by Star, Amy
“Get in, please,” she murmured, helping him in. Her hands moved over his steely muscles, and she felt the whipcord of his forearms shift under her fingers, nearly tectonic. He grunted, but his body was slick with sweat and grime and blood and he offered little protest as he nearly fell across the backseat and was silent. Only the rise and fall of his chest and the ample curves of his toned buttocks indicated any life from him.
What have you gotten yourself into Lily? She bit her lip and looked up and down the empty country road. No one was there, but she couldn’t help but feel somehow unnerved, as if she’d stumbled upon something taboo. Of course she had. She’d suddenly seen the existence of creatures that could only be described in terms of fantasy.
Still hobbling, she made her way to the other side of the car and fell into the driver’s seat. Her hands were shaking as she reached into her coat, pulled the keys out and plugged them into the ignition. Her foot slammed on the gas and the Camry peeled out, heading not back toward Beaver Creek, but further down the road. Fighting through the pain in her ankle and the shock of truth that had been unclothed in front of her, she brushed tears out of her eyes, not knowing where she was going, only that to return to the town now would get both her and Blake in the sort of trouble you only got into once, and rarely got out of once you were in the middle of it.
Her hands clenched white on the steering wheel, she allowed herself to look up into the rear view mirror, just once. The shifter was still unconscious on his side and breathing steadily, but his face was contorted in pain and a kind of suffering she couldn’t put her finger on, but that frightened her all the same.
What the hell have you gotten yourself into? she wondered.
*
The last thing that Blake could recall as his eyelids very slowly opened and he took in the sight of a wooden roof and sunlight drifting in between the slats, was reaching the road. Lily had managed to usher him into the back, but after that, it was all a blank slate. He groaned and tried to sit up, and then found that there was a sheet across his waist and that he was lying on a low mattress. His arm still ached, like it was full of sand, hard to move, and he discovered a white medical dressing across his shoulder.
Still reeling from his wounds and from exhaustion, the one thing that obsessed him now was thirst and he turned on one side. The mattress was flat on the floor, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw now that it was a ramshackle cabin, well worn by age and the wood blackened by the constant penetration of weather. But it was dry, at least. He hissed and gripped his forearm again. The shifter, Tanis, he remembered suddenly.
He hadn’t meant to kill the boy. Tanis had driven him to it. Then he remembered Lily. It was all hazy, but he remembered her telling him she was a reporter looking for clues. He rubbed his face just as the sound of the wooden door creaked open and suddenly she was standing across from him, her eyes wide and tentative. She still regarded him like he was a dog—a creature that you couldn’t know for sure would let you close or bite out rabidly at your hand.
“Y-you’re awake,” she said, amazed. “Your wounds, I tried to bind them—I don’t have a lot of experience, but I did my best to clean them. I was worried you had a fever, but… I don’t know, I figured if I took you a hospital, then maybe—”
“You did well,” he said, patting the bandages and managing a wry smile. The blood and grime from the fight was gone from his skin, and he made the deduction that she’d washed him, as well. Unabashed, he sat up and put his hands on his knees, the sheet still pulled up to his waist. “It’s a good weave, couldn’t have done better myself. As for the fever, well, most shifters run a high temperature anyway. It’s normal.”
“I don’t think anything about you is normal,” she replied.
He gave a comical shrug. “You might be right about that.”
“You should be dead,” Lily pointed out and then, remembering she had a water bottle in her hand, approached him and set it by his side before taking a step back. “I don’t have a lot of supplies—there’s a candy bar or two in the glove box I think, but I found a creek nearby. You should rehydrate, I think.”
He took it gratefully and it was like a salve going down his throat. The sharp coldness of the clear glacial water run off was heavenly, and it dribbled down his chin and across his chest. “I should be dead , perhaps,” he said, “it might still come to that. Something else about our kind, we heal well. Give me another day and I should be able to walk.”
More out of curiosity and wonder, Lily took a step toward him and sat down at the foot of the mattress, eyeing him like some exotic animal. He didn’t mind—he owed her that at least.
“The other one,” she said weakly, “the other bear—you said he was your brother.”
The water suddenly tasted metallic in his mouth and Blake shut it and set it on the wooden slatted floor. “In a way, he was. He was part of my tribe, part of the gang,” he replied. “I suppose I should come clean with you about everything. At least until we can get you out of here. The fact of the matter is, our gang has been divided since the death of our Alpha—our leader. Normally, I should have taken the new position, but our tribe is divided.”
It was all new and overwhelming to her, but Lily merely nodded, encouraging him to continue. “So the one that was murdered…”
“He was also part of our gang,” Blake replied. “You actually met him—the bloke that was harassing you that night, at Jack’s. His name was Ogre. He deserved a lot, but not to die. And not at the hands of one of our own.”
“I don’t understand.”
Blake sighed. “You’re a reporter, right?” He grinned. “Guess you like to sniff out things like this—probably part of your personality, to gather information. Well, not that it makes a difference now, but I think someone else is trying to take control of the gang. And they’re willing to pick off members in order to get that position—and, I’m guessing, implicate me in the process. I’m the next in line.”
