Crush on the Alpha Bear

by Emilia Hartley

  Engrossed in the exchange between Nick and Dominic, Adam had noticed that one of the enemy bears had launched another attack on him until it was too late. He stumbled backwards in an effort to prepare himself but the bear latched down on his foreleg before he could properly dodge. In a blur, Tom descended upon the enemy bear ripping at its throat until it fell away scrambling for the shadows.

  "Are you okay?" Tom snuffed. Adam grunted his confirmation. "Learn to pay attention, or next time you won't be." He didn't wait for a response before bouncing back to his brother’s side as two enemy bears tried to blindside him. As Adam watched, Tom tore and clawed at the bears that had tried to ambush Nick with ease.

  "Adam behind you!" Adam heard Lucy bay urgently somewhere to the south. He turned in time to see a different bear running directly for him yet again, but this time he had enough time to prepare. He rose up on his hind legs when the bear was too close to retreat, slamming down on its shoulder as it poised itself for the tackle. With a roar, Adam bit down on the bear's neck as it fell to the forest floor and jumped back before it had a chance to recover.

  Adam silently cursed himself for getting so distracted right after being reminded not to.

  “Adam!" Emily called. He turned to see Emily’s back against a tree surrounded by three bears, already poised to attack. A moment of absolute dread overcame him, his legs automatically leaping into action before his mind could catch up with them. Even still as his body moved on its own, he knew he wouldn't make it in time.

  All at once they charged his mate with the intent to kill.

  Adam cried out with a panicked roar as he watched on helplessly, all of his fears quickly turning to reality before him. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Once again his inexperience had failed them all, and this time he’d possibly lose his only love because of it.

  In a flash, David appeared out of the corner of his vision, rocketing forward with a vicious snarl on his face, as he tore at the bears that had Emily boxed in.

  Almost immediately, the bears redirected their attention to his father. Making sure that his dad would be okay for just a moment he ran over to Emily, nuzzling her once to make sure that she was okay. Though shaken, and more than a little bloody, she appeared to be fine.

  Hearing a grunt behind them Adam turned to see that the fight between David and the three Bears had shifted dramatically. One hung off his foreleg as another lunged for his throat. The third bear had managed to get behind David, bunching its legs to jump. Instinct took over Adam's body as he charged the bear behind his dad. He took it down easily raking his claws down the bear’s torso before turning to dispatch the other bears. Emily had recovered from her scare, running towards the bear that had David by the throat. As Adam watched, blood poured down the bears muzzle as his father grunted and struggled to fight it off. Emily leapt for the bear but before she could pull him away, the first enemy bear unlatched itself from David's foreleg and met her halfway. They both went crashing down to the forest floor together.

  Adam didn't make it far before the bear he'd bloodied caught him by the hind leg digging tooth and claw into the meat and muscle, making Adam growl out in pain. Adam pulled on his leg until blood flowed freely from it, trying desperately to free himself from the bears grasp.

  As he finally wrenched his leg free, he made it to his father just in time to see the light die in his eyes.

  Adam didn't have time to think. There was no time to mourn. All he could see was the enemy bear. It’s jaws were bloodied with his father's blood. Adam roared. He was on it in a flash, dripping fangs digging angrily at the bear’s jugular.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A sorrowful rumble tore from Adam's throat only moments before an identical one came from Emily. Try as he may to finish the walk to his father side, Adam couldn't budge. He didn’t want it to be true. He knew that standing by his father's body, eyes dead to the world, he would have no other choice but to accept his fate.

  Emily had no such qualms. She immediately rushed to David's side. Adam could only stand and watch as Emily nudged and prodded his father's body, whimpering meekly as she tried to coax some form of reaction from him. David's body moved freely beneath her paws, shifting lifelessly with every shove. All the while, his gaze stared blankly beyond, dull with fresh death in its sight.

  A woeful moan spilled from Emily’s jaws as she mourned, unwilling to stop nudging and pushing on David’s limp corpse.

