Arthur's Mate (Bears of Valor Lake Book 1)

by Lisa Daniels

  “I rest my case.” She now ignored her brother and turned to face Emma, her dark, sharp eyes twinkling in the firelight. “He’s looking in the wrong places, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah,” Emma said, amused by the conversation. Then, wanting to sound slightly more intelligent, continued with, “It’s usually better to get to know someone first.”

  “Don’t stick the dick in crazy, right?” Arthur grinned, feeding back Emma’s words from earlier.

  “Yes!” Emma smiled back, and she could have sworn that something just clicked between them. Or maybe her stomach was quite happy to do little lurches, and make her limbs feel oddly tingly and light. “That’s why dating exists. You get to know someone, then if it seems to be working out, progress with the relationship. Everyone’s in it for different reasons. But you… even the dating can be a lie.” She trailed into a brief silence. “People like to lie.”

  “What happened with you, then?” Yara shuffled closer to Emma, drinking her beer like a veteran bar patron, legs spread even wider than Arthur’s. “Must have been bad, to have you end up in the ass-end of nowhere, with a few creaking old families scrapping about turf.”

  “I, heh, I felt trapped,” Emma said simply. The sun popped fully out of sight, leaving them bathed in darkness, illuminated only by the warm flames. Strange noises came from the brush, and the river gurgled nearby, but since the siblings didn’t appear to react to the sounds, Emma tried hard not to appear paranoid, either. She didn’t think she liked the countryside after it fell dark. No safe street lights lining the way home, or the welcome glow of late-closing shops, and the streams of cars with their winking yellow and red lights blurring in the dark roads.

  “Trapped?” Arthur prompted, now edging closer too, intending to catch Emma’s words, even if she dropped to whispers.

  “Between my parents and their shitty time and business management, and Marcus—the boyfriend—fucking with my head, I couldn’t take it.” White, pristine tiles swam in Emma’s mind. A glinting knife, and a brief swirl of pink with the running tap water. She’d stared at herself in the mirror, with huge purple shadows under her eyes, and realized she looked more like a war survivor than a person in a loving relationship. Slowly battered and worn down with an attrition of words and self-esteem.

  Now the words struggled to come. Even plied with half a bottle of drink, Emma found her throat locking up at the thought of sharing her problems with others. She wasn’t a sharer, not really.

  Then again, she didn’t really have anyone to share her problems with. Her school friends had all drifted off to college and their own lives, and Emma had simply been left behind, too busy with everything, not making the effort to stay in contact. She wanted to blame her friends for not being good friends—but really, she didn’t exactly make it any easier for them to communicate with her. She ignored Facebook or WhatsApp posts for weeks, feeling the time drift away until it became far, far too late for anything.

  “I don’t know, he made it seem like everything was my fault after a while. Nothing I ever said was right. I felt like I was running for his approval all the time, and I craved hearing him say something like ‘good girl,’ when I’d done something right. And when he said nothing, it made me want to try harder. And… when I tried to point out he was lazy, that he could help me more, that maybe he could drink less… somehow even all that became my fault.” Her mind felt foggy, her body numb, as she imagined picking her way through that minefield of a relationship once more.

  “Gaslighting,” Yara said promptly. “Sounds like a manipulative little shit who exists solely to blame other people. You’re lucky to be out of that. Those kinds of people are like spiders, with their sticky little hands and webs of lies...” she imitated something that resembled more of a praying mantis, but Emma forced a laugh all the same.

  “I’ve heard about that,” Arthur said, frowning. “Gaslighting… isn’t that like some up there mind fuckery? Saying shit like ‘nah, I didn’t say that, you must be crazy,’ or turning things around so you end up wondering if you are actually going insane.”

  Gaslighting… Emma felt tempted to Google it, but not with the non-existent connection. “That sounds about right. I...” she glanced down at her long sleeve, where the white lines would be, if they weren’t covered up. “I guess I knew I needed to get out when I tried to kill myself.”

  Deathly silence. Birds twittered. Twigs snapped, and the sound of rustling made Emma begin to imagine what sort of animals might be there now. Did wolves roam free in these forests, perhaps? Bears? She knew bears and mountain lions would probably be around. Maybe she should question the safety of this area. But if they’d been camping here for years…

  “You tried to kill yourself?” The obvious question, from Arthur’s lips. The fuel to keep her talking.

