by Roxie Noir
“Give it to him yourself,” Ariana said, the beer making her a little braver than she would have been normally.
Regina put a key on top of it.
“We tried,” she said. “But this is the last time: you leave Jake alone, or we’ll kill him. There’s three of us and one of him, and we’d rather see him dead than mated to a human.”
She stared at Ariana, scornfully. Ariana’s mouth hung open. She could barely process what was happening — ten seconds ago, Jake had been here, with her, laughing and teasing, and now if she didn’t leave him, he’d wind up dead.
“You’re a vile bitch,” Ariana said.
Regina just shrugged.
“You’re a bunch of racist, low-life, goddamn — reprehensible — animals.” She was aware that this wasn’t a very good insult, but she was too gobsmacked to think of anything better.
Regina looked at the clock on the bar wall.
“If you’re not gone when he comes back, our offer’s over,” she said. She tapped the key with one finger. “It’s a little black Hyundai. Leave it with Enterprise at the Seattle airport. This is a plane ticket to Boston.”
Ariana’s eyes filled with tears. How could this be happening?
“Clock’s ticking,” Regina said. “You want Jake to live or die?”
Ariana saw the men’s bathroom door begin to open.
Tears streaming down her face, she grabbed her bag, the key, and the plane ticket and ran out the door.
Chapter Seven
Ariana’s beer glass was still on the table, but she was gone when Jake came out of the bathroom and he frowned, just a little.
Relax, he thought. Remember how she’s a grown woman?
She was probably just waiting by his car, after all. He forced himself to act normal, taking the two pint glasses back to the bar, and then walking out to the parking lot.
He found his truck. She wasn’t there either.
Now it was time to start worrying, and he looked frantically up and down the gravel lot, then walked to the street, looked up and down it.
Maybe she walked to the grocery store...? He thought, desperately trying not to panic. He felt his skin grow hot and prickly, and felt the urge to shift right there and then — part of his fight or flight response. He forced it back and walked, fast, toward his truck.
They’d taken her. The thought made it hard to for him to breathe. He thought of those headlines about Kaitlyn he’d read, years after the fact: Family Removes Local Girl From Life Support. Attackers Never Identified.
He couldn’t let the same thing happen to Ariana. The first time, he’d been young and weak and stupid, but now Brock and Violet had come to him. They were in his territory, on his turf, and by God, he was going to make them pay.
He’d never wanted to be a leader, or an alpha, but if he was going to have to beat Brock in a fight to get him to understand that Jake wasn’t part of the pack anymore, he’d do it. He would.
As he opened his truck door, he sensed Regina behind him, her thick, perfumed scent nearly choking him.
“She had doubts about you,” she said, her low, smoky voice grating on his ears.
He started to get into his truck, then paused, looking at Regina. Then he grabbed her by the collar and slammed her against his truck, not even caring if the other bar patrons saw.
“Where is she,” he growled.
Regina just laughed.
“Information comes at a price,” she said, and then licked the side of his face.
Jake shook her by the collar again, lifting her a few inches off the ground.
“Tell me,” he said.
“She didn’t tell me,” Regina said, her eyes starting to go wide. “She just took off, out of the bar.”
“You’re lying.”
“I always tell the truth in bed,” she said, lasciviously.
Disgusted, Jake pushed her away and Regina stumbled a little on her heels, backwards on the gravel. If she wouldn’t tell him where they’d taken Ariana, he’d just have to find her himself. He started the truck and roared out of the parking lot.
* * *
Ariana cried so hard all the way to Seattle that she could barely see the road, but she didn’t care if she hit something or not. The pain of leaving Jake hurt her physically, like someone had put her chest in a vice and was squeezing, hard.
Over and over again she thought about calling him, texting, something, but she was afraid of what they might do to Jake if she did, and after all, this was all for him — what was the point of leaving if he wasn’t going to stay alive.
I hope he finds a nice bear lady, she thought through her sobs. I hope they — oh, fuck it, no I don’t.
If anyone at the Seattle-Tacoma airport thought it strange that a woman in her twenties was sobbing like a five year old whose kitten had died, no one said anything. The most she got was an awkward pat on the shoulder from a large black TSA agent, who just said, “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”
“Thanks,” she’d managed to blubber, trying to re-tie her shoes at the same time.
It wouldn’t. She knew it wouldn’t. She was going back to Boston, and there was no Jake in Boston. She felt like her life was over, one long gray blob from here until eternity.
Somehow, she gathered her things — just her laptop bag, all she’d left Evergreen with — and made her way toward her gate.
Halfway there, she remembered that she still had the CRF’s credit card. She probably shouldn’t use it for airport snacks, but by then, Ariana didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. She bought herself two bags of gummy worms, two Snickers bars, M&Ms, and a milkshake. Her mother had always told her not to eat her feelings, but right then, Ariana thought that her mother could go fuck herself, too.
Boarding the plane, she felt like a zombie. Somehow, she’d finally fun out of tears, and as she stood on the jet bridge her eyes felt like dry marbles in their sockets.