  How? Adam asked himself, jaw slack with grief. How did this happen? How could his father—his leader—be… he couldn’t. He was just alive and strong and fighting with vigor he’d never seen before!

  An amused snort came from where Nick and Tom stood. Behind them, Dominic seemed to quiver with suppressed laughter.

  “Oh, my. Dead already?” he positively purred. “Is it me, or do they just not make alphas the way they used to anymore?”

  Anger flashed white hot in a sudden fury deep within Adam’s stomach. His blood felt like it was set to boil, and as he stared down at the bear that dared to mock the death of one of the greatest bear’s Adam had ever known—Emily’s soft keening slicing at him all the while—something in him finally snapped.

  “You did this,” he growled almost imperceptibly, before roaring with a rage, “You did this, you bastard!”

  Adam launched himself at Dominic without quarter. There was no longer any fear or apprehension in his movements. He no longer doubted his skill against the large bear that had instigated this attack. Everything went numb as he ran, ears filling with static in an effort to keep all thought and hesitation from his mind. He only cared about killing the bear that had caused the death of his father. Nothing else mattered.

  Dominic saw Adam coming from across the clearing, but Adam kept charging anyway. A jagged and coarse snarl tore from his jaws as he sprinted.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Adam could hear Nick roar out to him, but the words weren’t clear. It sounded urgent, and maybe even a bit panicked. As Adam whipped by in a blur, he could make out the clear alarm on the pack leader’s face. Still, Adam rocketed onward. Nick wouldn’t understand his newfound sense of purpose born of pain.

  Dominic was finally in range. He didn’t run, flinch, or even prepare to dodge. He only watched as Adam descended upon him in a fury of a dozen bears, and right as Adam’s paw was due to slice into Dominic’s throat, Dominic’s jaw fell open in a mocking smile.

  Adam didn’t know he’d run into a trap until it was too late.

  Dominic darted forward at the last second, rising up under Adam’s still airborne body and shouldering him off-balance. Adam fell sloppily to the ground, feeling something crunch grotesquely before agonizing pain seared up to his shoulder. He opened his jaws to cry out, but the sound died on his lips as Dominic lunged upon him, sinking large paw claws deep into his stomach.

  Emily roared loudly, and even as a bear it sounded like a terrified shriek.

  Adam couldn’t feel anything, but even this felt different than the numbness he’d felt from seeing his father’s cold dead eyes staring back at him. He opened his jaws to speak, grunt, growl, anything, but nothing came out. No longer did he wince at the pain of the rocks and twigs that cut into his back, as he lay sprawled on the wooded ground. The sear that had shot up his arm had instantly disappeared. And though he could see Dominic digging deliberately into the open wound that he’d created and then slowly removing his paw, Adam couldn’t feel a thing.

  A split moment later, Tom tackled Dominic into the tress, effectively pinning him. To Adam, they had almost seemed to move in slow motion.

  “Just give me the order Nick,” Tom growled menacingly.

  Dominic rumbled a triumphant bark. “And let your precious boy alpha bleed out? My, and I thought I was the ruthless one.”

  Am I bleeding out? Adam asked himself lackadaisically. He couldn’t feel much down there, and though his dark fur glistened with what he knew was blood, he couldn’t really tell how much there was.

  “Ni
ck,” Tom prompted, ignoring Dominic’s jeering.

  There was one brief pause before Nick spoke. “Let him go.”

  “What?” Tom snarled, pressing down firmly with his massive paw before turning to face his brother. In the corner of his blurry vision, Adam couldn’t even see Nick behind the three bears that bore down on him.

  “Adam needs help,” was all Nick replied.

  “You’re leader is right, you know,” Dominic instigated. “You’ve already lost one weak alpha. You wouldn’t want to lose anoth—” Tom pressed down on Dominic’s windpipe with a low growl, cutting off his speech.

  “Tom,” Nick reminded.

  With a sneer, Tom slowly backed away. “I dream fondly of the day when we’re finally able to tear your throat out,” he growled with hatred at the felled bear. “Second only to Lucas.”

