by Lynn Red
“I know how you like being ridden,” I said with a smirk, “though you haven’t really let me yet.”
“Soon enough,” he said in the snarling voice I’d gotten somewhat used to hearing. “We need to go.”
As I climbed on and took two handfuls of hard, wiry fur, nestling myself down against his back and inhaling the scent of him through my nose, another vicious, horrible howl pierced the forest and ripped straight into my core. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?” I asked, ducking underneath a whip-like branch that tugged my hair as we bashed through the woods.
“Is it ever?” he asked.
I’m not really sure, I thought. But it seems like no, it isn’t.
Still, anything hard is worth doing, right?
Images of those cubs, to whom I’d become mother, and the three bears to whom I’d become mate, danced through my head. As another rip of a wolf’s howl tore through the woods, I began to feel angry, protective, defensive, like I was willing to do whatever it took to make sure these people, my people, I realized, were safe.
And then another thought tore into me—I wasn’t just protecting those people, or creatures, or whatever they are.
I was wanting to protect my home.
Had I always been meant to fall into this world?
I wasn’t sure.
But it sure as hell seemed like it. As different as I’d become in just a week’s time, it sure as hell seemed like that was the girl underneath everything from the very beginning.
And you know what?
I was starting to love this new Adriana.
As we tore through the woods, vines tugging at me and branches whipping smartly against my back and my arms, I grinned. Whatever was coming, I knew that with my bears, I’d be ready.
No, I told myself. We. We will be ready.
2
“Here they come,” I heard Grave shouting over the wind whipping past my head. “Where the hell did you go?”
His voice carried somehow, though I knew we were still at least a hundred yards from the place we’d begun. Something about living in the woods, even for the short period I’d been in them, gets you a new sense of place and location. You just get a feeling for where things are, where you are in relation to them.
“To see the cubs!” Craze called back.
I don’t know how they projected their voices in such a way, but it was entrancing the way the three of them could communicate over such distances. As we pulled through the last bit of woods, and approached the cave I’d grown to feel was my home, I saw a couple of very strange things.
“What’s that?” I asked, hopping off of Craze’s back and looking toward the cave mouth where Wild and Grave stood in their naked glory.
Speaking of things you don’t think you’ll ever get used to, but invariably do, how’s about huge, naked, muscled-up bear men? I still let my eyes slide up and down each of them in turn, but my pleased shock was starting to wear off.
“Yours,” Grave said, taking what appeared to be a spear from where it rested, and offered it in my direction. “A warrior needs a weapon fitting her, doesn’t she?”
Looking the thing up and down, it struck me what I had in my hands. “This is the axe,” I said. “The fire axe from when I was fighting the wolves… how did you get it?”
“Remember me going off into the woods for the past few days?” Wild asked. When I nodded, he tilted his head at the axe head which was affixed with strips of hardened leather, into the top end of my weapon. “There you have it. Do you know how to use that thing as well as you seemed to?”
My hands were shaking. I felt like I’d just undergone some great coming of age trial in a movie, and been bequeathed some kind of powerful tribal totem to wield in defense of the clan. “Do I know how to use what?” I asked. “This? A spear?”
Grave nodded. “You used it before.”
“Well sort of,” I said. “I mean, I used it when it was still an axe, and I didn’t exactly do any beautiful Kung Fu moves with it, I just sort of hacked.”
“Good,” Craze said, grabbing the haft of the spear and turning it around in his hands. “It isn’t much different now except that you can hack from a slightly longer distance, and have a little bit less of a chance to get mauled while you’re doing it.”
My eyes went wide. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Apparently,” Grave said, “I always am.”
I swear I saw the hint of a grin on his face, but as soon as I saw the ghost of a smile, it was gone. “Regardless, you’re a warrior now, mate,” he said, “and so you need a weapon. We have our claws, our teeth. You have,” he trailed off and crooked his head to the side. “You have…”
“I’ve got my wits,” I said defensively. “And I’ve got smarts. And… well now I guess I have a really cool spear.”