“Then, then why not just kill you?” she asked bluntly. She knew nothing about the politics of the shifters, but Blake could see in those wide luscious eyes, magnified by the lenses of her glasses, that she understood the dynamics of power, at least.
“Good question,” he said, positioning his back against the wall. He still felt weak, but it was more the sort of fatigue that came from staying in bed too long—he longed to stretch his legs. “My guess is that it would be too obvious. The one behind this, I think at least… his name is Connor, the son of the last Alpha. He needs the support of the Ursas, and like I said, we’re still divided. Picking me off would be tantamount to a confession of crime. No, this way he can lure support away from my claim.”
“Geezus,” Lily said, hunching her shoulders, exasperated.
Blake shrugged again and coughed. “Well, one thing at a time.” He motioned to her ankle. “Where are we—and how’s that ankle of yours?”
“No idea on the first count,” she looked around the single room of the cabin. It was definitely old, probably a century at least, and had long ago been abandoned. One of the windows was broken and the others were smudged and nearly opaque with dust. A smell of old wood permeated everything. “I knew that going back to Beaver Creek wouldn’t be a good idea—besides, I wouldn’t have known how to explain a naked, blood-covered unconscious man in my backseat if I got stopped. I just… I just drove. I saw this place out in a field. It took nearly half an hour of dragging you to get you here. As for my ankle, it’s sore but usable, thanks.”
“I have to thank you,” he replied. “You could have just left me.”
She looked at him furiously, trying to gauge if he was kidding or not, and when she saw he wasn’t, her face turned even more sour. “Is that what you would have done in my place?” she hissed, and he lowered his eyes. “Besides, you saved me. For whatever that’s worth.”
“Well, thank you again,” he said. “I can’t imagine it was easy.”
Her face brightened and she tried to shake off her brooding ex
pression. “I was swearing the whole time. You’re heavier than you look.” She let out a little nervous laughter.
“And filthy,” he replied. “Did you drop me in a creek along the way?”
Suddenly, Lily blushed and Blake caught it and held up his hand in apology once again.
“You were still bleeding,” she said softly. “I had to clean you. Erm, I… I had an old pair of cargo work pants in the trunk, a shirt.” She indicated a pile of clothes beside him, stacked neatly, that he hadn’t noticed. “When, when you’re ready. I prefer baggy clothing, so it should fit you, more or less, until we can find you something better.”
He nodded with another smile and held out his hand. It was a quick gesture, too quick for her to avoid, and she felt his hand rest on her own on the sheets. Lily blushed again, but didn’t recoil this time. She had just gone through a traumatic experience—she’d had to accommodate the existence of shifters in her world view, she’d witnessed death, and now she was hiding like a fugitive in a cabin with a man she had met only once before. But somehow, she still held onto her sanity, and Blake felt a surge of pride in her. In my place, I certainly wouldn’t be so calm.
“Thank you,” he whispered again. She nodded, and was silent. Her eyes fell, but she made no indication of wanting to leave his side and he stroked her hand again. “I was surprised to see you again,” he said at last. “This is probably the worst time to tell you this—but then I’ve never been good at timing.”
“Don’t say it,” she said quickly.
He looked at her frantically. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Maybe,” she said, “maybe not. But if you say something, you might not be able to take it back.” Her eyes were like pools, falling into his, and neither could break away from the other’s gaze. “And I, I don’t want to be hurt like that. Not like that.”
Blake’s face turned to one of pain. “Then I won’t hurt you,” he said simply. “When you left that morning, perhaps I didn’t expect to ever see you again. But for the last two weeks, even with all of this shit going on around me, heh… it sounds ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That probably sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
Lily bit her lower lip and shook her head. “No, not crazy.”
“Why did you come back?” he said. “Did it really have to do with an assignment as a reporter? I’m sure if that was the case, you could have given it to someone else. But you didn’t—it was you that came here.”
She was definitely hiding something, but every time he thought he was getting close to it, she would back away again. Truth was like the terminal game of death between a predator and prey, each of them orbiting one another, closing in and then falling away, in an endless cycle. Both of them knowing that when they did converge, that whatever truth they found there in one another would change them irreparably. Permanently.
“I,” she shook her head again and turned away, but Blake held her hand again and pulled her toward him. “It’s, it’s nothing. Maybe I wanted… to see you again, too.”
Those words felt like a godsend to him, but there was still that hesitancy in her voice, a tension that seemed to pull along the fine ridge of her jaw, a tendon pulled tight. She was still holding back, but he let it go. Even after their first encounter, he had recognized that she was as strong as she was independent. Had she been born a shifter, she likely would have risen to the rank of an Alpha in her own tribe.
“Why did you go?”
She shook her head. “Fear, I guess,” she said. “I… I don’t know, I figured it was a one night stand sort of thing. I got carried away, but then… then after, I just—”
“Wasn’t so sure?” Blake released his grip on her arm. “Funny, how life works like that.”
“Funny,” she repeated.
“I missed you,” he whispered and brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes.
