by Mary Calmes
“I will, I’m so—Chris!”
The connection went dead, which scared the hell out of me. I grabbed my keys, threw open the door, and bolted for my truck.
“Where are you going?” Lou yelled amiably after me as I reached the driver’s side door.
“Some of the kids are up at Star Meadow, and there are wolves there!”
“Vy!” she shrieked.
When I turned I saw Carlo for a second on the porch before I started the truck, threw it into gear, did a U-turn on the cul-de-sac, and gunned the engine. I knew Lou would be pissed at me, but the only thing that mattered in that second was the kids—my kids, my ket.
It was a quick trip, maybe ten minutes, all uphill, but in my truck that hardly mattered. When I got close, I saw all the muscle cars parked along the side of the road that couldn’t make it in the mud and tall grass. Whipping the wheel sideways, I took my truck off-roading without even slowing down.
Branches whipped my windshield, and I had to steer around trees and up and down dips filled with shallow, stagnant water, but I was there in the meadow in time to see at least twenty wolves circling six of my hawks.
After stopping the truck, not even bothering to turn it off, I threw open the door and ran.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I roared, reaching them fast, backhanding one of the wolves who dared come at me.
Another attacked then, teeth bared, snarling, and when he leaped, I caught him by the throat easily, hurling him aside as I charged forward. He was unconscious before he left my hand.
“Get out of my territory and off my land!” I thundered, reaching for Jodie, letting her clutch my hand as she pointed at Chris.
He was on the ground, coughing, bleeding, and I saw a boy I didn’t know there, beside him, cradling his head in his hand. I had thought there were six of my hawks there, but in reality, only five and a stranger.
Along with Jodie and Brady were Lisa Palmer and Teague Mindel. The other boy, who was not a hawk, and I hadn’t ever seen around town, I was at a loss to place.
“That’s Wade McCarron,” she told me.
I knew the surname. Wyatt McCarron was the alpha of the White Springs pack. “What the hell is his son—”
“He loves him,” she told me.
“What?”
“Wade,” she clarified. “He loves Chris.”
“Okay,” I said quickly, “you, Brady, Teague, and Lisa, shift and get out of here. I’ll stay with Chris and Wade.”
“We could never leave you,” she cried. “Hawks don’t leave their own.”
“I’m ordering you—”
“No!” Brady yelled.
But I wanted them safe.
“Kuar!” Jodie screamed.
Even as I shoved her behind me, I knew I was about to be overrun. It had been stupid to come alone, but the wolves had been literally circling when I got there, so waiting had not been an option.
Wolves shifted from men to beasts when they fought because the animal form was stronger. That was not the same for me. My hawk was for flying, for leading, for teaching, but not for fighting. I fought as a man because it was then I was most powerful unless I was fighting my own kind.
But I was being attacked by wolves, and so I would stand against them as I was, as would the young hawks with me. Apparently I had taught them the law—the ket rises and falls as one—too well.
Jodie screamed as I went down under three of them, and I heard Brady, who I had seen for a second, scream as he too was attacked.
Punching, kicking, pushing, I rolled free. Then I jumped to my feet, grabbed a wolf by the neck, and tossed him over my head. When Carlo and I had paid a visit to McCarron after the minivan accident, we had fought, but as men, and we had agreed to honor the same agreement his father had forged with mine: my hawks stayed off his land, and his wolves stayed off mine. As he was not the kind of man to go back on his word, I knew I was looking at the rabble of his pack, the ones he had promised I would not see again as he was banishing them to become some other alpha’s problem.
They would kill us if we didn’t kill them, and as much as I regretted it, I was not about to shift and fly away and leave my kids to die. When the next wolf came for my throat, I snapped his neck.
In the midst of it all, I saw two things at once: Wade tore off his clothes and shifted, and Jodie went down under two wolves.
I leaped on top of them, tore them away from her, but when I went to her aid, I had turned my back on others. The pain in my right thigh was excruciating, the bite deep and slashing. I swung around but couldn’t dislodge the jaw as another wolf sprang at me and clamped down on my shoulder.