  “It was… impulsive. I felt like shit. My dad didn’t turn up at work again, the new guy quit, and we were really busy in the store. Couple of customers bad-mouthed me, and my dad was saying he’d be there in ten minutes, but never turned up. Mom said he was with his friends watching some game. As for Mom, she said something about an important church meeting, so she couldn’t come in...” Emma licked her lips, rocking back and forth slightly. How much did she dare telling them? How much did she dare letting out herself? “Then Marcus returned from… wherever he was. Drunk as a skunk.”

  “Oh no,” Yara said, looking like she wanted to punch something. Arthur’s lips were tight, his face white with veiled loathing. “Sorry, go on.”

  “I’d just come back from work, and he asked why the hell I hadn’t made anything to eat yet. And I told him I was tired, it’d been busy, and he said that wasn’t his fault that I didn’t have the spine to quit my job. I guess he was kind of right about that…?”

  “And was he helping you with home stuff?” Yara sounded nonchalant, but she also seemed to be gripping her beer bottle so tightly that it threatened to break.

  “No, it was a woman’s job, he said. And he didn’t have a job yet, he said he’d been looking, but they were all stupid bitches who couldn’t see his talents. So he went drinking. We argued, I lost, as usual.”

  “He didn’t hit you?” Arthur started on his second bottle. They had a case of fifteen, and Emma suspected they wouldn’t see any surviving when the weekend finished.

  “No. He was just… said he didn’t know why he bothered with me. And he… broke a couple of things and stormed out again. Said he was going to eat out with his friends. Didn’t—didn’t think about the fact I hadn’t eaten. It was like I didn’t exist; my feelings didn’t matter. I didn’t matter.” She closed her eyes, attempting to regain some control of her breathing, since her breaths came out unsteady, and tears pounded against her eyelids, wanting to slip out.

  “Oh, I do hope he comes over here,” Yara said savagely. “We’ve got enough family members to give him a warm welcome.”

  A faint rumbling growl built up in Arthur’s throat. Both of them seemed unusually riled up. Emma wasn’t used to people feeling so much on her behalf. Her cheeks reddened, embarrassed almost for them. Strangers shouldn’t feel that emotional over something so small. Maybe it was just the closeness of being together, having shared a sunny afternoon fishing, and light talking without any pressure forced upon anyone. Maybe it was because Emma desperately wanted to open up to someone.

  “When he left, I felt like… I was assaulted from all sides. Nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I didn’t want to go back to work, I didn’t want to wait for him to come back. I didn’t want to be me anymore. So, next thing I knew, I was in the bathroom, holding a steak knife. Guess I wanted to inflict pain on myself, but I felt slightly sick looking at it. I tried a couple of times to break the flesh. Did, but on the top of my arm. Here.” She rolled up her left sleeve, revealing two jagged lines. Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “I went for the big one afterwards, but I didn’t cut deep enough.” She revealed the underside of her arm, where a vertical crag of lines reached up to her elbow. “I actuall
y fainted, seeing my own blood, feeling that stinging pain. I came to and I was bleeding, but not… enough. I didn’t get anything important. And I didn’t want to do that again. And I realized… I needed to get out. In case I ever found myself in that situation again, and I’d be braver and actually finish the deed.” She left her scars on open display. “Marcus didn’t know anything about it. I told no one. But I started looking for other places that very evening, just...”

  The silence slipped past her again, but there was considerable warmth from the siblings.

  “Fuck,” Arthur said. “That’s pretty brave of you to get out.”

  “No, it was cowardly,” Emma said, mouth twisted in bitterness. Her heart twitched in shame and anger. “I should have tried to make things work out. I should have warned them I was going. But I acted normal until the day I needed to go, and then I just left, with hand-written notes explaining that I’d gone.”

  Arthur let out a slow whistle and clapped. She was surprised at his reaction. “No, it’s not cowardly at all. It’s survival.”

