by T. S. Joyce
He squeezed her hand, then kissed her forehead and sauntered off toward the barn without looking back.
She swallowed the urge to follow him—to hug him and tell him how much she’d fallen in love with him over the last week and beg him not to push her away. But if he didn’t care for her in that way, what was the point? She’d only be more hurt in the end.
A sob clogged her throat, and she gulped it down. She crossed her arms over her chest to ward off the cold that was seeping into her and traced the wood grain of the log walls of the cabin with her eyes.
This place was only a paradise if Brighton was happy, too.
And clearly, her being here wasn’t bringing him joy like it was for her. Maybe it was time to get back to the real world and give Brighton the space he seemed to need. She’d read in a library book once, if something truly belonged to a person, they had to set it free and allow it a chance to come back.
Maybe that’s what she’d been doing wrong with Brighton. Forcing him. Forcing this.
Inside, she cried as she packed her duffle bag. On the bed they shared, she stacked the clothes he’d so thoughtfully packed for her that first day when he didn’t know her.
So much had changed since then.
She’d discovered what she was, but more than that, she’d discovered she could be strong. She would go back to the real world a different person. One who could hold her head up a little higher. Maybe she wouldn’t be so shy around new people, and maybe someday she’d get the courage to sing karaoke at a bar in town, just to prove to herself that she was as brave as Brighton thought she was. She could walk down the street not staring at the cracks in the concrete and look up at the world instead—look ahead to what life was going to bring her.
Brighton had given her life back. Perhaps not the life she’d left behind, but one where she could be okay eventually. One where the animal inside of her could bring her confidence, not kill her slowly.
God, she would miss him. Just thinking about going back to Saratoga without him gutted her. She dashed the back of her hands across her lashes until they were dry, shoved the final bag of toiletries into the side zipper of her bag, then fastened it up and pulled it across her shoulder.
She looked back at the house, memorizing every detail. The warped floorboards that had been worn smooth and shining. The vase of late-season wildflowers she’d arranged on the dining table. The small kitchen where she and Brighton had spent hours cooking together, laughing and flirting, touching…kissing. She’d already memorized his lips and the way they felt against her skin. As long as she lived, she would never forget that. She committed to memory the rustic furniture and a dark, ethereal painting of logging machinery that hung from the biggest wall in the living room. The signature in the bottom read Brooke in a looping, barely legible scrawl.
This place was where she’d found herself in so many ways.
The hollow sound of the closing door behind her made her feel empty inside. It had to be the loneliest sound in the whole world. She hefted her bag to the old tire swing that clung to the branches of a giant tree out front.
The rope swing creaked out an easy rhythm as Everly pressed the heels of her boots into the dirt and swung in the breeze as she waited for Brighton to decide he’d had enough time away from her. She didn’t want to rush him for a ride back into town, so she waited patiently outside and hoped he would come back in time to take her back to her apartment before dark.
Brighton came out of the barn, and his attention settled immediately on the bag beside her. His expression turned grim in an instant. When he dragged his gaze back to hers, his eyes were clear and green instead of the silver she’d grown to expect.
She slowed the swing as he approached. His strong hand gripped her neck, massaged it with a gentle touch, then disappeared. He pushed her lower back, and she lifted her legs to allow the old tire to carry her through the air.
“You can’t be Changing with me like that anymore,” he whispered.
“I know. It’s not what you want.”
“No, I just can’t stand to watch you hurt like that. You have to stop.”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she nodded and watched a flock of birds fly across the sky. She was leaving anyway, so what did it matter?
“I was sixteen.”
Confused, she twisted in the oversize tire and dragged her feet against the dirt to stop her trajectory. “What?”
“Don’t look at me while I’m telling you, or I won’t be able to do this.”
Her eyes went wide, and she turned back around. From here, she could hear his heartbeat, and it was pounding like the fast-rhythm base in some techno song. She wanted to hold him while he spilled his secrets, but it wasn’t his way.
He swallowed audibly and continued, “My twin brother, Denison, and I were home alone for the first time, and people...humans…came and took us. We fought, but they injected us with something that suppressed our animals. I woke up in this sterile room to this awful sound in my ears. That sound, I came to realize, was my own screams as they cut into me without anesthesia. That was the first time of many. Denison’s bear was more manageable and took less injections to control him, while I took twice the dosage. My bear had always been angrier, stronger, and I wanted to fight what was happening to me. They said Denison would be their breeder. They planned on kidnapping a she-bear and studying their reproductive habits, as well as our genetics. They tested on my brother, but it was all internal, and they gave him something that repressed his memories.”
Brighton’s whisper sounded tortured as he pushed her again, and Everly could hear the scratch of him rubbing the scruff on his face with his free hand.
“I was called the Tissue Sample. That’s what they referred to me as. No name, just, ‘take the Tissue Sample into the operating room. He’s healed enough to go again.’ You’ve probably noticed how fast we heal. So, they would bring me to the brink of death, give me a few hours, and I’d be ready for their scalpels again.”
“Oh, Brighton,” Everly whispered as agony washed over her.