  The noise that fell from Dominic’s throat sounded almost like a cackle. “Lucas is dead,” he snorted with all the confidence in the world. “Whatever you knew, whatever you’d hoped you would achieve against the Northern Wind pack, it died with him.” He turned to depart, tossing up dirt nonchalantly as he went. “When I return—oh, and I will return—trust that your pack won’t see us coming.”

  His tongue lolled out of his mouth in a sick grin. “And when I descend upon your pitiful town, there won’t be enough of your dead and rotting bodies left behind next time to bury in the ground.” With that promise, he bounded off into the deep darkness of the woods, leaving behind any bear that couldn’t depart on its own.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Adam lay in a quickly cooling puddle of his own blood as everyone crowded closely around him. Nick kept pressure applied to the deep wound on his side until Savannah could return with some proper first aid.

  “You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine,” Emily chanted softly to Adam, though he dazedly assumed that she was saying it more for herself than anyone else. It wasn’t as if he cared anyway. His father was gone. What did he have to live for anymore?

  There’s still Emily, he thought lazily to himself, but surely she wouldn’t want a life spent with him after his negligence got her only father figure killed. If only he’d been faster. If only he’d paid more attention. If only he were a better son…

  In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to bleed out on the forest floor.

  Twigs snapped and bushes rustled as Savannah returned, arms full of medical supplies. Jo had appeared from somewhere outside of Adam’s range of vision to retrieve the materials, and it occurred to him that it was the first time he’d seen her all day since heaving Savannah’s house after breakfast. In a bout of confusion, he wondered why she wasn’t there to help in the fight, and then he remembered that she was human.

  “Nick, we need to talk,” Savannah said beckoning the alpha out of earshot. He wondered idly what they might be talking about at a time like this. Had his short-sided distractions gotten another person killed without his knowledge? He tried to chuckle at his dull joke, but laughter seemed too difficult for him to muster for the moment. He settled for tears.

  A low keening began in the back of Emily’s throat as she comforted him unceasingly. Jo kneeled down next to them, giving Emily a kind, sympathetic look as she set out the dressings. “He’ll be okay Emily,” she assured. “I know you probably don’t need to hear this from a human, but once I get all the dirt and muck out of that gash and put a bit of adhesive bandage on it, he’ll likely not even have a scar.”

  Who needs a scar when you have a dead dad to remind you? Adam thought limply to himself. The pained expression on Emily’s face told him that she had thought the same thing.

  “Now this might sting a little,” Jo murmured softly before applying pressure to the wound. Adam let out a ragged yell, his torso bucking under the pain. Emily fiercely caressed his arm. She was shaking so fast that it almost looked like she was vibrating.

  Or maybe it was him, he couldn’t tell.

  After what felt like an eternity of pain, Adam was allowed a moment of rest, bandaged around his stomach with his arm bound tightly in a sling.

  Jo wiped a splash of nervous sweat from her brow. “It’s done.”

  “Emily,” Nick said, coming back into view at the end of Adam’s vision. “I think we should talk.”

  “What do you need?” she asked, staying dutifully by Adam’s side. He couldn’t think of much clearly, but he knew that he didn’t deserve such loyalty.

  “It’s probably best if we do so in private,” Nick replied, not bothering to elaborate further.

  Emily took Adam’s hand in hers protectively, and Jo gave her a sympathetic smile.

  “Adam will be fine, Emily. I promise,” she said. “It’s just a big cut and a broken arm. I can keep an eye on him while you go talk to Nick.”

  There was a moment of complete stillness before Emily reluctantly pulled her hand out of Adam’s. She tossed him a lingering, worried glace before standing and slipping out of view with Nick.

  Adam could only make out a few murmurs and intonations from Savannah and Nick, wondering idly what they could possibly by saying before Emily shouted, “What do you mean Kelly’s gone!”

  Adam jolted violently. Kelly was gone? He tried to rise almost immediately and his body ignited in a flash bang of agony. He felt the sweat break out over his brow as he bit down on his tongue to keep from crying out.

