by Sky Winters
“Hey,” said Olivia, mirroring her last conversation with him.
“Hey,” he returned, on cue.
“Listen,” she said, walking to the railing and leaning back against it, looking down at Ian sitting in his black, wrought-iron chair. “I need to know why you’ve been ignoring me.”
“I haven’t been ignoring you,” said Ian.
“You have. Ever since…our night together. You’ve been saying nothing more than one word at a time.”
“I guess I just don’t have anything to say,” he said, leaning forward and taking a sip of his coffee.
“You don’t have anything to say?” asked Olivia, her tone growing indignant. “We slept together!”
“We did,” said Ian, his tone not changing in the slightest.
“That doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“Well, it means something, sure. But it was just one night.”
At that moment, the frustration that had been brewing in Olivia since the moment she met Ian reached a boiling point. She could no longer stand the hot-and-cold treatment that he had been giving her. Maybe when she was living at the house it was more tolerable, but now that it was just her and him and Noah, it was driving her to the brink of anger.
“Listen,” she said, tapping into a well of assertiveness that she didn’t know she had. “You’ve been treating me this way ever since we met, and I’m tired of it. One day you treat me like dirt, the other you’re warm and friendly. One day we’re fucking, the next you’re barely tolerating my presence. I need to know, right now, what your deal is with me.”
Ian said nothing at first. He simply stood, leaned against the railing, and took another sip of his coffee. After a moment, he finally spoke.
“It’s the fact that you’re a mother.”
“What?” demanded Olivia. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“The simple fact of the matter is that while I might be interested in you, I don’t want to raise another man’s baby.”
The words hit Olivia like bullets. She wasn’t prepared for being told in such a direct manner how and why he was acting the way he was.
“What?” she asked, the words coming out of her mouth in a stammer.
“It’s…complicated. And I know it sounds callous. But it’s just not something I’m prepared to do. You’ll have to understand that I have my reasons.”
Olivia felt tears well in her eyes. When she left Brody, all she cared about was getting away from him. She hadn’t been thinking more than a day or two into the future, let alone about future dating prospects. And she didn’t even know if dating was what she wanted—she was still married, after all. She understood that her fling with Ian might’ve been just that, but she didn’t realize that men might find her to be used goods as a potentially single woman with a kid in tow.
“Oh, I understand alright,” she said, nearly on the verge of crying.
“And I think that it’s time to make sure that we both understand that things aren’t going to go any further than they went the other night.”
Olivia couldn’t stand to hear any more. Tear flowing from her eyes, she ran from the deck, back inside and into her bedroom. She collapsed onto the bed, sobbing into her pillow. Overcome with emotions that she didn’t understand, she stayed in her room for a time, the soft cooing of Noah from his crib the only sound beyond her muffled weeping.
CHAPTER 10
Ian Swift tore through the forest, his heavy, black paws pounding against the branches. The wind rushed through his fur. His gaze darted around the trees, landing on the various woodland critters that lurked in the branches or in the thick of the dense forest. The animal instinct that always called to him when he was in his bear form was a small, insistent voice that urged him to chase the nearest dear, tear into it with his mighty claws, and feast upon its meat.
Not now, he thought, stomping along. This is a national park after all, don’t want to stumble upon some camping family.
Right now, he just needed to run. Breaking the news to Olivia was harder than he thought it was going to be, but he knew that it needed to be done quickly, and without any fanfare. He could sense that she was developing feelings for him, and he’d be lying to himself if he were to say that he didn’t feel the same way.
Ian bounded over up the gentle curve of a hill, taking pleasure as always in the power behind his muscles, enjoying the speeds that his human form could never afford him. Something about being in his bear form allowed him to clear his head; it was as though by becoming something not human, he could leave the world of human troubles behind. But he knew this was silly, and that distracting himself from his problems wasn’t the correct way to handle them. Sooner or later, as always, he’d have to return to the real world.
But for now, he was content to run wild.
He continued up the hill, his rippling muscles straining as the incline became more drastic. The scent of pine and spruce wafted into his large, wet nose, and all around him his animal sense tried to focus his attention here and there. He kept his eyes ahead, however, storming up the hill—squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits darting out of his path.
Up he went, nearly reaching the top of this hill. But as he ran, thoughts of Olivia entered his thoughts. Flashes of her face, her body, the way she looked the night they made love, all stormed his mind like invaders. Shaking his large furry head, he attempted to dismiss them. But they remained.
He traveled further up, just about there. Now he thought about how she looked as he delivered the news that he wasn’t interested, delivered it in the callous, blunt way that he preferred to say things of that nature.
No sense in dragging it out, he thought. Just rip it off like a Band-Aid.
What went on before that, however, didn’t betray the conflict that raged about his feelings towards Olivia. The truth was that he had been attracted to her from the moment he saw her that first time. Lying in bed, her features soft, the morning sun pouring in on her sleeping form—he hadn’t seen a woman as beautiful as her since Leah.
Leah, he thought, shaking his head once again, furious that thoughts of his deceased wife were now on his mind.