“I remember everything. Every cut. Every strip of flesh they took from me because they kept me awake. The same IV that kept my bear inside of me, shredding me from the inside out but never able to protect me, held medicines that kept me still but awake for the operations. Some bullshit about pain tolerance testing.” His whisper cracked and he walked around the tire and fell to his knees in front of her. “I don’t want you to leave, but I understand if you have to. This is what I am. This is what you’re getting yourself into. I’ll always be broken.” His fingers clutched her jeans and his forehead rested against her knees.
“Finish it, Brighton. Tell it to me, every bit of it, and be done with carrying this alone.”
Slowly, he rubbed his face against her pants, and tiny dark splotches spotted them where his eyes had touched. “I saw Denison sometimes. I’d call out to him if I was able, but it was like he didn’t see me. He didn’t see anything, he was so drugged up. The nurses and doctors would move him to a different testing area or back to his cell, and he’d follow them easily, while I fought everything. I stopped healing as quickly by the second day. They’d carved on me all night, and they seemed satisfied from the strips they’d taken from my torso and leg. A man named Reynolds headed all the operations and seemed to be in charge, and I remember when he told me they were going to start carving out my insides, I got sick in my cell. He watched me retching, and then thanked me for my sacrifice in the name of science, and I was terrified. I was just a fucking kid, worried about what was happening to my brother, and if I’d ever see my parents and sister again. The next surgery, Reynolds took my voice. He removed something from my neck and said they wanted to study how I was able to talk and growl at the same time. And I wanted to die. I prayed for it. At first I prayed to pass out from the pain at each operation, but then, on the last day, I just wanted the pain to end.”
He lifted his silver gaze to Everly’s. She’d never seen this kind of he
artbreak in a man’s eyes, and it killed her to hear what he’d gone through. But she had to be brave now because he was finally letting her in. She stroked his dark locks until he found his whispered voice again.
“I was being sliced when I saw Denison that last day. He had that vacant look in his eyes that said he’d been drugged heavily, and I expected him to just walk on past the room I was in without seeing me like he always did. I watched him because I was scared it would be the last time I’d ever see him, and it was the only way I could say goodbye to my brother. But he looked up. It was the first life I’d seen in him, and his eyes landed right one me.” Brighton cast his attention toward the woods. “He Changed. I don’t know how he bypassed the drugs, but he killed the doctors who were escorting him down the hall, and he shredded the doctors who were working on me while he was at it. Reynolds ran, the fucking coward, and Denison let me out of my straps. He ripped the IV out of my arm, and alarms were going off so loud, I thought my eardrums would burst. Red lights flashing and panic as the doctors tried to flee, and we killed them. Men and women, it didn’t matter to us. We killed the entire team that had worked on us, one by one. Denison made a bad kill. A slow one on a woman I’d seen with him the most. Later he told me he didn’t’ know why he’d let her bleed out like that, but I’d watched him as she died. He looked at her with such hatred. She’d done something awful to him. He just couldn’t remember what had his bear despising her so much. Denison passed out before we made it out of the building, and I was in bad shape. Still bleeding. The pain had stopped at some point like I’d gotten used to it, but I had no idea where we were. It took me a full day to get us back home. Denison came back with little memory of the experience we’d been through, and I came back completely broken. I came home to nightmares and a bear that revolted after being suppressed and tortured. I do my best to hide what those doctors did to me, and when I can’t stop the Changes, I come here and hide away from the Ashe Crew so they won’t see how fucked up I really am.”
Everly slid through the tire swing and fell to her knees in front of him, then hugged him to her, clenching her hands against his back. He’d found jeans in the barn, but his torso was bare, exposing all of those horrifying marks. She knew how fast she healed, and to make thick, red scars like that, those doctors had to have taken huge strips of flesh from him. She couldn’t imagine the pain from one that stretched halfway around his body, much less the fifteen that went from under his arm to his thigh like zebra stripes.
“Is that why you don’t like to whisper?”
“It reminds me of what was done. I haven’t used it much since it happened. It’s painful, but it sometimes sets my bear off, too. The whisper didn’t really feel worth it. Not until you.”
“What happened to Reynolds?”
“He came after me and Denison and the rest of our crew a few months ago. We got out with the help of the Gray Backs and Boarlanders, but just barely. Denison dragged Reynolds into the woods after the fight and pinned him against a tree, and I…I killed him. It should’ve given me closure, right? To kill the last man left alive who’d tortured me. But instead, it dredged up all the things I’d gone through in that lab. And now, my bear is out of control, just from seeing the man again.” His voice rasped to nothing and he winced.
Gently, she lifted his chin and cupped his face in her palms. Searching his eyes, she murmured, “I’m not going anywhere. If you thought this was going to scare me off, you’re wrong. It has only made me love you more.”
His eyes went round with disbelief and his breath caught. His face crumpled with emotion, and he pressed his forehead against her chest, hiding his face from her. “Say it again,” he rasped out in a barely audible whisper.
