She screamed and cried his name, but she couldn’t move. She stood stock still in the midst of the battle raging on all sides of her. She had no idea which way to turn to find him and save him from destruction.
In her agony, she threw back her head and shrieked to the skies. Her cries turned to a roar of rage and pain, and all her suppressed emotions burst the dam holding them back. Her head arched back, and her shoulders burst aside the confines of this frail body. She lowered her head between her shoulders and let her voice deepen into the pit of her stomach.
That roar echoed from the dawn of time. It carried all her wild animal passion with it, and the bear tossed away the human covering holding it down. She shook her big head in warning, but her berserk fury already cast aside all restraint. She slashed out with her claws to destroy the first thing she touched.
She rampaged through the crowds. She hesitated only long enough to see if the man in front of her was Easton or not. Then she smashed that person to move on to the next. She slapped Ash’s people toward the woods and Foicks’s people the other way toward the shed.
Only one thing mattered: finding Easton. Bodies fell right and left before her. A few men she took by surprise shifted after she left them behind, but they thought twice and didn’t return to attack her.
In the back of her mind, she became aware of another bear thundering in the distance. She didn’t stop her marauding long enough to listen to it. She surprised three men clustered in a circle around a fallen adversary. She raised her paw to deal her death blow when one of them cast a surprised glance over his shoulder.
At the moment he moved his shoulder sideways, Haven caught sight of a small figure half-kneeling on the ground. He raised his machete over his head to fend off dozens of club and axe blows from the fully grown men surrounding him.
Haven’s rage shot her forward faster than she could think. She didn’t take the time to check who those men were. She gnashed her jaws at any stray limb she could find. She tore flesh from bone and shattered limbs with her paws.
Easton cowered under his arms before her fury. Haven fought her way up to him when she spotted another bear approaching Easton from the other side. Easton’s eyes widened in terror, but Haven’s heart settled at the sight of her mate. Her fury quieted. She had her brother safe, and Foicks wouldn’t hurt him.
Another deep-throated male bellow drew their attention to one side. Ash worked his way through the crowd. His shaggy brown fur bounced up and down with his movements, and he leapt from one of his friends to the next to send them flying. He drove them all back toward the woods.
Out of nowhere, a flying missile of lunatic power sailed past Haven’s head. It struck Foicks full in the shoulder, and two bears somersaulted over and over in the dirt. Haven started to draw back, but when another phalanx of men closed around the combatants, her temper flared all over again. She threw herself at the adversaries to force them back.
Behind her, Foicks rolled over his opponent and pinned him to the ground. He held him there just long enough for Haven to recognize the assailant. It was Rhys Dodd. Rhys slathered his lips back from his teeth and gnashed his jaws at Foicks’s face. Foicks got the early advantage, but Rhys overpowered him with weight and strength.
Haven worked her way down the line. Bears and people fought all around her. She attacked everyone she came across, but most of these Bruins never really wanted to fight in the first place. They just got swept up in the mob insanity. Once they found themselves face to face with a marauding she-bear, they turned tail and ran.
She couldn’t say the same about Rhys, though. He lost his position as Alpha of his tribe. He wouldn’t lose this chance to take over as leader of the war faction. Foicks stretched his teeth wide, but when he dove in to maul Rhys, Rhys rose off the ground and carried Foicks with him.
Rhys twisted and sank his teeth into Foicks’s neck from the side. His momentum toppled Foicks over, and Rhys struggled up on top. In a flat second, Rhys got Foicks by the throat.
Haven spun around with a withering bellow. She rocketed across the yard to rend Rhys to pieces for daring to touch her mate, but before she got there, Foicks kicked out with his hind legs. He knocked Rhys’s back legs off balance. Foicks curled himself into a ball and rolled down between Rhys’s legs to freedom.
Rhys rounded on him with a snarl. He coiled all his four legs to spring. He left the ground and flew through the air. His fangs glistened in the misty sunlight, but before he could close with Foicks, Foicks stood back on his hind legs. His shoulders sank lower, his fur vanished, and he faced Rhys as a young man.