Now that she was in his thoughts, he couldn’t resist. He thought of her reddish-brown hair, her delicate, pert nose, her full, red lips, and the way her blue eyes shimmered with intelligence. Making her his bride had been the happiest day of his life.
The day she was diagnosed with cancer, however, was the most tragic he’d ever experienced. He remembered sitting with her in that small, sterile doctor’s office, the specialist going over various charts and CAT scan results, his mouth moving but his words a blur. Ian heard the word “cancer,” and the rest was incidental.
Leah and he had been just as eager to start a family after the wedding, just like the rest of his brothers. But while his brother’s wives all grew large with children, their faces glowing with the radiance of impending motherhood, his own wife hollowed by the day. The cancer moved quickly, the disease growing in her faster than the babies that grew in the bellies of the women. Within mere months, Leah had wasted away to nearly nothing. Soon, she was gone.
Ian realized that he was running faster now, as though the thoughts of Leah were pursuing beasts that he could evade. But the thoughts lingered in his mind. And soon, thoughts of Leah swirled and mixed with thoughts of Olivia. His heart began to ache and a low, animal moan escaped his lips, as though he were now betraying Leah’s memory by thinking of another woman in the same mental breath as his wife.
Ian reached the top of the hill, which by now seemed to be more of a small mountain. The forest floor grew craggier and harder as he ascended the last bits of the peak, the green grass giving way to hard, gray stone. Once at the top, he stopped running, looking out over the endless stretch of the national park. The green of the trees as dark and dense as liquid emerald, the peaks of the hills beyond soft curves that faded into the horizon, a brilliant blue lake in the middle of the scene, its irregular boundaries giving
it the appearance of a large, stray drop of deep blue paint. Ian took in the scene, regaining his breath as he sat back on his large, furry haunches.
Now the image of Olivia holding Noah appeared in his mind. She was the picture of motherhood, and how beautiful she looked holding her baby only served to mock the memory he had of Leah. He wanted a son more than anything else, and here was a woman with one, a woman who wanted him. But the son wasn’t his. If he were to give into his attraction to Olivia, to take her as his woman, she would come with the leavings of another man.
But now these thoughts of paternity were ebbing. He was there the night Olivia told her history to Atticus and Tessa; he knew what kind of life she’d come from. A man like her husband was someone who should never be in charge of a child. Ian considered what it would be like to be with Olivia, to raise Noah with her, to give him the father figure that his real father would clearly never be.
And the more he thought about this, the more it appealed to him. He knew Olivia was falling for him, and him for her. All it would take would be an apology that he hoped she would accept. And if she did, they could try this thing that both of them were being pulled towards. Ian knew that despite the short amount of time they’d known each other, being together was something they both knew in their hearts they wanted. Only Ian’s pride and wounded heart stood in their way.
There, at that moment, the vista spread out before him, Ian decided that he would return to Olivia and apologize for his careless, hurtful words, express to her how he truly felt. Once the decision was made, it felt to Ian as if he’d pulled a wooden plank out from a stuck set of gears. The machinery of his heart whirred back to life, and a sense of vitality and joy slipped into him. He took one more long draw of the fresh, clean air through his nostrils, and turned his massive body back towards the hill that he had just ascended.
He stormed down, his paws powered by the new élan he felt from finally making his decision. He wanted to get back to the house as fast as possible, to make his apologies, to tell Olivia how he felt, to let whatever might happen next for them happen as it would. He weaved through the thick trunks of the trees, the sun dappling on the forest floor through the canopy of leaves overhead. The wind was like liquid on his fur, and his paws on the ground gave his body the sound of a tumbling boulder. Soon, he reached the back stretch of the property, the house looming at the far end like some a grand, wooden chateau.
But as he approached, something struck him as very wrong. Growing closer, he spotted something in the driveway in front of the house. But not just one something—many somethings. It was several cars, all parked in the driveway. He moved around to the side to get a better look at the cars, and from his distance, he could tell that they were all gaudy, flashy luxury cars. He stepped closer to the house, his paws touching the grass carefully, as though he could hope to sneak up on them.
Then, to his shock, the sliding glass door opened and several men poured out onto the deck, then down into the grass. Men in suits with mean faces. Looking at their hands, Ian could see that they were armed.
The man, their eyes on Ian, all raised their weapons—pistols, rifles and shotguns.
Then the last man exited. Ian gasped.
The man was holding Olivia close, the barrel of a gun stuck into her ribs, a wicked expression of pure malevolence on his face.
CHAPTER 11
“There’s the bear we’ve been looking for. Come on down!”
Brody was tall, beefy, with a mean-looking face comprised of a sneering mouth and brown eyes alight with paranoia and wild energy. His hair was jet-black and slicked back, a stray strand hanging limply over his forehead. He was dressed in a dark suit, shiny black shoes, and a dress shirt unbuttoned, exposing his the curly upper-tufts of his chest hair. And in his hand was a chrome pistol pressed into Olivia’s ribs.
Ian let out a roar, the half-dozen men in front losing a bit of their nerve as the deafening sound carried over the lawn.