No one has ever felt worse than me, she thought, letting self-pity take over for a little while.
She had an aisle seat. At least the shifters had been the tiniest bit conscientious. They could have stuck her in the middle.
Ariana watched as the lady sitting next to her downed half a handful of pills, then arranged her leopard-print neck pillow just so. She looked over at Ariana, clearly a wreck, and patted the girl’s hand.
“I used to get so nervous before flights, but my doctor prescribed some Xanax,” she said. “It works wonders. You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks,” said Ariana. She leaned her head back against her seat and closed her eyes, praying for the sweet release of sleep.
Only six hours to Boston.
Chapter Eight
Jake drove through Evergreen at top speed, almost too furious to see straight. His skin itched and prickled, and he wanted nothing more than to shift and tear every goddamn person in this town into pieces until he found Ariana.
He couldn’t, of course. If he so much as shifted in town, every hunter in the area would be on him in a matter of minutes, and then he’d just be a dead bear. No, he needed to calm down just for a minute, think, figure out where they’d take Ariana.
He rolled his truck window down and slowed, forcing himself to calm down, just a little. Ariana wasn’t going to get saved by him crashing his truck into a tree.
Jake thought again about Kaitlyn, who’d never done anything worse than make out with a shifter in a movie theater, and his gut clenched.
Then, he smelled it: Brock. It was faint, but it was there. He’d scented the other shifter, he was positive, and he knew it was intentional. He sniffed harder, sticking his whole head out of the truck window, trying to find any trace of Ariana, but humans were a little harder to smell and he couldn’t find any trace of her.
He prayed it was because the trail was so faint, not because they’d already done away with her.
The scent led to a remote patch of woods, and Jake parked the truck just off the road and crashed through the woods. His ranger training
reminded him that parking there was illegal, but he couldn’t have cared less.
He walked and walked, crashing through the underbrush and the trees in the dark, going in a a nearly straight line, Brock’s scent getting stronger the whole time. He could sell Violet too, now, but there was still no trace of Ariana. Jake began to worry again — why couldn’t he smell her? What if she wasn’t there, or if she was already dead?
He began to run through the trees, not caring that his arms got scratched and snagged.
Suddenly, he burst through to a little clearing around a small, old cabin. He recognized it as a former logging cabin, the kind of place lumberjacks had lived when this was still logging land.
But, more importantly, right next to it was Brock, leaning against the structure with his hands in his pockets.
“Where is she?” Jake bellowed with no preamble. “What did you do with her?”
“I didn’t do a thing,” Brock said, casually.
Jake heard a sound on the other side of the cabin, but it was just Violet, walking into sight.
“I’m going to ask you one more time—“
“Or what?” Brock asked. “Or you’ll kill both of us at once?”
Jake, still human, bared his teeth at them.
“She doesn’t love you enough to love a bear,” Violet said. “We sent her home, and she went.”
“Are you going to do anything about this?” asked Brock, taunting him. “Or are you going to slink off again?”
“I was a kid,” said Jake. “And I don’t need twenty other grown men standing around to take you down now.”
“Let’s go,” said Brock, and he began to shift without bothering to take his clothes off.
So did Jake.
There was a ripping noise as their shirts and pants tore off of them, ending up at tatters at the feet of two enormous grizzly bears. Just like before, they circled each other, sniffing and grunting, looking for any weakness.
Brock was the first to lunge, his enormous bulk moving faster than seemed possible, a blur of light brown fur across the small clearing. Jake saw it coming and dodged away, hoping to catch Brock off balance as he lunged but he dodged back too far and only got a little fur when he cuffed the other bear.
They circled again. Jake desperately wanted to attack, to send the other bear whimpering off back into the forest. Fifteen years ago he’d have done just that, but now he was older, wiser, and stronger. He knew that going in too fast gave the advantage to Brock, and even though all he could think about was finding Ariana, he forced himself to be patient.
Suddenly, Brock rushed at him again, but when Jake reached out to meet him, he stopped. A feint, but Jake was off balanced already moving forward too fast, and he stumbled. Brock hit him hard, sinking his teeth into Jake’s shoulder as he briefly lost his footing but Jake rolled over and shook him off, panting.
His shoulder hurt but he could ignore it, but as they circled again, he could tell that Brock noticed that he was favoring his left arm just a little.
I have to end this, Jake thought. I’m a little bigger and stronger, but he’s been defending his position as alpha for years. He’s got much more experience.
He ran at Brock and snapped at his hindquarters, just catching a little bit of flesh with his claws. It was a bitch move, he knew, but he had to find some way to throw Brock off. After all, the fight wasn’t about whether he was the next alpha — it was about getting Ariana back, which was much more important.
It worked. Brock turned his head and snapped at him, putting himself off balance for just one moment but Jake used that moment. He rose up on his hind legs and so did Brock and for a few seconds Jake wondered if he’d miscalculated, both bears hanging in the balance. It felt like it could go either way and Jake pushed with all his might, trying to find purchase for his teeth in Brock’s neck.