“Vy!”
I snapped my head up because I had never heard my name sound like that coming out of my mate. Robert was running fast, faster than I knew was humanly possible, and others were trying to keep up with him.
Reaching behind my shoulder, I grabbed the wolf on my back and flipped him over and off me before swiveling to punch the one with his teeth buried in my leg.
“Vy!”
Robert was there beside me when I delivered the blow to the top of the wolf’s head, knocking him out.
“Jesus, Vy, why wouldn’t you call for me, make me come with you?” he gasped, using his great strength to pry the animal’s jaws open so I could wedge my leg free.
“I had to get here,” I screamed, shoving him aside as a wolf caught me in the chest, driving teeth and claws though my T-shirt, deep into my skin.
I grabbed the wolf’s head, wrenching him off me, but he came back, snapping his jaws until Robert took hold of him, lifted him off his paws, and flung him away.
“You have to kill them, or they’ll just keep coming back,” I cried. “I’m sorry but—Robert!”
We were swarmed then, the wolves separating us. I went down fast and couldn’t see Robert, but when I finally rolled to my feet, I found that he too was standing, throwing wolves off as they slashed and bit him in the process.
Carlo was there, I heard him, and Lou, and others from my ket, but I saw more eyes in the tall grass and knew there were more wolves too.
“Jesus, how many are there?” Teague moaned from where he’d fallen to the ground as I stood, swiveling around to get an idea of the number.
“Fly to McCarron,” I screamed at Lou. “He needs to call off his pack!”
She shrieked at another hawk, and I should have known she’d never leave me, that none of them would, but before he could get free of his clothes to shift, the wolves were on him.
With Lou’s gun at home, and me being the strongest there but bleeding and feeling myself weakening, panic washed over me even as I stopped a wolf from reaching Robert.
“Stay behind me,” I ordered him.
“Vy.” His voice cracked, and when I turned to look at him, I saw tears running down his cheeks, how hard he was breathing, his hands balled into fists.
“It’s okay,” I lied, seeing him break out in a sweat, trying desperately to soothe him because the heart-wrenching pain I saw on his face was worse than any I was feeling.
My dear sweet man was wrestling with a demon, and it wasn’t the ones in front of him but the one who lived under his own skin.
“The others will come, just protect yourself, please,” I told him.
“I need to protect you!” he shouted, and I heard terror in his voice and saw how gutted he was.
For a moment the guilt was staggering. Robert had told me what happened to his parents, and now he’d have to watch me die too.
“I’m so sorry,” I shrieked as I was hurled to the ground, buried under a pile of wolves, gouged and torn, keeping them from my throat by sheer will. One of them slipped under my arm and missed my face only because I butted his muzzle with my forehead as hard as I could.
His sharp whine distracted another, and I dislodged him from my forearm in time to look up and see my mate covered in furry bodies.
There were too many. I couldn’t reach him, and I screame
d myself hoarse trying. “Robert!”
He was gone. Everything stopped, and I had no idea, with him dead, how I was still alive. It wasn’t possible. He had become, so fast, utterly necessary.
The roar, even over the cacophony going on around me, startled me. It didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before, a blast of concentrated sound, almost like an electromagnetic pulse, and when I stumbled back, I saw a huge paw come from the pile.
Instantly I knew. Robert had shifted.
He reared up all at once, to his towering height and weight, easily seven feet tall and, if I had to estimate, closer to eight hundred pounds than the seven hundred he had described, all of it muscle and power and ravenous, unleashed fury. It was jolting to see him, and the wolves froze for a moment, which was their mistake.
In his human form Robert was the epitome of a gentle giant; in his bear form he was terrifying. Jaws closed on necks and backs, razor-sharp claws disemboweled animals that had seemed large but, compared to him, were miniscule. Those not killed in the air were slammed to the ground, instantly broken, the sound of bones snapping sickening to hear.
