by Ruby Forrest
Bronte had seen enough crime shows to know that keeping quiet was her best bet. Although her every instinct told her to fight and run, she remained totally still. She would not give in and let them see her fear. But she couldn’t stop the quaking. She only hoped that her clothing preventing them from feeling the small trembles that kept racking her slim frame.
It wasn’t long before she heard voices again, only this time, it seemed someone was on the phone. “Mr. Hardy, I’m sure by now you know the deal. One million dollars in cash or you won’t see your girlfriend again. That is, until they drag her out of the river.”
Though the threat made her feel sick to her stomach, she couldn’t help but feel hopeful. If Brett cared for her as he much as he said he did, he would get her out of this mess. She knew that he would stop at nothing to save someone he barely knew and barely met, and that’s why she was certain that he would do anything possible to keep her safe. A small part of her worried that, even if Brett was willing to pay, would they still let her leave? Would she still stay safe and unharmed?
It didn’t take long for her to find out that she was right – that Brett did care about her. The sound of scuffling and a dead weight hitting the floor made her almost jump right out of her skin. In the next moment, she felt hands at the back of her head and the blindfold was pulled away from her eyes. Tears streamed down her face as soon as she saw him.
“Brett!” She gasped his name thankfully, half in surprise and half in anguish, knowing that he was risking his own safety by being here, before he placed his hand over her mouth.
“Shh, you aren’t safe yet,” he warned her, and she leaned into his hand. Even for a moment, it was a huge relief to feel his familiar touch instead of the rough handling that she’d had by the two men holding her captive.
“Hurry the hell up, we need to get out of here,” said a male voice that most certainly was not Brett’s. The voice was sinfully deep, almost a full octave lower than even Brett’s deep voice. A man who looked remarkably like Brett but older and even bigger hissed from behind them. A man with much lighter hair and sharper features stood beside him. There was no doubt that all three of them were related. She had a feeling that she was meeting the mysterious Stetson and Darian Hardy. It was a long time coming, and yet, all she could think about was that they had to get out of there before the two men came back. She couldn’t bear it if one of them were injured on her behalf.
“Let’s get you out of here,” Brett said to her as he pulled her to her feet. She shook while standing, her legs not used to the sudden change. She felt her stomach quiver too, threatening to give up what little food she’d had that day.
“Brett! Look out!” One of the men yelled suddenly. Bronte was thrown backward as the ear-splitting sound of a gunshot hit her ears. Her body went cold in recognition of the sound. Oh, god, no, she thought. She didn’t want any of them to be hurt trying to save her, and the thought of Brett being injured or even killed was too much for her to bear.
“Brett!” She screamed and had a moment of relief when she felt his body drop on top of her. The relief turned into panic, and then sickening dread as she recognized what she was feeling through her clothes. The warm sensation that spread over her chest told her that he had been hit. His body remained still as the tears burst from her eyes, her throat taking in racking breaths as she tried to control her fear and her sobs of pure panic. The two remaining brothers burst into action to dispatch the men who flooded the warehouse. She saw the action out of the corner of her eye, knew that Stetson and Darian had everything under control. Both men were large – Darian around the same size as Brett, and Stetson who easily doubled his muscle mass.
“Brett…” She whispered, hoping that he would talk back to her, assure her that he was alright. She didn’t know what she would do if she’d lost him. Regret was starting to rip through her body, making her freeze up underneath the crushing reality of Brett’s injury.
She breathed in relief as Brett groaned, rolling himself over onto his back. At least he was alive. Bronte propped herself up on her knees, trying to see what was wrong with him. She winced as she saw the gaping wound in his shoulder. It was already bleeding profusely, and she knew that a human body could only lose so much blood before it couldn’t recover. She was calling on all the knowledge from her college biology courses, but unfortunately, they weren’t much help trying to figure out what to do in this situation. She starting to feel panic creeping up her throat, but she pushed it back down. She could panic later. Right now, she had to get him safe and try to figure out how to stop the bleeding.
“Oh god, Brett, what do I do?” She cried, realizing that there wasn’t much she could do with her hands still tied behind her back. She could only watch him suffer.
It wasn’t Brett that answered. It was the older looking of the two brothers that appeared beside her. “First of all, you can calm down. Brett knows what to do.”
Darian took out the final attacker, his body gleaming with sweat, bruises, and bloody patches. She was distracted by him for a moment, the way he fought. It was almost like a macabre dance. It really was rather beautiful. Then she was brought back to the task at hand. Stetson looked at Brett, then at her, and then back at Brett. “Brother, you know what you need to do. Do it now.”
“I can’t,” Brett groaned, his hand pressed against his shoulder in agony. “Not in front of her.”
He had his eyes closed but she knew he was talking about her. Her mind sluggishly tried to piece together what was happening, what he was talking about, but she came up blank. What couldn’t he do in front of her? Was it something that would save his life? If so, she just needed him to do it because she couldn’t imagine a life without Brett Hardy anymore.
