by Lynn Red
He screeched that time, reeling from the so-strong-it-was-probably-illegal spray. He tried to lunge again, but his jerky, halting movement made him stumble once, and then again.
Desperation gripped the last of the wolves.
He let go, then bit again, teeth sinking into the bear’s jaw. Standing up on his hind legs, the bear dragged the wolf off the ground, slammed down and ripped the bite free. He landed with a huge thud, roaring viciously, and sent the wolf skittering off to the forest with the others.
There it is again, the mark is burning. She touched her chest, and the bear cocked his head, a sound partway between a non-threatening roar and a snort escaping his snout. His eyes went left, and then right, as though he was scanning for more danger.
“Did you just... protect me?”
He snuffled again, and moved his head closer to her.
On all fours, the bear stood about shoulder to shoulder with Jill, his head extending above hers. With a trembling hand, she did what she knew she should never do – she stuck it out toward what must be a ton or more of bear. She’d never seen one so large, hell, she wasn’t sure anyone had.
But it just walked straight into her, head lowered right into the middle of Jill’s chest. He nuzzled her, snuffling at her chest as she stroked his huge, golden ears. The two of them watched one another, studying each other’s face, for what felt like eternity.
“Ursus arctos appalachia?” she asked the massive bear. “Finding you was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.” Jill laughed under her breath. The bear seemed to cock an eyebrow at her, but of course that was impossible.
Right? Bears don’t cock eyebrows.
Then again, bears don’t have facial tattoos and usually don’t exhibit two different colored eyes. Or something that approaches kissing.
Then he seemed to pull his lips back into an expression resembling a smile, but that was impossible too. Completely, totally impossible.
And then he stood on his hind legs, towering over her, almost double her height.
In that split second, her life flashed before her eyes. Something she did had set the beast off, she’d made some gesture that aroused some territorial anger in the bear and he was about to...
“Shrink?”
Right before her eyes, the bear’s arms and legs shortened, but not terribly much. The fur on his arms and legs and belly slowly receded, shrinking back into his pores. Hard, long, muscles appeared next, and his eyes – oh God his eyes – one of them amber, the other blue flecked with gold.
Jill felt her consciousness waiver slightly, and she reached out for him. He caught her arm.
“I found you,” he said.
Shocked, Jill’s hands slid off his shoulder and his forearm and brushed against his...
“Sorry,” she said with a gulp.
“For what?” his voice boomed.
“I touched your, uh,” she fell silent, swallowing hard again. “You know.”
“What’s there to be sorry for? You’re the mate I was hunting. I’ve found you, everything’s right.”
She nodded, slowly, taking it all in. “I’m your,” she switched to shaking her head from side to side.
“Mate,” he repeated. The man’s voice is basically what she always figured a bear would sound like if he could speak English. “I’m using the right word, aren’t I?”
She looked down at her feet, and caught a glimpse of what she accidently brushed earlier. It was fitting, to say the least. Then, looking back up into his face, she had to think for a second before she could summon the right words. “You... turned into a bear?” she asked. “Holy shit. I mean, Bigfoot, yeah, everyone knows that’s a load of crap but werebears? That’s...”
“Rogue,” he said. “I’m one of the two clan alphas for this area. You’re,” he paused, half a grin crossing his beautiful face. “Not one of us?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you have the mark.”
He touched the birthmark on Jill’s chest that started tingling again, like before. “I’ve been dreaming, uh, I think. About you. And...”
The bear – Rogue – grabbed Jill’s hand and put it to his chest. “This is mine,” he whispered.
Even whispering, his voice was just big, like the rest of him. Jill’s insides wiggled a little, shaking slightly as she curled her fingertips along the shape. Without even looking at it, she knew it was the same as hers.
“How?” she asked. “Is this... how?”
He chuckled softly. “This is new.”
“Okay,” Jill said, collecting herself a little, and doing the thing where she gets some emotional distance and thinks in objective scientific terms. “So, you’re a man who can turn into Ursus arctos appalachia?”
Rogue grunted a laugh. “Is that what you call us? Shapeshifters? Then those wolves were Ursus arctos appalachia too.” He looked very pleased with himself for using the phrase.
Jill looked, to his eyes, paler than she had a few moments before. Her knees were weak, he felt her tremble, and then she fell against his naked body. He held her, out of surprise more than anything, but once she was against him, her heat crept into him, and Rogue clutched her tighter against his muscled chest.
“That’s not...”
She looked up at him, blinked twice, and then went limp.
“Well,” he said to himself, “I guess this just got a lot more complicated.”
-5-
“At some point, I’m going to stop saying ‘this can’t be real.’”
-Jill
“Holy shit!” Jill swore and pushed herself backward against the wall of her field cabin, gripping the sheets in her fists and looking around the room like a terrified cat who suspected a trap.
The entire room was empty, the door was locked, and there wasn’t a trace of anything out of the ordinary. Had she somehow gotten here earlier in the day than she thought, and then just dreamed that entire ridiculous hoodoo about the werebears and the werewolves and the fight and... Uh, mating with the bear?