Rhys thundered in his face, but the big bear drew up short just before his jaws crushed Foicks’s skull to a pulp. Foicks stood still and waited. Rhys paced back and forth, but he dared not attack Foicks. As long as Foicks kept his human form, Rhys kept his distance.
All over the battlefield, men retreated into their ranks. They faced off the same way they did a few minutes before. More than one bore claw and knife cuts on their chests and arms, and several carried their fallen comrades from the field.
Ash trotted over. He shifted and stood back to back with Foicks. The two brothers faced their factions. Foicks took a deep breath and shouted over the crowd. “Listen to me, all of you. Do you see what fighting among yourselves will do? The Midnight don’t have to catch us and bear-bait us to kill us. We’re doing it to ourselves. None of us will be left if we don’t stop this now.”
He rounded on Rhys Dodd. “How can you fight Bruin against Bruin? Don’t we have enough to worry about in this world with hunters coming after us and the humans telling lies about us behind our backs? Do we really want to destroy this Peak and everything our tribes have worked to achieve? Is that what you really want?”
Rhys shifted. He flexed his powerful arms and pointed at Foicks. “Get out of the way. If you’re too cowardly to fight, get out of the way and make room for someone who will.”
Foicks held out his hand to Haven. In a heartbeat, she shifted, and her fingers closed around that hand. He drew her toward him, but he didn’t answer Rhys. He boomed across the yard to the men and boys assembled behind him. “Do you see this woman? I’m mated for life with her. I won’t fight the Midnight, and I won’t go to Renegade Ridge. I’ll stay right here and build a life with her. Isn’t that what every Bruin wants? Doesn’t every Bruin want a decent life with his mate and his family? If you’re smart, you’ll do the same thing instead of chasing phantoms across the countryside.”
Rhys shook his head. Silas MacAllister shouted out from the other side. “You can’t do this. You can’t turn against us after everything we’ve done.”
“I’m going to Renegade Ridge,” Ash called back. “I’ll find out what we can expect from these NightShade. Then we’ll know what’s what.”
Dax Cunningham spoke up from the war faction, “You’ll get them working for peace, just like you.”
Foicks held up his hands for quiet. “I’ve got Ash’s solemn promise he’ll represent the war faction the same as his own. If you really want to fight the Midnight, at least wait until Ash gets back. At least wait to find out if they plan to fight or not. You’d be damn fools to attack before that.”
The men on both sides exchanged glances. Some of them nodded, but Rhys only bared his teeth at Foicks. “We’ll never back down. You can’t stop us.”
Foicks lowered his voice to a conversational tone. “I don’t want to stop you, man. I only want to stop you from killing your own people.” He thundered out louder than ever. “I won’t fight Bruins anymore. I won’t fight my brother, and I won’t let you fight each other, either. You want to fight somebody? Fight our enemies. Save your ammo and your weapons and your energy for the real enemies. These aren’t your enemies. These are you brothers and your cousins and your friends. So you disagree on how to do things. What’s so new about that? We’ve never fought each other. Not even the feud between the Farrells and the Cunninghams divided the Peak. We’re Bruins. Do you hear me? We’re Bruins—al
l of us!”
He swept his faction with those sparkling eyes. Men started to turn away. Ash confronted his friends on the other side, and a few retreated into the woods. One by one, they fell back until no one remained on the field but Silas and Rhys.
Rhys paced back and forth. He rested his hands on his hips and glared at Foicks. “Get out of my way before I make you sorry.”
Foicks shook his head. His voice shook with emotion. “If you want to fight somebody, you’ll fight me first and you won’t walk away without bleeding. Is that what you want? Do you want a broken leg or one of your ears ripped off? Is this really worth that?”
Ash called out to Silas, “Back off. Go home. No one’s fighting here today. If you want to fight each other, you’ll have to get through us first.”