“There isn’t time, Brett. You’re going to bleed out. You need to change now.” Stetson’s tone indicated that it wasn’t a request. It was an order. Whatever he was telling his brother to do, he wasn’t asking.
“I can’t!” Brett said back to Stetson, avoiding her eyes completely.
Bronte had listened to enough of this. “Brett, whatever it is…if it can save your life, you need to do it now. I refuse to watch you die. I refuse, do you hear me?”
Darian walked over to them after checking the pulse of the last attacker. He chuckled when he heard Bronte’s words. “You heard the little lady. You’re going to have too. She’s going to have to handle it because if she can’t, you’re going to die.”
All three of them waited for Brett’s response, but the only indication that he’d even heard their pleas was just him shaking his head slowly back and forth. “I can’t. It’s not worth it. This isn’t just about me. It’s about all of us.”
Stetson stomped impatiently. He turned to Bronte and spoke in a low, quiet voice. “I’m sorry for what you are about to witness but there is no other way.”
Before Bronte had a chance to ask what he meant, the bigger brother reached down and jammed his finger into the bullet hole in Brett’s shoulder. Brett cried out and Bronte squeezed a tear out of her eye, gasping, “What the hell are you doing?”
“You need to change,” Stetson told Brett as though he hadn’t heard Bronte’s cry.
Bronte was lost for words as she began to witness something she never believed possible. Brett began to change before her very eyes. His body grew, stretching the material confines of his suit until it was shredded into pieces all around him. His skin began to grow hairy until he was covered in jet black fur and his body began to twist and contort.
Her eyes grew big, trying to understand what was happening in front of her.
Chapter 9
Bronte couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her mind could not comprehend it and yet there it was right in front of her. Brett’s body changed in such a way that was not possible in any realm of reality and yet there he was, so close that she could touch him.
Instinctively, she found herself backing away only to come up against a solid mass of muscle. Hand
s gripped hold of her upper arms and she was stuck there. Darian’s voice said from behind her, “I am sorry, Bronte, but we can’t have you running off.”
She got the feeling that any one of the three would stop her at this point. Whatever was happening, it was something that they were terrified would leave this warehouse. She could only observe what was happening to Brett, trying to comprehend what her eyes were telling her was happening.
A low, animalistic growl came from Brett as finally he crouched on the mattress, a huge black bear that towered over all three of them. Though Bronte had no idea what the growl meant, she knew it was a warning and the brother’s grip seemed to loosen on her arms a little.
Darian pulled her forward, to just in front of the monstrous beast that was now Brett.
“Yes, Brett,” Stetson said in Brett’s direction. “We aren’t going to hurt her as long as she doesn’t try anything.”
Brett didn’t seem to like the threat as he growled deeper than before and swung his massive head towards his brother.
“Miss, I know this is a lot to take in but something about you told my brother that he could trust you. He must have trusted you to even be anywhere near you,” Darian tried to explain, speaking in low and soothing tones. She supposed she should appreciate that, that he was trying not to have her panic.
She spoke slowly, her first words since Brett’s transformation. She directed her words at Stetson and Darian, but kept looking at the huge black bear in front of her. “My name is Bronte Welch. I would say it’s nice to meet you, but you’re basically holding me hostage and my boyfriend has just…just…”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Her mind would not allow her to speak the words since she could not conceive them as true.
“We use the term shift,” Stetson explained calmly. “My brothers and I are what we call shifters.”
“All…all three of you?” Bronte gaped at him, feeling even more confused than she had before. “How? How is that even possible?”
Stetson shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as he lifted his hand to run his thumb over his lips. “We were born this way. We have no way of knowing how or why. All we know is that we shift, and our animal forms are stronger than our human forms.”
“You…you all shift into different animals?” Still she struggled with the fact.
“Yes – a wolf, a panther, and a bear. And Bronte, you are the first human to know this for quite some time,” Stetson explained, trying to impress on her the magnitude of the truth that they’d just revealed to her.
Bronte felt her breath catch in her throat as a question came to her mind, “What happened to the last human to find out?”
“They died,” Stetson replied simply and waved the fact away with a flick of his hand. “But that isn’t the point. The point is you are holding privileged information and before my brother there releases you, I need to be sure that you aren’t going to do anything stupid with such information.”
“What exactly do you think I’m going to do?” Bronte glared at him. “I can’t exactly go screaming shifters down the street. Everybody would think I’m a lunatic. Oh God, maybe I am a lunatic.”
“You’re not a lunatic, Bronte. And maybe you can’t go screaming it down the street, but there are people who would be willing to listen if you claimed to have seen a shifter,” Stetson admitted. Then he sighed as though he was all too familiar with those types of people
“People that would come after us. People that would try to kill us, try to kill Brett,” Darian said softly.
Bronte felt her entire body tense at the mention of anybody hurting Brett and suddenly her mind was thrown back to the bullet wound in his shoulder, “Brett! Is he alright?”
She questioned both brothers as she tried to wriggle free of the man that was holding her so that she could get to him. She looked up at the bear, wondering if he could understand what they had been saying.