“Now, now,” said Brody, “none of that. You see, I’ve been doing a little research since my last encounter with you freaks. I didn’t believe bear shifters were real, but you learn something new every day, I guess. Anywho, I did a little reading and found out that you shifters are weak to silver. So, I’ll give you one guess as to what kind of bullets our guns are loaded with.”
Ian looked over the line of men, realizing that if they weren’t bluffing they could easily take him down.
“So,” said Brody. “Why don’t you go ahead and shift back to your regular form and we can have a talk like men? Or whatever the hell it is that you are. But try anything and I’ll put a bullet in her right before we take you apart.”
Ian was out options. Olivia’s face was streaked with tears and red with anger and terror. With a slow exhalation, he shifted back into his human form, the morning air cool on his naked body.
“Damn!” said Brody, looking down at Ian’s exposed member. “I guess part of you stays in that bear form of yours after all.”
“Let her go,” said Ian, his voice cutting through the air. “This is your only warning.”
A slightly bemused expression crossed Brody’s features. “I don’t know what you think’s going on here, but you’re not exactly in a position to be making demands.”
“So, here’s what’s going to happen,” he continued. “I’m gonna take my wife and my son back to New York, and you’re gonna stay in these woods and do whatever you bear freaks do. You try to follow me, I kill you, then I subject my darling wife to things you don’t even want to think about. Got it?”
Though it pained Ian to accept, Brody was right—he did hold all the cards here. Ian gritted his teeth, using every bit of restraint to not shift back into his bear form and tear into as many of these men as he could before he was taken out. But he couldn’t risk Olivia’s life like that.
“I’ll take your silence as understanding. Good. Then let’s get the hell out of here; I can’t stand these boondocks shitholes.”
The men all seemed relieved to finally have the order to move out. Their eyes on Ian, they walked back into the house, leaving Olivia and Brody alone on the deck, Ian still standing helplessly on the lawn.
“Help!” cried Olivia, Brody responding with a jab of the end of his gun into her ribs.
Ian started forward, and Brody aimed his pistol at him, stopping Ian in his tracks.
“That’s far enough,” he said, turning back to the house.
Then, he stopped again and turned towards Ian once more.
“Actually, now that I think about it, I owe you one. You did take my girl, after all,” he said, squinting his eye and leveling the pistol.
A crack sounded through the expanse of the lawn, the flash of the gunshot flicking orange and white for the briefest of moments. The bullet hit Ian in the upper thigh like a baseball hurled at him with unbelievable speed. His leg buckled underneath him and he collapsed to the ground, the grass stiff and sharp on his skin.
Olivia let out a shrill scream, and Ian could make out through blurred vision her attempts to squirm out of Brody’s grasp. And this was the last thing he remembered before passing out.
***
When Ian awoke, he was sprawled out nude on the grass, the chill of the cold air on his skin snapping him to alertness. He opened his eyes and saw the low-hanging sun was beginning its descent, the sky a cloudless, dim blue.
He remembered quickly what happened before he passed out, and he bolted, his eyes fastening onto his leg where the bullet hit. To his surprise, he saw that the wound had healed, a dark red circle on his thigh. On the ground next to him was a smashed slug. He picked it up and looked it over, seeing that it wasn’t silver, but rather, a standard round. His advanced healing had done its work as he slept, and as he stood, he found that he had no trouble putting his weight on his leg.
A bluff, thought Ian, boiling with anger at what Brody had done. If the bullet had been silver, this leg would be in far worse shape than this.
He entered the
house and saw that the place had been ransacked. It appeared that Olivia put up a struggle before Brody could get his hands on her. He rushed up the stairs to Olivia’s bedroom and saw that, of course, Noah had been taken as well. A strange silence hung in the air. Ian realized that he’d grown used to the sounds of Olivia and Noah in the home, to the sound of a mother doting on her baby, feeding it, playing with it, singing it songs.
His anger brimmed over as he realized what he needed to do. He’d go to New York, track down Brody, and save Olivia and Noah from him. And if he resisted, he’d kill him.
Ian threw on some clothing, grabbed his keys from the bowl near the door and stormed out of the house. He climbed into his car and gunned the engine, peeling out onto the road. His eyes affixed forward, he drove straight on. And as the sun set around him, his mind was possessed with one singular purpose.
CHAPTER 12
“A lot of fucking nerve you’ve got.”
Brody’s voice was lined with anger, edged with razor wire.
“Running off and shacking up with some werebear assholes; my son in there with some…freak of nature!”
The car rumbled and lurched as it drove over the uneven roads of Brooklyn. Olivia said nothing, her eyes on the familiar shapes of the passing buildings as they made their way deeper into the city. She thought how strange it was that years ago, when she first arrived in the city, New York had represented freedom, a place where she could carve out her own destiny. Now, as they drove closer and closer to her former home, it felt as though she were being led to a prison cell.
“You have any idea how fuckin’ embarrassing it was for me to explain to the boys how my wife ran out on me? Taking my son?” He shook his head. “You made me look like a goddamn chump who can’t even keep his woman in line.”
If the shoe fits, thought Olivia.
She cast an eye back to Noah, pleased to see that he’d finally calmed down. The baby had spent the majority of the drive back to the city screaming his lungs out, and had only just settled down.