His back foot slipped, just a little. Jake dug his claws in and gave one last, mighty push, using every last ounce of his strength, thinking only of Ariana.
It worked.
Brock went over, crashing onto his side, into the wet grass of the clearing. As he went down he tried to claw at Jake but missed, on his side.
For just one moment, he was vulnerable, and for that moment Jake wondered if he should have mercy on Brock — let him get up and go back to Alaska, without ever having to tell anyone what had happened in Washington.
Then he thought of Ariana, somewhere, cold and alone, terrified. He thought of Kaitlyn, left for dead in a parking lot fifteen years ago.
With one mighty swipe, he struck Brock in the head, and he heard a slight crack.
Before he had time to think there was another roar behind him, and he turned to look just in time to see one grizzly bear tackle another, pinning the first to the ground.
He turned back to Brock, making sure the other bear was limp, and then took in the other scene. The bear on the ground was a female — Violet.
The bear on top was... Boone?
He padded over to the other two, where Violet was uncomfortably on the ground, her neck between Boone’s teeth. They were both breathing hard, and Boone looked at Jake.
Jake, as a bear, shook his head.
Violet began to shift back. Her eyes full of tears, her gaze flicked between Jake and Brock.
Jake looked over his shoulder, only to realize that Brock had begun shifting back as well. At the very least, the other man was unconscious. Jake shifted as well.
“Where is she?” he demanded as soon as he could speak.
Violet snorted.
“What did you do with her?” he roared, his voice filling the otherwise quiet forest.
Boone, still in bear form, snorted.
“Let me up,” she said. She had a set of claw marks across her shoulders, and they looked painful. Jake nodded at Boone, who sat back.
“Tell me now,” Jake demanded.
“We sent her home,” Violet said, gently prodding at her wounds.
“She’s not there.”
“To Boston, you dolt,” Violet said. “We can’t just murder humans like the good old days.”
Jake roared and grabbed her by the shoulders. Violet gasped in pain, but looked brave.
Boone, next to Jake, snorted. He shook his bear head, then gestured toward the trees. His meaning was clear: Let’s just go.
Jake wanted to murder both of them and leave their bodies in the clearing, but they hadn’t actually done anything to Ariana, and if Boone didn’t want to kill them either, what right did he have?
He pointed one finger at Violet, starting to shift back. “Don’t come back here,” he snarled. “This is my territory and don’t you ever fucking come back here.”
Violet just watched him with those cold blue eyes of hers.
Then, he and Boone walked back into the forest.
* * *
He took the back roads around town, driving to his cabin. While he didn’t care who saw him naked, the last thing he needed was to be pulled over in the nude with bite marks in his shoulder. At the very least, it would raise some interesting questions.
At home, he quickly gathered more clothes into a backpack, then made sure his wallet had his credit card and ID in it. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d thought to get it from his pants, and that his new job as a ranger had required him to have a government-issued ID. Getting his birth certificate from Alaska had been a pain, but now it meant he could fly to Boston instead of taking a bus or something.
On his bed was the shirt she’d worn the night before. For a moment, he held it in his hands, then put it to his face and smelled, deeply.
It still smelled like her.
Jake stuffed it into his pack, hoisted it on his shoulder, took one last look around his cabin, then left.
On the way to the Seattle airport, he wondered if he should just call her, but thought better of it. Maybe she was still on an airplane. Worse, what if she’d decided she really did want to leave him? He knew she loved him — be believed it, deep down, even i
f she’d never said it back to him — but if she didn’t want to live a life where grizzly bears routinely mauled each other, he couldn’t blame her. After everything he’d put her through, it was understandable that she might want to date a normal, human, guy.
He had to see her again, though. He didn’t think he could stand hearing her say that over the phone. If she turned him away, he would deal with it, but he had to see her one last time.
When he finally got to the airport, it was after midnight and all the ticketing desks were closed. Jake silently cursed his lack of foresight — of course he couldn’t just show up at an airport and get a ticket to Boston at one in the morning. He should have called or something, or better, gone to bed and gotten up early. At least then he wouldn’t show up at her door looking like a disheveled mess.
But now, it wasn’t like he had an option. Other people were lying around the airport, trying to get some sleep, on benches and in corners. Jake followed their lead and stretched out against a wall, his backpack behind his head. He fell asleep smelling Ariana on his shirt inside it.
No airline had an available seat on a flight to Boston until almost eleven the next day, so Jake ended up pacing the terminal for even longer than he wanted to, eating terrible food and nearly snarling at a TSA agent. When he finally got on the plane it was a middle seat and his knees pressed into the back of the seat in front of him — it was clearly not made for anyone over six feet tall, let alone six-foot-five.
He closed his eyes and thought again of Ariana, and he felt better.
The flight was unpleasant. Jake had never flown before, and every time they hit turbulence, he thought they were going to crash, but if either of his seatmates thought it was strange for a tall, burly guy to look terrified at the slightest bump, they managed not to show it.
When they landed in Boston it was evening. Right away he got into a cab — another first — and handed the driver Ariana’s address.