“Wits and smarts seem to me the same thing,” Wild said. “But you’re right about that spear. I spent forever making it, so you better like it. When we have more time, I can give you some lessons on using it, but for now, you having some kind of weapon is better than you having nothing. And trust me, you pushed your luck with those wolves last time. You don’t want to be that near a werewolf, not if you can help it. Seven feet is a much better distance.”
As though on cue, Craze tossed the spear back to me, and I reached out and caught it.
“Now,” Wild said. “First lesson while we still have time. One palm up, one palm down.” He moved my hands into position. “Good. Now, feet wider apart, and… lunge!”
He waited a moment and then repeated himself. “Lunge! At me!”
I jolted in my boots. “You want me to stab you?”
“No, I want you to lunge at me. Like this.” He mimicked the motion he wanted me to make. “Okay now you. Go.”
I lunged and he moved, grabbing the haft of the spear out of the air as it slid past him. I heard the soft, old wood slide against the soft skin underneath Wild’s arm and then he grabbed my wrist, spinning me in place and wrapping his arms around my middle.
“Good,” he whispered into my ear. “Just do it faster. I doubt if a wolf catches you that his inclination will be to kiss you.”
He pecked me behind the ear, then on the cheek. “Again!” he shouted, pushing me away.
For the next few moments, we went back and forth like that: I lunged, he dodged, hugged me and laughed. Craze and Grave for their parts, had gone off to the side and were talking quickly and quietly, about something I could only imagine involved werewolves and ‘overseers’ whatever those were.
“No more time,” Grave said, returning to where I was trying to wallop Wild, and continually failing. “They’re coming.”
As though to punctuate what he’d said, a roar split the woods, followed by what I can only describe as a vicious, horrible gnashing of teeth. “They sound close,” I said, my voice a hollow echo in my throat. “This is gonna be bad, isn’t it?”
Grave had a serious, almost dark look on his lined face. Craze was looking around, crouched down and listening to whatever it was he was hearing, and Wild had a grin on his face. “Bad? Maybe for them,” he said. “For us, it’s gonna be fun. And you’re gonna need to practice with your spear… axe… thing.”
I looked at the hand crafted weapon, taken slightly aback by how exact it really was. “More of a halberd, I think. Like the axe blade on the end of a stick? I think that’s a halberd. It’s been a long time since I had a medieval history class, but—”
“Come!” Grave boomed. “There’s no avoiding this one, but you’re getting to safety.”
A massive, black, almost woolly-looking creature crested a distant hill. I turned to Wild. “Is that one of the, uh, overseer things?”
He looked at me for a moment, and squinted his eyes into sharp lines. “I think so. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the overseers from the ones that are just big, old and ugly. The older they get the bigger they get. They’re like… you know, lobsters. Except really ugly.”
“And I’m
guessing not as delicious?” I asked, starting to learn how to joke like a bear. Wild smiled at me, and shrugged.
“They’re not so bad,” he said. “Though usually the older they get, the tougher the meat. You want them really young, or you’ll end up with wolf strings in your teeth.” He threw his head back, bellowing with wild laughter. “That was good, wasn’t it?”
“Uh,” I was smiling, but still a little taken aback by the gory details of what he’d said. “Yeah, I mean if you want good meat, best to eat babies.”
He looked at me in utter horror. At least, from the way he gawked, I imagine it was horror. For a long moment, we just stared at each other. I narrowed my eyes. “I imagine bear cubs would be tender and delicious too.”
“That’s,” he stammered, trying to find footing with his words. “I mean, I think… you got me good, didn’t you?”
That got me smiling. “You’ll never know.”
Before we could enjoy any more witty repartee, another peal of sound came from the woods in the distance. The giant black creature had vanished again, though nearer or further, it was impossible for me to tell. Wild left my side, running to his companions, and moments later, Craze was with me. “You need to get back into the cage,” he said.