Silas looked away first. He turned toward the woods, but he glanced back at Ash before he disappeared among the trees. Rhys didn’t budge, not even when Foicks turned away to face Ash. He murmured in his brother’s ear. “Take Haven and get out of here. I don’t want either of you watching this.”
Ash nodded. “Come on, Haven. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Haven told Foicks. “You can’t throw your life away like this.”
“I have to,” Foicks replied. “It’s the only way to stop him. He won’t back down without a fight.”
“You can’t beat him,” Haven pointed out. “He’s fully mature with all his weight. You’re not.”
Foicks sighed. “Some things are worth dying for. If it means saving Bruins’ Peak for Bruins, I’ll do it.”
Haven gulped. “What about me? What about building a decent life with me the way you talked about?”
He squeezed her hand. “I’d like nothing better, but if I don’t put him down now, he’ll keep causing trouble for the rest of Bruin kind. Somebody’s got to stand up to him, and I guess that has to be me.”
A slamming door made all three spin around to see Riskin Dodd striding across the yard. He walked up to Rhys and stopped behind his shoulder. Riskin murmured into Rhys’s ear, “Come inside. I want to talk to you.”
Rhys snapped over his shoulder without turning around, “I’m busy.”
Riskin kept his voice low, but the words cut like a knife. “I said come inside. Now.”
Haven, Foicks, and Ash stared at the brothers in amazement. Riskin was Rhys’s Alpha. He’d already put his brother in his place once, and he could do it again. Rhys shot his brother a dreadful look, but he had no choice except to obey. He couldn’t keep fighting the whole world.
He swept the faces staring at him. His eyes could freeze granite, and his jaw clenched to grind his teeth together. He threw his hands off his hips and stormed into the house. Riskin nodded to Foicks and Ash. “You guys better go home, too.”
“Yes, Sir,” Foicks replied.
Chapter 18
Ash clapped Foicks on the back. “I’ll see you later. I’ll make my own way home.”
Foicks turned around to face him. “No, you come with me. I want to talk to you about your trip. Just do me a favor and wait for me in the truck while I say good-bye to Haven.”
Ash walked away. Haven peered into Foicks’s face. “Is it good-bye?”
He touched her cheek. “Of course not, but you better go home. We’ve all got work to do before we can move forward.”
She slipped her arms around his waist. “You were amazing out there. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”
“For what? I didn’t do anything, except almost get myself killed. I would be dead now if Riskin hadn’t stepped in.”
“You stopped the fight. You saved Easton, and you drove the factions apart.”
“You helped, too—you and Ash. We all did it together.”
She rested her ear against his heart. “Yeah. We did.”
He stroked her hair and kissed her ears. “You were pretty darn scary out there yourself.”
“Scary? I was not.”
“I was scared, and I saw the looks on those guys’ faces. They were scared to death of you. If anything convinced them to back down, it was you.”
Haven couldn’t hold down her laughter, but the fright and despair of the fight welled up along with her mirth. In an instant, her laughter turned to sobs. Foicks lifted her face to his lips. “It’s all right. You’re a big, bad, scary she-bear, and it’s all over now. Everybody’s okay.”
She hid in his arms. “I was scared. I was scared Easton would die before we got here.”
“You did it. Easton is safe, thanks to you.”
Her head shot up. “Where is Easton?”
He kissed her and pushed her away. “Go home. Go take care of your business so we can come back together. When we do, we’ll never come apart.” He pointed toward the woods. “Go home.”
She kissed the end of his finger. “Bye.”
He blew her a kiss and walked backward toward the truck where Ash waited for him. “I love you. You’re mine. Don’t forget that.”
She smiled, and the wind blew the hair out of her face. “I’m yours.”
He turned on his heel and walked away without looking back. Haven watched the truck peel out of Dodd Homestead. She cast one last glance over the empty battle scene. Somewhere in the house, Rhys was still fuming about Foicks and Ash spoiling his fight.
Whatever Rhys and Riskin Dodd talked about or didn’t talk about inside that house no longer concerned Haven. She had her own work to do to bring this Peak back together. She set off through the trees.
