some kind.
Loaded down with three healthy, heavy animals, Jennifer followed her guide’s lead back to the river. Jennifer had never been terribly fond of game, but her stomach began to growl at the thought of all the protein the animals represented and she had to admit that rabbit stew, or roasted squirrel, would taste good if you were hungry enough. “How long will this much meat last you?” she asked, as the man sat down by the edge of the river and took a long, thin knife out of his jeans.
“A few days. The snares don’t always work that well. I have to move them around or the animals catch wise and avoid them.” He took the rabbit from her and gutted it, spilling out its entrails onto a clean rock. Jennifer felt a lurch of queasiness at the sight of him quickly cleaning the organs in the river and then wrapping them up in leaves. The mysterious man stowed them in a pouch before turning his attention back on his prey. Jennifer reminded herself that she knew that hunters gutted and skinned their prizes—and that at least it was fairly easy to see that the man in front of her planned to let none of the animal’s bounty go to waste. The man looked up at her face and faint amusement showed once more in his eyes. “Do you know any edible plants?” he asked her, taking the next of the animal carcasses from her arms. Jennifer shrugged.
“A few.” The man started to work on the second animal, slitting it from throat to tail with all the concern of a surgeon.
“Why don’t you rummage around along the river bank? There are some good greens and other vegetables growing around here.” Jennifer almost balked, understanding the subtext—the man had noticed her queasiness and thought she couldn’t stand the sight of him dressing the animals he had killed with his snares. But she realized that it was a good use of her time, and that he probably would have foraged for vegetables himself anyway. She put the last of the animals down and began searching for what she could recognize.
Her mother was an avid gardener, and while she mostly focused on flowers and other purely ornamental plants, she had taught Jennifer something about recognizing edible plants. Jennifer snagged watercress, dandelion greens, and a few other varieties she knew, along with more of the berries that the man had picked before. Moving farther away from the river, she saw wild onions and harvested them before coming back to where the mysterious bear-man sat, finishing the last animal off. “There’s a basket behind that rock,” the man told her, pointing idly.
Jennifer deposited her finds in the basket and sat down next to the man, realizing that they had been at their work for hours—the sun beat down from overhead. “We should head back to the cave,” the man said. “There’s just one more thing I need to do.” Jennifer raised an eyebrow, and the man’s lips twisted in a wry grin. “You’ll see.”
He covered their provender with rocks and got up more gracefully than he had all day, wincing only slightly as he got to his feet. Jennifer followed him deep, deep into the woods, wondering just what he was taking her to. As they climbed up a bank, Jennifer realized she heard the low humming of bees, and almost stopped in her tracks; they were going to bees? Her suspicion was confirmed as the man continued to move forward and the buzzing hum grew louder. He reached down and picked up a bundle of green sticks and dried leaves from under a rock. He shook off the dirt and slipped a lighter out of his pocket, flicking the rotary flint until it lit and holding it to the small bundle. The sticks and leaves crackled with fire for a moment before the man blew out the blaze; it smoldered and plumes of smoke poured out of the end.
The man gestured for her to stand back, and Jennifer watched, feeling almost hypnotized. The man approached the loudly buzzing tree—the obvious site of a hive of bees. He held the smoking brand in front of him, and the buzzing began to die down gradually as more and more smoke poured out of the bundle. Jennifer held her breath as she watched him plunge the smoking brand into a hole in the tree, blowing lightly on the end to send plumes of smoke through the deadwood. The bees subdued, he reached into another hole in the tree and extracted a thick, heavy comb of honey, a few bees still clinging to it, dazed by the smoke. The thick nectar dripped from his fingers and the man hurriedly slipped the comb into another of the pouches he had carried with him, blowing more smoke into the hole before raiding the hive once more. He plumed a final dusting of smoke through the area as he retreated, re
joining Jennifer. He smiled slightly, holding up his honey-coated fingers. “Taste,” he said. Hesitantly, Jennifer took his hand in hers and brought one of his fingers to her lips. The honey was unlike anything she had ever tasted—rich, slightly bitter, complex and floral. Her eyes widened in appreciation and she forced herself to suppress the urge to take all of his fingers into her mouth and lick them clean of the sweet, delicious nectar.
So Much To Bear (A Werebear Erotic Romance) Page 3