I went along with what he’d said, heading back to the cave, when I realized what he had actually said. “Cage?”
“Er,” he stopped in his tracks. “Well, the cave.”
He had a key in his hand, or something that would have passed for it in the 19th century. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed before, but somehow it slipped through the cracks in my mind. But right then, when it all came to me, I panicked.
“Cage?” I almost shrieked. “Cage?! Why are you locking me in a—”
Grave came next, a look of bold determination on his face. “Shut her up,” he growled. “We have to deal with this right now, and her bellyaching isn’t going to help.”
“Wait!” I called out, waving the spear impotently. He batted it aside. “I’m not going to any cage, what the hell is this?”
He knocked the spear aside effortlessly, and then grabbed the key from Craze. “You’re soft,” he said to the other bear. “You’re soft and you’re going to cost us. Get out there and fight you idiot, I’ll handle the girl you can’t seem to deal with.”
Things had taken a very harsh, very frightening, and completely unexpected turn. “Am I some kind of prisoner?” I asked, batting away the huge bear’s grasp while I looked pleadingly at the one I’d come to trust the most. “Craze!” I called out. “What’s happening? Why aren’t you stopping him, what the hell is this?”
There was the slightest hesitation in Craze’s actions as he reached for Grave to, I suppose, try and stop him from doing whatever he was doing. “We can’t, Grave,” he said. “This isn’t right, she’s one of us, she’s—”
“A damned human,” the elder bear growled. “She’s here to help us, not for us to serve. Now go.” His words were low, dangerous and almost snarled when he spoke. “I’m the alpha of this clan, and I’m not losing this chance again.”
Craze gave me one more desperate look, and I don’t know what overcame me, but somehow I knew that if I didn’t fight right then, there wouldn’t be a later. I swung the spear with all my might, and managed to dig it heavily into Grave’s calf. He didn’t even react, not even a wince, a grimace, nothing. He just advanced on me and grabbed me by the arm. “We don’t have time for these games, we’ve got more to worry about than a mate’s comfort.”
Something burning deep in my stomach told me this wasn’t right. I mean, past all the outward signs that something wasn’t right. With whatever strength I could muster, I tried to one-hand swing the weapon, and managed a bit, but it just bounced off his arm. The blade turned harmlessly, but even if it hadn’t there wasn’t enough force behind the swing to do any damage.
“Enough!” he shouted.
In the way that a very frightening old teacher raising his voice over the din of an unruly crowd can stun a whole room full of excited children, both Craze and I froze.
“This isn’t right, Grave,” he protested again. “This isn’t—”
“Enough!” he said again. The voice boomed so loudly that I felt it rattle my bones. I’d never seen Craze—or either of the bears for that matter—look afraid. I sensed the fear rise in him though, and thought for a moment that he’d done all he could. Still, I cursed him under my breath, or maybe I was cursing my own foolishness.
After all, I’d just fallen into this whole thing without as much as a protest.
My whole world shattered as Grave took my wrist roughly in his hand, and dragged me back to the cave. “I thought I was safe,” I said to him, my voice crackling as I plead. “You told me I was safe and comfortable and I didn’t need to worry.”
The speed with which he dragged yanked me off my feet. I felt the dirt that was softer toward the mouth of the cave turn to hard pack as I kicked. The heels of my boots bounced off the ground and when I clawed at Grave to try and free myself, he just ignored me.
“You said I was safe!” I screamed. “You promised nothing would hurt me!”
“Nothing will,” he snarled. “That’s why this is how things are going to happen. That’s why I’m doing this.” He took a breath, looked back toward the cave’s opening and then back to me. He stood me up roughly, shoved me against the smooth cave wall, and stared straight into my eyes. “You’re our mate,” he said flatly. “You are protected from things that are going to kill you, because you have a purpose.”