Once the woods enclosed her with their silent tranquility, the terrible battle and all its uncertainties disappeared. Everything was okay, now that Ash and Foicks made up. The rest of Bruins’ Peak would do the same in short order.
She crossed Dodd territory and climbed the steep hills up toward the lookout. Before the trees thinned out, she veered off into Farrell territory, but she froze in her tracks when she heard a strange sound. She stopped to listen. It was coming from the lookout.
She snuck between the trees and crouched low to peek out. A lone figure sat on the lookout bench. A dark head bent over so she couldn’t see who it was, but she would recognize that voice anywhere.
She broke the treeline and ran the rest of the way to the bench. The whole western mountain range spread out at her feet, but she didn’t see that. She could only stare at the figure in front of her. “Easton? What’s wrong?”
He lifted his tear-stained face, but he didn’t look at her. He fixed his eyes on the far horizon, that brutal world where every hand turned against a Bruin to kill him on sight. “Go away. Don’t look at me.”
She drew a step closer. “At least let me help you. Are you hurt? Did you get injured in that fight?”
He turned his head the rest of the way so she couldn’t see his profile. She found herself staring at the back of his head. “It’s all over. The war’s over.”
“We should all be happy about that. This war is the worst thing that could possibly happen to our people.”
He whirled around so fast his tears flew off his face. “Don’t you see? Foicks quit. Now, Rhys is in charge.”
Haven gasped. “You can’t be thinking of sticking with the war faction after what happened today. This whole business can only end in disaster.”
His shoulders shook to contain his emotions. “I joined this faction for Foicks. He inspired me to defend Bruins’ Peak with my life. Now, he’s gone. I don’t want to serve Rhys. Rhys is a mongrel compared to Foicks. He doesn’t listen. He doesn’t care what anybody says. All he cares about is being in charge. I can never serve Rhys, and that means I have to abandon the faction. I’ll never get to fight the Midnight.”
Haven couldn’t believe her ears. She sank down on the bench next to him. Her eyes found the farthest distant point of land. She could journey out there and find respite from this heart-wrenching situation.
She took a deep breath and laid her hand on her brother’s knee. “It’s all over for me, too. This battle devastated my world as
much as yours.”
He stiffened. He was listening. Haven plucked up her courage. She could unburden herself to him. “All I ever wanted was a quiet life. Now Bruin is battling Bruin. We should be working together.”
He didn’t say anything. The longer he listened, the more she could cling to a fragile hope of getting through to him.
“No one will fight the Midnight after what happened today.”
His sobs choked in his throat. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true,” she countered. “Ash doesn’t want to lead the peace faction anymore after the way they marched on their own people, and no one else has the ability to lead them. These two factions will fall apart, and Bruins’ Peak will go back to the way it was before.”
Easton glanced over at her. “Are you sure?”
“What do you think will happen when Ash visits the NightShade on Renegade Ridge? He’ll make allies of them, for war or peace. When the Midnight find out the Bruins and the NightShade are standing together, they’ll back down. They’ll stop bear-baiting, and the whole conflict will die and never come back to life. It’s the best possible outcome for everybody, when you think about it.”
Easton stared at her. “I never thought about that.”
She squeezed his leg. “Listen to me. We’ve all got a lot of work to do to put this Peak back together again after Foicks and Ash and a lot of other people did their best to tear it apart. Your people need you—not to defend Bruins’ Peak against the Midnight, but to defend it against people like Rhys. We need you to build, not tear the world apart.”
He turned away. “I don’t know if I can do that. I mean, I don’t know how. I don’t know where to start.”
“Isn’t there something positive you want to do, something that doesn’t involve fighting? Why don’t you ask Brody? Maybe he could find a job for you on the timber lots. I heard him talking to Austin a few weeks ago. Austin wants a young man to train to manage the harvests so he can concentrate on expanding their operation. Or you could talk to Mattox about the Mackenzie Ranch.”
Easton’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Bruins Peak Bears Box Set (Volume II) Page 59