“You know how fucked up this is, right?” Lily let out another weak chuckle—the ice had been broken between them, and it was a comfortable enough atmosphere for her to finally let down some of the barriers she had put up. Tears brimmed at her eyes again, but she held her composure and scooted close to him. He leaned in tentatively and kissed her on the mouth and pulled away again. “You’re not human,” she said.
“Right now I am.” He grinned, and took off her glasses and set them on top of the folded pile of clothes beside them before leaning in again and kissing her.
She relented and closed her eyes as she was drawn close. She was right, it was crazy. The two of them were lovers of a single night, but there was more to it than that—neither had the language to put it into words, but they both felt it, equally. Something born out of passion and desire, but held together by something stronger. Lily opened her mouth, and her tongue sparked outward like a fierce pink organ, grappling at the air, looking for its mate. Blake pulled her by the torso into his own muscular chest and felt a gasp of her air escape into his own mouth as he sealed his lips over hers, tasting her for all the sweetness and the woman that she was. Even under the sheets, he felt himself stiffening with the immediate reflex of that untamed wilderness of emotion that so often hid behind the bear. Lily had seen both sides of him now—animal and human—and there was no going back.
She moaned loudly as his hands caressed her shoulder blade and pulled down one of the straps. His other hand leveled on her lower back, urging her closer. She groaned and positioned herself over top of him, straddling him like the beast he was. He let his hands trail down her strong, firm thighs. Even through the thin fabric of the cargo pants, he could feel the swelling urge in her movements, and he squeezed her legs. Her kissing became more frantic as she laid into him, taking a position above him, and the warm slick embrace of her saliva surged between her teeth, caressing both of their lips in a torrent. He sucked hard on her tongue, causing her waif-like body to shiver in his grip.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she gasped, rubbing herself against his bulging erection that had creased through the sheets like a rising hill on some vast polyester landscape, and he reached down between her legs with his free hand and cupped her groin, causing her to open her mouth in another sigh of pleasure.
“It can wait,” he breathed, pushing his face into the nape of her neck and drawing his tongue like a marker down her breast. She fumbled and pulled the tank-top over her head. She had foregone the use of a bra, and both breasts hovered in front of him, luscious and perky.
Lily opened her mouth to try to insist, but he had already gone for her right breast and his lips closed around the nipple. She gasped again, placing both hands on his naked shoulders, her fingers creeping along the contours of his tattoos. A low growl murmured from his throat as he continued to stroke her, brushing his palms up and down her ribs and under the seam of her pants. Lily shuffled off him briefly and scooted out of them, casting them to one side by the door, and for a moment time paused as the two of them looked at each other.
With the hesitant measure of someone testing the water of a lake before they plunged into it, he pulled away the sheets across his waist. Her eyes once again fastened on that organ that had delved so deep inside of her once before. Approaching on her hands and knees, her pert buttocks perfectly parted by the nylon arc of her thong, she reached toward him and took his cock in her hand. Blake merely leaned back against the wall, watching as the woman with the black pixie-haircut stroked his member up and down, eliciting another gaping sigh. Pre-cum was slick on the head of his penis and squished between her fingers as she loomed over him.
Lily had now become the predator and was watching him with bated breath. She took pleasure in watching how she could manipulate the look on his face and squeezed tighter. Her eyes were now wide with childish wonder, and with lust, and she fixed a stare at him again as she tilted his member toward her lips and slipped her mouth over it.
Blake clenched at the mattress to keep himself from coming.
She was masterful with her mouth, and her hea
d bobbed up and down on his sex. Twice she pulled it out and let out a tiny cough, her mouth glistening with saliva that clung like an ooze to his glans. It was the best blow job he’d ever had, and he felt himself learning a part of her he had explored only with his own tongue. Lily dipped her face over him again and her hair shook as she worked furiously, driving her mouth down hard on him as she tried to bury it in the back of her throat.
Satisfied that he was ready, she pulled it out again and wiped her mouth as she clambered toward him, eyeing him hungrily, and Blake knew that there was no way to escape this moment, and for once he didn’t want to. Even with the threat of his tribe falling apart, with the death of two members already, and nearly being killed, all he wanted to do was sink into a distraction. It’s more than that now, isn’t it? he asked himself.
Lily propped herself above him, reached down between her legs and pulled aside the thin fabric of her thong. The small patch of pubic hair brushed against his own shaft as she reached down, gripping him again, and guided the blunt head of his sex toward her own womanhood.
Both of them gasped as they merged, sliding into one another like a single entity, and her eyes had clouded over again with the deep patina. Of all her lovers, Lily had never been able to get over that first encounter with Blake. His organ throbbed inside her and she gasped in his arms as she pushed her pelvis toward him until the shaft disappeared inside her. She opened her mouth in a silent yawn of pleasure and spread her thighs wider as she began to gyrate on top of him, working toward a frenzy.
For Blake, it was an experience like no other. He, too, had had his share of lovers in the past, and almost all of them had been shifters like him. There was something intangible, an ineffable connection that was made in the act of love whenever another bear engaged with another bear, and it was something he had come to treasure and expect. But never, he thought, from a human.