Seeing the concern on her face, Darian released her. The bear laid half on, half off the old stained mattress. His dark eyes were glazed with pain and he stared up at her with such a look that she could only acknowledge it as one thing: love.
“He will be fine now that he has shifted,” Stetson explained. “But we won’t be able to move him from here for a while. His bear needs time to heal his human form before he can shift back again or the shift will kill him.”
Bronte shivered at that. Brett let out a whimper that was filled with pain and she found herself dropping to her knees. Neither brother tried to stop her. In fact, Darian took a simple step back to give her some space.
“Please, can one of you unbind my hands?” she asked as she turned her face up towards Stetson, “He needs me.”
For a moment Stetson looked skeptical, as though he thought she might try to run as soon as he released the binds.
“Yes, but just remember, if you try to run or if you tell anybody about any of this, we will come after you,” he explained. “My brothers and I have worked long and hard to make our lives as safe as possible, and I will not allow a simple human woman to take that away from us.”
“I am no danger to you,” Bronte promised him with a nod of her head. As though he was satisfied with her answer, Stetson nodded his head to his brother who dropped down onto his knees behind her, pulled a swiss army knife from his pocket, and went to work cutting through the plastic tie that was binding her wrists together.
The second her arms were free, she didn’t waste a second rubbing the pain from her wrists or allowing the blood to flow back into her hands. Instead, she crawled over to Brett and paused for a moment, watching him carefully before she reached up and placed her hand on his furry shoulder. The moment she did, she felt him shivering uncontrollably beneath her palm. The helpless wounded animal that lay in front of her was nothing like the strong, alpha male she knew in Brett but looking into his eyes told her that he was still in there. Her Brett was not lost to her.
“We will scout the area and make sure there’s no other attackers hanging around,” Stetson said. “Please make sure you stay with him. I would hate to fall out with my brother for hurting the love of his life.”
Bronte shivered at his threat, though she couldn’t help but feel a glow in her heart at being called, ‘the love of his life’. Bronte simply nodded to him and watched as the two brothers disappeared off in different directions.
As she cuddled into Brett’s side, she felt him shift to place one mighty paw in her lap and pull her in close. He grunted as though the movement caused terrible pain and Bronte placed her hand over the magnificent paw.
“Don’t move sweetheart,” she whispered to him. “I am not going anywhere.”
That seemed to calm his shaking a little and she watched as his eyes fluttered shut and he drifted into sleep. She couldn’t help but smile as she reached out and stroked the side of his furry face. “That’s it. You rest now. I will still be here when you wake up.”
Although Bronte’s mind was racing, her entire being in trauma with what she had just witnessed, she found herself drifting off into sleep. She felt as though she hadn’t slept in such a long time. Every limb felt heavy. It was as if her eyelids were made of lead. All she could do was allow sleep to overwhelm her as she snuggled in closer to Brett and rested in the warm, softness of his fur. She found herself twisting strands of it between her fingers as she allowed her body to relax after hours of tension and fear.
***
“Bronte, Bronte,” Brett’s gentle voice hummed in her ear. She felt the soft shaking of her shoulder, causing her eyes to flutter open. “Time to wake up, sweetheart.”
As Bronte’s mind came back to her, she suddenly realized that the bear she had been resting on was gone. In its place was Brett. He was wrapped around her, holding her close to him as he stroked her hair gently back from his face.
“Hey, sleeping beauty,” he said, smiling down at her.
“Brett!” She gasped, pulling away from
him quickly so that she could turn to look at him. She examined his naked body for a moment, all too shocked at the fact there was no longer a single scratch on him.
“Please, Bronte, don’t be frightened,” Brett said as he pushed himself up into a sitting position and reached out to take hold of her hand. “I would never hurt you.”
She reached back for him and squeezed gently. “I am not frightened.”
That seemed to shock Brett almost as much as watching him change had shocked her and she couldn’t help but smile at the confused look on his face.
“Don’t look so scared,” she giggled back at him. A part of her was surprised that she could except the fact that he was a shapeshifter so easily. But she suddenly realized why she could be so understanding. He hadn’t been hiding a secret from her, at least not the kind of secret she had been expecting. She had half expected him to have another woman on the side or some kind of business that wasn’t quite legal. She never could have imagined that his secret would be that he could shift into a black bear. In honesty, she admitted, “I’m relieved.”
“Relieved? That’s the last thing I ever expected you to be,” Brett said, pulling her into his arms as though he couldn’t bear to be away from her for another moment longer.
“I’m relieved that I finally know why you have been acting strange,” she told him as she rested her cheek against his chest. “You don’t need to hide anything from me anymore.”
“I…I never expected you to be so understanding.” Brett still sounded as though he didn’t quite believe her.
“Hey,” Bronte shrugged. “We all have our baggage. At least you aren’t cheating on me.”
With those words, she pulled away from him so that she could look him in the eye, “You aren’t cheating on me are you?”
“My god Bronte!” Brett pulled her into him and kissed her square on the lips before he vowed, “I could never cheat on a woman as wonderful as you. You are all the woman I need.”