He was cutting a swath of blood through the wolves, and those who tried to work as a pack to circle him and bring him down were caught easily and eviscerated until not a single wolf that had attacked us remained standing.
I had so wanted him to shift, but I was sick that what I thought would be a beautiful experience had turned out to be a horror. And I had been the catalyst for it. How could he ever forgive me for making him shift, for forcing the choice on him?
“No!” Chris was screaming, apparently having woken.
I looked over and saw Robert advancing on Chris’s wounded boyfriend, Wade, who I had seen trying valiantly to protect him. In that moment I knew Robert wouldn’t listen to Chris and might not even know him. He certainly couldn’t distinguish Wade from any other attacker, seeing only a wolf, something that had assaulted me and tried to kill him. All he knew was that it needed to die.
“No,” Chris cried as Robert lifted again up onto two legs, and raised a paw to deliver the killing stroke to the last wolf, the innocent wolf, the only son of the alpha.
“Robert!” I yelled sharply.
I heard gasps from everywhere at once, voices on all sides of me as well as behind, everyone amazed when the enormous grizzly bear turned and stared at me. I was his entire, unblinking focus.
“It’s done.”
He froze there, looming over the two boys, poised to become death incarnate.
“You saved me,” I whispered, knowing even at the distance that he could hear me. “You saved us all.”
No movement, not even a twitch.
“You were so scared you would do bad things, but without you, we’d have been slaughtered. You protected us all.”
Still, he waited.
“Can you hear me? Can you hear the truth? Can you hear that you saved us? Saved me?”
Finally, he dropped to the ground, back on all fours, and turned in my direction, facing away from the boys, no longer looking at me over his shoulder.
“You’re a blessing,” I told him, because it was true in more ways than one. “Please,” I begged him, holding out my arms. “Please, my bear, come to me.”
His gaze didn’t waver. He didn’t even blink, just stood completely still.
“You’re mine, my bear. Come to me.”
I was so scared he’d turn away from me, run off, and leave me all alone. I deserved it, I knew, for leaping without thought into danger. But that would always be the case. I was the kuar, the leader, and I was the first line of defense. If I lost my love because of it, though, I would resent my decision forever.
“Please,” I begged, and I didn’t care who heard me.
He huffed loudly and then rushed forward, covering the ground faster than I would have thought possible, barreling toward me.
I fell to my knees as he reached me, his muzzle covered in blood, dipping his massive head low to press into my chest. Burying my face in his heavy fur, I inhaled his heavy musky scent coupled with the coppery smell of blood.
“Thank you,” I choked out, not sure who I was talking to, maybe even God, but having to say it, to give voice to the words, because he was alive in my arms. He hadn’t run from me, and as I stretched my hands wide, sinking into his pelt, holding on, I assured myself, with each caress, that he was truly there. “I love you. I love you so much,” I cried, tears filling my eyes and spilling over as I clutched at him and shivered with relief and exhaustion and more love than I’d ever thought possible.
Fourteen
Robert
BLOOD. THE scent of blood had set me off.
Being attacked by a gang of wolves was painful but not deadly, and even in my human form, I could do enough damage to them to be left alone. That wasn’t a theoretical possibility; I actually knew it for a fact, because I’d lived through it. In my line of work, going into new towns always on the outskirts of forestland, I’d run into more than one group of shifters who didn’t want a stranger on their territory and reacted by using their fists or jaws or claws. The difference was, in the past all I’d needed to do was ward them off long enough to get in my truck and leave their town.
Wanting to prove I could win a fight wasn’t in me, probably because I knew I could. Avoiding a fight, though, I’d do that every day of the week and twice on Saturdays because my fighting had an excellent chance of ending in my killing someone or many someones. But there was no way I could have walked away from the wolves that day. Hell, I did the opposite. I walked right into the fight, knowing I wouldn’t be walking out, not as a man, anyway. Because I had smelled his blood.
