by Roxie Noir
How dare she. How dare she assume that she knew what was best for him, someone she hadn’t bothered to call for seven years. She’d just left after swearing up and down that she loved him, that someday they’d have a family together. All of that, and then one day, she decided she was going to California.
“I know I’m not a doctor,” he said, his tone full of barely-contained fury, “but I promise that I’m capable of knowing what’s best for me.”
Delilah looked alarmed and then guilty. She put her head in her hands, and Miles felt bad immediately.
Why’d you have to say that? he thought.
“Okay,” she said, her head still down. “I’m sorry, that was badly phrased. What I meant was— ”
The waitress came back, a bubbly human, with Delilah’s milkshake and a straw.
Miles and Delilah went dead silent, waiting for her to leave.
“Enjoy!” she said brightly, into the cold silence between them.
“What I meant was,” Delilah said, jabbing the straw against the table to break the paper off, “I think if we did anything, I would end up getting too emotionally involved, and I’m leaving.”
Miles’s heart nearly sprang out of his chest.
She would get involved? He thought.
He sat still, staring across the table into her hazel eyes.
“You could stay,” he ventured. His anger was totally forgotten.
Delilah shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, simply. “I don’t have a place here, with the pack.”
“You could have a place with me.”
Delilah wouldn’t look at him, only at the table. “Please,” she said. “Please, just — let this go.”
Miles looked across the table and could feel his chance slipping away.
For a moment, he wished she’d never come back at all. It had been seven years, and he’d been so close to getting over her for once and for all, almost able to finally think back fondly on their high school relationship without the sting.
But still. Still. He’d rather see her for the next few days, just as friends, just getting drinks and wishing desperately that he could kiss her while she stayed just barely out of reach, than not see her again while she was here.
How he felt about it a week from now was for the future Miles to deal with.
Present Miles made himself smile at Delilah, despite the horrible, gnawing feeling eating at him.
“Okay,” he made himself say. “Just friends?”
Delilah looked relieved, slumping a little into the booth and fiddling with her straw in her milkshake.
“Friends,” she said.
Miles spent the short drive back to his house in the woods telling himself to ignore the hollow feeling in his chest.
You got over her once, he told himself. You can do it again.
When he walked into his house, the light was blinking on his answering machine.
“Miles, it’s your father,” said the recorded voice, as if he couldn’t instantly recognize his father’s gruff, surly voice. “Pack meeting tonight in the chapel. Sunset.”
The chapel? Sunset?
Miles frowned. This was late notice, and if they were going to the chapel, that meant something serious was happening.
He listened to the message one more time, just to make sure, but the message had been left just that afternoon, for that night.
For a moment, he forgot all about Delilah.
He had a very, very bad feeling about this.
Chapter Ten
Miles
The chapel wasn’t a building, but a clearing in the woods outside town, about a mile from an unpaved dirt road. It was a beautiful spot, part of the rugged landscape of Alaska: bordered on one side by a rushing river, boulders strewn around, a tall embankment rising on one side. The pack had had important meetings there for as long as Miles or Miles’s father could remember — maybe forever, he thought.
He drove in on a fire road, parking behind the other vehicles that belonged to the other bears. There was Roy’s big SUV, his father’s Jeep. Miles tossed his keys onto the driver’s seat of his truck, then started walking through the woods toward the chapel.
This had to be about Larry, he guessed. The accident was only a few days ago, and Susan had finally been moved from the ICU, clearing Roy to think about exacting revenge.
Miles just hoped that they let the police deal with Larry, but he also knew that would never happen. No punishment that the justice system could dole out would be good enough for Roy.
Miles’s shoes crunched over dirt, sticks, and leaves as he ducked and swatted at branches. It was nine at night and the sun was finally lowering in the sky. Sundown wouldn’t be for another twenty minutes or so, and even then, the horizon would glow until the morning.
That was summer. Miles knew that it wasn’t like this everywhere, but he couldn’t imagine it another way. Full dark in the summer? Unthinkable.
When he came into the clearing, a little early again, he quickly noticed all the different clumps of men standing around. There was his father and Roy and some of the other older men, all standing around, arms crossed in front of them, talking angrily but quietly.
There was Nathan, his brother. They made eye contact but the young man quickly turned away, deep in conversation with Brock and a few other guys his age, all of whom looked strangely the same. Same haircut, same way of dressing. The same half-angry, half-awed look on their faces.
At least Nathan’s shirt wasn’t sticky with blood and pus, Miles noted, so he was probably healing.
He walked over to a group of men his own age, all with that bear look: tall, wide, bearded. Miles clapped them on the back, all guys he’d grown up with, gone to school with. Guys who also wanted to be alpha someday.
“How’s the kid?” he asked Evan, whose mate had just had a son.
Evan shook his head, sighing. “He’s great, man. I don’t feel like I’ve slept in weeks, though. I thought Kathy might set me on fire when I told her I was going out tonight, but it’s not like I had a choice.”