  “My little brother’s right,” Yara said, handing another beer to Emma, something creaking in her knees. “If you stayed, you probably wouldn’t be alive. Can’t be in a toxic environment like that.” She paused, watching Emma sample her drink in an approving way. “If you plan to stay, we’ll take you out with us, introduce you to the family. You won’t be short of friends. We don’t see a lot of new faces, but they’re welcome, long as they don’t do stupid shit.” She patted Emma on the shoulder, and the twin warmth of brother and sister made Emma want to blub, though she didn’t know why. Yara had said that statement so casually, like it was no big deal at all. Emma sniffled a bit, which prompted a double hug from two absurdly muscled people, and Emma eventually gasped for breath, before getting released with a laugh and an apology.

  Was it her imagination, or was Arthur paying her an inordinate amount of attention? His eyes kept drifting to her, flicking up and down her body, lingering on her lips. Sometimes he licked his own, and rearranged his legs, but it all added up to Emma wondering if he desired her. Though it wasn’t like she was trying her hardest to attract him, being completely covered up and all.

  They retired to their sleeping bags, allowing the fire to dim down to embers, sandwiched in warm, insulating down, which Arthur claimed were the sort of bags the climbers of Mount Everest would use to stave out the worst of the cold. As long as they didn’t plan to invite her along to a Mount Everest climb at some point…

  The food and drink nestled in Emma’s belly, along with a warm, suffusing sensation that tingled over her at the memory of Arthur’s hands. Yara grumbled and tossed for a comfy position in her bag, before finally settling for sleep. Emma lay there for a while afterwards, wondering if she might ever get to a point where she could call Valor Lake her home. Maybe if she stayed out in the country long enough, she’d forget everything that existed in her past. All of it could be shunted into a little mental box and locked up. No more feverish dreams of Marcus with that cruel smile twisting his thin, dark red lips. No more watching him scratch his hook-shaped nose, as he sprawled in the armchair, waiting to rain more judgment and blame upon her, even as the empty glass bottles piled up at his feet, ringing the table, with small drops of liquid staining the rug, giving that awful, stale odor that made her want to avoid the living room.

  No more stressing about her parents as they continued to pump her for every dollar she was worth, until there was nothing left to give. Emma touched her sleeve, where the scars lay hidden.

  In a way, when she’d done that, her life had ended. Just not quite in the way she originally intended.

  Hopefully this new one would be a lot better than the last.

  Chapter Four – Arthur

  Crack.

  Arthur opened his eyes, instantly alert, wrenched from a beautiful dream where he was bent over running water, catching salmon with his bare hands. He lay silent a moment, trying to listen in, to see if the sound had been a one-off thing, or indicative of something more. There was no wind, so maybe…

  A grunting, snorting sound.

  “Shit.” What timing would this be, now? He squirmed out of his bag quietly, rose and slowly unzipped the flap of the camouflage-green tent. Still night outside. He knew exactly what the sound was. Question remained whether it might be wild or someone he knew.

  Eyes glinted in the moonlight, and a huge, furred form raised onto its hind legs, not so far away from Arthur, and appeared to sniff the air. It hadn’t yet spotted him and smelled of wet fur and blood. Heat collected in Arthur’s chest, and he let it spread out, beginning the transformation.

  Every limb in his body became almost molten hot, and he suppressed a groan of pain. Fur prickled out of his skin, his senses blurred then enhanced, before snapping back with startling clarity.

  The bear turned to face him, and a low snarl built in its throat. The way it stood on its hind legs and pounded its claws together…

  Leave, Arthur mentally spat at the intruder. This is Valor camping ground.

  A tearing sound made Arthur whirl, and he saw another bear frenetically tearing at Yara and Emma’s tent, huge claws crumpling the material. What—?

  A mass of fur smashed into him, and teeth snapped at his head. He avoided the potentially fatal throat grab with a bellow, his own claws setting to work against the bear. Both tumbled on the ground, but Arthur couldn’t focus, too scared of what was happening to the other tent, if Yara and Emma had woken up in time, if they could get out before the bear sliced them open.

  Yara! Yara! Wake up!