We were in his warm, happy home, and every part of me felt calm and satisfied. But then his truck was peeling out of the driveway, and his friends were screaming, and I had to go after my brilliant and yet incredibly idiotic boyfriend. And when I found him, like I said: blood.
I’d tried. I’d tried to fight them in human form, tried to keep them away from Vy, but the effort alone was debilitating. He was so strong, so stubborn, and he refused to take to his bird and fly away so long as a single member of his ket remained in harm’s way. So my little bird fought hard, trying to protect himself, trying to protect his ket. He had even tried to protect me. And in return, they drew his blood.
So many things flooded my mind when it happened that I had a hard time processing them all. Blood meant pain and death; I’d seen it, lived through it, knew it to be true. That alone should have been enough to uncage my bear. Still, I thought maybe, just maybe, I could have kept my bear down, could have pacified that part of myself if I had been able to fight off the wolves in my human form.
Vy was strong; he was kuar of his ket. Together, we could save the kids and escape, bumped, scraped, bruised, but alive. We could do it, I’d told myself. But then one of the wolves went for his neck.
Blood.
Neck.
Mate.
Mine.
Four thoughts in rapid succession, nothing more than words, really, but enough to destroy decades of hard-fought control. No amount of chanting and breathing and meditating would keep me from destroying every man who dared to think they could do to my bird what was only mine to do. My human could have kept them from killing him. But my bear wouldn’t let them live for trying to claim him.
It was everything I had feared it would be: violent, powerful, ruthless, freeing. It was wonderful. But my mate had witnessed me killing dozens of wolves, and I worried about what he’d think of me after having seen who I really was inside. So there I lay, surrounded by dismembered wolves and squawking hawks in human form, at the feet of my mate. Well, his feet and the rest of him, because he was kneeling, and I was still tall enough to be face-to-face with him, if I’d had the courage to look at his face.
And then the most amazing thing happened. He told me he loved me. Me. The bear with blood on his paws and muzzle who had just waged destruction and reveled in it. Not only that, b
ut he touched me, throwing his arms around my larger body, digging his fingers into my pelt, resting his face on my fur. Nobody had touched me in bear form since I was a young child. It felt incredible, his hands on me, his trust in me.
I lifted my head and roared, so pleased, so relieved, so overjoyed. The other hawks gasped and took a step back, but not my little bird. He threw back his head and laughed with me. Tears still streamed down his face, but his expression and stance told me they were from relief, not fear or pain. The motion exposed the long swath of his neck, and I could see that it was unharmed, that the wolf hadn’t made contact and marked him there.
Overjoyed, I nudged my head against his chest, knocked him onto his back, and started licking his neck.
“What’re you doing?” he asked, laughing. “This isn’t the time for wrestling!”
But he didn’t push me away when I gently pawed at his chest and lapped at his face, so I kept going, jostling him around, egging him on, feeling suddenly light and young and playful.
“Robert, you goofball, get off me.” He smacked my shoulder, and I huffed, not wanting the fun to end. “We can shift later,” he promised. “After we take care of the ket.”
I whined.
With a roll of his eyes but a grin on his face, he said, “How about this? You get off me now, and later, I’ll shift into my bird, and we can play chase.”
The idea had merit. I tilted my head to the side and looked at him as I considered it.
“Think you’re fast enough to catch me?” His eyes glinted.
I knew I was, so I dipped my head and snorted.
“I bet you’re not. I bet I can fly faster than you can run.”
I growled in warning, but he didn’t so much as flinch, choosing instead to smile wider. “Well, I guess we’ll have to find out, won’t we? But that means you need to get off me so I can take care of things here.” He stroked my face. “We can shift again later. Both of us.” He paused. “You controlled yourself, Robert, even in this form. Look at you. You’re in control now.”
Vy was right. Oh, sure, I’d killed the wolves and had fun doing it, but they had started the fight, they had refused to back away, and, most importantly, when Vy had called me off, I’d stopped. Human or bear, I’d listened to him.