The others all nodded.
“I heard Delilah Silver was back in town,” someone else said.
“Her old man finally died,” said Miles. “She’s just getting his shit together. Here for about a week.”
He was interrupted by a loud clapping noise, and everyone turned to look at Roy, just walking into the clearing between two big gray boulders. To his right were Miles’s father Earl, and Roger, his right hand men.
“Tonight!” Roy shouted, his voice booming across the clearing. Everyone turned and looked at him, a man in his fifties just beginning to go gray. He had a commanding presence: he stood tall and straight, and had the kind of manner that made people want to obey.
“Tonight,” he said again, his voice quieter but carrying. “We come to the chapel so that we may serve justice on one of our own.”
He paused. Miles had a sick feeling in his stomach: where was Larry?
“This justice is the justice of our own people,” Roy went on. “Ursine justice, not human justice, as ours is the way of claws and teeth, as it had been since the old days.”
“And shall it be ever more,” the gathered men muttered, Miles included. He’d known this call-and-response since he was a cub. Not saying it along with the others would have been like not breathing.
“Bring forward the bear to the judged,” Roy boomed.
There was a silence. Everyone shifted, looking around, waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
Roy frowned. He wasn’t a man used to asking twice.
“Bring forward the—“
He was interrupted by a shriek and a growl from somewhere just inside the trees: the growl clearly from a bear, the shriek just as clearly human.
There was an enormous crash inside the forest, and then everyone began shifting at once, fifty men running toward where the sounds had come from, all in various stages of transformation into grizzly bears.
Then
, pandemonium. Miles had been far on the other side of the clearing, and even as he shifted, he could tell that whatever had happened would be over by the time he got there — even five adult male grizzly bears at once could put a stop to nearly anything, let alone fifty of them.
There was another growl and then a long howl, the howl of a wounded animal.
Then there was nothing. Miles could smell blood and fear, a potent, noxious mix that made his fur stand on end, made him want more of each.
He pushed through the crowd of smaller bears until he got to the scene.
There were two humans, one on his back and one lying on his stomach, both with huge slashes across them. Miles couldn’t tell whether they were alive or dead.
Then there was the bear, a huge pile of fur and blood, splayed out so unnaturally that there was no question that the bear was dead.
Even from where he stood, Miles could tell the bear was Larry. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had happened: Larry had known that they’d kill him, and he’d shifted and fought back before they did anything. It was shameful, not to take your punishment like a proper bear, to turn tail and fight back like that, but what did Larry care? He didn’t have much to live for.
May as well take someone else with him.
Men were already shifting back to humans, totally naked, Roy among them.
“Get William up,” he commanded, even before he was fully shifted, his arms and legs still covered in fur, his snout still protruding too far.
William was the man lying on his stomach, his back ripped nearly to shreds. He moved just a little and Miles could see the bone-white of his ribs, the flesh torn away.
“Get him to the clinic,” someone said.
“We can’t take him to the clinic,” another voice said.
“Don’t we have a doctor there?” asked Roy, clearly irritated.
“Not anymore,” the voice said.
“We don’t have a choice,” the first voice said. “It’s the clinic or he’s dead.”
“We don’t go to the clinic,” Roy said, in a discussion-ending tone.
“He’s going to die.”
“And what happens to us?” Roy asked. He was fully human again now, buck naked and standing up straight and tall. “They call in the state troopers and then what?”
There was a silence in the clearing. Half the men were nodding along slightly, but the other half looked stricken.
They’ll never go against him, Miles thought, looking around. He could argue with Roy, but what was the point? Roy had a whole pack behind him.
Delilah, he thought, and his stomach twisted.
Delilah didn’t want to get involved, he knew, and given what had just happened here tonight — two men dead because of some old-fashioned idea of ursine justice — he knew that she was right about everything.
William, the man with his back torn open and his ribs showing, opened his eyes against the ground and let out a long, low moan.
The grass around him was soaked with his blood, and as he tried to push himself up, Miles could see the torn muscles in his back twitch and fail. The sight made him feel slightly ill, and all around the clearing, men backed away.
“Delilah Silver is at her father’s house. She’s a doctor,” he heard himself say.
She wouldn’t want this man to die either, he reasoned. She wouldn’t be thrilled at being called in, but what choice did he have?
Everyone turned and looked at him, Roy included.
“Delilah Silver,” he said, and obvious note of distaste in his voice.
Silence.
“Can she be trusted?” his father asked, standing at Roy’s side.
“She’s an outsider,” added Roy.
Then, he heard the low, gruff tones of his father.
Miles felt fury pump through his veins: Roy had brought this on William, and no one else. He’d known that Larry was a sorry drunk with nothing to lose, and out of his blind desire for revenge, he’d gotten one man killed and another grievously hurt.
And now, he seemed to be seriously considering letting a fellow bear die because Delilah had had the nerve to leave Fjords.