Rogue, she thought, remembering his dark hair, those burning, two-colored eyes with the flecks of gold. She imagined the way he’d touched her back, and how she accidentally grabbed him, and he’d been completely unashamed about his nakedness.
Then again, I guess most guys packing that much heat wouldn’t get too embarrassed about showing it off.
She laughed softly despite herself. At some point, what else is there to do?
The stinging, burning sensation in her side told her that she had, perhaps, not imagined the whole thing. Pulling up her shirt, she found that she’d been carefully wrapped in gauze, and an abrasion on her left shoulder was, also, very carefully covered.
She’d never seen the field building completed, but she had designed the thing, so the features weren’t a surprise. Still, it being put together as well as it was, especially for how far into the woods this place was, took her aback.
Windows lined the space, and a series of tables ringed the inside. Workstations for writing up findings, microscopes for hair examination, and a big ol’ bucket of plaster by the door, for modeling footprints, were all ready and waiting for her to use.
It was all there for her to use to find the bear she’d collapsed against.
The one who had apparently brought her back here.
She got out of bed, alert to the stabbing in her side, but not hurting enough to stop, and made her way around the room. She almost stumbled over the backpack she’d been wearing.
All of her belongings were arranged with great care, in neatly folded piles... right on the floor in front of the dresser. They were put together with like items – jeans with jeans, shirts with shirts – which was better than any boyfriend she’d had ever did, even though they were sitting on the floor. Seeing the array made her twist the corner of her mouth into a wry grin.
“But where are you?”
She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts that would do her no damn good at all. Not out here, alone, in the
woods. She didn’t have time to think the things – the naughty things about his arms, his lips, and the scent on Rogue’s skin – that she desperately wanted to think.
Her memories turned to the fantasies of the two men, and right in that moment Jill’s heart sank into her stomach.
That was him, she thought. He was... that was one of them.
The memories were fuzzy, a far-off dream, barely clinging to the fringes of her recollection. Stranger though was how clear the sensual parts of the fantasy were – the feeling of their hands on her skin, their breath caressing her neck. She couldn’t see their faces, exactly, or even identify the room, cave, whatever it was, where they were. But every detail of their kiss, their touch, the way they moved against her, the way the two men seemed like two parts of one love, and when she was with them, she was whole.
Whole, she thought. Good God, what am I doing? I obviously walked face first into an ayahuasca plant, or something. That... doesn’t grow around here, but maybe Jacques gave me some. Or it was in my canteen, or—
The door lock popped gently, and the handle turned.
“Shit,” Jill uttered. “So much for the whole drugged thing.”
The man who walked in was the same one she barely remembered, but who was right in the forefront of her mind. “I can’t believe this is real,” she said.
He just smiled, eyes sparkling in what appeared to be the orange warmth of afternoon sun. In almost a shy way, which was a little strange for someone who had apparently undressed her and doctored a bunch of wounds, he watched her face. Finally he cleared his throat. “I didn’t expect to see you awake,” he said. “You were hurt, badly.”
“How long?” she whispered, her throat parched and dry. It clicked when she spoke. “Have I been out, I mean?”
Rogue looked genuinely confused. “Close to a week.” He looked perturbed, or maybe disturbed. “More important than time is water,” he said, uncorking an ancient looking canteen, the sort she’d only seen on Band of Brothers, and handed it over.
Jill tried to close her hand around the cool metal container, but just the act of closing a fist sent a shock of pain through her that radiated from her shoulder to her knees. Rogue nodded, like it’d been a test. “You’re hurt worse than I thought,” he said, confirming her suspicions. “When the lupines slammed into you, the smaller one broke some of your ribs. Not too badly, or you’d cough blood. But all things considered, you’re shaping up fine.”
“I’m... what?” Jill said, laughing softly, which caused too much pain to continue. “I’ve been out a week? And broken ribs? You said that pretty matter of factly.”
Rogue shrugged. “How else should I say it? I could try it in a different tone of voice if that will make it more comforting? You’d be coughing blood,” he said, lilting his voice high and kind of warbling at the end of the sentence.
The beginning of a laugh came out of Jill, but instantly a wave of pain struck. She wavered, dangerously close to falling, but Rogue caught her with an arm looped deftly around her waist. His hair fell in a wavy, brown cascade, brushing against Jill’s semi-bare chest, and where it touched, goosebumps rose. And then something else, far more private, prickled to life. He either didn’t notice, or more likely, was just too polite to say anything.
As soon as she was reclined back onto the bed, Jill pulled her covers up, over her embarrassingly hard nipples, and Rogue drank her in.
“Your scent intoxicates me,” he said. His voice was deep, and booming, but he spoke so softly that his speech reminded Jill of a fading roll of thunder when a storm was far in the distance. “I’ve been watching while you sleep, and I can’t keep my thoughts off you when I’m not here.”
Jill’s stunned silence apparently spoke volumes, because he stared at her for a moment. “But,” he continued, “you said you don’t shift. So I don’t know how this is possible, but you have the mark.”
About seven hundred million thoughts began swirling through Jill’s head. The mark, the fate, a mate? What is he talking about? What is happening?