“I love you, Brighton Beck. You are the strongest, sweetest, most amazing man I’ve ever met, and you’re all mine. My mate, my man. You’ve only tethered me to you more by letting me in. I love you. I love you.” Her voice cracked as she repeated it once more and nuzzled the top of his head as she rocked him gently.
Brighton’s shoulders sagged as if a hundred pounds of weight had been lifted from him. Maybe it had been.
She didn’t know how to fix him, but she knew she wouldn’t stop trying to help until she drew her last breath.
Brighton had survived something horrific and had still taken time out of his life to save her, even as he was struggling with his own gritty experiences. It took a great and selfless man to do something like that. She was going to show him just how coveted he was, just how worth it he was.
And as she rocked him in the dirt beneath the old tire swing on that cool September morning, she realized that she’d never felt this way about anyone. Hadn’t known this type of love existed.
Because he’d been brave enough to allow her in, her heart would belong to him for always.
Chapter Eleven
Everly fidgeted with the corner of the dishcloth in her hands and checked the window to the front yard for the hundredth time. Brighton had said he had errands to run in town, but that had been hours ago, and if her calculations were correct, it was past time for him to Change.
Her imagination had run away with her as it concocted stories of him turning into a grizzly on Bridge Avenue in front of everyone.
Brighton usually did dishes. He seemed to prefer the routine of them, but she was so nervous she’d already tidied his cabin from top to bottom and made an entire vat of homemade chicken noodle soup. For something to preoccupy her mind, the clean dishes that decorated the drying rack were getting a twice over.
The soft rumble of Brighton’s truck sounded from far away, pricking her ears. “Thank God.” She rinsed the last plate and yanked the dishtowel from her shoulder, then bolted for the front porch. Pacing, she wrung her hands, her eyes never leaving the gravel drive that wound through the trees beyond the clearing of the front yard.
Her shoulders relaxed the moment she saw Brighton behind the wheel. From here, she could tell his eyes weren’t even silver. Perhaps he’d Changed on the way in then. She jogged out to meet him as he parked in the front meadow. His smile was contagious as he opened the door and caught her hug. Lifting her off her feet, he spun her slowly as she planted kisses all over his face.
“I missed you, silly bear. I was worried something had happened.”
“I got you something,” he rasped out, then reached for the bench seat of his truck and pulled out a bag from a clothing boutique she recognized from Saratoga.
Her face went slack with shock as he settled her on her feet. “You bought me this?”
Open it, he mouthed.
She tore out the tissue paper and pulled out a pink and white floral dress with a matching cardigan. A pair of beige flats were in the bottom of the bag.
I checked the sizes of your clothes and shoes before I went into town this morning. Brighton’s emerald-colored eyes were so open and hopeful looking that she nestled against his chest and hugged him tight.
“No one has ever bought me anything like this.” She fingered the soft cotton fabric and smiled up at him. “It’s beautiful.”
You like it?
“I love it. You want me to try it on?”
A soft smile graced his lips, then faded as he nodded his head seriously.
“Okay, give me a minute.”
In the bedroom, the mirror must’ve been feeling extra generous. Her dark under-eye circles had all but disappeared, and already she didn’t look as emaciated. Partially thanks to Brighton being a wonderful cook and feeding her like clockwork, but also because she had a healthy balance between her human side and her animal side now. She hadn’t had a single seizure since the first time she’d Changed. Even her hair looked shinier, and her lips looked pinker. Her cheeks had color to them, and her eyes were a clear and happy blue. Emotion choked her up, and she looked away before the waterworks started. Brighton had done this for her.
She dressed slowly, then smoothed the wrinkles from the full knee-length skirt. The top was fitted with delicate straps that
made her collar bones look quite lovely. The cream-colored cardigan matched the flats she slipped onto her feet, and when she looked in the mirror again, she felt like a princess. He’d imagined her in this dress and had picked out exactly the dress she would have adored on a manikin while window shopping.
“You look beautiful,” Brighton whispered from the open doorway. He leaned on the frame, arms crossed over his chest, shoulders relaxed as he raked his approving gaze down her figure.
“I feel beautiful.” She stepped lightly to him and held his hands in her own. “You make me feel good about myself.”
He lifted his chin, pride evident in his face as he nodded. “I bought you the dress for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“My brother is marrying his mate tonight. I want to take you.”
She canted her head and smiled shyly. “Like a date?”
“Always my date,” he said without hesitation. “You’re my mate, Everly Moore. I’ve been waiting to show you off to my crew, and now, I think you’re ready.”
Her first reaction was happiness, but as concern over his bear invaded her excited thoughts, she began to fret. He’d told her all about the Ashe Crew, and late last night, in the bed they shared together, he’d admitted that he was in hiding because of his troublesome inner animal. He hadn’t wanted his crew to worry.
“What about your Changes? Will you be able to control them while we’re there?”
A slow smile split his face until his straight, white teeth stood out against his designer facial scruff. “You want to hear a secret?” he asked, ducking around her, then sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I always want to hear your secrets,” she answered honestly.
“I haven’t Changed since I told you about my past.”
“But Brighton, that was more than a day ago.” Hope bloomed in her chest, warming her from the inside out until her skin tingled.