  I’m awake, her mind hissed back, and he caught the blur of her form emerging from the tent, bowling over the rival. Emma scrambled out of the ruins, shaking like a leaf in the darkness, her breaths coming in hysterical gasps. Soil and grass churned. The wet, blood-smeared bear continued biting and slashing, and they wrestled in an ungainly way, each trying to be on top, to get that fatal blow in.

  Who are you? Why do you attack?

  He had a suspicion, of course. His uncle. His uncle had ample reason to want him dead. Removing him meant removing his father’s eldest son. It meant more murk in the succession, in whatever claim his uncle intended to exert on the natural lands.

  The enemy bear shifter didn’t respond. Probably trying to pretend to be a wild one, but no wild bear acted like this one. Rough, grinding bark hit his back, and he scrabbled for height, slashing indiscriminately to keep the jaws at bay. One swipe smacked into the rival bear’s jaw, and something gave way. The bear stumbled back, tongue lolling, jaw sagging. The bear’s ears were flat, eyes still focused on him—but clearly it was getting too wounded to move. Arthur didn’t want to kill them. He huffed, thumping the ground with his paws, making himself bigger, growling and grunting. The bear attempted a weakened raise and slash, and Arthur slammed into his foe, damaging the legs with savage bites, then switching to the arm that swatted him. The bear wheezed and crumpled into a feeble heap.

  Arthur whirled around, searching for Emma and Yara, and saw that Yara had not been as merciful as him. Her muzzle was darker than usual, and he smelled the blood that covered her.

  Where’s Emma? He circled his still-alive prey, not intending to leave his side for a moment.

  Here, Yara said. She jerked her head towards the trembling woman in the tree she’d attempted to climb up. We probably shouldn’t tell her trees aren’t safe, though.

  Get her down. I’ll deal with this. Arthur didn’t wait for his sister’s confirmation, now focusing all his attention on the bear. He took big, puffing breaths, now feeling the ache and scratches over his body, and a ringing dullness from the flat-handed thumps.

  By now, the bear had bubbled back into human form, revealing a bulky, naked man. His jaw was intact, so not dislocated or broken. Just stunned from the blow. For a moment, he’d been sure he did some nasty damage there.

  “It’s okay, Emma,” Yara said to the frightened woman. Yara was back in her human form now, naked,
and seemed to be attempting to coax a catatonic Emma.

  “What the actual fuck,” Emma said after an age, voice shaking, “did I just witness?”

  “Long story. Might be best to explain to you once we’ve got you down and heated up some chocolate for you to drink.”

  “You’re naked!”

  “I’m glad you noticed. Brother, are the cooking supplies still intact?”

  With little effort, Arthur snapped back into human form, though it did send a cold, shrinking sensation over his skin. His shredded clothes fell off him, leaving little to the imagination. Well, since his foe was currently knocked out, Arthur reckoned he had a couple of moments to change. He dipped back into his tent, hauled out some clothes and a flashlight, and turned it on, resting it against a fallen log. He hopped into joggers and a stretchy top. They always caused the least discomfort when transforming.

  “What’s going on? What did I just see?” Emma’s voice came out hysterical, and Arthur inwardly groaned. He didn’t have time to educate a stranger on the bear thing. Not right now, when he needed to deal with the assassin, find out who sent him, or if he was acting of his own accord.

  “Let me try and explain...”

  Arthur watched his sister take Emma by the hand, before stopping to dress herself up also. “And we’ll leave my brother to deal with the trash.”

  Speaking of trash, Arthur spotted flickering eyelids from the fallen bear shifter, and crouched next to him, examining the wispy blond hair, the manly jaw. Not features he recognized. So not someone from one of the three founding clans. A bastard, maybe? Or an outsider?

  The man’s eyes opened, and the pupils contracted when noticing Arthur.

  “Hey,” Arthur said. “You’ve just ruined a pleasant, peaceful weekend camping trip. You and your dead buddy. You also scared the living shit out of my new human friend, and you can probably tell I’m unhappy with you.”

  The man stared at him, sullen.

  “Talkative, aren’t you?” Arthur stepped forward to kick the man in his stomach. He doubled up on the ground, gasping. Another kick aimed at behind, targeting his genitals, and the man let out a high-pitched, wheezing scream, almost like a balloon being deflated.