She grew dizzy, and as soon as she did, she tasted salt in the back of her throat. “Urk, bucket,” she croaked. “Quick!”
Moving like quicksilver, Rogue grabbed something, and held back Jill’s hair. She spat for a moment, and then relaxed back to the bed, breathing heavily. “That,” she said softly, “hurt a lot more than it usually does.”
A soft laugh escaped her lips, and she closed her eyes. A moment later, a warm, soft, wet cloth caressed her lips, and the sides of her face before going back underneath her head. Gently, Rogue massaged her neck and her shoulders with patient motions.
“And on top of dashing good looks, a dimple in his cheek, and beautiful brown hair, this man who watches me sleep is a licensed massage therapist? What did I do to deserve this?”
Jill’s thoughts about, well, about everything, seemed to vanish into one pinpoint of light. One beam of energy pierced her chest and went out the other side, relaxing her muscles as heat radiated from her core all the way to her fingertips. She closed her eyes, arching her neck slightly, and moaning as Rogue’s powerful hands took out the kink of sleeping for however long she’d been unconscious.
“If only you could do those same things other places,” she whispered, feeling herself speak before she heard the words coming out of her mouth. She blushed furiously, but when she opened her eyes to correct herself, she noticed that Rogue wasn’t paying any attention.
His eyes were fixated right where he massaged. It was the sort of focus she got when she was puzzling through some complex biological problem, staring at some unknown organism on a slide, or trying to identify some little-known species of bear or another.
“Hmm?” he let out, in a soft, questioning grunt. “Why do I need a license to rub someone?”
She giggled under her breath. “You don’t get out of the woods much, do you?”
“More than my brother,” he said, his voice still absent and hollow. Rogue’s fingers dug deep into her neck and Jill whimpered softly before the knot he worked at vanished under the pressure.
Then it hit her.
“Brother?” she asked. There’s no way. No possible way this is...
“Sworn brother,” he said. “We’re the Broken Pine alphas. There are always two of us to keep one from going insane and enslaving everyone. That may have been a problem in the distant past, so trust me, this way makes sense.”
“Yeah,” Jill said. “Makes perfect sense.” She was talking to cover up her astonishment, and, for the moment anyway, it seemed to be working. “What kind of clan?”
“Bears,” he said simply. For a moment, Rogue paused and watched her face, studying her lips, her eyes, and the curve of her earlobes. One of his thumbs slid up the back of Jill’s neck, tracing a line along the base of her skull, and then down her jaw. All the while, he stared deep into her eyes, not letting his gaze fall away. “We keep to ourselves mostly.”
Another swirl of his thumbs on either side of her neck sent a surge of tension sliding down Jill’s neck, and again, prickled her nipples up hard and stiff. It was like a cool breeze blew across her while she was lying naked on the beach, listening to the monotonous beauty of waves crashing against a sandbar.
Outside the forest birds sang, the leaves of the trees rustled against the small wood-framed cabin. To her surprise, another sound joined the chorus – a small, but sweet, tinkling.
“What’s that?” she asked. “Sounds like a wind chime?”
A smile crossed Rogue’s lips. He got up off the bed, and vanished for a second before reappearing with a delicate collection of carved chimes. “While I was waiting,” he said. “I wasn’t going to leave you while you were helpless.” He handed the instrument to Jill, who took it from him and turned it around in her hands, studying the smoothly sanded, perfect chimes.
“How did you do this?” she asked. “Without any tools, I mean. It’s perfect.”
“I had tools,” Rogue smiled. “The forest is its own t
ool, you mean machines, which you’re right, I don’t need.”
His brusque confidence was a breath, a taste, that Jill had always wanted to experience. Back in civilization, this sort of guy just didn’t exist. Excepting, of course, the part where the guy can turn into a goddamn bear whenever he wants.
“This is real, isn’t it?” Jill asked, out of nowhere, as she stared at the chime and slid a finger along the cool, cylindrical wood. “I’m not hallucinating?”
“Why would you think that?”
Jill thought about it for a second, but it was hard to put into words, especially when the reasons for not doubting him were so many and so obvious. Finally, she decided to go with the simplest path: just spurting it out.
“It just... well okay, I’m a scientist, right?”
Rogue nodded, slowly.
“So I have to test things, I have to observe and fiddle with them, and see what happens.”
Rogue smiled and narrowed his eyes in a way that warmed Jill in places she didn’t, right then, want to be warm. “I can fiddle,” he said.
“Ha! Oh, yeah, well I’m sure you can.” Jill started talking quicker, and higher, the way she did when she was either nervous or excited, or both. “Not right now though, I have to explain this to you.”
He paused, hovering over the side of the bed, pushed up on his huge arms. Rogue’s triceps were cut and hard, his shoulders flexed through the thin fabric of his loose-fitting open-collared shirt, and with every breath, his chest rose and fell, tight and hard and perfect.
“So what I was saying is that, I, uh, I’m a scientist, and—”
Rogue hushed her with a kiss. Slow and patient and soft at first, he didn’t go in deeper until she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him against her. Their teeth clashed gently, and then a split second after Jill opened her mouth to let him in, Rogue explored her with his tongue.