Miles had never wanted to be a bear less than he did at that moment.
“Of course she can be trusted,” he said, doing his best not to show his rage. Inside his bear was furious, rampaging and growling, but he had to be calm for now. “She’s one of us.”
Roy gave Miles a long, long look, and then nodded curtly.
“Go get her,” he told Miles. “We’ll be at the cabin.” Then he turned away.
Miles heard him giving other orders: break into the clinic and get supplies; get William to the cabin; get William’s mate and stay with her. He jogged back across the clearing and got his clothes that he’d torn off as he shifted, then half-ran, half-walked back through the forest to the road where his truck was. He sprayed dirt and gravel over all the other cars as he sped away, still uncertain about what he’d done.
Chapter Eleven
Delilah
Tired, Delilah washed out the mug she’d used for tea and put it in the dish drain. She’d made two more trips to the shelter today, her father’s SUV totally filled with things she was getting rid of, but it felt like she hadn’t made a dent. He had almost nothing of value; the only thing she really wanted was a picture of the two of them, when he was a kid and he hadn’t been drinking yet, and she’d already packed that away.
Otherwise, there was nothing there for her, and she could feel it in her bones. It was a house full of meaningless junk, and at times like this, when it was late and she was tired, it felt like one final fuck you that her father had lobbed her way, punishment for somehow not being the child he’d wanted.
She had no idea what he’d wanted. A son, maybe, someone who he could bring to the pack to show off, who’d carry on his legacy and his name. Some bullshit like that. It wasn’t her fault that women in the pack were second-class citizens; that was on them for being assholes, not on her for being a woman.
And people wondered why she’d left.
There was a soft knock on the door and Delilah nearly jumped out of her skin. She froze: nothing had happened yet in Fjords, nothing bad at least, but she knew how these people felt about her. They didn’t like her. Since she’d left, she was a traitor.
On the way to the door she grabbed a poker from the fireplace. Nearing the door, there was another knock, louder this time, and she opened the door a crack, ready with the poker behind it.
It was Miles.
Delilah relaxed her grip on the poker.
“It’s you,” she said, opening the door a little wider. His eyes fell on the poker, and he frowned.
“Expecting trouble?” he asked.
Delilah shrugged. “It’s late,” she said, tossing the poker onto the carpeted floor a few feet away. Then she bit her lip. “You know, I was serious this afternoon—”
She looked into his face and stopped.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Miles leaned against the doorway.
“William Raymond is really hurt,” he said. “Roy won’t let us take him to the clinic or the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Bear attack.”
Delilah gave him a long, hard, searching look.
“This is shitty of you, Miles,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You know I won’t say no.”
Miles didn’t say anything, just looked at the floor.
“Let me get my emergency bag and some shoes,” Delilah said, and hurried away.
Miles leaned his head against the door frame and closed his eyes.
As she quickly found her emergency bag — something she kept with her at all times, particularly if she was going to be driving for several days alone through Canada and Eastern Alaska, as she’d just done — and put on her shoes, Delilah was furious. Mostly furious with the pack leaders for blatantly putting themselves over one of their comrades who nee
ded to go to the hospital. Something had happened, she was completely certain of it, and Roy and his buddies were behind it somehow.
Delilah grabbed a coat on the way out, just in case, then locked the door behind herself without speaking to Miles. She followed him to the truck and sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. The sleeping bag was still jammed behind her seat, but in her anger she found it a lot easier to ignore.
Let him keep his ugly moth-infested memento, she thought. The pack will always be the most important thing to him.
Let this dumb sleeping bag remind him of what he’s lost.
“Where is he?” she asked, her voice pure ice.
“The cabin.”
“Roy’s cabin?”
“Yeah.”
Delilah cursed. William wasn’t even at one of the men’s houses, where there was a reasonable chance that their beleaguered mates had kept things reasonably clean. No, of course he was at the revolting cabin, an inch of grime and bear fur on the floor.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.
“He’s got an enormous back wound,” Miles said, remembering the bright red flesh coming off of William’s back, the white peep of his ribs.
“Deep?”
“I could see bone.”
Delilah whipped her head around and looked at him.
“He needs to go to a hospital,” she said, and pointed at her emergency kit. “This is for cuts, burns, that kind of thing.”
Miles shook his head. “You’ll have to tell them that,” he said. “It was useless coming from me.”
Delilah ground her teeth together, but she knew that Miles wasn’t lying: as the alpha, Roy’s word was law in a way that regular humans just couldn’t understand. Even if Miles had spoken up, it would have been utterly useless.
It was another thing she didn’t miss about living in Fjords.
“When bone is exposed that way, it’s incredibly susceptible to infection,” she told Miles very slowly, as though he were a child. “I’ve got a couple doses of antibiotics in here, but they’re not going to do the job. Not if he was attacked by a bear and then transported a couple of miles to a filthy cabin.”