  Jo pressed him firmly back to the ground. “You’re going to turn something nearly fatal into completely fatal if you don’t quit jostling,” she said firmly, but even through his pain, Adam could see the alarm in Jo’s eyes.

  “Kelly,” Adam gasped. “Where… Dominic…” But even as he tried to articulate the assumption, his mind flashed back to the moments following his time with Emily.

  Emily had said then that she heard a gasp and saw a person.

  ‘It almost looked like…’ he recalled her beginning with a panicked expression, before her voice trailed off. Emily hadn’t been about to assume that she’d seen a bear from the Northern Wind; they’d never seen any of the enemy before.

  She had seen Kelly.

  All doubt drained from his mind. Dread filled him with an agony that rivaled his wounds, the realization of everything that happened rushing at him at once.

  Kelly had seen him and Emily in the woods together, after vehemently denying the claims that her brother and best friend could ever possibly be together; that her friend would never defy the sanctity of their trust by keeping secrets. And she’d been proven wrong.

  After one of the biggest fights Adam had ever seen his sister and father ever have, she had stormed off to find out she was wrong all along. Then she’d left, just like Emily had feared she would.

  His heart lurched when he realized that the argument Kelly and David had shouted would be the last interaction they’d ever share. Did she know their father was dead? Was she out there somewhere, lost and alone in the forest as she coped with his death? She’d never see her father again, and the final memory she had to remember him by was an argument born of a secret that he’d made Emily keep.

  This was his fault.

  Emily came back into his view with tears streaming down her face. Nick and Tom exchanged words with Jo before she stepped away, and on some arbitrary count, the brothers both lifted each end of him into their arms. Adam couldn’t even feel the pain.

  The thoughts overwhelmed his every sense, his breath coming quickly as if he were being crushed under the enormity of it all. Did Emily know? Did she blame him for pushing away her best friend and being too negligent to keep his father alive? Did she hate him for taking away her family a second time?

  He certainly did.

  Against his better judgment, Adam glanced guiltily at Emily. Looking down at him, she tried her best to give him an encouraging smile.

  “I’m here for you, Adam,” Emily spoke past her tears. Wait, this isn’t right. You’re supposed to hate me, Adam responded to himself.

  “I won’t leave your side,” she continued. W
ell, you should. “Never, ever, okay?” She gazed down with frantic hope in her eyes, trying to remain strong, if only for him.

  And it felt wrong.

  This isn’t what he wanted to remember when she finally snapped out of it, when her grief finally faded away into anger at losing her family all over again. He didn’t want to remember this hope in her eyes as she finally, rightfully blamed him for destroying her world.

  “Just go away Emily,” Adam breathed weakly. Emily stepped back slightly, her face stricken with shock. “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  Emily’s hand fell away from his as she stopped in her tracks. “Adam…” she replied, tears filling her voice with sorrow, but she didn’t continue.

  The grief on her face was all for him, raw and filled with regret. It shattered Adam’s heart into a million pieces. As he watched her tear-filled gaze fade from his vision, he couldn’t help but believe that this was what he truly deserved.

  Chapter Twenty

  A week had passed since David’s death, and Adam was still recovering from a nearly fatal wound of his own. Kelly was gone, and for the first time in five years, that profound loneliness had begun to creep back into Emily’s life. It settled in her bones like arthritis, making her ache in a way that no medication or warm bath would remedy.

  She’s spent much of the week crying, her memory defiantly replaying the way that Adam had coldly rejected her in the woods. She’d felt weak and helpless; after all her talk of becoming a stronger bear, she’d needed saving in the end. David didn’t want her on the front lines, but she’d fought him on it, and now she had his death to show for all her efforts.

  He knew she wasn’t ready, and the moment she watched the light die from his eyes, he had proven her right.

  She couldn’t help but replay those moments after her time alone with Adam and how she could have sworn that something was waiting for them just beyond the tree cover. Something with a short dark pixie cut.