My thoughts flailed as wildly as my arms. I batted at his face, and got in one good smack, but he just shrugged it off. “You’ve seen the cubs, which you shouldn’t have seen. You’ve come into our den, which you shouldn’t have done, and that idiot Craze even pleasured you.”
I couldn’t make sense of it. The change in this bear was as harsh and surprising as watching one of them turn human and back. It seemed as though his entire personality, his entire being, had changed in an instant.
“Why?” was all I managed to ask.
He darkened his gaze. “Because this is how things are, mate,” he said roughly. “You serve your purpose and we keep you from harm. But I never promised you were going to be happy, or comfortable.”
I felt my soul shrink. He towered over me, and for the first time I felt really how powerful this creature was. The way he had me pinned against the wall, I was completely helpless. Even though in reality I was powerless against them, when I had my feet about me, I at least felt like I could run if need be. I at least felt like I had some kind of power to save myself.
My hand went limp as a feeling of complete helplessness overwhelmed me. The spear dropped from my hand, clattering against the cave wall and landing heavily on the floor. “What about that?” I asked, searching for anything I could possibly say to get some kind of answer. “What about the spear, and all that talk of me helping? What about all that?”
His face was cold, emotionless. “The time will come when I say it comes. I told them. I told them to keep this from you until the time came, and here we are, a foolish human thinking she knows the world.”
I felt tears run down my cheeks. I was afraid, hell yes I was afraid, but I also kind of understood. In the back of my mind I knew he was a leader and had to do whatever was right for his people… clan… whatever. At the same time, the betrayal I felt was overwhelming.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said weakly. “I thought you were my friends, or lovers, or whatever.”
“Mate doesn’t mean lover, girl,” Grave said. His eyes were steel gray and hard. I’d never seen such a steel look on someone’s face. “It means what it means. For whatever reason, you were sent to us, and that’s how it is. I’ll protect you, but I don’t have to bow to some human’s wishes.”
I reached out one of my hands and touched his cheek, rasping my fingertips against his short beard. “This isn’t you,” I said.
For just the briefest of momen
ts, not even the space of a breath, I thought the steel in his expression softened. “You don’t know me,” he said a second later. The gentleness was gone, the friend I thought I’d made vanished behind the cold, hard mask of duty. “But you will,” he said as he dropped me.
I fell only a couple of inches, but it felt like a mile. My feet met the dirt floor and I scrambled to stay upright, but failed when my knees buckled pitifully.
Looking up at him, I saw someone I truly didn’t know. I saw someone, something who I couldn’t even place. “Who are you?” I asked, not even sure what my own words meant.
Without answering, he pulled me back to my feet and took me deeper into the cave. At least he wasn’t dragging me behind him now, and let me walk at my own pace. He was clearly in control though, as I suspected he always was. Even if the other two might have had some kind of say in how things went, choice began and ended with Grave.
What felt like an eternity later, he pushed aside what looked like a mat of thatch. The rug of grass, leaves and earth revealed exactly what I feared—a cage. It was fashioned out of what I guessed was salvaged metal. Twisted bars, dangerous and sharp and rusted, looked to me like something you’d see in a war documentary, not in my bizarre new world of magic and shape shifters.
“In,” he said flatly.
I could have fought again, I suppose. I could have kicked and bit and lashed out, but what was the point? I had no chance against him in anything resembling combat. And more than that, I wasn’t even sure I should fight.
After all, what if this was keeping me safe? I’d seen that monster. I’d seen how afraid Craze and Wild looked, even with their bravado. Maybe hiding me back here locked in a goddamn box was the only thing the bears could do?
None of it made sense, but regardless, I looked at the dirt and paused for a moment. “Is this really how you feel about me?” I asked, lifting my eyes back to Grave’s and staring into those huge, gunmetal eyes. “I’m just something to be used?”
“It doesn’t matter what I feel,” he said. His voice sounded slightly deflated from before. “What I want, what the others want, it doesn’t matter. We all have a duty to complete, and you’re no different.”
